Dr. Helen's reflections on how quickly and dramatically members of a New York audience changed their minds after a global warming debate drove home the deep significance of the sharp scolding Al Gore gave the MSM for daring to present both sides.

While it's very easy to condemn Al Gore for what appears to be an outrageous position "against free speech," that's a simplistic, even moralistic, approach. It's fine if the goal is just to dismiss the opposition, but I think that when someone of Al Gore's stature goes out of his way to advocate against presenting dissenting views, the reasons why are worth closer scrutiny.

I think there has been a huge rush job to sell the public on the anthropogenic theory of global warming, and now too many people are asking inconvenient questions (especially if they get to watch inconvenient documentaries).

For people who have been dominating (and basically winning) the debate for a long time, this must be incredibly tedious. I think that accounts for a growing emotional need to simply end the discussion! Without getting into the merits of either side (I remain a skeptic), I think that there might be some kind of emerging rule along the following lines:

The bigger the debate and discussion grows, the greater the need to declare the discussion over.

The problem is, this is not simply a scientific debate. While is of course that, in addition it is:

1. a political debate within a scientific debate; and

2. a scientific debate within a political debate.

The problem is, advocates of policies like the Kyoto protocols and carbon taxing hold that their support of them is "science," and cite for support the fact that "thousands of scientists" have endorsed what are inherently political proposals. To be against a tax or a treaty is not to be against science, but against a particular human remedy for a problem over which the scope and causes are still being disputed -- yes, even by some scientists.

What has annoyed me the most about this debate is the huge advantage that one side has. By being able to claim that "science" is behind them, they don't need to understand the science. They can be totally ignorant, yet their agreement with "science" puts the onus on anyone who disagrees in the position of having to gain an understanding of the science in order to justify his disagreement. If we assume a debate between two completely ignorant laypersons, one taking the position for anthropogenic global warming, and the other against, the former has the advantage of being "on the side of science" (even if he knows nothing about it), while the latter is necessarily put in the ridiculous position of being not only ignorant, but against science!

Factor in the human tendency not to want to look ridiculous, and it's easy to see which side the ignorant will choose.

In logic, it's simply an argument to authority.

A lot of what passes for argument in this debate consists of the invocation of favorite authorities for or against. Few take the time to read through and understand the authorities they're citing.

M. Simon has far more patience and stamina than I do where it comes to slogging through these endless debates, and he wrote a number of (twenty seven, at last count) excellent comments to this post by Megan McArdle. McArdle simply titled it "Open Comment Thread" and to her credit, took absolutely no position on the debate she started by her two posts at InstaPundit.

An engineer by training, M. Simon has written a great post called "Climate Alchemy" which discusses his own comments in detail. It's a must read.

A few commenters criticized Megan McArdle unfairly, and considering that she started a comment thread when she didn't have to, it's highly disingenuous to accuse her (as this commenter did) of "suppress[ing] public discussion of a very important topic, about which one would think people would want as much info as possible." Another commenter seemed to think she suggested it wasn't worth debating:

When you say something is not worth debating you are telling a lot of us to shut up, that we don't have a right to tell our point of view.

On one minor point, I disagree with the idea that the views of Ron Bailey are controlling one way or another, and I think this comment is simply an argument to authority:

Who's Ron Bailey and what authority is he?

Ron Bailey writes for Reason magazine, and he's much smarter than you and everyone else here.

(While I greatly respect Ron Bailey, I don't think there's anyone about whom I could say that convincing him convinces me. It would impress me, and it might force me to look more closely, but I can't be convinced of something simply because someone else is convinced. Plus, I'm a bit skeptical of Bailey's apparent advocacy of "Green Economics," and I hope the Green Economics Institute hired him in order to have a diversity of opinion.....)

Another commenter expresses the exasperation which I identified earlier:

From Jane Smith:

I am greatly disturbed at the general public's tendency to believe this theory without serious, critical thinking

As we have told you over and over, we have already had "serious, critical thinking", we have already asked the "hard questions", and we now have a consensus on the answers with which no rational person can even find the smallest crack to debate. End of discussion!

There are too many parts to the anthropogenic global warming debate for the discussion to end. Too many arguments within arguments, and suppositions within suppositions. This argument will not end soon, nor should it.

Considering that the methodology of measuring temperatures has come into question (and I have long wondered by what right the MSM says "highest ever" when it means "highest since 1880"), and that even assuming there's a statistically significant increase there's a debate between CO2 and solar activity as a cause, it's quite a stretch to maintain the debate is settled over what could be done about it, and from there to what should be done about it. (Hell, there's even an argument that deliberately warming the planet might be beneficial and not evil.)

I'd say not only has the debate barely started, but there's a lot more than one debate. More will emerge. (Again, one of my pet peeves is that according to the data cited by the theory's proponents, eating animals is the number one cause of anthropogenic global warming. So why is it "scientific" to target fossil fuel?)

People who oppose debating make me think they're either weak on their arguments, or have completely made up their minds and are unwilling to think any further.

I think the people who don't want this issue debated would prefer that the ignorant remain ignorant, in the hope that when the ignorant masses make up their minds, it will be on the side of what they are told is "science." The more people learn about the science the greater the chances of having a real argument in which people can make up their own minds.

But history shows that the purveyors of inconvenient truths don't like inconvenient arguments.

MORE: I just got in from extensive shoveling. Well, "shovel" is not a complete description, as I had to first use a splitting maul to crack the ice before I could get the shovel underneath to throw it aside.

A thought did occur to me though.

Anyone remember this scary-looking picture of greed?

If people continue to desert the Northeast and temperatures continue to rise, wouldn't heating oil consumption go down dramatically?

Or would it be better to invoke the precautionary principle proactively, and transform the Northeast into a population-free zone?

What would scientists say?

UPDATE: I completely forgot about the Gore effect (also known as the "coldening"), but Glenn Reynolds got back just in time to remind me that when Gore speaks, ice descends.

I know correlation is not causation, but hasn't this coldening thing happened a few times too many?

At this rate they'll have to nickname Al "Frosty."