[Karunamon]

Which of these scenarios do you think is more likely?

That a group of nonprofits and academic institutions all colluded over a decade or three to make money in a very roundabout way for groups they don't have any direct involvement with?

-or-

That a group of oil industry types, in a nod to the junk science used by big tobacco for years, colluded over a decade or three in an attempt to discredit something that will directly impact their bottom lines in a bad way?

Follow the money. Hell, follow human nature.

[CamperBob2]

Or, that everybody was wrong because they were working from an incorrect or incomplete model.

That's what has actually happened a few gazillion times throughout human history, unlike either of the other two scenarios you posit.

The best thing we can do is force the climate scientists to make specific predictions, then look back in a few decades and evaluate those predictions. Predictive power isn't everything, it's the only thing.

So far, the predictive power of the vaunted "scientific consensus" has been mixed. Personally, I'm not as satisfied with the quality of the models or the data as I would like to be, given the magnitude of the changes to global economics that are being demanded on the basis of those models and data.

[Karunamon]

So I'll ask you the same thing I've asked every other climate change denier:

Show me a critical analysis of the data that wasn't commissioned by or sponsored by the energy industry or any organization or person connected to it.

[guscost]

When you're invoking doomsday to obtain grants or subsidies:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_burden_of_proof

[Karunamon]

Indeed. Anyone asserting that the current body of science is wrong about climate change should be able to back that up with data from non-questionable sources.

[CamperBob2]

When you understand that there are no "non-questionable sources," you'll understand the point people are trying to make in this thread.

Extraordinary claims may or may not require extraordinary proof -- at least one famous environmentalist said so, anyway -- but extraordinary demands most certainly do.

[Karunamon]

>When you understand that there are no "non-questionable sources"

Rubbish. Are you seriously telling me that nobody has done critical analysis of the data who wasn't associated with the energy industry?