You've made me think. I like that. Also I apologize for the incoherency at the end there, finals and a 3mo old will do that to a guy.

Fastest and cheapest are words evidently outlawed in DC...

I don't see the the kind of bribery, collusion, or coercion it seems you're looking for. (maybe in order to label me a conspiracy nut?)
Here's how I see the motives of the players involved, and how they benefit:
Politician: Holds the idea that he knows better than everyone else, and would be happy to tell the peons what kind of car they have to drive. Congratulates himself as a savior of mankind whenever he champions the fight for this kind of AGW stuff, thinks "I'm such a man of the people!". Appoints bureaucrats below him, only those that share his views. Benefits when government is bigger because he can tell people what to do more (which he likes), and direct funds to campaign donors, a way to perpetuate keeping his job.
Bureaucrat: Appointed by the politician, this guy is usually really passionate about the views of the politician, including AGW. Highly unlikely to hire people for his department that disagree with him. If he's deciding grants, he'll pick the ones he likes - his job has nothing to do with efficiency as bureaucracy is efficiency's antithesis. If he's in the EPA, of course he supports AGW, it gives them a bigger budget, more policing to do, feeling more important. Bureaucrats benefit from a bigger government, otherwise their jobs would not exist. They want it even bigger because then they can be promoted to lead the new task force (which eventually becomes a department, that never dies) for the new "problem" bigger government is supposed to address.
-- bureaucrat repeats here for # levels because government is too damn big --
Scientist: Fits a line to 150 years of temperature data, says the Earth will boil soon, and calls it "science" because that's his job title. Or maybe he's a real scientist setting up a long term experiment and gets shunned by his colleagues as a denier if he voices any skepticism. But probably not, as I imagine at this point after a couple decades of politicization, only supporters enter this particular field of science anyways. Supports politician, because he wants to send more funds to research like his. Supports big government generally anyways, because he thinks it's government's role to fund all kinds of science.
AGW believer: Actually cares about the Earth. Gives politician their vote, and free reign to do whatever it takes to fix the problem, damn the consequences (or more likely doesn't think about the economic/political consequences). Is either overly afraid of a theorized disaster in the future, or shares the politician's self-congratulating, or both. Wants a bigger government because they actually think government is the solution to their problems.
Business Exec: Buddies with the politician, this guy's business is so big he can handle some extra regulations, and would love to see that since he knows his smaller competitors can't. Gets contracts with the government through the politician.

You want to write everyone a check?
So I'm paying $1600 + who knows how much extra in costs passed on to consumers for goods and services due to taxes on businesses, just so I can get some fraction of that back as a check after cuts and transaction costs are taken out? Pretty dumb.

I'm all for clean air, and if LA wants to tackle their smog, go for it. Fine businesses for transgressions of a clean air act until it's economical for them to be clean.
It is quite another thing entirely to be doing something like cap and trade that was estimated to cost trillions, or to have energy policies like the president's where the goal is to have energy prices skyrocket to make people get on bikes or something. Especially when there is doubt in the external cost of global warming.

At least you're starting to do cost analysis, you just left out the "benefit" part.

Also (this might have been your pessimism speaking :-p) I utterly reject that it calls into question the survival of the human race. If in 100 years it is actually a ton warmer and things are actually dire, it will become necessary (and economical) to do something about it, and we will.

I just couldn't not reply to his sig.
I don't want to foist religion on anyone.
But an unborn child is another person, and I don't want infanticide to be legal.
Aside from stopping murder, I don't want the government big enough to be enforcing morality on you.
I think a lot of Tea Partiers agree on that - the focus is stopping the current fiscal insanity.

Yeah I jumped to the end of the slippery slope there, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't fight anything that moves in that direction.

Who determines the third parties injured by externalities? The government.
Who determines the cost of injuries to third parties, especially for something global like this? The government.
Who then would collect and distribute the tax to those parties (while taking their cut)? The government.

Sorry, but their record of "efficiency" gives me zero faith that they could carry this out, or that there would be no detrimental effect on the economy in the process.

That's what the Tea Party is about. The RINOs of the past 12+ years must be cast out.
Jesus knew you in the womb. He is not a liberal.

Yeah maybe I wish more conservatives were like me, I never liked Rick Santorum.
I do join with them in detesting the immorality going on, and keeping traditions and institutions that made this country great.
I just don't think the government should be heavy-handed in doing all that by force.
But I also don't want them to go and legalize (read: encourage use of) drugs that are already illegal. All that together is why I've called myself conservative.

Relevant part of fascism: "radical authoritarian nationalist ... totalitarian single-party state"

bigger government --> bigger raises, promotions, staffs, budgets to play with for government workers. Again, not claiming conspiracy here, everyone's just working for their own self-interest, which coincides with bigger government.

Do scientists live off one grant? Where does their next one come from? Same place? oh...
Tenure or not, they're getting cash from Uncle Sam to do research, so are inclined to support bigger government. No bribes or "directed" research (or conspiracy) needed.

