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Is global warming primarily caused by humans?

Topics:  Global Warming   Science   Climatology  

 

AnswerExpertQuote (click to sort by date)
Time MagazinePopular Magazine
Be worried. Be very worried. ...Pump enough CO2 into the sky, and that last part per million of greenhouse gas behaves like the 212th degree Fahrenheit that turns a pot of hot water into a plume of billowing steam.     
03 Apr 2006   Source
Barack ObamaPolitician, Harvard Law Review Pres. 91-92, US Senator 2005-
There may still be disputes about exactly how much we're contributing to the warming of the earth's atmosphere and how much is naturally occurring, but what we can be scientifically certain of is that our continued use of fossil fuels is pushing us to a point of no return.     
03 Apr 2006   Source
David AttenboroughBotanist, Writer, Nature Documentarian
I'm no longer sceptical. Now I do not have any doubt at all. I think climate change is the major challenge facing the world. I have waited until the proof was conclusive that it was humanity changing the climate. The thing that really convinced me was the graphs connecting the increase of carbon dioxide in the environment and the rise in temperature, with the growth of human population and industrialisation.     
24 May 2006   Source
Al GorePolitician, Environmentalist, US Vice President 1993-2001
There are no longer any serious scientists producing peer reviewed scientific journal articles that [deny anthropogenic global warming]. The real scientific debate is over. The people who say global warming isn't real, they must get together on Saturday nights and party with the ones who think the moon landing was staged on a movie lot in Arizona.     
19 Jun 2006   Source
John McCainPolitician, War Hero, US Senator 1987-
The world is already feeling the powerful effects of global warming, and far more dire consequences are predicted if we let the growing deluge of greenhouse gas emissions continue...     
24 Apr 2007   Source
Hillary ClintonPolitician, US Senator 2001-
At the top of the world [the Arctic], you hear stories -- affirmed by decades of scientific investigation [on anthropogenic global warming] -- of changing weather patterns, melting ice, retreating glaciers, unprecedented wildfires, eroding coasts, and invasive species. You can see the evidence with your own eyes. There are no climate change skeptics inside the Arctic Circle.     
05 Nov 2007   Source
Dr. Joseph RommPhysicist, Senior Fellow, Centre for American Progress
The science isn't settled -- it's unsettling, and getting more so every year as the scientific community learns more about the catastrophic consequences of uncontrolled greenhouse gas emissions. The big difference I have with the doubters is they believe the IPCC reports seriously overstate the impact of human emissions on the climate, whereas the actual observed climate data clearly show the reports dramatically understate the impact.     
27 Feb 2008   Source
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate ChangeScientific Panel formed by United Nations
Most of the global average warming over the past 50 years is very likely due to anthropogenic GHG increases and it is likely that there is a discernible human-induced warming averaged over each continent (except Antarctica).     
01 Jan 2008   Source
Professor John R. ChristyIPCC Scientist, Climate Scientist, Uni. of Alabama
Atmospheric carbon dioxide continues to increase due to the undisputed benefits that carbon-based energy brings to humanity. This increase will have some climate impact through CO2's radiation properties. However, fundamental knowledge is meagre here, and our own research indicates that alarming changes in the key observations are not occurring.     
13 Nov 2007   Source
S. Fred SingerAstrophysicist, Research Professor, George Mason Uni.
The gap between the satellite observations and existing theory is large enough to cast serious doubt on all computer-model predictions of future warming. Whatever the cause of the gap, we cannot rely on GCM (General Circulation Models) forecasts of future warming. (GCMs are not even consistent with each other; their temperature forecasts vary by some 300 percent.) Until GCMs become validated by actual climate observations, they should not be used as the basis for policy.     
01 Apr 1999   Source
World Climate ReportClimate Change Skeptic Blog by Dr. Patrick J. Michaels
Global warming theory and GCMs (General Circulation Models) are found to be fundamentally flawed. A significant, if not dominant portion of temperature increases in recent decades has resulted from local surface heating processes due to land use change, urbanization, and even anthropogenic greenhouse gases.     
17 Mar 2004   Source
Monte HiebMining Engineer, Office of Miners’ Health Safety & Training
So far the signal of a discernible human contribution to global climate change has not emerged from this natural variability or background noise.     
19 Dec 2006   Source
Dr. Jasper KirkbyResearch Scientist, CERN
[Sun and cosmic rays] will probably be able to account for somewhere between a half and the whole of the increase in the Earth's temperature that we have seen in the last century.     
