Maybe most scientists treat the subject as they should, but that work doesn't translate well to the outside. Look at the topic name for this thread. So you're right, I haven't studied in detail all the technical data available on the issue, however that wasn't really what my post was about anyway.
Perhaps within the scientific community they are objectively assessing the threat and not impartial or swayed by grants and government/media pressure. Outside that community the topical discussions regarding climate change are a joke.
Quite frankly I haven't spent the time to pore over all the data and research because I'm not that concerned or scared and I don't trust the validity of all the hyperbole surrounding the issue. It sounds like you've looked into more closely than I have, can you give me your impression? Will this wipe us out? If so in what timeframe? Force a period of uncomfortable transition to alternate technologies? Or be barely noticed by the average man on the street?
I will check out the IPCC reports out of curiosity though.
I haven't had time to finish doing this but here are my first impressions. They are all consistent with the IPCC reports. In general,
1) The earth has warmed about .6 K over the last 100 years. There are multiple lines of evidence in agreement on this. When a scientific body says there is
incontrovertible evidence for global warming, this is what they are referring to. Nothing more.
2) There is a
very strong correlation to CO2 emissions. In the past CO2 emissions have lagged temp increases, but there are good reasons to believe that pumping it into the atmosphere can also cause warming. The majority of people publishing in the field agree that this has
at least contributed to the observed warming. This is what there is
scientific consensus about.
3) There are numerous models that predict a rise of 2 K over the next century dependent on various CO2 emission scenarios. This is where it gets tricky. There are no good models for whether cloud feedback will be positive or negative and the models can't really be verified by the data available (time frame too short). However, this does not mean the models are useless or uninformative. I am currently in the process of looking into this, but it takes time.
4) No model predicts a runaway greenhouse effect or anything that will wipe out humanity due to the warming. It is more that a rise of over 2K in a century will force humans to adapt to changed weather patterns, disruptions in the food supply, coastal flooding, etc. I haven't given a good look at the reasoning behind this yet.
5) There is historical evidence of climate change both more abrupt and of greater magnitude than anything the models predict. See
Dansgaard-Oeschger event . So such an occurrence would not be unprecedented.
6) There may be pal-review and publication bias effects influences here. The peer review system is not perfect and never completely based on merit, and this is a highly politicized field. This isn't a problem limited to climate research, from personal experience I can talk about the alcohol research field. The funding agencies want alcohol=bad for health, so it is much easier to get funded if this is your hypothesis rather than alcohol=good for health. For example drunk drivers may have better outcomes after head injuries due to car accidents than non drunk. Possibly because the alcohol reduces inflammation and swelling. If I wanted to study this i would still write a grant that predicted a deleterious effect of alcohol. There is a poster here (natchwind I think), who does paleoclimatology, and he didn't feel his particular subfield was very corrupted.
7) Honestly without actually going through the funding and publication process myself it is probably impossible to form a legitimate opinion on the social aspects though. That is why I think focusing on these points is pretty unproductive. You go down the rabbit hole of "who to trust" which is ironically the very problem science was developed to solve.
