Sure, science doesn’t dictate policy, but it should certainly inform it. One of your central arguments for us not taking any action is that there is no evidence that (1) the globe is warming due to our activities, and (2) we can do anything to stop it. Despite the conspiracy theories you advance (see Phil Plait here and here), climate scientists have established beyond all reasonable doubt that (1) and (2) are false. Human forcing causes GW, reducing that forcing will limit future knowledge (as far as we can establish), so exploring the best ways of limiting emissions is a good idea.

There are political philosophy questions here, no doubt, but even libertarians agree collective action is required for certain projects - national defense, for example. Were an asteroid bound for earth, would you oppose intergovernment action? Even if it required more taxation for funding the mission? If AGW is real, would you still oppose action?

To be clear, just because you’re a non-expert doesn’t make you stupid. Your seeming inability to understand and respond to criticisms appropriately suggests a lack of a meta-cognitive ability to recognize the limits of your ability. I’m yet to see any evidence of real knowledge of climate science, yet you claim to know ‘a fair amount about it’.

My primary argument over the years has been that even if climate alarmism were true, the proposed policy response is not justified. This is a political and economic argument.

I did not expect ClimateGate to fall into my lap to make my job at convincing others so much easier. It is now clear that the quality of the alarmists’ data is shocking, they are reluctant to submit their data and methods to public scrutiny even in the face of legal obligations to do so, they have deleted primary data “for space reasons”, they face serious allegations of cherry-picking and changing results to reach preconceived conclusions, they suppress dissenting research[1], they try to get dissenting scientists fired and have succeeded in at least one case, and they privately concede doubts and errors that undermine the public claims to consensus and “settled science”. All this undermines my respect for their impartiality and honesty as scientists, and denies them any authority at all as activists.

Moreover, not being a scientist myself, I rely on the work of real scientists and researchers such as Richard Lindzen, Sallie Baliunas, Luboš Motl, Ross McKitrick, Marcel Leroux, Patrick Michaels, Anthony Watts, William Cotton, John Christy, Fred Singer, James Saiers, Steve McIntyre, Tad Murty, Don Easterbrook and Roy Spencer. While I do not blithely accept everything they say (just like I treat alarmists with scepticism), they are much more qualified than I am to challenge, with “proper science”, the papers on which the alarmist consensus is built. They might not enjoy the financial largesse that the alarmists get from taxpayers, non-governmental organisations and corporations, but they do a fine job poking holes in the elaborate but fragile edifice the alarmists have constructed. Falsification is a key feature of the scientific method, and these are the people who keep that flame alive.

Suggesting I should join them is glib and facile, but it is not a counter-argument. Moreover, suggesting that my position is “similar” to some other argument that I have never made proves nothing, and merely undermines your own credibility.

I will, however, write a column explaining the logical basis for my position, rather than attacking the alarmists or getting swamped in the details.

[1] Michael Mann: “Recently rejected two papers (one for JGR and for GRL) from people saying CRU has it wrong over Siberia. Went to town in both reviews, hopefully successfully. If either appears I will be very surprised, but you never know with GRL.”

Furthermore, even if it is a catastrophic crisis, arguments about an appropriate policy response are based in economics and political philosophy, not science.

And don’t act all hurt. Given sufficient time I could answer most of the barrage of issues you threw at me. However, I do not have the time, and more importantly, my arguments rely on none of those points and their validity or otherwise don’t change the validity of my position. Besides, I’m not very inclined to indulge you if you can’t write two paragraphs without insulting me.

You’ll undoubtedly read my refusal to make you a full-time project as a concession on my part. Have fun. Brag on your blag. Maybe it’ll land you a real job, paid with real taxpayer money, to preach at the incompetent masses without opinions.

There are so many tactics that creationist share with those in opposition to the climate science, which for me makes the lot look more foolish each argument that does not appose the science through the scientific method. So instead of screaming “fossil fraud”, “show me the transitional creatures”, do some proper science. Go and challenge the folks at scienceblogs.com or similar sites with your findings.

However, I’d add that both libertarians and programmers tend to assume a limited number of variables in their models, the assumption being that optimizing performance is largely a matter of testing and refinement of a few root issues.

In programming that is often true, and testing can be accomplished quickly, but society is far more complex, and tests can take generations to fulfill. Libertarians tend toward the simplistic, believing that short-term information (such as prices) reflect long-term benefits and trends. That attitude may work in programming, where tweaking instantly reveals effects, but when carried over into public policy the results can be disastrous, witness our current deregulation-and-tax-cut induced financial debacle, for which our grandchildren will pay.

Very well. I’ll take my annoying nitpicking - you know, all that silly “evidence” and “reason” stuff - to my blag.

I feel no obligation, moral or otherwise, to waste time responding to comments that exaggerate or misrepresent what I wrote, bury the real issues of public policy under contrived technical detail, or consist of mere name-calling. Why should I spend my Sunday, or indeed any day, indulging your endless nitpicking about matters that have only peripheral relevance (if any) to the arguments in my columns, which largely turn on matters of principle, procedure and policy?

No, I do not concede I was wrong about GISS. Obstinate, I know, but that the data in question are available now does not change the fact that it was once actively removed from public availability, and it took legal action and public scandal to get it back. One set of files disclosed by the GISS was quietly published on New Year’s Eve last year, after two years of stalling. That’s “suspect”, in my book. That puts it in the same league as the CRU, where we now know the high priests of global warming would rather delete data than to obey the law concerning publicly-funded data.

By the way, that last link of yours (three comments up) is also broken, though the irony is rich.

And there’s an end to it. Basta.

