When writing goes wrong

So we have this article that we have been analyzing about Global Warming. Well, it's not quite as good as it looks. You see, the first time I read it, i didn't see much wrong with it. However, upon reading it more thoroughly, I found several logical fallacies hidden in his arguments.

First of all, we read paragraph 5, when he mentions an unusually hot summer that occurred last year to support his argument that the earth is warming up. However, how do we know what caused that hot spell? This is a good example of a cum hoc logical fallacy, because the writer is automatically assuming something that nobody knows for sure. Sure, it might be that the earth is getting hotter. But weather is not as predictable as people act like it is. This hot weather could be the consequence of sunspots, or altered ocean currents, or some other odd weather pattern that we will discover sometime in the next decade. Who knows?

Several times throughout the article, Lovelock mentions dramatic events that would occur if the earth warms up a relatively large amount. I find these arguments not as relevant as he thinks they are. There is no reason for the reader to believe that such events like "a four-degree rise in temperature" (par 4) or "a two-metre rise [in ocean levels]" (par 2) are even possible in the next century. The average global temperature rose only half of a Celsius degree between the years of 1900 and 1999 (see table 11.6. note: this website gets its statistics from NASA and the U.S. Department of Energy). At that rate, we have 800 years to worry. So really we don't have to worry, given that the average temperature will likely not simply continue in the same pattern--there are too many factors to take into account.