How can we get both sides of the global warming debate to use relevant facts to back up their arguments?

Question by SSG N: How can we get both sides of the global warming debate to use relevant facts to back up their arguments?
Whether or not you believe human-kind is responsible for global warming, I am sure many of you have noticed really bad evidence to back up claims on both sides. How can we help people to learn about what good scientific facts are and how to use these relevant facts in a discussion?

Here are some poor examples I have seen:

“There were once trees in the Sahara”
“I have noticed it has gotten hotter out so it must be due to global warming.”
“Because the scientists agree on it, it must make it true”
“There is a hole in the ozone layer so it must be causing global warming”
“The ice sheets are melting, so it must be global warming”
“We are so insignificant that we couldn’t possibly be causing global warming”

Do you have any more bad examples? and how can we help people use credible evidence to back up their claims?
@rusty

I am not worried about global warming ;). I am just using this popular topic to help people learn about what good science is vs bad science because this topic has more bad science associated with it than almost any other one I’ve ever seen.
@lynlions below

You have mistakenly fallen into the bad science trap and done what I was talking about regarding the facts of good science.

You claimed the science was done. This is not true. Science is the quest for truth and is NEVER done. How can you claim the science is done? If the science was done we should stop studying the issue, because we already know everything about it. Do you see my point yet?
@RyVu

Excellent response! I agree reading scientific journals and going to conferences or presentations at Universities are an excellent way for self-education.

However I am a little skeptical of that particular conference because it mostly is dealing the “effects” and “solutions” of global warming as opposed to the “causes” of global warming which is where I believe the debate should be focused.
Also the reason I chose that particular phrase was because I want to point out that a POLL of scientists is still just a POLL and hence is subject to statistical bias. Where as a scientific EXPERIMENT is what really needs to be looked at for more conclusive proof.
@Keith P

Nice answer I see you have been paying attention. But I respectfully disagree with you that we can fully know the affects of all of these factors, then plug them into a computer and use said computer model to estimate that the temperature will warm up by X.X degrees. The world is very complicated as you know, and it is my belief that it is naive to think we can fully predict climate changes in the future. I saw a NASA study last week that claimed by 2100 we could be 10 F warmer than today due to global warming and the study used data from the 60’s to today. I mean that is just terrible science, using X amount of data to project 2.5X into the future?

@everyone
I am highly interested in knowing of any STATISTICAL data based on accurate temperature data over at last several thousand years of warming and cooling that can show our trend of current warming is statistically significant. I have looked for some and really haven’t been able to find anything.
@Keith P
I have read the first link you provided and I have to say I don’t believe it has supported your position that we do in fact know the effect of solar activity well enough to accurately use it in a climate model. I believe this based on the following statements from the article, I know this may seem like cherry picking but I believe anyone who honestly reads the article will come up with my conclusion.

“Climate variability is a major issue and our understanding is still uncertain.”

“The complicated internal processes that couple the atmosphere, the oceans, and terrestrial ecosystems are not well understood…”

“There are many uncertainties in our understanding of the internal processes”

“Several investigations have shown positive correlations of solar influences on climate change.”

This one is important because the article goes on to suggest that solar influences over the last 100 years are more closely correlated with climate change than carbon emissions are:
“While the temperature data do show the enhanced greenhouse effect due to increased CO2 in the atmosphere, it also shows a departure from this trend from 1940 to 1970. This occurs simultaneously with a decrease in solar activity as seen in the solar cycle length database. ”

I would just like to point out again, I do not know if we are a significant contributer to global warming or not, and I remain skeptical because this is not something that is easy to prove and I believe it is foolish to believe in something that may not be true. It is better to say you don’t know the answer in my personal opinion than to jump to false conclusions based on unknown variables.
@Keith P
I read the second article that you have provided a link to “Sinks for anthropogenic carbon” and that doesn’t show any conclusive evidence that we fully understand that cycle completely either. I will agree that is does show we have a good understanding of it. It still isn’t quite good enough to claim we fully understand the effects of the carbon sinks. The article fully admits this point throughout if you read it.

Best answer:

Answer by Rusty
The Earth will survive.
There have been worse things than CO2 in the air over the last 8 million years.
Don’t worry about it.

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