For Cliff Ollier to quote Monkton's response to Steketee was disingenuous given Steketee had absolutely demolished Monckton's arguments in his rebuttal of his response to Steketee's original piece. But that aside, while we can attribute the Queensland floods to La Nina, it was exacerbated by warmer ocean temperatures around the coast. Why higher ocean temperatures? Global warming. And such an extreme weather event has not been confined to Queensland. At the same time, Brazil lost over 600 people to a similar inland tsunami, while flooding has occurred along the Rhine and in Sri Lanka. Not that long ago the Pakistani floods killed over 1700 and displaced 20 million. 20 million people! The weather events are becoming more severe and more frequent (see Munich Re's press release from August 2010 http://www.munichre.com/en/media_relations/press_releases/2011/2011_01_03_press_release.aspx) as climate scientists have warned. I think it's time Cliff Ollier and his fellow denialists quietly went away, otherwise I'll support New York Times' columnist Paul Krugman who says denialists should be accused of treason.

"Sceptic" wastes no time

In abandoning his doubts

To preach denial

I dont see anything in your article that could justify your conclusion that the queensland floods are not related to anthropogenic global warming,

While many reckon the scientific arguments are complex, I believe at essence they are simple. To those that have an open mind my basic understanding summarises as follows:
1. Mankind is pumping huge amounts of carbon dioxide in to the atmosphere that would not otherwise be there (approx 30 billion tons a year) - fact.
2. This is changing the composition of our atmosphere - fact. While the percentage of the atmosphere that is carbon dioxide is small the percentage increase relative to pre-industrial levels is large.
3. There is a long held scientific view that this has acted and will continue to act to increase global temperatures around the world. One of the forecast outcomes is more extreme weather events. It is a fact that the vast majority of scientists in this field hold this view.

Given the scientific evidence that sea and air temperatures in the world are warming and that we now appear to be seeing an increasing number of extreme weather events around the world I dont see how anyone could logically say that a particular extreme weather event is not related (at all) to anthropogenic global warming.

Conversely its hard to see how anyone could say it is wholly due to anthropogenic global warming.

The safest statement would be to say that these extreme weather events are due to a combination of natural factors and man made factors, with the mix unknown.

This would mean that referring to these extreme weather events as "natural" disasters would be wrong. They are most likely a "partially manmade" disaster and I believe the media and those in the media such as Anna Bligh should change their terminology accordingly.

popnperish and rich2 - sorry but the author made several good points which you have not refuted or even touched. Floods in the 1880s and 1970s were far worse, so how can global warming be to blame for the current floods?

No the floods are due to the La Nina climate cycle - this is widley accepted - and very little is know about just how and why that cycle or its reverse, El Nino, occurs. At best, scientists can now spot the cycles developing. Linking any supposed changes in those cycles with any change in global temperatures is straight speculation.

Same with the North Atlantic Oscillation causing the very cold European weather.

I always think this table is useful to remember
Natural and Anthropogenic (man-made) Contributions to the "Greenhouse
Effect," expressed as % of Total
Based on concentrations (ppb) adjusted for heat retention characteristics % of Greenhouse Effect % Natural % Man-made
Water vapor 95.000% 94.999% 0.001%
Carbon Dioxide (CO2) 3.618% 3.502% 0.117%
Methane (CH4) 0.360% 0.294% 0.066%
Nitrous Oxide (N2O) 0.950% 0.903% 0.047%
Misc. gases(CFC's) 0.072% 0.025% 0.047%
Total 100.00% 99.72 0.28%

ie if people were really serious about global warming they would be draining the oceans and banning the use of water.

Why did we scare our kids with the CO2 death threat just to get them to turn the lights out and the thermostat down more often?
Pollution was real but this fear mongering wasn’t sustainable, especially for progressivism that preaches love and harmony.
Climate Change was a mistake, our Iraq War and is now dividing progressivism and environmentalism. The deniers won.
We need System Change, not Climate Change and let's act like real liberals again. Real liberals don't lick the boots of the likes of fat politicians as he promised to take our taxes and make the weather colder.
Let's admit the deniers won and admit our exaggerations and put this insanity behind us and get back to responsible stewardship of the planet.