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Description
Every now and then I come across some moron who manages to get me out of my skin with rage with the claim there is no global warming, or we don't know if there's global warming because there isn't enough data, therefore we shouldn't worry too much. True enough, there is not sufficient data to predict exactly how global warming will proceed and what its effects will be - of course not, since nothing even close to what is happening with the climate now has happened ever before in recorded history.... or perhaps ever. But to claim that because of that we can just lay on our butts and do nothing is equivalent to thinking that if an asteroid is about to hit Earth nothing should be done about it because we haven't observed the consequence of an asteroid impact yet and therefore it's not clear whether we really need to worry or not. You see, it's not a question of observations in order to prove global warming. It's a question of logic and common sense.
Also sure enough, I actually agree there is no global warming. There is not JUST global warming. There is CLIMATE CHANGE, which is being triggered by the global warming.

Now, I'm not a climatologist, not anywhere near it, so I cannot claim to know the matter in depth and with accuracy. But here are a few simple facts that I know, pretty much as common knowledge:
- Some gases in the atmosphere have a greenhouse effect. Simply spoken, they decrease the amount of heat the planet irradiates into space, effectively conserving some of the heat from the Sun in the atmosphere. It is a fact there always have been greenhouse gases (after all the most powerful greenhouse gas, quantities considered, is water vapour, i.e. clouds) - therefore such an effect has always existed naturally. It's also a fact that it is this effect precisely that provides us with our mild and favourable climate because it doesn't allow for extreme temperature shifts between day and night, as it happens on other planetary bodies with little or no atmosphere (like Mars or the Moon). However, like most things, the question is not only whether such effect exists and also how powerful it is. How powerful it is defines the climate, because:
- Heat from the Sun happens to be the engine for all climatic processes, its effects being multitudinous and omnipresent. Simply spoken, everything you know as weather is a result of that heat, its quantity and uneven distribution around the globe. To outline a few major dependencies - heat from the Sun doesn't only directly determine how warm is your weather, it also directly affects the formation of all climatic phenomena; the uneven distribution of heat (because the planet is spherical you know) results in differences in atmospheric pressure and cause such things like winds and ocean currents to move around and form the climate. In addition, heat directly affects the amount of water that evaporates from the seas, therefore it affects rainfall. While the system is far too complex for me to describe, there is one very basic principle, a pretty much direct consequence of fundamental physics:
- The more energy there is in a system the more actively processes in this system run. Heat is the form of energy that drives the climate and the processes in question are all climatic phenomena - winds, ocean currents, evaporation, storms, everything. Have you noticed your weather stormier or windier? What I'm trying to say is, don't expect the change in your weather to only be it getting warmer. Those other phenomena, too, are a result of more heat in the system.
Now to the current situation and the role of the human factor:
- The quantity of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has risen dramatically within the past 270 years, a DIRECT consequence of the industry-empowered human activity. If anyone is trying to tell you there is no proof that humans caused that rise in quantities, they are bullshitting you big time. 3 million tonnes of human-generated carbon are currently emitted into the atmosphere EVERY YEAR. That's a lot, and I mean A LOT, especially for a gas because gas is quite light-weighing. So we don't talk about rise of a percent or two. We talk about over 40% increase in carbon dioxide and between 150% - 170% increase of methane, which in fact has several times stronger greenhouse effect than carbon dioxide.
- That said, common sense indicates that such colossal quantities of extra greenhouse gases will inevitably have a significant impact upon the way the planet retains and redistributes its heat from the Sun. That is to say, upon all of climatic processes.

In two words, the global climate is knocked out of balance and will seek to find a new balance - as all natural systems do (quite unlike humans). The problem with that is:
a) The process of achieving this new balance will cause a period of climatic extremes and climatic disasters around the globe. This is what happens when you knock a system off of its point of equilibrium - it begins chaoticly swaying around until a new such equilibrium is achieved, which can however take centuries. In the meanwhile, a system out of balance is much less predictable, much more chaotic and much more prone to sway into major disasters.
b) The new equilibrium that will eventually settle will likely prove unfavourable or plain intolerable to a considerable number of the extant species on the planet, which will likely lead to the extinction of most of them because changes are way too fast for them to adapt. To make it clear, "species" are all the living organisms on the planet - those same things that make up the environment from which you pillage most of your resources for living, including food, clean water, wood, medicines and more. To make it further complicated, you don't only need to worry about the species who are directly useful to you - because they don't live isolatedly and independently of everything else, they live as part of ecosystems in which the survival of each species is directly dependent on the survival of numerous other species. So if any part of these is lost, it will severely impact all of the rest as well and threaten their survival.

