I remember 40 years ago as a small boy all the talk about 'abnormal weather' - abnormal weather happens, I guess to put any stock in subjective claims about abnormal weather, maybe it is better to bring 300 years of data or something.

Blaming forrest fires on global warming when ignoring lapses in forrest management, seems a bit problematic too.

After listening to both experts and sceptics as much as I can, all I can say is I don't know for sure, but my suspicion is that scepticism is healthy to keep.

Whenever people insist the debate is settled, or that there is not time for debate, be extra sceptical.

Otherwise, for me, I tried to get really deep into the guts of this, to try and figure out what is really true, and determined it impossible for me at this time.

I did find a ton of lies and bad arguments, quite a bit of it on the 'official position'.

All I can say is, if you really care about the environment, don't use lies and dishonest arguments to win in the moment, you just turn off more people from wanting to support you.

I don't have my huge stacks of notes anymore, a Phd in Chemical Engineering friend who is very pro the official position had to concede that I had indeed demonstrated important peer reviewed published lies/deceptions in a few instances.

Haven't touched the field in many years.

I was just curious about the question, can a generally inteligent person with a basic science knowledge build up from first principles and eventually properly. understand climate change and determine beyond a shadow of a doubt what is true?

So far, I have to remain agnostic on this question.

Which is itself a dire warning to a field that claims so much certainty when making trillion dollar policy recommendations.

Did you read the linked article? It raises some fantastic points and questions, in a healthy scientific manner.

Your laundry list of weather events over a 12 month period is nothing unusual given that you can look back n years or decades and find similarly active or eventful seasons.

What are your thoughts on the section about lag in proxy records?