Politics of climate expertise | Climate Etc.

Looking at Steve Schneider and Jim Hansen in this context, we see two very different strategies re playing politics with climate expertise. Jim Hansen has become an activist, and IMO has lessened his political influence (others have different opinions on this, I’m sure). Steve Schneider is a far more interesting case in this regard (and ultimately more effective IMO), using the strategies of consensus (particularly in the context of the IPCC), elitism in terms of the science and scientists (e.g the PNAS article), and organizing statements from prestigious institutions like the NAS and professional societies. In short, much of the strategy that proved to be pretty effective until . . . well, climategate. While effective over a fairly long period, these strategies are no longer effective.
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As per the IPCC/UNFCCC ideology, the reason climate scientists want to get the message across is to influence politics and policy to do something (preferably the UNFCCS solution) about climate change. My thoughts on playing politics with climate expertise? Don’t, unless you are knowledgeable about policy and understand politics. Michael Oppenheimer in his recent AGU talk has some sage advice in this regard.

Ration your own petrol, Hugh | Herald Sun Andrew Bolt Blog

“We” want our petrol rationed? Er, who is this ”we”, Kimo Sabe?

It is one of the most tempting fallacies of the pundit and the ideologue to image the rest of humanity as clones of themselves, which is precisely why so many attempts at building their utopias involve the unplanned need for a lot of force to get compliance from their strangely unwilling subjects.

For Mackay to fall for this conceit is even more unforgivable, given his extensive history in polling the people on whose behalf he now presumes to speak.