Ned Komar
Among professionals who work on the climate issue (the “Climate Community”), there is a long-standing reluctance to engage in conversation with people who don’t consider that the climate is in crisis.
Due to this reluctance, there are exceedingly few recorded debates between members of the Community and those from the outside with an appropriate level of expertise to make for a lively and educational dialogue (but there are some, and below, I’ve listed all of the debates that I have been able to find).
I find the lack of debate to be frustrating. In my case, I am skeptical of the idea that the earth’s climate is in crisis. To me, the skeptical arguments seem to be more likely to be correct than the alarmist arguments. Two important reasons for my skepticism: 1) The few actual debates I have had the pleasure to witness have been won by the skeptic(s). 2) The skeptics I speak to appear confident in their views and are eager to debate people from the Community; members of the Community, conversely, display what seems like a tribal attitude and either are hesitant, or in many cases, just unwilling to debate.
I am willing to be proven wrong regarding my skepticism. But I can’t be bullied into changing my view. It would take a reasoned argument, juxtaposed against arguments from the skeptic side of the debate. And I’ve been following this issue for over 25 years. For the average person curious about climate, but new to the issue, I would guess that it is quite hard to find arguments on both sides in order to make an informed decision for themselves. While the question of how climate works is a question of Science, the culture that has developed around the issue is a culture of Politics. Consequently, a search on the internet for articles on climate will return a politically curated batch.
I’ve been working on a project for the last 2-½ years to transform the situation described above. It’s called Climate Verso. Currently the project consists of a podcast, with only a few episodes published to date. It can be found on any podcast platform: https://theclimateversopodcast.buzzsprout.com/
More episodes will be dropping over the next few months, and I’m totally open to help from anyone interested in getting involved. The format of the podcast is a dialogue between two climate professionals with differing perspectives. I am the moderator of the discussions. Please listen to either or both of the episodes published so far. The first is Matthew Wielicki and Peter Fiekowsky debating the efficacy and risks of Ocean Fertilization. The 2nd is a wide ranging conversation between Judith Curry and Andrew Revkin about how the climate issue became polarized over the last 40 years.
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As promised, here’s the list of debates that I am familiar with. Please reply in the comments with any that I may have missed:
In 2006, The National Academy of Sciences held a 2-day symposium on PaleoClimate. Speakers included Michael Mann, Steve McIntyre, Hans von Storch, Ross McKitrick and Macolm Hughes. I was lucky to be in the audience, and just came across a brief report I wrote on my experience there:
In 2007 there was a debate hosted by Intelligence Squared featuring a total of 6 scientists, including Richard Lindzen on the skeptic side and Gavin Schmidt (the head of NASA-GISS) from the Community. The skeptics won the debate (there was a 16-point shift in the audience view from prior to post debate). Famously, Gavin Schmidt announced subsequently that he would never again participate in a debate with people who actually had a different view. IQ2US Debate: Global Warming Is Not A Crisis
There was a 2014 workshop on climate by the American Physical Society. A total of 6 scientists including Lindzen, Curry, John Christy and Ben Santer participated. The chair of the panel was Steve Koonin. This experience is apparently what brought Koonin over to the skeptic side of the debate. Here’s a link to the transcript: https://asset.cloudinary.com/apsphysics/993aca974d7c16f49f846aab75bba5a1
Again in 2014 there was a debate hosted by EconTalk between John Christy and Kerry Emanual
John Christy and Kerry Emanuel on Climate Change 03/24/2014
In 2019 there was a debate at Soho Forum between Craig Idso and Jeffrey Bennett
Is Carbon Dioxide Endangering the Planet? Craig Idso vs. Jeffrey Bennett. A Debate
In 2022 there was again a debate at Soho Forum between Steven Koonin and Andrew Dessler
Renewable Energy to Save the Planet? A Soho Forum Debate
Also in 2022 the Energy Switch premiered on PBS with a debate between Michael Greenstone and Steve Koonin
Energy Switch | How Should We Respond to Climate Change? | Season 1 | Episode 1 | PBS
In 2023 there was a debate hosted by the Steamboat Institute between Steve Koonin and Roger Pielke, Jr.
