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Originally Posted by jrc
"...1)Is the planet warming? Maybe a little, based on 150 year old weather reports.
2) If yes, is humanity causing the warming? Not at all clear, but maybe a little.
3) If yes, can we do anything to stop it? No (everyone agrees)
Slow it? Maybe a little with massive reduction in quality of life or world population. Even Kyoto only promises the tiniest reduction in the upward temperature trend.
4) Is the cure worse than the disease? Most likely..."
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Is the planet warming?
Just one degree increase (Celsius °) has a huge effect! It's already being seen at Mount Kilimanjaro and Glacier National Park. Something like 90% of Earth's glaciers are retreating, and nobody denies that the oceans are rising.
Is Humanity causing it?
We've taken half of the sun's energy that's been stored under the Earth for a billion years and transformed it into heat in less than 200 years.
(Like peat and coal, oil is fossil
plant life—forget the dinosaur part.)
Is there anything we can do to stop it?
Emphatically YES! Twenty years ago, when this issue was first envisioned, there were several cures suggested.
The most intriguing one involved placing a rotating reflectorized mylar spiderweb-like wheel into space between Earth and the Sun. The problem was that how—and when—do you remove it?
Should there be concern?
Depends:
1) Mother Earth is very resilient:
One study indicated that Earth was once covered in ice—a snowball. In the Cosmos, that is a death sentence for a celestial body, as nearly all a sun's rays are reflected back into space.
2) There are indications that the rate is increasing; otherwise, we and Mother Nature can just "take the ride". Some inhabited island-countries in the Indian and Pacific Oceans may become uninhabitable in our lifetimes. OTOH, new islands are being created in our lifetimes.
3) In 1999,
Popular Science magazine stated, "Global Warming is a fact": They're not a sky-is-falling publication.
First, we should acknowledge Global Warming
as fact.