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Consider the simple fact, drawn from the official temperature records of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, that for the years 1998-2005 global average temperature did not increase (there was actually a slight decrease, though not at a rate that differs significantly from zero).
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This is a fact because a short time period starting after an exceptionally warm period was chosen. 1998 was one of the hottest years on record (even with the recent corrections) and spiked the 5 year average. Since then it's dropped from that spike back to its "normal" rate of
increase. If you look at 1999-2006 you see the average temp is still increasing, not leveling out or decreasing (though at such a small time scale it's not significant). This is a great example of how people can mislead with statistics and why scale becomes important in looking at long-term trends.