Welcome to Gaia! ::

You seem to have a few misconceptions about global warming. Let me address them.

1) Al Gore did not invent global warming, or the internet. He will not cure global warming, but, for an idiot he is richer than you or I will ever be even before you count his sales of "carbon off-sets".

2) Global warming is not a matter of opinion.

3) Global warming is not about it feeling hotter or colder on a given day, week, or month; it is about the average global temperature over the course of a year, and it is clearly real. The causes are debatable, though. I -am- a scientist, and have done secondary research on this topic. If you want to see something interesting, look at the data for solar activity vs. global temperatures, data is only available for about the last hundred years, but the correlation between the two is significant, where-as graphing industrial activity to CO2 levels does not yield a significant correlation.

4) The Earth goes through long, really long, periods of warming and cooling. Ice ages are geologically common, and inevitable. See above comments about periods of solar activity.

I hope this post at least gets you pointed in the right direction, I know our public schools haven't taught you young folks how to research or anything worthwhile about science, but, at least you have the power of the internet and a generational innate ability to use technology. Google it up, stick to credible sites, educate yourself because your government won't. wink

Al Gore is not an idiot, he's a smart con artist!

The earth - like any living thing - goes through cycles. Sometimes it will be noticeably warmer, sometimes cooler. It's nature and it's to be expected. We didn't cause it, and we won't ever be able to change it. But because Al Gore says we are the reason for it and has many people convinced we can do something about it, he laughs all the way to the bank! In my opinion the man deserves to be behind bars.

He wasn't proven wrong. No one has been able to really prove anything.

Whether you believe in global warming or not is your choice. While the Earth does go through natural climate changes, human impact on the planet has caused it to change more drastically and it sickens me that people rather argue that it is just a joke and that it is used to make people rich, but the ones who argue against it are the corporations that are the ones making billions and who are threatened by the individuals who want to help UP OUR HOME!! Without the Earth there are no corporations!!

This topic scares me because I got into a huge argument with my father about it recently.

My view was, global warming exists, who can deny that? It's something we've been taught over and over again, in schools, college, just in general for years and years. I'm currently a sophomore in college, and I'm still being taught--global warming is serious and dangerous and we need to do something about it.

Now my father believes it is a hoax. His reasoning is that the earth has gone through several climate changes, and this is just another one. The reason that all young people believe global warming is big and something should be done and we're all so evil for driving our cars is because-- it's what we've been taught in schools. That it's part of some liberal idea, that almost all schools teach liberal ideas now, practically brainwashing children. Same with the healthcare bill, Obama, even gay marriage and abortion.

I couldn't tell you if all this is true, but I can tell you that it scares me to even think about. I'm finally coming to understand why a lot of people want to homeschool their children.

wow this guild is dead isnt it

Global warming is crap. When you look at how the conclusions are reached, you realize it's all guess work.
If anyone were really honest about it, they'd admit we possess a staggering lack of data and understanding when it comes to environments.
If someone tells you the world is warming significantly, they're full of crap. If someone tells you the world is cooling, they're bull-ing. If they say the world is static, they're just stupid. If they even begin to speculate about the cause, they are undeserving of any respect whatsoever.
We don't know, but the 'climatologists' (meteorologists minus the already low reliability) seem loathe to admit that much.
Additionally, much of the "green" folk believe in this view that if we leave nature alone, it'll do just fine.
IT WON'T.
Firstly, we aren't special enough to be separate from nature. We are in the ecosystem, so we are, necessarily, involved in nature, and are not unnatural in any way. An apartment complex is as natural as a termite mound.
Secondly, one merely needs to study the history of environmental management of Yellowstone National Park (or any similar situations, if you can find 'em) and its record of failed environmental management under the "leave it alone" philosophy as well as under active management philosophies.
We don't know what we're doing, ever, with the environment. We haven't the slightest understanding about dynamic environments.
If that upsets you, sorry, but you'd better learn to deal with it.

Global warming is a scientific hypothesis, even if it is soft science (can't be tested [realistically, and in under a few decades of time spent on observation]- computers are models, not actual observations, by the way). It's certainly worth studying, but it's far from anything meriting urgent political or social action.
Socially, it's the latest crisis sold to us by varied groups under the guise of science, and I find that despicably shameful. It tarnishes the name of science.

As a note on the term "climate change," before someone uses it: There's definitely climate change, but to say the climate is changing is to say absolutely nothing interesting.
It's never been static, it never will be static, and it isn't static.
You may as well say that you've discovered carnivorous predators, for all the meaning "climate change" has.

Finally, before someone trots out a model they think will convince me, I ask everyone to recall Lord Kelvin's estimation of the Earth's age (Abridged Version: He used thermodynamics to set it between 20 and 400 million years (actual is 4.4 billion or so), and his math was flawless, but he failed to account for heat generated by pressure or radiation, so his model wasn't accurate), and its ramifications for mathematical models describing systems we don't well understand, the Earth and its climate among them.
Which, you know, makes dictating national and international policy on such models somewhere between foolish and dangerous.

If someone tells you they know the Earth is warming, they're full of crap, just as they are if they tell you it's cooling or isn't changing. The only honest claim is one of confusion, ignorance, and climatology's relative immaturity as a field in science.

TL;DR - You are lazy.