Nature of the Global Warming Controversy

Last night I read generally about the origin of oil, greenhouse gases, and climate change on the web. What I read was not inconsistent with two points in a constellation of arguments:

People’s beliefs about global warming are just that: beliefs. The arguments about the data on climate change, the principal causes of climate change, the consequences of climate change, and our responses to it are all premised on what one might call prebeliefs. But then, many ostensibly scientific discussions carried on by people have the same character, so the global warming discussion isn’t so different that way.

In line with the first point, arguments about proper responses to global warming follow this idea of prebeliefs. People say: we can observe global warming, it’s a problem, and we have to reduce emission of CO2 and other greenhouse gases to address the problem. The private structure of the argument is different: we need to limit the use of non-renewable fossil fuels, and global warming supplies a strong rationale for doing so. Beliefs about oil, where it comes from and how much we have, drive beliefs about the correct response to climate change.