You bring a smattering of questions/issues. Problem is that there are so many in short order with little detail or context and no sources leaving me in a difficult position to address which criticism are right, which are wrong, and which are somewhere in-between.
I will try to cover a few of the issues/fallacies I have noticed among the climate change skeptics/deniers that really pushed me away. There are probably more and these are generalities with some anecdotes for illustration but these ones are certainly some of the major ones for me in forming my stance on the issue.
#1. Over the years I noticed continuous backpedaling among the skeptics' arguments. It went from "global warming isn't real" to "ok it is real but not caused by man" to "ok, man is influencing it but not that much" to "Man is affecting it some but it is too expensive or nothing can be done".
#2. The arguments of the skeptics were really never very scientific, never sought to develop a theory and test it out through the scientific method. They always seemed to have the objective of disproving global warming/climate change, not seeking the truth in the data. It is like having a trial where the jury wants to find the defendant guilty or innocent.
I began to notice that there wasn't an objective look at what the climate scientists got wrong and why. The arguments became more of propaganda than re-evaluation. For example some extreme prediction would be put forth and end up not coming true. Now the objective thing to do would be to look at the data and evaluate whether the data was accurate and the method accurate but instead these failed predictions were held up as a "see global warming is fake!" They use climate change models to predict some of these things and on a number of occasions they models gave predictions that were wrong but that doesn't mean the science is all BS, it might just mean the model wasn't quite accurate. That happens a lot in science, you find out your prediction didn't pan out and try again, you don't just stop and declare it all false. With something as complicated and as many variables as there are in climate prediction there is understandably going to be a bit of inaccurate predictions even with good solid scientific process. Along those lines predicting the future and observing the past are two different animals and just because it is hard to predict the future doesn't mean we can't trust the past.
#3 I noticed that climate change denier arguments were very often intuitively based. They sounded good so they were convincing but looking more deeply they weren't sound arguments. I recall one argument made that reasoned because a certain greenhouse gas was only 1% of the air in our planet therefore how could a fractional increase of that chemical cause such a significant climate change. If no further thought was given it made sense, but when you think deeper and realize chemicals aren't all going to have proportionate levels of effect. It was like arguing that you could eat 1% your body weight in cyanide because 1% is just so small.
#4 I noticed data was often cherry picked. Case in point I saw an argument that global warming wasn't real because these two glaciers had actually been increasing in size over the past few decades. I thought this disproved global warming until I saw more comprehensive data that showed the vast majority of the glaciers in the area had been shrinking dramatically. The two or so that had increased only represented something like 10% of the glaciers in the area. The skeptics/deniers misrepresented what was actually occurring and this type of misrepresentation I saw over and over again really brought into doubt the credibility of their stance. A also noticed that they seemed to take the most extreme predictions and hold them up as if they were the universal belief among scientists. The news likes the big scary stories, the celebrities and activists like the big scary predictions and so they get the airtime instead of the more reasonable predictions that are accurate much more often. Don't look to Al Gore as the representative of climate science, he isn't a scientist. Unfortunately often scientists are boring and don't make catchy speeches and instead we get Al Gore or someone pushing wind farms who aren't representing the more mundane stuff.
I remember a webpage where one could put their name on a list of scientists who didn't agree with global warming/climate change but it was so obviously worthless. No verification of credentials, no standards of what type of science degree one had to have. I could;d have put my name on the list because I have a science degree. Sociology is a science, just one with nothing to do with climate.
I hope you don't take this as insulting to demeaning. I understand it is a complicated subject and it isn't something easy to discern. As I said I too became a skeptic/denier for a few years, I bought into the same stuff.. Now I am not totally convinced, I maintain a skeptical eye towards what is said. In fact one of the skeptics arguments that I do think might have some credibility is the question as to what amount of effect solar activity has on our climate. It seems certainly a possible explanation but I haven't looked deeper into that issue yet.
Everything you mentioned as your logic and deduction as to proof of manmade climate change has occurred over the last 10’s of thousands of years naturally without any influence of man. This is not in dispute. You cannot in any way honestly think that just because the climate changes without the influence of man for 10’s of thousands of years prior to man existing that man is now all of the sudden causing it. It is a pretty narcissistic attitude if you ask me.
So all of your logic is completely thrown out the window for two reasons. One is no one can say with all certainty that the climate is changing because of man. The truth is that if man had never evolved into what we are now, the climate will still be changing. So the climate is changing because it does naturally. So saying that man is causing it is a lie. Man may be adding to the natural climate change in a minute amount but the climate has swung from too hot to ice ages and back again before man existed. The oceans have been rising from before man existed. The polar caps have been melting and coming back over and over again naturally without mans influence. Which brings me to the second reason you have no argument whatsoever is that you have no idea how much man actually affects the climate. And I noticed that you failed to provide that important piece of data from my previous post which if doesn’t exist then blows everyone of your arguments to bits. You have fallen for the lie and that is your perogative, but you cannot deny that without knowing this most important piece of scientific data, all of the data is nothing but speculation.
