“And speaking of equivalency, I don’t see how you can blame its detractors from assigning just as much importance to the HS as its proponents. After all, this was heralded by your side as all the evidence we needed that we were all going to burn.”
Yes, but… (By the way, we’re straying from the original topic, but that’s probably a good thing.)
The HS was overhyped in the media and in communications from some scientific sources, including the IPCC TAR. Within the scientific literature, I don’t think it was ever seen as anything but peripheral to the main conclusions being drawn about climate change and its causes, although interesting in its methodology (later the subject of much criticism). Its peripheral importance is an accurate perception of reality, and so anyone today who stresses its scientific importance as opposed to its public relations importance is poorly informed or else deliberately exaggerating.