Climate scientists refuse to debate global warming with skeptics

The few that have done so have clearly lost so the rest aren't game

Climate scientists and environmentalists are venting their frustrations debating those who are skeptical of man-made global warming — and some have even gone so far as to refuse debating skeptics.

Dan Weiss, the director of climate strategy at the liberal Center for American Progress, refused to appear on Fox Business to debate climate skeptic Marc Morano last week. Morano runs the blog Climate Depot, where he reports on environment and climate news.

Weiss was set to debate Morano on the show “The Independents” but “refused to debate directly with Morano, and chided [the show] for airing his views,” according to the Fox Business show.

“In what is part of a growing trend, yet another global warming activist ducked a TV debate,” Morano told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “Weiss and other activists claim the debate is so settled that granting a skeptic ‘equal time’ does some type of disservice to ‘science.’ Climate activists want to impose everything from carbon taxes, UN treaties, cap-and-trade, EPA regulations, light bulb restrictions, automobile regulations, even our bedtimes — yet they will not debate the basis for these actions

“I have had many debate cancellations previously,” Morano added. “In 2010, I was set to debate Hollywood producer James Cameron after weeks of negotiations, only to have the debate cancelled at the last moment when my plane landed in Colorado for the debate.”

Weiss isn’t the only proponent of man-made global warming that has refused to debate a climate skeptic. Last year, Fox Business host John Stossel asked about a dozen climate scientists to debate skeptic Dr. Roy Spencer, a former NASA scientist who now teaches at the University of Alabama.

Stossel also asked the environmental group the Union of Concerned Scientists if they would debate Spencer on TV. Stossel said UCS replied that debating Spencer “would be doing the public a disservice because it would give [his] extreme ideas credibility.” NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies climate scientist Gavin Schmidt did go on that episode but only after Spencer was no longer on the set.

As the debate surrounding global warming has intensified this past year, some news outlets have opted not to provide a platform for climate skeptics. Most recently, the BBC Scotland has barred debates between climate scientists and skeptics from being aired.

The Daily Mail reports: “A BBC executive in charge of editorial standards has ordered programme editors not to broadcast debates between climate scientists and global warming sceptics.”

Alasdair MacLeod, who is head of editorial standards and compliance for BBC Scotland, sent an email in February to senior producers and editors, saying that “we should not run debates / discussions directly between scientists and sceptics.”

Last year, the Los Angeles Times announced that it would not be publishing letters to the editor that were critical of the theory of man-made global warming because the evidence provided by scientists suggests that human activity is warming the planet.

“I’m no expert when it comes to our planet’s complex climate processes or any scientific field,” wrote Paul Thornton, the Times’ letter editor. “Consequently, when deciding which letters should run among hundreds on such weighty matters as climate change, I must rely on the experts — in other words, those scientists with advanced degrees who undertake tedious research and rigorous peer review.”

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