(January 2, 2014 at 2:49 pm)Lemonvariable72 Wrote: Here is the question that bugs me about global warming or especially when it is called climate change. How do we knowthat it is man made? Or even that man has contributed enough that a change in our behavior will make a major difference? Since major climate change proponents have been caught lying in the past, how can I be assured this isn't something people are manipulating for their own benefit?
Lemon, I responded to your claim about climategate, there was no evidence that they were covering up evidence or making things up. If you want to subscribe to conspiracy theories, there will be no convincing you. I mean if you cannot trust data, then you basically have to go and redo all the work that everyone has done. That is not the level of evidence that is reasonable, the fact that these data agree and that they come from all around the world should be sufficient to show that they are not made up.
Whether or not it is manmade it's hard to explain if you haven't read or understood the entire scope of the greenhouse effect. If you're looking this up, I would advice you start with the greenhouse gasses and their properties. And then the effects they have on the environment and how other types of pollution ties in with that, and understand the long term effects and how almost all of it runs on positive feedback. Then look at the data. You must first understand how it works before you can understand the data properly. For example volcanoes has been brought up to say that it contributes to warming when it actually contributes to cooling because of the sulfur aerosols.
Other types of data that are also relevant includes the cherry blossom dates that have been recorded in Japan, the rise of anomalous weather patterns, the acidification of water, sea levels rising, ice caps melting, etc. But they only make sense if you already know the theory, or it's very easy to say, well what has this got to do with CO2? And throw it aside.
