Friday, May 30, 2008


Thou shalt not ask awkward questions
I might not know that much about climatology, but I know what I don’t like. And the things that I don’t like include the undermining of free speech, the railroading of opinion, the exploitation of science for political purposes, doom-mongering and misanthropic prejudice. All of these are, to one degree or another, fixtures of the strident crusade around man-made global warming. That is why I have always been instinctively, non-scientifically but seriously sceptical about many of the claims and demands made by the climate change crusaders. It is good to know that others who definitely do know a lot of climatology share some of that scepticism.

The Deniers grew out of Lawrence Solomon’s newspaper columns of the same name in Canada’s National Post. Solomon identifies authoritative but often little-known dissenters from various aspects of the climate change orthodoxy, and concisely summarises their research, arguments and qualifications. I will not attempt to summarise all of his summaries, but a couple of things stand out.

One is that, contrary to the caricature often drawn of scientific dissenters, these experts are quite prestigious and nobody’s idea of cranks....