Originally Posted by
Caerule
I don't get why global warming is so incredible to some people. If you really wanted to, you could do the calculations yourself. It's easy to prove Carbon Dioxide is a greenhouse gas by modulating the amount in an enclosed space like an actual greenhouse. You can calculate how much you need to add to increase the temperature a certain amount, and get reliable results doing so. This is an easy test.
Then you need to know the total volume of air we're working with on earth. Again, something we can get the numbers for well enough. We've made a map of the entire earth for us to explore in google. We know how much surface the planet has, how high the atmosphere reaches, and can thus do the math on that.
So, you can get a pretty clear number on how much greenhouse gas needs to be added in order to do our greenhouse experiment on a global scale. And compare that to how much more than natural we're adding to it. If the numbers are insignificant by comparison, we're probably not having much impact and climate change is not our doing. But surprise: The numbers are not insignificant.
It gets a bit more complicated, as water vapor, other greenhouse gasses, and other factors have their influence. But you can prove easily that the amount of CO2 we're adding is definitely mathematically going to have consequences.