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Global warming is real

The use of the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change as a source is almost worse than having no sources at all. First of all, the page my opponent links to was written in 1998. But more importantly, this is an organization run by Craig and Keith Idso, both skeptics whose research has been funded by the oil-backed Heartland Institute: http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com... Hardly the most trustworthy source, but even if you don't think their questionable motivations are making them biased towards denial of climate science, I think a more reasonable way to determine how likely it is as laypeople would be to examine the consensus on the issue among scientists. Admittedly this is anecdotal evidence, but I actually predicted my opponent to cite the Idso family, because they are among only a small handful of actual scientists who try to convince the public that global warming isn't real. Why is this the case? Well, there is in fact an overwhelming scientific consensus on the issue: http://iopscience.iop.org... Several studies of this kind have been done, and they invariably find that somewhere in the range of 97% of But more importantly, this is an organization run by Craig and Keith Idso, both skeptics whose research has been funded by the oil-backed Heartland Institute: http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com... Hardly the most trustworthy source, but even if you don't think their questionable motivations are making them biased towards denial of climate science, I think a more reasonable way to determine how likely it is as laypeople would be to examine the consensus on the issue among scientists. Admittedly this is anecdotal evidence, but I actually predicted my opponent to cite the Idso family, because they are among only a small handful of actual scientists who try to convince the public that global warming isn't real. Why is this the case? Well, there is in fact an overwhelming scientific consensus on the issue: http://iopscience.iop.org... Several studies of this kind have been done, and they invariably find that somewhere in the range of 97% of climate scientists not only say that warming is real, but that it is anthropogenic. I think I have made my point abundantly clear that if we take into account what actual scientists say on this issue in the aggregate, it is no contest. But if you are inclined to believe my opponent's study, I'd like to point out that there is no real warrant to the claim that is made. My opponent gives the claim of his evidence, and then says "it is clear that the rise in temperature caused it as the Center for Study of Carbon Dioxide says"-this is clearly a logical fallacy. If we are to place so much value on this study, there has to be a better reason than "my source is clearly correct as my source says, thus I'm right." This is the equivalent of saying it is correct because it said so, and he later repeats this by saying that I went on a rant about scientists "but the study here was correct." No, I simply said that these are marginal voices, and there are specific reasons to think the study was not correct. Just keep in mind that 97% of scientists think that what it said is false. I won't really address the oceans claim because it isn't really explained to the level of being an argument, but as far as I can tell it is about how much carbon the oceans contain which is utterly irrelevant as the greenhouse effect is driven by gases in the atmosphere, and the only source that has increased significantly within the last couple centuries has been human pollution.