It's not MY evidence. It's evidence collected by thousands of trained professional scientists all over the globe who have been studying the issue for many decades.
Could you please provide it then? The problem is that climate modelling is still very crude at this stage... you have to consider this. I don't know if you've ever been involved in large scale modelling but models of this scale are imprecise and limited by technology.
I understand the mechanisms of global warming quite well. It's really very simple: CO2 and Methane trap heat in the atmosphere. This can be proven with a simple lab experiment.
Climate modelling is vastly more complicated than this and the models that they use are imprecise.
Levels of CO2 and Methane in the atmosphere have risen dramatically over the last 50 years. This has been measured all around the globe.
Compared to when? There have been very high CO2 levels in the past compared to now. But it is considered higher now than it has been in the last few million years. But a few million years is nothing compared to the entire history of the Earth.
Global temperatures have been rising. This has been measured all around the globe.
Rising air temperatures have led to melting ice in Greenland, Antactica, the Arctic Ocean, the Alps, the Himalayas, Mount Kilimanjaro, and on and on and on. Melting ice has caused sea levels to rise.
The sea level has been increasing for over five thousand years though... and has risen and fallen in the distant past. What is your point with this? And besides the sea levels are rising because of warming water mostly, not melting glaciers.
In the 70s people were freaking out about global cooling because the temperature in the northern hemisphere fell.
Rising air temperatures have caused average ocean temperatures to rise, causing seawater to expand, also raising sea levels. This has been measured all around the globe.
Yes it is rising but over what time period? It has only been measured for a short period of time. How do you know that this is unusual or something to worry about? And this has been revised before due to poor modeling...
Most people feel a moral obligation to inform themselves about a danger which may threaten their world, or destroy other species or their habitats.
Yes exactly, which is why I have asked for evidence. People should feel an obligation to seek the truth, not just what is the popular viewpoint at the time. You also need to consider a cost-benefit analysis of global warming if it exists - are the benefits greater if we continue to pollute and learn to deal with the earth being hotter, or should pollution be moderated now?
People rarely ask that question though and tend to make snap judgments about what people's response should be, but I think the economics should always be considered.
