Society should not regulate carbon or CO2 output.

There is no sound basis for carbon regulation or taxation. Without such a basis our society should ignore all attempts at the various proposed regulation schemes. Some well known examples are cap and trade, 80% reduction from 1990 levels by 2050, Kyoto, et al. Carbon, in the form of CO2, is directly harmless to humans and other forms of life in the general atmosphere. It is the same gas we exhale and plants intake. It is an essential part of the well understood respiration and photosynthesis cycle of animals and plants. [1] Science, as presently practiced, is unsuitable as a sole basis for carbon and climate based policy. Consider the level of quality control applied to important endeavors such as bridges, dams, power plants, aircraft, and cars. As a society we demand that these items carry minimal risk and so require some of the most stringent quality control measures available. We have external oversight organizations that test, inspect, and certify these products. In effect, I would call this quality level, the audit, as in anything requested or deemed of importance is required to be presented or vetted to the level and in the manner the oversight organization requires. Science's only practiced quality assurance measure is called the peer review. Peer review is inferior to the audit for a multitude of reasons. A peer in the academic setting is fundamentally an internal quality assurance measure due to their interdependence and competition for both funding and publishing. Being interdependence, the process is not independent - which is generally considered to be a much superior way to eliminate bias. The current scientific process has a method of outside oversight, FOIA. The existence of which is completely justified as they are using public money and thus the research ultimately, belongs to the public. However, it has been common practice to ignore [2] FOIA requests and such conduct is apparently condoned [3]. Thus, there can be no claims to any formal external oversight which is a core means of removing bias of the audit method. As for the oversight that is accomplished. Journals do not require that all related data and computer code be submitted with a paper, making detailed inquiry impossible. Instead they follow the general model of scientific discovery used today, that all parties are effectively assumed to be honest and that they faithfully followed the stated methods in their summaries (peer review papers) accurately. These are bad assumptions when it comes to insuring quality, you cannot assume that the originator of the idea is altruistic and that all the work was done properly. The very purpose of quality is to vet the data, methods, and final product so that it adheres to a desirable standard. Energy is a fundamental pillar for the modern western nation-state. Energy production today is directly linked to Carbon. Any direct tax or regulation of Carbon is thus a change to a fundamental pillar for a country. I will assume these points to be axiomatic unless challenged. Thus, such a change requires a very well vetted basis, similiar to that which we expect from aircraft, dams, and bridges. Science not only does not have an adequate process to accommodate external scrutiny. It is also, at present, incapable of implementing one without major systemic improvements in method, data, and code retention and sharing practices. [4] This not to say that science does not have a place. Peer review can be desirable when funds are tight, when people are honest, and when the work is relatively unimportant and remains an academic pursuit rather than one driving policy. Science should not be used for anything of vital importance. Any such tasks should be divorced from the world of peer review academic papers so that kept records can be vetted and put through a proper quality assurance process to suit the issue at hand. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org... [2] http://www.guardian.co.uk... "Today the Guardian reveals how Jones withheld the information requested under freedom of information laws" ... "The Guardian has learned that of 105 freedom of information requests to the university concerning the climatic research unit (CRU), which Jones headed up to the end of December, only 10 had been released in full." [3] "We saw no evidence of any deliberate scientific malpractice in any of the work of the Climatic Research Unit and had it been there we believe that it is likely that we would have detected it." http://www.uea.ac.uk... [4] http://arstechnica.com...