Nitro this political stuff matters, of course. It can result in sociopolitical outcomes that affect peoples' lives, and it can affect science funding that in turn can influence both the rate of scientific progress and also the topics that receive emphasis; but regardless of the level of sociopolitical involvement, disinterested scientific inquiry will remain a bystander to the natural world.
Some , it seems, have unwittingly turned their early hypothesis into a bizarre sort of climate-religion; and are now driven by faith and emotion without any consideration of the many recent findings that are wholly inconsistent with the foundations of their faith. Their faith based "science" rests on limited, unreliable data acquired in the infancy of the AGW hypothesis, and on a strong correlation of temperature and CO2 concentration over the past century, depending on the time gradient between data points. It has got so bad that Hansen did not even submit his last paper to the journals before releasing it to the media. As a scientist I am appalled. His radical behavior is not helping the science one iota.
I propose that both halves of the political system are wrong to take sides in a scientific issue that it still very much up in the air -- or is it?
I agree that scientists can fall into the fervor of a belief so much that it blinds them to the data. After all, they are human beings and even the most analytical person can have bouts of irrationality. I also agree that consensus is NOT proof.
While there still may not be irrefutable proof of global warming, regardless of their causes – whether you believe in anthropocentric drivers, like fossil fuels from power plants and airplanes and cars and chemicals dumped on the ocean ad-infinitum, or not — the observed changes in climate are scientific facts that have grave implications for the future of natural and human systems.
So to answer your point, EVEN IF there is still not enough scientific evidence to give say a 5-sigma definitive signal that the odds of HFGW is real, the cautious thing to do IN THE FACE OF THE EVIDENCE THAT WE DO HAVE is to prepare for the worst, all the while crossing my fingers and hoping for the best. If it turns out that the whole thing was a mistake, then we will not be much worse off due to the caution. Developing renewable resources is inherently not a bad thing and is good diversification in general. But if it turns out to be true (in the five-sigma event case), then we will be really glad that we took steps early to try to dampen the potential catastrophic repercussion that may occur. Time ahead of it is what makes it so damning if we do nothing. At some point, the process is irreversible.
So, this debate back and forth about scientific evidence is silly. My guess is that the evidence we have now is something like a 2-sigma event, enough for serious worry, but not necessarily out of the realm that what we could be seeing is conceivably a head-fake and the warming is due to a greater extent by natural processes.
But, when you plug in the 2-std into any probability model that says, how should we proceed with this evidence when the stakes are so incredibly high, no one in their right minds takes the position that you and Jem and others do.
So I will let you and others here debate for sport whether the scientific evidence is or is not enough to warrant assigning it a 99.999999% true value. I prefer to deal with the evidence in a probabilistic manner.
The odds of a asteroid striking Earth is something like 1 to 1,000,000,000,000 against. But if it does strike the Earth all life on Earth is dead for at least a thousand years. So, what is the correct thing to do? To try to avert it if possible and dedicate resources to hedge ourselves. EVEN AGAINST something so ridiculously rare. The evidence
for HFGW is a million trillion, yes, a MILLION TRILLION, times more likely than that, with scenarios of devastation similar to an asteroid hitting Earth. Except it will be a slow death instead of a fast one.
