Yes, the onus is on the "skeptics" (deniers is a word I associate with the Holocaust - don't use that word as it has severe implications for a lot of people not even involved in this debate) but the warmists do not want to debate it at all. How can anything in science not be debated? That is a question for later though. I will say this: The warmists have not proved that CO2 is heating up the earth. In the last 17 1/2 years the PPM of CO2 has continued to rise. The "heating" has not. So:

Yes, humans have put CO2 into the atmosphere
Yes, the CO2 levels have increased
Yes, I disagree CO2 is the main cause of warming

The climate is extremely complex. The 97% figure of consensus is a farce that is quoted by governments and politicians. It's funny, if that survey had been sent to me I would have agreed! One of the questions was, and I paraphrase, "Is the climate changing?" Of course the climate is changing! It always has and always will!

JD, consensus is NOT proof of anything. That's the problem with this debate. Scientific proof is the only way to settle this debate. When I started this "quest" for knowledge I was not a skeptic or a believer. I was non committal. I did not have enough knowledge to form an opinion either way. I have spent 6 years studying and learning as much as possible and you know what? I know a lot more about the subject but if anything, I am still not convinced either way. What I HAVE learned is this:

"Big Oil" is NOT driving the skeptics. What is? Data. Lots of data.
The "Alarmists" like Gore, Hansen and Mann have fudged a lot of information and data.
Politicians are driving this bus. Not scientists. That's a big red flag.
Severe weather has not gotten worse or "more" severe.
And a lot more but that is the gist.

What started me on this journey was a memory. I was a teenager in the 1970's. I have always had a science bug and I read everything I could about science even back then. The big science news I remember from then was "We are headed for an Ice Age!" Yes, back then the science was telling everyone the history and projections say we are getting colder and will continue to get colder. I remembered that. There was even an article in Time magazine about it and that's where I read the article first.

Now, history has not changed. Ice cores, analysis of gas bubbles and temperature trends have not changed. They still do it the same way now as they did in the 70's and 80's. Computers have changed the way we analyze data, although there were models being generated way back then. Bottom line, we went from believing we were headed for a long cooling period then and now we are headed for a warming trend. Why the change? That is the million dollar question. I really don't know. It could be anything but I will bet you a beer it's politically motivated on a global scale.

Again, I would be a believer if the earth had continued to warm as the CO2 continues to rise. We have not for almost two decades now, even as CO2 has reached that imaginary threshold of 400 ppm temperatures have flattened. Also even when the temps rose they were nowhere near what the models (I only looked at 90 different ones) projected. I would also be a believer if the data presented by the advocates of warming were non biased. The hockey stick? Please. What happened to the Medieval Warm period on the Hockey Stick? Closer to modern times what happened to the 1930's? That was a super hot decade but looking at some of the presented data is is gone! Yes, there is still some good accurate data out there but you have to hunt for it.

So, in reality and after studying this for a long time I am back where I started. I have and never will be convinced either way though by consensus. That is the way to decide if a dress or a color looks good. Not if science is settled.