Put me on the list of those who believe that science is never actually settled. Scientists are constantly testing new hypothesis, ideas, and theories and if they're using accepted methods and have their findings peer-reviewed, then we never know what we might find.

Now I'll accept the Earth is going through a warming period. And I believe humans to some extent or another have a role in it. 

But I also think our environment is very adaptable and it would have to be have survived for the few billions years it has.

Going forward, I would prefer we spend less time on worrying how to "fix the climate" (I believe the climate will fix itself over time) and instead worry about the fact that out population is expanding every single day. Which means every day we need to feed, house, privide energy, clean water, and air to all those people. We also know that there is a finite supply of "old" energy (oil, coal, gas) in the ground. So let's focus in both clean and more importantly renewable sources of energy. This way, 50 years from now, humanity won't be at war with one another over the last few drops of oil, or fresh water, or coal. And if we slow the pace of a temporary warming trend, all the better.

Goose wrote:

Put me on the list of those who believe that science is never actually settled. Scientists are constantly testing new hypothesis, ideas, and theories and if they're using accepted methods and have their findings peer-reviewed, then we never know what we might find.
Lager


You know Lager, I think that we have to be careful with what we mean by statements like "the science is never settled". Sometimes it is an excuse for inaction.  I will accept that science is not ever settled, in every detail, for all time. But neither is the understanding of a scientifc issue stuck at step #1 forever.
And, you don't need to know everything about an issue to address it.

For instance, while we don't know everything there is to know about space, we have pretty much established that a spherical earth orbits the sun. And we have learned to travel in space.

We don't know everything that there is to know about the germ theory of disease, yet we have developed vaccines and other very effective treatments of disease based upon what we do know.

I think that climate science has some parallels to this. And it frustrates me that people seem to think that we can/must wait until some far off day when we have complete understanding of man made climate change before we do anything about it. Heck, by stating that  "science is never actually settled" , haven't we've just set up a justification for never addressing the problem.

I disagree. To say the science is never settled is an excuse for more action. More tests, more data, more understanding of the situation.

Certainly, there can be the 'paralysis by analysis' aspect of it if you're always waiting for the next finding before making a decision on how to address it.

But, if I think we do ourselves a disservice when we just focus on climate change in and of itself.