University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill. Is net zero by 2050 possible?
In 2024 the Energy Switch held a 2-part debate between Bjorn Lomborg and Andrew Dessler
Part 1: Energy Switch | Urgency of Climate Change, Part 1 | Season 5 | Episode 3 | PBS
Part 2: Energy Switch | Urgency of Climate Change, Part 2 | Season 5 | Episode 4 | PBS
Finally in 2025 the Energy Switch held another 2-part debate between Patrick Brown and Andrew Revkin
Part 1: Energy Switch | Extreme Weather part 1 | Season 7 | Episode 3 | PBS
Part 2: Energy Switch | Extreme Weather part 2 | Season 7 | Episode 4 | PBS
Are you a skeptic? Are you a member of the Climate Community? You can add to the dialogue by enlisting someone with a different perspective to have a conversation. I’m happy to host the dialogue at the Climate Verso Podcast. I can be reached at climateverso@gmail.com.
Finally, as I have reviewed the list of debates above, I noticed an apparent moderation in tone over the years. Is the skeptical view gaining ground, or at least achieving a modicum of credibility. Please let me know your take on this in the comments.
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On every opportunity I get, I engage folks about Global Warming.
Wow, it was warmer in the past than now, Melting Glaciers are uncovering forests, Climate models can’t model clouds and heat transports so they are garbage, and climate data is being fabricated to support the Global Warming agenda.
Worst of all the energy production cures they propose will bankrupt the world and cause outs!
Mankind does not even know what the oprimal global climate actually is let alone how to achidve it. Spending money trying to fight climate change when we do not reallk know what we are doing is a huge waste of funds.
There is no global climate, just like there is no global temperature, or sea level.
Just curious, but isn’t the sea level level? More or less of course.
Not really. The Earth rotates! The “sea level” at the equator is farther from the Earth’s center than is the “sea level” of the arctic. And that’s just for starters. Tidal variations can be as little as a few inches mid-ocean and as much as dozens of feet against some shorelines. Etc.,etc,
“Climate scientists” love them some “arithmetic averages”. It makes things simple enough for them to go all Chicken Little about.
Consider the Panama Canal.
The sea level of the Pacific is not the same as the Atlantic or the canal would not require locks.
You’re joking, right? I don’t really think that’s the reason for the locks- but I could be wrong. 🙂
Sea level of the Pacific is about 8 inches higher than the Atlantic.
On further review, the locks are needed because of the intervening terrain.
Were it not for the terrain, one lock only would be needed to control the flow from the Pacific to the Atlantic for the simple reason of making passage safer.
Not quite! The locks on both sides lift ships up to the level of the lake, which is a bit above both Atlantic and Pacific levels. I think I read that the current dry spell has canal operators worried that the lake might not provide enough water to operate the locks.
They had to reduce the number of transits due to lack of rain to fill the lake and locks. So, yes.
Maybe the lake could be converted to a non lake full of salt water. Forget it as a lake and pump sea water to it. Or, is the lake large with a unique aquatic ecosystem? It would seem that sacrificing the lake for the benefit of the canal would be a fair trade off.
Shirley you’ve heard of tides.
Surely, that’s why I said more or less to accommodate irrelevancies.
Mostly, the Alarmists rely on what amounts to a Complex Question fallacy. The notion that since the Earth is warmer now than 1850, all the rest of their much more dubious claims are also valid. All the claims need to be tested on their own, so the usefulness of wind and solar has nothing to do with General Circulation Models’ validity.
They also rely on all change is bad because it has an Anthropic cause.
The ability to take an engineering approach to what impact are at what levels is beyond the alarmists ability to apply.
This is backed by statements such as methane’s impact to Al Gore’s Warming is worse than CO2 and must be stopped, even though CH4 in the atmosphere is orders of magnitude less than CO2.
Climate science and the press never say how much warming the increase in methane will cause. The reason for that is because it’s nearly nothing.
They also rely on ideology, intransigence and ad hominem attacks to marginalize their opponents and polarize the masses to move the Overton window in their favor. You can’t have a rational conversations with irrational people.
