Quote from Bart.
That's another concern. When experts in their various Scientific fields of Climate/Geology/Oceanography/etc. and relevant branches have reached a consensus that the positive feedback is knocking the system out of control, why do (by comparison) relatively poorly informed people deny that consensus?
That's a good question, Bart, and shows that you have a certain degree of skeptical capability yourself.
I suspect that no-one, whether a professional scientist or an interested layperson, has the time and expertise to read, fully understand,and critique every research paper that's been written in the many disciplines relating to climate change.
We all tend to rely upon abstracts, summaries, other people's interpretations of the data, conclusions presented in the research papers, and often very flawed and biased reports in the news media.
The 'thinking' layperson who is interested in the subject, will always assess the quality and rationality of the arguments presented, either for or against the alarmist projections of human-induced climate change.
I've already mentioned some of the alarmist arguments which seem quite irrational to me.
Shall I repeat them? It seems I might have to. Here's a couple.
(1) The percentages of CO2 in the atmosphere is very tiny, about 400 parts per million. It's risen from around 280 parts per million during the past 150 years, due to human emissions from fossil fuels.
Percentage-wise that's quite significant, about a 142% increase, Now, if CO2 were a toxic substance like Arsenic or Strychnine, a 142% increase could result in death.
But CO2 is not a toxic substance. It's an extremely beneficial substance which is actually essential for all life. If the alarmists use the argument that a doubling of CO2 levels could be disastrous because a doubling of strychnine levels could cause death, then a rational, thinking person would understand the nonsense of such an argument from the alarmists. No specialisation in a scientific discipline is required to understand the illogicality of such an argument.
(2) Ocean acidification is another example of irrational alarmism. Most people understand that acid can be very harmful,and is sometimes used as a weapon to disfigure people, by throwing acid into their face.
The term 'ocean acidification' is used for maximum alarm. If the term is used during lectures to scientists, who understand that the sea is alkaline, and that acidification simply means a shift from an alkaline state to a less alkaline state, then that's fine. No problem.
However, when scientists, through the media, or even non-scientist reporters, talk about the dangers of ocean acidification, without even mentioning what the current, average pH of the oceans is, and how much it has moved towards the acidic end of the spectrum since the industrial revolution, then the thinking person wonders why the omission.
Fortunately, the internet can provide the answers, especially Google Scholar which provides links to countless research papers on any subject you request.
My own research into ocean acidification reveals that the average ocean surface pH is estimated to have reduced from 8.2 to 8.1 during the past 100 years or so. A pH of 7 is neutral. Below 7 is acidic.
Does a reduction from 8.2 to 8.1 sound alarming? It's a logarithmic scale. In percentage terms, a shift from 8.2 to 8.1 can be described, by the alarmists, as a 30% increase in acidity. That definitely sounds alarming if we assume that the 30% refers to a 1/3rd progression towards neutral, which is a pH of 7.
However, if the thinking person does his own research, he will find that a shift from a pH of 8.2 to a pH of 7.2, which is still slightly alkaline, represents a 900% increase in acidity. How does 30% compare with 900%. Sufficient for alarm?
In general, the subject of climate change is enormously complex with elements of chaos. If it is really true that 97% of all scientists believe that human emissions of CO2 are the main driver of the current warming phase, then we are really stuffed. The scientific methodology of discovering the truth is broken.