Bishop Hill IPCC hides the good news
Mar 6, 2014 Climate: sensitivity From GWPF:
A new report published by the Global Warming Policy Foundation shows that the best observational evidence indicates our climate is considerably less sensitive to greenhouse gases than climate models are estimating.
The clues for this and the relevant scientific papers are all referred to in the recently published Fifth Assessment report (AR5) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). However, this important conclusion was not drawn in the full IPCC report – it is only mentioned as a possibility – and is ignored in the IPCC's Summary for Policymakers (SPM).
For over thirty years climate scientists have presented a range for climate sensitivity (ECS) that has hardly changed. It was 1.5-4.5°C in 1979 and this range is still the same today in AR5. The new report suggests that the inclusion of recent evidence, reflected in AR5, justifies a lower observationally-based temperature range of 1.25–3.0°C, with a best estimate of 1.75°C, for a doubling of CO2. By contrast, the climate models used for projections in AR5 indicate a range of 2-4.5°C, with an average of 3.2°C.
This is one of the key findings of the new report Oversensitive: how the IPCC hid the good news on global warming, written by independent UK climate scientist Nic Lewis and Dutch science writer Marcel Crok. Lewis and Crok were both expert reviewers of the IPCC report, and Lewis was an author of two relevant papers cited in it.
In recent years it has become possible to make good empirical estimates of climate sensitivity from observational data such as temperature and ocean heat records. These estimates, published in leading scientific journals, point to climate sensitivity per doubling of CO2 most likely being under 2°C for long-term warming, with a best estimate of only 1.3-1.4°C for warming over a seventy year period.
“The observational evidence strongly suggest that climate models display too much sensitivity to carbon dioxide concentrations and in almost all cases exaggerate the likely path of global warming,” says Nic Lewis.
These lower, observationally-based estimates for both long-term climate sensitivity and the seventy-year response suggest that considerably less global warming and sea level rise is to be expected in the 21st century than most climate model projections currently imply.
“We estimate that on the IPCC’s second highest emissions scenario warming would still be around the international target of 2°C in 2081-2100,” Lewis says.
The full report is here.
Bishop Hill
Piers Forster has penned a response at Ed Hawkins' Climate Lab Book site.
Reader Comments (155)
lapogus, let's be sensible. No-one mentioned dying!
Reply to Morph: Mar 6, 2014 at 8:55 AM
See Table 3 of the report. States the expected warming for their best estimate of TCR for each scenario. RCP 8.5 (which our emissions are currently tracking) is 2.1K above 2012 temperatures by 2081-2100 (effectively 2090). So, 2.1K in 78 years, or 2.9K from pre-industrial.
Ed.
Monty, there is some truth in that, I don't believe there's any mileage in denying it. When I first became interested in scepticism years ago, many (perhaps most?) vocal 'skeptics' were outright denying everything, denying there is a temperature rise, denying CO2 emissions, denying it was anthro, etc etc. It was not a position I shared, and I hope I've done my bit here by convincing a few people that the earlier extreme positions are not scientifically tenable.
But things have moved on a lot in that time. This site has always been a lukewarmer site as long as I've used it. Steve McIntyre has always been a vocal lukewarmer, Watts is a lukewarmer. For at least five years, and possibly longer, MAINSTREAM climate scepticism has been lukewarmer. (Listens for screams from the gallery.. no?)
Unfortunately, the climate science community hasn't noticed this - they still think they are fighting the big-oil bible bashers they encountered years ago at the start. But we drummed them out of the house years ago. We still get the odd slayer and such like, we don't do hard-line policing here, but the general sceptical 'consensus' (if you like) is of lukewarming but with disagreement on the causes and magnitudes.
It has been this way a long time. We get annoyed when you still identify us as the mouth-frothers. They're long gone. Also the implications that "at last" "small mercies" we've been dragged into this position is also laughable. We've been here for years, we got here by ourselves, you just didn't notice.
Gradually reducing and soon it will hit the jackpot of 0C. Which is the truth since CO2 has no effect on climate/temperature, it is temperature that drives CO2 levels. Solar activity is getting the attention it demands as the real climate driver.
You can cherry pick one number from one table, as Ed does, or you can read the conclusion of the report,
"The IPCC process of being ‘comprehensive’ allows the authors to stay away from the clear statement that we have made in this report, namely that the best evidence suggests climate sensitivity is close to the reduced, 1.5◦C, lower bound"
Steve, yes, lets be sensible. I will stick to displacement. Will 150 million climate refugees be enough?
