[Wholebeing]

Actually, alx13, I don't think it's an assumption. While humans never have all the facts, and all the data, I'm convinced that most of the scientists mentioned in the previous post work hard to nail down as much as possible. If you want the studies, and the evidence, I invite you to go to scholar.google.com and enter "anthropogenic climate change".

And check out this beautifully done animation based on findings from the folks at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies:

http://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2015-w...the-world/

In order to say that global warming is caused by humans, and specifically greenhouse gases, it's necessary to rule out the effects of natural factors and other human factors. To do this, correlation between measured temperature and the measured levels of all these other factors is examined, and climate models are used. As the graphic at the link above makes clear, the effect of greenhouse gases overwhelmed all other influences, during the time when we have direct measurement of these factors.

I submit that arguments like the ones contained in the link you posted, that cast doubt on longer time frame conclusions, based on indirect observations (like ice cores) and unknowable factors such as cosmic ray intensity, are moot. It doesn't matter that many other influences have altered climate in the distant past. What matters is that for the last several hundred years the greenhouse gases produced by humans are very probably causally linked to rises in global temperature during that period, and - assuming that the relative stability the earth has enjoyed in all those other factors for the last 10,000 years continues - if greenhouse gas production continues at its present rate, the temperatures will rise to levels that are dangerous for human life. Moreover, concentrations of CO2 in the oceans will raise the acidity of the oceans to levels that no longer support the ocean food chain, resulting in its collapse. That's what matters.

Given the probabilities, are you really going to take a chance that these associations are not true, base on your belief that humans are too small to have an effect at Planetary level?

If you want to dig into the raw data, and run your own correlations, check out the links at the bottom of the above presentation.

I don't believe in signing a blank check over to any government - in the same way I don't believe in government carte blanch for the oil industry in the leasing of the public commons. And as I said in my first post above, there are a myriad of issues used by those with power to manipulate us, including this one - and that doesn't vitiate the anthropogenic global warming hypothesis in the least. It must be argued on its merits. On the other side of the argument, it's clear that fossil fuel companies have actively funded efforts to deny the science.

Coal companies' secret funding of climate science denial was recently exposed in several bankruptcy filings of major U.S. coal companies:
http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/...al-exposed

The book, The Madhouse Effect, by Michael E. Mann and Tom Toles goes into far more detail of the comprehensive effort made by those with a vested interest in continued business as usual to manipulate the media and the science:
https://www.amazon.com/Madhouse-Effect-T...231177860/