OK, I finally got off my ass and started studying this thing. I've always been of the opinion that human activity is certainly impacting CO2 ratios and probably is making some contribution to global tempertures, but in scientific and engineering terms this is not a very meaningful thing. Magnitudes are everything. I've also long been of the opinion that the environmentalist side is leveraging things to achieve semi-non-related objectives (just as I have that there are special interests on the other side as well.) But until I study things I won't know how much.
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Not many people actually study it, and few of those succeed in understanding. The deck is stacked, and not just for political reasons. It's basically difficult for the human mind to take a random walk data pattern, separate the underlying trends, and then not fall prey to thinking he can essentially use linear projection to predict the future. I think at that level it's a similar problem to predicting the stock market. It is fundamentally chaotic behavior.
Don't forget basic meteorology, 101 style college level. 99% of the people talking like they know climate don't even know weather.
LOL...