There is one more fact about greenhouse gases, which is actually often used by the morons I mentioned in the beginning, to "prove" that there's no need to worry about climate change. In the Carboniferous period, in the Paleozoic era (360 - 300 millions of years ago), the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 3 times higher than it was in the extant era, before human industry rose. Yet life was thriving, no worry. So said morons use that fact to claim that if it was fine back then, it will be fine now as well. However, that only proves how little they really understand how climate, evolution and ecology work. It's true, carbon dioxide concentration was much higher, but this was more than 300 000 000 years ago. The species who existed back then were adapted to that climate and conditions - but none of them still exist now. More importantly, none of the species who exist now are in any way adapted to survive in a paleo-climate and environment that existed 300 000 000 years ago. So any argument along the lines of "if it was fine back then, it's fine now as well" is nothing short of epic bullshit.

So yeah, climate change is fact. People need to stop fooling themselves and digging their heads in the sand. Ostriches can afford digging their heads in the sand because they don't emit 3 000 000 tonnes of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere annually. However, YOU cannot afford it. I personally don't believe humanity will manage to stop its full speed race towards the edge of the cliffside. Too bad so many others will also pay the price for that. However, that won't stop me from sounding the alarm. And to the morons I've been talking about, I can only say - enjoy your hurricanes, boys. You made them yourselves after all.

Feel free to use the stamp, just it if you do.

Edit: Before you come barking with some *so science much smart* nonsense, read the description ffs.
I'm not gonna waste my time elaborating what I believe I already worded clearly enough.

Description
Every now and then I come across some moron who manages to get me out of my skin with rage with the claim there is no global warming, or we don't know if there's global warming because there isn't enough data, therefore we shouldn't worry too much. True enough, there is not sufficient data to predict exactly how global warming will proceed and what its effects will be - of course not, since nothing even close to what is happening with the climate now has happened ever before in recorded history.... or perhaps ever. But to claim that because of that we can just lay on our butts and do nothing is equivalent to thinking that if an asteroid is about to hit Earth nothing should be done about it because we haven't observed the consequence of an asteroid impact yet and therefore it's not clear whether we really need to worry or not. You see, it's not a question of observations in order to prove global warming. It's a question of logic and common sense.
Also sure enough, I actually agree there is no global warming. There is not JUST global warming. There is CLIMATE CHANGE, which is being triggered by the global warming.

