Ron, you are being disingenuous here. Under the guise of promoting "dissent" you are in fact interesting in promoting global warming dissent. As you say, you are agnostic on the subject ("no strong position either way"), and so do not see anything particularly wrong with presenting the views of global warming deniers.

Here's another example. Should news about geography cover the views of people who believe (or at least argue) that the world is flat? It is, after all, a dissenting view, and we certainly don't hear much about it in the mainstream news. And flat earthers exist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/­Flat_Earth_Society). Why not have one of them on the news?

Well, the reason, Ron, is that they are cranks. And despite your own agnosticism, global warming deniers are just a dwindling band of cranks, notwithstanding the odd conversion.

Should the news cover cranks? Or, should they only cover the cranks whose views you, Ron, don't have strong feelings about, one way or the other?

Here's a harder one.

Should news stories on biology, geology, genes, dinosaurs, or our pre-human ancestors give more or less equal weight to creationists who believe the earth is only about 6000 years old?

The case in favor is exactly the same, Ron, as your case for global warming deniers. There are quite a few people who are creationists. There are many scientists, even biologists, who are creationists. I bet we could even find a scientist here or there who was once a Darwinist but "changed his mind" and became a creationist. Surely, such a scientist has views on the development of life that are worthy of coverage--after all *he changed his mind!!*.

How do you feel about creationism, Ron. No strong feelings either way?

There are FAR more scientific figures who are skeptical of man-made global warming than there are who believe the world is flat. I suggest you watch "Apocalypse NO!" filmed at Cambridge University and read "The Really Inconvenient Truths" by Iain Murray. You'll that the debate is far from over and we are so not close to a consensus its not even funny.

As soon as I heard the words "global warming deniers" I knew that this poster was full of shit.

Anybody who adopts a phrase used to refer to those who actively discount the number of casualties in the Holocaust to refer to those who disagree with the Chicken Littles of the environmentalist movement needs a firm punch in the face by an Israeli Jew, and nothing else.

using the word denier? It's a perfectly good noun made from a perfectly good verb. Just because it is commonly used to refer to cranks who want to claim that the Holocaust never occurred does not mean that it can not be used in connection with other events.

And instead of level-headed thinking, you are trying to paint anyone who realizes that the world's temperature is rising and points to mankind as the logical cause as anti Semetic?

Sounds like you are a nutjob looking for justification to be angry.

BTW, you might want to stay out of the sun; it can addle your brain.

My impression is they were once serious about the arth being flat, but now most of them write silly stuff to amuse themselves, each other and us. At least that's the impression I get from their periodic news releases denying the moon landing, Mars rover, etc.

Well, Arlington, I would be the first to agree that the flat-earthers are absurd. That, indeed, was my point. Should such absurd people be quoted seriously by journalists in the name of "balance", as Ron claims to believe?

In fact, they are a miniscule (according to Wikipedia, 3000 members in the FES) group of religious fundamentalists. Apparently (I have only Wikipedia to go on here) they believe the earth is flat because a round earth is, they feel, contradictory to the Bible.

In this respect, at least, they are exactly the same as religious fundamentalists who think the earth is only about 6000 years old, that all the animals really did survive the flood in Noah's Ark, and that evolution is hooey. Like the flat-earthers, they believe this stuff because it is how they interpret the Bible. (That is what they say, anyway).

The difference between the two? One is that creationists are very numerous, and include prominent politicians (Mike Huckabee, step on down!) and members of school boards (What ever happened in Kansas?). So, they are seen as somewhat mainstream, while flat-earthers are seen as, well, nuts.

As they say: if only you hold a belief, you are crazy; if lots of people hold it, you are a well adjusted pillar of the community.

Fair enough, regfife. You are wrong about global warming, of course, but your position is at least consistent. You believe that global warming deniers have a case, and, who knows, they might be right. If that is what you believe, then you should argue that this viewpoint receive its due coverage.

But (and this was the point of my post), that is not Ron's argument--at least not ostensibly. He is arguing--or claims to be arguing--for dissent because it is good, pretty much regardless of the nature of that dissent. This position is absurd.

And, as I wrote, I don't think it is Ron's actual position.

Rather, he agrees with you.

Oooohhh, Kade.

