Global warming and cooling happen regardless of what humans do. HOWEVER, human actions are the primary cause of the vastly ACCELERATED pace of warming that is such a threat to us. In other words, warming and cooling always happen, but make no mistake; it's humanity's fault that it's reaching dangerous levels.

See my source for some basic facts on global warming--facts that are agreed upon by the national climate experts of every industrialized nation on Earth. Make sure to read through to the second page, where it is explained exactly what we're doing to create this problem

P.S. A degree or two may not seem like much, but to get an idea of how significant it really is, realize that the Earth's average temperature during the last ice age was (five to) NINE degrees colder than it is presently.

Source(s):
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/12/1206_041206_global_warming....

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Not to get all right-wingy or anything, but I have trouble with your premise: Is global warming caused by man? That implies that global warming is being caused. Fact is, global warming is as much as a band-wagon fad as it is a viable scientific theory. There's as much evidence against global warming as there is for it. And just because there are some (reportedly) weird things going on with the weather (which is, itself, a theory and not necessarily true) doesn't mean it's because of the blanket theory of global warming.

The research done by the late author Michael Crichton for his novel "State of Fear" is really interesting. The whole novel picks at the "evidence" of global warming and the way information is spun to push an agenda. Keep in mind we're basing this theory on less than 100 years of weather data, much of it gathered by people who may not have been completely scientifically careful. Think about data collected in 1904 -- is that trustworthy enough to base an end-of-the-world theory? If meteorologists can't predict the weather Friday on Monday, can we trust that "climatologists" can detect a shift in CLIMATE, hundreds of years worth of weather? We barely understand the system as its happening, much less understand and predict how it's going to act in the next year, ten years, fifty years, two hundred years.

I'm not saying global warming is total B.S., but there is a lot of money to be made if the whole world takes it as fact. The global warming situation is exactly the same as the run-up to the war in Iraq. A false (or unproven) premise based on fear that creates action in people. Just because it's about recycling, which is good, doesn't mean fear mongering isn't wrong.

Global warming is a theory. It's unproven. Accepting it blindly because a lot of people have said, "look out for climate change" doesn't mean it's happening.
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No, it's caused by search engines.
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Honestly, there are thousands of variables that attribute to the final conclusion that Climate Change is man made, there is no simple explanation.

Every variable has been studied and scrutinized for years by scientists and skeptics a like. Enough so that the governments of the world brought all their climate scientists together to form the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/33749589@N07/3222095030/

If you want to read the hard hard science of why Global Climate Change is real and how it is human caused that would be your best source.

As for myself, I too realize the earths climate has been shifting for millions and millions of years, but there have always been natural factors to climate change (asteroids, volcanoes, current shifts etc...) In the past 100 years however us humans have been pumping really dirty stuff into air at an intensely rapid rate. But I am not going to play smart here, I am not a climate scientist and have no authority on the subject, I have researched both sides however myself online, I see both sides and I am finding much more reputable sources supporting Global Warming.

David Suzuki for example is one of the greatest known living scientists in Canada, he practically wrote the book on Global Warming back in the 80's, 30 years later he just walks around saying "told you so" - we all love him up here.

http://www.davidsuzuki.org/About_us/Dr_David_Suzuki/
http://www.cbc.ca/greatest/top_ten/nominee/suzuki-david.html

When it comes to science, I only listen to most trusting sources and those sources have to presented to me by trustworthy presenters. In this case I present to you Sir David Attenborough, a wildlife Documentary maker for over 30 years with the BBC, you may recognize him from the Planet Earth series. This was the simple graph that made Attenborough a believer, which makes it good enough for me.

Be sure to watch, there are three graphs.

• Red Line is Temperature, rises dramatically in the '70's
• Green line is the natural elements that change temperature
• Yellow line shows the human elements that affect the temp.
  

Source(s):
http://www.ipcc.ch/about/index.htm

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I think that global warming is not entirely caused by men.  There are some scientists who believe that the earth naturally goes through heating and cooling stages.  When the planet goes through these stages it gets warmer naturally and cooler naturally.  So, at least some of the global warming that is occurring is not being caused by humans.  However, that is not to say that we are not causing the planet to heat up more than it normally would be.  A lot of the biggest sources of our pollution of the planet are not recognized at all though.  For example, when you eat beef, you are polluting the planet.  Why?  Because of the food the cows have to eat to live and because of the fact that cows fart methane, which is about 23 times as deadly as CO2  to the planet in terms of global warming ("a patty of meat the size of two decks of cards--releases as much greenhouse gas into the atmosphere as driving a 3000-pound car nearly 10 miles').  Also, for those who think that CO2 levels haven't risen very mcuh, a lot of the CO2 that humans are producing is not getting into the atmosphere.  Instead, as much as 25% of the CO2 that we are producing is being absorbed by the oceans, which is having adverse effects on the life in the oceans.  For more information about the effects of CO2 on the ocean, visit the site below about the Tasman Fracture Zone.
Source(s):
February 2009 edition of Scientific American
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,24928060-5009760,00.html

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