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have raised serious doubts about the methods of the IPCC and the extent of its genuine commitment to peer review and a transparent discussion of the science. For instance, it has been criticized for refusing to publish data, for failing to use appropriate statistical methods despite criticisms, and for failing to engage in standard scientific peer review processes or even publish the debates between the scientists involved in drafting its reports.11 In January 2010 the IPCC was forced to admit its latest report had been mistaken in its prediction of when the Himalayan glaciers were likely to melt. Subsequently the United Nations asked the InterAcademy Council, which represents national science academies, to review the IPCC’s methods, and a number of submissions to its experts listed numerous procedural and methodological weaknesses.12 One of the leading global centers of climate change research, at the UK’s University of East Anglia, was at the heart of an even more damaging scandal when hacked emails seemed to suggest that scientists had actively been rigging results and misleading people they regarded as hostile. Although a review cleared the scientists of the most damaging allegations, even prominent environmental campaigners concluded that climate scientists must engage more honestly and openly with their critics.13

Serious institutional failings of this sort play to political parties and industry lobbies opposed to various types of response to climate change. What’s more, given the bitter state of emotions in this debate, and the mutual suspicions of climate scientists and climate change skeptics, the area of agreement is shrinking rather than expanding.

So a growing number of people, mainly politically conservative, and including some prominent economists, reject the claim that climate change is so urgent an issue that dramatic lifestyle changes and economic changes are needed now. They argue that a more gradual approach will be sufficient—if they believe that change is needed at all. At least some of the dissenters from conventional environmental wisdom are serious people whose views should be seriously assessed. Relatively few of these particular climate change refusniks rebut the basic scientific data measuring temperature changes in certain locations, or argue that human activity has not contributed to climate change at all. Their focus is instead on the interpretations of the data, the methods used, and the conclusions governments and international agencies have drawn from those basic facts. These weaknesses mean the policies are being shaped inappropriately, they argue. While some of the criticism maps onto conventional left-right politics, there are obviously reasonable questions about the role and motivation of the IPCC and its related groups such as the scientists at the University of East Anglia. The climate change establishment has not had due regard to its own legitimacy and accountability, especially if it wants to change minds and votes in democracies.

The dissenters argue further that the official forecasts are unduly alarmist and that the temperature rises against which governments need to take mitigating action are not likely to be as high as the IPCC predicts. David Henderson, a former chief economist at the OECD, is one of the people who has led the intellectual charge.14 Henderson argues that the IPCC is institutionally biased toward pessimism and also has insufficient knowledge of the proper methods for assessing the likely economic effects and necessary adjustments (not that economists have a terrific forecasting record of course—but at least we can’t fail to be aware of the fallibility of any prediction). There are other voices making the same point. The economist Ross McKitrick, whose work has been used by the IPCC, writes: “I believe the core group that influence the IPCC’s reports and conclusions is biased toward the view that greenhouse gases are the cause of major, deleterious global warming, and . . . I think this bias leads them to censor or even misrepresent opposing evidence. . .