Question: What causes global warming? is it due to our solar system not only rotating around our galaxy, but also moving up and down?

  1. Umm – huh? Global warming is something happening on the Earth, and is probably nothing to do with the rest of the solar system or the galaxy.

    Turns out global warming is to do with humans emitting a lot of gases into the atmosphere that capture sunlight a bit too well (such as carbon dioxide) and getting rid of things that take up that carbon dioxide (such as trees). Doing that means sunlight is absorbed, but not emitted so well. Earth heats up.

    The main thing is not the heat, but rather that the earth’s climate is disturbed. That brings heat to some places and cold to others – you ruin the earth’s equilibrium. Things become less stable.

    Basically 95% or more of scientists who study this agree that it’s a problem and that humans are responsible. If you read otherwise somewhere, make sure you question where you’re getting your information from. Particularly if it’s a politician or someone who is not a scientist.

    So we should probably reduce the amount of carbon dioxide we produce, and keep tree levels up. Making changes to the earth’s climate in a short period of time is asking for trouble.

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  2. No idea. From what I understand of global warming (and it’s pretty complicated) the climate on Earth has naturally varied over time but it’s warming up at the minute and this is probably due, at least in part, to human actions.

    The warming is something which occurs within our atmosphere because of increased greenhouse gases which trap the energy of the sun. This keeps more heat around the Earth and messes up our climate. One of the greenhouse gases which contribute to this effect is carbon dioxide, and the biggest emitter of carbon dioxide is human industry. We’re burning fossil fuels and cutting down forests and it’s pumping out the carbon dioxide in a way which was never possible before we became industrialised.

    There’ s pretty good evidence that the increases in carbon dioxide emissions (caused by humans since the industrial revolution) matches up with the increasing temperature, but some people don’t believe that human actions are responsible.

    I hadn’t heard this theory before about ‘galactic warming’ so I don’t think it’s very mainstream, but I may just be out of touch. Which is not to say that’s it’s wrong, but I would want to make sure that it’s not some sort of anti-action-on-climate-change group trying to confuse people.

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Comments

  1. Hi Aimee,

    I’m with Mat – you’re being WAY too open-minded there! 😉 If you consider the amount of energy from the Sun that hits Earth, and the amount of energy from other stars in the Galaxy that hits Earth, global warming CANNOT POSSIBLY have anything to do with the Sun’s position in the Galaxy!

    But, tommy4711, I take this question as good news — it means the people who refuse to accept that people are causing climate change are getting REALLY desperate!

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