James Painter has an amusing article in The Conversation, the left-wing campaigning website paid for by your taxes.
In it he writes about certainty and uncertainty in the global warming debate and takes issue with Nigel Lawson's appearance on the Today programme (along with just about every other left-wing campaigning academic it seems).
Framing the climate challenge as risk assessment has been gaining considerable traction among some politicians. Lawson’s response to the question was to argue that even if there is a problem of global warming, it will have only marginal effects.
It is worth asking how he can be so certain of this low likelihood, what his level of confidence is and on what science it is based. This is what would be required by any risk assessment: he would have to show how he had come to this risk evaluation and why he was so confident in it, when so many other scientists are saying the impact could be huge. In any case, merely saying “nobody knows” doesn’t make his case.
You would think that someone with the luxury of an academic position, someone with the time to read and read and read, would actually have taken the time to discover what sceptics think about climate sensitivity rather than just writing and writing and writing about his ignorance on the subject.
He could start here. Oh yes, and watch this space on Thursday for some interesting developments on this front.