RPG your rebuttal of Bushbasher does not work his comment:

"you cannot choose to not make stupid decisions. you can only choose to make decisions as rationally as possible upon the best available evidence."

Is fine as far as it goes.

The reality is that we are rarely in a position to rationally evaluate all the evidence available to us.

Perhaps the easiest way to illustrate this is by using a game of chess as an example.

An experienced or for that matter an inexperienced chess player will rarely be in a position to rationally evaluate the implication of a particular move. For example after both black and white have made their first move - white has 10 to the power of 10 permutations to consider if he is going to rationally evaluate his next move. Clearly he wont do that.

Instead if the opening is one he recognizes he will simply work through the 'traditional' moves only pausing to think if his opponant deviates from the standard.

The only time he begins to make rational choices by weighing up the evidence is when he comes to a brand new situation.

This is ultimately the problem with climate change. The majority of people are not climate scientists and have not had a chance to look at the literature. So like the chess player their most rational course of action would appear to be to continue on a business as usual trajectory - the changes that they perceive do not appear so drastic that a different course of action seems rational.

cont.

cont.
So when people like myself argue that climate change is a concern and that we need to think about the way we live I am inviting people to take the evidence of climate scientists on trust; even though that evidence does not square with their inuitive understanding of the world it would seem to them that I am inviting them to make an irrational choice.

The fact that I may not be able to convince people does not mean that they are stupid.

It makes far more sense to forget climate change and simply talk about ways whereby we can switch to a zerocarbon economy and show how making that switch will make us better off; the fact that we also happen to address climate change is a fortuitous byproduct - all we are doing is demonstrating to people by switching to a low carbon economy we are creating jobs and saving energy costs.

If people looked here http://www.beyondzeroemissions.org/ they might be excited by a plan that makes us energy self sufficient, creates jobs and yes it also ensures we do our little bit about climate change but one can support that programme without having to give up on being climate change sceptic.

Big (Flat Earth) news: the IPCC is not perfect and the peer review process is not perfect! Oh! The sins! Oh! The wickedness!

There's enough data points up on the screen now to start hypothesising about the possible underlying patterns. How about: a full-frontal assault on the "Institutions of Reason".By whom? The "Institutions of Faith", of course! The NeoCons, the Fundamentalists- both Christian and Muslim.

The battle has been going on since the Renaissance, big wins were made by Reason during the Enlightenment, and with a few hiccups (early 20th century), Reason has been on a roll. And then Rollback started about 30 years ago. The universities, which were social beacons for Reason, were successfully neutered by starving them of funds and pushing them into selling MacKnowledge globally to survive. Thanks Mr Howard for your Australian contribution. Government research (CSIRO etc) was neutered by corporatisation which meant that the likes of Graeme Pearman were muzzled.

And then- Horrors! A new Gloabal Institution of Reason raises its head- the IPCC. How to deal with it? The Sin-trick of course! Like the way Kenneth Starr dealt with Clinton, Abbott is dealing with Rudd and the US Neocons are dealing with the Obama administration- question their virtues and highlight their sinfulness! It's a guaranteed winner- there's always a bit of sleaze going on- you've just got to go look for it. Aha! Some loose emails! Aha! Some errors in the IPCC's Bible! (There's none in the Bible and the Koran, of course). Aha! some shysters ripped off the Great Energy Conservation Scheme (of course Kevin led them into Temptation!)

Yes! Tear down the IPCC!- Cast its sinful worshippers of Reason into the fiery pits! They thought that the Globe would be warm! Try a good old Believers Hell!

Out with Reason! Out! Out! Bring in the Ayatollahs! Bring in the Cardinals! Believe! Believe! Believe!

jm - are you on drugs?

Peter
It's all muddled, don't want to get embroiled in the "I said, you said" game. Suffice to say, there are serious environmental, ecological and concomitant economic problems looming just over the horizon, it would be prudent to prepare now.

Baygon
Very well said.

Jedi
Yep, anti-intellectualism rears its ugly head through the guise of neo-conservatism, religious zealotry and anti-science wing-nuttery.

Amicus
That's a great response! I rest my case. George Lakoff called it "framing". Raise the spectre! Let it do its haunting! Of course JM isn't on drugs... just a figure of speech to refer to unusual statements...or is he? Hmm..

That's the style of the aforesaid anti-Reasonists. Never tackle the substantive issue rationally- just raise questions that allude to immorality of some kind. Immoral people can't be right, can they?

BTW does coffee count as a drug? I've had 2 strong ones today. Oh dear, I can smell sulphur already.