I agree with much of what Student says. Especially the idea that science is not always the dispassionate review of facts and data. In reality the human element, i.e. money, pride, control etc, always play a larger part than some might want to admit. Please feel free to correct me Student if I've overstated what you believe. You have stated my own beliefs much better than I could have so I won't bother in trying to to elaborate.
 
I have lovingly given it my very own term. Agenda-science. That's not to imply that there is always some kind of grand conspiracy involved within these scientific circles. Most of the time it's just people being people. Selfish, arrogant, money hungry, power tripping, or simply afraid to go against the majority; people.  
 
On the other hand do I find it strange that people like Al Gore fly around the world in their own private jet all the while portraying himself to be the prophet of environmentalism? Sure. Does it seem fishy to me that he's spent so much time pushing the "green" movement, cap and trade etc and just happens to be heavily invested in companies that will reap huge profits from these things? Sure. Everyone should be suspicious. Follow the money.  
 
http://news.investors.com/article/475461/200904291857/cap-and-trade-al-gores-cas h-cow.htm?p=2

Water World .. here we come  ..  
De-forrest  and build your ark before it's too late.  
Man made .. no .. man contributing  .. sure.  
Mighty man thump chest and make the trend reverse .. not a chance  
 
Get out your waders .. the water is on its way.
Followed by snowball earth epoch.
Repeat until sun flares out and consumes us ..  
 
Good luck with changing global weather epochs

The "clean coal" ads they run constantly on CNN drive me buggy too.   Modern burning methods are slightly cleaner in terms of sulpher dioxides and such, by means of "scrubbers" used on stacks.  They don't do a thing about carbon, which is curently the problem.
In fact, the proposed test-bed "clean" generation facility that had been planned was cancelled by the Bush administration as being "too expensive".
 
I saw the plans for plants of this type in a Popular Science article.  Very nice... Carbon sequestration and all... But very complex and very expensive.    You can only do sequestration in certain areas with certain geological formations.
"Cap and trade" always impressed me as a shell-game.  
 
It's true that the production of solar panels produces various pollutants.  However, not carbon.  Although currently more expensive than fossil fuels in terms of kilowatt-hour for initial expense, once they are in place and running you need only pay for maintanence, and not much of that.  
They are quite clean, but the problem is energy storage.   When the Sun is shining and everything is running, it's great.   We need low-loss transmission technology and storage that will keep things on "the grid" at a stable level.
Wind is potentially huge and there are many areas with sufficient constant ambient wind to power large sectors.   Again, transmission and storage need to be factored in.    
Nuclear is problematic, as we have seen.    It can be less so.  There are designs for plants that have very low risk and high efficiency.  Problem is no one is using them.
Our nuclear industry in the US is a hodgepodge of different designs put together by different groups and operating under different political realities.  
A single, high-efficiency plant design built to a standard model would be muchly preferrrable.
 
As I said before, the real problems are complex and involve politics and money more so than the actual mechanics of energy production.
The fossil fuel industry is enormously profitable, enormously wealthy, and can afford inordinate political influence and propaganda.  Individuals like the Koch brothers have spent many millions on concerted programs of disinformation about alternative energy production, so that they can continue to make high profits.
At least in the US, we have some functional regulation and control.  In much of the world, the word "exploitation" hardly describes what goes on.   In more than a few nations, government cronies line their pockets with oil-wealth monies while the populations suffer from pollution, miserable working conditions, land-grabs, and poverty.
 
There are those currently who have simply thrown up their hands.  It's too late.  There is already sufficient carbon in the atmophere that we cannot stop or slow global warming in a time-frame that would have any effect.  They say what we have to do is learn to cope with the effects.    
And the effects are going to be severe.   If sea-rise levels even approach projected figures, we may loose huge quantities of coastal lands.   This would include many of the world's largest and most populous cities and it's true as well that a very large percentage of the Earth's population lives along coastal areas.
 
The potential for population migration, civil strife, war, and so forth are very high.    
We humans tend to be short-sighted.  Our governments even more so.   If they can get through another election cycle it's OK.  "Not on my watch".  Let the other guy worry about it.   With luck, disasters will fall when the other party is in power....
I won't be around to see it, but we might give a thought as to what we're handing on to our grand-kids.

I find the lack of trust in 'science' depressing, but not surprising. In any case, the U.S. will not be the first to hurt badly should the effects turn out bad. I think in about fifty years we'll see one of two lines about this in the U.S. history books:
 
1. Scientists attempted to subvert the American economy with scare stories of global warming.
2. Despite warnings from western scientists the Chinese continued to generate excessive amounts of pollutants leading to a world-wide crisis.
 
Well that's ok then. There's always someone else to blame  . Whatever happens it will not lead to the 'end of the world' except possibly in human conflict.
 
The 'worst case' scenarios that get all the head-lines are that in a reasonably precise statistical sense, and are by definition  not very likely to occur. The only reason they are worth considering is because the consequences, should they occur, are significantly unpleasant.
 
So if, as I  expect - and hope - these worst case scenarios do not occur, don't smile and think "that's one the scientists got wrong" because that would not be the case.

The Gibbering Council.  We're doomed.

Everything I've seen about this heat wave has basically said "this is what global warming will look like" not "this is global warming." http://www.weather.com/news/global-warming-summer-20120703

Quote from jlasud on Jul 7^th, 2012, 2:03am:

 
lol. Truth.
 
It's supposed to be above 100 here today and the humidities pretty high too. This is unusual because normally, living in a temperate zone, it normally doesn't get over 90. Thankfully we still get frequent rains, (several this week) so the Corn and other crops still look good. I heard on the news it wasn't working out quite as well for the Mid West farmers, hopefully they get some more rain soon.
 
It's also supposed to drop back down to the 80s after today so that should be nice.