I am not even going to read this article. CHRISTINA LARSON is obviously biased in favor of Climate Change (based on her prior articles in FP), and I like to read objective analyses, not propaganda.
I have enjoyed reading FP, but a few months ago, after Carnegie sold it, it has become unbalanced, to the left. I hopes it finds equilibrium again.
I wonder why Mr Naim, who I admire, and with whom I share nationality, is allowing this to happen.
By the way, the only constant about cliamte is change.

Apparently, Roger Pielke Jr. is surprised by your characterization of his views:

http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2010/02/defining-skepticism-down.html

I do not even think that the quote from him was in fact a quote. It is not "consistent with" his opinions.

To describe the above submission offered by Larson and Keating as dishonest and demagogic would be to promote those terms to the level of respectability. To describe this article as a piece of crap would be to run the risk of a discourse that would never again rise above the excremental.

“The FP Guide to Climate Skeptics”
Can't tell the legitimate concerns from the nonsense? FP is here to help.

FP is here to help........really??? Yes, we the people who have supported and defended FP's journalistic integrity and honesty are complete idiots and should be grateful that we have been afforded an opportunity to be presented and expected to adhere to the merits of this submission whose work can only be accurately classified as being the perfect example where dishonesty has been practiced in an effort to reinforce selfish personal political ideological appetites. Insulting the intellect of a sizable portion of your subscriber base who utilize objectivity in order to establish a foundation of thought cannot be classified by any fair minded free thinking individual as receiving a form of assistance or in the words of the dishonest contributing authors who insist that their work is actually been presented by FP in an effort to "help" does not warrant any recognition of retaining even a miniscule amount of credibility. In an effort to educate oneself about this issue, researching multiple sources from various backgrounds is required while also acknowledging realities that have occurred regardless of which group benefits as a result of their exposure is mandatory and essential if participating parties involved in discussions are to be considered as being credibly versed in the subject. The blatant practice of dishonesty is consistently evident among groups who choose to ignore realities that have surfaced throughout the debate and by refusing to acknowledge these truths exposes their lack of credibility as their political allegiances that stem from a lack of desire to think for themselves expose the presence of political ideology. The introduction of thought based upon political ideologies regardless of where evolution of thought across the entire spectrum occurred immediately disqualifies the group or organization as being able to engage in productive discussion while ignoring realities is to be perceived as an indirect assault upon the institution of free thought. Therefore, it would only be responsible to categorize FP’s self proclaimed climate help guide whose foundation is questionable if non-existent due to the lack of recognition given towards realities whose presence in the debate remain uncontestable. The proclaimed help guide warrants excessive scrutiny due to the foundation being solely constructed upon the political ideologies adhered towards by both contributing authors.

I must be a fool to think that recent admissions, occurrences, emails, and reports regarding this issue require recognition and merit discussion if we, members of the community who strive to compose a basis of thought by utilizing objectivity should be expected to accept this fabrication of journalistic fraud whose foundations are evidently lazily influenced and associated with political ideologies; as offered so graciously by FP, this submission is presented in an irresponsible dishonest manner whose insistence demands attention and expects readers to accept the opinions offered as justifiable non contestable verifiable truths. I have many questions about this issue and have yet to come to a conclusion due to a majority of the information available for research not having been conducted based upon adhering to the merits of scientific integrity, but selfishly promoting personal agendas that stem from the inclusion of political ideologies that should be replaced towards offering the mass public with verifiable truths if scientific capabilities allow. Engaging in childish behavior from both sides of the argument has created a hostile environment that is not conducive towards facilitating an educational resource tool for public education. While I continue to be amused by the labeling by members of the Green Movement who label individuals whether being skeptical or citizens currently engaged in ongoing research as being tagged with the label as being a “skeptic” or perceived in the realm as being a “denier” similar to those whom dismissed the Holocaust. Recent revelations as offered by Phil Jones would suggest that labels should now be applied towards individuals that felt the science had been settled may now be considered as being “duped”, “Hoaxed green fundamentalist” or simply “you gullible dumbass” whatever. The name calling on both sides should provide ample evidence that submissions from both scientific groups should be subject to rigorous scrutiny. There may come a day in our future when issues of such a massive scale involving huge global implications which involve scientific collaboration towards gaining knowledge to facilitate learning and provide sound reasoning, however that day might come along unfortunately a long time once we have passed on.
To the editorial staff at Foreign Policy, I offer a challenge to your organization whose journalistic credibility, integrity, and classification as being an institution whose contributions demand merit and honest consideration are all receiving justifiable scrutiny, due to the lack of applying independent thought and disgusting omission of honest realities whose analysis of facts are essential towards accessing the entire spectrum of whatever issue is being discussed in order properly make viable contributions inspired from the institution of free thought. Essentially the challenge would entail offering a submission whose foundation includes contributions from a multiplicity of perspectives across the entire spectrum involving climate change and that would include discussing the ethical merits involving data manipulation and also assessing characteristic traits of individuals from individuals who respectfully dissent from anthropogenic theoretical based proposals and inclusion that questions the integrity of Phil Jones regarding violations involving the designations of the Freedom of Information Act.

