That's the problem with the idea that everyone's opinion is equally valid. Not sure why asking the opinion of publishing blog readers is likely to produce any meaningful answers.

I certainly understood that the concensus of those who know what they are talking about having studied the subject thoroughly and scientifically was that man-made global warming was a reality.

The real problem in my (uninformed) opinion is that although they agree it is happening, they do not agree what effects it will have and whether we can do anything about it.

M

I'm afraid this is just how it works. The explorers explore, get lost, argue about the right way, and frequently backtrack when they turn out to be wrong. Which they usually are. Science works because everybody is pulling in different directions, trying every different path. As the dead ends are gradually eliminated, those that survive represent (we hope!) progress. But it is a slow process.

When the tourists come up afterwards, to see the most interesting of the mountain valleys we passed, it all seems controlled, the route certain, the path firmly marked. And wandering off the path is firmly discouraged.

But today a group of explorers have come back, taken the place of the tour guides and shouted "This way!" And the tourists, thinking this was just another tour, have followed.

You asked for sceptical thoughts, and got them. But true sceptics like a diversity of opinion. They're frustrated having to stay on the marked paths, but at the same time, they don't necessarily want everybody else following them off it, either. Regarding Emma's concerns about "resonance", I say "be yourself".

But if you do want to take a look at the other side, and see a different perspective on what it's all about, Bjorn Lomborg's book 'The Skeptical Environmentalist' is a classic. It follows up on Julian Simon's older book 'The Ultimate Resource', for which you can find publishers drafts for free on the web. (http://www.juliansimon.org/writings/Ultimate_Resource/)

But I emphasise, this is not the consensus view, and I am not a tour guide. This isn't necessarily what you asked for, and you'll probably find it very challenging. But since you are now up here lost in the mountains with the explorers, you had might as well see what the options are. I am afraid there are no 'experts' in this yet, you'll have to wait a while for that, or make your own mind up.

We're not all equally right, Matthew, but in theory we all get a say in what happens next. And in order to throw our democratic weight around wisely we all need to be well informed and sure of our facts. Which means making sure that people whose opinions we might not agree with have every opportunity to see the light, or instead to convert us to their view. If ordinary people aren't involved they'll end up believing any old thing and government will act accordingly.

Rob, you have several problems that need to be overcome before you have a public debate and a concensus view.

The first is you need to wait until enough evidence is in to show what is really happening. Yes we have global warming. Yes we have atmospheric additions/deductions that are man made. But is climate being influenced by those changes? How much difference do we make compared to a couple of Mt St Helens going off in a decade?
Science - like drug testing - takes a long time. I remember when I was doing geology at university 20-odd years ago, and they were still arguing over aspects of Plate Tectonics that everyone - ie, the public - thought had been settled back in the 60's!

There's several more decades of proper, balanced, research that needs to be done before you start getting past the computer models and into hard fact.

Secondly, which 'expert(s)' are you going to call up? These days science is so specialized that everone has an opinion but no-one has an overview. you've got your climate modeling experts, your bore hole sample experts, your Gulf-stream experts, your glaciologists....it goes on. Sure they read the research of the rest of the 'experts' and feed some of that into their own results and try to get a few hard facts to hang their theories off, but having worked with lecturers, researchers and postgrads, they and I know how much bad data there is out there; how much so called hard fact is based on a tiny number of samples, but which has been quoted so many times in so many postdoctoral thesises that it's taken as law.

Then you've got your political will (or lack of it, with regard to the US), and how much change the populus is going to accept to effect a change in the way we govern our lives. We are not like some nippy sports car that you can slam on the breaks and stop on a dime before changing direction. We are an oil tanker that needs several miles of ocean - several decades - to turn round....and that assumes we know in which direction to go. We could just end up swinging in circles as the 'experts' try to come to a concensus. We are a democracy, which means the government has little more than taxes to bat us with. Maybe we should be more like China, and have to do what the politicians tell us, then we'd see the sort of results you'd lke to happen within your lifetime.