You know what I find both amusing and disheartening about discussions about Climate change?
A lay person won't claim to be an expert on neurology because they read a few things on the internet, people will generally trust experts in this field. Same goes for most medical fields, engineering, physics, geology, law etc etc. People realize that experts have spent their lives specializing in a certain field and are more knowledgeable than themselves in these fields.
I'm not saying they're the final authority, there are no authorities in science, only experts.
But when it comes to climatology suddenly the experts are all idiots, fools, hacks, pawns in a global conspiracy.
And everyone who read something on the internet thinks they know better.
"Those silly climatologists, don't they realize it's the sun? Mars is warming too you know! Those martians and their SUV's"
I've heard this one a million times, often it's said very smugly. Without realizing TSI is one of the first things scientists looked at.
Just like this one.
"in the seventies scientists said there would be an ice age!" even though a review of peer reviewed climatology papers from that decade indicate only a very small number of papers hinted at global cooling, and the vast majority of papers suggested either no change or warming.
It is also often said that scientists are only coming to the conclusion that climate change is man made because they get grant money that way. Like grant money is some blank check which can be spent on hookers, blow and fast cars. I've been wondering why there were so many climatologists these days on MTV cribs. People don't realize scientists can make A LOT more money as industry lobbyists. And then there's a little fact that every scientist and every university would love the publicity and prestige of completely overturning the consensus in any given field. Not to mention it would save governments and industry a lot of money and trouble.
I will agree that greenpeace and Al Gore have exaggerated the dangers, in doing so they have done a great disservice to the science.
But they're not experts so people shouldn't give them a lot of credence anyway.
If all you have to go on is some kind of global conspiracy, your position really isn't as strong as you think.
I generally recommend Potholer54's series on the scientific debate surrounding climate change.
http://www.youtube.com/user/potholer54#grid/user/A4F0994AFB057BB8