The fact that each time the arguments of climate alarmists are bunked, and they desperately produce 'new' findings, which are also denbunked - and the whole producing of nonsense starts again, suggests that their motives are more to do with political and economic control over everything and everyone, rather than with the climate or the environment.

Being so far behind in climate changes, ignores so many obvious happenings, which is going to be astronomical in fall-out.
Ice is not just melting it is gaining pace in leaps and bounds, and putting massive amounts of C02 into the atmosphere. Trapped in perma; frost for thousands of years now being released.
Air temp in the arctic has risen 5*C Changing air currents that circulate the globe. There is a guarantee that with each year passing year violent storms and floods will continue to increase in intensity, and ferocity. God help the denialist' brigade.

I am pleased to see that Mark Lawson is tackling the toughest and most critical issue in the whole climate debate: what is the real cost attributable to the various kinds of damage caused by each additional tonne of carbon dioxide entering the atmosphere and do the benefits of eliminating that extra tonne exceed the costs? As well as pointing out the serious problems in establishing a single damage cost figure, Mark notes that the rational cost/benefit approach is simply not “acceptable to the many activists in this debate. As far as they are concerned the climate damage has happened now, there will be much more of it in the future and we have a moral obligation to cut emissions early and often.” Economics does not appear on the enthusiastic environmentalist’s horizon. Climate change must be stopped at any cost because it’s a moral issue.

As well as being reluctant to acknowledge the cost/benefit approach, these activists carry another distorting belief. They are already convinced that all future energy can be obtained from wind and sun with no adverse economic impact. So why bother, they would ask, to waste time on figuring out costs when they already know that renewable resources are abundant and cheap, so long as just a bit more investment in new technology occurs?

Those are the beliefs that define the battlelines. Of course, one can avoid the issue altogether by denying that carbon dioxide can cause climate to change. That’s an easy way out but intellectually lazy and scientifically ignorant. We may not know how bad climate change will be but its physical basis is pretty clear.

So again, I thank Mark for re-entering the fray through the right doorway

All so true, & so damning, & you have not mentioned that many not in a green straightjacket have suggested that a further 50% increase in CO2 would be very much to the advantage of the planet's flora. A bit of an increase in temperature, although unlikely would also be great for the flora. This is the flora all fauna depends on for our survival.

I have never seen a single genuine argument, other than global warming is bad, & the oceans will turn acid, all garbage, all totally disproved, to justify the ridiculous expenditure on Mickey Mouse technology, & academic game playing.

Do keep up the fight, or the ratbags will wear us all down, & destroy our civilisation. The day of a new dark age looms.

Not surprising to find denialists and obfuscators in a country that exports vast quantities of polluting carbon. A paycheck is a wonderful argument, although condemning your children to blistering droughts, wildfires, and tropical storms seems a countering aspect.

I have to go. The strawmen are giving me hay fever.

Mark Lawson here - guys thanks for all of that..

Doog - where does all this stuff come from? ice melting in leaps and bounds.. releasing CO2 in the atmosphere.. that's activist stuff and mostly straight wrong. Check out official CO2 readings http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/#mlo

CO2 in the atmos is increasing, for whatever reason, but its certainly not accelerating. The sea ice story is more complicated but also nope - sorry - best to check your sources..

NASA thanks. There is more to ice melting than C02 it's called climate change. If you don't think there is a link, that is your prerogative.
This has been going on since the 70's when i noticed different happenings. QLD is not a perfect state for recognising change because of humidity, but you will suffer the consequences.
Co2 locked up in Perma Frost is for real. The world's Co2 output is in decline. The rest is up to you.

I have one of Pindyck's books on the shelf so I hesitate to criticise. I agree that modelling must be difficult. For example the WA wheatbelt or the Perisher skifield will still have good years under a drying trend so an expiry date is hard to pinpoint. However there are non-climate reasons which could be quantified. For example there is an early mover advantage to weaning ourselves off coal. We'll avoid some health and social upheaval problems while getting further up the low carbon learning curve.

