Eric asked me: "...what do you make of this chart shown on the nasa.gov page? It shows the cycles that you're talking about, but then it shows how our situation is incredibly different from any other cycles over thousands of years. https://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/ So given evidence like that, what is your reaction?"
I responded that based on my assessment, this is not good evidence to support a claim that climate change (e.g. global warming) is 'real' and is human caused, and I specifically laid out why.
That's it. That was the point.
If you want to respond to any or all of those specific items, and show where I might be mistaken, great.
Note that I did not make any claims as to whether climate change (e.g. global warming) is or isn't 'real', nor whether humans are or are not involved or the cause. If that's what you got from my reply to Eric, then you're reading more into my response than I wrote. I think we should be analyzing and challenging all evidence, supporting any claims and any position. That's what science is supposed to be about, IMO. I made that clear:
"First, I want to be clear about the context for my challenging that slide you pointed me to located at https://climate.nasa.gov/evidence -- I am not challenging whether climate change is real or not, and I'm not challenging whether humans are or aren't the cause of it."
I do think we should be working on renewable energy sources that are cleaner, reducing environmental pollution, and so on, because that really makes sense regardless of what's going on with the climate.
In response to your other comments:
I'm not a climate scientist either, but I don't think you need to be one to analyze data and evidence. Read the study and the NOAA data that the evidence Eric pointed me to is based on, and see for yourself. As for whether most people have the time, I agree, most probably don't, but Eric specifically asked me to look at this data; I think it fair to ask him to do the work to analyze it as well.
Your comment along the lines of "most climate scientists believe X" doesn't really say anything other than that most climate scientists believe X. So? Most experts used to believe the Sun revolved around the Earth. As I've said prior, consensus is not evidence. That many experts believe something is presented as evidence may be very true. But that doesn't say anything about whether what they believe is actually true.
"An argumentum ad populum (Latin for 'appeal to the people') is a fallacious argument that concludes that a proposition must be true because many or most people believe it, often concisely encapsulated as: "If many believe so, it is so. Other names for the fallacy include appeal to (common) belief,[2][3] appeal to the majority,[4] appeal to the masses,[5] appeal to popularity,[6][7] argument by consensus,[8] authority of the many,[8][9] bandwagon fallacy,[7][10] consensus gentium (Latin for 'agreement of the people'),[10] democratic fallacy,[11] and mob appeal.[12]" (From WikiPedia I think).
As for the consequences being dire, we'll see.
I recommend you watch the Michael Crichton talk I gave the link for.
/s.