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.

It's not that hard to see why the Left has embraced global warming alarmism: when it first gained public attention they were out of power in most of the West, and it provided a convenient scare campaign they could use to recruit supporters. With the help of the environmentalists they regained power, but are now in the process of losing it again, largely thanks to their over-enthusiastic adoption of alarmist doctrine. Oh, the irony!

Environmentalism stands in the same relation to left-wing parties as Christianity does to right-wing parties: an emotional commitment that can quickly be whipped up into knee-jerk hysteria and manufactured outrage. Environmentalists, like religious believers, are ideological shock troops that the parties can quickly move into position to oppose change and defend their positions while wiser and more rational people like Katy are still making up their minds.

Unfortunately both religion and AGW alarmism are on the decline, and for the same reason: there are only so many ways one can disguise a complete lack of evidence.

"Unfortunately both religion and AGW alarmism are on the decline ..."

Fortunately, I am neither religious nor alarmist.

Those that do not believe change is happening are out of their area of expertise.
We have the biggest storms circulating the world, like never before.
It has got to come down to change.
To do nothing is to deny this is even happening.
The balance of nature has been compromised. So we must slow down on the substance, that is causing the imbalance.
Attention is becoming urgent.

Hi Katie

CONFESSIONS OF A CLIMATE SCIENTIST

"The problem with climate prediction and projections going out to 2030 and 2050 is that we don't anticipate that they can be tested in the way you can test a weather forecast. It takes about 20 years to evaluate because there is so much unforced variability in the system — the chaotic component of the climate system — that is not predictable beyond two weeks, even theoretically. This is something we can't really get a handle on... This is a real problem because society wants answers from us and won't wait 20 years."

http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/schmidt09/schmidt09_index.html

"They are horribly non-linear right from the word 'go'; they are horribly complex. There is never going to be a theory of climate that somebody will come up with just by thinking about how the climate should work. People have tried, but they all fall pretty much at the very first hurdle. It is 'irreducibly complex'."

If there is never going to be a theory of climate, presumably there will never be laws of climate change with genuine predictive power?

Or have such laws been discovered recently? Perhaps they will be revealed publicly on Earth Day 2011 or the first full moon of the Year of the Rabbit?

Alice (in Warmerland)

Great article Katy, truly thoughtful, & so well reasoned. Hell, I was getting worried that if I was see too many articles like this by lawyer/academics, I may be forced to change my opinion of our current academics. You will appreciate that this is a very threatening thought for a bloke my age.

Fortunately Dan Fitzpatrick & colinsett leaped forward to reassure me that it is only the very rare ones who display such reason. It has taken 30 years for my opinion of our scientific/academic community to sink so low, I must admit to being relieved I do not have to change it.

The sad part about these alarmist is that through deceit and fear mongering they have stopped many from caring about the environment. The 1000 plus Australian contingent that went to CopenHagen to express Australia's new found Green faith made an absolute mockery of 'science'. Thousands of bureaucrats and 'scientists' going along blindly with false and corrupted data did not prevent statements such as 'biggest moral challenge of the century'. It makes those tired of spin wanting to leave every light on for 'earth' hour.

I pity anyone in London at the moment relying on wind power to keep them from freezing to death. Oh that's right some expert clown wrote in the IPCC report that by 2010 European kids would be lucky to know what snow looked like. Many of these kids probably wished this joker would be right. As usual no accountability just like the idiotic predictions of Flannery and Gore. No thinking person could take these people seriously except leftist Governments looking for another revenue source.

"The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers". - (Henry VI, Act IV, Scene II).

After reading Katy’s article I see, yet again, that Dick had a point.

In fact the more I discover about the law and lawyers the more I understand just how dysfunctional is our legal system.

Katy, the scientific enterprise is far from perfect but it cannot be "improved" by importing the worst aspects of another dysfunctional “discipline”. I speak loosely when I apply the word “discipline” to the law because that’s just what lawyers – especially judges – aren’t

I don't think that you can judge the merits of the legal profession on the basis of Katy Barnett's writing.

Katy it's about science and your attempt to make it about political inclinations is way off the mark. As is believing that climate scientists have not applied scepticism. Or that those who insist that action to avoid the worst consequences be taken have a desire to see people forced to live in mud huts not develop large scale clean energy.
When it comes to politics it isn't the green left letting us down it's the mainstream and the conservative right. The growth of the greens is a consequence of the complete failure of the middle and right to take the overwhelming science on this matter seriously.

Sorry, but you don't come across as someone who wants the case decided on it's merits but decided in favour of you client (those who don't want money or effort spent on this and don't want their illusions that the way they live will negatively impact future security and prosperity upset.)

I want the science that comes out of all our leading institutions taken seriously.Science has applied scepticism and found the physics, chemistry and thermodynamics all to be genuine and sound. Models have been subjected to hindcasting and verification efforts by scientist who really do want to get at the truth of how our climate works and real world changes agree with what's known. The hottest year to date (GISS) at the end of the hottest decade, following the second hottest decade, following the third hottest. Every real world indicator -sea temperatures, sea levels, icesheets, surface temperatures - showing it's real and you want to cling desperately to your doubt? I suggest you try genuine science style scepticism and look at the whole body of evidence rather than focus on the few bits you think will convince an inexpert 'jury' but won't work on true experts.

Science can never be decided like a court case although there are similarities; in this case 'sceptics' are less like the expert witnesses and more like noisy objectors shouting angrily from the back of the courtroom after the verdict's been handed down.