All of the GCM computer climate simulation models have geerhated results that does not coresponding to what has been observed in the real world. The GCM’s cannot be trusted because many of the asumptions upon which they are bassed upon does not represent the real world. In the real world there is no real evidence that CO2 has any effect on our global climate system. The climate sensivity of CO2 is effectively zero. The AGW hypothesis has been falsified by science.
Somewhere in that mess is a valid point struggling to get out!
All of my points are valid.
You’re asking for a common sense approach to debating AGW. I hope you can achieve it but I believe it has become a religious, rather than scientific, debate. There are many people on the skeptic side that would love to have an honest debate but not so much on the alarmist side.
The core of this problem is the climate sensivity of CO2. What do you believe to be the climate seisnvity of CO2, the exact number? Along with ones answer one should provide a description of the atmoapheric physics involved I believe that there is plendy of scientific rational to conclude that the climate sensivity of CO2 is really effectively zero. For example most of the Earth’s atmosphere including the CO2 in the atmosphere is in the troposphere where heat realted energy transfer via convection and h2O phase change dominates over heat realted energy transfer via LWIR absorption band radiation. The only way that adding CO2 to the tropospher could cause surface warming is if the adding of CO2 caused an effective increase of the thermal insulating properties of the troposphere. If adding CO2 really caused surface warming then the effect should show up as an increase in the dry lapse rate in the troposphere. As derived from first principals, the dry lapse rate is equal to -g/cp where g is the acceleration of gravity and cp is the heat capacity of the atmospher at constant pressure. This formula has been verified by observation and is been found to hold in the tropospheres of all planets in the solar system with thick atmospheres. The LWIR absorption of greenhouse gases does not change the Thermal insulating effects of the troposphere and hence falsifies the AGW hypothesis. Actually a doubling of CO2 in the Earth’s troposohere causes a slight change in cp which in tuen causes a slight cooling effect of the Earth’s surface. H2O is known to have an even greater cooling effect. The greenhouse gases are really coolants. The AGW hypothesis is all wrong as a matter of science.
Willhaas,
Climate sensitivity and how much CO2 is anthropogenic?
Anthropogenic annual CO2 emissions are, from what I read, in the order of 3 to 5% of total.
Assuming the impossible and anthropogenic emissions were eliminated the net effect would be tiny.
So what is the logic in thinking man can influence climate by a small reduction in CO2 emissions that are already just a small part?
It just makes no sense.
It does not matter what the man caused percentage is. There is no evidence that adding CO2 to the atmosphere causes surface warming. The source of the CO2 does not matter.
The fact AGW is all wrong does not challenge any of the climate alarmists beliefs.
They ignore science, they simple prefer to believe….
I will repeat part of my post above because I think it is also relevant here:
You can’t have a rational conversation with irrational people.
Let us get real. Despite the hype, there is no real evidence that CO2 has any effect on our global climate system. It is just an unproven conjecture. There is plenty of scientific rational to conclude that the climate sensivity of CO2 is effectively zero. What do you believe to be the climate sienivity of CO2, the exact number? The AGW hypothesis has been falsified by science. For just some of the falsifications try reading and understanding “The Rational Climate e-Book” by Patrice Poyet which can download for free from the Inernet. Mankind does not even know what the oprimal global climate is let alone how to achidve it. Spending money to fight climate change is just a huge waste of funds. World wide, trillions of dollars have been spent trying to fight climate change yet no one is daying that there has been any improvement in our local or global climate.
The implementation of censorship by social media such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Google, banishing climate change skeptics from media outlets like BBC, ABC, NPR, CNN, ETC. and the climate alarmists’ refusal to debate the so-called settle science is equivalent to a child covering his ears and singing LA LA LA LA LA. They are not just afraid that debate might convince others that they’re wrong, but that it might even convince them they’ve been wrong. When much of your identity is tied to a specific belief system the prospect of being proven wrong is terrifying. When espousing those beliefs is tied to your income no amount of evidence will persuade you.
