Well just trusting someone is not scientific, and liable to get you in hot water. You can examine the data for yourself, or if it's an important enough topic find a tutor or teacher to help parse it.

For instance, climate change is an important topic to all of us. No one is required to believe it. If you want to act on it, make policy about it, or vote on it, I really do recommend you educate yourself instead of just trusting one side or the other.

No, thanks; I already have a PhD. I've got no time to tool up enough to follow raw climate change data.

Instead, I'll buy the general consensus of those who should be able to evaluate it, say the AAAS, along with a sniff test to try to weed out complete crazys. Not because I think general scientists are right (they are certainly wrong on at least some details even if they get the big picture right) and certainly not because I think there infallible, but because in the past I've seen their stuff work. Often.

That’s a valid approach for everyday life... I do the same as well for the most part. But I have looked at the raw science data for climate change and understood why it’s so pressing (I love coral reefs, and keep a reef tank, and they are having serious problems).

If you ever get into a position to make policy though, definitely read the data. It’ll light a fire under you like no other.

The data about desertification is even more damning and scary... Though it is not as clearly directly linked to climate change itself, it is definitely anthropic.