| ▲ | 0ckpuppet 2 hours ago | |
we don't need evidence Earth is warming, because it's happened before humanity, and it will happen after we're gone. We need evidence that we're poisoning ourselves and the planet. Global warming's only accomplishment is giving the poisoners a pass when it was debunked. Private jets and climate change, choose one. | ||
| ▲ | softwaredoug 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | |
They predicted a warming planet based on human activity as long ago as the 50s We’ve known about the mechanisms of CO2 leading to atmospheric warming since the 19th century. We know humans are adding CO2 to the atmosphere. We observe higher CO2 and warmer temps The evidence isn’t that complicated. | ||
| ▲ | Windchaser 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | |
I know you're getting dogpiled, but global warming has been validated, not debunked. The science behind it really got going in the 1890s, with Arrhenius' paper predicting climate sensitivity to CO2. That was bounced back and forth with rebuttals and counter-rebuttals until about 1950. Major debate points were how much role water vapor played, how this varied with temperature/altitude/pressure. (You can trace each part of the argument if you're so inclined; there's lots of neat science in there. The concept of "pressure broadening" was my favorite; it explores how spectral bands change with pressure). Around 1950, the science started settling out. Spectrometers had improved, we had clearer view that CO2 and H2O don't fully overlap in their spectra bands through the atmosphere, and we had the computing to do better calculations. By the 1970s, we were getting ice core data showing that the world had gone through huge temperature swings, and how this changed with CO2. Enough data had accumulated that a consensus was forming. In the 1980s, scientists were now concerned enough to form a large body to inform policymakers on this issue (IPCC; 1988). And in the 40 years since then, we've mostly sat on our hands, even as the science just gets clearer and clearer. I share all this long history to explain that the science went through nearly a century of rigorous debate even before politicians got involved. This a scientific issue, not a political one. And I'm glossing over 99.9999% of the detail here. There was an extensive literature debate between the scientists, hashing out any point you can think of. You just have to go to your local uni library and start reading. TL;DR: saying that global warming is debunked is about as incorrect as saying that the Earth is flat. We have extensive evidence showing otherwise. | ||
| ▲ | mempko 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | |
I'm pretty sure global warming isn't debunked. Yes, we should worry about all the other pollution too. But global warming is happening and we are causing it. What's different than nature doing it is the rate of change. Yes the earth was warmer in the past and would be in the future, but it has never warmed as fast as it is now. | ||