You may have heard that there was a debate held relatively recently (March 14, 2007) between skeptics and alarmists on whether global warming is a crisis. The audience was polled before and after the debate. The alarmists when into the debate with an almost 2 to 1 edge, more of the audience thinking global warming was a crisis, but the skeptics clearly won the debate as more of the audience left the debate thinking global warming was not a crisis.
The debate was held by Intelligence Squared U.S. and hosted by Brian Lehrer.
Speaking for the motion (not a crisis): Michael Crichton, Richard S. Lindzen and Philip Stott.
Speaking against the motion (crisis): Brenda Ekwurzel, Gavin Schmidt (of RealClimate, Richard C.J. Somerville.
Here are the poll results:
Before Debate
Not a Crisis: 29.88%
Crisis: 57.32%
Undecided: 12.80%
After Debate
Not a Crisis: 46.22%
Crisis: 42.22%
Undecided: 11.56%
The transcript and audio recording are now online. And here is some commentary on ClimateAudit.
Geoffrey is an Aristotelian-Libertarian political philosopher, writer, editor, and web designer. He is the founder of the