Date: Tue, 21 Feb 2017 13:41:25 -0500
From: Gina Robertson
Subject: Climate change
It is not unreasonable to consider “scientific consensus” today to be something more reliable than what it was in 1543. Also, I imagine there was more scientific doubt about the earth-centric scientific consensus at that time than there is about anthropomorphic climate change today. As you pointed out, the price to pay for opposing the consensus in 1543 was rather harsh, but nobody is going along with scientific consensus today to avoid being cast into prison.
Here is a recent peer reviewed paper on the subject of CO2 and temperature.
http://www.nature.com/
No one has time to fully research the science involved. Those who do so have devoted their lives to the study and that’s why we trust them. The overwhelming consensus of those people is that climate change is happening, and that it is influenced by human actions. Full stop. The parts of this that are still being debated are questions like:
How much warming has occurred?
How much of that warming is natural vs anthropogenic?
How much will it warm in the future if we do nothing?
How much will it warm in the future if we do something?
What are the effects that this warming will have on the cryosphere, biosphere, atmosphere, and hydrosphere?