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2009/nov/03/global-warming-climate-refugees
Hi TBYJ.
Thanks for your post. Yes, the only real debate I would argue is whether ECS is low or high and, if the latter, whether this would be 'dangerous'. My position is that ECS can't be low otherwise we have a real problem explaining the paleoclimate record. I also believe that the earth system responses we have seen in response to 0.8C means that 2C or more would indeed be 'dangerous'.
Lewis is arguing that even with 'low' TCR we still get over 2C by 2100. So even the 'lukewarmer' position is arguably alarming.
However, my point remains. There are still a large number of nutty skeptics who deny the basics of climate science. Anyone who looks at WUWT or Judith Curry's site can see that!
Hi TBYJ.
The next post after yours by John Marshall makes my point admirably!
I look forward to all the criticisms of him. I'm not holding my breath though.
RichieRich
I wasn't disputing that there is a need (now) to argue that 2° isn't dangerous. What I am saying is essentially what Bitter & Twisted is saying, that the 2° figure — like the others I quoted — has been plucked from thin air to suit a political agenda.Nobody has yet provided evidence that 2° is likely to be dangerous except the catastrophiliacs and as Phillip Bratby points out, take out the positive feedback and the whole scam falls apart anyway.
Monty
Indeed we should. And no, I am not "new" to the internet and nor is Steve Jones but I'm not sure where you have been the last few years. Not listening to what sceptics actually say, that's for certain.This is effectively a CO2 alone effect suggesting that hypothetical feedbacks are in fact imaginary. The work I did with Clive Best on changing UK cloud cover came of with 1.3˚C for TCR. Without feedbacks, TCR = ECS (I think).
UK temperatures since 1956 - physical models and interpretation of temperature change
If CO2 has increased over the last 17 years but temperature has stayed the same, surely climate is not sensitive to increase at CO2 at these concentrations? Surely we need to look at actual temperatures over since the last Ice Age and see if there are any problems. The approach of comparing temperature to a period of 1961 to 1991 is confusing. What is needed is to plot actual temperatures.
We then need to plot temperatures over the last 600M years.
Monty
What are the basics of climate science and where have they been tested?
In particular the CO2 contribution?
Until you have this data and how it was collected you don't have anything. Any opinion about it is a philosophical one, perfectly fine for theoretical discussions and papers but not something that will drive industrial policy for the UK.
That is reckless.
Quite a few people on here extrapolate theory into reality without any evidence. Or use the idea of "if you don't have an alternative current theory must be correct".
Monty,
Every thread here gets a sprinkling of off-beat theorising, we don't police it. What matters is the main article and the 'consensus' of replies, which are all for the most part sensible, if a little irritable. You won't see a rebuttal of these odd posts, because it would clutter up the threads. We do kick lumps out of them in the Discussions pages, though.
Don't judge us by the outliers, or indeed read anything into our lack of contradicting them. Life is too short.
Hi TBYJ
Another one from 'Micky H Corbett'.
Seems that there are a few more scientifically illiterate 'skeptics' than you imagined....
“Now it seems pretty much everyone agrees that this level of warming is on the cards, we need to assess the implications of this to help figure out what to do.”
Mar 6, 2014 at 1:14 AM Richard Betts
In 1988 there was the call that we faced imminent CO2 disaster. A great many images and stories have been fashioned for that level of doom mongering. Evidence was presented that enhanced that perception of impending doom (hockey stick, CO2 and temperature in ‘lock step’ graph, etc) and only sidelined, not declaimed, when they proved to be incorrect. Weather events, that the science says are probably almost entirely natural, are used as evidence of ongoing disaster. Those who were convinced we faced unimaginable catastrophe have run round like headless chickens and demanded we act the same way. A great deal of money is being spent on schemes that are unlikely to work but those in control of the money think that they have to try anything because of the urgency of the issue. Those who asked for caution and better evidence were, and are, treated like pariahs.
When is your side going to agree on a figure as low as this and illustrate it as the most likely scenario? Or will you continue to use the potential outcomes of much higher sensitivity values to goad everyone into action? When are you going to educate politicians in the possibilities for a lower sensitivity values and rebuke them for going beyond the science? Have you entertained the potential for naturally falling temperatures and the benefits of CO2 keeping temperatures higher? Would such a possibility be complete news for governments around the world?
