non-skeptic heretics

Yesterday, Pielke writes about "non-skeptic heretics" on the issue of climate change:

But what is it that I mean by “non-skeptic heretic”? These are people who accept the science of climate change but do not engage in meaningless exhortations or bland political statements, and instead openly confront some of the real but uncomfortable practical challenges involved with reducing emissions and adapting to climate.

And today he elaborates a bit on this definition:

Overall it has been a surprising conversation, not least because of all of the apparent latent support for the notion that there is in fact a third way position on climate change.

Sounds great! Count me an NSH! But guess who makes the following comment:

I've been an NSH since my first policy studies on the subject in 1996. It seemed obvious to me then that one could accept the science (with reasonable caveats that apply to all scientific findings), but that the science only tells you what IS, it doesn't tell you what to do. (Though an awful lot of scientists involved in the debate from the pro-GHG-control camp don't seem to get this elementary concept.)

Unfortunately, extremists on both sides of the debate have tended to see heresy in what seems a reasonable position. When I first started publishing on this for Reason, I got quite a bit of flack from libertarians and others who mistakenly were suffering from the same misconception, that acknowledging the science meant one *had* to then agree to certain actions.

And, of course, those with a monomaniacal focus on near-term GHG reduction as their favored response to climate change have always preffered to either ignore we NSH types, or to lump us in with "climate skeptics" so they can slander all opposition as some kind of flat-Earth Society.

Kenneth Green
Visiting Fellow
American Enterprise Institute

Policy proposals by the AEI as a whole are probably as much biased against mitigation measures as Kyoto is biased against adaptation. For the past 15 years or so organizations like AEI have been an elite group demanding and receiving airtime so-called "balanced" coverage of climate change in the media...so now they're going to continue to try to stall climate science by in effect saying:
See, we never really doubted climate science. Nononono, not for a minute. Now that we can't "debunk" that much of it anymore, and it's clear it's happening and can't be reversed, we'll stall every action by pointing out how useless action itself is!

And yes, I agree with No Se Nada, that this "tribalism" isn't helping any. But the NSH is beginning to look like an elitist point of view where everyone who'd prefer mitigation to happen before adaptation can be labelled as the equivalent of a dirty, dirty blogger...don't they know that mitigation won't work and we shouldn't try?

In other words, for years those in our so-called "tribe" were told we're gullible for believing the science. Now the science is sound and we can be labelled the gullible ones again for advocating mitigation when real men should be looking for ways to adapt to the changes.

BTW: Pielke, Ken, and Kevin are--from what I can tell--all honorable and truly dedicated to this subject. This isn't a personal attack on them, rather the "NSH" position that can be skewed by various interest groups.