I have watched most of the debates listed. I’d agree that the skeptic side has dominated. They often win by default when the alarmist side can only make fallacious Ad Hom and Argument from Authority consensus points. Even when the skeptics fail to cite some of the most compelling evidence of climate science falsification they still win because there are so many “lines of evidence” that refute climate change alarmism.
While I’m not a climate scientist, I am an engineer and I have a good deal of background in the hard sciences and mathematics. I’ve read a lot of the studies and reviewed much of the IPCC documentation. I have tried to engage a few believer acquaintances in a civil discussion of the subject, but so far no one has even claimed to understand the actual scientific basics. All fall back to the “overwhelming consensus” fallacy.
I don’t think the issue will ever be resolved through reasoned debate. It will ultimately just fade away over time as people realize that the catastrophic predictions have never materialized and the weather remains the same as it has ever been.
There are 50 years of failed catastrophic predictions.
These are continuously recycled with new dates.
Short memories do not recognize this.
The newest headlines are what garner attention.
It will not be until we have extended blackouts and people die because of the political stupidity inflicted upon the masses smacks them upside the head.
The we can expect the torches and pitchforks.
We are literally entering into a New Dark Age unless this insanity is reversed.
You can’t have a rational conversation with irrational people.
Perhaps. But if you can convince one of those irrational people to come to the debate table, the viewing audience will then see what that irrationality looks like. And it is embarrassing. Anyone remember how Dr Gavin Schmidt made the mistake of accepting the debate challenge with Dr Roy Spencer on John Stossel’s Fox Business show? Yep, that went well. Dr Schmidt looked absolutely ridiculous playing musical chairs with Dr Spencer, where he refused to be in the same room with Dr Spencer.
Exactly. There’s one more increment of bad outcome to that, when it comes to major news outlets which have long tied their own identity to CAGW (despite claiming to be neutral), particularly the longer it goes on with no debates at the news outlets: they’re terrified that their go-to sources pushing the ‘climate crisis’ narrative would be decimated by a skeptic who’s allowed to speak without restriction. Witness my ongoing count of the sheer bias ratio of IPCC / NASA / NOAA scientists guests at the U.S. PBS NewsHour program, versus equal caliber skeptic scientists. Currently, 134 to 0. Yes, skeptic scientist Dr Patrick Michaels appeared on their program a single time in 2010, briefly taped-in-advance offering indirect opposition to Dr Stephen Schneider, but only was allowed to point out an error of date which the IPCC made in a report. I emailed Dr Michaels the next day to ask how that went, and he said, “They edited me very heavily.”
The point here is to get it across to the otherwise largely disinterested public how the Al Gore side and its news media enablers flee from debate. This causes the ‘largely disinterested public’ to at least have the idea stirring in their mind, “Those folks really are afraid to back up what they say. What to they have to hide?“
There is no such phenomena as change change or crisis because most of the earth is water, rocks, sand, ice and snow. Activities of humans will have no effect on the climate of the vast Pacific and Atlantic oceans, the Andes mountains or the Sahara desert. Thus, there is nothing to debate.
In urban areas local climate can be changed due to the UHI effect.
In some countries the gathering of plants for firewood and feed for animals has led to desertification.
This author is trying to make a mountain out of an ant hill.
This author is trying to make a mountain out of an ant hill.
I do not see that.
“I find the lack of debate to be frustrating”
So true…as is everything where you actually are up and against that has government ties. You can’t argue with idiots as long as they’te sitting on high horses. Just take them down…which means remove their government funding and “reason to exist” by government means (thus is power)….well at least until the next election(s).
Is the skeptical view gaining ground, or at least achieving a modicum of credibility.
Well one thing you notice with every COP is the sudden plethora of reporting on spurious ‘studies’ ramping up the dooming-
The world is heading to add 57 superhot days a year, but study indicates it could have been worse
When you drill down past the headline they’re little more than Groupthink mumbo jumbo predictions dressed up as science always by those on the taxpayer teat. Lots of computer scenarios makes it real sciencey stuff when it’s just more GIGO rallying for the cause that will never be tested for veracity after grabbing a quick headline.
