You made a big batch of assertions to the effect that all skeptics are being completely fooled by organizations that are funded by Exxon and/or Koch. You said t

You made a big batch of assertions to the effect that all skeptics are being completely fooled by organizations that are funded by Exxon and/or Koch. You said this with great confidence and amplified upon it based on "your research". But it's an extraordinary claim - basically you're saying everybody who disagrees with you has been fooled by a big conspiracy - it's a conspiracy theory. It's a "denial" of the more obvious possibility that some people just happen to disagree with you. Like you, I'm kind of tired of debating CAGW and so I had no intention of trying to convince you CAGW is actually wrong. I only hope to disabuse you of your view that all skeptics are in thrall to The Cabal. To do that, I only need to find a counterexample or two. CAGW is in practice an extremely complex chain of assertions; there are a great many particulars in which somebody might reasonably have a specific differing view from "the consensus" or be skeptical that the case for "the consensus" is sufficiently well-established to act upon. So: Landsea. Landsea was skeptical of the IPCC's views on hurricanes - with good reason, since he was the relevant expert helping to write that chapter. McIntyre was skeptical of the IPCC's views on Paleo reconstruction, again clearly with good reason and with no prior connection to the Kochtopus - statistics was a hobby interest of his and he just got curious. I have a friend named Peter Ward who is an expert on volcanoes who does think AGW is a big important problem but is skeptical about CO2 as the primary driver - he thinks sulfur dioxide is more important than is commonly recognized (and has recently published a journal paper on the subject, albeit in a minor journal.) So that's three people who are "skeptical" about some aspect of AGW not because they got talking points from whats-her-name but because what is commonly claimed contradicts their own expert assessment of the relevant literature. Given the fact that there do exist people like that, your claim was false. That was all I was trying to say. I wasn't trying to prove that all skeptics are right or that none have been "duped" or, contrariwise, that all AGWers are mistaken. Just that some number of skeptics come by their views as a result of an honest assessment of the literature in areas of their own expertise. Or by evaluating the claims of others who have done that. I absolutely agree with you that a few bad apples in the IPCC process don't necessarily spoil the whole bunch. The opposite of stupidity is not wisdom, sometimes it's just more stupidity. The AGW hypothesis is certainly worth somebody investigating. I just think claims of "consensus" and a need to "act right away, we don't have time to be certain" are a warning sign that one should probably wait and think some more about it. (This attitude has served me especially well when buying used cars. :-) ) BTW, here's the caltech lecture Aliens Cause Global Warming: http://s8int.com/crichton.html http://s8int.com/crichton.html