Trouble is, even if there's a natural cycle, that doesn't mean it will continue when forcings are changed.

One can be skeptical of reports in the press about scientific findings - skepticism is good! But it really needs to be tempered with a bit of humility.

We (most of us anyway) wouldn't think that we were experts at brain surgery or metallurgy or constructing massively distributed data centers from watching a few YouTube videos or reading a few blogs. We (most of us anyway) appreciate that it takes years of study and years of actually doing the hands-on work in the field to become an expert. J Random Blogger will almost never have that background and experience.

Writing a good scientific paper is a painful exercise, especially in a field that is a lightning rod. The scientists work hard to get every detail right. The coauthors can argue over every word in the text. It's such a painful process that they don't want it to get held up in peer-review by demanded changes, or even worse, to have it rejected - they want it to be as perfect as possible. It can take years even in a relatively uncontroversial field. (Sure, there are people and groups that can crank out papers like an assembly line, but if they're good it's only because they've built up a demonstrated track record of getting it right. And even then it usually takes months of work.) . It's not just a Buddy System where everyone lets their friends' papers through with a wink and a nod and trash papers from people who aren't in The Club. The credibility of the reviewers is on the line, too.

Yet, somehow, when it comes to scientific topics that have powerful entrenched economic interests ("health supplements", pollution, climate change, health care, etc.) the actual experts are suspect. Curious. :-/

SkepticalScience is a great resource for people who have a genuine curiosity about the science of CO2 and climate change (as you probably know).

Yes, there has been fraud in science. But we know what fraud looks like and how to detect it. The only thing more exciting to a scientist than finding a new phenomena is finding that previously accepted theories are wrong - the siren's call of - "this is new!" is very, very strong. But it hasn't happened with CO2 and climate change - the scientific consensus holds.

As a6l6e6x reminds us, there's always been that undercurrent in the USA. But the knownothings have far too much power now.

Keep fighting the good fight.

Cheers,
Scott.

Lots of them are scams.

Most of them are treated as a scourge by people I interact with.

Most reputable scientific publishing isn't like that.

Cheers,
Scott.