After reading many newspaper articles and listening to commentators talk about the issue of global warming, I realize that little reasoned debate actually takes place.

Some politicians say the debate is over and we must act now. This type of reasoning is antithetical to the critical thinking skills that my college experience has ingrained in me.

Therefore, I cannot simply swallow the global warming/climate change mantra because a so-called “majority” or “consensus” says so.

The first stumbling block when discussing global warming is defining the issue.

It has come to my attention that the phrase global warming is now passé. The new in vogue term is climate change. I’m not sure why global warming needed a makeover but that’s another issue.

The debate is about man-caused climate change (a.k.a. anthropogenic global warming) and whether humans have a significant negative impact on climate change.

But these clarifications are sometimes not mentioned by the media.

Many times people who don’t believe in anthropogenic climate change are accused of denying any kind of climate change. This is just a straw man attack leveled at skeptics to make them look stupid because, what insane person would believe that climate is a static entity that never changes?

Another tactic used against skeptics is to label them as deniers instead of skeptics. This is simply a rhetorical trick that distorts the skeptic’s position.

The skeptic is lacking evidence for his belief and is not intentionally denying a truth.

Many times it is psychologically uncomfortable for those who have such a strong belief about something to look at the evidence objectively because of the high emotional investment in their belief. So to them the “deniers” are not rational skeptics but instead are people who have a warped sense of reality.

Another problem I have with the whole climate change issue is the repeated appeals to authority.

Supposedly nobody can talk about the issue unless they are some kind of expert on climatology. Last time I checked, you were not required to have a Ph.D. in critical thinking to be a skeptical critical thinker.

I don’t have to be an expert on the climate to realize the proposed solution is a one-sided solution. This apparent problem can only be solved by government intervention.

As a critical thinker I reject all or nothing approaches to problems. Why can’t the solution be market-based, voluntary or scientific? Why must the only solution be a big government one?

Looking at the science behind anthropogenic global warming, one can find many problems, but I will just highlight a few.

A major premise in the man-caused global warming theory is that rising carbon dioxide (CO2) levels cause temperature to increase. Al Gore, in his documentary “An Inconvenient Truth,” presented this correlation between CO2 levels and temperature as proof for CO2 causing temperature increase.

As any good scientist knows, correlation does not equal causation, but it can point you in the direction of the possible cause.

Many scientists are challenging Gore’s premise.

Climatologist Tim Ball argues that the ice core sample data points to higher temperatures as the cause of rising CO2 levels. He points to data that shows CO2 levels lag hundreds of years behind corresponding temperature levels.

Another aspect often overlooked by anthropogenic global warming believers is the effect that natural causes, like the sun, have on climate change.

Some scientists look at the data and think that solar theories about climate change fit the data better than anthropogenic theories. It seems counter intuitive to argue that humans have such a significant impact on natural processes when we don’t have such a significant impact on natural processes like gravity, planetary motion or tidal movements.

Do human beings really possess the ability to affect immense natural phenomena on the scale that the sun can?

Nevertheless, the anthropogenic climate change crowd could be right. But how correct are they? What is the magic ideal CO2 level for Earth? How are we going to decide the ideal CO2 levels? Should we just exponentially decrease CO2 usage?

If CO2 is such a problem, will we look to somehow decrease the effect of non-human CO2 producers like volcanoes?

As a critical thinker, one must assess the possible negative side effects of acting on this supposed problem.

Maybe reducing CO2 levels will decrease the amount of the necessary ingredients that plants use to produce oxygen. Maybe Third World countries will be more negatively impacted by climate change legislation.

Possibly, our solution could make the world worse off.

Whatever the real answer to the cause(s) of climate change is, I hope that people will remain skeptical of all claims people make, especially those in the climate change debate.

Don’t blindly accept consensus when deciding the merits of an argument. And don’t take my word for it either.

Use the critical reasoning skills you have acquired through your college experience, investigate the issue and decide for yourself.