I may be an old cynic but as soon as politicians see a chance for a definite vote-puller, they back it. After all why wouldn't they?
I agree with Sam's summary on this.
Techies, environmentalists and activists all see the signs; after all, we all generally share the same belief that killing our environment is not a good thing.
If the politicians start backing this, then funds are made available for 'further studies', and a little micro-business starts to cluster around the debate, feeding off the funds. it becomes a self-perpetuating industry in its own right and little can be said against it for fear of raising social and conscience backlashes.
To me, such issues are similar to the orgainc food farce where middle classes are happy to pay signifiacntly over the odds for allegedly superior organic produce in an attempt to appease their own consumer consciences. This is clever marketing - more so than nutritional benefit, they specifically go after the consumers they know will buy into this kind of propaganda. The similarities with a lot of the GW debates are obvious.
I'm not saying we should be complacent about global warming, I just feel very cynical about the info fed to us, and particularly preached about by politicians and activists when they only make sure they give you one biased side of the picture.
This, imho, applies especially to the arguments about CO2 levels contributing to global warming, as I have stated in the New Scientist reports earlier, this does not seem to be a scientifically significant contributor and is used as an extremely emotive topic rather than being based on any proper reason or investigation.