For purposes of discussion, I think it worthwhile to separate the information from the use that is made of it.
Lesson 1 scientist cannot betrusted, as for the climatologists -nobody has ever taken them seriously before - so who can blame them.
Well, compared to what? Compared to politicians? Compared to oil companies? Compared to the CIA or MI5? It's not as if we had access to the really-real and the truly-true against which all lies could be compared. We only have what different people tell us, and they all tell us something different. So we inform ourselves as best we can, weight our sources of information by experience, and make whatever decision seems most reasonable at the time.
(It is news to me, by the way, that climatologists have never before been taken seriously. If you really want questionable science, take a look at what those paleobotanists are doing.
)
the problem is that there period of analysis is confined to those times when accurate records were kept.
This is not correct, actually. We have good records of atmospheric content going back at least 36,000 years, from ice core samples.
The environmental taxes will be decididly regressive.
This is what the worthy eco-friendly tree-hugging buffoons have really signed up for.
Well, a whole lot of us are buffoons ... won't argue with that. But I've yet to see anyone propose a perfect system whereby we can guarantee that unequal distribution of power and wealth will not distort our treasured legislations.
I am less convinced by the argument that we should do nothing while waiting for human nature to achieve perfection than I am by arguments that we should take some action, knowing in advance how imperfect it will be. It's really just a matter of reconciling ourselves to the fact that we're never done doing whatever it is we're trying to do. People are corrupt, systems are corrupt, and stuff changes.