News from the Climate Debate

Barry Brill: The Taxonomy of Climate Opinion

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The debate over climate change is not, and never has been, divided into two monochromatic tribes who have been brainwashed into unanimity . There are as many different opinions are there are participants in the discussion. (“quot homines tot sententiae” as Christopher Monckton might say).

For those who insist upon a tidy taxonomy, I offer the following first draft:



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It is only a matter of time (and not much time) before the ECS is repositioned to 1-3°C and the TCR to1-2°C. At that point, many more people who are near the upper end of the ‘Sceptics’ grouping with join with those multitudes who are at the lower end of the ‘Mainstream’ grouping to form a new “Orthodox” group.

This merging could be an uncomfortable time for both parties. Kuhn argues in “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions” that rival paradigms are incommensurable—that is, it is not possible to understand one paradigm through the conceptual framework and terminology of another rival paradigm. Will that remain the case when views of TCR are only a fraction of a degree apart?
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Marlo Lewis: IPCC Calls Off Planetary Emergency?

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As BishopHill and Judith Curry report on their separate blogs, IPCC now believes that in the 21^st Century, Atlantic Ocean circulation collapse is “very unlikely,” ice sheet collapse is “exceptionally unlikely,” and catastrophic release of methane hydrates from melting permafrost is “very unlikely.” You can read it for yourself in Chapter 12 Table 12.4 of the IPCC’s forthcoming Fifth Assessment Report.
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