The attached link attempts to sum in 500 words the unsettled nature of the science behind climate change. In so doing it brings the Arctic evidence for warming into a global context. Obviously, the writer is challenging accepted scientific dogma of the anthropogenic effects on climate.
http://maize-energy.blogspot.com/2006/10/wojick-makes-skeptics-case-on-warming.html What is most interesting to me in terms of the posted article are the comments attached thereto - particularly those on scientific debate itself. One argues worthy debate can only occur through peer reviewed journals (publication) and the other advocates to the contrary. The discourse goes to the definition of what constitutes 'worthiness' in a scientific sense.
If publication is the accepted norm - information outside the norm is relegated to unscientific or non science or more bluntly scoffed at. Clearly the climate change counter argument suffers this very malady - unsupported by a weight of peer reviewed publication.
However, it does not necessarily follow that the counter argument is unscientific or unworthy of publication. On the contrary, that the counter argument is
not represented in peer reviewed publication would suggest that the
process of peer reviewed publication is inherently flawed as a mechanism for
effective scientific debate - it fails to represent the other side of the debate (the counter argument)adequately through publication.
That the counter argument exists at all cannot be denied. The discussions so far held on this topic, in this forum, ably reflects discussions being held at the top echelons of climate science:
http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO2ScienceB2C/Index.jsp In New Zealand an organisation has been formed to represent the counter argument:
http://www.climatescience.org.nz/ and its most recent recruit is Professor David Bellamy - noted botanist and environmentalist:
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/SC0610/S00030.htm There is no question that climate change has broad areas of disagreement. At the heart of the matter is the interpretation of the science. The science indeed is unsettled - to say otherwise is to fly in the face of the evidence.
