Welcome to 2013.
- Steve McIntyre is posting about FOIA requests to the University of East Anglia.
- Bishop Hill is scolding the UK Met Office about weather vs. climate predictions
- Real Climate is defending their pessimistic view of atmospheric sensitivity and potential sea level rises
- Over at Stoat, William (‘call me Doctor William’) Connelly is predictably posting about William Connelly
- At Rabett Run, Josh Halpern is hiding behind the skirts of MathBabe to accuse skeptics of the crimes of which he and many other climate bloggers are guilty.
And over at Planet 3, next to an award for journalistic horribleness given to David Rose of the UK Daily Mail, is the most honest headline in the climate change blogosphere on January 11, 2013: “Nothing New on the Global Warming Front“.
The Lukewarmer's Way 
It’s a depressing mess for sure and some of us are absolutely sick of it. What the hello is it about the topic of climate change that drives this kind of stuff, wonder those of us who’ve wandered in from other fields.
I for one appreciate what you appear to be trying to do Tom.
Thank you, Jim. I’ve followed your comments elsewhere for a long time and appreciate your kind words. Any suggestions?
I wish I had some special insight Tom, but alas, no. I’ve tried to learn not to waste my limited supply of time and energy on people who just want to argue or promote a viewpoint, regardless of what “side” they are on, and instead put it towards understanding the science, which is complex and difficult. But neither am I willing to be quiet or back down if I discover problems with the existing science, which I have, nor to confront those whose motives or science I don’t trust.
I have no idea why that link is connected to my name btw. The correct link is here:
http://ecologicallyoriented.wordpress.com/
When you first started this blog someone posted that we should discuss what can be done here that isn’t being done elsewhere. I have a few observations.
1. When other blogs mentioned non co2 climate effects they did it to bash CAGW. Since Pielke retired his blog no one is pursuing these effects as if they were the real problem (and he didn’t take comments).
2..I wish the environmentalists here (and I consider myself one) would comment on what they think will happen to environmentalism, environmental science, and science in general if the temperature doesn’t jump up or even turns down.
3. Is climate science really any different than other sciences or is it the amount of money at stake in the policies it drives?
” Is climate science really any different than other sciences or is it the amount of money at stake in the policies it drives?”
Let’s back up 10 years or so and look at potential workable policy solutions.
1) Very expensive solar panels
2) Windfarms
3) CCGT with no idea where we would get enough gas
4) Gen 3 nuclear reactors that had some potential problems
that many would be concerned with.
It would be quite rational to conclude that the only way to address ‘climate change’ would be a substantial decrease in current standard of living.
A debate as to how much we should sacrifice current standard of living against the possibility of lower future standards of living is surely going to be loud and emotional. I don’t know anyone who believes that their own personal standard of living is currently too high. Lot’s of people will claim the standard of living of others is too high!!!
The price of solar panels has gone down. We know how to get as much gas as we need and that debate is over environmental impacts of fracking vs not fracking.
GenIII+ nuclear power plants that address many of the concerns people had with Gen II plants(not all of them) are under construction. The Chinese have a Gen IV plant under construction, the prototype successfully demonstrated a 100% loss of coolant with control rods out accident without meltdown.
We also have commercial demonstration projects underway as to how to utilize our coal resource in a more ‘environmentally friendly’ way and have made great strides in more efficient heating and cooling equipment.
As with all wars…there has never been a shortage of people who spend inordinate amounts of time ‘re-fighting the last war’.
We don’t have to have a discussion as to whether or not we need to accept substantially lower standards of living anymore. We should probably be having a discussion about what tradeoffs we are willing to accept in order to achieve the lifestyle we all aspire to at the least impact on the environment.
By the way Harry, at first I thought your 3 mile island comment was a little odd, but then I realized that I haven’t believed the official story of Chernobyl for a least 10 years.
Marty,
“I realized that I haven’t believed the official story of Chernobyl for a least 10 years.”
I pretty much assume that most of the ‘truth’ from the cold war era should be taken with a really big grain of salt. Just too many missing facts that won’t be know for another 30-40 years.