I will share 4 leading causes:
1) lack of funding.
2) lack of secure funding.
3) narrowly-constrained funding.
4) unfathomably nasty administrative culture.

A few years ago I was estimating it would take 3 decades to make substantial improvements to the system. During the past year I have revised the estimate to: Indeterminate.

Insider’s view of what?

Do you have an insider’s view?

You’ll always get people jumping onto a bandwagon and bringing various motivations to any enterprise. That’s just human nature.

And people also have mixed motives. Someone may desire to ‘do something good’ for humanity and make a very good living as a surgeon. The energy executive may spot a profitable opportunity in renewables and enjoy a feeling of virtue at reducing his carbon footprint.

What’s happening at the moment, especially in your country, is that the politics is moving the issue to the point where action is becoming a reality rather than a distant possibility, as previously. As a result, the motivations of the various parties are becoming more visible. I don’t see anything untoward in this.

“2) Anyone projecting that scientists can’t &/or don’t lie appears profoundly (almost incomprehensively) naive.”

It’s true that scientists can lie/deceive themselves, but the default position, as with anyone, is surely that scientists should be presumed honest until shown otherwise.

The positions don’t lie on a linear continuum – and whatever dividing lines may exist are confused & obfuscated by natural desire to curb toxic pollution (CO2 aside) and earn money.

What we are seeing is a lot of people who are willing to “go along” with a ride to get to somewhere else …and that “somewhere else” could be an opportunity to profit from a ‘green’ economic framework &/or, more simply, a perceived opportunity to reduce toxic pollution – for 2 examples (with beliefs about CO2 left aside).

In other words:
A lot of poker-faces and few showing their true hand.

The (blind-eye-turned) reasoning seems to go like this:
Step A – Get a control system in place.
Step B – Adjust it to be something else (perhaps something sensible) later.

…but it is making a lot of folks look crooked since “sensible” is left out of Step A and not guaranteed later.

If they would switch the slogan from “ghg” to “toxic pollution”, they would appear a lot more honest & credible.

2 things are for sure:
1) Hardly anyone in the game appears honest, so whichever way things go is unlikely to have much to do with truth.
2) Anyone projecting that scientists can’t &/or don’t lie appears profoundly (almost incomprehensively) naive.

If you mean there are a range of views about climate change among climate scientists, that’s probably always been the case. The IPCC reports present a number of scenarios including, for example, a range of possible temperature levels from CO2 forcing. And of course sceptics also occupy a number of positions vis-a-vis climate.

That said, there is a definite dividing line between those who reject climate change or its extent, and counsel inaction, and those who accept climate change and the need to take action.

On the political/economic/social side there is likely to be an even greater diversity of views, since as Hulme says, one’s position on climate change does not determine how one might respond to it.

Even so, if most climate scientists are left-leaning – and I have no idea whether they are — they would most likely opt for solutions that are government-led, or at least have no great objection to them.

Just working on my vision for the future of humanity.

“I wonder how history will define the two factions. Maybe environmentalists vs. humanists?” – Tamara (10:37:17)

“[...] a simple fact about human behavior which is, the more passionate, emotionally connected and outspoken one is to a position or cause, the more resistant and less rational and logical one will be in accepting any information that runs to the contrary.” – bsneath (09:07:46)

“[...] from a “meta” perspective [...] issue of climate change encompasses much more than the bare science [...] involves values, the sort of society we want to live in, and even our vision for the future of humanity.” – Brendan H (02:43:41)

- – -
All those eggs in one basket …

DennisA (12:13:35) “It sought to integrate scientific and social disciplines in promoting the idea of dangerous climate change and to stimulate public policy initiatives”

- – -
This is the crux of the issue:

Magnus A (17:12:25) “Discussion is also important in science [...] must be conducted within a framework where the categories true and false exists and are a crucial quality which enables science”

… but grey is being portrayed as black &/or white by those who cannot perceive or will not acknowledge paradox …

-
Magnus A (17:12:25) “[...] their authority isn’t relevant for politics [...] science has no political responsibility. Science shall not govern society. Scientist can have – and it’s good if the have – opinons in political matters and contribute in the common debate, but it’s not up to them to decide political path.”

This is getting to the meat of the climate issue.

Magnus A (17:12:25) “[...] scientific dictatorshio [...] made me reflect on Science Fiction in which I guess science sometimes is idealized as “good” and capable of superior (non-democratic) political control. So a hypothesis this resulted in is that it may be a tendency among in particular engineers and scientists (???) to embrace scince as a political decision level…(?)”

