by Spencer Gore

Created on: September 07, 2009

Are you sick of the shouting match over Global Warming? I certainly am. On one side of the argument, you have the activists who are warning of what you hear on television: upheaval, destruction, famines, draughts, resources wars, and the destabilization of our entire modern society. On the other side, you hear skeptics pointing out the economic costs against taking action, and the number of scientists still not on board with the idea of climate change.

While we are debating back and forth over whether or not climate change is a real threat, it's easy to forget one critical fact: we're already running the experiment, and we're one of the variables! With the stakes this high, it just makes sense that we need to examine closely both sides of the argument for their legitimacy, setting aside our own biases for what is best for everyone.

While we can never know for certain whether or not climate change is a real threat, we can know how we will respond to it, since we control it. Nobody is infallible, and there is always the possibility that the other side was right all along. Therefore, instead of asking whether or not climate change is real, we should be asking: "Given the risks associated with each of our choices, what is the wisest thing to do about it?"

"But that's too risky!", both sides will say. "We're making blind decisions! Why don't we wait until the science is finished?"

That's the problem - science is never finished. The entire basis of scientific accuracy is based upon the fact that it is never finished. There are always dissenting scientists, and there are always new theories being presented. It is this fact that enables the system to evolve to account for new observations.

In the case of climate change, choosing to wait for the science to be finished is the same choice as choosing not to act. For this reason, it is critical that we make a decision now with the best science available.

I am not a climatologist, so I will not pretend to have the ability to discredit individual scientific statements or support others. There's a reason that it takes years of hard work and a lot of espresso to get the letters Ph.D. next to your name, and that is because it gives you credibility that most people do not have.

If I set out to research the issue of climate change and to "look at the science for myself", I have just replaced the work of the entire scientific community with my own armchair analysis.

My role in this debate is not to try and judge the science, that

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