Climate change is real and caused by humans

First of all, let me apologize for not making it clear what I meant by "climate change." Global warming is actually an outdated term when it comes to climate change, and most scientists and climate activists prefer to now call it "climate change." Although overall temperatures are gradually getting higher, many people try to argue against the existence of climate change by referencing years when temperatures have been lower than normal. This winter has been a perfect example of this. Therefore, when I speak of "climate change" I am talking about the overall shift in global temperature, weather patterns, and other climate factors that we are already seeing today. Sorry for not making that clear. Because the evidence for actual climate change is unequivocal, with 97% of global scientists supporting it, I will not take most of this argument to show the evidence. The big thing we're debating is whether or not it is caused by humans. To start with evidence that climate change is happening, let me just list a few. First of all, ocean levels have been rising for the past century, with a total rise of about 6.7 inches (which may not sound like much, but globally has large implications, especially if it continues.) In addition, the rate of rising has doubled in the last decade compared with the last century, showing that temperatures are rising, and rising fast. Second, temperatures have been rising since 1880, and the most warming has happened since the 1970s, with the twenty hottest years having been since then. Third, the extent and thickness of Arctic sea ice has been declining rapidly over the past several decades. Fourth, since 1950, the number of record high temperatures has been increasing, while the number of record low temperatures has been decreasing. Fifth, since the Industrial Revolution, the acidity of the oceans has increased by about 30 percent! I will stop listing evidence here, so I can move on to why climate change is caused by humans, but I would end by reminding Con, as I said before, the 97 PERCENT OF ALL SCIENTISTS AGREE WITH THIS THEORY. Does that not mean anything? Now for some rebuttals against why Con said before. First of all to respond to what you said about how much CO2 humans release into the atmosphere compared to the amount released by the rest of the planet. It sounds like your saying that we have released 0.00022 percent of all CO2 ever released by the earth's mantle. This number doesn't have much relevance, and I will use a different one to respond. Humans currently release about 30 GT (giga-tons) of carbon each year, while the earth emits about 780 GT a year. While this may seem to show that humans aren't the problem, it actually shows that we are. Before we began emitting so much CO2, the system was in balance, with the earth and ocean absorbing the 780 GT that it emitted. This kept the CO2 level in the atmosphere between 180 and 280 parts per million for 800,000 years. With the added human carbon emission, the CO2 level is at 400 parts per million and still rising. For another rebuttal, I would respond to what you say about how significant climactic changes have happened throughout geologic time. This is true, but this does not make the climate change happening right now any less relevant. These changes in climate you speak of are called "Milankovitch cycles", which have to do with the periodic oscillation of the earth's tilt, the precession of the tilt, and changes in earth's elliptical orbit. During each of these warming cycles, CO2 and temperature levels have risen and fallen TOGETHER. Also, the whole sun theory you mention at the end of your argument was supported not by "a large body of scientific research", but by one man, Wei-Hock Soon, who got $1.2 million funding from fossil-fuel companies. I will end with this: climate change is an extremely important and urgent topic that needs to be addressed by the world. People like you (and I mean no offense) need to stop arguing, using the tiniest facts to try and disprove something that is so unanimously agreed upon by scientists worldwide. If you don't believe in science, then that is a whole different matter, but if you do, I cannot fathom why you don't understand this. If we don't have a habitable world to live and be healthy on, how can we solve all our other problems?