No, the thing that unites sceptics and deniers is that, whatever the truth on CAGW, nothing at all should be done. In particular, nothing should be done that affects my lifestyle or standard of living in any way.

Richard Drake, comparing sceptics to UKIP is a good comparison. There are more potential followers out there than the official numbers suggest, but few people know what they stand for other than one policy. To become more acceptable there needs to be a wider knowledge of why they might be worth listening to. To take a chance on backing them you have to feel they’re really determined and not just a bunch of nihilists who just want to put a spanner in the endeavours of others. Sound like us?

I would agree that a sceptic wiki is too easy to sabotage and/or likely to flounder for lack of enthusiasm. That doesn’t mean a collaboration isn’t possible but it would need use a different method of sharing effort.

I don’t agree that we can’t build a coherent sceptic picture, even though much of what we agree on is what we don’t like about climate science.

Take the history of temperatures. We know why we think it’s important, we just need a clear way to convey it to others. A lot of the sceptic story is told in graphs but they’re spread all over the internet, come in a variety of different formats and often run in opposite directions. To put current temps into perspective, all you have to do is show temperatures dropping from 550 million years to the present and put ‘warmist on record’ to bed.

(I know that there are great sites like C3 headlines but the narrative there still feels like it's for experienced sceptics not beginners.)

Thanks Geoff for restarting this thread. I think the time is right in the UK for people to start listening to sceptics.

BitBucket "No, the thing that unites sceptics and deniers is that, whatever the truth on CAGW, nothing at all should be done. In particular, nothing should be done that affects my lifestyle or standard of living in any way."

On the contrary, if CAGW is real I want the scientists to prove it. I want them to do more than create messy, flawed, politcal drivel that can be easily dismissed. If CAGW is real then we really do need to change society in ways that make the Industrial Revolution look like a non event. To do that you need much more than the 'proof' currently on offer. Much more.

What ever works for you Dung ;-)

The two issues are prongs of the same fork. If it's sticking in your butt, it doesn't matter which one stings the most.

C3 headlines? Never heard of it. A quick look,...

1st headline, Global Warming Produces A Significant Reduction In North American Wildland Fires, is followed by a graph that shows the total area burned increasing, albeit acrobatically. The text says it is decreasing but the small print agrees that it is increasing. Nice one!

2nd headline, Obama's Green-sharia Economic and Political Agenda.... Green-sharia? Are these people complete fruitcakes? Oh, its by US conservatives; silly question.

3rd one... oh my, its about Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation...

Read this site and be mislead up the garden path. If it adds nuts to your fruitcake, well go ahead...

Shrub, even the C3 graph shows total acreage burnt going up. I'm sure they would have shown it going down if they could have.

It occurred to me as I was thinking about the structure of a UK sceptic (lobby) group or named association that to some extent the GWPF already fulfills that role. Would a new group represent more of the popular groundswell aspect of scepticism, similar to a union representing its membership? I agree with you Geoff that any such group needs to be above party politics, and focused on this particular issue.

So we need to ask ourselves such questions as:

Who are we? What are our core beliefs about this shared concern? What do we want to achieve? Who do we select to speak on our behalf? How do we support our spokespeople? How do we gain the positive attention of the media and directly or indirectly influence policy change?

The Union of Climate Rationalists ... hmmm, has a certain ring to it.

Individually we’re a load of nutters, oil servants and simple minded sheep. As a group we’re harder to ignore. Look at the money raised for Green Peace, it’s pathetic and yet they have a huge influence on politics. Do we really believe there are more Green Peace supporters out there than sceptics? Most people know that AGW resistance is on the increase, why shouldn’t politicians or journalists talk to trend setters to find out what is happening in the minds of the public?

As a group we might be able to get one of the newspapers to run a series of articles about why sceptics exist. We each have our own stories and our favourite inconvenient fact. Perhaps we could persuade a politician or two to meet with us and hear our issues? Not as a group of conspiracy theorists who think AGW is a scam but professionals who think there are worrying holes in the science that are a barrier to public acceptance of the potential crisis.

I used to work for a chemical company and I went on media training in case we blew up or something. One of the first things they said was ‘never speak to the press on your own’. It applies to sceptic interviews. One person can be stumped by a question but a group can always keep the answers flowing because while one person is talking the others can think. Because we’ve never identified the best sceptic arguments, whenever we’re asked about it, we bounce around from one issue to another, often missing the key details and touching on too many issues.

If I had to pick one goal that I would want to achieve it would be get TPTB to admit that climate science is unconvincing. If they admit that it is lacking then they have to address what is wrong with it or give up trying to prevent CO2 rising and plan to mitigate instead.

The trouble with uniting is that you must choose who your friends are. As an example from this thread, do you want to associate with those who equate sharia law and greenery (C3)? Making such associations would detract hugely from your credibility and seems to be worth avoiding. It could be said that C3 is not of the UK and so the question doesn't arise, but there would be difficult choices at home too. For example do you associate with groups or individuals that make claims that are clearly nonsense? We might be talking 'slayers' or perhaps favorite commentators. You must either choose or censor. Are you willing to tread that path?

BB I was writing about sources of good graphs. I wouldn't choose to send someone just learning about AGW to C3 (and I presume you're not a beginner) I'd send them to the original source, often a governenment or university. C3 links to the original sources. Unfortunately because climate science is more interested in intellectual property rights than saving the planet, many of science papers are behind a paywall. C3, CO2 Science and the Hockey Shtick pick and choose what papers they display (and make their own interpretation) but they do look at the tidal wave of papers flooding in from climate science and make them available.

I'd love to see a neutral source that digests and sorts all the science out there and gives a balanced picture but at the moment we have the likes of C3 on one side and the IPCC on the other, neither of which are without significant bias. If people like you would stop blindly supporting climate science and admit it needs a clean up, we might get something we could all trust in.

Get into bed with the wackos of the US religious right if you like (and become a even richer target for ridicule).

BTW if you want access to papers behind a paywall, why not get your new organisation (or even BH) to subscribe to the magazines on your collective behalf. Spread over your millions of followers, that should not cost much per person...

BB, you’re projecting. If you want to get into bed with wackos, you need to hang out with your heroes more or does Romm turn even your stomach? Personally I try not to get into bed with anyone I meet on the internet, but whatever floats your boat.

If I was worried about being connected to wackos, or even being one, I’d hardly be conversing with anyone who spends much time on AGW, let alone you. Most sane people have moved on and are trying to pretend it’s gone away. In the not too distant future the British public are going to get really cross and the CO2 baby will go out with the bathwater. Is that what you want? Don’t you sense the rising scepticism? Do you really think that climate science can trump rapidly rising energy bills? It’s hard to convince people of an invisible threat once but to do it a second time is nigh on impossible. Are you going to bet the planet on the science as it stands? Can you even demonstrate that people really believe it NOW? CO2 emissions figures would make a liar out of you if you tried but please have a go as you never answer the difficult questions.

No matter how hard you snip and snipe at us, you are doing nothing to convince the ignorant that CO2 is a threat. Time is ticking and the longer you wait before someone puts together a convincing argument for CAGW the more people will have made up their minds against it.