Great article, Katy, well done.
In my blog - see http://berniemasters.blogspot.com/ - I've tried to raise another aspect of the climate change debate, namely, why don't the two sides sit down and see what issues they can agree upon. My belief is that most people agree that global climate is changing and that there is much we can do to conserve our natural resources and reduce our energy wastage in ways that are economically sound while reducing CO2 outputs. As your post points out, the pro- and-anti-climate change groups appear to be so committed to their particular positions that they won't even talk to each other, let alone discuss what beliefs they have in common in an attempt to find an agreed way forward.

Ms Barnett's analysis rightly makes much of the need for all of us to respect the rigorous application of scientific method; but she herself does not seem to have much respect for the views of the vast majority of the peer-reviewed, non-activist scientists who are experts in the relevant fields of research and who say very strongly that the earth, particularly its atmosphere, is not just threatened by the growing crisis of carbon dioxide overload, but is in fact already being seriously damaged by it.

The scientists' agitation is understandable, and their impatience is warranted. They are paid to provide us with data and analysis, and when they do so in this most crucial of instances, they are not only ignored or opposed by many decision makers and vested interests, but are told by non-scientists that they are behaving in unscientific ways.

In their expert views, not many experiments or reinterpretation of the data have been blasting any significant holes in the overall picture. Science is about the preponderance of data and the most likely explanations for it. It is assisted by the application of logic. Not one, but many sets of modelling have been used to analyse the most likely consequences of the atmospheric changes.

ScepticLawyer would employ our time and hers more usefully if she raised specific issues that need testing, rather than going to such lengths to lecture people for simply taking a principled stance, based on very strong evidence, in the interests of the vast majority of human beings present and future.

Ms Barnett may also impress more if she thought a bit more carefully before she groups the climate debate with the Israeli-Palestine dispute and the abortion question. The vast majority of the disputants in the Israeli-Palestine issue are committed to religious obscuratism, as are most anti-abortionists. Trivialising the climate change scientists by implicitly classifying them with religious fundamentalists is a pretty silly thing to do.

I wonder if Katy would have written this if she placed any value on The Australian Academy of Science, and read its report of August 2010, The Science of Climate Change, Questions and Answers (which is available on the web)

As a lawyer, Katy raises some very good arguments. I would take issue with her ‘summing up'.

Katy says:

“It may seem counter-intuitive that if you want to get people to trust your message, you have to allow people to try to shoot it down. Funnily enough, however, that’s the way the law works when parties present evidence. The witness gives an examination-in-chief, the opposing barrister attempts to shoot it down with a cross-examination, questioning that version of the facts at each juncture ...

... This is the kind of mentality which needs to be brought to the climate change debate: a mentality which allows civil debate, but which allows scientists to challenge the orthodox hypotheses.”

If Katy was as familiar with science as she is with law then she would know that that is precisely how science works. A scientist (witness) proposes a hypothesis (examination-in-chief) in the scientific community (court) and other scientists (opposing barristers) challenge and poke holes in it (cross-examination).

If the original hypothesis stands up to continued scrutiny it becomes more robust. If not, the original hypothesis is tweaked, improved, or discarded altogether.

Katy should also realise (as Professor Schneider made clear) that the scientific process is not judged as in a court of law (as much as she wants it to be). Indeed, in a court of law the “winner” is often determined by how much money they have to afford the “best” lawyer – regardless the “guilt”, or the “innocence”, of the accused (AGW).

Fortunately, science is determined (judged) by ‘weight of evidence’. In other words, science is not about the absoluteness of 'guilty' or 'innocent' but rather, probability.

Of course, it need only take one opposing hypothesis to ‘sink’ the orthodoxy, but that opposing hypothesis will also have to stand up to robust critique. To date, there is no known counter hypothesis that explains current global warming without taking GHG’s into account- despite the ardent cries from the gallery.

Does Katy suggest letting the gallery intervene the proceedings of a court of law, to take the law into their own hands?

The Earth is heating

'Sceptics' do not want to know

Our children are toast

Just one word samurai ... bollocks.