WTF are you on about? They are **ALL** questionable. There has been a whole industry grown in the science community over global warming. It's good for business to have such "science" on the front page - attracts grants etc which pays their wages. No alarm, no grants, no work and they might have to try and survive in private enterprise. Same deal with the economists. TBH a lot of their rhetoric is not much more than speculation. The accuracy of which is..... well..... questionable at best. The problem with all of these predictions, and there is no doubt that some are accurate, is deciding which to believe??? No different to the Y2K bug, god know how many flu's and the like over the last few years and I can go on. We get into a massive tizz and then find out it's not as bad as we thought. This all smells very much the same to me.
Reaper
Do you have any idea of how scientific discovery is conducted? It's sole purpose is to discover the objective truth about the rules by which the physical world operates. Try to fabricate something and, because it's not the objective truth, sooner or later it will be discovered. If it was being done with intent, that's end of career. No more funding of any kind.
But, let's humour you a little and suggest that there is a world with no such thing as AGW. Would there no longer be scientists studying how the Earth's climate works? Of course not because it's useful for us to know when and where to expect drought and floods etc. and to adjust our behaviour accordingly. We would still want to know whether or not it was an acceptable risk to build on areas where we might expect severe flooding occasionally or plant crops with some knowledge of the risk of drought. Climate science would still be funded because it is about discovering how the Earth's climate works and not just about AGW.
I should also point out that most scientists - except in some areas of specialty - don't actually get paid a whole lot. Probably less than you. That's despite having spent 4-8 years on training at tertiary level. And, yes, they would get paid more doing something else in private enterprise for equivalent effort .
On the other hand, let's say you have a business or businesses, in which you have a rather large investment, that will disappear because it is a major contributor to AGW. What then is your incentive to understand how the climate works, if the outcome of that understanding means you can no longer conduct that business? There will be no oil, coal or gas industries nor high global warming potential refrigerants in a world where AGW is addressed.
What if you had religious beliefs that conflicted with the reality of AGW? How hard would it be to reconstruct your belief system within the forced understanding that the climate responds to physical phenomena in conflict with what you now hold to be true?
Then ask: Who has the incentive to figure out how the Earth's climate works in an objective way and who has the incentive to obfuscate? Who has the money? Who has the PR departments? Who has the political influence? Here's a hint: it's not the scientists.
Funnily enough, the early evidence suggests that those climate scientists may have got a few things right. Unless you think that the record and near record high temps. - 5 days at the highest ever recorded average temp. for Australia - and floods - now twice in three years in Qld - and extreme bushfires didn't happen. Melbourne didn't get a night time temp. that all but matched the previous record that also occurred in the last few years. Sydney, together with a number of other population centres, didn't experience new record high temps. this year?
Perhaps the record droughts over the last couple of years, with the corresponding wildfires and crop failures, the early starts to tornado seasons and super storm Sandy (as just one example), once again with record and near record intensity and flood levels, in the US didn't happen?
Perhaps the UK didn't get unseasonable flooding rains and drought?
Perhaps parts of Eurasia didn't experience extreme drought?
No floods in Bangladesh, the Philipines or Indonesia?
Perhaps there haven't been unusually intense snow storms in the Northern hemisphere?
Perhaps the summer ice in the Arctic didn't get close to or exceed (it's still being calculated but already looks bad) near record lows in 2012? Perhaps there isn't evidence of permafrost melting and releasing methane that will act, with the increased albedo due to the absence of the sea ice, as a feedback to increase the rate of warming?
There are any number of unusual weather events over the last few years that are indicative of a warming world and, most importantly, in line with the predictions made by climate science.
How much has it cost in terms direct loss to destruction of homes, crops and infrastructure with storm, drought and fire damage? How much lost productive time and effort while the effects are cleaned up or evacuations made and infrastructure restored? It was 60 billion or so for Sandy and, I think, 4 billion for the last Qld floods. How much for the crop losses in the US?
Have you even read the Stern or Garnaut - including update - reports? If not, how do you form an opinion as to whether they are inaccurate or not? Have you seen any credible analysis that, acknowledging AGW is occurring, suggests it's a better outcome to allow it to happen and pay for the consequences?