Well-worth thinking about so we can avoid a cold & calculated disaster based on the untenable assumptions that underpin so many of the “facts”. Free people are not going to volunteer to be slaves of false “reason”. It could take decades, centuries, or even millennia to have (all of the necessary) reasonable (no”"quotes) facts.

If we risk entering an era of cold calculation – where calculations govern decisions – it will be wise to truculently expose the pervasive abuse of ‘mathematical convenience’, with an aim of eliminating our reliance on untenable assumptions.

Magnus A (17:12:25) “The reason why political decisions by science is wrong [...] Scientist are not good politicians [...] [...] the false picture that science do not dispute things and says what politicians shall do argue that political debate mustn’t take place.”

Thank you for bringing some much-needed ideas to raise the discussion out of a lazy belief that binary black &/or white algorithms supply “good enough” approximations of naturally-twisted-grey.

- – -
John G. Bell (21:41:49) “I think some data is being passed around outside of public scrutiny that has turned some heads. My guess is that it is from one of the hard sciences such as physics or astronomy. But who is to say? The climatologists may be sitting on a land mine. Look away children and remember their example.”

Keep permanently in mind there are aerospace engineering applications …& so by extension there are also ___ applications…

Still, there are strong clues in the (few) data that are publicly available… (maybe no one noticed…)

- – -
Brendan H (02:43:41) “[...] a good start would be to find ways of framing the issue that recognise the similarities between both sides and enable them to seek common ground.”

This is well-underway – but I will disagree here:

Brendan H (02:43:41) “Most of the committed people on either side of the issue will have little difficulty in recognising the worldview of their opponents.”

It’s no longer “us & them; with/without”. At this stage of radiative diversification, one might say there are a multitude of camps ….although even that is a semantic simplification.

- – -
Magnus A (05:03:47) “Large anthropogenic global warming and the lies on facts, politics and stupidity around it I regard as a narrative which is used for political purpose.”

So useful (politically) —- there will be no way to stop this — so focus can (productively) drift to how to roll with the punch to nudge the (massive) momentum in a constructive direction – i.e. this is a major opportunity …

[... That was kind of the whole point --- It's plain to see that the folks in the driver's-seats don't appear to actually believe in this stuff. ]

Momentum of this magnitude isn’t available every day and can’t necessarily be conveniently & quickly stirred up artificially via costly-orchestration.

[They (very cleverly) used paradox.]

- – -
Tom B (11:17:29) “So why do I hear people across the globe putting forward as fact statements that are diametrically opposed?”

Much of the science relevant to the climate discussion involves detective work & conjecture without the possibility of experiment.

Tom B (11:17:29) “If scientists can’t even agree on what baseline data set to use, what hope is there of ever arriving at the truth?”

The scientific debate is (slowly) neutralizing itself. Eventually there will be a changing-of-the-scientific-guard and then there can be a new era of scientists – & citizens – who can be fully trained in nonlinear & conditional thinking.

Today’s climate science has stalemated itself through inability &/or unwillingness to be large enough to contain apparent contradiction. Hence the maturing & necessary drift in productive discussion-focus towards the kinds of points Magnus A (17:12:25) raises.

- – -
How to recognize POISON BAIT:

“[...] ad hominem slur” – Pragmatic (09:33:37)

No wool over these objectively-glazed eyes …

“He, like any other “believer in the consensus,” prefers the ad-hominem over rational argument any day.” – Mark T (14:02:44)

… nor over these penetrating ones:

“To maintain power they must preserve the “consensus” by avoiding debate and ridiculing or discrediting the opposition.” – Tamara (10:37:17)

As founding Director of the Tyndall Centre for Social Engineering, (sorry, that should read Climate Change Research), Mike Hulme presided over the very climate alarmism that he now eschews. You can read his legacy here: http://www.tyndall.ac.uk/media/news/archive_news.shtml

In 1999 Mike Hulme helped to organise the ECLAT-2 Workshop Report No . 1 Helsinki, Finland, 14-16 April 1999, “Representing Uncertainty in Climate Change Scenarios and Impact Studies”

This was in the opening statement:
“Uncertainty is a constant companion of scientists and decision-makers involved in global climate change research and management. This uncertainty arises from two quite different sources – ‘incomplete’ knowledge and ‘unknowable’ knowledge. ‘Incomplete’ knowledge affects much of our model design, whether they be climate models (e.g. poorly understood cloud physics) or impact models.

