Instigator / Pro
4
1587
rating
182
debates
55.77%
won
Topic
#4117
The actual risks of Global Warming are overestimated
Status
Finished
The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.
Winner & statistics
After 2 votes and with 10 points ahead, the winner is...
Mps1213
Parameters
- Publication date
- Last updated date
- Type
- Standard
- Number of rounds
- 4
- Time for argument
- Two days
- Max argument characters
- 10,000
- Voting period
- One month
- Point system
- Multiple criterions
- Voting system
- Open
Contender / Con
14
1538
rating
11
debates
81.82%
won
Description
The actual risks of Global Warming have been exaggerated and dramatized by politicians and environmentalists.
Round 1
Preamble:
I will be arguing that the actual dangers of Global Warming are hyped up and mostly imaginary. This conclusion will be supported by five major contentions, each of which shall be divided into sections of their own.
BOP:
The description states that the BOP is on me. I win if I can prove that most of the actual risks of Global Warming are fictitious and my opponent wins if he can disprove my arguments.
Contentions:
l. CO2 is necessary.
CO2 has been observed to be making the planet greener and overall producing more vegetation.
CO2 is also necessary for the survival of plants.
ll. Science has not proven the correlation between CO2 and Global Warming.
There is a lot of blame passed onto CO2 as being one of the major greenhouse gases contributing to the global rise in temperature. This couldn't be any more absurd.
- Scientists have failed to prove the correlation between Global Warming and CO2 levels in the atmosphere.
- There is more carbon in vegetation than there is in the atmosphere. Research cannot currently identify the cause.
But even if they had, Correlation is not Causation.
lll. The Problem demanding urgency was wrong.
Environmental organizations reporting data on Climate Change/Global Warming have repeatedly told everyone that the end of the world was super close and that everyone's lifestyle required complete changes in order to stop the apocalypse. But the research was wrong.
- "Negative effects of more CO2 have been exaggerated. Readily available data from governmental and reliable non-governmental sources confirm that extreme weather events in recent years have not occurred more frequently or with greater intensity. Such data also refute claims of ecologically damaging ocean acidification, accelerating sea level rises, and disappearing global sea ice and other alleged dangers. If further observations confirm a small climate sensitivity, these realities will not change." FC7C4946-11A3-4967-BF28-8D0386608D3E (senate.gov)
Many of these concerns have demanded quick solutions to repair the problem before irreparable damage was done but what this data is showing is that we would have been acting impulsively based on incomplete evidence that was also false.
lV. The Sea Level Catastrophe is fabricated.
The ice glaciers are not melting due to artificial habits that are man-made.
They have been melting since the previous Ice Age and it hasn't gotten worse currently. As it stands, the melting has been fairly consistent for ten thousand years.
V. The Worries are causing more problems than they're solving.
None of society's solutions to these crises have been rational. The costs of implementing techniques to address the destruction caused by Global Warming only serve to reduce the quality of life and means of transportation.
It appears that a lot of this media hype is beneficial for politicians to strengthen their reputation but does nothing for everybody else.
As science has proven, these phenomena are completely natural and there isn't anything abnormal about these occurrences.
Pro seemingly made a mistake in the title of this debate. This will be the only time I argue semantics, then I will begin picking apart his arguments. The title reads: The actual risks of Global Warming are overestimated
He said nothing about man made global warming. If he is simply trying to argue that global warming can’t cause dire issues to the planet he is obviously wrong. The Permian Triassic extinction was caused largely due to global warming and it killed 95% of all life on earth. So it’s clear that global warming alone can destroy life on the planet. So can any form of climate change, not just warming. I have confidence I could at least get a vote for that simple mistake, but I do not like that style of debating.
His first point is genuinely absurd. “Scientists have failed to prove the correlation between Global Warming and CO2 levels in the atmosphere.”
