Tag Archives: Climate debate

Depolarising the debate?

I’ve always been a little puzzled by the (mostly) social scientists who seem to argue that to develop effective climate policy we should stop using labels, be depolarizing the debate, and should prioritise civil disagreements. It’s not that I object … Continue reading

Posted in advocacy, Climate change, Environmental change, Policy, Science | Tagged , , , , | 172 Comments

Civility

A recent discussion has led me to think a bit more about civility. This was partly motivated by my own intention to maintain it when I started this blog (which didn’t always succeed) and by the other party being someone … Continue reading

Posted in ClimateBall, Personal | Tagged , , | 152 Comments

Manichean paranoia

Some have encouraged me to watch Roger Pielke Jr’s presentation on Climate politics as a manichean paranoia, and I have now done so (slides here, and I’ll post the video at the end of the post.). Manichean paranoia refers to … Continue reading

Posted in ClimateBall, Global warming, IPCC, Policy, Roger Pielke Jr, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , | 302 Comments

The middle ground

Matt Ridley has been complaining about the frantic polarising on Twitter since his talk. When it was pointed out that frantic polarising is a euphemism for ‘lots of people disagree with my argument’, he responded with no it’s not. I … Continue reading

Posted in Climate change, ClimateBall, Policy, Research, Science, The scientific method | Tagged , , , , | 232 Comments

Another 97%

In a previous post I mentioned that Richard Tol had published a paper on the structure of the climate debate. As I said in that post, the paper appears to be trying to portray the author as part of some … Continue reading

Posted in Climate change, ClimateBall, Satire, Science | Tagged , , , , , , | 44 Comments

The Royal Society and the GWPF

A couple of weeks ago, it came out that the Royal Society had hired space for an event being run by the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF). The event turns out to be a lecture by Matt Ridley, who I … Continue reading

Posted in Climate change, ClimateBall, Global warming, Science | Tagged , , , , , , | 200 Comments

Climateball(TM): re-energised

Apart from writing some blog posts here (and thanks to MT and others, I’ve had to write fewer than normal) I’ve largely been staying out of the whole online climate debate; ignoring the ClimateballTM mantra that the only losing move … Continue reading

Posted in Climate change, ClimateBall, Global warming, Michael Mann, Science | Tagged , , , , | 67 Comments

I’m back…sort of

I’m back from my conference, and – I have to say – I thoroughly enjoyed being away, not blogging and not Twittering (well, not much). One problem is that I enjoyed it so much, I really want to try and … Continue reading

Posted in Climate change, ClimateBall, Global warming, Personal, Science | Tagged , , , | 125 Comments

Polemics

I stayed up last night and watched the South Africa – New Zealand semi-final at the cricket world cup. I really shouldn’t have, as I really am now too old to do an all-nighter, and we lost. However, I also … Continue reading

Posted in ClimateBall, Science | Tagged , , , , , | 86 Comments

Just some things

I haven’t written anything for a while. Partly I’ve been rather busy with other things, and partly I’m just going through another phase of just wondering about what the whole point is. The whole climate debate seems so polarised, that … Continue reading

Posted in Climate change, Comedy, Global warming, Satire, Science | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 167 Comments