"if putting an argument cost the person something in standing and prestige then it made their claim more believable than the claims of those who benefitted from their position."

That's a ludicrous philosophy, effectively discounting most expert opinion (since it's pretty hard to gain expertise in an area without working for a long time in it). It's the sort of meta-argument that has led to the climate debate's hopeless morass. Is it really so hard to simply evaluate claims on their merits, rather than who is voicing them?

And even if the line quoted above were true, it cuts both ways; indeed the tables have now been turned. Anti-nuclear has been green orthodoxy for decades. Accordingly, anyone in the environmental movement who voices support for nuclear energy immediately 'attracts criticism and abuse' and loses plenty in standing and prestige. By the logic above, their argument can instantly be taken as more believable. Conversely, the statements of activists such as Jim Green and Dave Sweeney who have staked pretty much their entire careers on the anti-nuclear cause should be entirely disregarded!

Continuing opposition to nuclear energy in the face of all rational risk assessment completely destroys the credibility of everything else said about the urgency of climate change.

Malcolm,
Your silence as to your clients is convincing evidence that you work for those whose interests are served by a continuation of Business as Usual (BAU). George Wald's claim as to who is most believable still stands. Supporting BAU pays your way, provides you encouragement, kudos with the existing centres of power and influence in our society.
SPA and many other conservation organisations point to BAU threatening the ability of a damged Nature to support even the present global population, much less a larger one.
Our position opposing BAU brings us into conflict with these centres of power and influence (of which your continuing attacks are just a small part.
All we have to gain from taking this position is our share of the common good.
Any fair-minded person would see that this makes our position more believable.
John Coulter

The author's alignment in his mind with those battling the man, the "existing centres of power and influence in our society" is grotesque and can be classified as no more than the utterances of some hippie remnant.

The Green movement in all its forms is the establishment, from the UN down to all the Western governments who promulgate AGW pseudo-science and invest in renewable energy scams.

After all isn't the consensus the default position for those who support AGW and who dribble their personal nightmare, end of the world scenarios in public as justification for AGW being real and for pursuing the ridiculous and meaningless concept of sustainability?

The money invested in and supporting AGW and renewables is vast, trillions, yet we still get this demonstrably unreal David vs Goliath junk argument by those believers in AGW.

Like the article and most of everything else written by the author his comment is delusional. Good on him for supporting nuclear though.

Dear Cohenite

Please don't waste our time. Read the literature including the latest IPCC Report. The conclusion of the IPCC is that only if substantial and sustained reductions in emissions are made, can we avoid potentially dangerous consequences of climate change. The IPCC are the people that do the research; they are the ones that know. There are too many of them to lie and get away with it. They are the world's top climate scientists. We must take heed of their warnings.

The commentariat seems to have completely missed the major thrust of the article.

While it is true that we should be discontinuing our dependence on fossil fuels, the author, as is usual for his ilk, fails to mention any practical alternatives. I mean really practical alternatives that will give us a 24 hour a day supply of energy without stuffing up the atmosphere. As an example, I would first suggest nuclear energy based on thorium, but there are other continuous sources of power such as tidal flows and geothermal energy.

Unfortunately, governments seem unable to bite the bullet and provide significant funds for research into these, instead, squandering money on expensive household solar schemes.

David

VK3AUU: You seem to have missed the boat on this.
There are for starters over a million rooftop photovoltaic installations and more going up rapidly as more people realise that if they do not act now they will be at the mercy of the power companies and power will become unaffordable for them.
There a few (but nowhere nearly enough) wind farms that produce a fair amount of power.
I know, this is where the old "but they cannot provide base load power" gets trotted out.
And that is baloney. If they are combined with rooftop solar AND there was a real push to install concentrated thermal solar with boiling salt system added, this would provide all of our needs.
Add a safe guard there is also the option of having localised gas turbine power stations running on natural gas, IF we could persuade the oil companies to sell it to Australia instead of exporting it all abroad.
As for costs, let us not forget the enormous subsidies that coal power station receive from the government.