I'm not saying that people should not discuss this. I'm saying that the debate is over unless substantial other facts are presented than we do now. Discussion value based on evidence and not conjecture. Claiming that this is the same as the dogma and falsehood of religions is plain insulting.
Besides, the last time anyone thought the world was flat was a lot longer ago than 500 years, and 'scientists' as such did not exist yet.
The thing that bugs me is that there's all this "it's CO2 stupid!!!" and a lot less "what if it were something else?"
Has the planet gotten warmer in the last 150 years? Yes.
Does that correlate with increasing CO2 concentration? Yes.
Does that prove the causal link? No.
There are about a million confounding factors that could disprove that causality. I mean there are enough man-made refrigerants in the atmosphere to literally blow a hole in the ozone layer. That's a real, proven, nobody-argues-about-it thing.
But if you look at the wikipedia refrigerants page you can see their Global Warming Potential (GWP). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_refrigerants Many of them are quite high, such that even at tiny concentrations they can have a significant impact.
That to me says that things are pretty complicated. The idea that our understanding of something that's complicated like that MIGHT not be complete isn't unreasonable.
Furthermore a lot of people say "climate change is settled, we need to do something about CO2" and I don't buy that argument. MAYBE climate change is settled, but even if it is there's a lot that can be done without even touching CO2 and all the economic pain and/or non-compliance to agreements that'll happen.
What I mean is that it might well be easier to deal with methane, NO2, and refrigerants than CO2. If it doesn't require the entire world giving up on developed country standards of living in the near future that's going to be a much easier sell. Mandating efficiency doesn't work re: jevons; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox Putting hard limits on emissions in the developed world is doable but nearly impossible in the developing world.
And even if we could get all the countries in the world to agree to hard limits on emissions, it's got to be population based, not history-based (i.e. the developed countries get larger quotas because they're already developed) or else you're basically making the undeveloped world slaves to the developed world. But even if you could somehow get the entire world to agree to such a thing, it's still terrible for one of two reasons:
1. if individuals can sell their quota on the open market fraud will be rampant since verification is impossible
2. if they can't, their governments will do so for them and we'll continue to prop up dictators all around the world
Neither is a very defensible moral position to take.
So while I'm less skeptical of climate change today than I was 10 years ago I am not 100% convinced as of yet (since complex things are complex). And all the "obvious" solutions to the problems even if I were to say "sure, it's a big enough problem we gotta do whatever we can!" end up with neutered, bad or horrible outcomes for the world. Possibly even in a worse way than if climate change continues.
EDIT: The other thing I'll mention is that we already have proven success on the trace gas emissions problem. The ozone hole should eventually close now that the problem has been solved. Rather than attacking energy (which is a multi-trillion dollar industry and affects every person on the planet) perhaps going after other sources would be more fruitful. http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/WorldOfChange/ozon...
Yes, for all reasonable definitions of 'prove', the vast amount of evidence collected that is a proven fact. Although correlation of one metric does not necessarily imply causation of some other, evidence upon evidence upon evidence does imply causation. And that is what we have.
The fact that you can casually obtain this information from Wikipedia already means that the scientific community is open to, and aware of, other greenhouse gases. Your information also confirms that CO2 in itself is probably the biggest problem. It is also the one that people likely can control most in their day-to-day lives. So if that's what's driving public policy, that's probably not a bad thing either.
No, correlation does not imply causation. There are a dozen things which can correlate with rising temperatures and CO2 is only one of them. Some of them aren't even in/on the Earth!
Remember, "prove" means that ANY reliable information to the contrary overwhelms all the other evidence and/or theories because at it's core science is about falsifiability. If your theory cannot be falsified by new evidence, it's not science, it's religion.
I can't tell whether you are deliberately being dishonest or genuinely don't understand how to have a proper debate.
> Correlation does not imply causation.
You can't simply wave this around to invalidate information that does not suit your liking. You can use also use this statement to disqualify the fact that sex causes the spread of AIDS. It's a hollow statement if the evidence is overwhelming.
You can point to all other contributing factors to climate change. Yes, climate change is complex, there are many contributing factors, and not all of them are CO2. It's very important to realize, but these things are not ignored. In any case, those do not invalidate the claim that CO2 is one of the most important driving factors of current climate change, and that it is man-made.
Next you pretend that it is somehow a religion. Thirty to fifty years of gathering information, getting to know our environment and recognizing patterns in them is not a religion. That is an insult to all hard work humanity has put into this partial understanding of our world. There are thousands of ways to falsify man-made climate change (eg. CO2 increase is largest on the ocean floor, temperatures decrease over ten years, molecular nitrogen is found to be a significant greenhouse gas) none of which have any real support.
In the end you are advocating critical debate, which is fine. But don't do that by ignoring the larger discussion and only picking out the parts you like.
Besides, the last time anyone thought the world was flat was a lot longer ago than 500 years, and 'scientists' as such did not exist yet.