Is Global Warming Man-made or not?

Americans are skeptical of their role in global warming. They do not buy the information provided to them by the scientists that easily. According to a joint poll conducted by ABC news, Time and Ohio State University and Stanford University in 2006, only three out of ten people believed that global warming was caused by them. Even more shocking, Lindzen, a top climate-scientist is also one of the Americans to be in doubt of the accusation put on human beings of causing global warming. There are many scientists who oppose his view too. One can see a huge debate between the scientists and the skeptics whether global-warming is man-made or not. (“Why Americans are skeptical of their role in global warming?” LiveScience.com – Environment).
On one hand, there are many reasons to why the majority of the American public does not hold themselves responsible for their contribution to global warming. On the other, scientists are agitated to know that the public thinks of their well-researched claims to be a hoax. Most of the people are not certain what exact actions of theirs actually cause global warming. They are not ready to believe that the problem of global warming exists and that it is going to have terrible consequences on our life. For many Americans if it is a problem that does not have a solution they do not care to bother, because it is too upsetting then. (“Why Americans are skeptical of their role in global warming?” LiveScience.com – Environment).

There is another good reason for the public to be suspicious of the scientists who are busy raising alarms about global warming caused by human activities. If the research report directs the human activities as a factor, the scientist has a high chance of being granted with greater incentives. Besides the government, it is the business giants who also fund these scientists. Some examples are Virgin Atlantic Airways founder Richard Branson and ExxonMobil. Not only that, the business organizations also honor them with prestigious awards, book contracts, speaking fee and a chance to participate in TV interviews. With so much recognition waiting for these scientists, one can easily doubt their information to be inaccurate.

Lindzen, the eminent climate-scientist seems to have an answer to the queries of the resentful panel of scientists who believe humans to be the main cause for rising temperature of the mother planet. He says that, “the earth is always warming or cooling by as much as a few tenths of a degree a year.” He holds the view-point that people have hardly a role to play in heating up of the earth. It is natural for earth to warm up and cool down. He asserts that people are living with the false assumption that our planet has a perfect, never-changing temperature patterns. He also conveys in his essay that scientific research can never be believed to be hundred percent accurate. This explains that we should not believe in predictions made by scientists for the years as far as 2040. Further, he supports his position by providing the example of the decades of the postwar boom when the temperature of earth came down instead of rising up due to increase in carbon emissions during that time. Surprisingly, he expresses positive view on warming up of the earth. According to him, increase in green house gases might result in a boon to agriculture and that warmer planet is certainly more preferred than a colder one.
Tom Bethell, says in his article, ‘Global Warming: A Role for the Sun,’ that global warming is not man-made but a phenomenon that is caused by the presence of the Sun. This phenomenon is not alien to other planets in the solar system either. He draws our attention to the various scientific reports in the past that had reported about climatic changes in almost all the planets. There are no humans living on that planet, even then the author pulls out the common thread between the climatic change in earth and other planets to be the Sun.
Despite all these claims made by Lindzen and few other scientists, William K. Stevens points out in his article that the media hype over melting Arctic and the wide-spread fear caused by the disastrous Katrina has made people less skeptical of their contribution to global warming. Also, the issue is being talked about in the 2008 presidential campaigns repeatedly. He also mentions that the 2001 report released by the panel gave a ‘likely’ rating to the probability that human activity caused 60-90% of the warming. In his opinion, we all are engaged in a “titanic global experiment.” The more advanced our research would be the more clear will our thoughts become.
In conclusion, our views regarding the causes of global warming will keep changing based on the new- advanced reports and the various events that might occur in the nature. The percentage of skeptics might go up or that of the believers might go down. No one really knows what might happen in the future, but the debate between the skeptics and the scientists who believe in man-made global warming will go on forever.
While editing the information on global warming in Wikipedia, I did not feel comfortable about adding something to a featured article of Wikipedia. The article on global warming, in Wikipedia, is identified as one of the best articles. This made me a lot more nervous about what the consequences might be. I just wrote in a general statement about American people being skeptical of the scientists holding them responsible for causing global warming. Overall, it did not feel that good to write in just a general statement about an important issue like global warming.