Politics and global warming

That carbon dioxide is good for plants is well known --- at least they grow faster -- up to a point, but with unknown consequences, that vary from species to species. This is not at all relevant and that it keeps getting repeated just shows how absent of real evidence the deniers have. There is such a thing as too much of a good thing.

The earth will eventually warm enough that what it radiates is back in line with incoming energy -- at a higher temperature. Our society will have to adjust, if it can, because of the stupidity of people giving stupid politicians political cover from what the scientific community knows.

I see an attack on the "scientific consensus." To a large extent the specialists in any given field have been trained by the previous generation's specialists, as well as carrying out years of their own research (known as the graduate student and then the "publish or perish" route to tenure or a fellowship. There are generally, then, in any given specialty, maybe a hundred or so people specializing and experts in a given field. It ain't an easy thing to get into. 

Nowadays, to succeed in this, one must not let ideological (religious or political or whatever) preconceptions in the door -- one finds one soon exist it if one does. One must be interested only in demonstrable truth. It is okay, and in fact great, to propose wild-ass notions, even when they contradict known truths, but it's kinda subtle on how hard one pushes them, hard enough to stimulate approximate tests, but not so hard as to be a wild card.

Take for example the acceleration of the expansion of the universe, which no one predicted or expected in the least, yet it was universally accepted almost immediately after the evidence had been produced. So mental flexibility is needed. Again, there is continental drift, which had been percolating a generation, but not able to gain acceptance because of the obvious facts that whole continents, no matter how slowly, do not have any way or mechanism to move around. That is until one was found (sea bottom spreading). All at once things that had been problematic to the geologists and paleontologists because clear, and the consensus shifted within months.

When it comes to global warming, the theory and mechanism are in place and well demonstrated, the data is going largely as expected (a big volcano could put it off), global average temperatures are increasing, the ocean is expanding, the glaciers are in many places in trouble. Unfortunately the weather is a chaotic system so sometimes counter-events happen. One must watch overall trends, and they ain't good.