I have a certain level of trust in the ability of scientific processes (and the institutions that enforce/practice them) to provide us with better understanding of the world. It's the same reason I'm prepared to fly in a plane even though I don't have the physics or engineering qualifications or knowledge to asses whether it will stay in the air.
The problem with this is that the scientific processes in the two cases (climate science vs. physics and engineering of airplanes) are not actually comparable. That's part of the problem: climate scientists have used the "it's Science, therefore it's right" argument to keep from having to actually prove that their processes are as reliable as the ones in physics and engineering that have given the public its confidence in Science.
When you look at the processes in climate science, they aren't even close. To take just one example, in physics or engineering, the sorts of admissions climate scientists have made about losing raw data, not archiving it properly, not properly recording the manipulations they've made to the data, etc., would be grounds for dismissal of the people involved and repudiation of all of their conclusions. The work would have to be re-done from scratch using proper procedures.
"When you look at the processes in climate science, they aren't even close. To take just one example, in physics or engineering, the sorts of admissions climate scientists have made about losing raw data, not archiving it properly, not properly recording the manipulations they've made to the data, etc., would be grounds for dismissal of the people involved and repudiation of all of their conclusions. The work would have to be re-done from scratch using proper procedures."
You act as if there has ever been a targeted attack on the entire scientific community of physics and engineering, like there has been on the climate science community. There has not been, so therefore there isn't some single record of all of the errors and bad data in these scientific communities. When you talk of mistakes made by "climate scientist" with ther data, what percentage of climate scientists do you think have committed these errors? You are using mistakes made by individuals and organizations to smear an entire science. This is both erroneous, dishonest, and false, and is the scientific equivalent of "Asians are bad drivers because I got rear ended by this guy."
Proving climate science right, compared to proving physics/engineering is comparing apples and oranges. Unless you know of a duplicate earth-like planet to use as a control group while we proceed with binding formerly buried carbon molecules with atmospheric oxygen in our current planet to see what happens.
Instead, they are left with computer simulations, which have, so far, been too consevative to be accurate. They have failed to take into account all of the positive feedback loops, and the result is that the planet is warmer than predicted. These simulations are then challenged and attacked, other variables such as solar output variation, etc are mentioned, and the science is dismissed as being phoney, biased, cherry picking.
I don't even beleive carbon reduction is viable. I want geo-engineering solutions to handle the problem. But the people who would otherwise be on my side in the debate are too busy wringing their hands about a small percentage of studies which are, ironically, themselves cherry picked by the opponents and used to dismiss the science.
You act as if there has ever been a targeted attack on the entire scientific community of physics and engineering
There hasn't had to be. Those fields have properly policed themselves, so they haven't needed to be policed by outsiders.
When you talk of mistakes made by "climate scientist" with ther data, what percentage of climate scientists do you think have committed these errors?
That's the wrong question. The right question is, what percentage of the data that all these models and theories are based on is corrupted? The answer is, we don't know. That, all by itself, is unacceptable.
You are using mistakes made by individuals and organizations to smear an entire science.
No, I am using the fact that the data that the science is based on can't be trusted. Who did what to make it that way is useful to know, but it's not the central point.
Proving climate science right, compared to proving physics/engineering is comparing apples and oranges.
It's true that we can't run controlled experiments on the climate the way we can in physics or engineering. That doesn't change the fact that you can't do science at all if you can't trust the data. There's no reason for climate data to be treated any differently than, say, particle physics data, and there's no reason to excuse failure to properly control data in climate science any more than there is in physics.
the planet is warmer than predicted.
Reference, please? Last I checked the planet was cooler than the IPCC had projected it to be based on the current CO2 level. Remember that there is not one single projection; there are a bunch of them, each making different assumptions about how much CO2 will rise. The actual CO2 rise has been close to the "business as usual" model scenarios, but the temperature rise has been, at most, what the "minimum" model scenario predicted, the one that assumed sharp cuts in CO2 emissions.
I want geo-engineering solutions to handle the problem.
I have no problem with this, if we can have reasonable confidence in what the effects will be. For example, we have reasonable confidence in how much aerosols high in the atmosphere can affect the climate (based on data from volcanic eruptions), so we can make reasonable predictions about that kind of geoengineering.
The problem with this is that the scientific processes in the two cases (climate science vs. physics and engineering of airplanes) are not actually comparable. That's part of the problem: climate scientists have used the "it's Science, therefore it's right" argument to keep from having to actually prove that their processes are as reliable as the ones in physics and engineering that have given the public its confidence in Science.
When you look at the processes in climate science, they aren't even close. To take just one example, in physics or engineering, the sorts of admissions climate scientists have made about losing raw data, not archiving it properly, not properly recording the manipulations they've made to the data, etc., would be grounds for dismissal of the people involved and repudiation of all of their conclusions. The work would have to be re-done from scratch using proper procedures.