Though Scorned by Colleagues, a Climate-Change Skeptic Is Unbowed - NYTimes.com

My one question that I would ask Mr Christy would be this (and this is based on what is presented in this article): why take a chance? If I understand his position correctly, temperature trends are moving upward but at a slower pace than predicted (and I have read articles addressing this but do not remember all the science stuff), doesn't that still make for troubling times ahead?

"By contrast, Dr. Christy argues that reining in carbon emissions is both futile and unnecessary, and that money is better spent adapting to what he says will be moderately higher temperatures. Among other initiatives, he said, the authorities could limit development in coastal and hurricane-prone areas, expand flood plains, make manufactured housing more resistant to tornadoes and high winds, and make farms in arid regions less dependent on imported water — or move production to rainier places."

This to me seems to let or allow "polluters" (for lack of a better word) off the hook for "damages" they "cause." Whether intentional or not, his research and contributions to contrarian literature, is being used to counter legislation and policy aimed at curbing future potential damage to our environment and climate
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John Christy, a professor of atmospheric science at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, says he remembers the morning he spotted a well-known colleague at a gathering of climate experts.

“I walked over and held out my hand to greet him,” Dr. Christy recalled. “He looked me in the eye, and he said, ‘No.’ I said, ‘Come on, shake hands with me.’ And he said, ‘No.’ ”

Dr. Christy is an outlier on what the vast majority of his colleagues consider to be a matter of consensus: that global warming is both settled science and a dire threat. He regards it as neither. Not that the earth is not heating up. It is, he says, and carbon dioxide spewed from power plants, automobiles and other sources is at least partly responsible.

But in speeches, congressional testimony and peer-reviewed articles in scientific journals, he argues that predictions of future warming have been greatly overstated and that humans have weathered warmer stretches without perishing. Dr. Christy’s willingness to publicize his views, often strongly, has also hurt his standing among scientists who tend to be suspicious of those with high profiles. His frequent appearances on Capitol Hill have almost always been at the request of Republican legislators opposed to addressing climate change.

“I detest words like ‘contrarian’ and ‘denier,’ ” he said. “I’m a data-driven climate scientist. Every time I hear that phrase, ‘The science is settled,’ I say I can easily demonstrate that that is false, because this is the climate — right here. The science is not settled.”



Though Scorned by Colleagues, a Climate-Change Skeptic Is Unbowed - NYTimes.com