Ditto my 12:51 PM post :- )

geronimo: I suggest you forget our troll and focus on the subject of this thread - "AR5 a side issue". I'll assume you live in the UK and, if so, would wish to see the Climate Change Act either repealed or substantially amended.

That's certainly my position. So how might that objective be achieved? Not, I suggest, by fighting a battle you cannot win - and trying to persuade the Establishment that the AGW hypothesis is invalid or of limited serious concern (which essentially is what debating AR5 is about) is such a battle. You may be able to "win" in logic, but - however sound your arguments - there's no prospect of winning in practice as your opponent is in total command of the battlefield. OK, you may be able to plant some doubt in the minds of some politicians and campaigners and that might be useful, although you'd still be attacked with the usual "denier", "anti-science", "consensus", etc. assertions. In other words, it cannot achieve the objective.

But I believe a case can be made that could do it. It's this: (1) even if CAGW is valid, not only are the "solutions" being imposed on us damaging (especially to the poorest and most vulnerable people in society) and potentially dangerous, but they cannot even reduce emissions as claimed; and in particular (2), because of the realities of international politics (see my comments at the beginning of this thread - Oct 4, 2013 at 6:10 PM and Oct 5, 2013 at 3:52 PM) even if they could reduce emissions substantially, they're completely pointless. In other words, the whole thing is a mad charade. And AR5 is a side issue.

And that's true whether or not AGW scares are valid.

Yawn ... back to my post at 12:51 PM on Oct 20.

:- )

Michael: I’m not proposing that sceptics should “vacate the field and leave it open to continuing unsubstantiated claims about the science and the physical evidence”. As I’ve said, planting doubt (about the truth of the science) in the minds of some politicians and campaigners may be useful. I hope and expect that will continue.

My point however is that sceptics have been doing this for years and, although they may have scored some notable victories (albeit away from the public gaze), change in Establishment understanding has, as you say, been glacial. And, in particular, sceptics have made no real progress towards what surely must be the priority: a change in government policy. Therefore, I suggest, a new approach is necessary.

Poll after poll has shown that people are not interested in climate change and do not see it as a priority. But, as Tiny notes, they are worried about energy costs. And it’s that worry, not sceptical argument about CAGW, that’s causing some politicians to “wobble” on cutting CO2.

I’m not proposing (TinyCO2) “a single, central message”. I am however proposing a change of emphasis: from focusing on the validity of AGW scares to showing the pointlessness of current policies, whether or not such scares are justified. And IMO current widespread concern about energy prices and energy policy could mean that such a change in emphasis would have major impact.

TinyCO2: you put it well. And, to an extent, I agree with you. But do you really think the sceptics have been successful – in any more than the narrowest sense of “success”? Consider what the warmists have achieved: they’ve captured and totally occupied the political, academic, institutional and media Establishment throughout the Western world and have thereby enacted, especially in Europe, legislation with extraordinarily far reaching and deleterious consequences. What “success” have sceptics achieved to set against that?

There may not be “a best front to attack”, but at present almost the only attack sceptics are attempting is their challenge to the validity of the CAGW hypothesis. And that’s an attack on the very place where the warmists have built the strongest defences. Not because they’re right, but because they’ve had over 20 years to develop their “denier”, “consensus”, “anti-science”, etc. counter attacks. And they’re undeniably effective, however much sceptic arguments may come “from the heart”.

You suggest that the question ‘do we really need to significantly cut CO2?’ demonstrates why keeping the pressure on the scientific side matters. I disagree. Yes, it’s important if, by “we”, you mean humanity – and that’s a matter of academic rather than practical interest. But, if your “we’ is the UK, you’re dealing with a basic practicality: the pointlessness of UK policy when countries responsible for over 70% of global emissions have no intention of making significant cuts. And, if there is to be any hope of changing policy, that’s surely the optimum “we” to focus on. Not least because it’s where the warmists are most vulnerable. And unable to deploy their well-honed counter attacks.

PS: DNFTT

TinyCO2: once again you make some excellent points. But I have to repeat my question: what “success” have sceptics achieved to set against the extraordinary achievements of the warmists? It isn’t just that the sceptics were late starters – they’ve really achieved little of importance even in the past few years. But, although I agree there have been many small successes, my point is that they have been small.

I recently posted something on Unthreaded that arguably illustrates both your point and mine. Last week the following excellent, succinct letter was published in The Times:

In the midst of the climate debate, no one seems openly to state the obvious. In 2011, the latest available statistic shows that Britain’s CO2 emission was just 6% of China’s. It is also reported that China is increasing that emission by some 9% per annum and that it plans an increase of some 450 new coal-fired power stations, burning 1.2 billion extra tons of coal annually. Whatever one believes about global warming, Britain’s contribution is only two-thirds of China’s annual increase. Damaging our ability to compete, raising the cost of energy by closing our coal-fired power stations won’t make any measurable difference.

Bruce Mein, Parbrook, Somerset

Its message (essentially my message above) is telling. And The Times selected it, from the thousands it gets every day, for publication. An illustration, if you like, of newspapers getting rather more bold about this issue. But what was even more significant was that I saw it, not in The Times, but in the Week which selected it for their “Pick of the week’s correspondence”. (And published it incidentally under the heading, “Keep coal-fired power”.) BTW I contacted Mr Mein to congratulate him – he hadn’t heard of Bishop Hill or Andrew Montford.

