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I certainly believe that the greenhouse gas theory is real and compelling. If humans do eventually increase the percentage of CO2 to a high enough level it may even have precisely the effect you describe. The problem is we don't really know how high we can go with the gas before we notice a significant effect. And, no, I don't consider the less than 1 degree change in over a centure to be significant.
You made a lot of clear arguments in this long post but this is the key, isn't it? Do you have a citation to back this up? Is it you opinion that there's no consensus among climate scientists about this issue, or that there is a consensus, but it's wrong?
As for the climate getting slowly warmer, as a species we would be very lucky if that is actually the case
Citation needed.
people are trying to use year to year swings to guess what the climate will be like 100 years hence
Which people?
and so far utterly botched even a simple five or ten year prediction
5-year change != climate change.
I mean this as an even-handed question: with public funding of research, where would the incentive come from to find stuff that was actually useful, as opposed to just interesting for the researcher?
By not requiring the government to fund every researcher regardless of what they intend to do?
Well, obviously. But once the funding has been disbursed, what incentive there is to pursue useful, as opposed to interesting, research?
If you're going to fund drug development through government funding, why grant a monopoly? Just release it to the public domain. The company who can produce the cheapest generic will get the business. In order to fund development of drugs, charge a surcharge on all drugs. The whole thing could be revenue neutral from the government's perspective. But the drugs would be cheaper in the end. The reason is that drug companies do *not* charge extra to make up their development costs. They charge what the market will bear. You will essentially be removing the profit from the drug companies and keeping it in the pockets of consumers.
I mean this as an even-handed question: with public funding of research, where would the incentive come from to find stuff that was actually useful, as opposed to just interesting for the researcher?
Deaths per terrawatt hour is not a useful metric. Even if that number is certain to be higher with everyone favorite whipping boy, coal or oil, natural gas, solar whatever there is very little that can go wrong with those which would render a large area unlivable all at once. The deaths and health costs they create are spread over time. Society can budget for and deal with those costs and even cope with the occasion colamity.
With neuclear on the other hand the absolute costs might be less but the potential to have bear them all at once exists and it could very well be a back breaker for any society, that is the prespective you have to use.
This is certainly deserving of +5 insightful, but I disagree with it, and for the following reason: deaths per Twh gives some perspective to an otherwise ridiculously one-sided debate about the dangers of nuclear. If we had had more Gen II nuclear reactors built during the 70s instead of panicking about very unlikely accidents, then our current energy problems would be far, far less troublesome.
Make it myself? But I'm a physical organic chemist!