VentureBeat

I enjoyed this piece. My one issue was Doerr's comment on climate change (paraphrasing here): "The debate is over. Al Gore winning the Nobel Prize tells us that everyone is in agreement."

Yassir Arafat won the Nobel Peace Prize years ago and I would argue the "debate" as to whether he was mainly a terrorist is alive and well today. A "subjective" Nobel prize does not mean consensus of anything, it's not hard science, it's marketing.

The climate change crowd loves the "debate is over phrase" mainly because they are afraid of the "debate". Scientific problems should always be open to scrutiny and debate.

Tom, let's put aside that pesky lack of scientific support for anthropogenic global warming, there's a consensus. Sure consensus is a political term and not a scientific one, but embrace the hype. Just as there was consensus among scientists that the earth was flat, the sun revolved around the earth and DDT was thinning egg shells (resulting in a ban that kills 2M people a year in sub-Saharan Africa). Embrace the politics of global warming...and the financial gain. The green investment money and Al Gore's $100M annual income from hype, speaking fees and carbon offsets are really a good thing, just as Yassir being the father of modern terrorism is a good thing. Debate Over!

Well, as far as I know, it's the oil companies who are afraid of the debates... they are so afraid that they have to "buy" scientists to publish reports saying that there's no such thing as global warming or that the oil wells won't dry for another 100 years... Speaking of the consensus thing, please tell me if you open up any newspaper or magazine these days and don't find green/cleantech related article there. Now, is that not "consensus" enough?

Consensus is a great word. Doerr made the mistake of using the word "everyone" - all you need is for one person to disagree and he's immediately wrong. "Consensus", though, allows the possibility of some nuts who aren't engaging in Correct Thought. But not only can there be consensus with dissent, the dissent is made irrelevant by the existence of the consensus. It's an even better word than 'majority', which requires you to prove that more than 50% agree. To prove a consensus you just have to say things like 'open up any newspaper or magazine'.

To put it simply, a consensus is defined by media, business, politicians, and generally those who 'matter'. A majority is defined by everyone, even the people who don't matter at all, which is why it's so annoying. For some reason people resolutely refuse to believe what their self-appointed thought leaders tell them to believe. They ask awkward questions, like how this century's belief that natural disasters are the direct result of mankind's misdeeds is any different from when the Biblical 40-day flood was blamed on human sin, as was virtually every natural disaster since we invented religion.

Consensus doesn't ask awkward questions. Consensus just knows, and is self-reinforcing. Why should people pay to stop global warming? Because of the consensus that global warming exists. Why is there a consensus that global warming exists? Well, if there wasn't a consensus that it exists, why would people be paying to stop it?

I'm sure Doerr just made a slip of the tongue and will use Approved Vocabulary in future in order to ensure continuing Correct Thought, not to mention money.

Consensus sucks.

Global warming may or may not be stopped or reversed or actually be a problem. BUT energy independence is a necessity!! For geopolitical reasons!!