It is exceeding strange we nixed $25 carbon pricing while apparently endorsing the RET's high abatement cost, the average figure I recall being $59 per tCO2. I think both oil and gas shortages will loom in the next decade so we could be saved by the bell, the bell curve of depletion that is. We'll have to decarbonise regardless of what some climate models say.

Thanks, Mark. You make us feel less guilty about generating smoke and CO2 by putting another log – a renewable fuel -- on the fire on a day of below-normal temperature – and there is colder weather on its way, if you believe the weather forecasters: “A strong cold front is set to deliver heavy snow and wild winds for much of Australia” – see http://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/a-strong-cold-front-is-set-to-deliver-heavy-snow-and-wild-winds-for-much-of-australia/story-e6frflp0-1227434649892

Of course, we could have turned on our electric heaters. But we are deterred by the mandatory pursuit of RETs that effectively line the pockets of the unreliable-uneconomic-renewable-energy entrepreneurs who have so forced up energy prices that consumer pockets are quickly emptied.

By ignoring the fact that there is no empirical scientific evidence that anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions cause dangerous global warming, billions and billions of dollars have gone up in smoke thanks to the pointless pursuit of RETS. Yet, there is no measurable impact on temperature.

Sorry, got to pull you up there Mark. The link you provided
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/#mlo

has a graph that shows Annual Mean Growth Rate for CO2 at Mauna Loa, and it clearly shows that the growth rate has been increasing pretty much decade on decade since the 60s, an increase in the rate of increase is by definition acceleration.

The rate of increase is in CO2 is definitely accelerating, according to the data from your sources.

Anyway, this whole thing is a two-edged sword isn't it? If the modelling for the cost of environmental damage is BS, then of course any modelling that purports to show some benefit or no cost is also BS isn't it?

I will have to ask you for support if I have to point this next time someone mentions that some random academic or somesuch has a calculated an overall benefit from climate change.

You'll support me on that right?

Bugsy - you're right.. it does show a decade on decade increase.. I actually point that out in my book I sent you. Nothing much has changed since then. The point I was making is that its nothing like the increases that would be required for the doomsday scenarios we are bombarded with .. for example its still about 2 ppm a year (the year on year current is 2.6 or so but that figure varies a lot) and has been for some time - well over a decade. The increase is slow and steady. Reports often talk about doubling of CO2 concentrations (from when?) but we're not going to get there fast.

In this I've left aside the point about what it might be due to or whether natural variation might swamp that increase. Sufficed to say we don't have a disaster yet..

Come on doog, the ice has been melting since the little ice age. It does appear to have stopped in the Arctic, increasing for the last few years, & of course we all know it has been increasing for decades in the Antarctic.

It sounds like you have been eating someone else's straw for a few years.

We've had the forteen hottest years on record and the sun has been in a waning phase since the mid seventies!(NASA)

If that is not manmade climate change what else could be causing it?

And given we have choices that like cheaper than coal thorium or indeed even cheaper biogas, both of which will result in accelerated economic growth? What the hell is the problem? Coal shares?

Explain that to the Grandkids if you can!
Rhrosty

You are not taking into account the amount of ice melt happening in greenland arctic region. The more ice melt the more C02. Ice melt is increasing and with arctic temps showing 5*c increase, melt is gaining momentum by the day. Some ice mountains 3 km thick.
That goes to show 400 PPm Co2 is already too much.
Glacial flows have increased considerably in the recent past, that says ice under the glacier is softening.
There has been a gigantic lake detected under the Greenland ice by Nasa 3D imaging.
Greenland ice melt on its own can effect sea levels considerably.

