[alx13]

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/

There are 4 points you bring in the discussion, which I would like to address punctually:

1. The animation on the findings from NASA. The reasoning is flawed. The fact that the greenhouse gases increased while the temperature increased doesn't mean that there was any correlation between the two. On that way of thinking one might observe an increase in the population of rabbits in a forest at the same time and conclude that the rabbit population had a direct effect on climate change. There is no evidence that one has any link with the other. They can be totally uncorrelated events.
It's also easy to hide behind "climate models". The climate is a very complex mechanism and I think any climate model is flawed in more ways than one. There is no way to be sure that the models are correct. For that one would need to re-create all conditions that the Earth has inside a lab and then play around with different variables to see which one has an effect. I don't think that will be done any time soon.

2. Your statement "the greenhouse gases produced by humans are very probably causally linked to rises in global temperature". I doubt that very much since it was not proven. Especially since the greenhouse gases concentration supposedly increased by 40% since 1880s, while the Earth temperature increased by 0.7 degrees Celsius (1.4 Fahrenheit), according to the article you posted from bloomberg. Sorry to say but 0.7 degrees in more than 200 years is far from alarming. And also it seems to be fluctuating from one year to another, meaning it can actually decrease in a certain year (like 2016).

3. Your rather alarmist conclusions that "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." There is no evidence of that. Greens and doomists have been calling for the death of the Ocean for a long long time. Nothing happened since and the Ocean is alive and well. The 1st article posted by Geofib shows an article from 94 years ago which was calling the melt of the icebergs... yep, they're still here!

4. The statement that "fossil fuel companies have actively funded efforts to deny the science.". I don't argue with that. But I will argue with the "deny the science" part. The science is far from settled. In fact, it seems to me that it is mostly based on doubtful assumptions and is also grossly overstating the conclusions. Things like "climate will be dangerous to human life in 10y if we don't change", "Oceans will be acid", "icecaps will melt" and so on... To draw such drastic conclusions based on, at best, a long set of assumptions (and at worse on falsified data) is manipulative and hides behind a secret agenda.


To summarize: IMHO there is no "mountain of evidence" for man-made climate change and the "science" behind it is seriously flawed at best, and manipulative at worst.
The article from acting-man posted by Geofib nicely wraps up my opinion on the matter as well as my main critics tied to:
1. the false assertion that the science is “settled” and that no-one should be allowed to question its assertions and 2. the politicization of this branch of science, in particular the drive to impose regulations and taxes that are highly damaging to economic growth and capital accumulation, which would be dubious even if the evidence were less flimsy.