The data have proven that CO2 and other greenhouse gasses warm the environment. That is not arguable. It’s actually basic physics. Let’s take look at how this works physically. CO2 absorbs energy at a variety of wavelengths between 2,000 and 15,000 nanometers. Infrared light falls within that spectrum of energy. When the CO2 absorbs the infrared energy it excites an electron into a different shell. When that electron is done vibrating it comes back to its normal state and shoots the infrared in random direction. Not all of it will be shot back towards earth, some will be shot into space. However the more CO2 added to the atmosphere the more infrared will be shot back towards the earth. When that infrared bounces back off the earth it will then be absorbed by CO2 again the cycle repeats. The more CO2 there is the more bouncing between earth and the atmosphere occurs, therefore warming the planet.
Scientists don’t just make up terms like greenhouse gasses because they’re bored, that name was made because of this phenomenon. Water vapor is the strongest greenhouse gas in our atmosphere, but it doesn’t stay in the atmosphere very long and fluctuates daily. That is your humidity level. Methane is a greenhouse gas far more potent in its infrared trapping abilities than CO2 but it doesn’t stay in the atmosphere very long either. CO2 stays the atmosphere for 300-1,000 years. We obviously should try to cut down on CO2 as much as possible without actively harming people. The poor would lose the most if we cut started really cracking down on CO2 so we need to take it slowly, but work towards it nonetheless.
Also, it is very much proven that CO2 has had a big role to play in warming the climate times in our past. This is a link to a graph that shows the changes in both temperature and CO2 over the past 400,000 years. Using molecular Proxies. You can see that CO2 and the global temperature are connected at the hip. One rises as the other does, at least in the past 400,000 years that has been the case.
Another reason this cycle isn’t good, is because glaciers trap enormous amounts of CO2 as they freeze. As they begin to thaw, they release that CO2 into the atmosphere. Which can cause huge, nonlinear changes, in the temperature and climate. It becomes a self feeding cycle. Obviously there are other factors that contribute to warming the planet than just CO2 but it’s very obvious it’s not something we should just ignore.
Are you trying to say they haven’t proven that the current raise in CO2 has caused the current temperature changes? If so state it more clearly. Even if you are saying that. It is physically, literally physically, impossible for CO2 levels to rise and it not have a warming effect on the climate. That doesn’t mean the temperature can’t drop while CO2 is raising, it just won’t drop as quickly as it would have if that rise would’ve never occurred. The question that should follow this fact is, would the temperature be rising anyway, what is the evidence to support one side or the other? That’s a question I’m fine with debating. However to say CO2 has not been proven to warm the environment is simply wrong.
The problem demanding urgency was also not incorrect. They were wrong about the time line, sure. However as I just stated this molecule can stay in the atmosphere for 1,000 years. And a lot of the times the climate doesn’t react to something gradually, it’s usually a sudden snap (in geologic terms, sudden can mean anywhere from a decade to a couple centuries) for example look at Dansgaard-Oeschger events. There were 25 different episodes of sudden warming (over 25 degrees Fahrenheit in less than 20 years) scattered throughout the Pleistocene. Some of the changes that caused these events could’ve happened centuries before the sudden and abrupt changes happened.
I would agree that the world ending soon, may have been exaggerated, however I will not agree that we shouldn’t be taking action as fast as possible. As i stated earlier, they were wrong about the timeline, but that does not mean that there can’t be a sudden and unpredictable change sometime in the future due to our actions today.
lV. The Sea Level Catastrophe is fabricated.
The ice glaciers are not melting due to artificial habits that are man-made.
They have been melting since the previous Ice Age and it hasn't gotten worse currently. As it stands, the melting has been fairly consistent for ten thousand years.
This is also patently false. The glaciers have not been continuously melting since the end of the Pleistocene at all. You’re saying that as if it’s been a straight line of square mile being melted over the past 11,600 years. That is not true. The Little Ice Age saw glaciers thousands of square miles bigger than they are now. That was only about 500 years ago roughly. Also sometimes they are melting faster than others. It also depends on what specific glaciers you are talking about. Over the past 100 years, glaciers in Greenland are melting faster than they have in the past 11,600 years at least. I’ll also admit that is one group of glaciers, but Antarctica is melting faster now than it was during the 1600’s. Also different, thicker, parts of the glacier melting, that were not previously melting. That is very important to consider.
