I'm not a lukewarmer, I'm an agnostic.

2So you "lukewarmers" think that there is a problem, but currrent policies will not solve it. The scientists are able to define the processes involved and, within their limitations, suggest possible outcomes of different options. They are not the decision makers.

We elect politicians to make the policy decisions.

What would you suggest they do?"

Tell the truth.

Now if you don't mind go away, you're a distraction not adding to the debate. When you believe you can come back, but try not to bring Chandra with you.

Stick meet EM. EM meet wrong end.

"I feel as though I've entered the fray from a parallel universe because where I was located the "science was in" and discussions about what we could do about it had been done and dusted."

Which part of this statement gave you the impression that I was suggesting the scientists do anything about the policy? It is they who are implying that, not me.

What I want the scientists to do about it is to realise that the wild guesses they're making about the future state of the climate have a real impact on real people's lives and to moderate their language accordingly. The surprise for me from the statements made by Ed and Richard is that they don't know that they're the puppets of the environmental movement in all this, not the puppet masters,and seem to be assuming they can take part in making policy. My whole point was the policy is there already and won't be changed by the scientists.

In fact I've commented somewhere on the fact that Richard actually believed the scientists were given the final say in what went into IPPC AR5 SPM. The SPM is a document to drive policy, that Richard thinks the bureaucrats would let the scientists have the final say in what went into a document meant to drive policy makes him seriously innocent in these matters.

Ponder this EM. There is NO UPSIDE whatsoever to an increase in global temperatures according to the IPCC reports. NONE. I don't believe you need much of an education to understand you're being fed a line when with your own eyes you can see the munificent benefits of warmth in the tropics. (Not to your point I know, but I reckon if I keep telling people it will slowly dawn on them that the IPCC is a political entity which the scientists, in good faith I might add, take part in to give the imprimatur of scientific respectability to the green policies being imposed on the Western democracies, and the sooner they wake up to that fact the better for all of us).

geronimo,Simon Hipkinson

Curiously, I regard the science and evidence as supporting my view.

I see you as the deluded puppets of a right wing political agenda. :-)

"I see you as the deluded puppets of a right wing political agenda. :-)"
Entropic man

Deluded or not, this puppet show has a cast of billions. Unfortunately for you, might has right... pun not intended. Sceptics are just those who have thought about the issues and come up with pertinent questions. The rest just don't care about your evidence or your opinion.

"Curiously, I regard the science and evidence as supporting my view.

I see you as the deluded puppets of a right wing political agenda. :-)"

It's my post, so I'll remind you that it was about why Ed Hawkins and Richard Betts were exultant about the contents of he Lewis/Crok paper. Part of that puzzlement was indeed, as to your first post, why they believed they should/could have assumed they'd have a say in policy. There is plenty of evidence that the policies emanating from the ridiculous CAGW theory are driven almost entirely by environmentalists - a member of FoE framed the CCA - and indeed that environmentalists and others want to stop the western industrialised countries in their tracks. The scientists have no say in policy, they merely provide an imprimatur of respectability to the environmentalists' hijacking of the democratic process. Whether they're willing dupes, or don't know what they're doing, they merely puppets dancing to the environmentalist tune.

Of course I'm a deluded right wing puppet, it's a much better place to be than being a deluded "wron wing person.

Now stay on topic please.

Can I add my name to the Deluded Right Wing Puppets please? I might actually be in the UKIP wing, as I don't even make it into the Lukewarm camp, being firmly in the we can't actually tell group.

Geronimo

We are here debating the politics, and elsewhere on this site debating the science. Clearly there is a debate to be had.

Martin A

I tried some statistical theology once. It turned out that those with a religion had no greater chance of surviving a disaster than atheists. Prayer was actually counterproductive as it wasted effort better used elsewhere reducing one's chance of survival.

As an theological agnostic myself I was not surprised. I have carefully avoided breaking the news of the non- existence of God to my Christian wife. :-)

Sandy S

Shall I classify you as an agnostic, along wit TinyCO? :-)

my take on all this is slightly different from other viewpoints I have see, Consider the statements at the head of the thread:

Richard Betts:

"As I said on Judith's blog, I take this as a positive step because the debate on anthropogenic climate change is now finally shifting away from distractions such as whether warming is “statistically significant”, or whether warming has gone away, or whether humans have an influence on climate. It has moved into the area where it really needs to be – exactly how strong is the human influence, how much change can we expect in the future, and what sort of impacts/risks does this imply?"

Ed Hawkins:

"It is great to see the GWPF accepting that business-as-usual means significant further warming is expected. Now we can move the debate to what to do about it."

Aren't they just trying to shift the ground to discussion of sensitivity and politics because they have wrapped themselves in knots failing to give authoritative and coherent answers to the questions about "how much it is warming"? Now they are claiming - look, the sceptics admit it is warming, so let's forget that all this science is based on fragmentary and crappy data.

Entropic Man
Yes I guess that just about sums up my feelings. The Bing dictionary says:

somebody denying something is knowable: somebody who doubts that a question has one correct answer or that something can be completely understood

Although this does bring us back to the denier issue, and I'm not sure why as the second part seems adequate with the addition of the phrase or is provable at the end.

> There has never been any doubt that humans influence climate

You haven't been reading "sceptic" blogs much then, have you? Maybe too stuck in your own bubble!

" before Tim Berners-Lee even invented the World Wide Web, and
thus long before blogs existed,"

Usenet existed over 10 years before websites, and are basically identical to a blog. Berners Lee didn't invent the Internet which is much older than the worldwide web.