On examination, Tol has removed some of the more blatant polemic in draft 6. On the other hand, the remaining points raised by the editor(s) (no clear errors found, just differences of opinion re: stats, sampling, and interpretation of implicits and trends – which don’t materially affect the Cook et al conclusions) are still valid. And Tol continues to consider trend stats, stats that are part of the Cook et al conclusions, as somehow being issues with an uncorrelated random rating order.

I expect that this draft will also, in turn, be rejected.

Not so fast:

Draft 6 of Cook comment: Shorter, sharper, clearer richardtol.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/draft-…—
Richard Tol (@RichardTol) June 18, 2013

The variety of reasons framing does not diminish the importance of the individual reasons for reaching a shared goal. You say other reasons aren’t nearly as pressing as climate change. That’s true for you and many more, but it is not true for many others. In the VOR framing, the validity and immediacy of all reasons are assumed.

“my goal is to contribute to scientifically valid information and to give people the tools to distinguish that from the ideological noise that’s being made.”

In the shared goal context, I would say your goal is mitigation and you’re attempting to reach it by reducing the climate science information deficit. You do a very nice job of it, by the way.

“I do not see that the submission has identified any clear errors in the Cook et al. paper that would call its conclusions into question. [...] All these things are valid issues for the usual discourse that exists in many informal avenues like conferences or blogs, but they do not constitute material for a formal comment.”

Unless someone else is planning to write a peer-reviewed comment, or put forth the effort to produce comparable work supporting their own views, finis for now.

I never have claimed that climate science is a fraud. Never said anything about creationism or vaccinations either. Why drag those old strawmen into a discussion about climate science? Obfuscation?

I would be interested in seeing you actually point out some of my lies and provide some kind of evidence to support your petulant accusations.

You wrote

climate is one of a number of valid reasons for energy transformation – the goal on which communication should focus.

Different people have different goals. For many scientists-bloggers, the goal is more directly related to increasing science literacy than to enable an energy transformation. I’m mostly concerned about society making choices based on wrong or skewed information, and my goal is to contribute to scientifically valid information and to give people the tools to distinguish that from the ideological noise that’s being made.

As for other reasons besides climate to engage in an energy tranformation: Yes, there are numerous other reasons. But they aren’t nearly as pressing as climate change. E.g. what if an abundant source of unconventional fossil fuel becomes economically recoverable? (shale gas anyone?) What reason besides climate would we have to leave it in the ground instead? See also http://ourchangingclimate.wordpress.com/2010/07/03/should-energy-policy-be-linked-to-climate-change/

“I realized about a decade ago that significant mitigation efforts weren’t (and aren’t) going to happen.” That’s quite a cultural filter for information and opinion. Maybe this inner pessimism is what caused his caustic commenter personna. He will be remembered as a warrior for the information deficit communicators.

I’d like to invite dhogaza into a new paradgm, where climate is one of a number of valid reasons for energy transformation – the goal on which communication should focus.

They do, where it counts – in the literature.

I realized about a decade ago that significant mitigation efforts weren’t (and aren’t) going to happen. I have no kids. I’m 59 and won’t live to see the worst of the coming changes.

I no longer care other than I hate to see anti-science types be so effective in the public arena. Many americans want to teach young-earth creationism in science class. Others don’t want to vaccinate their children due to pseudo-science and, as was proven just last year, outright scientific fraud. Yet others have been fooled into thinking that climate science is a fraud, fooled by people like you.

This won’t change science. The earth really is older than 6000 years. Vaccines really do prevent many childhood diseases, and many of these killed millions in years past.

Scientists will continue to document changes due to AGW. So will birders (black phoebe have now breed as far as sw washington, about 280 miles north of their range 20 years ago, red-shouldered hawks have moved north in the PNW, christmas bird counts have documented that winter ranges for about a large number of winter resident bird species in north america have moved north an average of about 200 miles in the last few decades). So will gardeners (horticultural zones have moved well north in the last few decades). And conservation biologists. Etc etc etc.

Go ahead an gloat in public, Monfort. Science won’t change society’s behavior. And your lies won’t change science …