You say, "we don’t have the manpower to wage war". But history has demonstrated that the side with the least power can win a war - think Vietnam. And it's done so by focusing (as Mr Mein has done) on the enemy’s weakest point. Surely you agree that more of the same could be very effective?

I wholly agree with you about the various benefits of conversing with the likes of Chandra, and agree about the value of daring to be different. And you’ll have noticed I hope that, in his case, I did so for some time. But eventually it became a waste of time: see my posts at 7:18AM and 12:51PM on Oct 20.

TinyCO2: hmm ... well it couldn't have been much worse than the Climate Change Act. Although I suppose I have to admit that an Ed Miliband government (quite likely I suspect) could make it worse. Here's an extract from his conference speech:

The environment is a passion of mine because when I think about my two kids who are 2 and 4 at the moment and not talking that much about the environment, more interested in The Octonauts. There’s a plug. In 20 years’ time they’ll say to me ‘were you the last generation not to get climate change or the first generation to get it?’ That is the question they’ll be asking. But it is not just about environmental care. It is also about the jobs we create in the future. You see some people say, including George Osborne, that we can’t afford to have environmental at a time like this. He is dead wrong. We can’t afford not to have an environmental commitment at a time like this. That is why Labour will have a world leading commitment in government to take all of the carbon out of our energy by 2030. A route map to one million new green jobs in our country. That is how we win the race to the top.

What's the best way of countering this? Might it be another debate about climate sensitivity ... or perhaps the iniquities of "consensus" claims? Or might it be better to point out that affecting world leadership when no one is interested in following is pathetic? Remember: the next General Election will be held in 2015 - the same year as the "pivotal" UN climate change meeting in Paris (COP21) which, according to this is

the time and place to finally sign an international treaty requiring all nations to begin reducing carbon emissions by 2020, supplanting the Kyoto Protocol, adopted in 1997 at the COP3 climate conference, that targeted only industrialized nations for mandatory cuts.

Further to my post above, the hitherto "green" FT has a remarkable editorial this morning - also accessible here. An extract:

If Britain never adequately reckoned with the cost of its carbon commitments, it may also have been too optimistic about the benefits. The country accounts for less than 2 per cent of world emissions. The heroic reductions that are planned will have a negligible effect on global temperatures.

This would be true even if the UK’s moderation were not offset by intemperance elsewhere. In fact, investment in energy-intensive industries is already being drawn to countries such as the US where costs are lower. Britain may end up exporting emissions – and jobs – to countries that have shunned such onerous environmental commitments. The halting progress towards a global carbon pact provides scant vindication for those who thought that where Britain led, others would follow.

Politicians portray these policies as the inevitable consequence of legally binding commitments. Such wilful naivety gives an unintended meaning to Prime Minister David Cameron’s pledge to lead the greenest government ever. If the UK’s environmental policy is defensible, it should be defended. If not, the government should repeal or renegotiate the laws and treaties in which these commitments are enshrined.

Maybe the "pointlessness" message is getting through.

Tiny: hmm, I think you're stretching your point somewhat. It seems to me that the FT editorial is an indication of an important change in the air. Only a beginning of course - but it's a beginning brought about, not by debates about the science, but by a hard look at the practicalities of what's going on. But, in any case, I'm not - as I keep saying - suggesting that you should stop the debate about the science. Merely that a change of emphasis is likely to be more effective.

I attended a talk by Steve McIntyre in London on 16 August last year. Steve, who is it seems an agnostic re CAGW, made an observation that is, I suggest, relevant to this thread. Here's the note I made at the meeting:

He noted (1) that China’s GHG emissions will be double US emissions in 2012, and (2) that, in the past 5 to 6 years, China has increased its emissions by an amount equal to the USA’s total emissions (now maybe close to 1990 levels). That, he said, is the reality of what’s happening (in China, India, etc.) and it means that one of the IPCC “base cases” for GHG emissions and its consequence will be what happens. He said, “You have to assume that the IPCC advice is accurate. That doesn’t leave a whole lot of [room for] for manoeuvre.” Yet the “entire rationale” of Western policymakers has been to simply ignore this. He commented, “We must hope the sceptics are right”. The truth, he said, is that nobody really knows what to do, although building resistance to extremes is one obvious action. Then, having noted that “acts of petty virtue” (great phrase) have no point ("Even if you install windmills you're not going to change the trend of overall CO2 emissions"), he suggested that another useful focus might be on developing (or discovering) Bill Gates’s “miracle technology**, i.e. viable energy without CO2 emission.

** Something difficult but not impossible.

Well, Tiny, maybe we're not so far apart.

I don't know whether the sceptics are right or not - although I suspect they are and, like Steve M, I certainly hope they are. But I do agree with today's FT:

The losers from this shambolic energy policy are more numerous than the struggling households that are rightly at the centre of political concern. The prosperity of a generation is at risk. Britain cannot afford to hobble itself with overly high energy costs as it embarks on the road to recovery.