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.