An Interesting "Global Warming" Debate

Here are a series of e-mails on "global warming" between Freeman Dyson (a man I much respect) and Steve Connor, the science editor at the UK's Independent newspaper. There is much worth thinking about in this exchange of ideas. What I find amusing is the how Steve persistently misses what Freeman Dyson says in order to pound home is view on "global warming". This bit I especially like. It is Freeman Dyson, after many attempts, trying one last time to get Steve Connor to hear his viewpoint:

Of course I am not expecting you to agree with me. The most I expect is that you might listen to what I am saying. I am saying that all predictions concerning climate are highly uncertain. On the other hand, the remedies proposed by the experts are enormously costly and damaging, especially to China and other developing countries. On a smaller scale, we have seen great harm done to poor people around the world by the conversion of maize from a food crop to an energy crop. This harm resulted directly from the political alliance between American farmers and global-warming politicians. Unfortunately the global warming hysteria, as I see it, is driven by politics more than by science. If it happens that I am wrong and the climate experts are right, it is still true that the remedies are far worse than the disease that they claim to cure.

I wish that The Independent would live up to its name and present a less one-sided view of the issues.

Poor Freeman Dyson abandons the "discussion" because the e-mails are just a series of hectoring chastisements by Steve Connor of Freeman for failing to "join the consensus". Freeman simply tires of pointing out that he is a sceptic and that scepticism is at the heart of science.