Posted on 07/21/2005 8:10:52 PM PDT by Crackingham
Global warming is caused primarily by humans and "nearly all climate scientists today" agree with that viewpoint, the new head of the National Academy of Sciences -- a climate scientist himself -- said Wednesday.
Ralph Cicerone's views contrasted with Bush administration officials' emphasis on uncertainty about how much carbon dioxide and other industrial gases warm the atmosphere like a greenhouse.
"Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is now at its highest level in 400,000 years and it continues to rise," said Cicerone, an atmospheric scientist who left as chancellor of University of California-Irvine to become academy president this month. "Nearly all climate scientists today believe that much of Earth's current warming has been caused by increases in the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, mostly from the burning of fuels."
Cicerone, testifying before a Senate Commerce subcommittee on global climate change, cited data from weather stations and ships indicating the surface of the Earth is generally hotter by about seven-tenths of 1 degree Fahrenheit just since the early 1970s.
The administration officials stressed the $5 billion spent yearly on U.S. climate programs, mostly research. David Conover, a principal deputy assistant energy secretary, said President Bush would lead on the issue though "the scientific and technology challenges are considerable."
James Mahoney, assistant commerce secretary for oceans and atmosphere, said, "We know that the surface of the Earth is warmer, and that an increase in greenhouse gases caused by humans is contributing to the problem." But he did not go further than that.
"We see economic growth, addressing the climate change problem and energy security as integrally related," said Daniel Reifsnyder, director of the State Department's Office of Global Change.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
Who caused global warming and global cooling before humans?
Humans fart. The heat rises. That's why Mars is warming!
Too bad his circle of scientists is limited to three.
Not to mention trhe global freezing caused by global warming they claim is going on rihgt now. The left gets uncreasingly incoherent with each passing day.
You don't have to be present to know the climate 400,000 years ago! Geesh! Science has figured ways to do this.
I watched a Nova special on climate change and the ice core evidence suggests we are apparantly in a very mild era of it presently, which is why I don't freak out over minimal changes over time.
The bigger the lie, the more likely it is the people will believe it.
Mt Pinatubo released 100 times more cfc's and,presumably,CO-2 than humans.
The scientist is a fraud. IMO
Modern humans did not emerge until ~20,000 to 25,000 years ago.
Natural fires (primarily lightning caused) have been with us for longer than 400,000 years. Without Smokey the Bear to put them out natural wildfires were either very large, or so frequent that they were small, but very common.
Sorry, homo sapiens appeared at 400,000 years ago. Homo sapiens sapiens didn't appear till around 130,000 years ago. I should say, early modern man appeared around 400,000 years ago, modern man being a generalization for homo sapiens, and I'll admit that was an incorrect usage.
The main point being that the era 400,000 years ago was probably picked because of the appearance of homo sapiens and evidence of controlled use of fire. You know, the whole "man is a polluter" argument.
Tilt, wobble & eccentricity.
http://www.livescience.com/forcesofnature/050330_earth_tilt.html
http://www.museum.state.il.us/exhibits/ice_ages/tilt_graph.html
Hey, that was a question the libs need to answer. LOL! Love your reply.
I know'd it, know'd it. Indeed I know'd it brudder sister. I know'd it WOOooO! Dem bones gonna rise again. (If you don't know the tune, you were never a Girlscout.) :o)
Love your reply.
I usually just go with wobble & tilt. Thought it would be good to give you some ammo, in case one ever tried to give you a BS reply to your question. LOL
lol! I was singing along! I was a girl scout and a leader once.
I don't know why or how I got that silly old song stuck in my head after all of these years. But it's in there & it kinda pops out whenever I think "I know"... Maybe I should mention why I don't usually mention the eccentricity, cuz I kinda keep that one fer myself. :o)
For reference, later duplicate thread here:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1448332/posts
97% of greenhouse gasses occur naturally in the environment. If we eliminated all humans and all their influence we could reduce that 3% introduction by 1% or so.
Anyone who thinks that is what we should be doing is an imbecile.
Not to mention, it wouldn't make a wit of difference.
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