Every plan is geared towards the worst case scenario. Until sensitivity is on the tongues of government ministers I won't believe they have been fully informed and we can't "assess the implications of this to help figure out what to do.”
Monty, I'm interested why you think it is important that we contradict people here? We are commenting on the thread not on each other. In the past, we have tried the approach (MDGNN, AlecM, etc al) of countering fly-by nonsense, but it really does detract from a thread, and the Bish would end up getting angry and asking us to take it to a Discussion thread, so we don't do it any more.
This board is not meant to be a repository of truth, it's not a reference manual for official sceptics, we have no party line to keep pure - it's just a rag bag of people from a wide spectrum of beliefs who find themselves on the opposite side from the mainstream consensus. We usually disagree with each other as much, or even more than we disagree with the Manns and Hansens of the world. The consensus here is just one of coinciding beliefs out of a disparate population, it's not a policy policed by a hit-squad of know-it-alls.
We get all sorts here, we are not defined by the outliers un less you choose to do so.
Monty
Sticks and stones. You didn't answer the question.
When you find it be sure to tell Patrick Moore.
Euan Kearns
At present TCR is probably around half ECS for the CO2 added so far. CO2 is still increasing and there is no sign that we are getting any closer to equilibrium. TCR will increase, but remain a long way below ECS until CO2 concentrations stabilise and there is opportunity for them to converge.
Re: Monty,
I always considered those that rigorously defended the hockey stick to be the real climate change "deniers" as they effectively denied that climate ever changed, over 1000 years, without mans influence.
My own position is that climate changes, always has, always will. I also doubt that there is anything man can do that will not influence the climate in some, mostly unpredictable, way. Oh, and CO2 doesn't trap heat or warm the planet. What it does is slow the rate of cooling by preventing the escape of some IR radiation at a couple of narrow wavelengths. If, and only if, all other things remain equal then a doubling of CO2 will result in about 1.2C rise.
Hi TBYJ
Okay. I'm just surprised that the nuttier end of the 'skeptic' fringe gets a free ride on blogs like this, CA and WUWT while climate scientists like me and Richard Betts are criticized for every minute point. Actually, I'm not surprised at all.
Back to the main point...
The only real debate I would argue is whether ECS is low or high and, if the latter, whether this would be 'dangerous'. My position is that ECS can't be low otherwise we have a real problem explaining the paleoclimate record. I also believe that the earth system responses we have seen in response to 0.8C means that 2C or more would indeed be 'dangerous'.
Lewis is arguing that even with 'low' TCR we still get over 2C by 2100. So even the 'lukewarmer' position is arguably alarming.
> I also believe that the earth system responses we have seen in response to 0.8C means that 2C or more would indeed be 'dangerous'.
Which earth system responses are you talking about?
It depends if you think 2C is alarming. I'm not convinced it is. Is 1.9 alarming? Is 2.1C 5% more alarming than 2C? Alarming is not scientific term, it is a political term.
Hi TerryS
Which hockey stick? If you knew anything about paleo reconstructions you would know that there are lots of them. Many of them use glacier length records, permafrost boreholes, deep sea sediments, ice cores, fluvial records etc. Are they ALL flawed?
BTW...thanks for explaining the effect of C02 for me. Any chance you could let my grandma know how to suck eggs?
Mike Jackson
"21 units a week"
I've often wondered what the average consumption in the HoC might be. A tad more, I'm guessing.
Rohda
> Oh, two degrees? Pretty much the equivalent of living two
hundred miles equator-wards of where you are now. Or maybe
an hour on a nice day.
Are you being funny or is that what you think the result of 2 degrees warming would be? If the latter, where did you get the idea that the warming would be uniform?
Steve Jones
> That has never been the skeptics' position. Stop making
things up.
Er what? You cannot be serious! You just need to look on these pages.
TBYJ
> It has been this way a long time. We get annoyed when you
still identify us as the mouth-frothers. They're long gone.
Also the implications that "at last" "small mercies" we've
been dragged into this position is also laughable. We've
been here for years, we got here by ourselves, you just
didn't notice.
