I agree and I would approach this topic with the same view and I did. When I have no expertise I see what the expert on the topics say and I examine their research.
However, please dive in to the topic and understand what exactly the scientists are telling you.
1. temperature record shows CO2 accumulationn lags temperature on the way up and the way down.
2. for the last 17 years CO2 has been going up and temperature has stayed the same or gone down.
3. the CO2 forcing models all predicted temperature to go up... althought the recent one in 2007 included a low end of no tempertature change... and if you read the footnotes the scientists wrote that they had no model which showed CO2 forcing tempertature.
So... that leaves you with the question....
What science are the scientists basing their claims on?
And who are the scientists making the claims?
And when there is are arugment about consensus is it real.
You will find the 97% is really 97% of scientists published in pro man made global warming journals.
You will find that there may be a majority of scientists with real degrees in science who say man may have some effect on temperature... but far fewer are saying that man made CO2 causes temperature to rise on earth.
That last statement is not supported by any science.
You may challenge any agw nutter here and not one will produce science showing man made global warming causes temps to rise on earth.
They will show you charts... based on the projections of now failed models.
The fact is the UN and the Met are regrouping and I am sure going to come out with new models which include the sun and the tides in their models this time.
Quote from Timtugs:
On the subject of global warming, climate change or whatever else you want to call it.
Either we have faith in the major institutions of science (which of course could be wrong, but this seems unlikely) or we come to a conclusion based on evidence which we have personally observed.
I am not a climatologist, I don't understand the science so I am defering the thought process to people that do understand the science and whose job it is to advise decisions based on this understanding. This is faith based support for man made global warming. I have faith that the worlds major scientific institutions are not lying or completely off the mark. This is based on my experience and understanding of the scientific process which compared to politics, business, finance etc is relatively unbaised. Most scientists are in it to answer "why" questions and not to accumulate money or power so have very little reason to trick or confuse the public at large.
However, this is definitely a cop out. We are all able to understand climate science if we dedicate enough of our time to understanding it. IF you have taken the time to look into it and are a sceptic, I applaud you, but until I do the same I will put my faith in the robust institutions which have been right countless times in the past.