The anti-semitism card.

Ooooohhh.

Witty. Sophisticated. Impressive.

You know, when I was in university, the first guy who brought up the holocaust in our bullshit sessions had to drink a bottle of beer on the spot as punishment. (I know, I know. Some punishment!)

Anyway, I did not make up the term "global warming denier". It's in pretty common use. But, I won't deny that it is in pretty common use almost exclusively among those who think that global warming deniers are wrong.

Anyway, enjoy your beer.

Say Lloyd... that falsfiability issue (see Popper). I'm curious. Is there anything that would shake your faith in global warming, or is your faith beyond the physical world?

Say present cooling trends continue for twenty more years, and global temperature drops well below the 1950s levels... would that do it? How about 100 years of a little ice age? 1,000 years and the planet is frozen solid? Or can Catostrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming simply never be disproven no matter how cold it gets or for how long?

See, normal scientific theories are adopted or discarded based on how well they help predict the natural world... and CAGW ain't doing so hot so far. Month by month, year by year, it's losing credibility. Your may be very patient; the general public is not. A few more years, and there'll be fraud trials.

If only CAGW had some signature, some singular phenomenon that ONLY it could explain... oh it did have one didn't it? Didn't work out, last I heard.

No-one has to prove CAGW wrong. The Earth is doing a fine job on its own. The theory is failing the test of time... and its proponents will become fewer, shriller and more boorish as warming continues to take a well-deserved break.

Cons,

Lots of things would convince me out of global warming.

I have already written several times her in the Fray that if someone came up with an alternative mechanism (to our carbon emissions) to explain the facts, and this alternative stood up to scientific scrutiny, then that would be that. We would then have a better explanation, and I think we should adjust our policies accordingly.

The fact is that so far no such alternative has appeared. Contrary to your unfounded claims, global temperatures are rising and, at the moment, the only scientifically viable explanation is our burning of fossil fuel. To sit around and just deny it is irrational.

Indeed, the only odd thing about this business is that so many people are in denial. What is it about global warming, of all things, that has sparked this populist backlash, which you so ably articulate? I can understand, although I don't of course agree with, the equally irrational religious backlash against evolution: it is impossible to reconcile evolution--indeed, modern science in general--with a literal reading of the Bible. (One of the charming things about many religious deniers of evolution is that the freely admit that it is irrational--that is, based on faith. The same cannot be said for the proponents of intelligent design.)

Even if there were no alternative explanations, it is possible that global warming is our friend, rather than something to fear, although, sadly, so far this does not seem to be the case, either. To take an extreme example, a new ice age would be a disaster for sure. If someone came up with a convincing case that a new ice age was about to dawn, then I would say that global warming (that is, manmade global warming--see below) could obviously be a good thing; insurance, as it were, against freezing over.

What is not going to convince me is statements that science has not "proved" the existence of global warming, especially when it is coupled with references to Popper, whose view of science has long been discredited.

Science comes up with reality-based explanations for observed phenomena. The reality-based explanation for global warming is our combustion of fossil fuels. As I said, that could change with some new discovery. I doubt it, but predicting the future is tricky business.

And, to end up, the last bit I promised above. We should be careful what we are talking about here. When we say "global warming" we could mean at least two things: the observation that global temperatures are rising; or the theory that that rise is being caused by the activities of people (anthropogenisis). I am talking about the second. Therefore, another thing that would not convince me is if the global temperature started to fall. I guess there are lots of factors that affect global temperatures, one of which (by all available scientific evidence, the dominant one these days) is our burning of fossil fuel. The observation of falling global temperatures would, as I indicated above, change my view about the consequences of anthropogenic global warming. I guess they would be much more benign, but even that could depend on why global temperatures were falling (for instance, if the fall will be sustained, as in the next ice age).

I hope that clarifies things.

Well, that cooling trend to which you refer better kick into high gear. It doesn't seem powerful enough to prevent the earth from getting steadily warmer. If there is a cooling trend, it could easily overpower any damage we're doing with greenhouse gasses, but that sound like wishful thinking. If there is a natural warming trend, as most climatologists think, our adding to it is fairly reckless.

Lloyd, well written, really. A pleasure.

We'll agree to disagree for now. Time will tell.