You have plenty of mouth-frothers here. And you only have to look at the support that people like Salby get from people here and elsewhere to see that your supposed reasonable position is by no means universal. Even people like Martin A, who is hardly a mouth-frother, take Salby seriously. You cannot do that and still maintain that it is all about sensitivity.
And Watts and the Bishop etc may well privately think that sensitivity is all, but that doesn't stop them playing to the mouth-frothing gallery on any subject that is going to get him more notoriety and support his public profile in the media.
Does that give you confidence that his figures are reliable?On the Lewis sensitivity estimate, here's a little quote from ATTP that I find interesting:
"while climate scientists like me and Richard Betts are criticized for every minute point. Actually, I'm not surprised at all."
Mar 6, 2014 at 1:00 PM Monty
And you shouldn't be. You are the suplicant. You are calling for unbelievable changes in society and all on the say so of some very slipshod science (yes I know you think otherwise but it's not you that has to be conviced). You are also presumeably being paid, possibly by the public. Why would you not expect a rough ride? That you guys don't understand this does not fill me with confidence.
Did anyone notice that with every new study the sentivity is estimated less? This is the well-known decline effect when studies are replicated outside a cherry-picked domain. The decline finally stops at zero because it only occurs with nonsense phenomena.
Firstly, congrats to Nic Lewis and Marcel Crok for a very nice report putting forward their perspectives.
Secondly, although I am loathe to pile on about a comment from Dr Betts, recognising he gets plenty of push back here anyway, I have to strongly disagree with the statement below, and similar strange sentiments from Monty.
I shouldn't have to explain that the logic underneath "skeptic A argues case X, therefore skeptic B will no longer argue about case Y" is a gross non-sequitur. As others have noted, there are plenty of lukewarmers who fall into category A; that does not preclude the existence of B.
The next observation is that there are many very good scientists who argue that conventional statistical methods fail on climate because of the confounding influence of long term persistence. If Monty or Dr Betts would like to show me how the careful analysis of Dr Koutsoyiannis, Dr Montanari, Dr Bunde, Dr Cohn, Dr Lins etc etc are wrong, I'd be most grateful. And yes, their work calls into question the significance of the 20th cent. warming.
The nice work here by Lewis and Crok is not mutually exclusive to the work by the scientists I list above, given present understanding. I would summarise as:
- if the assumptions about determinism and stochastics made by climate scientists are right, Lewis and Crok show the warming will be less than the consensus projections
- if the assumptions about determinism and stochastics made by climate scientists are wrong, the approaches demonstrated by the scientists listed above is the way forward
Until one of those is shown to be conclusively wrong, both remain possibilities. How hard is that to understand?
Which earth system responses are you talking about?
Mar 6, 2014 at 1:03 PM | Unregistered CommenterTerryS
You read my list?
Ice
Arctic sea ice extent decreasing
Arctic sea ice volume decreasing
Greenland ice sheet losing mass
Antarctica ice sheet
Arctic snow cover decreasing
Antarctic sea ice extent increasing.
Antarctic sea salinity decreasing
Glaciers retreating
Ocean
Sea surface temperatures increasing
Shallow ( above 700m) ocean heat content increasing
Deep ocean heat content increasing
Sea level rising
PH dropping
Land
Surface temperatures increasing
Droughts increasing
Extreme weather increasing
Permafrost melting
Atmosphere
O2 concentration decreasing
Troposphere temperatures increasing
Stratosphere temperatures decreasing
Water vapour increasing
Jetstreams less stable
High cloud increasing
Low cloud increasing
Energy flows
Imbalance between insolation and OLR
Surface infrared radiation increasing
Downwelling infra-red radiation increasing
15micrometre CO2 band spreading
Biology
Treelines moving to higher altitudes and latitudes
Biome and species ranges spreading to higher latitudes
Longer growing seasons
Vegetation cover increasing
CO2
CO2 content increasing
Carbon 13 decreasing
Methane
Outgassing from Arctic Ocean clathrates
Release from tundra
Chandra
But Salby received pelters here too, I was one of the ones throwing them.
The reasonable view is not universal here, but that's because we don't police. That doesn't mean there isn't a majority of reasonable people.
Are you saying that nobody on alarmist side of the argument isn't just as stupid, tribal and uninformed?
Wow, a real, live climate scientist in the comments section. Can you let me in on the justification for adjusting past temperatures downwards, many years after the fact? It's a practice that seems even more indefensible than Mike's Nature Trick and all the other buffoonery that is standard practice in "climate science".
