Global warming is undoubtedly fact at least for the short term. Annual temperature checks at various points show a continuing steady increase in ambient temperatures around the planet. Average annual global temperatures have been on the increase since at a minimum the 1990s and at the present time this short term upward trend shows no signs that of changing.
What is the true cause of this? Have our activities resulted in a significant part of this change? These are two important questions leave plenty of room for study and discussion, and they are very much the subject of a number of different stated opinions. There are people lined up on both sides of this debate who will state with utter certainty that as far as they are concerned the facts which support their particular case leave absolutely no room for any further debate, and that anyone who has the temerity to disagree with their theories is either a blind fool, who totally misinterprets the data, or has be a charlatan who promotes his false studies either to procure a benefit for himself or for a sponsor who has supported his work on the subject, and who stands to gain a benefit from obtaining results which support his personal cause, either academically or finamncially.
No true unbiased scientist who is really worth listening to will ever aver that there is definitely no room for further study and discussion, and that any time to be spent performing further studies of a subject is simply wasted effort. This certainly applies no less to the theories regarding climate change and the resulting global warming than it does to any other scientific studies. There are many so called "facts" which are continually used to support arguments on both sides of these subjects. These "facts" are most often quite debatable and the conclusions which have been drawn from them can in no way be considered to be infallible.
Most of the scientific studies which have been undertaken are based on climate changes for only a hundreds to a at most a few thousand years of recent time, whereas the earth's climate has seen many very profound changes which have taken place over the course of hundreds of millions of years. Some areas of the world which at the present day have temperate or cold climates were at one time tropical, as is in fact plainly shown by fossil evidence. Similarly arctic climates once prevailed where now there are temperate or warm regions. As little as ten thousand years ago all of Canada and the northern part of the USA was deep under a blanket hundreds of feet of ice during an ice age. Climate change can,t get much more extreme than that, and these changes were all the results of natural causes long before modern man came evolved to play a part in climate changes.
I strongly believe that human activities of various kinds are playing a role in global warming and climate change. The real burning question, which certainly requires much more studies, is exactly how much of a part has our poisoning of the atmosphere and the oceans, and our rape of the land and forests, really played in what is observed as global warming. It could well be that we have been the cause of only a very minute fraction of the observed climate changes. If that is indeed the case then modifying our activities will result in little if any effect on the changes, and these changing climates which are caused by naturally occurring factors will continue regardlessof what we do. Is this how things really really are at present? I certainly have no idea, and I don't believe that anyone else knows with any degree of certainty. If they truly look at what we know beyond a doubt to be "facts" the uncertainties are obvious, no matter what they claim to believe. We really must do a lot more study of the subject.
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