The homework jibe was snide and condescending, yes. But you claim to know a lot about climate science. I’m yet to see any evidence of sustained engagement or analysis of a single scientific paper. (Point me in the right direction, if there is one). You see, journalists who read the literature they write about - Ed Yong, Carl Zimmer, etc - show evidence of it, including by writing proper columns and blog posts on papers they’ve read. You don’t. That makes me more than a little suspicious.

Arrogance is one of my (many) faults. I try to work on it. But I’m not nearly arrogant enough to dismiss an entire field which I lack the expertise to understand in the first place. That is preposterous arrogant. It’s the pot calling a grayish kettle black.

You don’t like lots of objections at once, fine. Let’s do one, shall we? The GISS’s list of stations in available online. As far as I can make out, it’s been available from 2005 onward. You claimed otherwise. Do you concede you were wrong?

Most of those comments contains multiple points ranging from spurious references to thermohaline circulation to polar bears, all wrapped in a delightful confectionery of presumtion and personal insults. There is even a “homework assignment”. And you call me arrogant?

I’m not prepared to spend time I don’t have to argue against such never-ending missionary zeal, sorry.

I have no moral obligation to you at all. I am not proposing a huge, all-encompassing theory about catastrophic human influence on the climate. I am not the one who proposes costly and oppressive regulation to be imposed by force upon others. I merely expect honesty and objectivity from scientists, rather than propaganda and policy advocacy.

What I’ve done is cite, usually by quoting people more knowledgeable than I, a number of reasons to disbelieve the alarmist position. In principle, only one of the many essential premises of their theory need to be shown to be suspect for the entire edifice to come crashing down. I am not raising a contrary edifice, but merely say that we don’t know enough about climate to assert the truth of the AGW theory or impose draconian measures upon people. Therefore, I do not have the moral obligation that the AGW alarmists have to not only convince their victims of the necessity of action, but to be honest and diligent in their research. They have failed on both counts.

Meanwhile, I have pointed to a number of reasons to oppose the grand social engineering project of the alarmists, even if their pet theory were in fact true. These include the speculative nature of any claimed benefit, the excessive time-frame over which such a benefit might accrue, the definite loss of liberty and increased poverty these measures will impose, and the existence of many projects upon which we might spend those scarce resources that have greater, more immediate, and more certain benefits.

I have spent hours answering a long list of objections, and shown that you are consistently wrong in both your logic and your facts. I’m not prepared to spend more time digging up notes and research and references every time you raise a new issue of only remote relevance to the actual point I was making, namely that your heroes are snake-oil salesmen on a public-money gravy train.

Besides, this is the last time you’ve insulted me. Your incessantly condescending ad hominem attacks trump my “overweening self-confidence”, my “incompetence”, my “narcissism” and my “intellectual arrogance”. It may not have occurred to you that by accusing someone of being subject to “the Dunning-Kruger effect” (unoriginal though it is), you’re not only being painfully pretentious, but are laying yourself open to exactly the same charge. Your style of debate is essentially puerile. It demonstrates that you haven’t really outgrown the schoolyard. Next you’ll be blowing raspberries at me.

Have a lovely day.

Re my chocolate analogy. Do you make a habit of misreading and misrepresenting people’s statements? CO2 lagged warming at the end of the last ice age. It’s not lagging it now. So, either you deny CO2 is a greenhouse gas (which would be stupid) or you think there must be a negative feedback loop that would alter the net trend. If the latter, I’d appreciate a citation or two.

Ah… the good old trick of taking quotations out of context. From this NYT piece:

“”I’m involved in 102 of the e-mails,” Trenberth said. “I don’t see anything embarrassing to me particularly. There are a few things that can be taken out of context, and they have been.” That includes the line about a “lack of warming,” which Trenberth says was part of a longer message intended to highlight shortcomings in scientists’ understanding of recent temperature fluctuations. “We’ve always had some problems with the observing system,” he said. “It’s obviously not as good as we would like, and that’s true of the temperature record, as well. What this is saying is we need better observations. What it’s not saying is that global warming is not here.”

Ah, but a forensic accountant would be able to assess Enron’s claims on their merits, no? A climate expert like yourself can surely evaluate RealClimate’s claims on their merits? The claims are wrong because…?

Look. You’re taking a strong public stance on a very important issue. The consequences of GW are possibly severe or even catastrophic. You therefore have an acute moral obligation to make sure your position is in fact correct. I have pointed out several misconceptions, false statements and misrepresentations that you have committed. The mark of a good thinker is the willingness to keep an open mind and to stand corrected. I see very little evidence of either. Your overweening self-confidence smacks of being unskilled and unaware of it.

On the clouds point, permit me to quote an expert, Kevin Trenberth: “[We] are no where close to knowing where energy is going or whether clouds are changing to make the planet brighter. We are not close to balancing the energy budget. The fact that we can not account for what is happening in the climate system makes any consideration of geoengineering quite hopeless as we will never be able to tell if it is successful or not! It is a travesty!”

They’re clueless, and they admit it amongst themselves, while presenting a brave face of confident consensus to the world.

Besides for 404 error pages, you keep quoting RealClimate.org in support of your views. Yet you have the gall to call me biased. Do you know who runs RealClimate? Next you’ll be quoting Enron’s website to show that Enron wasn’t a fraud, because it claims to have an “objective assessment”. Your faith (or your gullible streak) clearly runs deep.

For what it’s worth, I’ll be travelling a great deal during the next six weeks. I try to make a point of responding to comments on my columns. But while while I’m blubberingly grateful for the consideration you show in trying to be charitable, I cannot afford the time to respond in detail to a daily barrage of comments of such dubious provenance.

We clearly disagree, and since you keep saying I have no right to an opinion because I’m no expert, I fail to see the point in continuing this charade.