Climate Change or Climate Hoax?

(see update)

I've debated this issue for a surprising number of years now on this site.

As I have posted before, I am open to all sorts of conspiracy theories, but they have to make some sense to me. In my mind, it is always worth reviewing reasons to be the "conspiracy" view versus the "official" viewpoint.

Now, just to tip you off where I'm going with this-- the bottom line is I don't trust people on either side of the argument completely. But my tendency is to support the pro-anthrogenic global warming/climate change/climate disruption (AGW/CC/CD) side.

Now let's look at who are skeptical of AGW/CC/CD:
most Republicans and conservatives
Oil and gas companies
right-wing conspiracy theorists

Who thinks AGW/CC/CD is real?
Most Democrats and liberals
The vast majority of climate scientists
NASA and "skeptic" types who go against conspiracy theories

So, imo, the anti-AGW/CC/CD side is made up of assholes and cranks-- people totally unsympathetic to me.

The pro-AGW/CC/CD side is made up of people I tend to sympathize with, but the ones that gives me pause are of course, NASA and the skeptic crowd.


Now, to be sure, the anti-AGW/CC/CD side is very clever about finding problems with the pro-anti-AGW/CC/CD arguments.

For instance:
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2014/02/22/motherlode-part-iv/
https://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2014/06/23/noaanasa-dramatically-altered-us-temperatures-after-the-year-2000/

On the surface, these arguments are disturbing, and support the idea of a hoax. But of course, these arguments about climate data are very complex, and the fact is, I don't have time to delve into the nitty-gritty details here.

There are of course people who think AGW/CC/CD is the end of the world:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/near-term-human-extinction-a-conversation-with-guy-mcpherson/5373909

Others, like Al Gore, see a serious problem, but think there is hope:
http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/24317-the-turning-point-new-hope-for-the-climate

Where I come down is this:
I see the continual burning of fuels extracted from under the ground as dirty and polluting energy. We're putting CO2 into the air that was trapped millions of years ago in plants or animals, and we're putting it into the air at a far greater rate than it was removed. I just can't see how this is a good thing in any sense. Plus, I find right-wing arguments are almost always flawed. I don't trust Republicans or their Big Oil cronies. I do think the impact of the increased C02 and methane is very complex and hard to predict, and it may not not result in the types of changes predicted. At the same time, the warnings are dire enough for some action. And in general, I think converting to renewable energy is the way of the future. So I just don't see the harm in trying to move away from a carbon-pollution society towards a more renewable one. I think people can do it, and as usual, right-wingers are being ridiculously reactionary and making things worse (as they usually do).

The one unsettling issue though, for me, is how someone can take a detail about the science and make the whole concept seem bad, much in the way that conspiracy theorists, who may not completely understand the science the way the experts do, cast doubt on the official government story. Much in the way, for instance, that I have tried to cast doubt on the official WTC collapse story. I'm not a mechanical engineer, yet I have tried to argue against engineers who support the official 9/11 story.

So, should we trust silly bloggers who take on the government narrative by finding little discrepancies here and there?

I think it just really depends on the big picture.

For me, there is a history of false-flag events being used for starting a war. So there is precedent for this sort of hoax. And there is huge power and money involved in war, so a major incentive to promote the 9/11 hoax.

The idea that AGW/CC/CD is a government or scientist-propagated complete hoax just has no real precedent and doesn't make much sense if you follow the money and the power. The money and power is with the Big Oil companies and elites. Scientists may be led astray at times, but there is no precedent that I know of, for them conspiring to invent a huge catastrophic event like AGW/CC/CD. On the other hand, clearly Big Oil companies and the elites benefit from casting doubt on AGW/CC/CD.

So it boils down to:
who do I trust?
what makes more sense?
what is the more likely conspiracy here?
who benefits?

For me the pro-AGW/CC/CD side tends to win out.

UPDATE 6/27/14:

What I left out, and what I often forget about when I think and write about this topic, is the likelihood that the climate is being manipulated by HAARP and "chemtrails". I suspect that this is going on, but there is so much secrecy and misinformation on this topic, it's really hard to sort out.

Weather manipulation could be done for several reasons--
1) to make AGW/CC/CD worse for obscure but ultimately evil reasons
2) to limit the effects of AGW/CC/CD in favored countries
3) to limit the effects of AGW/CC/CD in favored countries and make worse in non-favored countries
4) to mask the effects of AGW/CC/CD specifically in the US, to give the deniers more political power.
5) in a very selective way, to maximize political and economic power for those who control the weather manipulation technology