Am I the only one who winces at the brain-numbing robot-like false confidence and dogmatic preaching of attributing all natural disaster to man-made climate change?
Like you I'm also frustrated by the dogmatism around climate change. I think the majority of people on both sides have chosen their position on the basis of political allegiance and social identity rather than a consideration of both sides, and that's a really big problem because it moves the debate away from observable reality and into the realm of politics.
How would you suggest most people actually consider "both sides"? (i.e. a method not requiring more skills than most people have, or more time than most people would want to invest.) I think I have above average skills in reading scientific papers etc, but still it's not clear to me at all how to go about doing that. I guess I'd find the climate change report that seemed to have the most credibility with (ultimately) the kind of people whose politics I like, and yield to that because of its authority. Not much "considering" involved.
And..are there actually only two "sides"?
I'd suggest that they have a look at local weather data going back a couple of decades, compare it to global data, check out the methodologies used to calculate that data, read a few of the best resources they can find from each side, and try to work out what the debate is about.
I don't think many people will change their minds, but I hope that they'll learn what both sides actually are and come to have more respect for the other side.
> And..are there actually only two "sides"?
I think there are two sides to the question "how much effort should we spend preventing climate change?", and those sides are "no effort" and "all available effort", with plenty of middle ground. I think serious debate around climate change is about where we are on that continuum, rather than whether man-made climate change is actually happening.