This is how I understand it, in simple terms, and broadly speaking:
- CO2 acts as a greenhouse gas – the more CO2 in the atmosphere, the more energy from the sun that is trapped as heat.
- By analyzing the air trapped inside arctic/antarctic ice cores, we know that CO2 has been rising at a far greater rate since the industrial revolution than before.
- Certain human activities, like the burning of fossil fuels, release CO2 that before was in mineral form (and other activities, like livestock husbandry, increase methane levels, another greenhouse gas).
- Estimates of the amount of CO2 released from burning fossil fuels are rather close to the rise in CO2 levels in the atmosphere.
- Global temperatures have risen, in fits and starts, with a rough correlation to the rise in CO2 levels.
Are all of these statements mostly true? Have I left out any significant points in the ‘basics of global warming’? Which points, if any, are controversial? Which points are most often disputed by those who deny global warming (or human-caused global warming)?