Is it too much to offer the constituency who has remained faithful and provided support since the evolution of Foreign Policy as once was considered a resource whose original intent and purpose was created to offer insightful, innovative, educational ideas of a nature where responsible consideration was applied towards offerings involving the serious arena of topics covered in the global area of foreign affairs?

I demand an increased effort on the part of the editorial staff, which used to offer substantive publications whose evolutions were inspired by insightful innovative thought whose topics stimulated and evoked productive thought which at times provided challenges whose purpose involved expanding perspectives, while they also inspired thoughtful, respectful debate and discussion.

Foreign Policy used to be a publication worthy of merit and complimentary recognition as a source of innovative thought, however the recent excessive inclusion of thought based upon political ideologies from either end of the spectrum; I no longer am able to consider this publication of even retaining a minimal level of credibility that is vital for an organization to warrant serious consideration when discussing topics of a nature involving foreign affairs.

To the editorial staff at Foreign Policy, I challenge you to redirect your efforts towards regaining a respectful level of credibility by revisiting and implementing the methods that were incremental towards building a successful organization whose credibility and character until recently, never warranted scrutiny or merit. We demand a publication whose dedication is devoted towards informing and educating through innovation where political influence is only notable on miniscule scales, remaining almost non-existent. I can only hope that FP’s dedication towards its subscriber’s remains as strong as the dedication we have provided the organization over the past years. Dedication is dependent upon how Foreign Policy decides to operate moving forward and my renewal will be based upon witnessing a positive innovative transition and reversal of gradual trends I have witnessed over the past three years that have tarnished my perception and reputation of FP.

To the editors of Foreign Policy with the honest desire and hope of restoring a once powerful, honest, credible, uncontestable influential ……………….………..I dare you to accept the challenge once again return to become a known as the publication that leads ..........instead of remaining complacent as a follower whose credibility continues to deteriorate and remain questionable.………..

You loose all credibility on page 2, where you imply that Mann was vindicated. It has been proven, and stated in a paper by the professional body of US mathematical statisticians, that his key paper was a red-noise to hockey-stick parsing algorithm.

Also, ref. dismissing those who are now attacking politically – this has been necessitated by the media ignoring the legitimate science concerns that have been on record for years now.

This isn't the kind of "help" I was interested in.

This is probably the most appalling piece of 'journalism' I a have read in a very long time.

You both obviously prefer the nodding donkey style of many modern journalists - you just repeat verbatim what you are told.

How can I put this simply: No one will ever confuse you two with Woodward and Bernstein.

Look, there comes a point where you have to a modicum of credibility. The AGW theory is based on the premise CO2 emissions have warmed the planet. One of the obvious proofs would be to show global warming over the last century outside any urbanization effects. I live outside DC and grew up here. I remember when Dulles International Airport was out in the middle of wild forest. It is not surrounded by urbanization. I have no doubt its temperatures have risen as urbanization circled around it and expanded.

So where would we expect to see clear indication of CO2 driven warming without any possible UHI effects? In rural areas with long term measurements.

A paper has just come out comparing rural and urban temp records in the US. It has two very critical graphs: one showing the raw station data and one showing adjustments supposedly applied to adjust for urban heat island effects.

In the raw data we find rural stations basically remain flat, while urban centers warm. Clearly we can conclude there is NO CO2 driven warming since the rural areas are not warming.

But even more damning to the credibility of the adjustments. Instead of removing any urban effect from the urban temps (by cooling them obviously), the so called adjustment to remove UHI actually ADDS IT TO THE RURAL DATA!

http://strata-sphere.com/blog/index.php/archives/12882

Come on - this is a HS science level mistake. This is not credible science. How is it an adjustment to remove UHI ends up forcing the non UHI rural data to warm with the urban data? And this doesn't destroy the AGW theory???

www.hidethedecline.eu

K.R. Frank

Steve McIntyre is the world's leading climate skeptic by far, and he is not on the list. So even without reading the FP article, you can tell that it is a serious failure.

