Aussie Geologist Dr. Robert Carter: ‘The IPCC has accomplished the inversion of the null hypothesis, where the onus is now on disproving dangerous AGW’

Judith Curry Reflects

http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2014/04/17/judith-curry-reflects/

By Paul Homewood
 
Some reflections from Judith Curry.
 
iai TV has a series Philosophy for our times: cutting edge debates.  Frankie May of iai TV pointed me to this debate between Bob Carter, Michael McIntyre and Richard Cornfeld entitled What we don’t know about CO2: The science of climate change.  My attention was piqued in particular by the participation of Michael McIntyre, who is likely to be the smartest guy in any room with climate scientists in it.  The blurb for the debate is :
There is no question that CO2 levels are increasing due to human activity. But predicting the impact of this is less straightforward. Will our understanding of the world’s climate system remain mired in complexity until it is too late? Or is apocalyptic thinking confusing the science?
I listened to whole thing (its about 15 minutes), it is superb.  There are many gems in this, from each of the 3 participants. At the end of this, I don’t see much disagreement among the three participants. Some notes I took from listening to the debate.
We shouldn’t worry, we should just accept that this will happen and we should adapt to it and regard it as a business opportunity.
Its arrogant to assume that climate will remain static.
The whole language of climate change is designed to confuse the public and policy makers
Bob Carter says the IPCC has accomplished the inversion of the null hypothesis, where the onus is now on disproving dangerous anthropogenic climate change
We should focus on protecting people from natural hazards, and not worrying about what is causing them
It makes sense to encourage alternative energy and see what happens.
Bob Carter closed with this: no scientist can tell you whether it will be warmer or cooler in 2020, so we should prepare for both
 
 
JC reflections
It is gratifying to see leading scientists and thinkers ‘stepping off the reservation’ to provide interpretations of climate science and thoughts on how we should respond, that differ from the IPCC assessments and the more alarmist interpretations.
It is unfortunate that it seems to be primarily the independent scientists and retired scientists that are doing this; government employees in many countries would not do this (even if their personal convictions differ from the IPCC consensus), and the same seems to be true for most scientists employed by universities.  This is a very unhealthy situation particularly for universities.
 
 
 
http://judithcurry.com/2014/04/17/climate-change-what-we-dont-know/

 
Whatever one’s views on climate change, I rather think the last paragraph says it all.

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