The article you mentioned only referenced one glacier and that is probably true. However there are a lot more glaciers than the ones in the Himalayas. That is nit picking at its finest.
“None of society's solutions to these crises have been rational. The costs of implementing techniques to address the destruction caused by Global Warming only serve to reduce the quality of life and means of transportation.
It appears that a lot of this media hype is beneficial for politicians to strengthen their reputation but does nothing for everybody else.
As science has proven, these phenomena are completely natural and there isn't anything abnormal about these occurrences.”
Society does have rational solutions, they just take time to implement. Nuclear energy, solar, wind, hydro, etc. they’re all possible fixes to this current issue we are facing, but they take time to get perfect.
The costs of not fixing the issues we pose to the climate will serve to do a lot more than effect transportation and overall quality of life. If we have another DO event, another younger dryas type situation, another Bolling-Allerod type issue, our civilization will end. It doesn’t have to be soon for that to be true. Science has proven repeatedly that the climate is fickle, and can change in such a sudden and dramatic way that can seriously effect life on earth. It has also been proven CO2 is almost always a factor in these changes. Even in a cold spell. Because if the glaciers melt too quickly the fresh water they dump into the oceans can cause the Gulf Stream to become disrupted. The Southern Hemisphere close to Antarctica will stay warm, maybe even get warmer, while the northern hemisphere can plunge into ice age type temperatures.
That’s precisely what happened during the younger dryas some place saw 18 degree F drop in temperature in a matter of decades. Antarctica warmed. There’s endless debate about what caused the younger dryas, but CO2 easily could’ve had a role in it. You can see on the graph this link has below that just before the younger dryas, about 500 years or so, there was a dramatic warming event called the Bolling-Allerod. Dome C in this graph is Antarctica.
Either of these events would’ve ended society. We need to make sure we are doing what we can to make sure we are not a factor in warming the climate as much as possible. We may not cause these scale of events right now, but if the earth keeps warming, naturally or not, and we are causing a warming effect through our emissions, it makes this more likely.
I also think you were trying to say “science has proven that this change we are experiencing is within the realm of natural variability.” Not necessarily that all of these changes are 100% natural.
Also the last and possibly most important point I’ll make on this topic. Science is supposed to get stuff wrong. So these articles and rebuttals you used as evidence for your point doesn’t mean what you think it means in my opinion. If scientists never admitted they were wrong, that would be a problem. However just because they were wrong about certain details like the timeline on a certain event, doesn’t necessarily mean they’re wrong about said event possibly taking place at some point. It also doesn’t mean they’re wrong about climate change. It just means they got some small details wrong.
Round 2
I would agree that the world ending soon, may have been exaggerated, however I will not agree that we shouldn’t be taking action as fast as possible. As i stated earlier, they were wrong about the timeline, but that does not mean that there can’t be a sudden and unpredictable change sometime in the future due to our actions today.
So one part has been exaggerated.
Since the risks of Global Warming are played up by politicians and environmental activists as per the description, this rumor actually led to unnecessary worry in the media calling for drastic action.
Our policies for how we actually fight the effects of Global Warming have amounted to ridiculous costs. Were it not for the demands of politicians incentivizing uninformed civilians to make a move, we could take the time to analyze said approaches and adjust them accordingly. We have more time than was previously thought.
Con's issue with the debate resolution makes no sense, I must add.
Pro seemingly made a mistake in the title of this debate. This will be the only time I argue semantics, then I will begin picking apart his arguments. The title reads: The actual risks of Global Warming are overestimated He said nothing about man made global warming.
Why does this matter if it is man-made or not? What is wrong with the semantics? Man-made or not, it is my job to prove that most of this is played up for reactions.
On top of all of this astonishing evidence demonstrating the realities of Global Warming, another thing people don't know is that the government has been utilizing propaganda in order to manufacture more electric cars.
My opponent isn’t actually arguing anything that this debate is about. He started with trying to use science about CO2 and sea level measurements but has since abandoned that direction of debating.
He is now only pointing out the benefits for politicians to hype up the potential downsides of global warming. Without even saying what he thinks the downsides would be.
