Climate change has always been a very strange issue to me. I'm a researcher in a Chemistry department, so I'm used to reading and analysing scientific literature, but when I'm performing, for example an experiment, everything is self-contained and distilled down to its bare minimum state, so that even the most complex chemical reactions can be simplified and fundamentally understood on a microscopic scale.
Climate change is the complete opposite of that. The system is so large, so variable, so complex and dynamic that it is extremely difficult to model, test and understand on such a level. I understand and fully accept the greenhouse effect and the effect of black carbon deposits on Antarctica, since they are very simple concepts that I can appreciate on a microscopic level and then translate onto a macroscopic level, but I take some of what I read about climate change with a pinch of salt.
My issues with climate change science is that it is such a complicated area that is still in its relative infancy, so there will naturally be a lot of conflicting information, data and models by various groups. I do not doubt that man is having an effect on the world's climate, but I question the extent of this effect, the planets natural coping mechanisms and the consequences of climate change that are reported by much of the media. These are again extremely difficult questions to answer. The researchers and the general media, which has allowed the politicisation of this fundamental research, which is lamentable, have also poorly communicated the science not just to the wider scientific community, but to the general public at large.
So just to make myself clear, I am not a climate change denier, but I do understand why some people doubt it and I also question some aspects of it myself. I am still in favour of increasing spending in this area of scientific research, reducing oil consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, and finding alternative sources of energy, so it all amounts to the same for me.
Just my two cents.