A debate on a topic that I am not mentioning in the topic line.

Okay, I'll take up my burden, I'm just used to PRO first, CON second. Should of just made the topic a negative. I construct a case, then I'll rebut. But, I would like to mention that the semi-semantics tactic was uncool. Admittedly though, it would have been unwinnable to say that man solely responsible. I should have said the main cause. Anyways, I rambling, so... The basic support for global warming is that temperatures are rising, and at the same time, greenhouse gases are too. This is a flawed support. My first point is that the form of this support is a common logical fallacy. According to the Encyclopedia of Errors in Reasoning, this fits a cum hoc, ergo propter hoc format. That is, it is saying that because two things occur together, they are causally related. This does not follow. As an example, a graph from the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster shows that global temperatures have increased as the amount of pirates has decreased. They use this to prove that the decrease of piracy has caused global warming. Obviously this is not the case. This is the same format used to "prove" global warming. As CO2 and other gases have increased in the atmosphere, global temperatures have risen. It is a logical fallacy to say that they are in a causal relationship. So right off the bat, global warming is not supported by logic. Obviously, something is a little off here. My next point is that temperature increase is not as dramatic as environmental groups would like you to think. For example, according to the Goddard Institute of Space Studies, global temperatures have only risen about 1 degree Fahrenheit since the end of the Little Ice Age, in 1880. That means we are only one degree warmer than a little Ice Age. Unfortunately, GISS data outside the US is not as accurate as GISS data in the States, and the GISS data from the US alone shows only a third of a degree increase. If the most accurate temperature collection system shows only a third of a degree increase from an ice age, is that really a cause for alarm? Moving on, if we look at Vostok ice core samples from Antarctica, we see that the temperature cycles, and that the current temperature rise started about 25000 years ago, before any industrial pollution occurred. Also, today's temperatures are significantly lower than those that we have seen in other warm periods. Today's temperatures fit perfectly with temperature trends, and are not anomalous or unusual in any way. My third point is that CO2 does not cause global temperatures to rise. The Vostok ice core samples which I mentioned earlier also allow scientists to measure CO2 changes in the atmosphere. What we often see, is that CO2 will not correspond with temperature changes, sometimes it goes up while the temperature goes down, and vice versa. Other times, temperature goes up, but CO2 doesn't rise for another thousand years or so. More recently, the GISS data shows a thirty year decrease in temperature in between 1940 and 1970, yet CO2 is rising at the same rate as today. Fourth, according the SYR Appendix Glossary, the greenhouse effect works when the greenhouse gases absorb infrared radiation emitted by the earth's surface, the atmosphere, and clouds, which they then send out from all sides, including towards the earth's surface. According to NASA climatologists, this means that the upper atmosphere should warm first. NASA has had satellites measuring the upper atmosphere since 1979. NASA satellites however, have shown that the upper atmosphere has maintained a fairly constant temperature since 1979, with a change of about .03 degrees Celsius. My final point is that the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is nowhere near enough to significantly change the earth's temperature. The Mauna Loa Observatory has measured the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere to be about 380 ppm. To put this in perspective, if the atmosphere was a football field, nitrogen would take up 76 yards. Another 20 yards or so would be filled by oxygen. 3.9 of the remaining yards would be filled by various other gases, mostly water vapor, not including CO2 or methane, methane would take up all of the remaining space, except for a pencil line thick space reserved for CO2. This analogy was from Michael Crichton's novel, State of Fear. A pencil thick line in a football field is virtually nothing. In fact, scientists Dr. John Christy of the University of Alabama in Huntsville, and Dr. Roy Spencer of NASA/Marshall published an article in Nature showing that the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere could change earth's cooling processes by less than 1%. So, pretty much, the basic premise of global warming, that CO2 causes global temperatures to increase is completely unsupported by scientific fact. Sorry for that wall of text there, but anyways... First my opponent brings up the UN thing. I would like to point out that if it is undoubtable, then how can I provide so much evidence to the contrary? Furthermore, this is nothing more than a fallacious appeal to authority. 60 years ago, the scientific community was in consensus that eugenics was a good idea (State of Fear, 2003 HarperCollinsPublishers). Science is pretty much trial and error, so something that is undoubtable just means we should doubt it even more. Greenhouse gases are at their highest? Again, cum hoc, ergo propter hoc. Logical fallacies don't fly here, sorry. My opponent then provides a 2.5-4.0C degree increase. AS shown by these guys (http://www.skeptic.com...) climate models are just as good as any guess. Then, my esteemed opponent brings up the fact that recent years have been some of the hottest on record. My opponent neglected to mention that the "record" started in the middle of the little ice age. Obviously being warmer than a little ice age is very frightening, I know, but that does not mean that global warming is a major concern My opponent then brings up the fact that the Artic ice cap is smaller. Unfortunately for my opponent, this began about 2000 years ago (State of Fear, 2003 HarperCollinsPublishers). "Melting glaciers and polar ice sheets could cause sea levels to rise by up to 43cm by 2100, and the rise for the next two centuries is predicted to be nearly double that figure." Cool science experiment, fill up a cup of water close to overflowing. Place it on a paper towel. Then add ice until water reaches the brim. Wait a few hours, surprise, the cup has not overflowed, and the towel is dry except for a small amount of water left from condensation. Ice displaces more water than it takes up when it melts. "Man-made emissions of greenhouse gases have probably already caused the increase in sea levels observed over the past century, says the report." Sea level measurement is a fiercely debated part of science, and by some measures, sea level has not changed significantly at all (State of Fear, 2003 HarperCollinsPublishers). "* Arctic sea ice has shrunk by 2.7 per cent per decade since 1978 and by 7.4 per cent each decade during the summer months. * Five of the six warmest years have occurred in the past five years, with 2005 and 1998 being the two warmest years on record. * Global average sea levels rose at a rate of about 2mm a year between 1961-2003, and by an average of more than 3mm a year between 1993-2003. * Mountain glaciers and polar land ice have in general melted faster than they have formed over the past 40 years. * Permafrost temperatures have increased on average and the area covered by seasonally frozen ground has decreased by about 7 per cent over the past 50 years." *probably, wow, that's convincing, anyways, I've rebutted this already. *rebutted already *rebutted already *I'm not denying that this is occurring, I am saying it has been occurring for 2000 years. *see above I've rebutted my opponent, and constructed a fool-proof argument myself. Obviously, you should vote for me.