The idea behind global warming is that the "green house" gasses are trapping certain lightwaves from the sun that increase heat into the atmosphere without the ability to bounce back out after hitting the planet, much like insulation in a cooler traps in the cold or a polar bear's fur traps in body heat.

people who disagree with global warming argue that we've been having milder temperatures down south than we have in a long time and thus that's evidence that global warming isn't happening.

I'm neither liberal nor conservative but here's an experiment for the doubtful, take the largest cooler you can find. stick a thermometer on each side close to but above where the 'other ingredients' will top off at. and put one on the lid centered inside the cooler also. one one side put a small bag of ice, on the otherside put a pot of boiling hot water. If you got the equipment to get really fancy, the thermometers will be digital with lines going to external readouts. otherwise just check the temp every 20 to 30 minutes on each one. and write them down.

What you should find is that the hot side cools off as the cold side is warming up. It's a natural occurance. Depending on the size of your cooler you should see varying temperatures in the middle that initially reflect the heat from the hot pan then start to cool some.

As the ice melts in the northern and southern hemispheres it gives off cold gasses into the air in addition to sending colder waters into the lakes and oceans. Our lakes and oceans act as insulators and when they're cooled down, the rest of the world 'cools down' also. So the initial impact of global warming isn't blistering heat, it's initially milder and milder temperatures over all in the warmer zones with temperatures slowly warming in the colder regions. Eventually the temperatures will even out and THEN (if there's anything left of us and the rest of the world) things should start taking a steady hike upward. But of course the ozone is being eaten away as well so this allows for blistering hot spots as it allows deadly radiation in from the sun that gets trapped by the green house gasses. So, maybe we will get our death by fire without having to have a nuclear haulocost.

Personally I think all the rich mongers of the world will get into a big fight and pull their puppet strings attached to the religiously political world leaders and we'll have nukes flying everywhere and the entire world will be obliterated, thus saving us the worry about global warming.