I do have my suspicions too, and I think it will be really difficult to prove any of this, since it is probably a mix of payments from the top to the bottom on one hand, and “organic” growth of this denial movement on the other hand.

But as you probably know, there are indeed some links that have been made clear. In recent weeks, the Deep Climate blog has made what appeared to me (from my non-American point of view) an impressive synthesis: http://deepclimate.org/2010/02/08/steve-mcintyre-and-ross-mckitrick-part-2-barton-wegman/

(sorry if it has been said, I confess I have not read one of the comments – I do have now an allergic crisis when I see “262″ comments, because I know what I will find)

It’s bad accounting. On one side of the ledger is the cheap energy. On the other, is the unpaid-for externalities (a concept you can find all the way back in Adam Smith). At some point the cost of the externalities is going to come due. Hopefully, the latency won’t be too bad–when the problem becomes apparent, hopefully it won’t be too late to stave off the worst of the problem.

Hope you understand I am trying to point out what has gone terribly wrong in regards to the activists\alarmists and the general public. This is not going to be short lived or easy to recover from – a study of history will show that to be true. I have heard in these threads on numerous issues that the other, “soft” sciences are all B.S. (once someone, supposedly a serious intellectual type, stated “philosophical mumbo jumbo”, for example – I guess “I’m too dim witted to get it” means it’s “mumbo jumbo”…) and the only real knowledge is found in the hard sciences. I find such rather interesting (and ignorant), and it also explains to me why so many in the hard sciences play fast and loose in theory building and the claims made that such allow for in our “modern” way of thinking. They haven’t taken the time to learn the limits of such work (and there are limits).

And yes, we are putting more in the air (and I really don’t see that changing unless we have a massive drop in population – cap and trade wasn’t going to change it either, just move who put it there). Have you been following the Windmill fiasco? It is turning out to be very similar to the ethanol debacle, especially in the “hasn’t actually reduced squat” area when looking at the whole picture (like inputs and reliability) rather than just trying to quantify output. Oh, and apparently it has actually been detrimental to employment. Running head long into perceived “answers” almost always just makes things worse (lesson from history).

We already are doing something. We’re planning on putting more CO2 in the atmosphere, which has been shown to trap heat. And we will be doing even more of this in the future as the developing world, etc. comes online. It appears that there are unintended consequences for this activity.

My examples are not “scare quotes”, simple reason.

“Scare quotes” here is a figure of speech meaning the quotation marks you used. You had put them around the word proof, because you knew that in science, you don’t “prove,” you find evidence for (or against) a hypothesis. And you’re right, science doesn’t directly prescribe values–other than perhaps valuing empirical evidence.

http://www.utexas.edu/news/2009/01/27/nuclear_hybrid/?AddInterest=1284

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steve-kirsch/climate-bill-ignores-our_b_221796.html

You seem genuinely concerned with all this which is fine. However, science never tells one what they ought to do, it only tells one what is. The *what* one should do part is much more complicated and involves lots of things far outside sciences area of expertise (ethics, politics, sociology, psychology to name just a few realms where questions of what one *should* do come into play). Often the *should* is actually “do noting”, something we as a species never like to hear as we like to *do something*, makes us feel important and like we have some affect on the world.

Science can give one an idea of what to expect from various choices, but they all come with probabilities – never a certainty. Part of what has gotten medicine into trouble, everyone thinks there is certainty, forgetting those odds of success or serious complications can rear their head at anytime. If you have ever had a serious medical condition, or know someone who does, and have gone through all the options and processed all the “odds” for each one that will make much more sense to you. If you know anyone who had a “routine” procedure and ended up with major complications it will make even more sense to you.

Every time the conversation jumps from what *is* to what *should be* we have changed fields of expertise, and science is ill prepared to cope with those areas.

My examples are not “scare quotes”, simple reason. If we had truly spent lots of time trying to rule out other possibilities prior to throwing it all to the activists and scaring the heck out of the public we would not have such surprises. We would have already known such things.

In this case, by “side”, I meant the side of human beings. We’re all on that side, I’d assume.

which they have only somewhat spent time and resources doing

What do you mean “only somewhat”? What is this based on?

The main thrust has actually been “proving” the Co2 link, a much different endeavor.

What did you think of my above link? http://tinyurl.com/heatisonline

Judging from your scare quotes, you know there is no proof in science. But I think we get an idea that we are not doing enough about the real risks when the IPCC comes out and says there is a greater than 90% chance that the warming we’ve seen so far is due to GHGs.

Please, try to understand this. I do not have a “side”, other than I like solid, honest, trustworthy science. I also have, over a long period of living, learned to recognize it (as everyting) has limitations and that making grand claims is best left to the politicians.

I likely short hand a few things in here (it’s a blog, not a paper I’m getting graded on and certainly not of any relevance to my livelihood) though I do try to make the point clear.

The future results of research may go lots of ways – support, not support or even makes no meaningful difference.

But, my point was this. “We have found no other cause to explain such” implies they have actually spent lots of time looking for alternative causes, which they have only somewhat spent time and resources doing (and the resources part is important, nothing in life is “free”, especially funding dollars. Thus that which is seen as most likely to give results is funded first…). The main thrust has actually been “proving” the Co2 link, a much different endeavor. If they had really been looking for alternatives things such as the contrails and black soot would not have been anywhere near as surprising as they apparently where. There is also in such claims an impression that we understand how Co2 works in the atmosphere and have it reasonably well worked out (at least enough to model it and thus trust such models…). Again, if such were true (that we’ve got a real solid handle on all this stuff) the satellite results showing clumping and banding would not have come as such a “who would of thought” moment, and adds even more questions into what exactly they have been modeling…

Hopefully that helps. As I said, the day to day workings of science aren’t something I’ve worried about in a long time (outside of helping two children majoring in the hard sciences with homework here and there…). Theories (how they work, how they are built and what they can thus claim), on the other hand, is an area I have never stopped working with.