Warmist Scott Denning: "There are at most a few thousand professional climate scientists in the U.S., quite probably fewer than the number of trans-sexual Yemeni-American Hindu Republicans"

Changing the Cultural Climate … on Climate Culture | The Yale Forum on Climate Change & The Media

No peer-reviewed science disputes the expectation that rising CO₂ levels will cause major climate change in the coming decades. Survey data have shown more than 97 percent agreement among professional climate scientists (Anderegg et al, 2010, PNAS), and every major professional society has issued supporting statements.

But it is equally clear that there is a huge debate in the larger culture about climate change. This debate is far from settled, and that’s unlikely to change anytime soon...

Climate science has no political or cultural constituency. There are at most a few thousand professional climate scientists in the U.S., quite probably fewer than the number of trans-sexual Yemeni-American Hindu Republicans. Yet tens of millions of people have strong opinions about climate change. Reasonable people differ on the severity of the climate threat, the socioeconomic implications, and especially on the best ways to respond to a changing climate.

At the Heartland conferences, I doubt even my sparkling sincerity changed the minds of Joseph Bast, Christopher Monckton, or Willie Soon. But literally dozens of people approached me in the hotel hallways and elevators, in the bar, and at dinner to say “Thank you so much for coming! I had never heard this other side of the story.” I suspect that there are millions and millions of people who feel this way. In this age of self-selected media, it’s quite common for people to make up their minds based on strongly filtered information.

Besides the Heartland conferences, I do a lot of public presentations on climate change, and I particularly enjoy engaging with hostile audiences. My experience has been that a lot of pleasant, decent people are predisposed to doubt the science. They’re not evil. They care deeply about their children’s and grand children’s’ futures, and genuinely want to do what’s right. These people are reachable, there are thousands of times more of them than there are climate scientists, and a lot of them vote. Not surprisingly, they often find unpersuasive an arrogant attitude that dismisses them as anti-intellectual fools.