The earth' atmosphere is a nearly closed system. You can only emit so many gasses before that system become unbalanced. For example eruptions of volcanoes or asteroids which cause a lot of debris to enter the atmosphere have caused catastrophic extinctions in the past.
Increase in carbon released into the atmosphere appears to correlate to the increase in temperature. Looking at the vetted science easily demonstrates this. Looking at the IPCC data shows sea level rises and other environmental changes that should be of great concern to any rational person.
Unfortunately many human beings are not rational, rely on misinformation picked up from news networks or simply hate/fear science. Some people who are deeply religious would in fact embrace the end of days, so to them global warming isn't something to fear. Some people have been mislead by their political leaders who also hated science (eg. George W Bush who let corporate lobbyists modify scientific documents).
So the science has to battle a wave of misinformation, ignorance and FUD (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear,_u...inty_and_doubt) before we can act on it.
The global warming skeptics say they aren't being listened to, but all they need to do is publish their articles refuting global warming theory in a peer reviewed journal. The problem is, because they don't have the science to back up their skepticism they don't get published. They continue to remain on the fringe, spreading FUD without any valid peer reviewed scientific hypothesis.
So instead of listening to the scientific community, who actually study this stuff for a living, we have a large part of the population who prefer to listen to a: tiny number of scientists who can't prove their alternate theories in peer reviewed academic circles, conservative weathermen, conservative talking heads like o'relliy/beck/hannity and the oil and gas lobby.
People are turning it into a political issue, but really it's science vs ignorance. The science is very well documented and has been around for a few decades. If people placed as much weight on what scientists say as they did Fox news talking heads the world would be a better place.
Come on Nate, really you don't believe ANY of the science?
http://www.skepticalscience.com/empi...al-warming.htm
http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming
http://www.ipcc.ch/
Plenty of peer reviewed scientific data which shows glaciers melting, sea levels rising, sea temperature rising, carbon rising.