I was first introduced to the issue by Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth", and pretty much accepted what he was saying... except that there was some nagging doubt due to things like unlabeled graphs and the like in his presentation.
Those nagging doubts? They're the manifestation of your political identity conflicting with the science.
It was when I started digging into the science that I started changing my mind. I found irresponsible handling of data, bizarre secrecy where there shouldn't be any, and so on. And all this has mushroomed in recent years.
And this is how you rationalize your refusal to accept the science. You use selective thinking to focus on minor issues while ignoring what should be the glaring obvious parts.
Case in point: the recent admission by NCDC that certain USHCN data had been derived and used improperly, and they had known it for a long time. They said they had "intended to fix it" at some undefined point in the future, but the question is: why was it not fixed already, and why had they not told anyone (including scientists) about it, even though they knew about it?
Are you referring to this? It seems like a rather minor bug.
And how about the recent "97%" claim by the people at SkepticalScience? It was dirt simple to show that it was nothing but statistical bullshit. Why would an organization representing responsible scientists lie to people?
Except that it hasn't been shown to be "nothing but statistical bullshit". I have yet to see a credible refutation of their claim that 97% of the published scientific articles that take a position on climate change support the consensus position that global warming is happening and driven by human activity. The argument that I'm assuming that you are referring to is the one made by Anthony Watts that they should not have excluded papers that do not discuss global climate change or global warming. However, it seems fair to me that when you are looking at positions taken on a issue to only look at papers which discuss the issue.
The IPCC's latest report states clearly that the science supporting their position is weaker than ever... yet they're even more certain that it's true. WTF?
That's a very interesting interpretation of the IPCC report, but one that most people do not get after reading the report. I strongly suspect it is a result of more selective thinking. You place undue emphasis on minor details of the report like a decrease in confidence of the link between severe weather and global average temperature and the lower of the top end of reasonable climate sensitivity, while ignoring the increase in the bottom end of reasonable climate sensitivity to conlcude that the "position is weaker than ever" while I think unbiased readers generally come away with the impression that uncertainty has decreased (because both the upper and lower limits have tightened).
Personally, I didn't believe in global warming when I first heard about it in the 90s, but since then I have been convinced that it is true. My experience with so called "skeptics" like yourself has played no little part in that belief. I have found that the actual scientific proponents tends to have well researched and detailed explanations for why and how it's happening, but the so-called skeptics tend to have arguments based on emotion and finger-pointing. Time and again you, in particular, have disappointed me with claims that were poorly backed up. Invariably when I investigate your claims I find them to be blown out of proportion, mistaken, or referencing some kook's incomprehensible arguments*.
I could, in theory, be falling for the same blinded by personal ideology issue (in your case, I believe it is your libertarian political beliefs), but fortunately (in this case) I don't have many strong political beliefs, I don't identify strongly with greens, liberals, conservatives, libertarians, socialists or communists. So I'm inclined to believe that my personal views aren't filtering my view on this issue. Are you sure you can say the same?
* My personal favourite was when you linked to a kook who claimed the greenhouse effect didn't exist because greenhouses are encased in glass and the planet is not.