As soon as the alarmists say “the debate is over,” it’s now politics, not science.

In science, the debate is never over.

The debate may never be over, but some points of view become justifiably unpopular. You won’t find many scientists engaging in debate about the heliocentric model, or relativity, or gravity. Some points of view are simply not supported by any evidence – and when this is the case, they are not really part of the debate.

Peace.

DS

In science, the debate is never over.

or bury the truth -

http://hotair.cachefly.net/images/2006-05/iraq-doc.pdf

Its all about the narrative and power.

HELLO?

Bilgeman, thanks for all you do – in real life and on the intertubes.

Better yet, watch the original Twilight Zone episode, “The Obsolete Man”; it tells the same sad story the very path you’re treading down blindly without your own ability to think for yourself.

I enjoy cooking and playing the violin. I’d be hard pressed to assert I’d be in the company of a Gordon Ramsey, John Ash or Antonio Carluccio.

Or attempt the passion in playing the works of Haydn, Beethoven or Mozart piece.

Chris in Dallas is correct in saying meteorology and climatology go hand-in-hand with one another.

The discussion in Brussels is one of myriad of events I will and have attended.

It’s through experience, discussion I’ve found reality to be a more suited color.

The ‘actual’ and ‘overwhelming’ evidence you speak.. if it’s a no-brainer, then why hasn’t the astronomer, err, mathematician, the ‘accurate Earth climate modeler’ James Hansen or like minded individual had (heck, you think they’d plead for such a proposal. Instead, dodging and silence..) a discussion/ forum with scientists who oppose those findings? Science is indefinite, forever changing. To shun or ignore other viewpoints is criminal, ignorant and a true injustice to the science community of the highest order.

That is because you must have either a short or a selective memory.
Within my lifetime, the air in American and most western cities has become measurably cleaner.
I can recall in the arly 70′s when even wading into the Potomac River was grounds to get a tetanus shot, today the Potomac is a delight and supports a healthy sport-fishery.
I remember when roadsides were effectively linear trash-dumps.

And I work at sea.
The practice of pumping bilges and tank wastewater over the side, and leaving miles-long oil slicks, are today a thing of the past because those who do those things are hunted down and fined and imprisoned.
Maybe you never went to the beach back in the day and walked in a sand-covered oil slick, and then needed to break out the mineral oil to wash it off of your skin, but I did.
That rarely happens anymore.

“I am very disappointed by the slow pace of progress toward sustainability, and ongoing environmental degradation.”

Frankly, I think you maybe just WANT to be disappointed, period.

“Thirty years have been mostly wasted fighting against entrenched interests – time that cannot be replaced.”

No, chum, thirty years has seen the success of what was a worthy and laudable goal: conservation, morph into a new pagan cult of “environmentalism”.

You can put on a white coat and make scientifical noises all you wish, but the fact of the matter is that you’re little different than an ignorant savage worshipping a tree, salted with a very strong streak of Socialist-brewed neo-Ludditism among your ranks.

“Reducing carbon emissions worldwide does not deny to the world the benefits of modern transport, telecommunications, electricity, refrigeration, air-conditioning or indoor plumbing.”

Yes it does. All of those endeavors share the absolute necessity of energy production…to burn something…in either their manufacture or their intrinsic operation.
To limit carbon production is to limit that energy, and therefore to limit that endeavor.

Don’t try to tell a seafaring boilerman and an electrician about how it all works, friend. I’m the guy who puts out the fires in the boilers and shuts the whole ship down when the steam drops off the turbines in the generators and the main propulsion.

“All of these are 100% compatible with sustainable development, with technology that is already available. It’s just a matter of implementation.”

That implementation takes two things: time and money, and a diversion of either into implemnetation for the way you think they should be is going to deny someone those endeavors as they are today.

You can tell yourself fairy tales about how they’re thanking you for it, but reality will prove that you are monstrously deluded when they stick the muzzle of an AK-47 in your nostril and relieve you of your car, your cell-phone, your teevee and your air conditioner.

That day will come far sooner than you might think, so were I you, I wouldn’t worry about your personal legacy to the future.
You likely won’t have one.

“I just wonder what you will leave future citizens to justify bequeathing a world to the next generation that has been depleted of resources, polluted with toxins, and rendered climatically unsuitable by carbon emissions. That had better be some quality plumbing!”

You have a remarkably shallow faith in one of the hallmarks of our species…it’s adaptability to it’s environment even while adapting it’s own environment.

They will adapt and thrive on what they inherit…exactly as we have done and our ancestors before us.

Maybe if you would stop worshiping trees and clouds and mountains and such and studied your fellow man a bit more, you’d have an appreciation for his capabilities.