I thought one of (not the only) the main aspects of the scientific method was that it could only be used to disprove a theory, but never to prove it 100% correct. For example, you cannot ever prove that Big Foot is a hoax, but you can disprove it by finding him. Or, the theory of gravity can never be proven, only disproven if an experiment showed it to be false. Isn't that all this scientist is asking for?
There were some interesting observations that didn't seem to make sense (the speed of light is constant, regardless of the motion of the observer). Then someone figured out how to modify Newton's equations for motion to make this possible. Then someone else took this seriously, and gave a comprehensive explanation of the implications. Then someone built the GPS system, which would not work if the clocks it uses didn't account for the time dilation that relativity predicts.
Or, consider quantum mechanics.
This follows much the same pattern. Someone made interesting observations about how light behaves (and other things). Someone worked out some math that would explain how it works. Someone else used that math to build useful things like computers (semiconductors work like they do because of QM).
You can be nitpicky and say that those theories aren't "proven", and that Newtonian mechanics is "wrong". Or you can say, they are all obviously true enough to be useful. Just because Newtonian mechanics is "disproven" for the inside of computer chips or for the precise motions of GPS satellites, does not stop it from being correct and useful for everyday life or even for serious engineering.
I'm not arguing that scientific theories aren't useful, just that the point of science is to continue to search for ways to disprove things, not to ever prove something. Considering the infinite amount of knowledge about our universe that has yet to be discovered or understood, the only way to go about making sense of it all is to start by disproving things one at a time. There is always a deeper level of understanding and knowledge that could potentially make something previously thought to be true untrue.
Considering the billions of dollars both sides of this debate have on the line, spending a few thousand to incentivize individuals to disprove this theory would be quite rational in my mind. Whether Global Warming can be disproven or not is a completely different question.
the point of science is to continue to search for ways to disprove things, not to ever prove something
No, the point is to learn things. Any time something is shown to be less likely (disproven) other things must therefore be that same amount more likely. The goal is to concentrate that likeliness in as small an area as possible.
Simply disproving things doesn't help with this. Disproving things that we thought were true helps with this (a star viewed thru a telescope has a disc because of diffraction, not because of similar triangles; the earth really does move). Finding the limits of what we know helps with this (Newtonian mechanics works, but not for extremely small or fast things).
Given infinite possibilities, just disproving some at random won't help. You need to find which possibilities you can learn the most by testing.
There is always a deeper level of understanding and knowledge that could potentially make something previously thought to be true untrue.
This is not a useful way of looking at things. It's better to say, for anything that's true, there are limits within which it is true. Newtonian mechanics is not untrue, it's just not all-encompassing.
Consider all those infinite possibilities as a multi-dimensional space. A particular theory is a region (or set of regions) in that space that are true, and that aren't true. Any one experiment can test one point and see if it matches what the theory says. If you have a cluster of points that are all true or all false, you don't gain anything by testing more points in that same area. You gain by testing points near where the theory says the edge of a region should be. If the edges are all where they should be, you've proved the theory as true (or rather, true enough). If not, it's either wrong or more limited that you thought (it's less true than you thought).
If you're talking about whether theories match the real world, then you're correct. It can never be conclusively verified due to the problem of measurement.
However, given a theory, you can prove whether or not something is correct in the model described by the theory. So while it can never be conclusively proven whether, say, the standard model matches the real world perfectly, you can most definitely prove that electrons behave in a specific way in a world that behaves like the standard model says it should.
That leaves open the question whether the real world matches the standard model or not, and while very compelling measurements and experiments can be produced, we don't really know. Well, we do know, actually. There's no gravity in the standard model, so it most definitely does not describe our world, which is why the whole string theory research is happening.
But climate science does not have that. It does not have tiny theories with constants that try to find the smallest possible unit and how it behaves. Climate science laws talk about volumes of air, say cubes of 10km on a side, and statistically it will behave like X. But nobody really knows why we got X, except that it "tends" to predict measurements fairly accurately. Why ? We have some idea, like "co2 keeps sunlight from reflecting out", but we don't know why the observed concentrations in the athmosphere don't match what you see in a gas experiment (basically in experiments greenhouse effects stop at ~250-280ppm depending on concentrations of other gases, doesn't happen in the athmosphere obviously). But climate science doesn't even try to explain this, or reduce it to first principles, they just try to model whatever they see.
