The AGW case depends, inter alia, on there being recent global warming out of line with longer term trends (e.g. temperatures recovering from the Little Ice Age), being abnormal, and being inexplicable by any cause other than increased emissions of greenhouse gases by human activity; and on projections of future rises in temperature.

Al warmists often say that only climate scientists are qualified to comment on these issues. In fact, many of the issues are statistical, and the projections depend on economic modelling. Not only are the main protagonists (e.g. Mann, Jones etc) neither statisticians nor economic modellers, their own work has been shown to be incredibly sloppy - it wouldn't pass muster at the ABS or Productivity Commission - and they have not sought expert opinion on their techniques and results. Steve McIntyre has shown many statistical flaws, which are constantly evaded rather than being properly addressed, and the Cstles-Henderson critique demolished the economic modelling several years ago.

The global warming hypothesis depends critically on recent temperatures being abnormally high and rising rapidly by historical standards. This claim is based on statistical reconstruction of past temperatures from limited proxy data. US statisticians Blakeley McShane and Abraham Wyner, who have advised congressional inquiries in this matter, have recently noted that the climate scientists have rarely collaborated with professional statisticians, several of whom have challenged the validity of the climate modelling.

A new analysis by M&W casts serious doubt on the global warming models. They state that the proxies do not predict temperature significantly better than random series generated independently of temperature. M&W use the climate groups’ own data (while making it clear that they think poorly of it), and state that “The major difference between our model and those of climate scientists … can be seen in the large width of our uncertainty bands (which are) much larger than those provided by climate scientists. In fact, our uncertainty bands are so wide that they envelop all of the other backcasts in the literature. (more)

(cont) “Given their ample width, it is difficult to say that recent warming is an extraordinary event compared to the last 1,000 years. … it is possible that it was as warm in the year 1200 AD as it is today.”

M&W conclude unequivocally that the evidence for the infamous “long-handled” hockey stick charts showing recent warming is lacking in the data. They state that “climate scientists have greatly underestimated the uncertainty of proxy-based reconstructions and hence have been overconfident in their models. … Natural climate variability is not well understood and is probably quite large. It is not clear that the proxies currently used to predict temperature are even predictive of it at the scale of several decades let alone over many centuries.”

It is hard to argue with the statisticians’ conclusion that “There still remains a considerable number of outstanding questions that can only be answered with a free and open inquiry and a great deal of replication.”

[Blakeley B McShane and Abraham J Wyner, “A statistical analysis of multiple temperature proxies: are reconstructions of surface temperatures over the last 1000 years reliable?” Submitted to the Annals of Applied Statistics. Accepted for publication, draft posted online 16/8/2010.]

Re the earlier work by Ian Castles (former Australian Statistician) and David Henderson (former OECD economics head), the IPCC' projections depend on modelling economic growth and then applying assumption on emissions intensity. Some of the results were bizarre, e.g. South Africa's income in 2100 being greater than world income in 1990. C&H showed that the techniques used are not accepted by national income modellers, and greatly exaggerated growth and emissions. At the time, I estimated that correcting the IPCC's main scenario would show temperature change by 2100 not significantly different from zero. The IPCC have stuck with this discredited work.

Until such issues are resolved, there are no grounds for costly counter-measures.

Who's in denial now, John?

The overwhelming public support for Tony Abbott's rejection of the "great big new tax on everything" last year and now the election result, are irrefutable evidence that nobody buys the CPRS/ETS/carbon tax crap any more. Nobody but the rump who wallow in cheap sentiment, that is.

But go ahead, tell us how a tax will "stop climate change".

You are also still pushing the pathetic line that you've read "scientists and sceptics" as though the appellations are mutually exclusive.

1. For years the IPCC has refused to validate the surface record. Now we know why - it has been buggered beyond repair by the "scientists" involved in Climate Gate and their toadies.

2. No causal relationship between human CO2 emissions and climate change has every been demonstrated.

3. Labor has never costed any of its massive tax proposals relating to climate change nor conducted a cost-benefit analysis or a regulatory impact assessment.

4. In practical terms, it is impossible to sustain modern cities without CO2 emissions from coal-fired electricity generation and road transport, which, from memory, together make up more than 50 per cent of all emissions. So where are you going to cut? And coal-fired power stations will be needed even if we continue to squander billions on fantasy renewable energy targets, wind farms and solar arrays, for the simple reason that wind farms and solar just don't work.

Then there's this little revelation by Lenore Taylor in he Sydney Morning Herald on 21 April 2010:

'THE federal government could provide ''no documentation'' on how it assessed the $4.45 billion ''clean energy initiative'' announced in last year's budget, according to an audit report detailing a litany of failures in both Howard and Rudd government greenhouse programs.

''There was no documentation held by the department relating to … advice on the costs and benefits of the proposal and the management of risks associated with implementing the program,'' the audit found.

And, by the way, emissions grew in every year of the Rudd/Gillard government.

Only idiots remain in the global warming cult now.

And to put the icing on the cake, the IPCC has just been criticised by its own tame review committee for sloppy work. Given the normal defensiveness and paranoia of the AGW community, this is comparable to Joe Hockey calling Tony Abbott 'a bit of a thug'. Maybe the review committee have decided they still want to have jobs in a few years' time when the public catches on to how much they have been misled. Read the NYT report at:

http://tinyurl.com/25xxe8p

"not everyone here belongs to this nest of deniers"

not yet .. but they all seem to be coming over this way .. where's that big landslide of AGW votes.

Those terrible evil deniers, should be stopped (!), their solitary unorganized efforts are somehow canceling out the concerted and well funded efforts of the government, the BOM, the CSIRO, the ABC (as well as the ALPBC, oh, same thing) the Fairfax press, 99% of the Australian media apart from what around 5 conservative journos .. all with no funding that's able to be proved beyond scurrilous innuendo.

We skeptics are most amused at all this ..

Start again from scratch?

Absolutely..but do the scratching around the places of Climate Science corruption, political and economic opportunism, graft and intrigue.

Look especially closely at what I consider the corrupt deceitful activities of the IPPC and Gore, Blood, Zoi, Strong and their ilk.

Don't forget the 'reds' also.. cloaked in green these days but still the old "Income re-distribution by force" .