Has the IPCC run their computer model against the more realistic
fossil fuel figures published by the Uppsala University's Global Energy
Systems report ?

No ?

Then this whole discussion is redundant.
Unless we discuss global warming using real input data then we are wasting our time.

As others have mentioned, nothing in science escapes ceaseless peer-review, the need for predictability and compatibility with empirical data. These refine and establish science, scientific discovery and thought. Without scepticism and questioning, peer-review would not exist, nor would robust science.

However where global warming is concerned the respectable term “skepticism” is all too often used instead of the more accurate descriptor “denier” of its causes and effects. Deniers fall into two groups: those who simply express a personal opinion which rejects one or more aspects of climate science without giving a reason: the other claims to present a scientific basis for their rejection.

The latter group are more akin to true skeptics and I would accept them as such were it not for one thing. The evidential material they present in support of the denialist position they hold is invariably based on a misrepresentation or distortion of other peoples work or claims which are clearly wrong or are outright fabrications.

Monckton is a good example of the latter. When in Australia he forthrightly asserted that “there has been very, very sharp global cooling on all measures since 2001”, a claim refuted by empirical evidence showing the opposite to be true. Ian Plimer provides another example with his claim that human activity is responsible for only 4% of CO2 in the atmosphere, the rest being produced by volcanoes. The basis for this assertion is so easily proven wrong that it is no surprise that Plimer offers no supporting evidence.

A favourite of skeptic/deniers seeking to substantiate their views on global warming is to cherry-pick data or present data as statistically significant when it is no such thing. They present data covering a short select period, showing what the presenter wants, rather than a longer period showing a significant trend. The Skeptical Science website gives numerous examples of this and other forms of cherry-picking.

There are of course many genuine skeptics who put forward views critical of or rejecting claims made by other scientists and they do put forward credible material supporting their position. They are usually shown to be only partly right or entirely wrong but they do hold science and scientists to account and in the process provide an invaluable service for which we should all be grateful.

But there comes a time when matters of science simply can not be shown to be wrong. They are no longer questioned, nor should they be unless there is good evidence to do so. For example we no longer question that the world is an imperfect sphere, or that it revolves around a star we call the sun. Similarly we should no longer question that CO2 and other greenhouse gases absorb energy at particular wavelengths and radiate it or that the result is global warming.

After all, we have known about the properties of greenhouse gases and their sources for over a century and they have not been shown to be wrong.

Katy,

I read your essay with interest and pleasure. I also agree with you that the need is to admit uncertainty in the whole AGW debate, work out what we really do know (not very much) and try to find out more — especially about what 'natural climate variability' is and how to distinguish it from AGW.

If you have not yet ventured into it, I would recommend the 'Climate etc' website, run by Judith Curry, a 'lukewarmer' and eminent scientist in the climate science field. She is doing her best to get both 'sides' to engage in critical thinking and problem-solving. It has become a runaway success, and seems to me the best way forward so far.

Bazz, which report of Uppsala University are you referring to? I've looked at their website - http://www.fysast.uu.se/ges/en - and there are many reports that you might be referring to. Can you please point me in the right direction? Thanks

Hello Bernie,
Here is the link to an article on Kjell Aleklett's blog
about the paper and it contains a link to the full paper.

http://tinyurl.com/yhqn2pv

I think, from memory it was published mid year 2010.
I think that with the uncertainty of computer models, we should at
least have the most acurate inputs available.

Thanks for the link, Bazz. Interesting article, in that it states that all projections by IPCC of fossil fuel usage are likely to be gross over-estimations, in part because of peak oil (which I agree will happen but I believe is still quite some years away) and in part because "The size of the tank, i.e. the resource base, is of secondary importance as it is the tap that governs the flow rate and future utilization of fossil fuels in the society". The only area of disagreement I have with the article relates to the future availability of gas. A large number of companies in the US have been assessing the amounts of shale gas - non-conventional gas occurring in very tight sediments such as shales - and the available resource is huge, so large in fact that natural gas prices in the US have plummeted due to oversupply.
That aside, I agree that the IPCC have significantly over-estimated fossil fuel energy usage by developing countries, one additional reason being that they have not looked at how well such countries are improving the energy intensity of their industries, which will deliver very large energy efficiency gains.

Agnostic,

The proof you are talking about is the center of this debate and is ABSOLUTELY not accepted as scientific fact.

Your incredibly simplistic assertion -> that because we know of a greehouse effect, therefore we know that We have caused "global warming - lacks any intellectual rigour.

Just because there is such a thing as the greenhouse effect, doesn't tell us anything about what we see. It is a theory which needs to explain the facts that we see, and thus far, it has not done a very good job.

The Non-Governemntal International Panel Climate Change has found that the level of warming in the last decade of the 20th century was considerably lower than the IPCC claimed, and that in the 21st century, the earth had cooled.
http://hatch.senate.gov/public/_files/ClimateChangeReconsidered.pdf

31,000 scientists signed their memo which, among other things, stated " ... There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate ...."http://hatch.senate.gov/public/_files/ClimateChangeReconsidered.pdf

Heartland and the “31,000 scientists” wail from the public gallery Kate?

Very few in the scientific community have claimed “catastrophic” yada yada except the “alarmists”.

However, climate change will be bad enough - adaptive and mitigative measures will be required – this doesn’t happen overnight.