The above picture shows temperature leading the CO² levels...not the other way around.
Correct. Prior to the industrial revolution CO2 was a proxy for temperature. CO2 would correlate with temperature and sea level. Post industrial revolution CO2 correlates with emissions but not temperature and sea level.
It seems their case for CO2 driving climate change is based upon the fact that CO2 is a greenhouse gas and that temperatures have been rising. The problem is that CO2 is a minor greenhouse gas, the rate of sea level rise has not changed and temperatures are still below the peak temperatures of previous interglacials. So it would be expected for temperatures to rise as we have not yet completed the interglacial cycle.
They will argue that the rate temperatures are rising is unprecedented. Unfortunately that's not true. 25 D-O events during the last glacial cycle show that temperatures rose from glacial temperatures to interglacial temperatures - 5C swings up and down - over the course of a few decades. That's even on NASA's website.
Here's what's really happening... we entered an ice age 2.7 million years ago. You can see the slope change on the oxygen isotope curve which is the well established proxy for temperatures. No one disputes the curve. The drivers were a gradually cooling of the planet coupled with the polar regions being isolated from warm marine currents; the south pole has a continent parked on top of it and the north pole has a mostly landlocked ocean on top of it. Also the rise of the Himalayas and the Panama isthmus. All these things changed the circulation patterns of the atmosphere and the ocean, but the biggest driver was both polar regions being isolated from the warmer marine currents.
But the glaciation threshold is different for each pole. Because the south pole has a continent parked on top of it, the southern hemisphere has a lower threshold for extensive continental glaciation than the northern hemisphere does because the north pole has an ocean parked over it. It is this difference which created increased climate fluctuation and environmental uncertainty on the earth. It is the northern hemisphere which dominates the climate of the earth. The coolest average temperatures occurs when the northern hemisphere is in winter and the warmest average temperatures occur when the northern hemisphere is in summer. Again... that's even on NASA's website.
You can see from ice cores during the last glacial cycle how much more erratic temperatures were in the northern hemisphere. By the way these are the D-O events from the Greenland ice cores. My point is that it is not unusual for there to be large temperature swings because that is the signature of the present ice age. We live in a period of bipolar glaciation. Never before has the earth been configured for bipolar glaciation. It is because we have bipolar glaciation where the poles do not have the same glaciation threshold that has led to increased climate fluctuation and environmental uncertainty on the earth. They have mistakenly correlated a period of warming and associated it with an increase from a minor greenhouse gas.
Here's the oxygen isotope curve.
Here is a zoomed in view of the oxygen isotope curve showing the transition from a greenhouse planet to an icehouse planet which clearly shows the increased climate fluctuation and environmental uncertainty of the earth's climate.
And here is the climate data from the southern and northern hemisphere ice cores for the last glacial period where you can clearly see how much more erratic the climate of the northern hemisphere was compared to the southern hemisphere.
Pass it on.
Suck on this
Fort Fun Indiana 
pubs.geoscienceworld.org
www.nytimes.com
www.lazard.com