Mark Lawson here

Doog - as was pointed out, you're taking all this stuff from activist sites or outliers.. the 5 degree increase bit is highly suspect.. and there is no acceleration in water levels either.. there is some increase but its been steady at non-threatening levels for decades. see the Colorado Uni site http://sealevel.colorado.edu/content/2014rel5-global-mean-sea-level-time-series-seasonal-signals-removed
and no 3.2 mm a year works out to a third of a meter over a century. No hint of this extra melting you talk of.

Rhosty - we're in a warm period, bumping along a plateau so of course there are warm periods. The sun has gone serious quiet in teh past few yeas - not since the 1970s - and in any case, although its known there is a link the details of it are unknown. We're about to find out a great deal more.

Mark Steyn on climate change

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEBeF_Rz1MU

Youtube.

Mark Steyn Keynote Speech: Mann for breakfast 10th ICCC


The best thing about climate change, is that it is only a matter of time before a multitude of young and idealistic world savers are going to find out that they were being lied to by the very people they thought were the keepers of the gate of all that was good and holy.

Doog since 1985 Antarctic sea ice has increased by 1.8 million square kilometres, more than a little, even you must admit. 1.6 million of that has been in just the last 12 years. Even you must have some difficulty finding a warming signal in that.

Perhaps you have forgotten the very expensive rescue of the ship of fools, caught in the ice they told us didn't exist? I guess some people will believe anything.

At the same time the water temperature, constant for 30 years from 1975 to 2005, has dropped over a quarter of a degree in the last 10 years. It is now 2 degrees below zero, hence the increase in sea ice.

Over land air temperature there has dropped even more than the ocean water temperature, all pretty hard to ignore, unless you play the three monkeys game, & cover your eyes & ears, to avoid data you don't like.

Arctic sea ice has increased year by year, which is sending up wild and ragged storms from the Antarctic. The sea ice is caused from melting glacial ice, feeding fresh water into the ocean which freezes more readily than salt water.
As soon as the seasons change that sea ice melts and glacial ice melt again commences.
That ship of fools was caught in sea ice ,liquid one day frozen the next. That tells you there was a greater mix of fresh water than salt water.
If the antarctic water temp was 2*C below freezing, the only water that could freeze is fresh water.
If the land air temp over Antarctic was greater than what is required to melt or soften glacial ice, there would not be increasing sea ice, or glacial ice melt.
So it has nothing to do with blinkers or cartoons, just realism.

The ice melt in the Arctic is at a faster rate than in Antarctica, to the extent of changing atmospheric jet streams. Arctic temps have shifted by 5*C
Greenland is melting at a rate never before seen and increasing with every year.
My feeling is that the balance of nature has compromised by 400 PPm Co2 and has now set off a chain reaction that will be impossible to stop.
With industry slowing, and perma frost melting and releasing Co2, What mankind does to limit Co2 will be replaced by Co2 locked up in ice melt

Dear Bugsy,

You were perfectly correct in pulling up Curmudgeon for trying to say CO2 level increases were not accelerating when they plainly are

It was the first thing I picked up of when he began his pontifications on this thread.

Most of us do not have the time to dissect every bit of disinformation from the flat-earthers so what we tend to do is examine their prima facie case and if it contains obvious and glaring errors we are usually quite disinclined to proceed any further.

The fact that Curmudgeon could not bring himself to directly acknowledge that 'CO2 levels are indeed accelerating' casts him in an unseemly light and clouds the rest of what he has said with a cloak of questionable veracity.

Mark, your predictable conclusion is "it is difficult to see how, from a purely price-benefit point of view, any carbon saving initiative would be worth the cost.'

Have you researched the cost of just one current climate disaster caused be man made global warming - the 4 year California drought?

I was in the US last year and witnessed Lake Mead (Hoover Dam) half empty. What will happen if the 40 huge trains a day on the Santa Fe railway carrying vegetables and fruit for the eastern states no longer carry that food?

These disasters will become commonplace once the warming really gets going. The scientists predicted it and it is happening.

