Consensus is largely a propaganda claim designed to relieve ordinary people of the need to understand the issue

SNAP!

I love the "consensus" argument, put forth by environmental extremists. The goal is to eliminate debate by ridicule and minimizing the qualifications of skeptics (while praising Al Gore on his) and change the focus to action as defined by their terms as opposed to input from all sides. Denying that there are dissenting opinions is like denying the holocaust happened.

It's interesting to note that the latest IPCC report hasn't been put out by climate scientists. 

 All of this is leading to increased taxes and regulations, the goal of which is to halt economic growth of first-world nations.  Sadly, it's the third world nations that will suffer detrimental results as they depend on generous nations like the US for support.

Here's some quotes put forth by skeptics, which are very telling.

Why not be more honest and say, ‘Our current climate models are incapable of replicating the temperature variations of the past 50 years without a push from the way we believe greenhouse gas increases may affect the climate, though other factors may be responsible too.?’

Could it be, as implied by these two examples, that the function of “consensus” is to minimize the uncertainty and ambiguity that is inherent in the immensely complex, non-linear dynamical system we call climate, and enhance the perceived credibility of the process?

John R. Christy, Alabama State Climatologist, is Director of the Earth System Science Center and Professor of Atmospheric Science at the University of Alabama in Huntsville
 

Frankly, the very idea of consensus in such an immature and multi- faceted subject as climate change should be suspicious ab initio. Consensus is largely a propaganda claim designed to relieve ordinary people of the need to understand the issue. This is neither good for science nor for public policy.

There are some things that most scientists involved in this issue agree on. The earth’s mean temperature is always changing, and over the past century, there have been two periods where this temperature has gone up a few tenths of a degree and one period when it went down. The net warming is not so different from claiming that in flipping a coin three times, you came up with two heads.

The level of CO2 in the atmosphere has also gone up. Beyond this, there is mostly weak science and confusion. It is pretty easy to show that current models are likely exaggerating the sensitivity of climate to increased CO2, and the ice age records show temperature changes preceding CO2 changes by 100’s to thousands of years.

Thus, the basis for concern is weak. The arguments supporting this are numerous, and since you only want a brief paragraph, I’ll stop here. But, if you want more information, please ask. I would simply point out that this issue has been presented as something that all scientists agree on for 20 years. We’ve also been told for twenty years that we only have about 5 years left to take action.

The report to be issued on Friday is not a report by climate scientists. Rather, Working Group II deals with impacts. That is to say, they assume the worst scenarios are true, and spin tales about the implications of these scenarios for their own fields. This is a good formula for creating scare stories, but it is far from any area of consensus. Indeed, it is far from science, itself.

Richard S. Lindzen is the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at MIT.