Now, I'm not a climatologist, not anywhere near it, so I cannot claim to know the matter in depth and with accuracy. But here are a few simple facts that I know, pretty much as common knowledge:
- Some gases in the atmosphere have a greenhouse effect. Simply spoken, they decrease the amount of heat the planet irradiates into space, effectively conserving some of the heat from the Sun in the atmosphere. It is a fact there always have been greenhouse gases (after all the most powerful greenhouse gas, quantities considered, is water vapour, i.e. clouds) - therefore such an effect has always existed naturally. It's also a fact that it is this effect precisely that provides us with our mild and favourable climate because it doesn't allow for extreme temperature shifts between day and night, as it happens on other planetary bodies with little or no atmosphere (like Mars or the Moon). However, like most things, the question is not only whether such effect exists and also how powerful it is. How powerful it is defines the climate, because:
- Heat from the Sun happens to be the engine for all climatic processes, its effects being multitudinous and omnipresent. Simply spoken, everything you know as weather is a result of that heat, its quantity and uneven distribution around the globe. To outline a few major dependencies - heat from the Sun doesn't only directly determine how warm is your weather, it also directly affects the formation of all climatic phenomena; the uneven distribution of heat (because the planet is spherical you know) results in differences in atmospheric pressure and cause such things like winds and ocean currents to move around and form the climate. In addition, heat directly affects the amount of water that evaporates from the seas, therefore it affects rainfall. While the system is far too complex for me to describe, there is one very basic principle, a pretty much direct consequence of fundamental physics:
- The more energy there is in a system the more actively processes in this system run. Heat is the form of energy that drives the climate and the processes in question are all climatic phenomena - winds, ocean currents, evaporation, storms, everything. Have you noticed your weather stormier or windier? What I'm trying to say is, don't expect the change in your weather to only be it getting warmer. Those other phenomena, too, are a result of more heat in the system.
Now to the current situation and the role of the human factor:
- The quantity of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has risen dramatically within the past 270 years, a DIRECT consequence of the industry-empowered human activity. If anyone is trying to tell you there is no proof that humans caused that rise in quantities, they are bullshitting you big time. 3 million tonnes of human-generated carbon are currently emitted into the atmosphere EVERY YEAR. That's a lot, and I mean A LOT, especially for a gas because gas is quite light-weighing. So we don't talk about rise of a percent or two. We talk about over 40% increase in carbon dioxide and between 150% - 170% increase of methane, which in fact has several times stronger greenhouse effect than carbon dioxide.
- That said, common sense indicates that such colossal quantities of extra greenhouse gases will inevitably have a significant impact upon the way the planet retains and redistributes its heat from the Sun. That is to say, upon all of climatic processes.

In two words, the global climate is knocked out of balance and will seek to find a new balance - as all natural systems do (quite unlike humans). The problem with that is:
a) The process of achieving this new balance will cause a period of climatic extremes and climatic disasters around the globe. This is what happens when you knock a system off of its point of equilibrium - it begins chaoticly swaying around until a new such equilibrium is achieved, which can however take centuries. In the meanwhile, a system out of balance is much less predictable, much more chaotic and much more prone to sway into major disasters.
b) The new equilibrium that will eventually settle will likely prove unfavourable or plain intolerable to a considerable number of the extant species on the planet, which will likely lead to the extinction of most of them because changes are way too fast for them to adapt. To make it clear, "species" are all the living organisms on the planet - those same things that make up the environment from which you pillage most of your resources for living, including food, clean water, wood, medicines and more. To make it further complicated, you don't only need to worry about the species who are directly useful to you - because they don't live isolatedly and independently of everything else, they live as part of ecosystems in which the survival of each species is directly dependent on the survival of numerous other species. So if any part of these is lost, it will severely impact all of the rest as well and threaten their survival.

There is one more fact about greenhouse gases, which is actually often used by the morons I mentioned in the beginning, to "prove" that there's no need to worry about climate change. In the Carboniferous period, in the Paleozoic era (360 - 300 millions of years ago), the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 3 times higher than it was in the extant era, before human industry rose. Yet life was thriving, no worry. So said morons use that fact to claim that if it was fine back then, it will be fine now as well. However, that only proves how little they really understand how climate, evolution and ecology work. It's true, carbon dioxide concentration was much higher, but this was more than 300 000 000 years ago. The species who existed back then were adapted to that climate and conditions - but none of them still exist now. More importantly, none of the species who exist now are in any way adapted to survive in a paleo-climate and environment that existed 300 000 000 years ago. So any argument along the lines of "if it was fine back then, it's fine now as well" is nothing short of epic bullshit.

So yeah, climate change is fact. People need to stop fooling themselves and digging their heads in the sand. Ostriches can afford digging their heads in the sand because they don't emit 3 000 000 tonnes of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere annually. However, YOU cannot afford it. I personally don't believe humanity will manage to stop its full speed race towards the edge of the cliffside. Too bad so many others will also pay the price for that. However, that won't stop me from sounding the alarm. And to the morons I've been talking about, I can only say - enjoy your hurricanes, boys. You made them yourselves after all.

Feel free to use the stamp, just it if you do.

Edit: Before you come barking with some *so science much smart* nonsense, read the description ffs.
I'm not gonna waste my time elaborating what I believe I already worded clearly enough.