Angry in the Great White North

I have to give Guardian columnist Ian Katz credit.  Many global warming alarmists are shrieking that there is no time left and that even if no one believes the IPCC and even if there are loads of error and mistakes and lies in the IPCC reports, it doesn't matter, and that billions must be paid by the West to developing countries or we're all doomed!

You know the ones.  Of course there was an unfortunate mistake in the IPCC report, but the fundamental science is sound.  Two mistakes?  Still sound.  Three?  Four?  Um, yes, still sound!  Five.look, it doesn't matter how many mistakes!  ALWAYS SOUND!

Ian Katz realizes that a do-over is required:

So far, so grim, but what can be done? First, climate scientists must make a public commitment to greater openness. They should acknowledge that the huge implications and importance of what they do mean the public expect and are entitled to a greater degree of scrutiny of their work. They should repudiate the laager mentality and evasions of the East Anglia researchers. Instead of grudgingly yielding to Freedom of Information requests, they should publish their data and workings online wherever possible.

Next, the case for action must be remade from the ground up. It's no good politicians and scientists going on TV and insisting that the overwhelming body of climate science has not been touched by the scandals. They need to go back to first principles and explain how we know that CO2 causes warming, how we know CO2 levels are rising, how we know it's our fault, and how we can predict what is likely to happen if we don't act.

There are two points I'd like to make.

Fundamentally, Katz is on the right track.  But he's mistaken if he thinks that all the global warming alarmists have to do is "explain how we know that CO2 causes warming" and all the rest of that.

That's not good enough.  They need to redo the science.  They need to re-establish their credentials by actually doing something, not by explaining the same thing over and over again.

And guess what?  If the actually do something, they might learn something.  Running the same computer models with the same datasets doesn't count as doing something, by the way.

And that leads to the second point.  What if the East Anglia scientists were hiding the data for a reason?  What if the new research turns up unexpected surprises?

What if the new conclusion is that there is no global warming, at least nothing human activity is affecting?

What then?

Finally, anyone who cares about this issue must fight to keep it alive. Only if we show our commitment to this issue will our leaders apply themselves to it with the energy and determination required.

He's assuming the do-over will come up with the same answer.  He's not leaving any room for doubt.   And that's why I doubt a do-over will make much of a difference with people like him.

But I still give him credit.  A do-over, and I mean a proper do-over, will in all likelihood show that we don't know much about climate, and that all the alarmism to date was unjustified.  When that happens, global warming alarmism will finally fade away.  People like Ian Katz will make that possible, even if they themselves never lose faith.