Early reports from the Lisbon conference

My advice for reconciliation in Lisbon would be to hold a side meeting at the Solar do Vinho do Porto. After sampling the port, the fine food and the comfy furniture I suspect the debate would be civilised.

I like Floor Anthoni’s idea of all scientific papers published woithout any named authors. Then each would stand on its merits rather than being supported or denounced by partisan reviewers/readers.

To: Floor Anthoni
“Chatham House Rules” also means that anyone can take credit later . . . “Like taking candy from the baby . . . “

Re: bubbagyro says:
January 26, 2011 at 10:16 am
“It’s too bad that history does not record how ignominiously (or not) the terracentrists or flat earthers of ages past…”
Actually, we don’t need to go back more than 10 years in history to see what will most likely happen. “Everyone knew” that Y2K would be catastrophic unless we spent hundreds of $ billions on “Y2K” compliance measures. While a fundamental fix of the obvious computerized date problem would have been relatively straightforward, we were led to demand that all sectors “prove a negative” and the cost of that exercise was horrendous.
A number of countries did virtually nothing to prepare for Y2K and the news media eagerly awaited their collapse. Those countries took the position that, “We’ll just get up on the morning of January 1, 2000 and fix whatever no longer works. The Armageddon date came and went with nothing really newsworthy happening anywhere in the world. Then humanity merely shrugged and moved on to “the next big thing”; no investigations, no outrage; not even a simple acknowledgment that a monumental boo-boo had occurred.

Ditto what Chris Riley wrote.

There are now three things you don’t talk about with friends at the dinner table:
Sex, Religion and Climate change.

Violence due to power without accountability.
I would have suggested that the violence is due to frustration, and much of the frustration is due to many insiders’ continued insistence that anybody who isn’t a climate science insider has no legitimate place making any comments about anything. Any such comments deserve nothing but being ignored or attacked.
That will never fly. Stakeholders in other areas will make sure of it.

FrankK says: January 26, 2011 at 11:26 am
There are now three things you don’t talk about with friends at the dinner table:
Sex, Religion and Climate change.
—————————————————————————
Ayoop Frank. Nah – just 2 – Climate change talk IS religion and ephemeral. Sex is forevah!
Douglas

Uh, Jorge, the Santa Maria didn’t make it home. She ran into the edge and it turned out to be land…

I venture that the view that the villification or vituperation of the vagaries and verbiage of one’s adversaries is violence, rather than vehemence, is vested with a vague verisimilitude but is not validated when one views veritable violent villains.
That is to say that if you start with the hyperbole ” taxing me to death” it’s not hard to get entrenched in exaggeration. A positive feedback, maybe.

Cross-posted from the original Lisbon article, sorry but I put it in the wrong place!
The term ‘reconciliation’ immediately brought to my mind the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa. This Commission forced all concerned to face what they did during the apartheid era in that country, including those who had political power and those who were seeking political power. This forum is not the place to discuss the events brought before the Commission but I thought that the methodology and the underlying tenets of that Commission might have a degree of applicability with regard to the Lisbon Forum.
I have read and re-read the terms of the Commission and I have studied some of the events brought before it. My original thoughts that such a Commission could work in the context of the Lisbon Forum were dashed very early on by one single word, Truth.
For something like the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to function in the context of climate change and the science involved, the truth would be required from all participants.
From http://www.beyondintractability.org/articlesummary/10240/ I quote the following, “Justice is achieved not by retribution, but by the restoration of community. Healing communities requires truth-telling, forgiveness, acceptance and trust.” Such ‘truth-telling’ is, I regret to say, apparently anathema to one side of the non-debate insofar as ‘climate change’ is concerned.
I can foresee nothing of any value emerging from Lisbon; the foremost prerequisite for any form of ‘reconciliation’ is a full and frank admission of previous wrong-doings. That is not going to happen in Lisbon or anywhere else. The conflict will continue.

Oliver Ramsay says: January 26, 2011 at 12:41 pm
I venture that the view that the villification or vituperation of the vagaries and verbiage of one’s adversaries is violence, rather than vehemence, is vested with a vague verisimilitude but is not validated when one views veritable violent villains.
——————————————————————
Oliver – Verily, very funny – and ‘taxing to death’ undoubtedly hyperbolic but none the less the runaway taxation of energy is having a measurably deleterious effect upon the masses in most western countries smart retorts not withstanding and whether you like it or not.
Douglas

Variations of the word violence are used four times in J. Curry’s note. This cannot be coincidence. This is supporting and setting up another strawman, that of the skeptic who is threatening violence to the poor downtrodden and misunderstood AGW scientist, another well known meme in AGW folklore. Again, it has been another successful diversion, as can be seen by the number of people on this blog now discussing violence with regard to the global warming debate.
I just cannot understand how people are hoodwinked by this AGW scientist who is intent on neutering critics of AGW and cleverly putting herself above the fray while all the while pushing the AGW agenda.
I also cannot understand why any skeptic has agreed to go to this meeting, probably many at their own expense, while its a fair bet that all the AGW people are paid for by their Universities or grant monies.
Are they (the skeptics) so insecure that they actually want the approval of the AGW crowd? This is bizarre. Hey we love you guys, you don’t need to run to “them” for a little love and approval. And there are more and more of “us” supporting you. You are no longer alone.
I read a lot of blogs on the skeptic side, and I have never seen anyone advocating or threatening violence. By the way, I agree with those above objecting to the term violence used to describe disagreement. Violence is a physical act actually done to a person, not a verbal argument.