Response to Commentaries by Peter Bancel and Andrew Foss

Abstract

The chief point my Essay Review makes is that the 2014 booklet Climate Change: Evidence and Causes published by the [London] Royal Academy and the [U.S.] National Academy of Sciences gives only one side of the case about carbon dioxide and climate change. The chief assertion from the two commentators is that the mainstream side is right, therefore it’s OK to be one-sided.
But there exists undeniably another side, a great number of dissenting voices, many of them from relevantly credentialed, competent, well-informed sources. I cited several including the Leipzig Declaration on Global Climate Change with its many signatories. To ignore them and the evidence and arguments they present is not what one expects from a proper scientific evaluation, which would engage the substance of what critics present. The pamphlet does not do that, and neither Bancel nor Foss claims
that it does. They and the pamphlet are one-sided, and one-sidedness is propaganda, not a scientific assessment.
Neither Bancel nor Foss denies that the pamphlet expresses certainty at some places while admitting fallibility at others.