From A Storehouse of Knowledge

Global warming is a theory that the earth's mean temperatures are rising.

Anthropogenic global warming is the idea that this rise in temperatures is caused by humanity due to increased carbon emissions. The theory is that as gases such as carbon dioxide and methane are released by human activity, mainly industrial processes, they add to the greenhouse effect, trapping more heat and raising the temperature. Carbon dioxide is considered the most important of the human-emitted greenhouse gases to this process.^[Fact?]

Scientists are divided on the subject, even after studying the evidence; some support the idea of anthropogenic global warming, with organizations such as NASA, the European Academy of Sciences and Arts, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the European Science Foundation expressing support for the International Panel on Climate Change's findings on the subject; others claim that humanity actually has a negligible impact on the climate. 31,478 American scientists including 9,029 with PHDs signed the Global Warming Petition Project indicating that rejection of the concept of global warming is high among scientists.^[1] Furthermore, some interest groups claim that the earth is experiencing a global cooling due to decreased sunspot activity.^[2]

In 2006, former Vice President of the United States Al Gore released a film, An Inconvenient Truth, in which he outlined arguments in favor of anthropogenic global warming. When the use of the film in the U.K.'s state schools was challenged, the English High Court of Justice ruled that although the film was based in sound science, it contained a number of errors and exaggerations and had to be classified as political propaganda.^[3]

In February of 2006, eighty-six evangelical church leaders backed an initiative to combat global warming.^[4] This call to action acknowledges the growing body of evidence that global warming is happening and acknowledges the pledge in 2004 that humans have "a sacred responsibility to steward the Earth and not a license to abuse the creation of which we are a part." ^[5] This stance is not held by all evangelical church leaders; some of whom claim that this is distracting from other social issues. ^[6] Reverend Richard Cizik has led a trip to Alaska to view climate change and how it affects creation.^[7]

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