Why do people refuse to accept climate change is real and due to human activity?

Question

I'm fascinated by this, the science is as certain as science can be, yet so many people believe human induced climate change to be some kind of scam. People in forums and places like yahoo answers continue to rehash old inaccurate arguments in some bizarre attempt to claim it's not our fault whatsoever. Some of the most truly bizarre examples of scientific illiteracy come up again and again in the claims that the present era of climate change is totally natural. My favourite example is still the odd baseless belief that volcanoes produce more CO2 than industry. So, are these people afraid? Perhaps it is an attempt to avoid guilt? Or perhaps misinformation campaigns by organisations such as ESSO and the CEI have genuinely confused people.

I'm honestly curious about this.... this is going to be an interesting thread... ;-)

(no abuse, just tell me, really, why, I want well thought out reasons.)

Answer 1

A brief search of the scientific literature shows there is no dispute about climate change, and only mild disputes about the absolute cause (although there really isn't any debate that it is, at least, partially human caused; see links). I have linked a few articles from the peer-reviewed scientific literature:



Some consequences of climate change:

http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2008/2008_Rosenzweig_etal_1.pdf

Review paper on human caused changes to the earth--includes a section on how CO2 from burning fossil fuels alters the global carbon biogeochemical cycle:

http://magmo.typepad.com/VitousekHumanDomination.pdf

The role of external forcings in temperature patterns:

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/290/5499/2133

Model that shows the sun is response for warming trends in the early 1900's, but anthropogenic sources must be included to account for current warming trends:

http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/ccr/publications/meehl_additivity.pdf

Analysis of whether natural causes could counterbalance (or mask) anthropogenic warming.

http://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Publications/PDF_Papers/BertrandEtAlfulltext.pdf



I think people refuse to accept anthropogenic climate change because of several reasons:



1) Politics: global warming has been blamed on a left-wing agenda and some people don't like this idea. People believe this is a hoax created by the liberals to redistribute wealth.

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2007/03/03/perspective/17_51_132_23_07.txt

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2006/06/why_liberals_fear_global_warmi.html



2) The models are only moderately accurate. This is because of the scale and many factors that contribute to the global climate. A NASA/Goddard scientists recently wrote an article about this problem and the progress that we are making with our models:

http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2008/2008_Rind.pdf



3) People are stubborn and refuse to accept responsibility for their actions.





4) Most people don't have access to the scientific literature: Please note which of my reasons are supported by peer-reviewed scientific literature and which are supported by political websites.

Answer 2

mickey: You seem to have no concept of science peer view, major journals don't accept papers on editorial review (that is how papers like Mockintons get published) real journals have many reviewers in the same fields as the papers they publish, editorial control is only related to grammar & layout. Reviewers offer comment and criticism and are anonymous to the authors this process can be months with several rounds of changes and appeals against changes it is possible to request a different reviewer but the reviewer and authors remain unknown to each other, papers can be rejected if the reviewers agree and this, not silly conspiracy theories is why there are no published paper refuting GW.



Dee: The link you have posted is the same one used by a number of people here a few months ago to "prove" the sun was the cause of Mars warming, untl it was pointed out the story has a second page with further comments by "Colin Wilson" a planetary physicist at Oxford, who stated the theory was not support by the evidence of solar activity.

It should be remembered that although it has been around a long time National Geographic isn't a science journal it is (these days) main steam media.

Answer 3

There is still no accurate method of measuring air temp it varies from a world average of 11deg C to 18deg C just by using different methods.

Also climate change is being used to force nuclear energy on people

and to screw small business and farms.

90% of green house gas is water vapor that's why the desert is cold at night and why frosts happen when there's no cloud

Answer 4

Yes Climate change is only due to Human beings cutting down tree and deforesting to build house .

Using Fossil Fuel to run their Vehicles that would unearth CARBON DIOXIDE burried within Fossil Fuel .



