Having read through (with varying levels of patience) the recent 95 comments on another topic, and for those over there genuinely trying to understand the issues, the science, and the politics, I recommend the following initial steps.

1) We should each take the time to read an excellent basic scientific explanation of what we’re taking about. This was an earlier link provided by Paul N.

http://bostonreview.net/BR32.1/emanuel.html

2) I suggest people become as skeptical about big corporations as many individuals are about big government. I recommend renting the movie “Who Killed the Electric Car?”

3) It is great to doubt authority figures. But the answer is not to simply doubt one side and blindly trust the other. The hard work lies in becoming informed enough that you can sort out the false arguments yourself.

Personally, I cannot help but recommend reading Joe’s book, “Hell and High Water” (that’s what led me to this website), and then pass it along to someone else who is also likely to read it. Read his source materials as well. Read contrarian viewpoints (not just contrarian, anonymous comments on this board). Exercise independent judgment in the context of the very serious risk analysis which must take place.

4) Most importantly, we should all track real world events to come to our own conclusions about who is right about the science. The unusual weather we’ve been seeing actually represents the results of carbon dioxide emissions of several years ago. There is a lag time factor going on here. That is, we all need to consider the evidence which corroborates (or, perhaps, fails to corroborate) the predictions of climate crisis experts.

For those of us who come out a bit concerned about it all, we need to think about gradually changing our lifestyles and our political decisions. If we get some really traumatic extreme weather events, then we’ll have to get more proactive. Some people genuinely believe we’re already at that point. They may be right. Who knows. In the meantime, the worst thing to do is nothing.

Joe: you would have already posted on this study if it favored your ideological position. There’s no hiding that — everyone here knows it.

Both you are Gristmill are guilty of ignoring a scientifically rigorous study that comes to a conclusion you don’t like. Maybe it is right, maybe it is wrong. But you’re guilty of not even mentioning it because it doesn’t comply with your preconceived notions.

Schwartz’ is a serious study, all the stronger because it does *not* rely on computer models.

If it is so obviously wrong, where is the rebuttal?

I don’t post on every study — including (especially) those that agree with the IPCC/NASA. Why? — virtually all of studies that come out agree with IPCC/NASA. I also often don’t post on people who believe warming will be much, much worse than the consensus (Lovelock, climateprediction.net).

Tell you what, though. I will get to it this month — this week, if I have time, though I was planning to do a series on responses to the Stern report. Then I will ask Gristmill to reprint it — no guarantees, though, since they don’t always do what I ask.

I don’t have an ideological position. I have read most of the recent literature and talked to dozens of the leading climate scientists, and combined that with my own background, and come to my own conclusions.

http://www.americanthinker.com/ 2007/ 08/ nasa_flacks_for_global_warming.html

Also, if we are recommending movies [I agree ‘Who Killed The Electric Car?’ is a must-see], another good one to watch again is ‘Wag The Dog’.

Pascal’s wager lays out the “rules” for how to act in the face of uncertainty — if the uncertain outcome is cataclysmic (such as going to hell, whether from global warming or atheism) then a precautionary approach is warranted … For the most part, people adhere to this framework. In fact, Bush, Rove et. al. took advantage of this tendency in the run-up to Iraq.

Now, I’d wager big money that most of the denyers were all for invading Iraq because “we couldn’t afford to let a mushroom cloud be the first sign.”

And yet, here we are, facing a potentially far worse outcome with orders of magnitude more proof that the danger is real and imminent, and suddenly, preemption isn’t prudent.

For that reason, I believe even the amateur denyer is replacing reason with ideology, and ignoring fact. In my book, that puts them squarely in the same camp as the Exxon-funded pros.

Of course, the problems I have with Hansen’s intemperate behavior aren’t really due to his status as a professional.

Pascal never considered the possibility that being a Catholic (or any other single religion) might make one as likely or more likely to suffer damnation. Which shows a certain provincialism or narrow-mindedness on his part, especially since the Protestant Reformation was then more than a century old, and other cultures and religions were well known to educated Europeans of his time.

Likewise, your premise that essentially ending the consumption of fossil fuels is comparatively risk-free shows a certain provincialism. At the least, it would require a massive reduction in global living standards, even if we were to undertake an enormous buildup of nuclear plants (which source of amelioration I would support), and catastrophic results in the absence of the nuclear solution. Such costs (and some risks from nuclear proliferation and waste) would of course be a certainty, whereas your hell of positive-feedback global warming remains a conjecture unsupported by data even if we accept IPCC reconstructions.

Excerpt: “Via email, I hear that this paper from Stephen Schwartz is making a bit of a splash in the delusionosphere. In it, he purports to show that climate sensitivity is only about 1.1C, with rather small uncertainty bounds of +-0.5C.

Usually, I am happy to let RealClimate debunk the septic dross that still infects the media. In fact, since I have teased them about their zeal in the past, it may seem slightly hypocritical of me to bother with this. However, this specific paper is particularly close to my own field of research, and the author is also rather unusual in that he seems to be a respected atmospheric scientist with generally rather mainstream views on climate science (although perhaps a bit critical of the IPCC here). However, his background is in aerosols, which suggests that he may have stumbled out of his field without quite realising what he is getting himself into.

Anyway, without further ado, on to the mistakes:”

The Doubters as you call them do a great disservice to America and this planet. Whether or not cognizant of their manipulation, they perform most of the grunt work for the Deniers & Delayers. They are ubiquitous on the web, in the blogosphere, in magazines and op-eds, etc. enshrouding the general public in a milieu of disinformation and confusion. That and their apparent sincerity make them a most effective tool of the fossil fuel interests. They should be given their due and called out at every turn. Otherwise, their loud voice becomes the one most often heard and remembered.

But seriously; from a scientifically illiterate layman’s point of this whole subject is really difficult to get to grips with, because so much comes down to “who do you trust”.

Personally, I think we neeed to alter our behaviour re. fossil fuels anyway, global warming or not; but here in the UK our government is doing the case for action against global warning no good by concentrating on financial penalties (”Green” taxes) - which people cynically see, rightly or wrongly, as just another way of raising revenue - rather than taking drastic, and potentially seriously unpopular, action to actually force cuts in emissions. The problem is here that, so long as government is only tackling emissions by nibbling cash away from people, rather than engaging in the Draconian policies necessary to change behaviour to a meaningful degree, the man in the street will, quite simply, not take this issue seriously…
Maybe democracy and the kind of radical changes needed just don’t mix; in which case where do we go then…?