Since the release of the new IPCC report on the current and
future effects of climate change, climate hawks (including
myself) have made the same very basic argument that we always
do: Climate change looks bad, potentially very bad, and
therefore we should curtail the greenhouse gas emissions which
cause it.  Clive Crook writes that this is approach is somehow
responsible for public skepticism of climate change:  The main
reason for the disconnect between the science and the public is
the gross tactical incompetence of the climate-science
community, as it's called, and its political champions. Consider
this latest installment of the IPCC's survey of the science.
It's more carefully hedged than its predecessors — and rightly
so. There are fewer specific claims about the future that the
science can't fully support or that might turn out to be simply
wrong...  Yet look at how U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry,
for instance, responded to the new publication: "Read this
report and you can't deny the reality. Unle