Yes, you've pointed out that there is some uncertainty in the issues I presented. Which was pretty much my point.

• Ocean acidification is really a misnomer. The pH is getting slightly lower, but still above neutral.
• Yes, carbon is naturally sequestered in several ways. There are also natural sources, such as volcanoes that replenish it in the atmosphere. There's still not very much of it.
• The net feedback in the models is very uncertain, especially due to the unknown feed backs associated with clouds. And since CO2 has been at least an order of magnitude higher than it is now, I think there's a lot of room to doubt the theory that CO2's feedback overwhelms other feedbacks is pretty shaky, no matter what the source of the CO2.
• Yes, CO2 is a greenhouse gas, but its effect is dwarfed by the #1 GHG, water vapor.
• Proxies can be useful, but only if we correctly understand the uncertainty involved.

Of course, as a backdrop to all of this is the obfuscation that's been revealed in climate science circles. The history of not sharing data, models (i.e., statistical) and computer code should at least suggest that we need to review what's already been done to make sure it's correct. A scientist refusing to share data because someone will look at it to see if the scientist made mistakes doesn't mean that he made mistakes, but it does mean that we should have less confidence in it than if he did share, and independent parties came to the same or similar conclusions.

As a parent, I do have skin in the game, and while I don't believe we're going to cause any sort of runaway climate change due to CO2, I'd rather my kids grow up in a warmer, rather than colder world. What's the 'correct' temperature, anyways?

My 'penchant for doing nothing' is only partly based on my respect and understanding of the scientific method. I don't believe that we're causing runaway climate change for similar reasons to not believing in homeopathy: the evidence for it just isn't there, no matter how passionately it's believed in by some. In addition to that, it's not at all clear to me that the consequences, even if we did significantly warm the planet, would be all negative.

You may have much lower standards for accepting scientific theories as truth, but you should at least recognize it when you do so.

I do accept that we'll never have the same sort of ability to test. That wasn't the point. The testing of pharmaceuticals is simply how we validate and verify that our guess about the effects are correct.

We need to do something in the place of that testing, and I'm claiming it hasn't happened anywhere near where I'm satisfied with it. In particular, I think these issues need some work:

• Measuring changes in temperature that problematic in terms of accuracy and precision, even with modern instruments, let alone paleoclimate estimates based on proxy measurements. Not to mention the questionable manipulations done to those proxies.
• Unvalidated (and possibly unvalidateable) models with huge uncertainties for very important aspects of the system they are modeling (e.g., clouds). These models are generally dominated by positive feedback, the hallmark of an unstable system. The runaway warming they predict doesn't seem to match what we know about the history or even current behavior of the climate.
• Evidence of complex behavior on the part of the climate that suggests other, probably stronger influences on the system than CO2.
• Historical evidence of temperature leading changes in CO2.

Of course, this is simply about the scientific question of whether or not we're causing the climate to change in dramatic ways. The cost benefit analysis regarding what to about it all is the job of politics in general, and politicians in particular, in order to balance the science, economics, morality, etc. of the policy regarding some topic, this one included.

If you think the so-called consensus regarding the current state of climate research is anything that would inspire confidence that remotely resembles a double blind clinical trial, then it's pretty clear that you're the one being a douche.

Actually, that's basically what they're saying to the EPA.

Maybe so, but does it do anything negative for our air quality? In any case, plants sure seem to like increased CO2, so there's one positive benefit to increased CO2. There is plenty of pollution that we create, though in the US, at least, we've gotten a lot better about it. CO2 is not pollution. At least not at levels we're capable of creating in the atmosphere due to burning fossil fuels.

Do you also believe that any pharmaceutical that has a particular effect in a petri dish should be approved and assumed to work in humans? Both the human body and the climate system of the Earth are complex systems where simple extrapolations do not always work.

In any case, the amount of CO2 has gone from a very small amount to a very small amount.

That just means you haven't been paying attention.

The debate is typically framed as an optimization effort, but the objective keeps changing. Either we're trying to reduce costs, increase coverage or improve overall health. It's a completely stupid way to approach this, which explains why politicians chose it. The current proposals may increase coverage, but to the detriment of the other two.

• This is quickly turning into the "Journal of No"!
• That's a capitalist journal!
• If Mao didn't need factions, neither do you.
• I'm not attacking the media because I want to. Bush made me do it.
• I'm going to speak truth to power: this isn't a legitimate news journal.
• If we could just get Cousin Pookie and Uncle Jethro to crapflood this journal...