"If respected and authoritative thinkers like Hamilton withdraw their honorary support of OLO in protest at its editorial bent, who's going to read and participate in it other than tendentious nutters and wingnuts?"

This is my concern too. I've felt for a while that the ratio of ranters compared to serious contributors on OLO has been steadily increasing. This thread has only confirmed my worst fears.

The problem is, Graham, that your informed writers and posters are gradually falling away and the site is being taken over by the "tendentious nutters and wingnuts" as CJ has quite correctly coined them. Your increasingly skewed selection of material has encouraged them to an extent quite disproportionate to their capacity to usefully influence debate. I more often than not now find myself scrolling through more than I'm reading, which definitely wasn't the case when I first joined three years ago.

I'm all for free speech but it carries a responsibility. The responsibility in this debate is to future generations. It wouldn't have mattered how many years, or centuries even, the flat earthers argued their case. The length of time it took to convince people the earth was indeed round didn't affect the overall course of history one way or the other. The climate change debate is very different. We don't have the luxury of time to sit around and convince the doubters. The debate needs to move forward and concentrate on how best to manage the situation. That's the debate that OLO hasn't really caught up with yet.

It's been a great site, Graham, and is a real credit to your initiative and hard work. But the rot is setting in and needs attention.

Dear jpw2040,
No no no!
I think you have misread my comment completely. Look again! If you look carefully you will see that I am quoting from NorthWestShelf's previous comment on that thread. I was clarifying a point I had made previously.
Susan P - editor

Oh dear, sorry Susan. I missed the quotation mark.

I withdraw the assertion that you have confirmed a bias towards climate-change sceptics in published OLO articles.

Apologies to all for the misleading claim.

what Bronwyn said CJ said.

and jpw2040, you needn't apologize too profusely: the bias is blatant. susan and graham quietly and smugly pretending otherwise hardly adds to their credit.

The facts are no one knows for ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY what the outcome of introducing CO2 in such large quantity into the earth's atmosphere will do for the climate, This is because it has never happened before.

Scientist can guess what would happen, for example CO2 will trap heat in, and will at the same time prevent heat from the sun from getting in.

But it is like trying to predict what human will look like in 500 years? We have some evidence we will continue to grow taller, but we do not know what other conditions will change to make that not happen

There had been many incidence in the history of the planet where the planet had heated up or cooled considerably, and noone can explain how/why it happened, scientist and archeaologist thinks vocanic eruptions and Comet might happen, but again there is no ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY

That is why we do need debate, that is why we gets the alarmist's view, as well as the denialist's view. This is just science, and how science progresses scientists had been arguing for thousands of year, so this is nothing new.

At one stage the world was flat, if scientist does not allow debate on the subject, the world might still be flat, and it was not a scientist who proved the world is round. Debate is science, for Clive to not let people with a different view to him from speaking out on the subject is unfair.

On Line Opinion is, as it declares itself to be, “Opinion”

It does not condition that its “opinions” are restricted to

“Only those with proven scientific credentials” or
“Only those who hold a particular viewpoint”

I find it incredibly childish that, following a deluge of once “topical” articles

“In promotion of a view which endorses AGW”

Now that “Topicality” has swung, like the pendulum always does,

We have people like Clive Hamilton doing a dummy-spit and his acolytes whining on how the standards of OLO have supposedly declined because their one time omnipotence and monopoly of view is goes longer unchallenged - Oh how the cardinals must have felt to threatened by Galileo.

Upon reflection I recall several months ago commenting on the swing of the pendulum in the “nature of articles” and the affirmative response I received at the time from Susan, that things did so swing and “topicality”, as it is reflected in availability of product, naturally influenced the representation of articles.

No point in having an opinion sheet which does not reflect topical issues!

I also recall asking, several years ago why the list of articles did not include anything from such journalistic luminaries as Andrew Bolt and was advised, AB expects ‘pay’ for his contributions (so fair enough I guess the budgets of OLO do not extend to buying articles and the “On Line Opinion” content is restricted to those who are prepared to offer what they have for free).

I guess as we swing round to content quality, the best way for the standards of OLO to improve would be for those who find the whole idea of having to defend their declared viewpoint too hard or difficult is to simply stop posting and leave the expression of opinions to those who are prepared to accept and stand behind the challenge and testing of their view.

That way we will atleast no longer have to suffer the whining and hubris of the scientific and other elitist wannabes