I am an earth scientist who has not only studied the global warming question myself, but I met the woman I married while we were in grad school and she was doing atmospheric modeling for her degree in the meteorology department. Good enough?
I was very vocal against those who were not using sufficient caution in their leaps onto the Global Warming bandwagon, and it cost me research funding and departmental support. My wife was quieter, but she was not happy with the distortions that were out there.
However, even she--a registered Libertarian!--and I--die-hard conservative--admit that there's good evidence for climate change (I didn't say "Global Warming," per se) occuring. The questions I pose, though, are:
1) Is it anthropogenic? The history of the earth has generally been warmer than now, so is the current warming trend just "getting back to normal" and nothing to do with humans?
2) Does it matter? Even if we haven't caused it, we have to live with it, so does the origin matter, except for #3....
3) Could we even do something about it if we tried? Certainly, the question of "blame" is important if we want to know if we can "fix" things if they get too bad.
4) What is the best approach? Anti-capitalism isn't the only possible approach to consider. Perhaps our best hope is to keep ourselves prosperous enough to develop remedies via a vibrant capitalist economy.
Thank you very much Gondring. I appreciate your reply. Since this is such a politically charged issue, it's the scientists' opinions which should have the most weight.