Climate change supporters need to debate science

I am not a scientist. I do not know, or understand, any of the science of climate change well enough to say what is going on. But I do know something. The era of climate change supporters saying 'the science is settled' is over. Why? Because the climate change sceptics are starting to make some damn good points, and if the supporters of climate change aren't willing to debate them on the merits of the argument then it just makes them sound like they do not have any answers. What has led me to this point?

Last night I went to a fascinating debate on climate change, with a for and against speaker on the science, and a for and against speaker on the economics.

The 'for' scientist stood up and spoke about policy, rather than science. The sceptic scientist spoke well, giving a number of clear examples of where (he claims) the science shows that climate change is a mostly naturally occurring phenomenon. Then in the rebuttal speeches I fully expected an argument to be made as to why these claims were wrong, or alternative evidence presented. Not at all. Which, naturally, led many in the audience to wonder whether this was because there was no counter-argument.

With polls showing that well under 50% of Britons believe in human-caused climate change, and an economic crisis that has made many think of global warming policy as far less important, I think the pro-climate lobby needs to get off their high horses and have the debate. If they are right, they should easily defeat sceptics. If they won't, it starts to look like they can't.