As I have said before on a number of occasions: Low ECS is inconsistent with the paleoclimate record. Simple.
I know this is an 'inconvenient fact' for all you 'skeptics' but the glacial/interglacial record shows that ECS must be high.
Just to put this climate sensitivity thing into perspective. The range 1.5 to 4.5C originated in the Charney Report in 1979. At the time Charney had only two computer simulations to choose from, one said ECS would be 4C and the other 2C. One of the simulations was by Dr. Hansen, I'll leave you to guess which one. Anyway faced with these two conflicting simulations on computers with less computing power than your mobile phone Charney decided that he could get the range by subtracting 0.5C from the lower number, and adding 0.5C to the higher number. (Not that he didn't have clue you understand). So we were left with the range 1.5 - 4.5C with 3C as the likely rise in temperature, presumably because it was in the middle - who knows?
Anyways, here we are $100bn dollars of research money later with scientists arguing that the wild guess made 35 years ago is THE number. Now it is of course possible that a bunch of climate modellers who believe CO2 is the major cause of warming have, subconsciously of course, programmed their computers to give the "wild guess" made 35 years ago substance, or it could be possible that Charney stumbled across the right answer in the few days it took to produce the report up there in (I believe) New York State. What do you believe the "man, or women, on the Clapham Omnibus" would make of the notion that a wild guess made 35 years ago was 100% accurate and has been shown to be so by a bunch of climate models? It does seem incredible doesn't it, as remarkable an insight as that young patent clerk made in 1905 by any standards given that computing power on the models they used wouldn't run your iPhone, and they knew considerably less about the climate and its physics than we do today. (I'm hoping some of that $100bn has led to some scientific progress).
Following on from the excellent, and cheap, work done by Chanrey et al, they also managed to identify the temperature rise that is going to cause catastrophic conditions to prevail as the median/average of their two extremes. 3C. So Charney did it all, we haven't progressed further since then, we don't appear to know any more and apart from a slight blip in AR4 when the lower sensitivity was increased to 2C, and in AR5 where no agreement could be made on the likely sensitivity we are where Charney left us 35 years ago.
In short we could have stopped with Charney and diverted the $100bn of climate research money into looking for viable alternative energy supplies and be much further on in the solutions if we had believed his prescience. How dumb have we been?
I don't believe you have to have been born with a "denier" gene to question that series of coincidences, nor would you have to be a scientist to figure out that there's a very large probability that the clisci community haven't got a clue what the sensitivity is. Yet he we are arguing the toss about a report, not even a peer reviewed paper because the authors have questioned the numbers produced 35 years ago by, unbelievably, using the observed temperatures.
I've said this before and will keep saying it until I get a reasonably cogent argument what is it about climate science that makes every pronouncement/paper instantly true? Even in this case Lewis and Crok have prepared a report claiming sensitivity in models that persistently forecast temperatures higher than they turn out to be, is too high. And instantly it's all hands to the pom pom guns to bring the report down? And what is being quoted as refuting this paper, Cowtan and Way's paper produced a few months ago. I don't follow any other science as closely as I follow climate science, but for instance, there appears to be a paper out this week claiming that eating protein is as bad for you as smoking. So I believe it? No, it's too soon, the authors have done what scientists have always done and published the results of their studies. What they have done is opened the door to an idea which others will now spend time, probably years, investigating before any definitive conclusion will be reached. No one will be writing a blog this morning condemning their findings because they need time to, ahem, digest them.
So what is it with climate science and the instantly right/wrong papers?
MOnty
AR5 states: "uncertainties in palaeoclimate estimates of ECS are likely to be larger than fromthe instrumental record, for example, due to changes in feedbacks between different climatic states".
Given the paleoclimate estimates cover ranges from 1 to 6degC (AR5 Fig 10.20), everything is consistent with paleoclimate estimates.
Evidence that beyond 2C is dangerous can be found in any WGII report and the multiple references therein. Moreover, any of the literature surveys show that most papers on climate change are concerned with current, emerging and future negative effects of climate change in the biosphere, let alone hydrology. So yes, Virginia, if global temperature increases by > 2C it will not be a picnic.
Oh yeah, Tol, look up Frank Ackerman's paper on how Tol gets ag reponses wrong by assuming too wide a range of temperatures for crop growth.
