A guest post by Roger Pielke, Jr., University of Colorado

The IPCC offers a number of statements expressing its confidence in the likelihood of various claims based on very explicit guidance that it prepared for conveying uncertainties to its readers. These statements are the subject of much confusion and debate. This post discusses the IPCC statements on attribution of increasing global temperatures to various causes, as reported in the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report from 2007.

First, let’s consider three possibilities (which are actually quite close to those presented here by my father on this blog not long ago).

A) Natural forces alone account for the observed warming
B) Natural and human forces together account for the observed warming
C) Human forces alone account for the observed warming

In an interview with Reuters, John McCain talked about the people he would look to for help in the fight to stop the climate crisis.

He says Al Gore is definitely on the list:

Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin

Real Climate is a popular blog that advocates action on climate change. Its authors often uses bullying tactics to enforce a view that their views on science are the sole authoritative basis for judging political action. In turn, here at Prometheus I’ve occasionally used the actions of Real Climate as excellent illustrations of how climate science becomes so politicized and partisan by activist scientists. In this way the skeptics and the activist scientists engage in a dance that requires both to participate to reinforce the belief that science provides the basis for political action. So both have an interest in keeping debate on matters of science, rather than more explicitly on the far more important questions of policy and politics.

Lucky for us, the best example yet of these dynamics can be found in the post that that Real Climate have put up today on Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin. The Real Climate post seeks to elevate the importance of skepticism in the climate debate (yes, you read that right) so that it can knock it down, while at the same time ignoring far more meaningful issues related to climate policy, like whether a cap and trade program has any chance whatsoever of actually succeeding. In this way Real Climate serves to politicize climate science, make climate policy an even more partisan issue, and draw attention away from the policy questions that really matter most. (read on . . .)

Worldwide interest in my quite run-of-the-mill comment, on the need to debate the manmade global warming hypothesis, is pleasing but not surprising. It confirms that my fellow science writers have miscalculated badly. Most readers don't want endless scare stories about climatic doom, accompanied by authoritarian lectures about their carbon footprints. They're hungry for a variety of opinions.

Unfortunately only 1% of the huge number of articles on climate change in the posh London newspapers deviate from the official line of the Intergovernmental Panel. That's not my reckoning. It comes from researchers at Oxford University who complain about the more balanced reporting in the not-so-posh papers, with a deviancy rate of 23%. They say it has 'skewed public understanding of human contributions to climate change'. In other words, kindly abandon the journalistic principle that different points of views should be heard on controversial matters, or else a lot of dreadful people out there (you or me) may not truly believe that climate change is their fault.

Mystery solved about that little tweak of the tax code regarding special treatment of CO2, thanks to some insight passed my way via Capitol Hill: this was not a drafting error poorly identifying CO2 credits but indeed, the Senate has just voted to elevate carbon dioxide to a distinct status. Not as a “pollutant,” but as a natural resource worthy of encouragement and preservation. Huzzah!

Here’s what we know, thanks to THOMAS. The House didn’t pass this loophole, it was slipped in by the Senate. There is no discussion of it in the House report or bill summary (obviously), and the Senate didn’t bother with either one of those things.

Slim Pickens was a country and western singer, but a slim picking is not the adjectival phrase for T Boone Pickens and his wealth. One of his books is titled. “The First Billion is the Hardest: Reflections on the Life of Comebacks and America’s Energy Future.” He is busily making the second and likely the third billion much easier. His plan uses the combination of wind power with energy sufficiency and independence for the US. 

Initially, his advertisements put wind power front and center. In doing so, he put on the cloak of green, a phrase I co-opted from Elaine Dewar’s wonderful book of the same name. I’ve used the phrase to describe what many politicians feel forced to do. They understand the real science of climate change, but dare not appear opposed to protecting the environment.