Then why do y'all keep bitching about the nefarious influence of "big oil"?

Because they're the ones spending more on propaganda? Oh dear - neither of us specified which side we thought was the highest spender... how embarrassing.

Particularly when they were noticeably absent from the Heartland donors list?

Do the Koch brothers mean anything to you?

observed evidence is not going to fly.

The observed evidence that supports AGW:

• Conclusive evidence that rising CO2 is anthropogenic in origin comes from a 2003 paper by Ghosh and Brand: Stable isotope ratio mass spectrometry in global climate change research.

• Conclusive evidence that the rising CO2 is causing the earth's climate to warm comes from two recent papers looking at satellite measurements of incoming and outgoing radiation: Spectral signatures of climate change in the Earth’s infrared spectrum between 1970 and 2006; Chen et al, 2007 and Global atmospheric downward longwave radiation over land surface under all-sky conditions from 1973 to 2008; Wang and Liang, 2009.

• Conclusive evidence that variation in solar irradiance is not responsible for recent warming comes from a 2007 paper by Lockwood and Frolich: Recent oppositely directed trends in solar climate forcings and the global mean surface air temperature.

• These papers support estimates of the earth's energy balance and the radiative forcing due to GHGs.

• When it comes to impacts of warming, you've got papers that demonstrate accellerating sea level rise, and physical and biological impacts of climate change.

All of this and more is summarized in a report from the NAS that reviews the likely degree-by-degree impacts of warming.

Here are a few more important papers referenced by the Working Group 1 in the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report:

• New estimates of radiative forcing due to well mixed greenhouse gases; Myhre et al, 1998
• Increases in greenhouse forcing inferred from the outgoing longwave radiation spectra of the Earth in 1970 and 1997; Harries et al, 2001
• Radiative forcing - measured at Earth's surface - corroborate the increasing greenhouse effect; Philipona et al, 2004
• Radiative forcing of climate change: Expanding the concept and addressing uncertainties; Jacob et al, 2005 (NRC report)

Climate sensitivity is estimated to be around 3 degrees Celcius for a doubling of CO2. This depends on the existence of positive feedbacks to warming in the climate system. These positive feedbacks are supported by observed evidence:

• Climate change theory predicts that warmer temperatures would lead to reduced summer sea ice extent, which would cause a feedback from changes to the earth's albedo. This has been observed.

• Climate change theory predicts that warming permafrost would release increasing amounts of methane, which would cause a feedback from increased atmospheric GHGs. This has been observed.

• Climate change theory predicts that increasing temperatures would increase the level of atmospheric water vapour, which would cause a feedback due from increased atmospheric GHGs. This has been observed.