Warmest year of the last 120 was 1998. If in 10 years that's still true, will you question man-made warming?

No, I wouldn't. Let us keep to the facts.





The carbon dioxide in our atmosphere increases and that's no wonder why; we burn a lot of fossil fuel such as oil and coal, that was intended to release carbon dioxide millions of year ago.





We observe that glaciers are getting smaller and smaller. I do it, here in Norway, and the bushes around my mountain cabin, 30 years ago, are now small trees. The average temperature increases, period!





How are the two related, we don't know for sure, but it makes sense that carbon dioxide increases the greenhouse effect; that can be checked in your kitchen with light, a transparent tube containing different concentration of CO2 and a thermometer.





The question still is: Are there other factors? Cosmic rays? Solar activities? Perhaps.





Perhaps, we are going into a new ice period and the increase in CO2 only delays it a bit. Perhaps the increase of global temperature is self-regulating: as the moisture content of the atmosphere increases, so does the cloud cover and the earth albedo.





Perhaps. But we don't know how it will end and that, in itself, is quite scary, don't you think? We better stay objective on the matter and avoid making it a political issue as the first poster writes.





If global warming becomes a real problem, it will be for all of us; humans, animals and plants; our beloved planet.





EDITED: Remmycool has a very good point: five degrees warmer or colder; it's still a big problem!Warmest year of the last 120 was 1998. If in 10 years that's still true, will you question man-made warming?
Depends on how you manipulate the data.





There's a reason most scientists have stopped saying ';global warming'; and switched to ';climate change'; instead. Global warming implies that the whole world is getting warmer each and every day, and that 2009 should be the hottest year ever, and 2010 should break that record and so on. That's not how it works.





As a general rule, the Earth is getting hotter, but the effects vary widely by location and season. The reason politicians and scientists are so worried is that the global population isn't very adaptable. Our cities and our dams and our agriculture are based on historical patterns of sea levels and weather. If those patterns change, we can't just pull up and move. Land that has been cultivated and dedicated to agriculture might become unworkable, causing economic crises and possibly even starvation. Cities built at sea level will either have to build levees or evacuate (and New Orleans can tell you how reliable levees are). Thousands of species, already weakened by humans, may become extinct due to changing climate patterns.





It really doesn't matter if the Earth is 5 degrees warmer or 5 degrees cooler. The important thing is that we can't handle change in either direction without causing catastrophes somewhere. Even if the average temperatures stay exactly the same, the climate is changing and it is a big problem.