Yet despite your inability to independently and directly verify it (which actually you could do), it’s foolish to look at all available evidence and come to the conclusion “we don’t know,” or “we shouldn’t make engineering or policy decisions on the basis of this hypothesis.”
> No you cannot, unless you are willing to spend a few years on it.
Can you or can’t you?
In any case, even if you couldn’t, it would still be foolish to look at all available evidence and arrive at “we don’t know” or “we ought not make engineering or policy decisions on the basis of this hypothesis.”
Smart people don’t say “the world is hard to interpret so all hypotheses are equal.” They say “the world is hard to interpret so we need to make difficult decisions with incomplete information.”
You have a fair point ( though I wasn't quite referring to that) , in the sense that we all make decisions based on best evidence that fits our own best analysis rather than be paralyzed by “we don’t know” stand.
My guess regarding most people that I know, is that a typical 'climate-denier' ( the ones I know) generally have investigated more that his 'climate-acceptor' counterpart who seems to have unequivocally accepted the official position.
Note I'm not saying that that the 'climate-denier' is right, I'm saying that he has made more efforts to understand the information available to him. Who is to say who brought into the 'propaganda'?
