Who won this debate and why?

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First I think it's important to note that Chisty believes that the IPCC is correct about human-caused global warming. What he disputes is that the consequences of global warming will be as bad as most climate scientists think.

It's important to note that because frankly from his debate performance, it was difficult to determine what he was trying to argue. He made some very intentionally deceptive arguments. For example, comparing Hansen's 1988 climate model predictions to the UAH temperature data. The UAH data is the outlier, while the RSS, Hadley Centre, NOAA, and GISS data all show warming on the order of Hansen's predictions.

Most of the rest of his arguments were cherrypicked local weather examples rather than global climate changes. Frankly I think Schlesinger demolished Christy in the debate, but at least both scientists agree that humans are causing global warming....Show more

No one did. Both parties agree that the earth is warming and that mankind is causing much of that warming.

I love references to John Christy. His sworn testimony in court establishes that he believes the earth is warming and that mankind is a contributing factor. His testimony was crystal clear, as summarized by the judge: "Dr. Christy, agrees... most of the observed warming over the last fifty years is likely to have been due to the increase in GHG concentrations."
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/2007/VermontDecision_20070912.pdf

What part of that is unclear to some people?

Contrary to the misleading statements in many responses, surveys sent to researchers do show a strong consensus among actual working scientists, especially the most knowledgeable climatologists, that global warming is occuring and that mankind is a leading factor in that warming:

Examining the Scientific Consensus on Climate Change

In our survey, the most specialized and knowledgeable respondents (with regard to climate change) are those who listed climate science as their area of expertise and who also have published more than 50% of their recent peer-reviewed papers on the subject of climate change (79 individuals in total). Of these specialists, 96.2% (76 of 79) answered “risen” to question 1 and 97.4% (75 of 77) answered yes to question 2 (human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures).
http://tigger.uic.edu/~pdoran/012009_Doran_final.pdf

At the end of the day it doesn't matter what people believe or debate though, or whether or not developed countries reduce emissions.

Physics dictates that the planet will keep warming, regardless of what we believe, until we can convince the largest emitters with the highest growth rates, such as China and India, to set emissions limits so emissions can be rediced on a global basis. There is no international treaty of that sort being discussed, let alone negotiated, so the earth's warming will continue to accelerate for the forseeable future.

Drive your SUV as much as you want; that'll help bring on the obvious effects as fast as possible so we can get the 80% of the world's population with the largest greenhouse gas and black soot problems (and the highest population and emission growth rates by far) into the discussion....Show more

I can't even get past the first speaker's "given" list - the climate has NOT been stable during human civilization - the pendulum has swung from much cooler than today to modestly warmer, for intermittent multi-century periods. That was the understanding, the universally held understanding, until well after the present warm period became a political issue, and that understanding was based on physical evidence that has yet to be otherwise explained. He can speak of birds migrating earlier - but there are countless similar examples a thousand years ago, examples that have never been explained as having been caused by anything but higher temperatures, and yet they deny the MWP. If they're going to deny a historical fact, then I can't believe their unproven hypothesis concerning the present and future....Show more

bucket22

"...general consensus..."

Umm, wrong. Watch less liberal media. There isn't a consensus.

But, to satisfy your brainwashed mind, let's assume for a moment that there WAS a consensus.

Science isn't about consensus. Let's look at some history.

1)The Earth is the center of the universe and the Sun rotates around it-

Consensus for years

2)The Earth was created by a bunch of random gods (take your pick, Greek, Norse, Egyptian, they're all the same)-

Consensus for years

3)McCarthyism was accepted by the public for years. Skeptics were dismissed and had their lives ruined.


So, whether or not there is a consensus is irrelevant.

Here's the thing that most people have forgotten:

THE BASIS FOR SCIENCE IS SKEPTICISM. Consensus is nothing....Show more

Nobody:

1) People are still passionately arguing about it both in and out of the scientific community. There is no consensus.

2) The policies that the proponents of AGW pander, have not yet been implemented, but neither are they off the table.

The debate goes on without a winner....Show more