As a scientist, I believe that research on environmental topics is indeed necessary. But on the other hand, when is something proven?

I was looking for a nice movie on television, when I bumped into “The Great Global Warming Swindle”. This is a British documentary which forms a direct counter-reaction on Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth. 

Several European (I do not remember any American) scientists showed “evidence” that Global Warming is not caused by an increased CO2 release due to industry (or in general “human activities”). They said that the warming of the planet is a result of a higher activity of the sun. They even predicted a new kind of ice age in the (near) future!

This was the moment I took a beer out of the fridge.

After the documentary, the tv program organized a debate with 6 Dutch professors, journalists, politicians…
Of course, the Gore-fans commented that this documentary was misleading, not saying the whole truth, misinterpreting graphs and so on. And as you can imagine, the Anti-Gores said the same thing about the Inconvenient Truth. 

So it was time to analyze the shown graphs and figures together. A brilliant idea, but a mission impossible. After 20 minutes of discussion, the only agreement they made was that it is important to stress the current uncertainties in both theories and this way preventing that it becomes a religion on a political basis. 

As a scientist myself, I do believe that research on environmental topics is indeed necessary. But on the other hand, when is something proven?
Therefore, we’d better not wait until it maybe is too late.