Let's think of supporting idea of stopping or slowing down global warming .



We will start with suggsting People to grow trees.



Do you know that 1 single Tree can reduce temperature upto 5 Degree of surroundings .

1 Tree is equivalant to 10 Air Conditioners.

After Heavy Rains 1 Tree can store enough rain Water to reduce Floods in 1 Acre of land .



You can just Plant One tree to reduce global warming . If each one of 6 Billion population on earth plant 1 tree a year and take care of the growth of the tree then there would be 6 Billion tree in 1 year .



Result: After 5 years Temperature will stop increasing during day time as Trees will absorb the heat from sun for Photosynthesis process . Single Tree can store enough Carbondioxide that is emitted from 100 Vehicles . This happens during Day time , During night Tree again emits Carbon dioxide that will increase night temparatures. So temparature deviation in planted area is less than 10Degree C. Maximum 35 Degree C Minimum 25 Degree C.



A small test to see if trees really maintain temparature .

Take a thermometer and measure day high temparature and day low temparature in Forest or any thick greenery place and barren land .

Now note down the day high and day low in forest.

Go to a barren land where there are no trees note down the day high and day low near barran land .



You can see that the differance between Max and minimum temparature varies more than 20 C in Barran land where as in Forest it is only 10 C variation.

Answer 5

It is a combination of several things ostrich syndrome we humans have a long history of denying what science has been telling us going back to the "the world is flat" & "we are the center of the universe" one of the best scientist in history (Galileo) was confined to his home for the rest of his life for suggesting the latter was not true, more recently some are still trying to push the second hand smoke is safe line.

I find it quite funny the constant references to "no evidence" that appear here if it were just one or two bit of circumstantial evidence this may be true but when it is 100 years of rising temps & 100 years of rising co2 & 100 years of rising sea levels (6in) and 30 years of Arctic melt and rising ocean acidity linked to a 30 year record of solar activity that shows no sign of increased activity.

It is further complicated by phony science being spread by groups like the heartland institute about Mars and Pluto which gets further twisted and mis-quoted by some here, I have seen one answer that suggested the ice caps of Jupiter were melting, anyone with even a vague understanding of the planets would know how silly that is, or the regular linking of co2 to the ozone hole? (it's CFC not co2 for the ozone hole)



Edit; an example of what I mean would be Charles M answer the first paragraph is total fiction he has taken the heartland dribble hook line & sinker

(a) the hockey stick graph isn't discredited at all and has since been verified as fundamentally correct, in a report by the National Academy of Science at the request of Congress, before the democrats took over.

http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/climate-change/dn11646

(b) The 10 hottest years of the last 100 were in the 20s & 30s, utter nonsense (link 2 below) note he provides no link, just an opinion.

Answer 6

Ignore the fact glaciers on Swiss Alps will melt by 2010.



Also books like The Military Assault On The Environment, Canada and The Environment, the reports on Plankton the studies done on chemicals in fridges discarded on dumps perhaps not known.



Not sure what to say if library books on Global Warming do not satisfy except that the world is round so what happens in one place has an effect on another part. Also people did not exist in early times or were not so numerous. Another point Super Sonic Jets much later were banned as a result of harm they did in the stratosphere.

Answer 7

the climate change when the people around the world do the global warming from time to time. No more awareness.

Answer 8

alright lets look at something shall we? other planets in our solar system are also warming and they are a natural cycle, but for some reason the earths warming is somehow mans fault? i know you are going to point to the 2500 UN scientists that claim global warming is man made. the problem with that is there is now some debate among those very scientists, and there is a group of over 30,000 scientists who dispute the UN claims.



the reality is that while man can have a small effect on local climates, and for a short period of time, in the long run man's effect is insignificant at best, and it is the height of arrogance to think otherwise. this planet has been through far more climate change in the past 4 billion years than man has even seen in the 80,000 or so years that we have been on this planet.