23 Feb 2007   Source
Khabibullo AbdusamatovAstronomer, Pulkovo Observatory Research Lab
By the mid-21st century the planet will face another Little Ice Age, similar to the Maunder Minimum, because the amount of solar radiation hitting the Earth has been constantly decreasing since the 1990s and will reach its minimum approximately in 2041.     
01 Aug 2007   Source
Roy W. SpencerGlobal Warming Researcher, P.H.D in Meteorology
I predict that in the coming years, there will be a growing realization among the global warming research community that most of the climate change we have observed is natural, and that mankind’s role is relatively minor.     
22 Jul 2008   Source
Time MagazinePopular Magazine
Whatever the cause of the cooling trend, its effects could be extremely serious, if not catastrophic. Scientists figure that only a 1% decrease in the amount of sunlight hitting the earth's surface could tip the climatic balance, and cool the planet enough to send it sliding down the road to another ice age within only a few hundred years.     
24 Jun 1974   Source
David BellamyBotanist, Documentarian
The link between the burning of fossil fuels and global warming is a myth. It is time the world's leaders, their scientific advisers and many environmental pressure groups woke up to the fact.     
09 Jun 2004   Source
Ray EvansEconomic Advisor, Secretary of Lavoisier Group
The global warming scam has been, arguably, the most extraordinary example of scientific fraud in the post-War period. So many people, and institutions, have been caught up in the web of deceit, master-minded by environmental activists working through NGOs and their manipulation of the IPCC processes, that the integrity of Western science is seriously at risk.     
01 Nov 2006   Source
Global Warming Petition ProjectPetition, ran by Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine
There are no experimental data to support the hypothesis that increases in human hydrocarbon use or in atmospheric carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are causing or can be expected to cause unfavorable changes in global temperatures, weather, or landscape... ...We also need not worry about environmental calamities even if the current natural warming trend continues. The Earth has been much warmer during the past 3,000 years without catastrophic effects.     
01 Jan 2007   Source
Dr. Denis G. RancourtPhysics Prof., Environmental Science Researcher, Ottawa Uni.
The atmospheric greenhouse effect is a well known natural phenomenon, mostly caused by atmospheric water vapour, that keeps our planet warm and habitable whereas (anthropogenic = human-made) global warming refers to a small extra greenhouse warming (0.5-1 C/33 C; 1-5 %) allegedly arising from an increase in atmospheric concentration of the minority greenhouse effect gas CO2 (carbon dioxide) – the later increase in turn possibly arising from fossil fuel burning.     
27 Feb 2007   Source
Douglas V. HoytSolar Physicist and Climatologist
Starting in 1997, we created a scorecard to see how climate model predictions were matching observations. The picture is not pretty with most of the predictions being wrong in magnitude and often in sign. [Hoyt gives each prediction a 'yes-no-undetermined' score. The current score in this case is 1-27-4]     
01 Mar 2007   Source
Syun-Ichi AkasofuPhysics Prof., Director Int. Arctic Research Ctr. 98-07
I think the initial motivation by the IPCC (established in 1988) was good; it was an attempt to promote this particular scientific field. ... But so many [scientists] jumped in, and the media is looking for a disaster story, and the whole thing got out of control.     
01 Apr 2007   Source
Dr. David KearGeologist, NZ Dept. of Sci. & Industrial Research
Personal beliefs on climate change and rising sea levels should be delayed until just one of the many predictions made since 1985 on the basis of carbon additions to the atmosphere comes true.     
13 Apr 2007   Source
Robert M. CarterMarine Geophysical Professor
With the complete discrediting of the ‘hockey stick’ curve of recent temperature change (McIntyre and McKitrick, 2003, 2005; Wegman, Scott and Said, 2006) that was the icon of their report, the IPCC case for dangerous human-caused warming now rests only on ambiguous anecdotal evidence, unvalidated computer models and misleading attribution studies (IPCC, 2007).     
02 May 2007   Source
Dr. Gerhard GerlichPhysics Prof., Carolo-Wilhelmina Uni
There is no atmospheric greenhouse effect, in particular CO2-greenhouse effect, in theoretical physics and engineering thermodynamics. Thus it is illegitimate to deduce predictions which provide a consulting solution for economics and intergovernmental policy.     
07 Jul 2007   Source
Dr. Tom V. SegalstadGeology Professor, Head of Oslo Uni. Geological Museum
Most leading geologists, throughout the world, know that the IPCC's view of Earth processes are implausible if not impossible.     
07 Jul 2007   Source
B.P. RadhakrishnaGeologist, President of the Geological Society of India
The causes of these changes are cosmogenic...     
23 Aug 2007   Source