Collapse of Skepticism?

The recent posts by Spencer and Pielke Sr. , supported by Lord Monckton, seeking to supply apparently missing scientific evidence of the existence of a so-called "greenhouse effect" from atmospheric "backradiation", have caused a flood of mostly critical comments questioning the arguments put forward in various "thought experiments". 

Pielke Sr. does not reply to comments but Spencer has responded to quite a few mostly innocent questions, but not to critical ones like those by myself or the Hockey Schtick.

The "greenhouse effect" based on "backradiation" is the corner stone of climate alarmism, without which alarmistic feedbacks have nothing to feed on. 

If you don't buy climate alarmism right away for some reason or the other, it is natural to take a look at the science behind the "greenhouse effect" and if you do that you find that it is empty:

It is not described and documented in the physics literature, and it is difficult to argue that it is not physics. No real experiments show the effect, only invented "thought experiments". No mathematics backs the effect. On the contrary, "backradiation" visibly violates the 2nd Law, and the main argument of Spencer is to show that it does not.

The lack of evidence of any "greenhouse effect" from "backradiation"  is shown by the fact that Pielke Sr. and Spencer feel an urge to supply the missing science. But they are not physicists and their evidence is not convincing from a physics mathematical point of view. It is only suggestive hand-waving in pictures with arrows up and down depicting imagined "backradiation".

What is then the meaning? Why do leading climate skeptics suddenly jump on an alarmist wagon powered by a "greenhouse effect"? 

Why do leading skeptics not respond to skeptical arguments? Collapse of skepticism?

Dark Age of Science?

Why are skeptics adopting the bunker mentality of alarmists? 

Compare with influential IPCC reviewer Sir Brian Hoskins CBE FRS in The Economist:

• It is going warm, the question is only how much?
• Climate models were lousy, and are still pretty lousy...a long way to go...young science...
• IPCC has done a remarkably good work in giving a range of uncertainties...
• Uncertainties should not be a basis for saying that we can't use what we are talking about...
• It is always a mixture of what is predictable and what is not...
• We got to be able to highlight uncertainties and what we are not doing very well...

Compare with the analysis of propaganda techniques in Deprogramming Yourself After Global Warming Scam by Roger F. Gay. Try it out yourself!