Many, certainly not all, supporters of GW have a political agenda. The Third World, largely in the person of the United Nations, seems to have as a primary goal cutting the jugular of the United States and holding a bowl under the flow. The radical environmental movement is just interested in cutting the jugular and watching the West die.

Many, certainly not all, opponents of GW also have an agenda. They are backed by industrial interests which, contrary to popular belief, are less concerned about losing money than they are about the severe rocking of the boat that major reentrenchments would entail. Big corporations, like big bureaucracies, do not like change.

That being said, it seems to indeed break down into the "sez you sez me" situation you are talking about.

The stakes are serious: If human-caused GW is real, and changes are not made, a climate change that may negatively affect many countries. If GW is not real, and the changes are made, an economic contractions that may also negatively affect many countries. If GW is real, but has nothing to do with human CO2 emissions--not out of the question by any means--then we pretty much have to ride it out.

The economic issues are as important as the climate issues, although no environmentalist would ever agree to this.

I have yet to see a major environmental proponent of GW that looks to me like he has ever suffered grinding poverty.