Crucial to achieving the constant flow of wonderful discoveries is a simple method. Instead of just speculating on what the nature of the universe is why not try testing out your theories and seeing which ones will stand up to the rigour of precise, rigorous repeatable experiments? If what you find can stand up to the scrutiny of other scientists working with the same principled determination to discover objective truth then you can be confident that you are right and if you are wrong then learning that is also useful.
All of which is fine until it seems it comes to things which are intrinsically hard to experiment on. Like the planet. It also begins to fall down a little when you are dealing with subjects where it isn't just fiercely neutral objective scientists who are interested in the outcome. Then the scientists find themselves having to deal not just with the facts but with the politics.
There is a consensus amongst well over 90% of the scientists who have studied the world climate in any depth. It is that the evidence clearly shows the world has got warmer since the start of the industrial revolution, it has got warmer quicker since the industrial revolution spread across the globe and it is being warmed by levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that are higher than they have ever been since the earliest humans evolved.
The vast majority of scientists also think the situation is very complex and hard to predict precisely. Whilst the dates of climate changes and the use of fossil fuels have a strong correlation, there are other factors at play and making predictions is very hard. A change in frequency of sun spots or a major volcanic eruption or changes in deep ocean currents are all significant influences on climate that we simply don't have sufficiently sophisticated models for.
So almost all good scientists are very cautious in their predictions. They have a self interest in not over predicting change and then being shown up as alarmist.
These naturally cautious scientists are telling us is that if we don't keep get the use of CO2 on a serious downward trajectory by 2050 then the global temperature will rise by over 2 degrees and there is a high risk of global climate change getting out of control. They are telling us that the last time levels of CO2 in the atmosphere were as high as they are now the climate was very much warmer. Without such actions their best predictions are that we may have lost the chance to solve the problem in time to avert disaster.
The scientists have tried to put a number on something unpredictable. The number may very well be too high or too low. They have tried to describe a minimum programme of essential actions. Those actions might not be enough. Our best scientific minds have made a brave attempt at giving us an objective description of what we need to do urgently as an absolute minimum if we are going to stave off disaster.
If the scientists controlled political actions then there would be only one sensible course of action in response to a threat to the entire planet that is so pressing. You would re-organise the whole economy of as many countries as possible as quickly as possible on the basis of whatever technology would most effectively reduce energy consumption and production. You would invest in changing over to ways of working that didn't generate CO2 and you would work flat out to find ways of cleaning up the damage that has already been done. You would tax heavily or ban outright any behaviour that increased the risk and you would subsidise and support any behaviour that helped the change. In short you would put yourself at the forefront of a new wave of technological change every bit as dramatic as the change to the steam engine or the introduction of computers.
But scientists don't run the country. Politicians do. And some of the voters don't like paying a bit more for their fuel. Some of the big businesses that pay for their campaigns think that some profits are going to go down as their fossil fuel guzzling products become obsolete. And there are interest groups that can afford to pay for less rigorous scientists to write articles that feed off the impossibility of certainty in climate science to persuade the public that the existence of an unavoidable degree of doubt is the same thing as solid scientific evidence that there is nothing to worry about and nothing needs to be done.
At such a time you would think that any brave politician who had been newly elected would wish to secure their legacy by facing down any narrow minded self interested objections and insisting on backing the scientific consensus by serious action. They would use the space created by the knowledge that they had five years in government to drive through the urgent changes we need to make and to put the country at the forefront of the technological revolution that has to happen if the species and the planet is to prosper. They would be spending all his time talking to other world leaders about the vital importance of real hard decisions being taken and enforced in Paris.
David Cameron is not a scientist. In the four months since the election his contribution has been: cancel subsidies for solar panels; put a block on windfarms by giving local people the power of veto; try to force through fracking by taking away local people's power of effective local control; and encourage a wave of new homebuilding in the green belt without insisting on new homes being energy neutral.
I suggest you apply strictly objective scientific methods and judge whether his actions are a proportionate, reasonable and appropriate response to the situation. Then I suggest that you get very angry indeed.