The debate over climate change is..

The science is undebatable. Politicians and idiots are the only ones debating, but I guess that is redundant.

That depends - are we talking about the basic claims (the climate is changing rapidly, it's going to have many negative consequences, and humans are creating the things that make that happen)?
Or are we talking about the exaggerated versions of these claims (Hollywood's the Day after Tomorrow. Extinction of everything above the bacterial range. That sort of thing).
I regard it as scientifically proven that humans are releasing tremendous amounts of Carbon Dioxide, and the climate is changing rapidly because of that. I think we are very close to saying that the increased average temperatures will definitely make weather more violent, but those theories need a bit more work. I think specific senarios are mostly speculation - for example, if AGW has an effect on hurricanes, it might mean storms starting before the usual season or continuing after it, or it might mean bigger storms on average, or more total storms on average, or various mixtures of any of the above. There's some pretty good science for the idea that higher temperatures will have some specific effects on hurricanes, but much less on just what.
I think we are looking at significant sea level rise that will totally swamp several island nations, but if we don't at least do more to separate out data from areas where the land seems to be locally sinking (i.e. Norfolk VA,), we don't have a truly solid scientific prediction just yet.
Predictions that existing warming will trigger mass release of other sequestered gasses such as Ocean Subfloor Clathrate Contained Methane? Not much of either real evidence, or solid conclusions from what little we have, as yet. it's not totally rediculous, but it's not compelling either.
Mutant Mesons from the film 2012, or a stopping of the planetary core (from "The Core" of course)? Not science at all, but those films both made references to Global Warming, Climate Change, and similar, and some people on the pro AGW side have gotten that sort of claptrap mixed up with their scientific arguments, just like some people on the Anti-AGW side are all mixed up about whether Mars or Venus are warming or not.

In almost all of the world, EXCEPT the United States, climate change is not a debate. The "debate" is almost wholly due to fossil-fuel barons buying the votes of uneducated Republican congressmen, of which we presently have a surfeit thanks to a similar surfeit of uneducated and illiterate voters in the USA.

Because global warming is a call for a change.

This change affects quite a few people. And people don't want to change, because it means giving something up.

Few people changing ways is meaningless. Only valid when almost everyone gets involved.

This change is expensive. And NO ONE wants to pay.

Therefore politicians get involved. Much cheaper to buy a politician to shut down/shut up the people pointing out bad news then to actually change.

Therefore, it is a political issue through and through.

There's lots of actual scientific debate, at least when it can get funding and doesn't get censored by the governments that fund it. It's not about "Is the climate changing, in ways that will get us in trouble, because of things humans have been doing?"; that's all settled. It's more about "Precisely how fast is it changing, and in what ways, and who's going to bake first or freeze first, and whose coastline is going to get flooded how fast, and how does agriculture have to adapt to keep us from starving in a few decades or a century, and how much of the ecology can we save while we're at it?"

So laws like North Carolina's ban on considering any global warming effects beyond 30 years? Pretty much criminal, and obviously written by a bunch of 70-year-olds who don't think they'll need a beach house after that, plus some 50-year-olds who think they'll be retired from politics by then. I used to live in Delaware and New Jersey, both states with beach industries constantly affected by erosion and flooding, and North Carolina's coastline is the same way. If the sand washes away your property values drop and then your house washes into the ocean, and when the barrier islands are gone, the mainland starts to go pretty fast also.

It's change, but it's not a change that necessarily costs a lot of money. On the contrary, many environmentally friendly changes to people's ways of life can save them money.

Key to climate change is the amount of fossil fuels we use. Reduce that amount, by saving energy, and you can save money. A CFL costs less money over its lifetime than an incandescent bulb, an LED may end up even cheaper. Sure it's a bit more of an upfront investment, in the end you save money.

Buying a smaller fridge that's got better energy efficiency (more efficient cooling system, better isolation) and you're going to save a lot of energy - you save money.

Get a more fuel efficient car, less trips to the gas station, save money. Even better: use public transport or a bicycle. Especially a bicycle is a really cheap, fast and even healthy (gives your exercise in the process) way of getting around town.

Get proper isolation for your home. Double glazing, foam isolation in between the double brick walls. Save a lot of energy, and have a more comfortable home (no matter whether you try to cool it or heat it) to boot. It's an upfront investment that saves money over time. Get a fan, so you don't have to switch on that A/C when it gets warmer.

And the "few people changing is meaningless" argument is downright stupid. A few people changing IS meaningful. It has to start somewhere! Those few people that do change may well inspire other people to follow suit. Their changes in consumption patterns may prompt manufacturers to cater for them the moment the movement is big enough, again prompting more people to follow suit.

Change the world, start with yourself. Otherwise your whole "we've got to change!" argument IS meaningless.

Newton is a good example. We know for a fact that his 'laws' (or more accurately, models) of motion are wrong. We've known that for a very long time (that is why relativity was needed, Newton's model, for example, failed to predict the orbits of the planets accurately).

Now suppose you are building a bridge. It needs to withstand certain strains. Plugging the details of your plans into Newton's models shows that it will not withstand them. Claiming that since Newton's models are wrong, you can safely ignore this result and build your bridge anyway, is clearly nonsense.

The reason it is nonsense is because the limitations (or inaccuracies) of Newton's models are irrelevant to its application in this scenario. To wave away Newton, in this instance, you'd need to present extremely compelling evidence that we've been wrong these past 300 years in believing Newton's laws held any value at 'human' scale.