He cited my counter to his poorly written title, but apparently didn’t read what I said. I pointed why it’s important to nail down exactly what we are talking about because if he believes global warming itself isn’t a risk, he is completely wrong. As i pointed out very clearly, the greatest mass extinction that has ever occurred on earth was due to global warming. Is he saying that isn’t a risk? I asked him to clarify exactly what period of change we are supposed to be discussion, but he has failed to do so.
If he doesn’t think I should bring that up he should be very clear about what we are talking about exactly. Are we talking about the Medieval warming period, the Minoan warming period, the 11,600 year event? What are we talking about? If it’s just global warming he is simply wrong. If it’s the modern change we are experiencing we can go into much deeper detail than we are now, but he seems to be hesitant to do that.
“Our policies for how we actually fight the effects of Global Warming have amounted to ridiculous costs. Were it not for the demands of politicians incentivizing uninformed civilians to make a move, we could take the time to analyze said approaches and adjust them accordingly. We have more time than was previously thought.”
This is not the argument we are supposed to be having. He is trying to change the subject. He said the risks of global warming are over estimated. What does this have to do with the risks? We are supposed to be talking about what the risks are, and whether or not they are overestimated. As I have clearly pointed out the risks of a warming globe are not over estimated. If he would point to the last 200 years of warming temperatures, he would still be wrong. Sure there are more plants now than possibly ever. That can only last so long if the planet keeps warming. The growing area on earth will become smaller and smaller if the temperatures continue to rise. Where I live in Arkansas there are many plants that can’t grow effectively here simply because it is too hot. That list of plants will continue to grow in this state and others if the temperatures keep rising. Temperatures rising will also lead to a higher chance of a dramatic cold spell occurring due to the Gulf Stream being interrupted as it was during the younger dryas. If that doesn’t happen, meaning if the glaciers don’t end up melting quickly enough to cause such a disruption, there will still be many effects felt here on earth. Harsher growing seasons, potentially more severe storms, ocean level rises, etc. just because it hasn’t happened yet, doesn’t mean it can’t. And I’m not a person who says we are facing a climate catastrophe, I think we still have time to pretty much right the ship. However we have to change some things, or we will face a climate catastrophe and it will likely happen so fast we will have little time to adapt and hundreds of millions will die. For example at the start of the LIA the Black Plague hit and killed hundreds of millions of people. The colder temperatures caused food shortages and weakened immune systems and it ravaged and underfed population. If you thinks that’s a coincidence look at the Justinian plague, in 541 AD. 541-543 were some of the coldest years on record. When climate change occurs things we can’t predict happen. And yes, a climate that cools very quickly is a very real risk of the planet warming too fast. That is very well demonstrated. It’s not just warming we have to talk about. There are risks to that as well. Warming can also cause food shortages because it is too hot to effectively farm. It causes millions of heat deaths. It causes droughts. All of that will lead to mass amounts of death. To ignore that is to lie or be willfully uneducated in my opinion.
He also mentioned ocean acidification in the last post as if it isn’t a problem. I would like to know what information he has to present on that topic. I will present the following. When CO2 is absorbed into the ocean it is then changed to H2CO3 which is carbonic acid. This lowering the PH levels in the oceans. The ocean PH levels have become more acidic in the past 200 years. Going from 8.2 to 8.1. To a non chemist that doesn’t sound like much. However that is a 30% increase in acidity in the oceans. Solely due to humans behavior. Plastics also acidify the oceans.
Climate regulating plants and algae can’t survive below 7.95 PH. This has been tested many times in laboratories. We are inching closer and closer to that. At the current rate we will be at that reading in about 25 years. Especially if we keep emitting CO2 as much as we are.
“On top of all of this astonishing evidence demonstrating the realities of Global Warming, another thing people don't know is that the government has been utilizing propaganda in order to manufacture more electric cars.”
Again this is not the argument we are having here, at all. He has also failed to counter any of the “astonishing evidence” I have put forward. This comment makes him sound arrogant in his approach to this topic. He also refused to counter what I said was the most important part of my argument. Maybe they got the timeline wrong on some things. That does not mean they are wrong about the risks global warming can pose to future generations and life on earth as a whole.
