Richard Betts “relief that the discussion now seems to be in a place where evidence and methods can at least be sensibly discussed.”

And prey tell us when and with whom this discussion will take place? Hint, a discussion is not where you lecture someone for an hour under Chatham House rules and then assume they’ll meekly go away and do as they’re told.

Mar 10, 2014 at 6:51 AM | Richard Drake

My view is that as long as Climate hasn't gone outside historical extremes then its not changing, only varying within its normal boundaries. I think Entropic Man* has tacitly agreed to this, although he can correct me if this impression is incorrect. Therefore the Climate hasn't changed, so I suppose that makes me, along with being your socketpuppet and a Brain Dead Adult One Show (occasional) viewer something of a lost cause as CO2 agnostic.

* My understanding is that Entropic man thinks that the real signs are about to show themselves and kick us agnostic in the bum.

Entropic, the scientists that have been chosen to give the advice to the politicians are not conveying the uncertainties adequately. Or if they are, they are doing it in a language the politician doesn't understand. This may be because politicians want black and white answers, and will 'not see' uncertainties if presented to them and just keep asking different scientists until they get one who is willing to nail their colours to the mast adequately. In effect, alarmist scientists have been selected in a Darwin fashion to weed out the ones who give proper uncertainty.

Personally, I'm not worried about them splashing the cash on renewables and other things that may turn out not to have been required. Some on here are very worried about it, but I don't believe in catastrophism - whether climate catastrophism or economic catastrophism.

Windmills and solar and tidal are all tech to me, and I like money being spent on tech and it can't always be justified on a cost-benefit basis in the early days - we'd never now build railways and roads and bridges and airports if it all had to be done on a narrow cost-benefit viewpoint. These aspirational things pay themselves back eventually - even if in unexpected ways.

Richard Drake's tiny campaign d'état against me is amusing to watch.

Johanna, I can only be concerned with the little bit of my money they choose to throw around. I'm as entitled to be unconcerned with my contribution as you are to be concerned about yours. I realise that "economic suicide" is the popular mythology of this side of the fence, but I don't share it.

Hi Richard, I have outlined my issues about your triumphalism/relief above. I simply can't see what you need to talk to any sceptical scientist to take things further. You've won the day hands down. Sceptics are banned from the BBC and pretty much all of the MSM. The environmentalists have pretty much got their way throughout the western industrial societies, and only want more, so you're not going to be allowed to tone down the panic forecasts in any way. Don't believe me? Try it?

Apologies for not quoting you correctly on the IPCC SPM issu. You seem to have the wrong end of the stick though I didn't imply that the bureaucrats didn't say the scientists had the last word, they almost certainly did. But they didn't mean it. Scientists will not be allowed to put out anything but an alarmist message under the auspices of the IPCC, Not a snow ball's chance in hell. I know academia has its own cesspit of intrigue and backstabbing, but although they may not know TCS from ECS, or positive feedback from negative feedback, they will run rings around the scientists when it comes to getting what they want from the SPM. That's the point I was making. It surely wasn't scientists who thought saying that they were 95% certain that most of the warming of the 20th century was caused by humans would add anything to the scientific story. That's got to have been put in by a bureaucrat, surely?

One thing that has come out of all this for me is that perhaps you guys need to go back to the drawing board on you exercises in "Communicating the Science." I have long since come to the conclusion that you believe that the sceptics don't understand what your saying and if you could only rephrase it better they would come around to your way of thinking. It is clear to me, and now many others, that you don't really know what the sceptical position is.

What if they understand perfectly what you're telling them, but just don't buy it? (Which is my position, it would be pretty hard not to know what the climate scientists are thinking). As a rule of thumb if you want to communicate you'll be more successful in a dialogue, if you could try to understand exactly what the sceptical positions are - and there are a few I'll admit. You could start by looking at climategate and noting the clisci community reaction. 1700 of you signing a letter deploring the "attack on science" when the real attack on science was within the scientific community and not a peep out of any of you. That's one thing you need to address.

