> Global warming pisses me off because it isn't so much > science as it is religion. I agree that there's a lot of problems with the way people talk and argue

> Global warming pisses me off because it isn't so much > science as it is religion. I agree that there's a lot of problems with the way people talk and argue about it, but I think it needs to be clearer that this is a separate issue from whether human-made global warming is happening or not, and if it is, how severe a problem it is. People could be arguing for it in very dodgy ways, and it could still be true. > They way I see it, the pro-AGW crowd need to: [...] > 3. That warming is bad. It'd be bad for some but I > guarantee you it'd be good for others. You're implying that any good effects balance out any bad ones, but of course they're unlikely to be equal in magnitude. Maybe the bad effects will be far greater than the good effects, or maybe the good effects will be greater than the bad ones - either way, it's the overall consequences that matter. Also, I don't think the requirement should be for people to prove these things, in the sense of some absolute proof, whereby if we can't prove it definitely is happening we should act as if it is definitely not happening. In reality we always have to act in terms of our degrees of confidence about what is probably going on.