If you want to speculate, then say so. Your opinions are fine. Don’t provide opinions as to why something exists as a scientific fact when science cannot even prove what you are saying. Since the climate is changing just as mildly and/or radically as it always has, and it is not outside of any norms, there is no way to tell how much man may be adding to it. And since science cannot determine how much man is contributing to the current natural climate change, how can you say that anything we do is going to have any significant effect. The fact is you cannot. So speculate all you want, and admit it is only your opinion. You have strong arguments if you have science on your side. Sorry, as much as you may believe it, science isn’t on your side. But as the lie goes, without knowing the whole truth you are believing only a half truth and trying to pass it off as a complete truth.
So provide the following scientific data and let’s discuss this further:
1. Scientific data that shows that man made climate change exists based on any data that is showing that man is actually changing the climate outside the limits of the natural norms already provided by science.
2. Provide scientific data that shows what percentage of the climate that man is affecting.
Please provide the links to your data sources so I can read them as well.
Without these two little tidbits of data, all other data is nothing but speculation and opinions. Because if you cannot prove that the climate is changing outside the established norms then how can you measure how much man is actually contributing to the climate change? BTW, there are established scientific methods for determining this information. But as the scientific community has already admitted, in order to accurately determine if man is causing climate change, or even affecting the climate substantially takes over 100 years. And to be accurate with the findings can take as long as 500 years. The climate changes too slowly for us to come to any conclusions any quicker than this. This is per the scientific community themselves. BTW, we have only been measuring and monitoring these climate affecting items like greenhouse gas for around 50 years. Do you see the lie? In order to measure change, you have to either be outside some norm that has already been established or we need to have a baseline established. And if it takes at least 100 years to establish the beginnings of a baseline and we have only started 50 years ago, then everything is only guessing/speculation. As an example, we were heading towards global warming. Then Global cooling. Now just climate change because they cannot conclude yet if we are warming or cooling. There is a reason for these diffent talking points. It is a lie that you have bought into. But again, that is your perogative to believe it.
I will address your points here:
1. I have not noticed any of those different positions. I have always thought that there may be some truth to the data. But until we know how much man actually affects the climate, any argument for or against is really nothing more than a guess. That is on both sides of the argument. Not just the skeptics.
2. This is really just an attempt to shut down a conversation. You cannot prove a negative. The scientific data for how the climate was prior to man has existed for over 100 years now. We have data for thousands of years. And so far our climate has not changed any differently than prior to when man existed. The scientific data provided by the proponents attempts to show that man is causing this change. But notice they never compare what is happening now against the norms. Because we are not outside the norms. They attempt to say we are warming or cooling faster than ever before over a very short period like 10 years or 20 or 1. But to accurately measure takes hundreds of years. See my comment above.
3. I’ve never heard this. But I agree it is a weak argument. Still, if you remove that 1% greenhouse gas then we can measure how much change and what sort of change the climate will go through. Since we cannot all of the sudden stop producing this gas, we cannot measure the affect of it no longer being added to the climate. And since we have no data to show what was occurring in the climate prior to the addition of that 1% greenhouse gas we cannot determine if that gas is actually affecting the climate and how it is. So while the skeptic argument is weak, the proponent argument is even weaker as there is no way to determine how that 1% is affecting the climate. Without prior data, or without a way to stop all production of this gas, you cannot measure results. All you can do is speculate.
4. Since the growing or melting of glaciers and polar ice is a naturally occurring event, and they are not increasing nor melting any faster or slower, more or less than what we have already established as normal for the earth over the last 10’s of thousands of years, then all we can do is guess/speculate that man is actually causing this. Could it be that man may be adding to this effect? I believe so, but again, without being able to measure before and after man, or without being able to determine how much man is contributing to this effect outside the norms, then again, speculation only. Talk about cherry picking...
This climate change argument has validity but without knowing how much we are really contributing to climate change, we can only speculate how much of it is true and what part of it is true. I believe that all of the hysteria around it is just that. The data is being used to try and convince everyone that what is happening is going to affect us in 5 years, 10 years, 50 years, 100 years. And if we don’t do anything now, we are all going to die!!!!
Let’s face it, the experts that said our cities will be under water already, and that people are going to start dying due to climate change have egg on their faces now. If the data ever becomes available that shows it is going to be 10k years before what we are doing now will affect the earth then how do you think people will react? Since no one really knows, believe what you want. But I would bet my feelings are more realistic than the hysteria. So far, my feelings and thoughts have been correct.
BTW, I would look into solar activity. I believe that the greatest effects on our climate has more to do with solar activity which includes the effects on our gravity that the sun has. JMHO