Originally posted by DeepSpace9er
Actually i dont believe a damn thing i just said but im sure somebody does. There is so much contradicting evidence on the part of the scientific community that the only 'evidence' they have of globabl warming is that the temperatures in certian climates which havent changed very much in the last 50 years of recording are slightly changing. In planetary terms, 50 years is a split second compared to thousands. Its just political bs imo.
Sort of the point of noting such a large change in a geological instant like 50 years is highlighting the likelihood of human involvement. Although they can study, for example, ice cores going back thousands of years (IIRc you can measure carbon/etc levels in the atmosphere from ice, and also I think from absorption into rocks).
Also the acidity levels of the ocean (increasing), the rate of melting in ice caps/glaciers (again something you can measure using the ice cores), changes in weather patterns (weather records can go back centuries), changes in coral reefs (affected by CO2), and soforth (which I can't remember offhand). For example, ice cores recovered from Himalayan glaciers indicate that this century has been the warmest in 1,000 years, and there is factual evidence that over the last 50 years the average
rate warming (the planet has been warming since the ice age, at a steady rate) has increased drastically.
Essentially enough evidence to indicate a climatic change. Whilst it is true that climatic change is a natural part of the earths history (ice age, for example), I believe most scientists can put a strong correlation between the rate of change and the direct atmospheric effects of human industry/activity. Thanks to both historical evidence of climate vis-a-vis human output, and also through understanding & simulating the effect of stuff like increased CO2 levels (past computer simulations of the effects global warming upon the oceans have been verified with actual observation, for example, or measure the loss of artic ice sheets and corresponding drops in the salinity of ocean water).
The simple reason global warning is regarded as a political issue is because the highest polluting countries are selfish. It's more politically expedient to preserve the economy of a country than it is to examine the consequences to the entire world in 20,30,40 etc years and act proactively.