Thursday, April 9, 2009

Global Warming -- A Mere Natural Cycle?

Today, I engaged in a debate with a classmate regarding global warming. The crux of my opponent's argument went like this: even if there is alarming warming, it is all part of the natural cycle; in the past, the earth has been much warmer and much cooler; thus, there is no reason to suppose that humans are the root cause.

I see much wrong with this argument. If the temperature change is merely part of one big natural cycle, we should be able to find the natural cause of the cycle. After all, if external forces are constant, the temperature will remain constant. As you probably guessed, despite the best efforts of scientists, they can not ascertain the "natural" force causing this "natural" cycle. This failure suggests that there is no natural cause and, instead, the cause is man made.

Scientists have, however, developed a working, consistent model that actually predicts the climate changes that we are observing. This model correlated the temperature change with the 35% increase in greenhouse gas, which, of course humans caused.

Thus, the "natural cycle" proponents can not offer a workable model for their assertion. Yet, global warming proponents have developed a consistent, workable, and predictive model, and it is grounded in humanity's impact upon its environment.

The weight of the evidence is against the global warming skeptic.

Source.

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