What Does Climate Skeptic Mean?

Climate-Resistance has a post this week on the problem with separating the climate change debate into skeptic and believers, and why this leads to problems with the website I recommended called Climate Debate Daily. While I think CDD is still a very useful website, C-R makes a good point: "One of our main quibbles with the way the climate change debate is presented is precisely that the IPCC "consensus" belies a broad range of nuanced positions and arguments - both scientific and political - as does the so-called sceptic camp." A comment to the C-R post illustrates the problem. Roger Pielke Sr., who has done very important work on the social impact of natural disasters, among other things, and who runs an important blog is classified on CDD as a 'skeptic.' What makes him a skeptic? He believes that some warming is due to human emission of greenhouse gases and supports the development of alternative energy. He just doesn't believe that global warming deserves to be treated as an imminent crisis, and doesn't support an emphasis on greenhouse gas reductions. In other words, it is his political position, not his scientific beliefs, that make him a 'skeptic.' That he doesn't toe-the-line with climate ideology, rather than climate science, is what makes him a skeptic. When a political debate is divides into religious categories - 'skeptic' and 'believer' - we already know there will be more heat than light. But in this case, what makes the issue even worse, is that the line between science and politics is blurred by this religious language. The political position is seen to derive directly from the science, when it shouldn't, and disputing either the science *or* the politics is seen as a violating the same general orthodoxy.