On a related note about "consensus", I've been quoting Crichton for years in various contexts; "Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled." I'm sure I've shared it in this thread several times already.
What I hadn't known is that he spoke publicly on the matter, so I listened to what he had to say. Some of which I didn't find very compelling, but much of it was, and mostly he shares my standpoint that predicting the future well-being of humanity on climate trends is a fool's errand. The stock market is a much simpler system, and yet nobody can create a model that will even slightly beat random chance with regards to acting on certain events. What makes us think we can model climate 100 years into the future and know with enough certainty what that means for humans, especially that it means only net negative things, that we must act to forstall warming?
Then I listened to him on Charlie Rose:
It's fun to see how much overlap our thinking was considering he's my favorite author. Wish the fella was still around to hear more from him.