[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > There were a number of dubious points on the "it's not a crisis" side, > on the other hand, there's this attempt by the other side in the > debate to side step all opposing arguments with a reference to > "scientific consensus",
I was rather alarmed to see the opening statement of the ice sheet group: "Polar ice experts from Europe and the United States, meeting *to pursue greater scientific consensus*" (my emphasis) http://www.jsg.utexas.edu/news/rels/032807.html I hope it was just clumsy wording, but unfortunately climate scientists are so embattled that they do sometimes seem to strive rather harder to agree with each other than to debate their differences. Of course it is the latter that actually helps to progress knowledge. The famous "cannot be excluded" of the IPCC seems a deliberate attempt to present a disagreement as if it is an agreement. I note that it was explicitly on the grounds that the "consensus" disagreed with me that a Nature editor refused to consider our comment to the effect that the method used in recent paper was faulty (and biased in a strongly alarmist direction). I agree with her judgement that the method is widely used, but IMO that makes it more, not less, important that its failings are openly discussed. > even when the arguments have all to do with > politics and economics and virtually nothing with climate science, and > when there clearly is no scientific consensus about what should be > done about climate change. I'm not very well-read but I had the impression that there was really quite a strong consensus that modest mitigation was sensible (Tol/Nordhaus/Yohe etc, even without going as far as Stern). Are there serious claims that we should do nothing at all, or do you consider this range of views already to be broad enough as to consist of "no scientific consensus"? Of course I'm sure they all disagree to some extent about the detailed implementation. James --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Global Change ("globalchange") newsgroup. Global Change is a public, moderated venue for discussion of science, technology, economics and policy dimensions of global environmental change. Posts will be admitted to the list if and only if any moderator finds the submission to be constructive and/or interesting, on topic, and not gratuitously rude. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/globalchange -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