Do we cheer on the Black Plague in the 1300s then because it had been warming for a couple centuries? "Must've been those pesky human's fault. That's gotta be why it cooled for a couple centuries afterwards. Wait, there were more people in 1700 than 1300?"
Seems foolish to me to rule out alternative hypotheses on such a relatively short data set, and to assume it's humans' fault.

I would agree with you if we were talking about an ice age, since not much thrives on ice.
But you have no basis to know any of these would happen, that would not otherwise happen anyways: "Resource wars. Drought. Famine. Disease. More and more powerful typhoons, hurricanes, and tornadoes." And no apparent consideration for possible upsides, like growing food in Siberia, feeding millions that would have otherwise died.

If Cuba is so great, why don't you move there?

As soon as solar/wind/hydro is economical, I'm there with you. I'd love to use all three at my house and go off the grid.

I can't reply to all of that, but in general, I simply ascribe more doubt to each question than you do, and more downside to the proposed solutions.
I have more doubt because IT IS NOT SCIENCE when you don't make a prediction, validate the prediction, and get independent verification.
The number of questions are not superfluous because at any one of them if the answer is "no", then we shouldn't be doing things like cap+trade.

Sorry can't click on the link at the moment, but I have no problem with government regulations to handle negative externalities like polluting your neighbor.
I have a problem when government gets so big they can tell me and my neighbor what to do in any and every minutiae of daily life, and take half of what I earn or more.
Taxing to the hilt that by which all other goods and services are transported is more certain to have a detrimental effect on the economy than a potential creeping up of temperature.

People are arrogant to think they have the science perfectly right without validating models' predictions on more decades or more Earths.
Arrogant to think humans must be the only cause of problems.
Arrogant to think "woe is me/us"
Arrogant to think they know better than all those little people who disagree
Arrogant to think they know the solution
Arrogant to think their solution will have no flaws / side effects.

Yup, that's a given, but you have to start somewhere, and temperatures have been roughly flat since 1998.

Exactly - it's a valid point of debate, that also feeds into discussion of 6, 7, 8 (as opposed to dogma of pro-AGW folks). There is a point, (e.g. 10C/yr) where it's simply fact, but we're not there.

My point exactly. It's reasonable, but there's a lot of reasonable doubt here without more Earths and more centuries, and certainly not a validated scientific truth.

It goes to #5 - if it's orbital fluctuations, we probably can't fix it.

There are many politicians who would love to do something about it, because it gives them more tax dollars, greater authority, and reinforces that feeling that they know better than the peons.

It seems to be popular culture these days to theorize on the disasters that could befall mankind. The point is there could be upsides, like perhaps farming in Siberia and Canada that could feed millions. I for one am not arrogant enough to assume that the optimal temperature of Earth is what it was in 19XX.

Cap and Trade would cost trillions... why do you say I am dreaming?

Yup - another reason not to monkey with things we don't fully understand.

Well you've acknowledged (admirably) that there is doubt in some of these things, so I say if there's doubt in the existence of the problem, doubt in the extent of the problem, doubt if it's even a bad thing, doubt in how to "fix" it, and doubt in whether or not or fix would make things worse, I doubt we should be doing anything drastic about it.

#6 was intended to invite us to think about the possibility of it actually being a good thing, and what the optimal temperature of Earth is, irrespective of political consequences.

I contest that spending power has gone up due to free markets, the more government interferes, the slower this goes up.

Good moral argument about Spaceship Earth - I agree we can't be screwing it up irretrievably. I don't think we are doing so. While Earth isn't a 100% closed system, it's not like we're bleeding off our atmosphere into space - the carbon will still be here in 500 years in the air or in the ground. If it becomes economical to sequester it at that time, then future peoples will do so.

Powerful Statist governments killed >100 million people in the last century. I see this as a more immediate and real threat to us, our children, our grandchildren and theirs, so I fight anything that moves in that direction (left).

No one tells me what to think. I give you that the planet has warmed is fact, but it's been roughly flat since 1998. #2, it's debatable whether the temperature rise is significant, or alarming.

They go to #5. If you assume 1+2, you have to ask whether it's part of Earth's natural climate fluctuations, because if it is, then burying every Hummer isn't going to do squat. Nothing religious at all here, don't know where you got that.

You're putting words in my mouth, I assume no such global conspiracy. I only ask that there be a rational debate where the pros of a warmer earth be considered also. Could we feed millions more if the tundra were arable? A large chunk of the total dry land is near the poles.

Do you not understand economics? Oil execs set the price of gas. You pay for gas. Higher taxes means higher prices for working stiffs like you and me. The governments won't mint gold necklaces, but they will take a cut, and distribute the rest to who they see fit, giving them more influence and power.

Sorry I didn't have time to read those comments. I'll take you at your word. No rebuttal for all the other government disasters?