If as you say the basic answer is "we don't know" then you must accept the possibility that GW is being caused by man and GHG's. If that is the case and there is the possibility that we are doing irreparable harm doesn't it just make sense to attempt to reduce or eliminate them where we can while we are doing the years of exhaustive research and studies you are no doubt proposing so that if at the end of the study it turns out we are the culprits we would have headed off the problem.. Isn't that just commons sense which is consistent even with your skepticism.
Have any of my posts said anything different?
My problem always has been the problems with the science and the people who blindly follow along because its a good thing to do
The science is far from settled it never has been settled and unless we actually do science as opposed to using science to push a political adgenda we will never know.
Before you jump and say the science is settled there are far to many questions remaining to claim anything of the sort.
The adjusted temperatures that formed the basis of the ICPP reports
The poor data collection and exemption used for the both Mann's and Ammaan reports . The later one used the data from he first report to justify the first report, circular logic by definition.
The raw data that was disposed of ?
That data is the center piece of a lifetimes work, if accurate, reviewed and reproduced it would be the work that made your entry into teh text books and history assured and somebody dispossed of it?
That alone stretches credibility to the limit, when you add in the discrepancies noted by various and sundry over the years the missing data begins to look like a cover up. Add in the e-mails and data that were released and you have a major problem with the science .
The problem is that the science is not reproducable by independant people from the raw data, if you took that to your thesis advisor you would be slapped and sent back to start over and do it correctly.
When you add in the lack of transparancy and the active denigration of anybody who brings up questions regarding anything to do with this subject and again there is a problem.
The basic problems with the science stretch from ignoring things like the little ice age and the medeval warm period, both periods of climate extreams that we know existed from historical records
People lived through them and wrote down their experiences, both those periods were averaged out of the temperature graphs that formed the basis of the IPCC repots.
The fact the models can not predict or account for EL Nino even when we know they occured means something is wrong with the models.
The basic scientific method says
1) Propose a theory
2) Design an experiment to test your theory
3) Examine your results
4) Revise your theory to fit the observed results
5) Begin again and carry on until your theory matches your experimental results.
At this point you have a workable theory, put a paper together and try to publish it.
Referees will judge the worthiness of your work for publication, once published with all the data and methodology available others will review your work. If it is found wanting other papers will be done in rebuttal ,and the process continues until everybody is either satidfied with your results or your results are proven to be unassailable.
In this situation we have people reviewing each others work, no arguments allowed.
The ability to publish being interfered with by interested parties and people being " black listed " for their views.
A group of interested parties controlling data and access as well as coordinating methodology and data adjustments in order to produce acceptable work.
All of this makes me wonder what the hell is going on. A growing number of people both in and out of the climate change industry are also wondering.
When you add the UN into the act trying to redistribute money ina manour that they approve of and again you have to ask what is actually going on.
No as to your immediate response but what if the science is correct and we wait ?
It would only require a couple of years of real science to determine if the work done by CRU GISS and others has any basis in reality, that could be done while the current negotiations are going on.
Unfortunatly that is going to require that the people who have a vested interest the outcome provide all the data, the computer coding for the models all the notes on the work ( notes that they should have kept as basic methodology would require, you need to be able to figure out what you did so if you have a problem you can back track and find out where the problem is )
Once that information is made available an independant group of scientists will audit and review the work, the interested parties will not have any input until after the audit at which point they can add comments to the panels report.
This can all be done while the negotiations are ongoing, unless there is a reason for the climate negotiations to be rammed through without an audit?