Some dedicated climate sceptics are beyond persuasion. Some are batty. One can understand how exasperating it is for climate scientists to deal with them. But given what is at stake, they had better get over it. Expert dissenters, of whom there are many on this issue, have an honoured place in science. Sometimes, they turn out to be right. Strong consensus supports key findings of the climate orthodoxy, but the details matter and the science is far from settled. Aiming to smear the doubters and shut them up is just bad science, and from a public-relations point of view is wholly counter-productive.
The key mistake is this: governments and many climate scientists have decided this subject is too difficult for voters. Complications will only confuse them, poor things.
As one Climategate e-mailer noted, we do not understand why global warming has paused lately: the models cannot account for it. But this is not for public consumption. It is best never mentioned, think governments and their scientific advisers. Just keep saying “flat-earthers” or, as the White House spokesman said the other day, “the notion that there is some kind of debate … is kind of silly.”
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