I am a skeptic at this point and I’ll tell why. There is so much politics and hypocrisy on BOTH sides it seems impossible to get a grasp on the subject.
People calling non-believers the equivalent of Holocaust deniers, people selectively leaking emails, people’s lives being threatened for believing and careers being threatened for not believing. You have people flying around the world in private jets screaming the sky is falling, all the while building 20,000 square foot houses that use as much energy in a month as a average city block uses in a year. There are so called “environmentalists” screaming about coal, gas etc while doing everything under the fucking sun to keep nuclear power plants from being built.
I no longer trust the “science” that comes from the government. Why? There have been too many instances in the past where information has been withheld, distorted or made up to prove a point the administration, which is in power at the time, wanted to make. Both parties have done this and it makes me want to puke.
Here is what it would take for me to become a believer:
1) A non governmental entity with a proven track record of publishing research that tells the truth, not picking and choosing to prove a certain viewpoint. At this point I’m not sure I would believe ANYTHING that comes out of most universities. Why? They are filled with believers and fanatics who will push their viewpoint, not the truth.
2) There has to be a list of all data that is used, how and when it was obtained and compiled and why it was used, Equally as important there needs to be a list of data that was rejected and why. I realize that this point is difficult and maybe impossible. But I have heard too much about how leaving out this set of data or taking part of a data set to “prove” a hypothesis. In my mind these people are no longer scientists but activists.
3) Any and all computer models have to be fully documented and explained as to how they were constructed. There had better be several different models as well.
4) All the above needs to written so an educated, intelligent layman can understand it. Not other scientists, but the average college educated American adult must be able to understand it.

Perhaps I have set up an impossible set of requirements. But as a thoughtful, intelligent, skeptical and concerned adult I am fed up with being told that things are settled by my “betters” and I should just believe and do as I am told.
If you are telling me that global warming is caused by mankind then you had better be prepared to prove it to MY satisfaction. Because of the amount of crap that has been emanating from both sides of this issue, I am afraid that the four steps listed above are going to be the MINIMUM that it will take to prove either side of this issue for me.