Global warming is human caused and deserves to be a major concern when deciding American policy.

Watch this as part of C2 ---> C1: The temperature of the earth is increasing because of CO2 increase.Using models tracking only natural sources of CO2 output and heat generation, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has consistently failed to accurately described observed changes in temperature over the past century (2). Only by factoring in human carbon output have scientists been able to effectively describe observations about climate change. Over the past century, an increase of 1 degree Celsius has been observed with the majority of the increase being in the last 20-30 years (again, 2) which lines up perfectly with when the majority of CO2 increase occurred (1).C2: The problems that will face us with increased temperatures.Berkeley professor Bill McKibben has become very vocal in warning about the dangers of the 450 parts per million threshold (We are currently at 394.29 ppm which increases at over 1.5 ppm per year) "If we do not return quickly below 300-350 ppm, the breakup of ice shelves... already underway will accelerate and sea levels will rise fast and high enough to devastate life and wreck civilization The challenge to humanity is immense, with roadblocks of power, desire, and inertia difficult to imagine overcoming in the short time left, but humanity has... the means to avert cataclysm" (7). http://www.youtube.com...C3: What America can do to helpIn order to understand what we can do to stop global warming, we must first understand what the major contributors to climate change are. Making up roughly 60% of CO2 emissions, the use of energy is by far the leader in CO2 emissions with much of this energy being used in homes, transportation, and industry. It is therefore prudent that America should increase its efficiency in these areas. The first step would be to cut subsidies for oil and gas companies which cost America $4 Billion per year (4). This would make coal power almost uncompetitive and cause a huge shift to cleaner sources of energy. This would not necessarily make heating your house more expensive, as the government has already starting weatherizing homes to make them more energy efficient (5). This project has met with brilliant success, and the weatherizing of a million homes each year would add roughly 78,000 jobs to the economy at a time we desperately need it and would not be a significant drain on our budget deficit. "...[F]laws that let the air inside a house go through a full exchange with the outdoors twice an hour, instead of once every two or three hours" (5). Weatherizing households not only saves households energy, but by extension, it saves them money as well. Saving households money would also provide a boost to the economy and increase consumer spending at a time we desperately need it. All estimates indicate that government aid like this would make energy efficiency and clean energy much cheaper when compared with coal. In addition, there is a major difference between subsidies for oil and gas and subsidies for solar power. Oil and gas companies enjoy subsidies in the form of tax-write offs and oil depletion allowances. Solar power companies, by contrast, receive loans from the Treasury and the Fed. This is a much more economically sustainable way to give subsidies, as the interest that is paid would pay for a majority, if not the entire subsidy, which would ultimately make much more sense economically than government hand-outs. Sources: http://www.intmath.com... xDhttp://www.ipcc.ch... http://www.eoearth.org... http://www.nytimes.com... http://www.nytimes.com... http://www.whitehouse.gov... http://grist.org...