"Kill the IPCC"

Well said, Judith Curry.

The New Environmentalism. "Battle of Ideas".

why deniers are wrong

Whoops! Got the wrong IPCC. Completely

Bloody acronyms.

Judith Curry.

Judith Curry, the balance.

Please explain what Curry denies, aka. I should have a look at her website first if I were you, and not believe prejudiced writing about her.

Or anyone else, for that matter.

Please also define "deniers". The range of scepticism on issues of climate science is very large.

@curryja: The IPCC isn't doing science; its just saying its models are correct.

Bags I'm familiar with the blogs etc of Judith Curry and she lacks credibility for me since her Murry Selby attack a couple of years ago.

I can tell you feel very strongly about this but please do not accuse me of prejudice (an adverse judgment or opinion formed beforehand or without knowledge or examination of the facts) as you have no idea what knowledge I have in this area.

What a fascinating discussion this thread has engendered. I read the first Judith Curry column and the thing that worried me was, that although she put forward very cogent reasons for killing the IPCC, she did not put forward any suggestions for an alternative drawing together of investigations into changes in climate, just a free for all.

Opting for a free for all is a very good way of destroying a group saying uncomfortable truths when you have been unable to bring forward any arguments to refute their statements. With no central organisation acting as a spokesperson for the issue involved everyone can just ignore it and pretend it isn't there.

Nevertheless the climate change discussions do seem to have been reduced to a playground battle, like two teams of 8 year old boys all shouting that their daddies are bigger stronger than their opponents daddies. Not a good way of carrying out any argument, least of all one as important as this.

The real problem is that climate change has become almost entirely a political issue with Greens and other environmentalists seeing in climate change the bandwagon unifying issue and Doomsday scenario they had been lacking to hold the many fissiparous environmental groups together and to justify their desire to turn the world back to some mythical rural idyll where we all knitted our own bread and wove our own jerkins. On the other side those who believe in developing new technologies and expanding world affluence have found climate denying a good way of hitting back at all environmentalists on all fronts all at once.

This is where the new environmentalism as discussed in the article may take us forward. The acceptance that we now live in the anthropocine , an era where it is accepted that it is man that shapes the earth. A time when, as archaeologists and anthropologist have known for years, that most of the earth's surface is a human construct and that all the wild places 'untouched by human hand' are as much man-made as any cityscape, is commonly accepted. It means looking to technology to provide solutions to environmental problems and accepting that we must look for ways for sustainably growth for those countries still in relative poverty

...I wondered why you wanted to kill the Independent Police Complaints Committee..........

Excellent post, flick. Except that those in favour of humankind continuing to extend its use of science and technology to improve the human condition (expand affluence is your term) do not deny climate change. They are as aware of it as any catastrophist. They just have a different, and in my view better, approach to dealing with it in favour of adaptation – the same approach as evolution by natural selection. Well, not quite the same, but I find that a useful way of thinking about it.

Another way I think about it is that the catasptrophists are pessimists and the adaption-favourers are optimists. I'm on the optimistic side. The catastrophists are on the slippery slope side.

I'm not sure I agree that killing the useless megalith IPCC will cause a free for all. There is plenty of networking between groups of scientists on this as on any other subject of scientific research Though, of course, it's not one subject but many.

I like this tweet

Stop labelling people it's not going to win you any respect.

Look at it as retaliation towards those who keep spitting on about deniers.

If you call some people deniers, you have no right to object to others using labels too, though I accept your point about labelling. I hadn't really thought that thinking of a standpoint as pessimistic or optimistic was labelling, but I suppose it is.

However, it is a labelling of viewpoints rather than people.

So how do you, with whatever knowledge you have, define 'denier', in this context? That's not an unreasonable question to ask. I was taught that defining terms was important to help understanding.

I'm not a believer in stating the obvious. If I enter into a discussion I expect a certain standard of debate and that those taking part in the debate have a basic understanding of the subject matter, the vocabularly specific to that subject and are able to put forward their own point of view objectively.
Consequently I'm leaving this thread as I find none of the above apply.

... and one of the reasons why I have not joined in thus far! Aka
An acceptance of the fact that global warming is occuring, that we (people) need to consider how we can prevent it's acceleration does NOT make me a 'catastrophist'.

I came across the term catastrophic global warming quite regularly in my reading on the subject in the past. That's why I used the term. Admittedly, I haven't seen it much recently. I apologise for using the term of people, though I know there are people who think that climate change will be catastrophic for humanity if we don't cut carbon dioxide emissions.

I still would like to know what is the definition of "climate change denier" when it is used on gransnet. I am not a climate change denier (not saying anyone called me one, btw) and I don't know anyone (or even of anyone, personally) who is. I do know a number of people who incline to the "new environmentalism" of the article I linked to at the start of the thread.

I think there probably do exist people who deny that climate change happens, just as there are people who deny that the world is ~4.5 billion years old, but these are a tiny minority and not involved in the discussion here so I wondered why the term was used.

My feelings exactly, OGM. Thanks for saving me the bother of having to express them!

So you see, aka, it is not obvious to me whether you mean an actual denier of climate change even though it obviously is happening and has happened and will happen, or if you mean someone who is not convinced that rising CO2 levels will be catastrophic for humanity. I can guess what you mean but I cannot know unless you define your term.

I have at least tried to define my terms and explain my thinking, even if I haven't been very successful.