Mankind Is the Main Cause of Global Warming

Interesting points, Ron-Paul. Sorry for leaving the debate to the last minute, I've been rather busy of late. Thanks for taking all this time to type out a response.I. The current state of the galaxy AND the sun? That is very unusual, since they are not necessarily correlate.I.i. The Rest of the Solar SystemIt is interesting that Mars is brought up here, a planet that we don't really have information for before 1970 and that we are only scratching the surface on in terms of dust storms and their planetary effects etc. but let's look at the argument..."carbon dioxide "ice caps" near Mars's south pole had been diminishing for three summers in a row." Three years? How does one infer warming from this? However, I shall quote a climate science website..."This is essentially due to large scale dust storms that were common back then (1977), compared to a lower level of storminess now. The mean temperature on Mars, averaged over the Martian year can change by many degrees from year to year, depending on how active large scale dust storms are." Thus the cause of the three - year - melting in ice caps? Dust storms, which, by the way, act like Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere.There has been no direct observation of global warming on Triton. There has been an observance of greater luminosity, but that is because Neptune does have changes (those causing Triton to seem brighter) but they are seasonal as well - a year on Neptune is 165 years on earth. Neptune is entering it's Summer.As for Jupiter, it is not warming at all. Predictions say it will warm because of storm and dust movements, not because of solar radiation. As for Pluto, we can go back to Neptune. Pluto's orbit is 248 earth years - this is like observing earth for three weeks. How do we know where it is on it's orbit? A probe has never even actually been sent to Pluto! I.ii.I agree that less cosmic rays will be hitting the earth. However, the connection between cosmic rays and cloud cover is uncertain, and, more importantly in this argument, cosmic rays do not correlate with temperature AFTER 1994 - so really this could be an argument that global warming DOES have human causes, because, as this chart shows, temperatures have gone up dramatically where cosmic rays have gone down only slightly of late. (7)II.Humans, of course, are the main internal cause of global warming!II.i.It is impossible for an ocean oscillation to create or retain heat of it's own. It merely circulates heat throughout the atmosphere and oceans, (5) which is why the atmosphere becomes warmer at some points. If you think about it, anything else would be ludicrous - currents CAUSE heat? Impossible. There are short term effects of heating in the atmosphere (and cooling) from the circulation, but what this chart shows (5) is how these circulations differ from actual changes in heat. II.ii.I refer the audience to my earlier graph, which suggests that there is no causal effect between cosmic rays and global warming over the long term. I also refer my audience to four studies that were conducted on the subject after Svensmark's 1998.... These conclude that"no statistically significant correlations were found between any of the four cloud parameters and GCR"- Kristjansson et al. (2008)"no response of global cloud cover to Forbush decreases at any altitude and latitude." - Calogovic et al. (2010)""galactic cosmic rays appear to play a minor role for atmospheric aerosol formation events, and so for the connected aerosol-climate effects as well." Kulmala et al. (2010)What my graph here shows is that the third (and most recent of all four studies, including my opponent's) premise would seem to be correct.III.Interestingly, the opposition's graph only goes back 1000 years. To give the audience a more holistic picture, here is one of five year averages in the northern hemisphere going back to 0 CE. What is important to take into account here is that the sun does indeed affect earth's temperature, but in different ways and at different times, and in greater amounts of time than of late. My opposition says that the Medieval Warming Period was warmer than today, however, this is not so. The misinterpretation of data is a result of the restrictedness of the data - most of it was taken in the North Atlantic and Greenland, where various forms of paleoatmospheric research show that it was indeed much warmer today. HOWEVER, in the tropical Pacific it was much cooler than today. Overall, as my graph has shown, we have reached global temperatures that are on average MUCH warmer than the averages of the Medieval Warming period!And here is another graph similar to that of my opponent but more specific.... Different colours showing different areas/forms of evidence from a variety of sources.All in all what I am saying here is that in 1950 my opposition could have seemed quite correct in his graphing, with perhaps a few discrepancies concerning the rapidity of temperature increase. However, it has CONTINUED to warm, and this is what is worrying to scientists. It continues to warm to the point that, if it should continue at current rates, the earthly survival of plants and animals may be threatened.IV.Another used - to - be - true argument. Once more, this graph shows that over the past several decades, temperature and solar activity have gone in opposite directions. Why is this? Because of the anthropogenic effect. Note that this following graph deals with WORLD temperatures rather than US specific, which are neither accurate nor credible as evidence of global climate as a whole. (Different places on earth experience different warmings/coolings at different times.V.This point is, I believe, backed by flawed logic - both are cases of warming, but with different causes. If a logger pull out an axe and chops down a tree, then points to a tree that fell naturally and says "the tree that I just chopped down fell naturally because it looks the same as the other one" would you believe the logger's "logic" or would you believe what you saw with your own eyes? There would seem to be many poins here that are not correlated (thus making them all true to be more unlikely) and many that do not seem to be backed by credible research. There have been many causes of warming on a global level in the past, humans are just another. And we are a natural cause because, contrary to what blind followers of the religion that externalities to short term profits do not exist, governments, businesses, and individuals are fallible and can cause problems on an environmental scale.However, I appreciate my opponent's points and look forward to reading his criticisms of mine.1. http://www.skepticalscience.com...2. http://www.realclimate.org...3. http://www.newscientist.com...4. http://www.skepticalscience.com...5. http://www.skepticalscience.com...6. http://scienceblogs.com...7. http://www.skepticalscience.com...8. http://www.newscientist.com...9. http://en.wikipedia.org...10. http://www.skepticalscience.com...11. http://en.wikipedia.org...12. http://www.skepticalscience.com...