AGW debate on Youtube

hat I should elicit such an in depth response is humbling for me, to take so much effort from someone in the midst of their graduate studies.

Perhaps you might sense I share your love for science, and perhaps my sincerity in my approach to the subject.
At first I was surprised to be considered a conspiracy theorist, since I find myself skeptical of conspiracies in general.  I accept that I have a naivete when it comes to believing in the purity of science--an ironic paradox to the skeptical fundamental.

Alas I am old, and well past my post grad studies.  Perhaps it has been the personal brushes with the sort of political agenda I have alluded to.  I think I battle with cynicism instead of skepticism because of personal interactions with the mega-lyth that one finds in "established" science.  Perhaps one day when you are old, your opinions will be closer to mine.  Certainly if it turns out that after I die, the AGW theory is totally debunked.  I worrry about science in that event.  I think the credibility of the disipline will receive a damaging blow.  I was young when the pending ice age theory was pressing, until the tables turned, and warming was irrefutable.  I find it most galling that many of the cold-earth proponents, (I can't bring myself to call them scientists) converted to evangelize for the AGW theory instead.  Especially when, courtesy of the UN hundreds of billions of dollars were in the pot, and lucrative, long-lasting funding for those who tow the line.

Around the same time my opinion on the matter was shifting from acceptance of the AGW theory, I chanced upon this 60 minutes piece:  *http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=4955212n*  I suppose that had it been one subject or the other I could have maintained an opinion like your own.  But for me the topics were coincidental.  Both had an obvious taint of special interests and history of political interference in the science.  Frankly, it leaves me to question whether these are isolated events from different parts of the universe of science.  Two critical studies that upon which the very hope of mankind potentially rests.

I hope you note I have no quarrel with concerns about anthropogenic pollution issues.  I am a proponent of stewardship.  All of us should be concerned about the earth and human impacts.  I just can't let that belief become the reason to buy into AGW without the science confirming it.  Supposedly one empirically falsifiable result against a theory is to put the theory in serious question.  This is not happening.  If 90% of the various studies indicated AGW, but 10% didn't there should be no reason we should be at this point.  If 5%, 4%,3% or .1% of the experiments falsified Newton's laws, they would not be Newton's laws.  This same sort of rigor does not exist on the AGW theory.  That sir, is a travesty.

In summary, I am not saying AGW is false.  I am saying there are problems, and enough problems in my mind to resist capitulating to the status quo.  I am more comfortable with resisting a conclusion, even a compelling one, in favor of an open mind that is free to go in another direction should the data lead that way.

In conclusion, thank you for dialoguing with me.  One day, it would be an honor to sit at a table with you over a cup of coffee...for a few days.  I don't think we are far apart when it comes to the important things.