Reasonable? You are saying a guy who wants to lock up people that dissent with him as reasonable? Kim Jong Il would agree with you — however, most folks (in the free world at least) would think that locking people up based on their *opinion* is a bit over the top. We have nothing if we haven’t the ability to dissent.

Even New Yorker journalist Elizabeth Kolbert believes Hansen is “increasingly isolated among climate activists.” because of his controversial views. Its not just skeptics who think he has moved into fringe territory.

You may wish to attempt to marginalize people like me through 1)name calling 2) credential filtering etc… but you are too late. The train has left the station — and it has one hell of a lot of inertia. The debate is now way beyond your control — and, like it or not, the reality is that mainstream opinion now sides with me. You can get really upset about that and look down on the people as idiots — but it won’t do any good until your credentialed friends can communicate in a way that doesn’t come across to “the masses” as manipulation. As the saying goes, its not what you say but how you say it ~ maybe the community should revisit that, look in the mirror, and honestly assess how they are coming across in the court of public opinion.

The theory and predictions may be 100% accurate (and I’m perfectly OK with that) — but — bottom line — people are not buying it. And THAT is the problem.

Compared to James Hansen – who has come across as a very thoughtful, quite reasonable person every time I have read or seen an interview with him – you come across as a zealot against accepting AGW as established scientific fact.

You claim to have some knowledge of paleoclimatology but the rhetoric I seem from you is akin to what I have encountered before from evolution denialists (which may not be a surprise since none of them have expertise in evolutionary biology; I have to question whether you truly possess any in either climatology or paleoclimatology). You brought up the “Little Ice Age” and I gave a reasonable answer explaining what had happened for several centuries in the northern – especially polar – regions of both North America and Europe with regards to the circulation of the Gulf Stream in the North Atlantic Ocean. I did not say that all climate changes are regional in nature (Nor do I agree with your assessment that what we have are climate cycles, though am familiar with the significance of Milankovitch Cycles, especially since it was one of my college professors who had emphasized their importance.).

Are we talking about the same Hansen? Dr. James Hansen? Must be a different one that was quoted as same skeptics should be “tried for crimes against humanity and nature.”

That kinda sounds zealot like to me.

You share something in common with evolution denialists. Most of the “scientific” ones I have met just happen to have degrees in engineering or physics or some other field not directly pertaining to evolutionary biology. What qualifications do you have, sir, to comment on climate change science (BTW, I don’t claim to be a paleoclimatologist, but instead, a former evolutionary biologist trained not merely in invertebrate paleobiology, but other, related sciences, including, of course paleoclimatology.)?

As for the “Little Ice Age” – a regional phenomenom BTW confined to the landmasses surrounding the North Atlantic from the Middle Ages to the 17th Century – that was probably due to changes in the “track” of the Gulf Stream which ensured that none of its warmer water was working its way into the polar regions of the North Atlantic. You are conflating a “regional” problem with what seems to be a worldwide global phenomenom.

As for James Hansen, I believe that Chris Mooney does quote him in “The Republican War of Science” declaring that some Democratic United States senators in the late 1990s – most notably one Albert Gore – had questioned his global warming projections for not being dire enough. Ironically, though, he adds that he had no idea how calamatious the state of affairs would be now. And if you think Hansen is some environmentalist zealot, then explain to me why I heard him say during a World Science Festival panel discussion here in New York City back in June that we need to expand greatly our usage of nuclear power, seeing it as the primary means of reducing not only our overall “carbon footprint” but in reducing substantially AGW.

Usually at this point is when AGW advoctates proclaim something akin to “well…you need to shut your mouth and get out of OUR are of expertise if you don’t have a degree in climatology…blah blah blah…”

Well — news flash. The debate has left the building. It no longer resides in the realm of only degreed climatologists — and until they realize that, and , that they are *losing* the “real” debate, there will be no forward progress. Appetite and funding for the research will just quietly evaporate…

Fair enough — although are there any natural phenomena you “can think of” that would explain the MWP or the Little Ice Age, or any of the other longer term anomalies that you studied about? Is there even the slightest possibility that those same natural phenomena could be at play today — as they have likely been doing for millions of years? With all due respect John, just because you “can’t think of any” other reason the temperature should be rising — that doesn’t constitute anything close to “proof” that carbon emissions, and CO2 increase is the sole cause. (And if you are talking correlation as a basis for proof, then total solar radiation should be put back up on the likely culprits list again…)

I haven’t seen the Hansen quotes where he said his models were wrong or probable with a certain %. Rather, he gave ranges of temperatures where we would end up — and guess what .. reality has been consistently under his low range predictions. He has been wrong more than right — yet insists he is right. He is also the same guy that said in 2001 that the street next to his house would be underwater in a few years due to rise in sea level. (It is still famously high and dry today.) So…forgive me if I am being asked to continue to believe these models when they are too consistently wrong.

Don’t scientists have a responsibility to LOUDLY correct the journalists or other mouthpieces that create the sensationalist headlines and say…”hey wait a second — we didn’t say this was going to happen with certainty — we said there was an x% chance”. I think they do have that responsibility — and yet what I witness is silence from scientists today — have even had scientists reply with posts that in effect say “well…the papers don’t say that, and if the journalist wanna say it .. that is their problem…” Kind of looking the other way…

Not reporting a crime that you are a witness to is a bit of a crime in itself don’t you think?

Both phenomena I described are occurring recently within our lifetimes as the mean daily temperature of Earth has been rising. There’s no natural phenomena I can think of which can explain this, so it has to be anthropogenic global warming, especially as our carbon “footprint” has increased substantially with the advent of the Industrial Revolution (BTW you are replying to someone who had studied paleoclimatology in one of the best programs for that in college, and then later, in graduate school at another, quite good, program as well.).

Much of the hysteria you write of in your last post is due to “end of the world” scenarios by journalists and others interested in sensationalist headlines. Credible scientists like James Hansen have said for years what would happen with comments like “we think this is x% probable — and here are areas where we could have it wrong”. Your own refusal to look carefully at the substantial scientific data that points to AGW is giving you as much “blindness” IMHO as I have seen from evolution denialists.