I read the parts for three people: McKitrick, Keenan, Watts.

McKitrick. The authors obviously know very little about the hockey stick. There is a book about this: The Hockey Stick Illusion. It is highly recommended. Especially to imitation journalists who want to write about the topic.

Keenan. The article falsely claims that he did not publish in a peer-reviewed journal. It also links to a bogus criticism on RealClimate, but not to Keenan's web site. Perhaps if the authors had had the tenacity to find Keenan's site (after first learning out to use Google), they would have found his paper.

Watts. The authors obviously did not interview Watts, who would have debunked the criticism. Actually interviewing the person being written about would of course upset their agenda.

I stopped reading after that. I know I made a mistake by reading as much as I did.

There are always going to be people who won't believe in climate change until they are wearing sundresses in the arctic.

History will not be kind to "Lord" Monckton and others who should be able to read and understand basic science but apparently cannot. There is virtually no doubt anymore that human emissions of greenhouse gases are heating up the planet, and that this will trigger a rising of the seas that will hammer coastal cities. Don't believe it? Read one of the books on the subject that accurately reflect the current state of the science. The Long Thaw, by David Archer, is a good one.

knows there's some cooling on the way we need to be buffered against.

Some Pew poll said that over 80% of Americans are certain God exists. I don't think climate scientists are taking the beliefs of their target audience very seriously in fashioning their arguments.

Utter Brilliance....everyone can go home and rest easy tonight. .I guess I must have been a fool to think the sun would have played any role towards heating the globe? Maybe we should replace logical reasoning and assign every form causation regardless of whether the consequences and outcomes are positive or negative. Therefore, if we are to actually entertain the notion that causation is the direct result of "God
s Will", I can only ask a question that is consistently posed towards individuals who adhere towards Matthews ideological beliefs and demand to know why a God having power of such magnitude would allow his own children to be subject to ethical endangerment as the jewish people had endure throughout WWII which resulted in millions of deaths. There are millions of negative causations that demand the same level of credance you have so graciously offered as to explain causation associated with global heating. Would you be so bold to assign this type of causation due to God's existence and assign responsibility based solely on his will?

"I don't think climate scientists are taking the beliefs of their target audience very seriously in fashioning their arguments." Matt, are you aware that the majority of individuals whom climate AGW scientist target aspire towards values that represent a more secular societal preference as oppossed to a theocratic one. Although I am not what you would consider as being a religious person, I do respect that faith plays a role in your life so please do not accept my submission as an insult upon your intellect, as my intention was to insight thought by utilizing one horrific instance in global history among millions of other occurences. Regarding global heating, not a skeptic or fundamentalist.. still researching.

a catastrophe due to greenhouse gas build up is lower on theism than on naturalism. Americans are mainly theists. Therefore, Americans will estimate the threat from AGW to be lower than their naturalistic counterparts (those American and foreign scientists blowing the horn about AGW).

I'm just suggesting what I think the logic is that the climate fussers face. They'll have to address the notion of divine providence better if they want buy-in from the nation as a whole. The history of life on the planet looks like fortuitous accident after accident getting to this point; theists aren't about to easily conclude it's now their job to avert every asteroid, earthquake, and climate swing from here on out ... and they probably don't believe the world's meant to be here for that much longer anyway.

I think if you look at who funds FP you will get a good sense as to why they push warming fundamentalism so hard. Here is another perspective:

"The chief defence offered by the warmists to all those revelations centred on the IPCC's last 2007 report is that they were only a few marginal mistakes scattered through a vast, 3,000-page document. OK, they say, it might have been wrong to predict that the Himalayan glaciers would melt by 2035; that global warming was about to destroy 40 per cent of the Amazon rainforest and cut African crop yields by 50 per cent; that sea levels were rising dangerously; that hurricanes, droughts and other "extreme weather events" were getting worse. These were a handful of isolated errors in a massive report; behind them the mighty edifice of global warming orthodoxy remains unscathed. The "science is settled", the "consensus" is intact.

But this completely misses the point. Put the errors together and it can be seen that one after another they tick off all the central, iconic issues of the entire global warming saga. Apart from those non-vanishing polar bears, no fears of climate change have been played on more insistently than these: the destruction of Himalayan glaciers and Amazonian rainforest; famine in Africa; fast-rising sea levels; the threat of hurricanes, droughts, floods and heatwaves all becoming more frequent.

