Firstly I would like to thank Con for accepting this...
Ice Ages versus Man Made Climate Change.
Firstly I would like to thank Con for accepting this debate. Resolved: Ice Ages are real, we are currently in an interglacial period and the Earth will warm further with or without the influences of mankind. Ice Ages are real (I don't expect you to argue that ice ages are NOT real) The Earth has experienced five ice ages that we know of Huronian, Cryogenian, Andean-Saharan, Karoo Ice Age and the Quaternary glaciation. The current ice age that Earth is in is the Quaternary, within the Quaternary we are in an interglacial period known as the Holocene Epoch. "The Holocene is a geologicalepoch which began at the end of the Pleistocene[1] (at 11,700 calendar years BP) [2] and continues to the present." http://en.wikipedia.org... As you can see from the table ^ posted above, The earth has experienced temperatures far warmer than we currently are experiencing, and likewise has experienced temperatures far cooler than we are currently experiencing. And this is just in a relatively short period (geologically speaking) and within our current ice age. The Greenland ice sheet is thought to be fairly young, only to have formed in the Oligocene epoch, and most likely to have retreated and advanced many times. http://en.wikipedia.org... The beginning of this ice age is referred to as the time when permanent ice sheets were established on Greenland and Antarctica, thus the end of the last ice age was set by the absence of those permanent ice sheets. In summary, we know there have been five separate ice ages and within those ice ages there are multiple glacial and interglacial periods where these ice sheets have retreated and advanced. I contend that with all the geological evidence available to us, the Greenland ice sheets would retreat with or without the impact of humans. We may in fact be having an impact on glaciation, but regardless of that impact, glaciation would occur with or without us as it has for hundreds of millions of years. There are forces at work that affect our global climate far greater than the man made Co2 which is measure in ppm (parts per million) These forces include but are not limited to: Solar Output http://en.wikipedia.org... Orbital Forcing http://en.wikipedia.org... Volcanism http://en.wikipedia.org... Plate Tectonics http://en.wikipedia.org... Ocean Currents http://en.wikipedia.org...