Call for action
Appeal to authority
Dire consequences if not followed
Name Calling (or worse) of any dissidents
Call for action
Lather, rinse, repeat.
For eons, despots have labored to make the simple appear to be complex; and the complex appear to be simple. They use these techniques to lead their unsuspecting victims down a primrose path-a path that generally leads to a place where their money or their free will is compromised.
Religious leaders do it, political leaders do it, and now-this wing of the so called scientific community does it.
The fervor with which people believe the dire predictions of Global Warming is inversely proportional to how many semesters of calculus and physics and thermodynamcis they have taken. Global warming hysteria is pseudo-intellectualism-warmly embraced by history majors, and skeptically considered by most true scientists.
Yes, increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere blocks long wave radiation from escaping to space, while allowing short wave radiation to enter the system. However, these effects are dwarved by buffering and feedback that occurs in the water cycle, and the enormous heat sink available in the oceans. The total energy in the top meter of the ocean is roughly equivalent to the total energy stored in the atmosphere.
Climate, like weather, changes-to expect it to remain constant is unnatural. Humans certainly have some impact on weather--but the thought that we can tweak CO2 emissions and adjust temperatures decades from now- like adjusting the idle on a carburetor- is ludicrous. The thought that we can model the atmosphere decades into the future is equally ludicrous. The atmosphere-ocean system is without a doubt the most mathematically complex and chaotic system in nature, what with turbulent flow, phase changes, and variable albedo. When Navier Stokes gets solved for 3D turbulent flow, I'll start listening--but I've run too many computational fluid dynamics models since 1985 to believe we're remotely close to understanding this system. The science is nowhere close to being "settled."
The politicians-on both sides-want you to think it's settled. They thrive on tribalism.