[Reily]

"Take global warming. The real debate is how much is human caused and whether there is proof we can effect global temperatures. But there are conservatives arguing that global warming itself is fake... and frankly that is such an ignorant position (as the numbers are really clear) that they get dismissed by the scientific community.
"
There is global warming because there has been in the past. However its all natural.
The earth's climatic temperatures are almost completely a product of solar activity. Any notion that man has contributed much to the problem is pure bull ! For example Mt Saint Helena's put more CO,CO2, sulfur, etc as well as a heavy metals into the atmosphere then the entire industrial history of mankind ! Any good volcanic eruption does likewise !
Have you ever actually taken a course in atmospheric physics ? If you have I suggest you also take a course or do some reading in paleoclimatology. Two other important contributors to long term climate change are the precession of the earth's axis & variations in the earth's magnetic field. In the past the field has faded, flipped and zeroed-out. The extra contribution to the climate energy budget from the solar wind that would make it to earth has hardly been considered and is certainly NOT in any of the major climate computer models. Earth axis precession is NOT in any of the models. Some of the models that started this 'sky-is-falling' notion assumed a smooth earth !Another feature that is no considered in ANY climate models is the fact that the earth's surface is dynamic, continental drift, sub-ocean vulcanism & slides change ocean current sometimes quickly and dramatically. Again none of this is in any of the global warming models. The global warming crowd has many of the same faces as the 'Ice Age is coming crowd' that I remember from my readings in my meteorology courses I took in college back in the late 1970s. Some of the same global warming modelers were involved in the TAPS Nuclear Winter model that was hyped to try and stop Reagan from deploying the Pershing IIs to Europe back in the 1980's. A version of that model was used (I remember the Carl Sagan opinion piece !) to try argue that we should not go into Iraq in 1991 because Saddam would set fire to his oil fields and it would take decades to put out 'yadda yadda' and we would have a nuclear winter from the soot. The late Red Adair's company put out all the fires in 6 months or so. I don't remember any glaciers in my backyard that year !

[gondramB]

"Have you ever actually taken a course in atmospheric physics ?"

Atmospheric dynamics, actually, although I have a degree in physics...

But that's not the point. You are discussing whether global warming is human caused - that is right question. Many people link global warming and human causation automatically or they deny that the surface temperature has risen this century.

I have a number of concerns about whether human causation could be the dominant factor in global warming but that's another thread.