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Carl Sanders,
The wording of your post shows limited understanding of science and the present evidence. That is not a bad thing, as long as you are willing to remedy that by learning more about science and looking seriously at the evidence. This post has a few suggestions.
First, your $1000 is safe, since science doesn't deal with "proof" or "truth." It deals with observation and evidence, which support hypotheses. When a large body of supporting evidence has been developed and the hypothesis shows predictive power, then hypothesis may reach the status of theory, as in the theory of evolution.
Since you don't have to make good on your bet, I hope that you spend a little of that $1000 to educate yourself about climate change.
There is an accumulating body of evidence, and a strong consensus has emerged that global warming is largely due to human activity. The United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, made up of approximately 2000 of the world's leading climate scientists, has been reporting at approximate 5 year intervals since the late 1980s. The IPCC was set up to put the brakes on overreactions and bandwagon effects. Still, each report, written with appropriate scientific skepticism and caution, has shown greater consensus about global warming.
One volume of this year's report says that global warming is definitely occurring (>99% probability) and that human activity, primarily the burning of fossil fuels, is responsible to a high level of certainty (>90%). Another volume projects changes that can be reasonably anticipated based on a large number of climate models. One of the least certain predictions is a roughly 20 cm. rise in sea level over the coming century. The "wild card" in that projection is the recently observed "dynamic melting" of the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets. If that leads to massive slippage of ice from land into the ocean, the sea level rise may be catastrophic for coastal communities around the world.
I recommend that you read my reviews of weather and climate books dating back nearly eight years (click here). The worst case scenarios of 1999-2000 are much more plausible today.
After reading the reviews, try some of the books. If you want to use some of your $1000 to thank me, buy the books through the links on my site. Or, better yet, donate the $1000 to an organization whose mission is educating people about global warming and what can be done about it. I'm sure that Sigma Xi, the Scientific Research Society has funds to support environmental educational activities.
I'll bet you didn't think I'd take you seriously, did you?
Fred Bortz -- Science and technology books for young readers (www.fredbortz.com) and Science book reviews (www.scienceshelf.com)