Unknowable’ knowledge arises from the inherent indeterminacy of future human society and of the climate system. (This was before Rumsfeld and his classic truism, “we don’t know what we don’t know”). Human (and therefore social) actions are not predictable in any deterministic sense and we will always have to create future greenhouse gas emissions trajectories on the basis of indeterminate scenario analysis (Nakicenovic et al.., 1998). Uncertainties in climate change predictions arising from this source are therefore endemic.”

The following year he founded the Tyndall Centre and uncertainty became a thing of the past.

Part of the Tyndall mission statement was to “exert a seminal influence on the design and achievability of the long-term strategic objectives of UK and international climate policy”. It sought to integrate scientific and social disciplines in promoting the idea of dangerous climate change and to stimulate public policy initiatives on energy and transport. It aimed to motivate society into an acceptance of the catastrophic perception of climate change and to impart the view that it, (society), has the ability, but needs the willingness to “choose our future climate”.

His foray into post-normal science was in a review he wrote of Singer and Avery’s book, “Climate Change – every 1500 years. UK journalist Melanie Phillips commented thus:

http://www.melaniephillips.com/diary/?p=1469 – March 14, 2007
“From the horse’s mouth — climate change theory has nothing to do with the truth. In a remarkable column in today’s Guardian Mike Hulme, ……………a key figure in the promulgation of climate change theory, who but a short while ago warned that exaggerated forecasts of global apocalypse were in danger of destroying the case altogether — writes that scientific truth is the wrong tool to establish the, er, truth of global warming. Instead, we need a perspective of what he calls ‘post-normal’ science:

“Self-evidently dangerous climate change will not emerge from a normal scientific process of truth seeking, although science will gain some insights into the question if it recognises the socially contingent dimensions of a post-normal science. But to proffer such insights, scientists – and politicians – must trade (normal) truth for influence.”

To have the Director of Tyndall ridiculed in this way was embarrassing for the government campaign. Four months later he was on “sabbatical”. He was replaced at Tyndall by Bob Watson, former advisor to Al Gore, former IPCC Chairman and former Chief Scientist at the World Bank. It wasn’t long before Watson produced this: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/aug/06/climatechange.scienceofclimatechange:

“The UK should take active steps to prepare for dangerous climate change of perhaps 4C according to one of the government’s chief scientific advisers. In policy areas such as flood protection, agriculture and coastal erosion. Professor Bob Watson said the country should plan for the effects of a 4C global average rise on pre-industrial levels.”

Great relief, the UK was back on message.

Sociology continues to play a major role in the climate change agenda:

1,200 participants have just attended the Open Meeting of the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change (IHDP), a research arm of the UN.

“One of the keynotes was from Hans Joachim Schellnhuber of Potsdam Institute for Climate Impacts Research. After a daunting rundown of climate change threats, Schellnhuber – a physicist in a sea of human-dimensioners – urged social science to take the front seat on the problem. “Speaking as a natural scientist,” he said, “I think 90% of research [on global change] will have to be done by the social scientists.”

I thought it already was…..

My view of science was that one may have a theory within your field of study. Observations are made and/or experiments designed and run to either prove or disprove the theory. This should be repeatable. Underlying this, I’ll admit’ rather simplistic understanding of how science is conducted is the idea that facts are immutable. They do not change and are readily apparent to another expert in a given field of study. If I understand correctly, this site originally came into being to point out problems with land based temperature measurements being taken across the US. A potential source of bad data.

So why do I hear people across the globe putting forward as fact statements that are diametrically opposed?

Why do I hear that global temperatures have been dropping since 1998? No their not, 2005 was the warmest year. That Arctic ice is shrinking. No it isn’t, it has started to recover. The Greenland ice sheet is melting. Not it’s not. Antarctic ice calving is a sure sign of coming catastrophe. No it’s not, it’s normal and ice coverage in the Antarctic is growing. CO2 is a pollutant. No it’s not, it’s vital for life. Global temperature rise and increased CO2 are good. OMG NO! We’ll reach a “tipping point” that will plunge the earth into fiery hell!

And on, and on, and on, and…..

I think you see my problem, and one I think Mr. Hulme is suggesting that we solve. If scientists can’t even agree on what baseline data set to use, what hope is there of ever arriving at the truth? I realize that scientific discovery can be adversarial and competitive, but we should at least be able to agree on the reliability of simple observational data?

