A Canadian economist, Dr. Ross McKittrick, has written a paper suggesting that carbon emission penalties be set to rise or fall according to climate indicators. He wants to tie carbon penalties to the temperature of the lowest layer of the atmosphere —the troposphere, which extends from the surface of the earth to a height of about 10 miles. His paper advocates using temperature readings near the equator, because that is where the global warming models forecast the greatest increases.
These readings also could be built into the cap-and-trade systems being discussed in Copenhagen: if the atmosphere warms, the cap will automatically tighten; if it cools, the cap will get less restrictive. The benefit of Dr. McKittrick’s suggestion is that, as New York Times science writer John Teirney puts it, the system gives both climate change advocates and skeptics a chance to call each other’s bluff, if indeed they are bluffs as each camp accuses the other. The deceits and machinations of climate change scientists and supporters like Al Gore have created significant distrust among critics. The inflated rhetoric and irrational hostility to science of many skeptics have invited outright contempt regarding their doubts among scientists and the media. McKittrick’s idea seems to be a fair and practical way to get past the rancor and move forward.
However, accepting such a system requires two ethical attitudes: the warring camps will have to respect their adversaries enough to admit the possibility that they may be right, and have the integrity to accept the possibility that they themselves may be wrong.
Is either side ethically capable of doing this?
Ethics Alarms 
A policy which is dependent on actual, unvarnished observable phenomena before taking action? And you think that may be a good idea?
Why Jack, this makes you a “denier,” don’tcha know? In the AGW debate, one must have faith to be on the “right side of history.”
And the petrochemical producers? No doubt they’d risk their profit, being the fearless defenders of truth, justice, and the American Way that they are.
One can only imagine what science without spin would look like. Sadly, I’m pretty sure it will take an imagination, since finding it in the wild seems pretty unlikely if there is a significant political or financial ox to be gored.
So young, and so cynical!
Heh. Well, not so young … 🙂
The problem with this “compromise” is that now we know that the global warming data collectors seem to have “LOST” their original data and thus can only present their INTERPRETATION OF THEIR ORIGINAL DATA, and no one else can review it.
“Lost their original data?” Unbelievable. Good luck getting the FDA to approve a new pharmaceutical with only an “interpretation” of the original data… Real scientists don’t set out to use only the data that proves their point… “losing” data they don’t like along the way.
Which brings me to the point. Who is going to measure the temperature in the troposphere? Whom do we trust? Good Lord, global warming experts lose their data, Al Gore says the polar ice caps will be completely melted by 2015, and now we have to find someone trustworthy enough to measure the temperature 10 miles up from the equator? Send up the pope with an itty bitty thermometer?
Actually, the Pope just came out as a “global warmist,” so I’m not sure we can trust His Holiness to be objective…