Amusing stuff from Realclimate's Raymond T. Pierrehumbert

Excerpt from this post:

Most of us who are involved in research related to climate change have been asked at one time or another to participate in public debates against skeptics of one sort or another. Some of us have even been cajoled into accepting. In the pre-YouTube days, I did one against the then-head of the American Petroleum institute at the U. of Chicago law school. Gavin did an infamous one against Crichton and company. People are always demanding that Al Gore debate somebody or other. Both Dave Archer and I have been asked to debate Dennis Avery (of "Unstoppable Global Warming" fame) on TV or radio more than once — and declined. It's a no win situation. If you accept you give the appearance that these skeptics have something to say that's actually worth debating about — and give their bogus ideas more publicity. If you decline there are all sorts of squawks that "X won't debate!" or implications that scientists have declared "the debate" (whatever that is supposed to mean) prematurely closed when in fact it is "just beginning."

Note that when fellow Realclimate alarmist Gavin Schmidt participated in a high-profile debate last March, the result was a resounding defeat:

After the debate, however, the skeptics' team climbed to 46 percent while the alarmists dropped to 42 percent. The difference changed from +27 (serious warming) before the debate to -4 (no serious warming) after the debate. Skeptics have also won the online vote, 55 percent vs 42 percent with 3 percent undecided.

Some information about Pierrehumbert is here:

He is principally interested in the formulation of idealized models which can be brought to bear on fundamental phenomena governing present and past climates of the Earth and other planets.