Today I visited the Energy & Climate Policy Summit at the Texas Public Policy Foundation in Austin, TX. The speakers were some of the best minds in the field, including physicists William Happer and Richard Lindzen, a famous environmentalist (and bona fide PhD) Patrick Moore, and historian Rupert Darwall.
What struck me the most: the audience was diverse, and most presentations were intended for such an audience. The audience seemed to understand most of the presentations with no problem, but most of the arguments would be well above the level of even a smart and technically/scientifically oriented person who was familiar with the controversy only from the left stream media. I am thinking of somebody on the level of Chief Technology Officer in a Silicon Valley company, or a private equity fund manager. He would understand some of the arguments, but would not be convinced.