there are several things that affect the global climate, including natural gaseous emissions, solar radiation, solar cycles, etc. for instance as our sun ages, it gets hotter. 65 million years ago our sun was cooler than it is today, and yet the planet was hotter then. can you explain that? all you need do is look at the geological record and you will find that it has been much warmer in the past than it is today, and man had nothing to do with it.



oh one more thing, i know you will point to the hockey stick graph that shows an apparent relationship between global temperatures, and the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. that is a misleading graph as atmospheric CO2 levels are a lagging indicator and not a leading indicator. as for the debate between natural sources and man made sources of CO2 emissions, man made sources are like taking a 5 gallon bucket of water, and tossing the contents into the ocean and claiming that the ocean levels went up.



look beyond what the alarmists are saying, and realize that what they say and what they do are two different things. al gore for instance updated his house in Tennessee with a bunch of new "green technology" designed to reduce the amount of electricity he gets from the grid, and his energy consumption went up. he flys around in a private jet, and yet he proclaims that we should cut our carbon emissions, and buy carbon credits from him.



AGW alarmists are in it for the money and the power. they want to control the people and how we spend our own money. once they get that, all this garbage about global warming will go away.

Answer 9

Because a lot of them are to wrapped up in their nice easy world. And to admit it's our fault and we must change the way we live is to much of an inconvenience, It's much easier to keep the blinder's on than to deal with it.

Answer 10

The only real evidence that global warming exists is the famous centerpiece chart called the hockey stick. It has now been proved to the satisfaction the period of that chart after 1980 is false and they are in the process of correcting all the data used to develop that chart. It has already been released that the hottest year was 1934 and that 5 of the 10 hottest years in the last 100 were in the 1920s and 30s. 1998 is now the second hottest year in the last 100 and no year since has been hotter and in face there has been noticeable overall cooling since 1998 and even Gore and Hansen are now admitting we are heading into a 20 year or longer cooling period at least.





Every single point of the whole AGW scheme was based on the provability of that graph, Gore and Hansen based everything on that because they had worked so hard to create it and now it has been scientifically proven in the NASA laboratories and by dozens of others around the world to be completely false and criminally fraudulent. Someone will soon be on trial for this fraud as the NASA director is not at all amused by this. Gore and Hansen are hopping Obama wins in November so the fraud can be swept under the carpet. Americans hope he does not win so the criminals can be prosecuted for their crimes of deliberate fraud.





Added thoughts



It is not that there is not enough or clear enough evidence, it is that we are able to tell from comparison there is a deliberate error in the post 1980 data stream that reports the temperatures higher than they actually were. Thus the altered data showed 1998 to be significantly hotter than 1934 when it really was noticeably cooler. This corrected data shows that there has been no temperature since 1934 that exceeded that year’s temperature. Global warming has not happened as advertised and in fact the whole theory was built on faked data.

Answer 11

Because people choose to be oblivious to problematic situations.

Humans find that hiding problems is much easier than solving them. For example- we choose to landfill (hide) our waste, rather than create an appropriate recycling plant.



It seems most people find to be ignorant of a situation entirely is the same as non existence. Ignorance is bliss, for with knowledge comes power, and with power, responsibility.

Answer 12

When it comes to true and honest science, there is no such thing as "certain" and the debate being over. Carbon dioxide does not hold heat in, and certainly not on a permanent basis. Look it up, or confirm it. Carbon dioxide is not a poisonous gas either.



I am afraid that when the "problem is solved" as if there is one, that we'll be continually taxed because all the money that was supposed to go to "fight global warming" was somehow "misplaced" or "Unaccounted for." "Oops the money is all gone! (Quick, hide the Lear jet!)



It isn't our fault. The Earth does what it does. Tell me science, tell me we have to stop pollution. But don't lie to me. Stop the politics, stop the scare tactics. I've been through it all before and it's all been disproven and it's all BS.



