The Deleted Portion of the Briffa Reconstruction « Climate Audit

Sawickipedia:

The notion of an “inconventient truth” applies well here.  The data isn’t a slam dunk, it’s messy, inconvenient and doesn’t at all point to a incontrovertible slam dunk.  Climatists would be better served saying as much. Honesty goes a lot further in the long run then scare-mongering (which works well in the shirt run til folks realize the emperor has no clothes).

The fact that politically the luddite environmentalist movement has leapt on this cause and hypotheses has hurt the original scientific concerns that if the planet warms up - things can happen to really screw mankind. The luddite environmentalists hate mankind and believe animals and plants are somehow purer and better.  They would love to see us leave the planet tomorrow and would say good riddance. Limiting development is a key part of their beliefs.

I don’t dispute for a second that a melting of the polar ice caps would hurt mankind.  The earth will be fine, the biosphere will recover as it has many times before from far worse, but mankind will be in a tough spot.  Can we do anything about it? Not sure.

Regardless of how one feels about climate change, the reality is still that the sooner we move our race away from carbon-based energy the better.  Why? Because carbon-based energy store extraction has likely peaked.  The fact that non-carbon is renewable and cleaner is all the better and gravy.

That all being said - should we make reasonable bets against the potential of man-caused climate change? Yes.  What’s a reasonable bet?  Now that’s a political question which will play itself out.  And given how messy the climate models and data seem to be turning out, the won’t be an easy discussion.