What does Michael Zimmerman mean - "even if"?

Judith Curry has found another science denier (archived here). His name is Michael Zimmerman and he is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

You'd think that being a professor and all, and an exponent of "integral ecology" he'd have the wit to pop down the corridor and speak with some climate scientists at U Colorado. Not on your nellie. Judith Curry has posted some article he wrote, in which he said:

Even if Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) scenarios about rising global temperatures are plausible, an important issue remains: should resources be directed to adapng to coming climate change, or should they be directed to efforts to cut drama- cally anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, especially C02? How are we to know how billions of different people with many different perspecves would answer this queson?

Even if? What does he mean "even if"! Notice his suggestion that climate science isn't plausible. Looks as if he's not just a fake sceptic, he's a budding climate conspiracy theorist.

And while Judith presents him as understanding her wicked problem, he presents his "even if" solution as binary. As an "either/or" solution. That doesn't sound like a rational response to a wicked problem, does it.

He goes further and says that

When I began research for this article, I initially assumed that AGW was largely validated, but the more I read, the more I began to conclude that something was amiss. Too many credible scientists strongly object to the AGW hypothesis and to the IPCC as the agency responsible for promulgating evidence in its favor. 

I was right. He's not a climate scientist or a scientist of any sort, he's a paranoid conspiracy nutter. Judith cannily leaves out Michael's "credible scientists". However his article, which reads like any other denier manifesto, lists them as follows:

• Willie "it's the sun" Soon
• Roger Pielke Snr
• Henrik "cosmic rays" Svensmark and journalist Nigel Calder - and their book (no peer reviewed paper) "The Chilling Star"
• John Christy
• William DiPuccio, who reportedly "was a weather forecaster for the U.S. Navy, and a Meteorological/Radiosonde Technician for the National Weather Service.  More recently, he served as head of the science department for St. Nicholas Orthodox School in Akron, Ohio (closed in 2006)." I think Michael Zimmerman went to WUWT for that bit of nonsense!

Sheesh! 

And what about this?

Scientists can provide important information about what a particular problem is, but go astray when suggesting that such information dictates what policies ought to be promulgated to deal with the problem.

I can see why Judith likes him. Scientists can define the problem, but when it comes to what policies ought to be put in place they have as much say as any of us.


Where does integral ecology fit into all this? (It reads like a 21st century rehash of 1970's New Age.) Well, Judith didn't say. She didn't even explain what "integral ecology" is.  She did say up front that "A way forward through the morass of wicked environmental problems is suggested by integral theory as applied to integral ecology." but at the end all she said was that she doesn't have an answer.