Porky Pearce : Stoat

But "the science is settled" has been one of the mantras used almost exclusively by climate denialists as a term of insult for those actually doing science (Pearce is fully aware of all this back story, of course. He isn't using the phrase accidentally or carelessly). It is a feeble attempt at a double bind: is the science settled? ha ha, then you can't be a scientist because real science is never settled. Is the science not settled? Oh great, then we don't need to do anything until it is. The answer, of course, is that we know now (and indeed have for years) enough about the science to know that the world is warming now due to human activity, and will be warming more into the future from more anthro stuff.

They call this a consensus?

"Only an insignificant fraction of scientists deny the global warming crisis. The time for debate is over. The science is settled."

So said Al Gore ... in 1992.

Kyoto Report

[Robert Watson, newly elected President of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)] was asked in a press briefing about the growing number of climate scientists who challenge the conclusions of the UN that man-induced global warming is real and promises cataclysmic consequences. Watson responded by denigrating all dissenting scientists as pawns of the fossil fuel industry. "The science is settled" he said, and "we're not going to reopen it here."