It appears that Roger Pielke Jr. agrees with you:
http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/archives/climate_change/001187the_battle_for_us_.html
Check out the comments to the article, though!
There's a difference between committed and uncommitted belief. The
paranoid view of climate science is deeply held in some quarters.
A friend of mine, a geologist and non-blogger, reports that he got
into an argument with a random waitress at Denver airport. She had the
whole evil-climatologist-conspiracy thing down and was totally
committed to it.
I think people from upper-middle class and/or educated backgrounds
never could see the likes of us as a sinister Stalinist vanguard, but
people from backgrounds where nobody goes to professional or graduate
school don't have a lot of context about what science is or how it
works, and can be convinced of about anything. (e.g., the good Senator
Imhofe who wants to set the rest of the world straight probably
believes everything he says about it.)
The problem is the level of commitment. Imhofe has been so vocal he
will probably never be able to change his mind.
On Apr 22, 1:56 pm, Rob Jacob <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Is it possible that all the discussion of framing, etc. is mute
> because the public has moved on?
To the extent it's moot (I think you mean moot) it's because the
energy companies see the writing on the wall, and want to see the
regulatory structure sooner rather than later.
What's interesting is that they have done such a good job of
unleashing this paranoid meme (sorry, I think I said "meme") that they
will have trouble retrieving it.
> And a comment: we may need to separate public confusion over the
> science, which may be a non-issue, with
> public confusion over the policy prescriptions which is large and
> likely to grow.
Yes.
Notice where the constant questioning of the really fundamental core
results of the science comes from, though. It is from people who want
to avoid discussing the policy.
I think those people will be much weakened in the next couple of years
as the big energy money quietly backs away but there will be well-
intentioned noise for a long time as a consequence of the deliberate
noise set off in the past 15 years by well-funded, deliberate and
malicious actions.
mt
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