1b) The fact that we don't know everything doesn't mean
we know nothing.
Anybody who cannot accept this fact is disqualified from
making decisions, and from telling other people how to
make decisions. In business, in the military, in routine
government operations, and in everyday life, people make
decisions based on less-than-perfect information.
Some people who think it was OK to go to war based on
/highly/ imperfect information turn around and say we
must not take action on climate change because the data
is not 100% exactly perfect in every detail. Sheesh.
2) Research is very often open-ended. For example,
researchers are busy building climate models with
progressively finer regional detail.
Therefore if you look at the latest research, and look
closely enough, there will /always/ be some way in
which the research is incomplete, somehow, somewhere.
Using this as evidence against the model, while
disregarding all evidence for the model, is utter
madness.
3) Deciding to do nothing is a decision!!!!!
Anybody who thinks it is OK to make a do-nothing decision
based on imperfect information -- but not OK to make any
other decision -- is disqualified from making decisions,
and from telling other people how to make decisions.
4) Pattern-matching against the historical record is not
an acceptable substitute for reasoning. It is not a
substitute for doing the physics.
Do the physics already. We know that CO2 in the atmosphere
*does* significantly shift the earth's energy balance. It
takes more than a high-school-level grasp of physics to do
this calculation, but not much more. Nit-picking the fossil
record cannot change the physics. The fact that we do not
(yet) know in micro-regional detail exactly how the energy
gets distributed does not change the overall physics.
The fact that the Koch brothers want us to think otherwise
cannot change the physics.
5) The antarctic fossil record is evidence of a positive
feedback loop. There is plenty of other evidence, too
... including physics. This should make you more scared,
not less.