Jon Jenkins

This is the article that prompted my friend's comments and consequently my puny attempt at self-edification.

I had seen the article in my daily timber-based paper, skimmed a few lines and concluded 'so he's a skeptic, but not a climate specialist' and moved on. Sure the article contained some strident and emotive language, but I see this on both sides of the debate (although when I think about it, probably none of the name-callers were genuine climate scientists).

So that's the problem with most of the information that regular people get from the daily papers. They don't print peer-reviewed scientific papers because we wouldn't understand them. So we only get to read opinions. And those opinions are generally weighed by the reader's judgment of the author. So if I see someone like Philip Adams claiming - as he does - a deep understanding of climate science, or prattling on about another pet subject (which he is greatly in need of now without Howard and Bush to obsess him) I assume that the opposite of what he is saying is probably correct. To the lay person it's easy to conclude that - assuming there is doubt about the science - it's a pick and choose job. And from what it looks like, the Left always chooses Global Warming, the Right the opposite. The ideologies seem to suite the broad agendas of both sides: back to nature or endless exploitation. But that's just the politically aligned. Many of us aren't, and have an independent viewpoint on any particular subject. So my judgement of CAGW as simply a political position - where I put equal credence to both sides - is probably very lazy and decidedly naughty of me, so I'm trying to make amends.

Back to Jon Jenkins' article. Like I said, it didn't seem any more emotive or inflammatory that lots of other stuff I've read and heard on the subject. But having another look at it, I imagine if I were an experienced scientist who had conducted serious research, perhaps over many years, on the subject of AGW I'd be pretty damn pissed off to be simply labeled a fraud, creating bogus findings to feed my addiction to public money.

But... if the subject is so important to mankind's future, those who do understand what the scientists are doing with their modeling should drop the strategy of simply dismissing such articles and go through the tedium of methodically refuting each and every such article they consider to be misleading.

UPDATE: Fortunately, upon reading the Australian today I see this is happening. Jenkins got feedback of a calibre which he probably didn't deserve.

Anyway, the scientists may have convinced themselves, but - while the general public seems to implicitly accept CAGW, things might change when it starts hitting their pockets - they still need to work on the voters. And since they don't have the resources of mineral giants to hire PR firms, they're simply going to have to build up public trust brick by brick.

That means getting dummies like me on side, not by saying "Shut up! The debate's over!" or "There's a consensus!", even though that may be strictly correct. The rest of us don't really know that, and don't like to be told what to think.