This would be an extraordinary claim, requiring extraordinary proof. Given how unlikely that is, we say that Newton is 'settled'. In that we know the limits of his models and have a mountain of evidence to back them up where we believe they do apply. You can't just point at the known limitations of his models and in a handwavy manner extrapolate that since his models aren't perfect, they are useless. You must provide extraordinary proof they Newton's models are wrong.

So lets move over to climate science.

Its a younger field, but it does rely on a number of fairly simple and testable models. Including that carbon dioxide (CO2) traps heat in the atmosphere. This can be easily tested (and has been repeatedly). Claiming that this is false, requires extraordinary proof and this can generally be considered settled.

The claim that us humans are releasing immense amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere and have been doing so to an ever greater degree for over 200 years is also easily proven and can be viewed as 'settled'. That is to say, you'd need extraordinary proof to claim otherwise.

There is a mountain of these small, 'settled' issues that, when taken together, lead to a fairly unassailable (barring extraordinary evidence to the countrary) conclusion; We are having an effect on the global climate.

The exact effects are what is left for (real) scientific debate. But even there we know that the overall temperature of the planet will rise by some amount due to the presence of more CO2 in the atmosphere (claiming otherwise requires, again, extraordinary proof, although the exact amount of heating is still subject to some debate).

TL;DR Climate science is far from settled. However, the fact that we are having an impact on the climate is settled and arguing otherwise requires extraordinary proof.

Only if you don't understand science. If you do understand science, you know it's not debatable – but it is falsifiable (i.e., it can be proved wrong, if it is wrong, by reproducible experiment).

You can debate things you don't understand, of course, if you must – and a lot of people do – but it's entirely meaningless.

The don't question it. They lie and misdirect.
The science is all basic physics and falsifiable. Hell the test could be done by a decent 8th grade science class.

Since you don't actual put forth why the basic physics is wrong, you are a denier. Smoen who ignores sciecne. Tha also explains why you whole argument is an ad hom. Because science show you are wrong.

Q: The current /. poll asking, "The debate over climate change is..." is:

A: **select one option**

1. A false dichotomy between 'political' and 'scientific'

2. Worded specifically to cause confusion and more arguments

3. Made by a 'libertarian'

4. Exhibits a reductive understanding of the concept of "debate"

5. Equates actual scientific evidence with political rhetoric

6. Assumes both sides are trying to argue their points using science as evidence

7. All of the above

That statement is one of the problems. Scientific laws are never right or wrong. That implies an absolute truth. Physics is just looking for math to accurately describe repeatable physical phenomena. Measurement is never absolute, so there is always an implied N decimal points of accuracy. And Newtons laws work 100% in the realm in which the experiments are performed. That's why we call them laws. If you want to set up experiments in other realms, e.g. high speed atomic particles, of course you might need different math to describe it.

Well, on the other side you have the guys who claim *everything* is caused by climate change, even when people in the field say there's no evidence global warming should have any impact - like, say, with hurricane strength and severity.

And when one points this out, one is branded a "denier". It's like critical thinking goes out the window once someone chooses a position.

Some people are still screaming that it isn't happening.
Some have said OK, but humans aren't doing it!

And a lot of the people saying those things are the same people. They go through the same series of denials:

1. The climate isn't changing.
2. The climate is changing but it's natural.
3. Humans are causing climate change, but it's no big deal
4. It's a big deal, but the suggested changes to deal with it are acceptable.

The worst part is that they'll concede points through the list of denials in one argument, and then turn around and go back to the top the next time they argue the point. Going through the series of denying arguments and reverting after the end of every argument is the key sign you're dealing with somebody who isn't arguing the issue in good faith.

You can pick time scales that show irrefutable evidence of global warming, or global cooling, or of nothing much happening of interest - just pick where you start. Not very interesting.

It's not so much that there have been errors in some models, it's that no models thus far have proven themselves more accurate than the null hypothesis. Climate is remarkably variable over history - a model would have to make pretty damn accurate predictions to be significant, and thus far we aren't there.

All of which is irrelevant with out the answer to the primary question: would we like it warmer, or colder? I live on the coast, at sea level, so you might think I'd vote colder, by where I'm sitting was under a couple kilometers of ice not all that long ago, so I vote for warming as least harmful.

Does man have some effect on climate? How could we not?

Does the effect overwhelm the natural feedback mechanisms? Certainly not, at a long enough time scale. So tiny details matter here, and we have a serious lack of understanding of the feedback mechanism that drives the 100K year cycle, or of why we're late for a return to glaciation. The climate was unnaturally stable for the past 10K years, and no one knows why. That's important. We don't have models that make better predictions than the null hypothesis yet, and that's important too.

More important, given stability is quite the anomaly, is "do we want it warmer or colder"? At my latitude, warmer is definitely less harmful. Anyone living north of the Med who doesn't get that doesn't understand ice ages.

It isn't really the science that is being debated, but the economics. They might make a show about it being about the science, but it is really a political debate on economic development. This is the same as "environmental groups" debating wind power citing bird strikes, when really it is about preserving real estate values on cottages.

It is a political debate, because political lines are crossed by climate change. Meaning any meaningful action also *requires* significant change from all parties. However the folks proposing the change, are also those that caused most of the issue by burning fossil fuels to enhance economic and industrial growth over the last 100 years. The same that are now trying to tell booming growth centers like China and India, that they are not allowed to do the same? Yeah, that's going to go over well. Add to that any plan going forward that doesn't include such large producers, is pointless, not to mention politically impossible domestically.

So ya, the debate is entirely political, only the debate isn't really about the actual science at all.