I keep asking the climate scientists. I can’t get a straight answer.

That’s actually how it should be. Climate science isn’t settled. If Al Gore can claim that it is settled, I can claim that it’s not. In fact, nobody should be able to say whether we are in a crisis. How would we know? We’d need definitive answers to various scientific questions:

•  Does CO2 drive temperature, or does temperature drive CO2?
• Do clouds provide negative or positive feedbacks?
• Are human emissions the dominant factor determining climate?
• What would the climate be like without human impacts?
• When is the next ice age?
• Do climate models work?
• Is CO2 saturated in the atmosphere?
• What is the expected rise in temperature from a doubling of CO2?
• Is there an ideal climate?
• Does it make sense to think of climate on a global basis as opposed to a local basis?
• Are natural disasters caused by (modest?) human induced changes in the climate as opposed to being natural?
• There are many more scientific questions. Please add to this list in the comments section.

And here are some non-scientific, “process” questions:

• How can we solve a scientific question through a political framework like the IPCC? (Short answer, we can’t because the scientific process doesn’t work when it is colored by politics)
• How come climate scientists rarely talk to each other (in public) if they disagree on the science?
• Is there such a thing as a “good” climate scientist?
• How has the scientific community allowed itself to be overtaken by the policy debate around issues like climate? And why is this tolerated by the scientific community?
• Is “mafia” a reasonable cultural descriptor of the current state of play in climate science?
• Can the media cover the climate issue objectively?
• There is no end to this list of process questions! Please add to it in the comments.

I’ve been a consumer of climate science for almost 25 years. And I’ve been frustrated that I can’t get a straight answer. My solution: force a change in the culture of the scientific community by inviting (demanding, cajoling, begging) the scientists to speak to each other publicly about the unresolved scientific questions. My Climate Verso Podcast is an opportunity for scientists to publicly participate in the debate that was over before it started.

The current structure of the field of climate science is designed to stifle debate. I will keep inviting, demanding, cajoling and begging the scientists to talk to each other until the culture has changed. I have nothing to lose as I’m not part of the climate science field. I have no reputation to protect. And I make my living else where – my efforts to impact the climate issue are in fact just a hobby.

In climate science, there is a concept of “forcing”. How much energy (measured in watts/m2) is forced by factors such as sunlight hitting the earth, or greenhouse gases which provide a blanketing effect. In human culture we can also think of a forcing concept. How many new conversations are required to alter an existing paradigm? And how many people are needed to listen to these new conversations? Climate Verso is a laboratory experiment in cultural change.

So far we have published two episodes of the Climate Verso Podcast;

• Episode 1 features Matthew Wielicki and Peter Fiekowsky discussing risks and benefits of iron fertilization as a method for inducing the oceans to suck CO2 out of the atmosphere.
• Episode 2 has Judith Curry and Andrew Revkin discussing the structural problems in the field of climate science and how we got here. Prior to recording the episode I naively thought of Judith as a skeptic and Andrew as an alarmist. I was wrong about that. In my view neither Judith or Andrew can be labelled in any way. They are simply curious about how climate works and about what questions society should be asking.

Who should be in episode 3? What about you? Contact me at climateverso@gmail.com to request a spot on a future episode. Ideally you should find your opposite number yourself. The goal is to have the climate science community generating its own public debates. In the meantime I will happily match up climate professionals (scientists, journalists, policy wonks, etc.) with diverse perspectives to create interesting and perhaps earth-shattering dialogues.