I'm not completely certain I understand the visceral rage and some of the irrational responses that many of the global warming deniers express. It is plainly not a well-reasoned, lucid disagreement.

Most of these people, as far as I know, don't own coal fired power plants, nuclear facilities or want to burn down the Amazon rainforest to create soybean plantations.

It's difficult at this point in time to work up any sympathy for those now whining about what they consider a "lack" of balance in the climate change debate. It's nonsense.

For more than seven years we've had a U.S. president that seems to have taken considerable pride in his lack of awareness about almost everything, including an issue like climate change, and who has gone out of his way to thwart, censor, ridicule and deny that climate change is of any real importance.

We've had a Republican led Congress for most of these seven years, who had trouble pronouncing "global warming." So do most of the Republican presidential candidates right now.

Republican Senator James Inhofe (former chairman of the Environmental and Public Works Committee) once said that global warming was the "biggest hoax perpetrated on the American people." Is Inhofe really the best that the voters of Oklahoma can come up with?

We have had years of various front groups funded by Exxon and friends, whose main role in life was to sow confusion about global warming and climate change.

Finally, we've seen an assortment of info-entertainers, especially on FOX News, who have made their bones calling the entire field of climate science essentially a fradulent activity.

Climate scientists, overwhelmingly, believe climate change, which includes global warming, is quite real. They also believe, overwhelmingly, that humankind has contributed to major climate change patterns.

But unlike so many of the feverish fantasies of a lot of the deniers, real science is continually verifying and rechecking conclusions and outcomes. That's one of the reasons it is called science.

Is there debate over the extent of manmade (anthropogenic) influence on climate change? Of course. Do we know exactly how water currents and wind, for example, might affect climate change? No but climate scientists are continually studying it.

Is there debate on the amount of resources that should be devoted to mitigation versus adaptation? It's ongoing. Are new studies and investigations being implemented? Very definitely.

Not only do climate scientists use mathematical modeling to develop hypotheses, but they look at such things as historical records, study satellite data, make glacial melt observations, scrutinize borehole findings along with permafrost melt.

Unlike some of the deniers, climate scientists are interested in long-term climate change not short-term weather variability.

It is time to get on with real debate about a real issue that has the very real potential to make life very unpleasant for all existence on this planet, possibly much sooner than many scientists thought conceivable only a short while ago. We have already lost valuable time because of idiocy.