1)
Now you don't write -exactly- that anyone who disagrees with the IPCC consensus must be an active scientist in the field. You write "the IPCC approach" - please define what you view under that. Even so it remains a very ill-founded condition to decide who's allowed in the playground and who's not.
Speaking for myself, I'm scientifically trained to understand, comprehend and critically judge a slew of partitions within the climate sciences. My training is sufficient to educate myself at those areas where I've not received previous education. I've chosen a different career track yet that does not automatically implies exclusion - nor does it for anyone else with a capable background.
2)
3)
But then, I didn't.
You conflate "disputing science" (again) with alternative scientific hypothesis to explain phenomena that have so far been lumped together with AGW.
The first - the disputing of science - is done by the umpteenth pundit with little understanding of the physics or geologic time as they waddle around in their tepid pond of pseudo-science and think themselves wise - and I tire of them. Bone weary I am of them by now. Practically everyone on this forum has tired of them.
The second is done by CLIMATE SCIENTISTS through peer-reviewed articles published in well respected journals. And this is absolutely fundamental to understand why I get completely wound up if you, or anyone else, has the gumption to write "to be hard on them" because of their "sophistry". Bullshit. Utterly disrespectful. Tossing babies out of the 27th floor with the bathwater.
You will hardly ever read about those scientists in your daily paper because they only fractionally get the limelight of the press, and all too often the key-message of their publications gets wretchedly distorted by Faux News et al - which risks them getting lumped together with the denialists. And this, as I've hashed out countless times, is how denialists have wrecked the stage for any moderate voice pleading an alternative. By which I hope you understand by now that with "alternative" is meant: a non-skeptical, non-denialist scientist who acknowledges global warming and the implications of GHG but yet as this one, wriggling, brooding thought, this voice in dark of his mind, that something in the picture which is now embraced by the many happy lads simply does not fit into the puzzle, that the voice must take flight and must get out and investigated. Because: That. Is. Science.
If you know about Alfred Wegener and plate tectonics, there's my defense why I stand up for people who honestly resist settled answers - even though I don't expect at all that any ground-shattering reality will suddenly emerge in climate science. I immediately add that in climate science (or anywhere else) one needs to whittle the chaff on those alternative voices - because of the risk of Doubt Science. But it keeps one sharp - and there's surely nothing wrong with that.
I'd suggest you to try tuning for an alternative voice for once - you might find it a reasonable option to consider once so often. If you don't agree with them: fine. Tagging everyone denialist at face value is cheap, unfair and unworthy. At minimum you can impress friends with new insights.
Lastly, from your quotation of Pielke Jr. (who in that very quote BTW acknowledges the center position in science):
Try his father. The IPCC might be correct; it also might be incomplete.
Rant over.
I take your point that there is a place for skeptical review and alternative takes in the scientific discourse on climate change. The problem with the politicalisation of the science on the topic is that such takes immediately find their way into the public discourse, often out of proportion (and not just on Faux, but on CNN, in the NYT, etcetera).
Other than that, my comment that it is fair to be hard on scientists who practice sophistry was not directed to people who forward alternative hypotheses in peer-reviewed journals. It was directed to scientists who question the science in public without having done so. There are plenty of those on CNN
("According to many scientists, global warming is real. But one Washington meteorologist has a different view." cut to scientist looking scientisty saying "We can't even accurately predict the weather 10 days into the future. How are we supposed to know about the climate 50 years from now?")
Much of our actual disagreement, I think, is about delineating the border between a scientific discourse and the public discourse. I will heartily encourage scepticism in the scientific discourse. Even scepticism that is not methodological but reflects an unreasonable idee fixe may sometimes yield interesting results. At the same time, public policy should follow the scientific mainstream, certainly when it is fairly definite in its claims.
As for denialist, I don't remember using that word in this discussion.
