An article by Matt Ridley, The Times.

In the climate debate, which side are you on? Do you think climate change is the most urgent crisis facing mankind requiring almost unlimited spending? Or that it’s all a hoax, dreamt up to justify socialism, and nothing is happening anyway?

Because those are the only two options, apparently. I know this from bitter experience. Every time I argue for a lukewarm “third way” — that climate change is real but slow, partly man-made but also susceptible to natural factors, and might be dangerous but more likely will not be — I am attacked from both sides. I get e-mails saying the greenhouse theory is bunk and an ice age is on the way; and others from guardians of the flame calling me a “denier”.

Yet read between the lines of yesterday’s report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and you see that even its authors are tiptoeing towards the moderate middle. They now admit there has been at least a 15-year standstill in temperatures, which they did not predict and cannot explain, something sceptics were denounced for claiming only two years ago. They concede, through gritted teeth, that over three decades, warming has been much slower than predicted. They have lowered their estimate of “transient” climate sensitivity, which tells you roughly how much the temperature will rise towards the end of this century, to 1-2.5C, up to a half of which has already happened.

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