I have no idea why any climatologist would try to dismiss the theory that CO2 acts as a greenhouse gas. There's been nothing even resembling a physical theory floated that would contradict CO2 lowering Earth's thermal radiation to space.
As far as I have seen, all serious challenges to the standard climate models status quo either challenge that CO2 is an important greenhouse gas (as physics goes, the evidence for this is remarkably solid) or invoke questions of completeness: things like, have we modeled the effects of water vapor and cloud albedo well enough (we have tried to model the effects, but there are many assumptions on cloud cover that are probably inaccurate), have we modeled how the biosphere reacts properly (probably not, as it is so complicated, and new species would thrive under new environmental conditions), have we modeled the effects of lowered icecap albedo (yes, though we don't have good models for the glacial rate of decay, it's pretty universally true that as the icecaps melt, the solar thermal incidence increases), etc. None of these contest whether or not CO2 is an influence. The question is whether the other factors regulate the earth's temperature sufficiently to cause the CO2's influence to saturate out.
(As far as I know, the climatologist apparently commenting here was actually just quoted person from an article.)
Here's another example: Crichton asks rhetorically 'Look: If I was selling stock in a company that I told you would be profitable in 2100, would you buy it? Or would you think the idea was so crazy that it must be a scam?'
Maybe it would be foolish to buy any particular stock. But the climate isn't a good analogy: it is macroscopic, long-term, average behavior we are interested in. One can instead buy stock in something much larger, the assumption being that it will be worth more in a long time. These are called national bonds.
As far as I have seen, all serious challenges to the standard climate models status quo either challenge that CO2 is an important greenhouse gas (as physics goes, the evidence for this is remarkably solid) or invoke questions of completeness: things like, have we modeled the effects of water vapor and cloud albedo well enough (we have tried to model the effects, but there are many assumptions on cloud cover that are probably inaccurate), have we modeled how the biosphere reacts properly (probably not, as it is so complicated, and new species would thrive under new environmental conditions), have we modeled the effects of lowered icecap albedo (yes, though we don't have good models for the glacial rate of decay, it's pretty universally true that as the icecaps melt, the solar thermal incidence increases), etc. None of these contest whether or not CO2 is an influence. The question is whether the other factors regulate the earth's temperature sufficiently to cause the CO2's influence to saturate out.
(As far as I know, the climatologist apparently commenting here was actually just quoted person from an article.)
Here's another example: Crichton asks rhetorically 'Look: If I was selling stock in a company that I told you would be profitable in 2100, would you buy it? Or would you think the idea was so crazy that it must be a scam?'
Maybe it would be foolish to buy any particular stock. But the climate isn't a good analogy: it is macroscopic, long-term, average behavior we are interested in. One can instead buy stock in something much larger, the assumption being that it will be worth more in a long time. These are called national bonds.