[purplefrog]

I have been away for awhile and coming back to this thread is actually pretty depressing if you are an American. As I see it there are three possible scenarios that captures the current state of the debate:

1) The scientific consensus that has emerged on this issue is actually the product of a political conspiracy by left wing nutjobs that are gaining something from taking this position and pushing their agenda. This is depressing if it is true. Depressing because what this means is that for the past several years a group of politically motivated scientists have gained control of the major scientific organizations and journals related to climatology and decided to refuse to publish scientific studies that provided evidence against global warming (because they control the editorial boards of journals), reject the grant applications of the skeptics (this goes hand in hand with publications... no pubs, no grants), and taken over the leadership of the most prestigious organizations in order to fulfill their hopes and dreams. This is a huge blow to science because scientists must maintain objectivity or else the field simply dies. Science is built on the pursuit of the truth independent of politics or economics. Have we so perverted our system that this is no longer true?

2) The rapidly growing number of scientists willing to attack the concept of man's contribution to an accumulation of atmospheric CO2 and concommitant climate change are paid antagonists whose goal is to muddy the water enough so all efforts to obtain a national energy policy (that would include some regulation of CO2 emissions) will eventually fail. This would not be the first time that corporate America has attempted to produce a politically and economically acceptable "science". If this is true and we end up ditching any approach to CO2 regulation, then the outcome is equally depressing to scenario #1 because scientific consensus becomes meaningless and politics once again wins the day. For some people this is more acceptable because their own political views are being upheld. But the fact is that, just like in #1 above, science and scientists have sold out to other interests and objectivity is again lost.

3) IMO, the best scenario is that the consensus is correct and that option #2 above is unsuccessful. With this scenario the objectivity of science has been upheld and attempts to discredit the scientific process have failed. If you are a scientist this is by far the best scenario because if #1 or #2 are correct then we might as well throw science out the window. Why teach science to our children if in fact the purpose is really to give credence to political and economic ideaology? It would be far better to replace science education with economics and politics and not spend any money at all on scientific inquiry. In this case, perhaps we should allow Europe, Scandinavia, and Asia to become the world's scientists while we concentrate on propaganda that support the political whims of our leaders and political parties (whether they be Democrats or Republicans).

My preference is to believe (for the time being anyway) #3. Although I cannot discount #1 or #2 above they seem too far-fetched and are a slippery slope to discounting scientific inquiry. I for one, believe that science and science education make us a strong nation.