PS: Just another nothingburger trying to sound sciencey-
Earth’s Northern Hemisphere is darkening faster than the South, scientists find
Ned, Your observation regarding the lack of debate on this all embracing world wide subject of concern is best summarised by the BBCs answer when challenged about it.
Their official position and published is, Man made Climate Change is real and is settled science. In consequence the BBC will not allow those who are not supportive of that settled science to be broadcast or be debated.
To confirm/endorse their view, they cancelled the famous biologist scientist Dr David Bellamy and never allowed his scientific sceptical viewpoint onto the BBC again. They did maintain the none scientist David Attenborough’s broadcasts. He has seen the cancellation and no platforming of his fellow presenter Bellamy and decided his future was best served by falling into BBC line. Thereafter he became the voice of the climate alarmists He was so regarded by the alarmist community he was knighted and had an Arctic research vessel named after him.
That position of broadcaster in chief culminated in his tumbling walrus broadcasts, which must go down (no pun intended) as the most dire false story ever broadcast to the world.
Clearly the fear of getting withering nasty looks when shopping in Wegmans aisle nine maintains the alarmists stance of never wanting to debate their beliefs…..
Interesting article. I appreciate the links to the debates.
In 1938 there was a review meeting at the Royal Meteorological Society about Guy Callendar’s attribution of reported warming to rising concentration of CO2. There is a transcript of the comments made at the very civil and polite review. It is amazing to me that this is all freely available but rarely mentioned. In short, Sir George Simpson and Professor David Brunt explained from the fundamental nature of the general circulation why an attribution of a surface temperature trend to the incremental IR absorbing power of CO2 is not a physically valid exercise. This is one reason why I keep posting about energy conversion within the general circulation.
More here from a few months ago on an Open Thread.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/04/06/open-thread-138/#comment-4058322
No, we don’t. The time for talk is long past. The Climate Liars have lost, and they know it, and they are now down to so-called “extreme weather” being their main talking point. Oh yeah, and “climate justice” being another biggie for them. Because “it’s not fair” that poor people have to suffer because of the weather. Or something like that.
From the point of view of right versus wrong, you are correct as far as I am concerned.
However, that has not made the difference.
The average human being does not have a strongly grounded, scientific understanding of the question of how climate works.
Additionally, as humans, we are prone to think in social and political frameworks. Thinking within a scientific framework is much more of a challenge.
How can this be addressed?
My proposal: anyone with any point of view on climate, find someone else with a different point of view. Have a conversation. Record the conversation. Some of these conversations will be enlightening.
So far, most of the comments on this article have been written from the perspective of right versus wrong. That is the nature of the climate debate. I’m interested in what happens when people with different views actually sit down and talk to each other, without having to win the argument.
Back to the average human being with a limited understanding of climate science: the debates listed in the article can be highly educational to watch, even enlightening.
Please consider encouraging the people you know to watch to one of these debates.
Also, please create a new debate / conversation. This requires reaching out to someone with a different perspective than you and saying, “Let’s talk”.
I’m available to support you in taking on this challenge. Reach out to me at climateverso@gmail.com.
Unfortunately, that is your first stumbling block.
Its not important whether there is a climate crisis. Whether there is or not the policies the climate movement is advocating are not going to be adopted at global scale, if adopted could not be done, if done could not be afforded, if afforded would be ineffective. Stop arguing about whether there is a crisis, focus on the idiocy of net zero and renewables.
I applaud your efforts, but…you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him think…
If only exposure to facts was the only thing necessary. But human nature gets in the way – for many, belief trumps facts, consensus equals truth.
You can’t use logic and reason to argue someone out of a position that they got into without ever using logic and reason.
Not actually trying to change anyone’s position. I’m interested in softening the “mood of crisis” by exposing people to ideas and views that they wouldn’t have previously heard.
Start by talking to your friends and hearing what they are concerned about. One or more of the debates listed in the article above will likely speak to those concerns. Invite your friend to a party to listen along with you to that debate.