I wish he would’ve given me more to work with on this topic considering it took him about 37 hours to respond. He didn’t address any of my points except two he took out of context and didn’t actually think about what I was saying. That type of debating works in politics and social sciences, it does not work in technical hard sciences because you either have evidence or you don’t. No matter how many traps he attempts to set, until he has data and evidence to counter my arguments, none of it will work. I even asked him to bring a lot forward because I am a chemistry and geoscience major and really wanted to test my knowledge but I was left disappointed. Hopefully he can come back with some ammunition next round.
He didn’t address my point about the P/T extinction. The snaps the climate tends to make once a tipping point is reached. Younger dryas, DO events, the Bolling-Allerod, etc. he has only spoken about how he distrusts government in a sense. Which is fine. He is pushing a conspiratorial way of thinking about this topic, and sure some people maybe even most in power are piggy backing off of this phenomenon. However, that doesn’t mean the science about what is happening, what has happened before, and what can happen in the future is wrong.
He also failed to address my points about CO2 because he is wrong. He failed to address my points about the variation in glacier sizes throughout the Holocene.
Just as glaciers vary in size, the ocean levels vary in depth. In the little Ice Age the glaciers were much much larger than now, that means invariably the temperatures were colder and the ocean levels were lower. As the earth rebounds from that LIA, which is what is happening now, and probably would’ve happened anyway, the glaciers melt and the sea level rises. The difference now is what humans are doing to the climate because before the past 200 years we were not dumping CO2 and CH4 into the atmosphere at insane amounts. Us doing that will further the temperature rise the planet most likely would’ve already experienced, it will also exacerbate the potential for non linear, world changing events.
My opponent has failed to address any of the points I’ve made with data. He has only changed the topic to the government bashing the risks of this issue to further their careers and ideologies. Which is most likely the case, no one is debating that, because that is not what this debate is about. This debate is about the risks of global warming, it would be appreciated if we could get back on topic.
Round 3
Forfeited
I am genuinely disappointed my opponent has decided to forfeit. I joined this website for one purpose, to sharpen my ideas. I didn’t come here solely to win debates, but rather make sure the opinions I have can stand up to scrutiny.
i was hoping to have a long forum debate on this topic to make sure my opinions and data on the topic could stand up to people who disagree. Sadly he did not feel like debating the topic at hand any further than his first post after he read my first post. I believe he realized he stepped out of his league and understanding of the topic. It is completely factual that his position on this topic is utterly and entirely wrong. I have proven that to him which is why he forfeited this round. I would have respect for him if he admitted he didn’t have a complete understanding and is doing research based off what I have stated. I don’t think he will do this however. i wish he would because everyone realizes the real world of science is far more interesting than any fantasy world people can create. So Lancelot please consider dedicating a lot of time to studying this topic, and the other topic we are debating, because I believe you will have your mind blown.
I believe I deserve the vote in all categories except maybe conduct. I am certainly stand off ish in my approach to debates about science. This isn’t because I’m a dick or a mean person, but because in science you are either right or wrong. There is no in between. If you look at science journals there is a constant battle going on. Studies being published, other scientists publishing reasons they are wrong. The arguments are rarely nice or civilized. The idea that people should be nice in disagreements comes from political disagreements in my opinion. In social sciences there is an in between, in hard sciences (chemistry, physics, geology, biology) there is no in between. People have to be willing to sound like a mean person, because the other person is wrong and they need to know that.
I wish Lancelot would’ve posted an argument. I know he’s active as he’s been asking me to vote in his other debates and arguing with me in the comment section of other debates. I just don’t think he has the knowledge to debate with me on this topic, or on the topic of the other debate we are having.
I hope he responds in the next turn, I deserve the vote for every option except conduct. With that said forfeiting is also bad conduct. I will let the voters decide that.
Round 4
Extend. ^^^
good debate.
Thanks for the vote. My only issue would be that the quantity of sources shouldn’t get the sources vote solely based off that. The quality of his sources were pretty low and didn’t have much correlation with his claim. Even if they were deeply cross referenced it still didn’t add much to the debate.