My own position is pretty straightforward, I don't know if humans are causing most of the warming, they may be, or they might not, but it's not important. What is important is whether the warming will be catastrophic. You can tell your getting bilked if something is solely good, or solely bad. The news from the scientific community is that warming will have no beneficial side effects whatsoever, it's all droughts, downpourings, excessive heat, crop failure, famine, wars and rumours of wars. Not one upside for warming. Come on.

Can the climate science community really tell us what the weather's going to be like in 50 years time? No, there's a higher probability of building a computer to pick lottery winners than there is to forecast climatic change. If there wasn't Richard and his mates would be sipping pina colados on their yacht in the med.

Can we do anything about it and stop CO2 emissions? Not in any practical time scale, if ever.

There's more, but my point is good communication starts with a dialogue, not didactic outpourings from the high priests of climate change.

TBYJ: "I realise that "economic suicide" is the popular mythology of this side of the fence, but I don't share it."

Neither would I if there weren't plans afoot do just that. The whole sweep of history shows that people who have a plan and the determination to follow it through can impose their minority views on the rest of us, usually as tyrants once they've got the upper hand. Christianity and Communism come to mind.

There are people out there who make no secret that they want to stop economic growth. The global warming scare is the godsend they couldn't have hoped for. Economic growth is why you and I have the technology and time to blog. So there's no harm in being vigilant.

Geronimo, I wasn't advocating you or anyone else should share my view. I'm glad there are people getting upset about this stuff, it keeps the control-freaks in check if they know they are being watched. I too get upset about calls for human-rights style laws about preventing people being on television if they have a certain unorthodox view etc. These are very dangerous things.

All I was saying is that in my own personal Pascals Wager about the money being spent on renewables, I'd rather the govermentt wasted the money doing that technology-related thing than wasting it other things, such as foreign wars, stupid tax-programmes, investing in failed banks etc. Governments will waste money - that's what they do. if they have to waste it on something, then tech is not a bad place, since it usually pays itself back in the long term.

Oh Drake, get over yourself and stop derailing every thread with your interminable puff-prose.

You're not at all sorry, Richard. You love it. I expect you'll mention Lindzen in a moment, to get your search engine score up a bit more. At some point, you collect enough name-drops to earn your wings in heaven or something. You desperately want someone to notice you. Please Dr Lindzen, notice me!

So lets follow your link and see what you are wittering on about now.... aha....several days ago, I air a suspicion that you may be running sockpuppets, and your measured response, presumably after several days cogitating, plotting and fuming is to....accuse me of running sockpuppets. That's an impressive tactic.

Nobody here ever agrees with me Richard, that's the laughable thing. You've inserted your little accusation right in the middle of a thread where both Johanna and geronimo are vehemently disagreeing with me. I am receiving no support here from anyone. And it has always been the case here that I have ploughed my own furrow and received fire from all sides for it a lot of the time. I am the person here who needs sockpuppets the LEAST, I've never needed a coterie here, and never had one. I realise a needy publicity-seeker might find this concept surreal.

There was something else about John Shade getting annoyed with something I wrote, and attributing it to Richard Betts, or some such nonsense. No idea what it has to do with me - I neither solicited John Shade's comment, nor take responsibility for his cock-up with the attribution. Further, I had stopped reading the thread by then. I don't care if John Shade doesn't like what I read - unlike you I say what I think and don't do it for the effect of impressing celebrities.

Now, Richard, if I have dealt with your whiny nonsense to at least my satisfaction, can you please get over yourself, keep to the topic of this thread, desist from any more Drakeollution - stop back-referencing your own posts as if they mean something, and just STFU? Even if I say please? Pretty please?

TBYJ: For the record I'm not disagreeing with you vehemently and have dome reservations about my own position, because it's a logical non-sequitur to tell Richard he can't foretell the future and then go ahead and predict it myself. I agree with you on the tech spend stuff, but maybe better spent looking into thorium reactors. Whatever is being said I'm not disagreeing vehemently for sure.

Thanks Geronimo. I have disagreed with just about everybody here at some point, and now Chandra calls me a warmist :)