It does take some effort and it requires taking the concerns of your friends seriously. You’re correct that it’s hard to argue someone out of a view that they didn’t use logic to arrive at! I’m not suggesting you do that. Just talk to them. In many cases they will be curious why you see the issue differently and will actually listen to you too.
I think that the main barrier is vested interest. Almost every person interested in the subject has some skin in the game, be it monetary, professional standing, or simple adherence to the tribe.
The political nature is no coincidence, as described in The Report From Iron Mountain and warned of by Dwight Eisenhower in his Farewell Address. Authority needs a crisis in order to justify and expand that authority. Science and fact are secondary considerations, if considered at all. Science is a tool, but the perception of science is a potential weapon in the application of force.
As for friends and family, I have had some success in causing them to question their perceptions of crisis. I frequently wear t-shirts with the message “THERE IS NO CLIMATE CRISIS”. On the other side is an artistic rendering of “CO2” made up of plants and animals, a reminder that CO2 is life.
Most who comment do so positively. Some scowl, and some few ask why I think so. A few short discussions have resulted. The main point is to advertise that a different viewpoint actually exists. Perhaps even a small break in the constant flow of alarming propaganda can lead to a shift in perception enough to allow doubt to enter. That is the beginning of questioning one’s paradigm.
The original UN Environmental program was to study the climate, both anthropogenic and natural.
It quickly was changed to assess global warming based on increased CO2.
CO2, after all, as stated by a UN official in the 1970s, was something that could be quantified and taxed.
One of the early IPCC summaries was altered and the scientists were enraged. The science reports concluded there was no detectable human signal in the climate. The summary was altered declaring there was and the science reports were forced to change to match the summary. Unsurprising, this occurred during the Clinton-Gore administration.
There is no global climate. There are many micro climates, but averaging them hides relevant information.
There is no global average temperature. Yes, one can perform the calculation but the results are meaningless.
ECS, equilibrium climate sensitivity, is bogus. No where on this planet (or any other) is the relevant coupled energy systems in equilibrium. Simply, the planet rotates and the amount of solar energy incident on the surface and the optical depth of the atmosphere changes every nano second.
The sun is not a constant. The earths orbit around the barycenter is not constant. The solar system orbit in the galaxy is not constant. Even the moon’s passage around the sun and earth is not constant.
Too many other fallacies to continue except one: Heat cannot be “trapped” by definition.
Climate change is real, no denial. Climate crisis hyperbole is political activism.
“Among professionals who work on the climate issue (the “Climate Community”), there is a long-standing reluctance to engage in conversation with people who don’t consider that the climate is in crisis.”
That is not true. It is not “reluctance” it was a deliberate decision taken in the late 1990s never to engage with anyone who challenged The Science or could refute the claims made.
Remember? The science was settled. The debate was over. Do not “engage” as this would give credibility to doubt and uncertainty that the science was not settled and that it might just be wrong.
“To me, the skeptical arguments seem to be more likely to be correct than the alarmist arguments.”
I ignore the debates except to count the lies, fraud, and personal attacks. People don’t generally rely on lies and insults when the truth and facts back them up.
The bottom line here is that despite the hype, there is no real evidence that CO2 has any effect on our global climate system. There is plenty of scientific rational to support the conclusion that the climate sensivity of CO2 is effectively zero. The AGW hypothesis has been falsified by science. Mankind does not even know what the optimal global climate actually is let alone how to achieve it, Hence spending money trying to fight climate change is just a big waste of funds.
My greatest challenges when talking to profoundly uneducated middle class graduates are these:
One of the weaknesses of democracy is a large voting block of opinionated- but supremely ignorant adults about matters which may swing election results.
Very nice Ned, thank you for your effort. I think the key to the argument is CO2. The strength of added CO2 to warm the planet becomes weaker. The graph of CO2’s effectiveness is not linear or exponential but rather logrithmic.
“While the question of how climate works is a question of Science…”
That question has never been answered by the professionals. The workings which they cannot explain are simply deemed to be unforced internal variability, ensuring that they will never explain them.
Here’s a fine account of academic orthodoxy:
The Paper Cathedrals of Academia – Crafting Clarity from Collapse