My two brothers live with about 5 other roommates(yeah I know!) anyway this one, daniel, he always brings up global warming, my one brother tends to believe him and is ALWAYS argueing with me about it.

anyway, the main issues are:

1.)
jason: if the icecaps melt the ocean will only raise like 10 feet!
me: the temp. would get all screwed up, it would still be bad.
jason: NO IT MELTS SLOW, ITS ALL GOING TO BE THE SAME TEMP.

2.)
jason: there was more polution 600 years ago then there is now.
me: how.
jason: they were always burning coal and stuff.
me: okay what do you think GAS is? nobody even had cars then.
jason: but they were always burning bodies and stuff!

for some reason he wont let me win these arguments, he just keeps it up, am I crazy or is he just believing all the bull**** the media feeds you for a dont-panic mode? im sure if i convinced him thats what he was doing he'd quit. hes very anti-government, haha.

anyway, what are your thoughts on these issues? any idea on what i should say next time he brings it up?

You could look at some facts, like find out where would disappear if the sea level rose 10ft (it might not sound much but 10ft is a fair height!) Holland would probably vanish, and so would a LOT of coastal towns throughout the world, look into it so you have something concrete to come back at him with.

2.)
jason: there was more polution 600 years ago then there is now.
me: how.
jason: they were always burning coal and stuff.
me: okay what do you think GAS is? nobody even had cars then.
jason: but they were always burning bodies and stuff!

Interesting argument. Yes the air quality in certain cities was worse in the past than today. London England had awful air quality through burning coal. Lots of sulfur in the air. But doesn't mean that their was less pollution at that time. It doesn't even mean that we were burning less coal at that time - China and India are burning a lot of it right now.

As an example - we have cleaned up some rivers which were more polluted in the past. You could look at one of those rivers and say - look this river was more polluted in the past, stupid environmentalists you don't know what you are talking about. But that is only a couple rivers. A lot more rivers are a lot more polluted then they were before.

1.)
jason: if the icecaps melt the ocean will only raise like 10 feet!
me: the temp. would get all screwed up, it would still be bad.
jason: NO IT MELTS SLOW, ITS ALL GOING TO BE THE SAME TEMP.

There are 6.5 billion people on this earth. 10 feet is going to cover a lot of land in water. An awful lot of displaced refugees. You already said that he is living with 5 or 6 other people. How many is he willing to house with him?

Most experts believe that the weather will be a lot more unpredictable. A lot more severe storms, droughts, crop failures etc. We have been having record warm years several times in the last fifteen years. How does he explain that if "its all going to be the same temp?" Sure it could just be cyclical, but most people don't think so.

My father "knows" that it has been getting warmer. For the last ten years he has been able to grow crops that he couldn't before, because the summers are warmer and the growing season is longer. But maybe it is just in his head.

hes very anti-government, haha.

Yeah damn those governments. Infringing on my rights to spray PCBs and DDTs.

There are tons of arguments you can give him, tell him to talk to an actual scientist.
Tell him he needs to watch The Day After Tomorrow.

Ok, for one thing, 600 years ago (approx 1400 C.E.) coal wasn't used as a heating fuel--wood was (along with peat, animal fat, and dung, depending what part of the world you lived in) Coal was used around in the 19th and 20th centuries.
600 years ago the world population was approx. 350 million. Now it is 6.5 billion. THere is no way a population that is 1/18th (did I do that math right?) the size of the current population could generate more pollution than what is being generated currently. Especially since there was no use of petroleum products to generate fuel, plastics, etc.
Sea levels that are as high as even 10" more than they are now (let alone 1o feet) will be catastrophic for a large percentage of the world's population that lives on the coastlines, and especially those on islands made of coral atolls, which will be wiped out.
Tell Jason to get his facts straight before he begins a debate.
"Just the facts, sir--just the facts

Just look up some information at all the many sites dedicated to this issue:

Woods Hole is a good place to start

http://www.whoi.edu/institutes/occi/currenttopics/ct_abruptclimate.htm

In my environmental science class my professor said that sea level is predicted to rise about 1meter in the next century, and that 20% of the world's population lives within 1 meter of sea level, so that would affect about 1.2 billion people.

just a few things to consider:

1. look into environmental archaeology, polar ice cap layers reveal a lot about how much pollution was in the air then and now: and as a general rule of thumb, the rise of the automobile has led to a gradual and never-failing increase of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses. there is actually a man who lives in hawaii who has been recording the level of carbon dioxide very regularly for the last several decades, and his records are evidence enough for me personally.

2. for the first few degrees centigrate that our temperature raises, it will actually reduce the productivity of most crops grown in america by as much as 10%. the melting of the polar ice caps will regulate temperature to a certain extent and yes, rising waters are a disaster all to themselves, but the ice caps alone won't offset the effects of greenhouse gasses.

i fixed a flat on my old schwinn tonight, and regreased the internal 3 speed hub... bike for life!

1.)
jason: if the icecaps melt the ocean will only raise like 10 feet!
me: the temp. would get all screwed up, it would still be bad.
jason: NO IT MELTS SLOW, ITS ALL GOING TO BE THE SAME TEMP.

How will it be the same temperature? It's melting slowly now, and already we've noticed an extreme change in the temperature. Meteorologists are calling this the warmest winter in a century. Although Canada was warm, Russia got it's cold weather. Source (http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20060128/warm_weather_060128/20060128?hub=TopStories)

2.)
jason: there was more polution 600 years ago then there is now.
me: how.
jason: they were always burning coal and stuff.
me: okay what do you think GAS is? nobody even had cars then.
jason: but they were always burning bodies and stuff!

600 years ago, the world's population was maybe 1/3 (an estimation) of what it is now. The current population is over 6 billion. 600 years ago, we didn't have cars (which give off alot of CO2), powerplants (need I explain), toxic waste, etc. The theory that the polution has decreased in 600 years is complete bull, IMO.