I’m not anti-nuclear. But to say we either have a crisis and therefore need it or we don’t have a crisis and therefore don’t seems simplistic. You’re discounting all other forms of non fossil fuel energy generation, or which there are many. It may be possible to provide our energy needs from other non fossil fuel sources without nuclear power. But then it may not. You seem to know absolutely that we need nuclear power to provide our energy. Maybe you’re right. But I don’t have the numbers. Prove it to me. Give me the figures for potential energy supply from all possible sources, broken down by sector and including considerations of technical feasibility. I need to see a detailed budget for different configurations of energy supply based on different combinations of sources, with and without nuclear. And I’d want to see cited, reputable sources for the figures and other information. Maybe you should get a six year old to compile all this for you if you’re too busy. All I’ve had from you are assertions, and they don’t constitute evidence. It may be that we can’t produce the energy we need without nuclear, but the case has not been made as far as I can see. I will say that the history of nuclear power in the UK is one of (thankfully mostly minor) accidents, cover ups and the nuclear industry lying to the public, and the nuclear industry here was founded on government manipulation of data to make it look more cost effective than wave power (Salter’s Duck was the wave power technology in question), because the government wanted nuclear for other reasons. However, the French generate some 70 per cent of their energy from nuclear, and have done so for decades without any major screw ups that I’m aware of (and I’m not expert on the nuclear industry). So if we need nuclear then fine with me, as long as we get the French to run it and not the British.

I think your tone is rather hysterical – sorry about that, I really am. You accuse me of name calling and bile, while at the same time calling me a slimeball, idiot and hypocrite. Sure the blog post was written with a degree of anger, which was generated by a specific episode of anti-scientific propaganda in the form a documentary called “The Great Global Warming Swindle”, which has been roundly demolished, and for which the broadcaster in question was taken to task by the media regulators here in the UK for misleading the public. I don’t know you from Adam, so can hardly be singling you out. The offence has been taken by you as much as (if not more than) given by me. Having said that, I’ve seen no evidence of analysis on your side, only assertion and name calling.

It’s ironic that the position you seem to be trumpeting is one that comes from an association of science with environmentalism, (presumably) liberalism and socialism and god knows what other evils. I see no evidence of dogma in the science, but lots on the side of the “sceptics”. An unfortunate word as scepticism is good. Refusal to accept scientific evidence and to adhere to views of the world that are not supported by evidence (except dodgy evidence cooked up by ideologically driven vested interests) goes beyond scepticism to irrationality. The fact that I use phrases such as “likely to be problematic” should be indicative of a cautious approach that acknowledges uncertainty. I don’t know precisely what the impacts of climate change are going to be, but science gives us some good clues as to the types of impacts we should expect. I think it will be problematic, but all this is based on reasoned interpretation of the evidence, not on revealed truth. The “sceptics” always seem so absolutely certain, and that should be indication enough that they’re drive by dogma.

We can certainly disagree about likely amplitudes of change (although the evidence points towards something in the region of a 3 degree C rise for a doubling of CO2 equivalent, and this appears increasingly well cosntrained, altough not without uncertainty), and about the extent to which the impacts of climate change are likely to be problematic. But I thought you were arguing that it’s not happening at all. That certainly seems to be the implication from your angry reaction to my criticism of those who state that anthropogenic climate change is a hoax. It’s basic physics that CO2 and the other gases of concern serve to trap outgoing longwave radiation (heat, in other words) in the atmosphere. We know human activities generate these gases. We’ve been measuring their build up in the atmosphere. We measured an increase in global mean surface temperature, and if you don’t trust the temperature measurements themselves you have all sorts of other proxies such as changes in seasonality, melting ice sheets and glaciers, changes in extremes and precipitation intensity, heating of the deeper oceans outside the range of natural variability, and so on. The sun plays a role in climate variability, but we can’t explain recent changes in terms of solar activity. There are other suggestions such as cosmic rays, but these are unproven. We have a highly plausible mechanism – in fact the only mechanism that is scientifically watertight, and people such as yourself are telling us that we need to find another mechanism because that of anthropogenic warming is unacceptable. Perhaps you could let me know why you find it unacceptable.

