0) Has the Earth been getting warmer? (It's pretty clear that this one has been answered: yes.)
1) What is driving the warming? Do we actually understand it? Do we have computer models that, ten years ago, correctly predicted the temperatures we actually experienced in the past decade? Which matters more: CO2, sunspots, clouds? Is the data open and independently corroborated?
2) Will the warming continue, level off, or reverse to a cooling trend (or even an ice age)?
3) If the warming will continue, in what ways will it be bad and in what ways will it be good?
4) If the bad outweighs the good, and we deem global warming to be a major problem, then what is the most effective way to address the problem? Can we solve it with any sort of geoengineering? (Making clouds, locking up carbon in fast-growing plants or algae or something, space-based mirrors, etc.) If the geoengineering is feasible, would it cost less than other proposed plans for carbon regulation?
5) If global warming is happening, we understand it, it is bad, and we can't solve it with geoengineering, what steps should we take now?
6) Is there universal agreement as to the steps we should take now? Will China and India join in the effort?
The AGW proponents claim we understand everything completely now, and no geoengineering efforts will even be considered; we must go straight to carbon credits and such. And if you don't agree with the official AGW position from all steps 0 through 6, you are a "denier" to be ridiculed.
The AGW proponents seriously propose measures that will cause literally trillions of dollars of harm to the economy. That's literal trillions of dollars of increased costs, jobs destroyed, and other harm. This is not theoretical harm, it is harm to actual human beings.
Any effective scheme to reduce carbon emissions must necessarily drive up the cost of driving things around on trucks, because trucks run on carbon-based fuels. Anything that drives up the cost of trucking drives up the cost of everything: food, clothing, all the necessities. And keeping your home warm in the winter requires burning carbon-based fuels, unless you have electric heat and live near a hydro plant or a nuclear power plant. So there will be more people out of a job, and the cost of food will go up, and the cost of heating a home will go up. This is a serious thing to propose, and I expect a high level of proof and a high level of agreement before I will personally be in favor of this. The AGW proponents have not met this high standard yet.
(And before you get snippy with me: even Draconian carbon-control schemes won't hurt me personally, very much. I live in an area where a major chunk of our power is from hydroelectric, I work in an industry that doesn't depend on the cost of energy, and I'm upper-middle class and can afford to pay more for food, heat and everything else. So my own ox isn't being Gored as much as I expect others will be.)
steveha
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