A growing groundswell of opinion?

[Admiral_Bobski]

...as far as I can see, the only true debate now focuses on the scale of the damage, not on whether it is happening.

The views of AGW are based on a huge, qualified consensus based on fact.

Why do we keep having these same old pages and pages of stuff. It's so depressing.

As quotes are popular here, I have one of my own: 'Fiddling while Rome burns'

This is what I was talking about with P3 yesterday - the suggestion that there's no point in questioning the science any more. There's always a need to question the science. I agree that the circularity of the arguments can be quite depressing, but the debates themselves can be quite fun to be engaged in (at least so long as tempers don't flare up!). There's also a big difference between arguing about the science and "Fiddling while Rome burns". As I said above (and over on the "Make Me Belive" thread), I'm all for cutting down on CO2 emissions and living a so-called "Greener" lifestyle - and I make every feasible effort to do so - but that's just good sense, since it can't do any harm and it does generally lead to ca$h $avings! But that doesn't mean that I can't or shouldn't question the science of AGW.

CB

EDIT - Sorry, just saw your edit, Roo. It doesn't matter which newspaper it is, their job is always the same: to sell more newspapers. This reason alone is enough to justify pouring scorn on them! But, to bring politics into it for a moment, the opinion of Joe Public is actually pretty much vital to our future actions as a country (and the global community) - if the Battle of Opinion is being lost then people won't support government actions, which means the government won't get elected again, so the government will do whatever they can to appease the public, so the actions won't happen. Of course the government might get lucky and find that only 34% of the electorate will turn out at the next election, and that 34% will just happen to be the 34% who accept AGW as a real threat, but it's kind of a long shot. These public opinion polls may not be scientific, but that doesn't make them unimportant.

Edited December 19, 2007 by Captain_Bobski

[Gray-Wolf]

The sad fact is that as we choose to/or to not matters not a jot

as Novenbers anoms adequately illustrate (and don't forget ,as C-Bob says ,we're 'platueing out' on our warming....) whether we see the 'truth of our input 'of 'deny any influence' or even see it as ' a bit of both' we are well past amending our immediate futures. Please note that the Antarctic temps (apart from not being the 'record lows' we been told by posters is occuring) are well into the 'Ice sheet ablation figures that are banded about.

[Roo]

- the suggestion that there's no point in questioning the science any more. There's always a need to question the science.

--------------------------

the opinion of Joe Public is actually pretty much vital to our future actions as a country (and the global community) -

Yes, absolutely the science needs questioning: but by other scientists who are THE best placed to be able to interrogate the data and theories: and that is happening; anyone who suggests it's not, is not looking at the whole picture.

I realise that Joe Public needs to be convinced for policy to change: we are after all a democracy (chortle!). However, when those opinions are becoming of more validity than those of the people who hold the knowledge, then that is what worries me.

Edited December 19, 2007 by Roo