I also don't like the binary will/will not be catastrophic. There's too much uncertainty in the science to be that hardline and in any case what qualifies as 'catastrophic'?
Having said that I voted for the 'anthropogenic/catastrophic' option because that's closest to what the physics predicts and the evidence supports.
Regards Luke -- #include witty_sig.h
Man, I really will turn into a grumpy old man.
In 99.9% of interesting things in life there are no absolute certainties. As such whatever we take for granted might be wrong to some degree.
The problem with faith and belief is their source and their degree. A typical example is the religious bigot: total and undiscussable faith in something there is no evidence for or against.
I have faith and belief in, say, evolution. A faith based on existing evidence and a rational process that can be democratically shared with all humans. A faith that can be REVISED in the presence of new evidence or a good, preferably testable, argument. But I don't have complete certainty about the topic.
One of the reasons that I've loved your post is because it exposes some of the typical bigotry in the left side: some issues (like this) are very hard to discuss with progressives: either you are with dogma or you are casted out. Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness - Bertrand Russell
Examples abound, for instance heliocentrism, gravitation, blood circulation, round earth...
In other words the "typical bigotry in the left side" is better known as the use of reason, or the refusal to espouse the anti-intellectualism of the right. "The womb that spawned that thing is fertile yet"
