http://www.createdebate.com/debate/show/ We_must_stop_Global_warming#arg34183

It was a weak argument.

Btw, if you want to find an old argument you can just google "{a few words from the argument} {username}" and it will usually turn up. I found this one by googling "senate minority report republican propaganda jessald"

I actually do remember that argument, and jessald was kind enough to post it for me.

First, what was posted was a relatively small list of scientists who don't believe in global warming, compared to an overwhelming number who do. Unless you have actually analyzed the peer review documents yourself then you are choosing to believe the minority over the majority for convenience sake (if global warming is right then that would mean more government intervention, which you don't want).

However, if you would like I will go through the list sparsely gave. I don't particularly agree with your strategy of quoting someone whose quoting something that's quoting people, but I guess sometimes it's more convenient to let others argue for you.

First off, if you actually looked at the report (seeing as you couldn't find the argument I would be surprised) you would see that one of the arguments presented by the scientists is that the current warming trend is part of a cycle. One of the scientists who claims this is S. Fred Singer. The evidence for the cycle he refers to is from ice core data from Greenland, that show that every 1500 years (or sometimes a multiple of 1500 years when the cycle skips a beat) the earth warms - not enough to melt the ice sheets, but a significant amount nonetheless. These warming periods are called "Dansgaard-Oeschger" events.

On the surface this seems like a convincing argument that global warming is a natural cycle, however, what one must consider is that these spikes in temperature were measured only in northern ice sheets. In order for the warming to be global it would have to be witnessed in both the north and south poles. So what do we see when we look at the south poles? We do see a similar pattern in fact, with one important distinction however. The spikes in temperature in the antartica correspond to opposite spikes in greenland. That is to say that whenever there is a dramatic increase in temperature in the northern glacial sheets there is a comparable drop in temperature in the southern ice core samples, and vice-a-versa. What this means is that the warming and cooling are in fact regional and not global warming events. What Singer did in his argument was cherry pick a relatively small sample of data and unreasonably extrapolate (either intentionally or unknowingly) on global temperatures. The full set of data shows global redistribution of heat during these events, not global warming.

Here is another argument presented in the report:

"The observed pattern of warming, comparing surface and atmospheric temperature trends does not show the characteristic fingerprint associated with greenhouse warming. The inescapable conclusion is that the human contribution is not significant and that observed increases in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases make only a negligible contribution to climate warming,"

This statement is just plain not true. Allow me to explain:

The troposphere has been shown to be warming, while the stratosphere has actually shown a cooling. This is exactly the pattern that one would expect to see if greenhouse gasses were responsible for the earth's current warming.

However, if it's not greenhouse gasses then what could it be? The most common answer I saw in the document was solar activity...let's examine that claim, shall we?

As I already said the troposphere is warming while the stratosphere is cooling. If global warming were real then we would expect to see a uniform warming in all layers of the atmosphere. This is obviously not the case. In addition, we would expect to see fluctuations in temperature that correspond to the suns 11 year cycle. This, once again, is not the case. Throughout this century the average temperature has been steadily increasing, (with the most significant increase in the last 40 years). Would this be the case if the sun was causing the warming? Of course not...the warming would instead coincide with the 11 year solar cycles.

Also mentioned is the unreliability of climate models for predicting future climate patterns. I must once again state that this is inaccurate, and in fact climate models have made very accurate predictions, and every year our models are getting better. For more information watch this video that debunks that myth.

Now I could go on and talk about how many of the scientists quoted are talking outside there expertise, or how some of the quotes that claim the earth is cooling are just plain wrong (see the chart I posted earlier) but I am going to stop here because I'm actually getting a little tired...tired because you pointed to a report to do your arguing for you (a report that I'm guessing you never really read). I would appreciate it in future arguments if you would actually present arguments about why climate change isn't happening, so I can deal with them instead of debunking a 255 page report.

It shouldn't surprise you, however, that Republicans and science don't exactly go well together...

Well actually yes I have. I can't find the argument (if you really don't believe me I'll find it for you) but it was about vegitarianism, and the guy argued that they were retarded. I actually got him to send a message to me apologizing for being a dick.

In addition, I have had my own mind changed on issues. Beinglostats, for example changed my mind about genetically modified crops, and helped me learn a few things about genetics in the process.

So yes, I think people's minds can be changed.