[numitus]

That’s a pretty weak argument. What percentage of people actually have the qualifications to understand and verify a research paper? And how much can you even trust the raw data? At the end of the day, it’s just a matter of faith—whether you choose to believe the guy in the church or the guy at the university.

[jfengel]

You don't need any advanced science to understand climate change. The basic chemistry and physics of it are readily accessible at a high school level.

Current research papers are far more advanced, but they're about the details of climate change. The basic facts of it were established two centuries ago.

We know that we are putting CO2 into the atmosphere. We know that CO2 absorbs heat. That's not a matter of believing an expert. At this point, anybody still denying it is deliberately choosing what somebody else tells them.

The economic effects of that are harder to model, but denialism is still stuck on whether the effect is real. There is no way to include them in any coherent discussion of what to do about it.