And I'll weigh in 'ever so briefly' and note re the long 
past

>>>>> convince people. So for all proponents and opponents 
>>>>> of GW actions,
>>>>> NuclearEnergy, Iraq war, etc: why post here at all? 
>>>>> Most PIClisters
>>>>> have a firm opinion on these matters,

FWIW (not always much) I distinguish between those 3.

Iraq war is heavily opinion and politics based and IMHO 
reasonably properly so. People are welcome to have opinions 
but, apart from eg the WMD issue, which is now largely 
historical, the debate is not over facts but over what 
should be done about them. A fine subject for sure for sure, 
but not on this list.

Nuclear energy argument is reasonably well fact-supplied. 
While some are not aware of some major aspects and supplying 
sources of facts may assist them (and some such by others 
has assisted me to a better understanding), much of the 
discussion revolves around opinion about how the facts 
should be interpreted and dealt with. eg is in-rock storage 
secure and for how long and what does this imply for each 
proponent for the various answers? Overlap with Iraq 
comparison is there but it's more science oriented.

GW is relatively fact light due to the vast complexity of 
the system being modelled, both in terms of data sources, 
data and system models.
To say that the systems are well understood is not enough to 
rationally stop discussion as it is easy to show that there 
is a lack of understanding, if there is, by introducing more 
data and data sources.

To me (B,WWIK) the "addressability" of the above subjects 
increases in the order given. As less is known about the 
measurable data, the measurement of the data and how the 
data is used when the subject is thoroughly fact based at 
its core*, it IMHO becomes more valid, not less, to address 
the subject from an engineering point of view. ie if we 
don't know the basic material in all areas why wouldn't we 
want to know more rather than forming conclusions based on 
minimal knowledge?
I'm aware that not all agree with this perspective, although 
so far I can't understand why.



Russell

* ie climate change is or isn't happening, anthropogenic 
components are or aren't a major factor, there is an extent 
to which we can or can't change things, CO2 does or doesn't 
have a major effect wrt water vapor, CO2 lags or leads 
warming, ... . If we leave all the politics out (ha!) we 
still have lots of data and system related uncertainties to 
address.


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