If the climate was made out of chimpanzees, I might care what Jane Goodall thinks. Outside his specialized field, a scientist is just as gullible as the next guy. In fact, he is more gullible precisely because he believes he is less. Jane Goodall would never believe that a chimp composed a symphony just because someone said so on TV. She fully understands that chimps are only capable of playing jazz solos. But she accepts "my TV says so" as sufficient evidence that a weather phenomenon, or an island vanishing due to wave erosion (not submerging), is related to human use of carbon-based fuels. This is an example of smartardation, the process whereby smart people come to retarded conclusions by overanalyzing the data they have, and failing to gather the data they need. Jane Goodall has overanalyzed "what does the anecdotal data I am being given about global warming indicate?" And Jane Goodall has underanalyzed "Does the behavior of those giving me anecdotal data about global warming match the pattern of scam artist behavior?" When someone tells you that Kale Island has vanished due to global warming, and you probe deeper and get a bunch of handwavium about different sea level rises in different part of the ocean, and how thermal expansion and gravity and wind all play roles in piling up water, and how wind erosion is also part of it, and how nobody really understands all this, but at the same time they definitely understand that it's all your fault for running your air conditioner in Tennessee where your power comes from nuclear plants, but not China's fault because they aren't White, then you can't comb through all of that. Because you have a job and don't live in your parents' basement. But can definitely parse the fact that your government wants to pay a lot of your money to people who promise that the problem will go away if you pay them lots of money, and that the same banks who invest in them will happily give you a 30-year mortgage for a house in Pacific Palisades or Key Largo. If you can't spot the scam, spot the scammer.