I don't believe that climate science is 'settled'.
To clarify I'm neither religiously pro or anti global warming (although I do believe that climate change should happen as a byproduct of a chaotic system with high entropy) - to me the question of whether or not it's solely man made is irrelevant. The questions of importance to me are:
Is it possible to sufficiently geo-engineer the Earth's climate to counteract climate change?
If it is possible where's the cost/benefit analysis (i.e. how much do we spend on geo-engineering to achieve the best 'payoff' in terms of success)?
What's the cost of adaptation (i.e. accepting that the change will happen and adapting ourselves to the changing environment)?
Those questions are relevant regardless of whether or not the world is getting hotter or colder. For me the political muddying of the waters makes it impossible to engage in rational debate with either side. It's become a religion, but unless you're a climate scientist (and I'm not) you realistically only know what you've consumed from others, and there's a lot of people on all sides who are more interested in moulding facts to fit a political argument than identifying what's really happened.
Those are indeed interesting and relevant points but they don't have much to do with climate science per se. Climate science is about understanding how climate works, not costs of adaptation or geoengineering.
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I don't believe that climate science is 'settled'.
To clarify I'm neither religiously pro or anti global warming (although I do believe that climate change should happen as a byproduct of a chaotic system with high entropy) - to me the question of whether or not it's solely man made is irrelevant. The questions of importance to me are:
Is it possible to sufficiently geo-engineer the Earth's climate to counteract climate change?
If it is possible where's the cost/benefit analysis (i.e. how much do we spend on geo-engineering to achieve the best 'payoff' in terms of success)?
What's the cost of adaptation (i.e. accepting that the change will happen and adapting ourselves to the changing environment)?
Those questions are relevant regardless of whether or not the world is getting hotter or colder. For me the political muddying of the waters makes it impossible to engage in rational debate with either side. It's become a religion, but unless you're a climate scientist (and I'm not) you realistically only know what you've consumed from others, and there's a lot of people on all sides who are more interested in moulding facts to fit a political argument than identifying what's really happened.
Those are indeed interesting and relevant points but they don't have much to do with climate science per se. Climate science is about understanding how climate works, not costs of adaptation or geoengineering.
You make a good point, I was referring to climate change and the claim that 'the science is settled'. Apologies for any confusion.