"Earth Hottest It's Been in 400 Years or More"

[Commander Jumper]

Whether or not increased pollution is causing or even factoring into global warming, something does need done about the pollution. The sight of a hazy, polluted sky is absolutely disgusting - not to mention that crap in the air isn't good for anyone to breathe.

By the way, would you believe my grandmother told me I need a car so I can drive a flippin' ONE EIGHTH OF A MILE to her house?! That's ridiculous. Maybe she can't walk one eighth of a mile at her age, but I CAN AND I WILL. No sense in griming up the air more than necessary.

AMEN!!! I walk to the store....I don't let mum drive me.....but when she goes out she needs the car cuz she gets tons of groceries.....I walk to all my friends houses too....

[uknesvuinng]

Humans are puting out more greenhouse gas then the enviroment=humans cause of global warming. 'nuff said.

Spoiler:

I don't have a source offhand

Interesting, as someone made the argument on another forum the other day that the environment is still the largest individual source of greenhouse gases. That's not to say humans aren't doing their part, though.

At last I heard, it's believed the Earth is at the hottest it's been in 2000 years. That means that it was likely hotter in Roman times than it is now. If it was only 400, then that would mean it was once hotter just shortly before the pilgrims landed at Plymouth rock. Apparently we're only catching up to previous temperatures experienced by humans; we haven't hit any highs never before seen by mankind.

[xfkirsten]

There's actually some really interesting research being done in this area. We many actually be seeing temperatures below what they should be right now (called "global dimming"), in part due to the large amounts of air traffic. There was no way to study the correllation between air traffic (specifically contrails) and temperature until September 11, 2001, when flights across the US were grounded. Thus, there were no contrails, and temperature ranges (which are usually a fairly stable measurement) spiked dramatically. A few days is not a whole lot of data, admittedly, at least as far as scientific studies go. Unfortunately, logistically, that's all we're going to get unless there's another major tragedy (god forbid).

It's really sort of a wakeup call as to just how drastically the temperatures have risen. Not only are we seeing such high temperatures, but it actually should even HOTTER. As we cut back on the pollution, it's actually going to get higher as we see the true results of global warming.

PBS did a great special on this subject awhile back called Dimming the Sun.