[dragonwriter]

> The real issue is that nobody has proven this wasn't going to occur anyway.

Are you saying that the contribution of CO₂ levels to warming isn't established, or that the human role in increasing CO₂ levels isn't established? Because both of those are very well established.

> This is always the downfall with climate science in that there is no explicit proof that anything man does to the planet would alter what was going to occur anyway.

This is only true in the sense where “explicit proof” is restricted to pure abstract domains like math and not applicable to any domain of material fact; to the extent that it is possible to “prove” anything about what would happen in counterfactual alternative conditions in the material universe, though, this has been proven.

[stmfreak]

CO2 follows warming if you look at the data too closely.

No one has proved that mankind’s contribution is material to the underlying trend, nor proved that warming will be as bad as claimed. So what if Greenland becomes green again?

[sys_64738]

> Are you saying that the contribution of CO₂ levels to warming isn't established, or that the human role in increasing CO₂ levels isn't established? Because both of those are very well established

Established by who and where is their funding coming from? Would you trust a survey that says "Windows is better than Linux" if it was funded by Microsoft? That's why where the funding comes from is key.

> is only true in the sense where “explicit proof” is restricted to pure abstract domains like math and not applicable to any domain of material fact; to the extent that it is possible to “prove” anything about what would happen in counterfactual alternative conditions in the material universe, though, this has been proven.

If you want hundreds of billions of dollars to be invested in something which hasn't got clear proof of value then that's simply not enough. You need to prove the Return On Investment, regardless of field. It all comes down to money.