Skepticism is Good...Very, VERY GOOD!

I've always taken issue with those nitwits who say things like, "I don't have to understand the science behind XYZ, the experts agree...or the scientific consensus is..."

THAT is every bit as much faith-based thinking as, "I don't know all the details about heaven and hell and what gets you into either place, but this Church..or Pastors agree..."

Yup, if you "can't do the math," you're pretty much taking everything on faith.

Uhhhh....that's NEVER a good thing.

Anthropogenic Climate Change is actually STILL being hotly debated among "experts," although many of the "experts" are NOT Climatologists, or even Meteorologists.

Funny story, the "Father of Climatology" Reid Bryson was an anthrpogenic Climate Change skeptic until his death. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzYfJP-HWcQ&t=2s)

So are; Physicist Freeman Dyson, who has been a giant in his field for decades. But the British-born, Princeton-based professor has gained notoriety for his "heretical" views on climate change.

Bjorn Lomborg is a Danish-based scientist, famous for his book The Skeptical Environmentalist. Like Dyson, he's not an outright denier, but rather he thinks the current approach to global warming is misguided and that the costs of drastic, short-term action are too high. Instead, he thinks we should focus on becoming more adaptable, while putting more effort into such real-world tragedies as AIDS and malaria.

Japanese scientist Kiminori Itoh is the author of Lies and Traps in the Global Warming Affair. Like many others, Itoh does not reject the notion of global warming entirely, but instead claims that the causes are far more complex than the anti-carbon crowd would have you believe. 

Ivar Giaever, a Nobel Prize winner in physics, isn't a thought leader, per se, in the climate skeptics scene - but the mere fact that he has come out as being a skeptic and has a Nobel Prize makes him important. His big beef is that climate change orthodoxy has become a "new religion" for scientists, and that the data isn't nearly as compelling as it should be to get this kind of conformity.

Will Happer is another, highly-respected physicist out of Princeton who compares the anti-CO2 crowd to the prohibitionists prior to the passage of the 18th Amendment. While he does acknowledge long-term warming, he thinks the influence of CO2 is vastly overstated, and that the benefits of a modest reduction in it will be negligible.

In testimony  Congress, he used the following analogy what he means:

The earth's climate really is strongly affected by the greenhouse effect, although the physics is not the same as that which makes real, glassed-in greenhouses work. Without greenhouse warming, the earth would be much too cold to sustain its current abundance of life. However, at least 90% of greenhouse warming is due to water vapor and clouds. Carbon dioxide is a bit player. There is little argument in the scientific community that a direct effect of doubling the CO2 concentration will be a small increase of the earth's temperature - on the order of one degree. Additional increments of CO2 will cause relatively less direct warming because we already have so much CO2 in the atmosphere that it has blocked most of the infrared radiation that it can. It is like putting an additional ski hat on your head when you already have a nice warm one below it, but your are only wearing a windbreaker. To really get warmer, you need to add a warmer jacket. The IPCC thinks that this extra jacket is water vapor and clouds.

Australian professor Ian Plimer is the author of Heaven + Earth, a book that purports to debunk all of the major global warming "myths." Here's the blurb for his book, laying out his general beliefs:

The Earth is an evolving dynamic system. Current changes in climate, sea level and ice are within variability. Atmospheric CO2 is the lowest for 500 million years. Climate has always been driven by the Sun, the Earth’s orbit and plate tectonics and the oceans, atmosphere and life respond. Humans have made their mark on the planet, thrived in warm times and struggled in cool times. The hypothesis that humans can actually change climate is unsupported by evidence from geology, archaeology, history and astronomy. The hypothesis is rejected. A new ignorance fills the yawning spiritual gap in Western society. Climate change politics is religious fundamentalism masquerading as science. Its triumph is computer models unrelated to observations in nature. There has been no critical due diligence of the science of climate change, dogma dominates, sceptics are pilloried and 17th Century thinking promotes prophets of doom, guilt and penance. When plate tectonics ceases and the world runs out of new rocks, there will be a tipping point and irreversible climate change. Don’t wait up.

Alan Carlin is an EPA economist who wrote a paper calling global warming a "hoax." It's not really important what he said or what he believed or even whether his argument makes any sense at all. What's important is that he's become a right-wing celebrity over the belief that he was censored by the EPA for being a heretic.

Recent headlines blared "Many meteorologists question climate change science" (https://www.bostonglobe.com/…/h93iEPs3YSwxPLJ58g…/story.html

Point being, IF you’re basing your view on “experts,” then YOU (a non-expert) don’t get to choose what experts to believe (that would be faith-based belief), nor to decide that “majority rules,” as that too is “Faith-based belief.” That’s NOT how science works.

BUT the issue really isn’t who believes in “experts” or not (believing in chosen scientific “experts” is NOT the same as “believing in science,” that you don’t understand), it’s that NO ONE actually believes in “experts” at all.

Picking and choosing “experts” based on their favoring your preconceived beliefs is...yup...faith-based belief.

Moreover, IF those so invested in anthropogenic climate change really believed in “experts,” there’d be no “atheists,” self-proclaimed, or otherwise, among them. AS virtually ALL the “experts” on religion, those folks who’ve gone to Divinity School believe there is some sort of anthropomorphic “God.”

You CAN’T choose to be a skeptic on some issues despite what the accepted “experts” think, then rely totally on “experts” when it comes to science that you don’t remotely comprehend, without being a faith-based believer, instead of a “free thinker.”

What I’ve observed for a long time now, appears to be self-evidently true, that most people who leave religion simply substitute abother faith-based belief system (another religion) for their old one.