Ross McKitrick and Steve McIntryre have taken Roger Pielke Jr. up on his offer that they spell out their arguments about “why those of us not involved in the hockey stick fight should care about the continuing battles.”

Neither offers any argument whatsoever regarding how this might influence my thinking about what policy choices I (or we as a whole) face. It’s classic Sarewitz scientization:

Scientific uncertainty, which so often occupies a central place in environmental controversies, can be understood not as a lack of scientific understanding but as the lack of coherence among competing scientific understandings, amplified by the various political, cultural, and institutional contexts within which science is carried out.