All these alarms were given special prominence in the IPCC's 2007 report and each of them has now been shown to be based, not on hard evidence, but on scare stories, derived not from proper scientists but from environmental activists. Those glaciers are not vanishing; the damage to the rainforest is not from climate change but logging and agriculture; African crop yields are more likely to increase than diminish; the modest rise in sea levels is slowing not accelerating; hurricane activity is lower than it was 60 years ago; droughts were more frequent in the past; there has been no increase in floods or heatwaves.

Furthermore, it has also emerged in almost every case that the decision to include these scare stories rather than hard scientific evidence was deliberate. As several IPCC scientists have pointed out about the scare over Himalayan glaciers, for instance, those responsible for including it were well aware that proper science said something quite different. But it was inserted nevertheless – because that was the story wanted by those in charge.

In addition, we can now read in shocking detail the truth of the outrageous efforts made to ensure that the same 2007 report was able to keep on board IPCC's most shameless stunt of all – the notorious "hockey stick" graph purporting to show that in the late 20th century, temperatures had been hurtling up to unprecedented levels. This was deemed necessary because, after the graph was made the centrepiece of the IPCC's 2001 report, it had been exposed as no more than a statistical illusion. (For a full account see Andrew Montford's The Hockey Stick Illusion, and also my own book The Real Global Warming Disaster.)

In other words, in crucial respects the IPCC's 2007 report was no more than reckless propaganda, designed to panic the world's politicians into agreeing at Copenhagen in 2009 that we should all pay by far the largest single bill ever presented to the human race, amounting to tens of trillions of dollars. And as we know, faced with the prospect of this financial and economic abyss, December's Copenhagen conference ended in shambles, with virtually nothing agreed.

What is staggering is the speed and the scale of the unravelling – assisted of course, just before Copenhagen, by "Climategate", the emails and computer codes leaked from East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit. Their significance was the light they shone on the activities of a small group of British and US scientists at the heart of the IPCC, as they discussed ways of manipulating data to show the world warming faster than the evidence justified; fighting off legitimate requests for data from outside experts to hide their manipulations; and conspiring to silence their critics by excluding their work from scientific journals and the IPCC's 2007 report itself. (Again, a devastating analysis of this story has just been published by Stephen Mosher and Tom Fuller in Climategate: The CRUtape Letters).

Almost as revealing as the leaked documents themselves, however, was the recent interview given to the BBC by the CRU's suspended director, Dr Phil Jones, who has played a central role in the global warming scare for 20 years, not least as custodian of the most prestigious of the four global temperature records relied on by the IPCC. In his interview Jones seemed to be chucking overboard one key prop of warmest faith after another, as he admitted that the world might have been hotter during the Medieval Warm Period 1,000 years ago than it is today, that before any rise in CO2 levels temperatures rose faster between 1860 and 1880 than they have done in the past 30 years, and that in the past decade their trend has been falling rather than rising.

The implications of all this for the warming scare, as it has been presented to us over the past two decades, can scarcely be overestimated. The reputation of the IPCC is in shreds. And this is to say nothing of the personal reputation of the man who was the mastermind of its 2007 report, its chairman, Dr Rajendra Pachauri.

It was in this newspaper that we first revealed how Pachauri has earned millions of pounds for his Delhi-based research institute Teri, and further details are still emerging of how he has parlayed his position into a worldwide business empire, including 17 lucrative contracts from the EU alone. But we should not expect the truth to break in too suddenly on this mass of vested interests. Too many people have too much at stake to allow the faith in man-made global warming, which has sustained them so long and which is today making so many of them rich, to be abandoned. The so-called investigations into Climategate and Dr Michael "Hockey Stick" Mann seem like no more than empty establishment whitewashes. There is little reason to expect that the inquiry into the record of the IPCC and Dr Pachauri that is now being set up by the UN Environment Programme and the world's politicians will be very different. "

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/7332803/A-perfect-storm-is-brewing-for-the-IPCC.html

Using the authors' construct, Galileo, Newton, Einstein, and the young physicists working on string theory were all skeptics since they questioned and, in all but the last case, disproved the conventional scientific wisdom of their days.

The skeptics listed in the article above are in excellent historical company.

We can still do something to save our environment from this serious climate change. Every individual must do their own responsibility in order to make it possible. Government must define a very effective climate change strategy that can encourage people to participate on it. Though it may take too many years to totally solve our environmental problem, it's much better for us to take action now.Anthony Wilson

Keating and Larson are just lemmings, following their leaders without ever switching on their brains or looking around to see the landscape.
Anyone who stops and examines the evidence has questions about the conclusions reached regarding AGW - including some of the principal players. Yet Larson and Keating babble on, allowing no contrary evidence to enter their pea-size brains.