Anthropogenic Global Warming: Color Me Skeptical

I've given the topic of anthropogenic global warming a lot of thought in recent months, and while I've always been extremely dubious concerning the doomsday predictions of Al Gore and his ilk, it's been hard for me to put my finger on the precise reasons for my incredulity. I now think it's because the proponents of the "Gore" theory (i.e., that increasing concentrations of CO₂ caused by various human consumptive activities are effectively causing the planet to burn up at some geometric rate) were operating under a series of prior assumptions that placed them 95% of the way toward their ultimate conclusions before they had even looked at any of the actual data. Therefore, I feel they could have looked at virtually any data indicating a slight global warming trend and come to more or less the same conclusions. (Which also explains why these same people, or their predecessors, were so quick to assure us that the slight cooling trend between roughly 1940 and 1975 portended a human-caused New Ice Age.)

What are these prior assumptions? First (and foremost), that mankind is destroying the planet. Second, that any evidence of climate change can only be reasonably interpreted in light of the first assumption, above. Third, that environmental catastrophe is always imminent, meaning we must act now before the Earth reaches the proverbial "tipping point" past which no remedy exists. And finally, that capitalism and technology are always the cause of the problem, whereas government intervention/regulation -- that is, socialism -- is the only thing that can save us from ourselves.

I'm certain these people would deny (with characteristically vicious vituperation) that their philosophical leanings have had anything to do with their conclusions. However, I believe that if anthropogenic global warming were not primarily a matter of faith (the real science still being decidedly unsettled), its adherents wouldn't feel such a great need to squelch dissent and move precipitously to restrict individual liberty and choice. The truth will out, eventually; we can only hope that the powers-that-be haven't totally ruined the global economy (along with technologies that might actually improve the environment) by the time it becomes apparent that the recent warming trend has had less to do with human carbon output than with other factors that are beyond human control (e.g., solar anomalies, periodic tilt in Earth's rotation, volcanic activity, bovine flatulence, etc.). The beauty of being an environmental activist, however, is never having to say you're wrong; instead, you simply move on, without missing a beat, to the next ecological chimera du jour.