The other interesting thing is the status of science. Anyone who doubts global warming is a climate change denialist. As in, they are disagreeing with results that are hardcore science and are in effect claiming that the sun goes round the earth. Denying the established facts. Science makes it authoritative, the consensus makes it a fait accompli. But still (proximate) historical data and intensely unreliable models will only get you so far: not very far at all.
Consider the famous hockey stick. Obviously, the latter part is now somewhat controversial. But imagine that it is not. Does the trend tell us anything about causality? No. It just tells us about the trend: that a rise in CO2 coincided with a rise in the global mean temperature.
Continuing the economics analogy, have a look at this graph, which shows the correlation between "economic freedom" and PC GDP:
Does this mean that the solution to everyone's problems is just to cut government spending and regulations? No, because correlation is not causation. Mistaking the two is the essence of
cargo-cult science. If it were this simple, the Washington Consensus would have been a rip-roaring success and the problems of world poverty would be history. Just clear a run way, put on your wooden headset and wait for the planes to land.
If you listen to the
rational expectations / DSGE types, they will tell you the same things. What we do is science. Your criticism is common sense, not science. Therefore you are an idiot. And we are still right, even though we are sitting in the ruins that the failure of our models has created.