"NOAA: July hottest month on record, and 2015 could be hottest year"

Like it or not, global warming keeps punching us in the face. Here is more data regarding how hot it has been this year worldwide by way of a CNN report:

If you felt the heat this past July, you are hardly alone. July saw the highest average temperatures since record-keeping began -- globally, not just in the United States -- the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported Thursday. Globally, the first seven months of the year also had all-time highs. The latest global temperature data make it likely that 2015 will be the hottest year on record, the agency said. NOAA's findings follow reports by NASA and the Japan Meteorological Agency, which reached the same conclusion using their own data.

I realize that there are still a lot of skeptics and deniers. Many of them are just ignoramuses who don't understand science or record keeping. Others are convinced that this is a scam of the environmentalist activists and is not really science. The skeptics and deniers are important because they are electing people who are stopping us from doing anything meaningful about all the carbon we are pouring into the atmosphere. 

What I wonder is this: What would it take to convince a global warming skeptic that he is wrong? What has to happen to change someone's mind, to make a person who thinks global warming is a crock to realize it is real? And not only to understand that it is real, but to accept that mankind by way of burning fossil fuels is causing the problem? 

I don't know if the skeptics and deniers are capable of being convinced. Nearly 100 percent of climate scientists accept the theory -- that human activities are causing the Earth to warm up as a result of emitting greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide as a consequence of burning gas, oil and coal. The hurdle may be like one of religion. Where someone who believes in a divine being cannot be unconvinced of that no matter the rational argument or the data or anything logical. Believers have their minds made up. And in the case of global warming deniers, their position is one of religion.

Of course, they might just say the opposite: that believers in global warming are the people whose belief is based more on religion than facts. But if they say that, then it seems more likely they might be open to an argument based on reason. That leads me back to asking the deniers and skeptics this question: What has to happen, in terms of temperature records or levels of atmospheric carbon, to convince you that global warming is real, that mankind caused it, and that we should do all we can to minimize its negative consequences?