Tim Biegler's article basically tells us that the world's handful of climate scientists are infallible, even though this same group of scientists were woefully wrong in the 1970's when they predicted that the Earth was returning to a new Ice Age.

Climate scientists are vastly outnumbered by geologists, who are also trained to understand the physics of climate change and as I understand the scientific debate, the majority of geologists totally disagree with their colleagues on this premise.

The scientific debate is not over and nobody is going to run panic stricken around the place crying "the sky is falling" and thereby destroy their own economies until it is.

When did 'grown-ups' come to mean the same as 'credulous hysterics'? I must have missed that announcement.

United Nations climate policy focused on CO2 emissions is leading world policy that can not be sustained.
It is not possible for incomplete science to continue.
Science is science.

Perhaps the UN should urgently grow up.

UN, Kyoto and IPCC science at present includes impact of plant matter in animal cud but not algae plant matter that is now inundating ocean waters and ecosystems.

UN, AGW, Kyoto and IPCC science has not measured and assessed photosynthesis-linked warmth in ocean algae plant matter proliferated by human sewage and land use nutrient pollution.

United Nations and other reports that refer to pollution, while not mentioning sewage nutrient pollution, are not stating the actual problem.

Consequently most politicians and government agencies remain uninformed and without due focus and action on relevant solutions.

Solutions involving proper sanitation and sewage treatment could develop significant business and millions of jobs worldwide. Nutrient pollution is occurring worldwide, impacting world oceans.

There is need for sensible and viable sustainable policy to manage oceans of this planet.

Supply of affordable food and fertilizer and protein for feedmeal for animals can not be sustained with present UN policy

"Keep climate science and climate action separate. One is science, the other is politics and economics."

Climate action does involve politics and economics, but it also involves science and engineering too, and we shouldn't forget that.

Choosing the best technologies for scalable, reliable, high-capacity, high-availability energy generation on the scale required for coal replacement with the smallest environmental footprint at the lowest price does involve consideration of the realities of science and engineering, not just the political and economical considerations (which are also real).

For example, some people might think that solar power is "good" politically, and fission energy is "bad" politically - but remember, as Dick Feynman put it, that for a successful technology reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.

I obviously did not make myself clear enough but there are too many misunderstandings of what I was trying to say to respond here.

The one recurring theme of criticism is my proposal that the government declare the IPCC as its ‘voice of authority’. Of course I am aware of the controversies involving the IPCC. I didn’t say the IPCC was always right. Indeed, how would I know? I am a humble physical chemist with the ability, I think, to read critically scientific literature from many disciplines. Years ago I realised that for me to contradict climate scientists on the basis of my reading vs. their reading of the data would be plain silly.

But that’s not the point here. I am proposing that a government should have a strategic climate policy instead of the present ad hoc approach (cut emissions a bit here, support a bit of new technology there, etc.) and that it should start with the scientific basis of its strategy. It could say that it didn’t believe in global warming, or that it did, or that it didn’t know. For the ‘believing’ option it could say that its source of science was for example the CSIRO, or our Bureau of Meteorology, or the UK Met Office, or one of the numerous US climate agencies – or the IPCC. The choice makes no practical difference to the policy. It simply eliminates ‘don’t believe’, or ‘don’t know’, or worst of all, the personal opinions around the Cabinet table, as the strategic driver of Australian policy. To me that’s a necessary first step for long term credibility of any policy. From a global perspective, I think there are advantages to plumping for the IPCC. It’s not that critical. Please don’t get hung up on it.

Tom Biegler,

I suggest you are focusing too much of your efforts on pushing for something that is politically unachievable. I suggest it is a wrong approach to be advocating for the government to endorse the IPCC’s ‘science’. Here are some of my reasons:

1. The government needs to deal with policy. It does not need to accept the IPCC reports to do this. The best approach is to implement ‘Robust Decision making’: http://judithcurry.com/2012/10/18/coping-with-deep-climate-uncertainty/ . Robust policies are policies that have a high probability of success under all likely scenarios.

2. Many people have lost confidence in the IPCC, so for the government to endorse it would antagonise those people and for no gain. It would not be helpful or politically smart for the government to do what you are wanting.

3. The information coming out of climate science that is needed for policy analysis is so uncertain it is near useless. The economic analyses needed for policy analysis are dependent on many inputs, including and especially climate sensitivity and the ‘damage function’. Both are so poorly known they make the outputs from the economic analyses little better than guesswork: http://www.globalwarming.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Pindyk-Climate-Change-Policy-What-Do-the-Models-Tell-Us.pdf

4. You are asking the government to endorse the IPCC’s ‘consensus’ position. But “Confidence levels inside and outside an argument” provides some insight as to why that might be unwise. It also shows why many intelligent and wise people outside the climate orthodoxy are cautious about accepting their position: http://judithcurry.com/2013/10/06/confidence-levels-inside-and-outside-an-argument/ >” [G]iving a very high level of confidence requires a check that you’re not confusing the probability inside one argument with the probability of the question as a whole.”

I suggest it would be far more valuable for those who lean towards the ‘progressive’ side of politics to put their efforts into trying to persuade Labor and the environmental NGO’s to change their position to support policies that are economically rational, ‘No Regrets’, based on ‘Robust Decision Making’ and to change from being anti-nuclear to pro-nuclear.

There is much to do. Let’s not waste our energies in futile advocacy that will achieve nothing and just continue the old divisions.