The media is one of the entities that try to scare us into accepting global warming. Every time the weather does something it's always, "Is this caused by global warming?" and of course the meteorologist has to waste several minutes debunking superstitions and other foolishness.

Answer 13

Inaccurate science. Inaccurate data. The faulty hockey stick chart. Data gathering points found to be placed on top of hot asphalt. First it was global cooling. Then Global warming. Now it's climate change. Now, sound scientific reports say there's no climate change and that the earth may cool in the next decade. Hurricane activity was supposed to go up. Then not up but more intense. Well, where are they ? Scientist's on the other side being ostricized as 'big-oil' mouthpieces.

Man-made global warming is nothing more than a man-made money grab.

Answer 14

When its leading proponents are con artists and fanatics it's hard for those of us who demand real proof to take the whole thing seriously.



Even if humans do influence the climate, the prescriptions they offer are all wrong. I'm suspicious of people who have the same answer for every problem, namely increasing taxes to line their own pockets.



When I hear things like "the deniers" and "the science is in, the debate is settled" I know I'm not hearing science. I'm hearing an effort to silence inquiry into just what they are up to.



I guess the biggest reason is that the history or earth's climate shows lots of changes and dramatic shifts the causes of which we are not entirely certain. I don't take people seriously who ignore all of that and claim that nature has been replaced by people.



I am concerned about the environment, but I'm concerned about real problems, like soil degradation, declining water tables and particulate air pollution, not a slight rise in the presence of an inert gas that is vital to life on this planet.

Answer 15

Because, it is not real-you have no scientifically designed double blind studies to demonstrate the relationship between human activity and so called AGW, you quote empirical data, sometimes 'adjusted data' and opinion papers, not adequately peer reviewed, and when there is an editorial review, it is done by someone who has a biased view of the situation-here is a challenge, get the science correct before you quote it as a reason to cripple the economy of the USA and Canada-quick answer, the science does not support your position.

Answer 16

Because it is a lie and Al Gore Is reaping the benifits of it! He is Laughing all the way to the bank on his brand new 600 HP diesel house boat that he just bought with YOUR money!!!

We all need to be more eco responsible, I agree and quit tearing up our home and environment but Global Waring is just a LIE!

Answer 17

The earth's warming and cooling trends/cycles are not caused by man, rather they result from natural causes...mainly the sun. Al Gore and his Church of Worldly Warming have grabbed this little event and used it unscrupulously to further their leftist agenda by pretending that global warming is continuing, and that man is responsible. They didn't count on it ending in 1998...and when at last it failed to restart they changed global warming to climate change to cover every conceivable possiblilty that can happen in climate. But they still insist that it's our fault. So...whatever happens it's our fault, and Earth is finished unless we send them lots of money.



It's a scam...through and through. Lots of scientists debunk it, sign petitions against it, and probably lose funding by not going along with it. But the AGW crowd won't stop...that's why we keep going.

Answer 18

Rapid warming from 1912 to 1940 when human emissions were negligible. Cooling from 1950 to 1979 when human emissions were significant, Cooling in the past three years when human emissions were at their highest. Solar activity was higher in the last half of the 20th century than it has been in the last 8000 years. The earth cools when solar activity is low and it warms when it is high.



"There is no statistical correlation between the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere through the last 500 million years and the temperature record in this interval. In fact, one of the highest levels of carbon dioxide concentration occurred during a major ice age that occurred about 450 million years ago. Carbon dioxide concentrations at that time were about 15 times higher than at present."



http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/Reference_Docs/The_Geologic_Record_and_Climate_Change.pdf

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn6591

http://www.windows.ucar.edu/tour/link=/sun/activity/sunspot_history.html&edu=high



CO2 concentrations are at the highest levels in the world around the east coast of the USA, but that area shows no more warming than Africa or any other place.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJpj8UUMTaI

http://www.ssmi.com/msu/msu_browse.html

Answer 19

Wow. You had some really great answers! Unfortunately they tend to show that your suppositions are incorrect.