"Extreme weather increasing"
What does that mean?
Andrew
TBYJ
> The reasonable view is not universal here, but that's
because we don't police. That doesn't mean there isn't a
majority of reasonable people.
By the 'reasonable view' do you mean the lukewarm view? Do you really think the majority here are lukewarm? Does that mean the majority of you accept the signs of warming and the evidence listed by EM above, but just dispute the sensitivity number? I find that unlikely but good news if true.
I haven't tried to count how many reasonable people there are here and I doubt it would be worth doing as some here don't even seem to have consistent views from one post to the next. But as I said before, I would consider MartinA to be a reasonable person yet he favours Salby.
Nic L is responding on the Ed Hawkins thread.
Hi Geronimo
Thanks, but I think this is a classic straw-man argument. No-one in climate science thinks that the latest paper is either right or wrong.....most papers have something interesting to say and over the long term some of them may advance the science a bit or a lot. As you say, science is a long-term iterative process.
However, compare this approach with that from the 'skeptic' side. As soon as there is any paper slightly contradicting model projections or IPCC WUWT and others immediately hail it as marking the end of AGW. Just go to WUWT and look.
In other words, take the plank out of your eye before criticising the mote in ours.
When people ask me if I worry about the climate warming I reply 'Yes - I fear it may not be'. A rise to something closer to the optimum would be welcome. I am sure we are not at or beyond it.
Spence_UK (Mar 6, 2014 at 1:36 PM): Thank you. Very much indeed.
TBYJ (Mar 6, 2014 at 11:20 AM): Your history is woefully inadequate in its focus on "the last five years," mostly citing people on and around the Internet. Richard Lindzen was making highly intelligent criticisms of Hansen and Gore's claimed consensus in 1988, before Tim Berners-Lee even invented the Web. That was where mainstream scepticism was then and where it's been ever since. A few pseudonymous outliers in cyberspace in the last few years mean nothing at all. You should know better.
In other words, take the plank out of your eye before criticising the mote in ours.
Mar 6, 2014 at 2:05 PM Monty
We're the public, we're not obliged to do anything. We want the public to carry on doing what it wants, you want them to embrace austerity. Guess which side has to be better than the other?.. not that you are. There are plenty of dumb comments allowed to slide from your side.
TinyCO2: There are dumb comments on both sides, true, but only one side is proposing and already enjoying the fruit of policies like biofuel subsidies that kill millions. That's what I would call dumb. But nobody takes responsibility, of course, they're too busy tracking down an anonymous sceptic saying something stupid. Freedom and responsibility at its very best.
Richard Drake, I'd be really interested in the detail of biofuels subsidies killing millions. Do you have a link to any reports on this.
Drake's here, time to bail.
Seems the good NR Hawkins has got a bit of a mauling! Also interesting seeing a name long since gone from here (BBD) and that Joshua idiot from Judith's blog.
Mailman
TBYJ
maybe you should wait for him to thank Nic Lewis and Marcel Crok before bailing...
Steve: Best to start with the Guardian, which we all on Bishop Hill take with our cornflakes, as I'm sure you know. Here are two of their reports on world food prices. The second one clearly fingers biofuels, based on a UN FAO study.
Global food crisis forecast as prices reach record highs
The truth about the global demand for food
How many deaths have been caused as a result? Indur Goklany tried to estimate that in 2001 in Could Biofuel Policies Increase Death and Disease in Developing Countries? And here are a number of other reports on the subject, in rough chronological order:
Global warming rage lets global hunger grow
UN urges biofuel investment halt
Egyptian Riots Fueled by Ethanol Subsidies and Biofuel Mandates
Graphs of the Day: Why is Corn so Expensive?
Biofuels benefit billionaires
Biofuel targets driving global hunger crisis, churches and charities warn
The secret, dirty cost of Obama's green power push
The folly of corn ethanol
Now We Know: Ethanol Caused the 2008 Financial Crisis and the Little Depression
I'm not saying every word in those is correct, especially the last. But I think my own language was fully justified, indeed conservative.
TBYJ: Sorry if you don't agree with my point that mainstream scepticism has been far more intelligent than its critics every single year since 1988 and if you don't want to defend your earlier assessment. But no worries. See you around.
Wise words from TBYJ. Out!