lee wrote on Feb 14
th, 2014 at 10:40am:
If Holdren did not insist on "the debate is settled" being excluded, then he failed in his duty.
Unless you think SOTU was an off the cuff piece crafted on a table napkin.
You can't communicate science to the general public using scientific language about 95-99% certainties.
As far as the basics of climate science are concerned, it's appropriate to use the term fact, just as it's appropriate to say that it's a fact that the Earth orbits the sun.
If on the other hand, you want to concentrate on those aspects that have lower degrees of certainty, then the appropriate language is "we're not sure", so for example -
We know for a fact that increased greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere causes increased warming. That's a consequence of the fact that existing greenhouse gases cause warming. However, we are not sure if this will increase the severity of tropical cyclones significantly in the next 30 years.