I fully agree that the climate realists lost the PR battle some time back and a need to reduce carbon concetrnations in the atmosphere was created. but once you get past the fact that we are basing decisions to spend billions of dollars on a bunch of unvalidated computer models, the debate becomes, if possible, even stranger.
The UK engineers may have pie in the sky solutions, but the one now being widely adopted - the use of renewables in electricity networks - may have no effect at all on reducing emissions. The judgement from those who have to incorporate renewables on networks overseas is clear, see report from E.On Gmbh
http://www.wind-watch.org/documents/wind-report-2004
and various reports the UK's Royal Association of Engineers, and those are just a sample. The evidence is overwhelming that wind is nearly useless for reducing emissions, but this very strong consensus has been ignored.
For that matter there is also a consensus that on any rational analysis, and assuming that the earth will warm substantially, there is no economic case for trying to reduce emissions. Almost the sole contradictory voice of any authority is Nicholas Stern. The money should be spent on mitigation, rather than trying to reduce CO2, which is proving impossible anyway.
The debate is degenerated into activist-driven madness where we will spend billions to achieve virtually no result. The report by the UK engineers is the least of our troubles.

Rowan Cross makes some good points, but he does not appear to practise what he preaches. He is correct in saying that informed debate should precede any spending of public funds, but the problem is that governments have jumped on the greenhouse gas reduction bandwagon on false political grounds. They do not have any scientific or economic justification for implementing such policies.
If he had done his homework, he would discover that there is no irrefutable scientific evidence to support anthropogenic climate change. The environmental-activist-dominated IPCC has been able to bluff politicians, the media and the misinformed with mere assertion, complemented by unvalidated alarmist computer modelling. The IPCC has failed to explain actual climate history. For example, it was unable to explain why there was a cooling trend from 1940 to 1975, and why there has been a cooling trend since 1998 despite increasing greenhouse gas emissions, and it has failed to predict the El Nino and La Nina effects.
The socalled climate change denialists ( an emotive misnomer -- they are in fact realists who recognise that climate change is not man-made) must continue to oppose the irrational behaviour and decisions of governments who assert that they can control climate change.

"Whether climate change is real or not is irrelevant ...
....
The climate denialists have lost the battle..."

Saying that is an impudence.

We need to stick our heads in the sand, not listen any more and push ahead, do you mean that?

If it is irrelevant we could as well do nothing.

It's wonderful that OLO provides equal opportunity for climate change deniers. However I'm not one of them since 2009 in much of Tasmania has been both the hottest and wettest year recorded. That gives me a teensy weensy suspicion that the climate is changing.

I think a distinction needs to be made between rent seekers who want to amuse themselves with pointless experiments and those who might be on to something. Recall the Minister for Silly Walks in Monty Python. For example some back of the envelope calculations suggest carbon capture and storage could not work on an adequate scale for coal fired emissions. The experimenters still got millions in government money. On the other hand nonvolcanic geothermal might just work but some practical difficulties need to be verified. In that case public funding may be justified even if it doesn't lead to success. Some mothballed ideas (eg fuel cell car engines) might have to be revisited because the relative economics has changed. Therefore I think it would be prudent for the funding bodies to state their reasons for granting or declining funds and see how well they hold up to public scrutiny.

Taswegian - I don't think the term "deniers" means that people deny climate changes - no one does that, the reference to "deniers" is to people who "deny" that man is contributing to climate change.

I'm skeptical of man's contribution to climate change, and I have no fear of climate change - in fact, bring it on, it's part of the essence of life to enjoy the challenges of change.

Mind you there seems to be a lot of people who are just downright terrified of change, climate or otherwise who want the world to remain exactly as it was .. well I'm guessing sometime in the last 30 years, when it was apparently "perfect".

We should spend money adapting, not trying to stop or reverse the climate changing. I can't believe the arrogance of people who truely believe we, motes on the surface of this planet, can change climate at will.

You will see here bullying, exaggeration, flaming, name calling and all manner of attempts to stop debate or even conversation or opinion, by people I'm sure will tell you they are open minded, they just hate other people's opinions.

Most of the climate change high priests are just sprouting their religion using pseudo science to justify their ridiculous and failed predictions. We spent millions on the cooling problem the High Priests predicted in the 70's and 80's and now billions on the next lot of outragous claims. This religion even makes the Catholic church look good with its ridiculous spending and heretical statements. I wonder what the next dogma will be when people get sick of the rhetoric of man made climate change. Bring it on I for one am sick of this one.