Actually a mining geologist will have quite a background in paleoclimatology. When you become educated in the real variability of the earth’s climate beyond the last few thousands of years, the amount of change discussed in the climate change debate is tiny. Even 100,000 years is pretty minuscule when you are looking at 4 billion years or so.

The climate *not* changing would be much more unusual than climate change. We live on a pretty dynamic planet in some respects. There are many feedback mechanisms and controlling factors that are not really understood yet. We still don’t have a full understanding of the mechanisms of ice ages, magnetic pole reversals, solar cycles, and many other events.

That doesn’t give carte blanche to put crap in the atmosphere or oceans but it is not just a simplistic “Ohh, we are going to cut back on carbon emissions and save the world”.

Disclaimer: This particular post is sparse on measurement, heavy on opinion. MY opinion, of course, which is the one that drives my actions at the end of the day.

@7 “I think the real “us vs. them” has both scientists and politicians on both sides of the climate debate. Its not all politicians on one side, and its not all scientists on the other.”

Yes, the totality of the population of individuals includes a mix on both sides. However, several surveys inspecting the makeup of these populations unrelievedly show that a majority of politicians are on the denier side while a majority of academics are on the acceptance side. This is further delineated by Dem. vs. Repub., with Repub. factions highly polarized into extreme denial with Dem. factions highly polarized into extreme acceptance.

To even get away from the surveys, you can look at Wikipedia for the Academic angle on this. If you look at the primary page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change, you see a long list of organizations that have published acceptance of the climate science. If you follow the link at the top of that page to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scientists_opposing_the_mainstream_scientific_assessment_of_global_warming, you see a list of individuals with varying dissenting opinions.

If we accept that organizations contain many individuals, here we have a rather brilliant record of the scope of the consensus. Many, many more individuals, as members of organizations, support climate science than those few individuals that dissent. Further, if you inspect the credentials of the individuals that dissent, some of their fields are highly suspect as expert opinions on climate science (for instance, what does mining geology teach us about global climate systems?).

“I know you will readily acknowledge that there are many, many politicians on the Alarmist side of Climate Change. Can you acknowledge that there are also many, many scientists on the Denier side, even published climatologists in prestigious universities, like Pielke and Spencer?”

Actually, I don’t readily acknowledge that many, many politicians are in the Alarmist camp. VERY personal opinion statement here, but to my eyes, talking about the potential consequences of climate change, we’re actually looking at the potential for a large scale extinction of the human race. Considering that, there are far too few Alarmists around.

See above for one assessment of the “many, many scientists on the denier side.” Multiple surveys and analysis point to there being a very minority number of scientists on the denier side. I saw a link to one brilliant one, but have been unable to relocate that link, unfortunately. Once I come back across it, I’ll be back to post that.

One thing I think you should remind yourself of: while academically there are conservatives – and even then only to a degree and by leaving things out – academically there really aren’t liberals.

Liberals in the US include all the people with only a high school diploma, GED, or even less in areas that aren’t too rural. They also include a lot of experts with doctorates and post-doc study.

The conservatives do a little better with the middle – bachelor’s degrees and into master’s degrees.

This was my second reason for disagreeing with one of your Point of Inquiry interviewees. He raised the issue of “liberals” not knowing what the NAS opinion was of – not what is ALWAYS covered in the papers and on TV, putting radioactive waste in some central dump, such as a proposed one in Nevada – but about dumping it in ocean ridges. To noone’s surprise, they didn’t correctly know. Given the bait-and-switch approach he used, a good question is how they possibly could have known, for purposes of answering a poll. To imply it’s equivalent to the conservative denial of AGW is, I think, just false.

But another good question is, if you have one group that’s somewhat together educationally, or at least a continuum, can you apply the same standards to another group that’s at the two fringes? If you’re polling only people of comparable education, at least that’s good polling, but it’s not telling you what liberals think (and I think that’s a good thing, because only on some issues can you seriously say a diverse coalition thinks anything). On a science question, a liberal post-doc is not the same as a liberal janitor. Cabbies, maybe

if you cannot see how there are postgraduates above, I’m very sorry, but it is an unambiguous fact.

I can see how academics are considered post graduates, but…

I can’t see where you are surveying post graduates who are not academics. Provide us with a link that says you surveyed non-academic post-graduates, because all of the evidence you’ve provided so far is missing that information.

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@17 Mike

Lets not confuse “expertise” with “credentialed”.

To the academic left, there is no difference whatsoever between the two.

I would argue that this “expertise gap” is not nearly as relevant or as pressing as you are making it out to be as there is more to the world than climate science and evolution. Is it really an issue that sociology and other social sciences are decidedly liberal? What do these people contribute to the national debate? What impact do they have on our day to day lives?