Current Events > What's the argument against Earth going through natural warming/cooling cycles?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Not a global warming denier just wondering if it has any merit to the theory.
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http://ossfoundation.us/projects/environment/global-warming/natural-cycle

Prehistoric or medieval warming periods aren't an adequate enough justification for stomping on liberty and instituting redistribution schemes

Basically, it's a problem of scale/speed.

Climate does change naturally, but it takes centuries or millennia to do so naturally. The rate it is currently changing is a rate that is significantly faster than any of the previous changes we've been able to study.
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Lanzol posted...

http://ossfoundation.us/projects/environment/global-warming/natural-cycle

Where are we currently in the natural cycle (Milankovitch cycle)? The warmest point of the last cycle was around 10,000 years ago, at the peak of the Holocene. Since then, there has been an overall cooling trend, consistent with a continuation of the natural cycle, and this cooling would continue for thousands of years into the future if all else remained the same. But since 1750 however, the CO2 content of the atmosphere has deviated from the natural cycle. Instead of decreasing, it has increased because of the fossil-fuel burning. Methane and nitrous oxide have also increased unnaturally because of agricultural practices and other factors. The world has also warmed unnaturally. We are now deviating from the natural cycle.

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eye_gouger posted...

Not a global warming denier just wondering if it has any merit to the theory.

The cycles in question are extremely long term and so dramatic that it's an end-of-all-life scenario.

I don't really care if in 10,000 years the natural climate cycle means 400 degrees outside is a cool day. I care about now and maybe the next couple hundred years.
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