You’re missing the third side of the argument: The people not afraid to say “we don’t know”. If you take a look at the methodology of the research that is used to come up with these “trends” you’ll find that using the same methodology one could quite easily come up with just about any trend imaginable.

Your argument is the same that religious people often cite: “You should believe in God because if you believe and are wrong you’ve lost nothing, but if you don’t believe and are wrong you’re screwed.” Just like following a religion, the “green initiatives” most certainly can hurt. The drastic changes proposed do have costs, often heavy costs, yet we have no idea about their potential benefits.

The problem is, the people on the “it’s not us” side of the debate want to keep on keeping on like we have been. What if Al Gore is wrong? But what if he’s right? What if all the trends are right? I’d rather err on the side of caution and say it is us, let’s fix it.

If there’s nothing to fix and we change our ways, it can’t hurt. If there is something to fix, and we don’t notice it for 20 years, we’re screwed.

I was watching something on Fox News the other day, and Pat Boone said something to the effect of “we have oil now, let’s use it while it lasts. Don’t waste time and money trying to figure out other ways to do it” The problem is, that’s short sighted. It may be OK for someone in their 70’s, but for us younger folks, it matters. If we go the way we’re going, we’ll be out of oil in our lifetimes. Now is the time to figure out the “other ways” so we can conserve the oil we have for longer.

“Less hotdogs are sold on rainy days, so hotdogs must have an influence on sunlight.

“Claiming to have evidence of something without Truly understanding the mechanisms involved is religion.”

The radiative properties of carbon dioxide (and other gases) are well understood and follow nearly as the straightforward application of the first principles of quantum mechanics — as the lines of absorption are due to quantized vibrational, rotational and rovibrational states of molecular excitation. They are well tested.

Look up the HiTran that documents over 1,000,000 lines of absorption as measured under laboratory conditions, or play with the more accessible ModTran over the web. David Archer has made it available as part of:

Archer Model Server
http://geosci.uchicago.edu/~archer/cgimodels/

… here:

A Model of Infrared Radiation in the Atmosphere
http://geosci.uchicago.edu/~archer/cgimodels/radiation.html

And they are well measured. For example, for any wavelength that the atmosphere is optically thick to at sea level, there will be a height at which the atmosphere goes from being optically thick to optically thin. This is the principle that underlies our ability to perform infrared imaging of the atmosphere and its constituents at various altitudes. For example, here is carbon dioxide (a wavelength of 15 μm, I believe) at an altitude of 8 km:

Measuring Carbon Dioxide from Space with the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder
Global Carbon Dioxide Concentration (2003 and 2008)
http://www-airs.jpl.nasa.gov/story_archive/Measuring_CO2_from_Space/

You will notice the plumes rising off the heavily populated east and west coast of the United States. We are able to image things at that altitude for that wavelength because most of the photons of that wavelength are absorbed below that altitude, but at that altitude or higher, once they are emitted, they will generally escape to space without further absorption. When you look at that image, what you are seeing is an atmosphere that has been made more opaque to infrared, thermal radiation — and thus an enhanced greenhouse effect.

Thermal radiation is absorbed by greenhouse gases, maintaining a higher atmospheric temperature rather than escaping to space. And thermal radiation is emitted by greenhouse gases, where backradiation (thermal radiation emitted by greenhouse gases to the ground) warms the surface rather than just direct sunlight alone.

Claiming to have evidence of something without Truly understanding the mechanisms involved is religion.

I would argue that we know more about the human genome than the mechanisms of the Earth.

Chicken little has a “best guess”.

In any case, nobody is disputing that the climate is changing; it always has and always will. What exactly is the human impact on it, nobody knows for sure. And we certainly don’t know how any of these “green initiatives” will effect the climate, our good intentioned attempts might have no impact at all or even a negative impact.

Fundamentally, the research methodology used in the field is not capable of providing anything more than guesses at the moment. Anybody claiming to have accurate knowledge on our impact on the climate is likely just after your money. Predictions like “an average increase of 11 degrees within the next 100 years” are complete nonsense.

Truly, I think South Park nailed this guy from day one. He’s trouble.

Half the country hates him, and will refuse to believe in AGW just because HE is representing it. Thankfully that half of the country is not currently in power… but.