I dont know what the truth actually is. But that's really the point for me. No one can prove anything definitively one way or the other. But you're right, the physical reality will tell the tale. Frankly there's no way any level of reports coming out of the IPCC is going to make China, or Asia, or the middle east all of a sudden push green policies. So unless we (the west) stop all form of trade with all of those places until they go even more green than we are now, it doesnt matter. You and I both know that we're not going to cut all trade ties with any nation or region that isnt eco-friendly. You and I also know that we wont be forcing them to be greener than the west is now, we're not going to all of a sudden stop being a consumer driven culture, and that now matter how green the west is it'll never make up the difference for those other regions polluting. So in a couple of decades we'll either be fine, or we'll be fucked, and until one or the other happens the science will not be settled. Short of massive global catestrophic upheaval our course is not going to deviate.

And yes, I know that my typo suggests that Nobel and UN are associated...

It would only be financial ruin for the entities that were invested in the premise. For the most part that would be Universities (probably very limited impact), activist organizations (total ruin) and governmental agencies like the EPA or the United Nations (which are ultimately paid for thru taxes on individuals). It would likely prove a significant benefit to far more than it would prove harmful, in terms of money or jobs.

Regardless, the person or group that could prove the whole thing a farce would be (are?) silenced thru ridicule or threats. Their lives would be (are?) ruined for speaking against those who are so deeply invested in the premise. If someone were to eventually prove it all false and bring the world into agreement, they sure as hell wouldnt be getting a Nobel prize from the United Nations, who is beating one of the biggest drums in the climate change parade. Even if they were absolutely correct they would still be condemned and threatened by every clean activist in the world for some completely illogical argument, like proclaiming they were encouraging the world to polute. All in all its far less risky to just shut up than to go against the grain, something that the left in general counts on.

I think its a near certainty that most (all) scientists fully believed in the work they started. But I also think its probably that after a decade or more of shouting from the rooftops trying desperately to prove their stance, that if they now discover they were wrong or at best grossly overstating the situation, that they cannot come out and say that now without looking like idiots. And doing so would kill their jobs in the short term, and likely end their professional careers.

They are wholly invested. They cannot deviate from the path they have started down even if it's all proven to be a farce without personal and financial ruin. They have too fully coupled their own existence to the premise (as no pure scientist would) to turn back now.

The fact that you don't think money plays a significant role in most science shows your ignorance.

In the case of climate change, there are careers hanging entirely in the balance. If there is no justification to continue to press the man made effects on climate change, there are entire businesses and organizations that will cease to exist, because their government or donated funding will evaporate. The IPCC itself is one such organization. Not to mention that there are so many people who have so heavily invested their reputation in this that if they were to be proved even mostly wrong their credibility as a scientist would be deeply wounded for life.

And it's true for many sciences. Medicine, physics, chemistry.... those people who show the most promise to create (or help further) sellable and profitable product are the ones who get the money to continue their research. For the most part there isn't investment in research if there isn't a tangible payout to be gained. And environmentalists are no different, except that in the most altruistic cases their ultimate goal would be to make themselves irrelevant by making the world absolutely perfectly eco-friendly. (Which will never happen, unless you'd like to propose hostile takeover of countries like Russia, China, most of Asia, and an appreciable portion of the middle-east, so that you can force eco-law on them.)

That's why the CIA (foreign) and FBI (domestic) exist. There's little justification for additional agencies like the NSA and DHS, let alone secret FISA courts, and black budgets.

No, I don't. That's industry. That's business. They extract a product, to sell a product, to make money on the product. There's no deception and there's no hidden agenda. Now if you mean, do I think they will lie to protect that business? Yes, I do. But I also know they are not a wolf in sheep's clothing. They are wolves and they make no apologies for it. Everyone knows precisely what motivates them.

But when you have people that proclaim that their sole motivation is the protection of the planet, and they push so hard for these systems that will save lives (because after all, we must think of the children), and those same systems just happen to make their creators grossly rich...

They are labeled as terrorists today.
From the article "Ugly to compare tea party with terrorists"
http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINIO...

The opening paragraph of the article :

But that's from one of those whacko conservative blogs.
Oh, wait. It's from CNN.

Sadly all these people are hoping for in their "revolution" is the enforcement of the existing Constitution.

We should probably just give up and allow a totalitarian regime to consolidate more power and make the checks and balances of "co-equal" branches of government irrelevant.

Wait...
Shit.

How about if we fire them and put them in jail, and just not hire any replacements, period.

Actually I do believe in evolution. It's demonstrable. We can predictably show that the theory has substantial merits. (I use the word "theory" only because by definition that is what it is, not because I think it might be wrong.) But somehow the scientists putting together the climate models who say that when CO2 raises to X parts per million the global temperatures will be Y have been wrong. Might there be some major global climate change? Yes. Might we have some impact? Yes. But has anyone proved that we are the driving for behind the changes? No. So while we should always be conscious of our impacts on the environment, and we should always trying to improve on our clean technologies (purely because of the pollutants if for no other reasons), it isn't rational to try to uproot every global financial system overnight because maybe it'll make a difference.

I'd be a hell of a lot less suspicious of the entire green movement if some of the most vocal proponents weren't lining their pockets with a LOT of money by doing so.

Oh, but some have. They've thought of the fact that the Earth is a massively complex system, and that it would be incredibly arrogant of some apes on it to assume they have it all figured out after observing only the tiniest fraction of their own existence, let alone the Earth as a whole.

And yet when a family has firearms, they are unstable whacko nutjob conspiracy theorists...

Are you actually suggesting that scientists always think of everything? NASA's history over the last 2 decades alone can disprove that theory.

You're essentially suggesting that /. is here so that nerds can come here to get group validation. Or are they allowed to disagree on occasion?