Historical temperature data are indeed problematic to process and interpret. That’s why an awful lot of effort goes into processing them. You can read about the methodologies used in any number of papers (some references at the end – rapidly pulled so not covering all the datasets used in establishing warming trends). I tried your link (surfacestation.org) and just got a standard filler page that crops up when looking for a site that doesn’t exist. Some of my links need to be updated – the article that set you off was written quite some time ago. I don’t go back and manage ancient posts as a rule.

I hope I’ve gone at least some way towards engaging with what you’re writing. But it’s difficult to engage with someone who’s just posting assertions and personal abuse. I’m happy to engage on certain specific issues if you give me some argument to engage with, but assertions and name calling aren’t going to draw me in to a lengthy discussion. You talk about debate and asking questions, but you haven’t asked me any serious questions, just rhetorical ones worded as put-downs. And if the personal abuse doesn’t stop I might just kill your comments. Although if it gets really bad I’ll probably approve them as a demonstration of hysteria and irrationality in the contrarian camp. Up to you.

Brohan, P., J.J. Kennedy, I. Harris, S.F.B. Tett and P.D. Jones, 2006: Uncertainty estimates in regional and global observed temperature changes: a new dataset from 1850. J. Geophysical Research 111, D12106, doi:10.1029/2005JD006548

Hofstra, N., M. New, C. McSweeney and M. Haylock (2009). “The influence of interpolation and station network density on the distributions and trends of climate variables in gridded daily data.” Climate Dynamics: in press.

Hofstra, N., M. Haylock, M. New and P. D. Jones (2009). “Testing E-OBS European high-resolution gridded data set of daily precipitation and surface temperature.” J. Geophys. Res. 114.

Haylock, M. R., N. Hofstra, A. M. G. Klein Tank, E. J. Klok, P. D. Jones, et al. (2008). “A European daily high-resolution gridded data set of surface temperature and precipitation for 1950-2006.” J. Geophys. Res. 113. [Online Reprint].

There is no need to be “dogmatic” about nuclear power: either we have a crisis and must have it, or we have no crisis and we don’t. This is simple observation that any six-year old could do, but apparently not you or your type.

“You’re inferring all this from the simple fact that I argue…” You do nothing of the sort. You impute ignorance and ill-will to anyone such as I who might dare to ask a simple question that challenges your dogma. Your screed contains not a single scintilla of rationality, only name calling and bile. You flatly state that people such as I are “unburdened by analysis” and in the next breath accuse *me* of “hysteria”. Once again: hysteria, no–disgust at anti-intellectual slime such as yourself, guilty guilty guilty.

“the science is real, it all points to anthropogenic climate change that’s likely to be problematic” “*Likely* to be *problematic*”. What the HELL do you mean by THAT? If idiots such as you would simply acknowledge that reasonable people can disagree about what the evidence says about the amplitude of *likely* and the definition of *problematic* then there would be no problem at all. But that is impossible for dogmatic brain-dead jackboot drones such as yourself.

Mars: your search skills are crap. Your link is broken, so I just searched the site for “mars” and found one that told me what an idiot I am. It wasn’t hard, so try again, goofball.

Go ahead and repeat yourself over and over again without addressing a single issue I raised. Here is another one for you: a quick glance at the evidence over at surfacestation.org will demonstrate to any reasonable person just how crappy the historical temprature data is. That being the case, how can anyone purport to rest a scientific argument on that data without also wearing a beanie with a propeller on top? Tough one, I know, but I have all the confidence in the world that you can work out yet another idiotic evasion.

The Polisario isn’t a tribe, but a grouping of tribes (sure some will pull more weight than others) – it’s a “front” not a party. There is even dissent within it.

I’d love to see the Moroccans have the freedom that I hope the Sahrawi will one day have, and not just them but all people in the world. However, here I’m concerned with Western Sahara – freedom for the Sahrawi shouldn’t preclude freedom for anyone else.

Not everyone who disagrees with you has to be paid to do so. That’s a very egocentric belief.