The thing that does it for me though is the way you people attack those who disagree with you. You use phrases like "scientific illiteracy" and "odd baseless belief[s]" and call those of us who actually read (and understand) scientific data "genuinely confused people" and accuse us of foisting "misinformation campaigns" against those of your who want people to believe you care.



No abuse?? How about 'no ad hominem attacks?' Oh wait, too late, you threw out the gauntlet.

Answer 20

Why would I believe that climate change (global warming) is real, when the most basic of evidence says it is not?



I am told that Anthropogenic CO2 causes global warming, and yes, CO2 concentrations are rising. (Scripps Mauna Loa). http://scrippsco2.ucsd.edu/data/mlo.html



This rising CO2 concentration is supposed to cause Global temperatures to rise and the rise will accelerate. It is supposed to warm the oceans, and sea levels are supposed to rise.



Global temperatures have not risen for 10 years. (Hadley, British Meteorological office) http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcrut3/diagnostics/global/nh+sh/monthly



Ocean temperatures have not risen for 10 years. (NOAA)

http://www.junkscience.com/MSU_Temps/NCDCabsOcean.csv



Sea Levels have been falling for 5 years. (Colorado University)

http://sealevel.colorado.edu/current/sl_noib_ns_global.txt



All three of these should be on a strong upward trend to match the rising CO2 concentration, but they are not.



No causal link has ever been demonstrated, and then subsequently replicated by others, that Anthropogenic CO2 causes climate change. If I have somehow missed this important piece of information, then I’d be very grateful if you’d kindly direct me to it.



The projections of the IPCC have not come true. Their climate models do not work.



If the climate models had projected this levelling of temperature then it would demonstrate that they worked; but they did not. If the Temperatures and Sea Levels HAD matched the projections then I would not be a sceptic; but they did not.



EDIT. Phil, your reference to the confidence in the models highlights the very point I make.



"We still can’t predict future climate responses at low and high latitudes, which constrains our ability to forecast changes in atmospheric dynamics and regional climate"



"However, at this point the uncertainties in latitudinal temperature gradient changes affect the confidence we can have in many of our projections of atmospheric dynamic and hydrologic responses to global warming"

Answer 21

No one knows if it will be warmer or colder anytime in the future let alone show you how they came to their conclusion.



So-called "Global Warming" isn't scientific, it's a wild guess surrounded by scientific jargon. Most of these "scientist" never even do research. Most of them just study other scientists studies.



There's as much truth to "global warming" as there is in an episode of Star Trek.

Answer 22

Because we are selfish creatures. We do not want to change our habits, even if we know it means we are responsible for the destruction of our own environment. If we do not change this trait on a large scale, it will certainly mean the end of our species.



It is not rational behavior. It is like smoking. Smokers know very well how bad it is for their health, yet the cannot give it up.

Answer 23

ummmm , I don't know ? A lack of evidence maybe ? Can you provide solid proof that most of the warming over the last 100 years is due to human activity ? You have my full attention .



Please , enlighten us . What is this solid evidence we are not seeing but you are ? After all... "the science is as certain as science can be" .... rite ?

Answer 24

Mars is heating up. It must have been the solar rover that has done it.



No, really, Mars has been heating up.



http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070228-mars-warming.html

Answer 25

some people need more evidence including myself. if tomorrow they say there are pink unicorns in the dark side of the moon will you believe them? NO you need proof right?



4.5 billions years vs approx. 200 years of industrialization.



there could be other possibilities, you think the sun is consistent?

Answer 26

I can`t handle the Truth

Answer 27

They probably don't want to accept it because THEY are apart of the problem. Also climate change would effect us very much as it will to those in the future so they believe that they don't have to do anything because it isn't a problem for them.

Answer 28

"the science is as certain as science can be"



Huh??????

Answer 29

because we see right thruough the fraud