I’ve got no objections.
Also forgot to mention, if you have any questions or concerns about my vote, just DM or tag me. I'll try my best to fix them.
Thanks for the vote!
Arguments:
To start off, the burden of proof in this debate is clearly on PRO. Not only is he the instigator and the claimant, he is also making a claim that goes against the status quo (I.e., the common understanding the actual risks of global warming is accurate).
Let’s analyze it round by round.
R1: PRO starts off with an argument that CO2 is necessary. This argument is irrelevant, as the fact that some CO2 is necessary for life doesn’t negate that too much CO2 is bad for life.
His second argument is that the correlation between CO2 and global warming is unproven. Although usually a claim that something is unproven doesn’t need a source, in this case, because he is ignoring widespread scientific consensus that the link is proven, he needs some strong proof. PRO fails to provide this.
His third argument is that the effects of climate change have been exaggerated, and provides a link to prove this. This looks somewhat convincing, so I’ll see how CON responds to this.
His fourth argument is that the sea level catastrophe is fabricated. Again, I’ll see CON’s response.
His fifth argument is that the worries are causing more problems than they’re solving. This is irrelevant, as the societal net harms/benefits of taking action on climate change are outside the scope of this debate.
Now onto CON, who quickly makes short work of arguments one and two.
He then shows how CO2 (and global warming) is a serious enough threat that the risks are significant (and therefore not exaggerated), so he wins argument three.
He refutes argument four with a counter-source... some back-and-forth here, I’ll see how PRO responds.
Furthermore, he presents a very strong constructive case about the enormous risks of global warming if it is ignored.
R2: PRO switches gears and focuses on media perception. He completely drops his R1 args, so I’ll treat them as refuted by CON. He also dropped CON’s R1 args, so I’ll treat them as uncontested by PRO.
CON points out that PRO is straying from the resolution in terms of what risks he’s claiming are exaggerated. Also, that political grandstanding doesn’t change the environmental risks of global warming.
R3: PRO forfeits and CON extends.
R4: PRO waives (de facto) and CON doesn’t forfeit.
It started off pretty well, but losing 2 rounds of a 4 round debate, after dropping pretty much every single R1 argument, was too much. CON’s points on the risks of global warming went uncontested, while PRO’s points were refuted as irrelevant, poorly sourced, or simply false.
Sources:
Both sides did their due diligence with sources. Although PRO used more of them, he had a greater burden of proof, so it balances out.
S/G:
OK from both sides.
Conduct:
PRO forfeit, so it goes to CON.
Feedback:
To PRO:
Try to stick to the resolution, and focus more about specific, impactful examples of exaggerated risks. Keep your case simple – don’t gish gallop points that are very easily refuted. Also, don’t overstretch yourself – if you had a good R3 and R4, it wouldn’t have been too late to mount a comeback.
To CON:
You had some great points – try to keep them organized and clear. Also, when refuting your opponent’s points, try adding block quotes so it’s clear what you’re replying too.
Overall, good debate from both sides.
That was such a fun debate!
I'm re-posting this challenge.
Care to vote gentleman
You should read that britannica link. The thing that seems to have caused the Permian Triassic extinction at least in some part was heightened levels of co2
I don’t believe that humans are the driving force of the current climate change we are experiencing. We could discuss that, but to say the risks of global warming are over estimated is just incorrect.
No, there is no evidence to support the claim you are making right now.
Let’s go mate, let’s get your argument in today I just responded.
No biggie.
On the DO events I miss typed, I meant 15 degrees in 20 years or less not 25
I also forgot to address the point of ocean acidification. Feel free to bring that up in your next argument lol
Lmao this a fun topic. I just like having the discussion on this topic with people who have truly considered their stance on the issue.
Better go easy then, Heisenberg.
I just wanted to point out to you, that I am a chemistry and geoscience major. I understand this topic in very deep detail. Simple points that don’t carry much thought won’t stand up to the amount of research and time I’ve put into to studying the changing climate.
Not trying to sound cocky, I just want you to know that it would be nice if you could bring some really solidly researched and thought out opinions on this topic. It’ll make the debate more entertaining.