Last week, in a post that drew over 200 comments, I asked where all the climate science “skeptics” who comment here so frequently were coming from. There were a vast array of different responses, but I was impressed by the fact that many of the “skeptics” seemed to have genuine doubts about the state of climate science, and seemed to be arriving here out of their interest in “ClimateGate”–which has made those doubts even stronger.

After many years of covering climate science as a journalist, I really don’t grasp well where they are coming from. They seem to be nitpicking around the edges of the big picture, mostly. But it almost calls for a review of the basics of climate science, the core reasons for why scientists are convinced humans are causing warming, and the consilience of evidence that makes this conclusion so strong.

Certainly it would be a lot of work to undertake, to lay all of that out. Plus, it would be work that has already been done by others–like the US EPA. I wonder, would trying to blog about this basic science be at all illuminating or useful? Or, perhaps I could offer refutations to the most standard “skeptic” claims? That, too, has been done over and over again, including by myself in various articles, and in my first book. Would doing it here be any different?