It gets me so confused my head hurts.

That would be a selling story today, New York Times! What are you waiting for?

[Sorry I'm again too long-winded... and speak a lousy English.]

No, you don’t got my point …because I wasn’t clear enough. I agree with Allan M R MacRae (20:08:52) that NAS’ position isn’t aggressive AGW, and that they therefor don’t say what Edward Markey assume (or lie about) that they say. I should have said that politicians use the word “science”, not actual science.

I’m on the NAS side in that they do not propose any political program such as the Waxman-Markey bill. NAS has had a development which Lindzen describes in the document “Climate Science: Is It Currently Designed To Answer Questions?“ (*). Lindzen describes a new Temporary Nominating Group for NAS (which I think was suggested by the environmentalists) where not so bright scientists, like John Holdren, has got their way into NAS. Many of those elected via the Temporary Nominating Group (where scientific merits isn’t prioritized), like e.g. Holdren, has reached top positions within NAS. That’s a shame. But still NAS just say that AGW is real (as other scientific bodies in the world does), and they didn’t told the congress what to do with the Lieberman-Warner bill, as well as they don’t tell them what to do with the Waxman-Markey bill, or any other political decision! Markey is therefore lying about NAS position (using the good reputation of that organization).

(*) http://www.ecoworld.com/features/2008/10/30/climate-science-is-it-currently-designed-to-answer-questions/

Large anthropogenic global warming and the lies on facts, politics and stupidity around it I regard as a narrative which is used for political purpose. This is important, and there is no conspiracy in or from the scientific society. UN did set up IPCC, universities didn’t. (Then we have the money problem where politicians as Markey may stop money to Universities who question the narrative, but that‘s incentives in the other direction.)

-

Let me also mention tactics which I can see is now used on a political level dressed in “science“; not mainstream sound science, but a political climate alarmist movement based on Universities. Thus only the word “science” as a symbol — for politicians — for settled knowledge. The tactics I see is the preparation for the Copenhagen Climate Conference in December. The group which was responsible for the first Copenhagen conference in March this year was IARU (Hulme was invited as a moderator at that conference, and mentioned this in a partly critical BBC article (**)). A self appointed group from the self appointed 11 best Universities in the World.

(**) http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7946476.stm

However, a problem with the March conference In Copenhagen is that those who participated almost everyone are climate alarmists. We had John Schellnhuber from Potsdam Institute for Climate Impacts, which is a very alarmistic Institute which “science” is to make models with positive feedbacks and tipping points only. I don’t think they are doing anything else. Schellnhuber is a theoretical physicist with math skills, but he isn’t a climate scientist. Another mathematician and climate activist is Amanda Lynch at Monash University. She’s also study the limits of a climate out of control, sort of.
http://arts.monash.edu.au/ges/staff/alynch.php

So here we have a bunch of climate alarmists who are telling the politicians what they shall to in Copenhagen in December. No dissidents are tolerated, and I’m sure even Mike Hulme, Hans von Storch and other climate scientists believing in AGW are rejected as dissidents, although Mike Hulme was invited as a moderator (maybe to “act as a poster boy” for a less alarmistic position).

The Copenhagen meeting is prepared as a meeting for a narrative, which is the narrative of UN too, and which asks for more government, and even world government on carbon emissions. Politicians will be likely to praise “the science” as a political road map which they follows as servants — for the good sake of the people.

But the winner is the environmental movement, which I would say is a leftist movement, and the same movement as the one 1968 and at the first Earth Day 1970.

This is a political coup (buy activists, science in general not to blame; although political scientific bodies shall be embarrassed).

Let’s hope lots of countries are strident against the international carbon trade scheme which UN wants to have. I also think that politicians in all countries in the West should grip what I have mentioned here.

The way I read it, Hulme is arguing from a “meta” perspective rather than about any specific matters of climate science. He is saying that the issue of climate change encompasses much more than the bare science – it also involves values, the sort of society we want to live in, and even our vision for the future of humanity.

In other words, climate change has become a proxy issue, in which many other battles besides the actual science are also being fought.

Most of the committed people on either side of the issue will have little difficulty in recognising the worldview of their opponents. However, they are often too busy shouting at each other to notice that both sides want essentially the same ends, but view the achievement of those ends from very different perspectives.

What to do? I’ve no idea, but a good start would be to find ways of framing the issue that recognise the similarities between both sides and enable them to seek common ground.