Unless the public are convinced by the need to modify their behaviour in response to the (overwhelming in my view) evidence concerning man-made global warming then all the climate change conferences in the world will be a complete waste of time. At the moment the sceptics (ranging from the the outright deniers through to those who question whether it is man's activities that are responsible for climate change) are - certainly in the UK and the US - are winning the propaganda battle.
Influential articles from journalists (ranging from the obsessional Christopher Booker in the Telegraph to articles like this in the Mail on Sunday) have sown huge doubt in the non-scientific public (and possibly amongst those scientists who are not climate specialists). Similar articles have occurred in the right-wing press in the States (just google Climategate and you will see what I mean) encouraged, I suspect, by some very powerful lobby groups have, along with what appears on the surface to be dreadful behaviour by those scientists at UEA, will make the task of carrying the public forwards that much harder.
(As an aside: please don't expect scientists to behave as if they are not as vain as the rest of us! Just read James Watson's Double Helix and you will see my point)
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