On the nuclear power issue I’m simply saying that I haven’t put the time in to review all the studies of its viability, cost, or whether or not we can power our societies without. For me its an open question and one I’m very happy not to have a dogmatic opinion about. It’s not my field and I’m happy to trust good scientists who know the subject (not industry lobbyists or viscerally anti-nuclear environmental campaigners) to assess these issues. I don’t know the details of whether we could fuel the world entirely using biomass, wave power or dogshit – these are questions for people involved in energy policy and technology. That doesn’t mean I can’t talk about what I do know about, which is the science of climate change and how people have responded to it in the past (yes, it’s happened before – shock horror).

One very important point. Could you please point out where I have advocated “confiscation of private wealth all over the world”? Could you also point out where I have advocated any specific policies aimed at curtailing individual liberties, or indeed any specific policies at all? You’re inferring all this from the simple fact that I argue that all the scientific evidence points to a human impact on the global climate that might be problematic, and that I take issue with the lobbyists who for ideological, economic, or personal reasons spend a huge amount of time, effort, and money trying to persuade the world that the scientific process is actually a massive conspiracy designed to keep scientists on the gravy train, usher in a global socialist/fascist (delete as appropriate) order, or any other number of lunatic theories. My main beef is with people who think ideology and personal preference is a good basis for evaluating evidence. I’d also like an explanation as to why I’m irrational and anti-scientific. As someone who thinks they’re better at evaluating evidence than I am this shouldn’t be a problem for you.

You seem to have missed the entire point of the article, the message of which is that the science is real, it all points to anthropogenic climate change that’s likely to be problematic, and, er that’s it. Deal with it. What society does with the information is not up to me, or scientists at large. The title explicitly alluded to the fact that I don’t care what we do about it. Frankly, I’m past caring, as I don’t see any reason to believe that we’ll do what’s necessary to avoid it. The point of the article is that science and advocacy are two different things. I’m more annoyed by the relativism of those who think personal opinions based on ideology and vested interests should have equal weight to scientific evidence than I am by the prospect of climate-driven societal disruption. This is because I believe people should be allowed to make informed decisions based on the evidence, not on who spends the most on lobbying. Science can tell us what’s going on with the climate (in a general sense – there are a lot of uncertainties when it comes to the detail of future projections, especially at the regional scale). It doesn’t tell us how to respond. That depends on our priorities and our attitude to risk. Responses are not going to be determined by scientists.

While we’re at it, I believe that the Martian warming story discusses how the waxing and waning of the polar caps on Mars is driven by changes in Mars’ orbital motion, as is the case here on Earth. Greenhouse gases aren’t the only things that affect climate, they just happens to be one of the factors changing most rapidly at present as a result of human activity. You’re right about the dust though – the impacts are complex and it results in cooling and/or warming, depending on its size, vertical distribution, and reflectivity relative to the underlying surface. But I don’t think dust was the issue here.

If only we could assess the degree of scientific consensus with quick google searches – that would be wonderful. I hope it wasn’t so quick that you didn’t have time to judge the credibility of the sources. Anyone with a blog (hey, including me) can voice an opinion on a scientific issue, whether they’re informed or not.

You claim to be a reasonably intelligent person who asks questions. Perhaps you should be asking questions rather than calling people who work in the field you claim to have an intelligent, objective interest in slimeballs, idiots and hypocrites. And I don’t get the hypocrite bit – could you unpick that a bit more for me? Is it because I have an opinion different from your own?

As for those thousand refutations of the science underpinning the consensus in the scientific community about climate change, I look forward to reading them (although not all at once). Don’t expect a point by point response, as those of us working in this field could spend all our lives responding to half-baked wishful thinking from sceptics. Chances are I’ve read them before, along with the counter refutations. But feel free to go ahead. I look forward to being proved wrong – if you have all this new information that undermines the scientific consensus on climate change (that is, the consensus among people who actually research the topic), you should really be sharing it with us.

Maybe something will come along that overturns our current understanding of the climate and factors that cause it to change. Maybe warming will indeed be reversed (the slow-down over the past few years is hardly conclusive and consistent with natural climate variability). If so I’ll go with the evidence. But right now warming due to greenhouse gas emissions is the best explanation for what we seeing happening to the climate, and at a fundamental it’s grounded in basic physics even before you get to all the modelling and sensitivity studies. It’s simply the best model we have of what’s going on in the world, and that’s what science is about – not dogma or belief.