What if you're wrong?
Care to elaborate just a bit? Your scare tactics might work on school children but grown ups like some actual evidence.
I'm not trying to use scare tactics.
To elaborate: The majority of evidence suggests that it's happening. There is also a small amount of evidence suggesting it's not. But, even if the majority is wrong, I don't see many downsides to trying to combat it anyway.
The only problem with that logic is that "combating" it according to your side would result in the creation of a massive worldwide depression resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands in the third world. Not to mention lowering the standard of living for the vast majority of westerners. All for a hypothesis that has never been subjected to the rigors of hard scientific inquiry. In science you don't set out to prove a hypothesis, the goal is to disprove it. You don't manipulate data to make it fit that hypothesis and you don't impose your hypothesis on people simply because you feel the conversation should be over. The use of terms like "climate change deniers" etc. to control the conversation is quite revealing.
^ This. Take some time and actually look at some of the proposed policies used to "combat" global warming and tell me again how there is nothing to lose. After all, without an enforcement mechanism, the law would only be a suggestion or a guideline and just serve as superficial dressing to cover actual environmental destruction.
I get that many climate models are flawed, and of course their results will not be entirely accurate - this is ongoing research and in theory should become more accurate as time goes on. I also would condemn any falsification/manipulation of data, as you say this is totally out of order in any scientific field.
By combating it, I'm mainly talking about using renewable/nuclear energy rather than fossil fuels. I fail to see how this will create "a massive worldwide depression resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands in the third world."
Of course it will cost money, but it needn't be money from individuals in the form of any enforceable "green tax", if this is what you're implying. I'm not trying to be obtuse here, I genuinely don't see how renewables will cause worldwide depression. I would be against such a tax for individuals, but not necessarily for corporations who could afford it.
Also the fossil fuels will eventually run out, putting us in the same situation anyway, whether that's in 50 years or 500...
The energy companies make shitloads of profits on oil and gas, they should invest more of these profits into renewables and nuclear IMO. The reason they don't, is they know that it would take many years to ROI on renewables, while oil/gas is instant profit = the executives can pay off their mortgages in 5 years instead of 50 (OK bit of a simplistic explanation but you get the idea).
If it was up to me then I would say "legalize/tax weed in the UK and scrap the Trident nuclear program, then put 50% of the £100bn you just made into renewable energy and nuclear fusion research!!" (vote for me, vote for change
)
Personally I don't think we can change our habits as a species anyway, I think we better all hope that we aren't causing the climate change. If we are, then in the future we'll have to turn Greenland into a huge geoengineering plant, or send everyone to Mars or something...