I say discounts rates mean little - set them at near zero because as the Indian chief said you can't eat money. We certainly won't be able to when there are ongoing massive crop failures in future due to >3 deg.rise in average global temperatures that we are headed for. Do you think money will buy rain in droughts or stop flooding deluges?

The other side of climate change / changed high and low pressure systems in the US last year was the big freeze in NY where I stayed over winter. The ground did not thaw out for over 3 months; due to a 'polar vortex' caused by global warming. A similar event the previous year cost the US a few percent of its GDP because things closed down for over a week in half the country.

PS The SW of WA had the warmest June since records began about 1910 - THREE DEGREES warmer than previous record in mid 1980's. Strange coincidences aren't they, if global warming isn't happening?

To Doog, Tombee, Ormondotvos, Taswegian, Bugsy, and Roses1.

I gather that you have not been keeping up with the events around so called "'man made global warming" fiasco. The whole thing is coming apart at the seams, because more and more scientists are ignoring the threat of lawsuits from the global warming industry, to speak about how science has been successfully perverted. It was perverted by a handful of academic Marxists, supported by a UN bureaucracy who want to destroy western civilisation while lining their own pockets, championed by self seeking politicians like Al Gore and Barrack Obama, and aided by a media only interested in presenting sensational news about impending doom to sell their products.

It really is an interesting story. In ten years time, writers are going to get Pulitzers recounting the whole sorry tale, and showing how each of the villains backed each other up over "man made global warming" in order keep the hysteria going for their own self aggrandisement. I hate to tell you, but you are on the wrong side of history here.

If you wish to display your credentials as a true world saver, who is oh, so much more intelligent than the hoi polloi, then you picked the wrong cause. You got suckered by people who found it child's play to take people like yourself with your high ideals and make them into their pawns. Perhaps you should watch the old movie "Elmer Gantry" and you might get the idea about how you were conned.

Anyhoo, if you really want to display to the world how intelligent you are, then the time is ripe for you to join the other rats and jump off the climate change ship before it sinks out of sight. The sooner you jump, the better for you. You can hope that nobody remembers that you once supported scientific fraud of unimaginable scale, which cost your people trillions, and you can then denounce the people you once wholeheartedly supported, and pretend to the world that you are still one of the Chosen Ones who know everything.

LEGO, I think the hard core climate alarmists are in a quandary. They probably realise the jig is up but if they hold out long enough, the climate might turn 'for the better' and they will all jump on the band wagon to take the credit.

You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink.

Alaska is in the grip of unprecedented bush fires. Pacific ocean temps point toward drought for AU and continuation of US drought.
Pacific ocean temps are showing a 1*C rise in temp since the last all-time high which will disrupt fish life and possibly give rise to destructive weather events.
No need for climate models, models are a static display, and do not suite a forever changing climate. Seasonal change is the only real predictor.
400 ppm Co2 is more than the atmosphere can handle, + the softening of perma frost releasing even more Co2 into the atmosphere it is hard to see a way out of this one.
With arctic in decline 6 months of the year and the Antarctic in decline the other 6 months of the year. It is a 24/7 365 day / yr disaster of mega proportions.
Persons who believe it will take centuries for ice melt to complete, are grossly mistaken, each year ice melt is accelerating from both under and over glacial ice. Ocean rise is more prevalent in the northern hemisphere for some reason. The US east coast has rising sea levels blamed on the Greenland ice melt.
What took 100 years of glacial movement, now takes 10 and quickening.

Hey Doogood. ever heard of "natural climate variability"?

WIKIPEDIA.

The Roman Warm Period has been proposed as a period of unusually warm weather in Europe and the North Atlantic that ran from approximately 250 BC to 400 AD. Cooling at the end of this period in south west Florida may have been due to a reduction in solar radiation reaching the Earth, which may have triggered a change in atmospheric circulation patterns.

Theophrastus (371–287 BC) wrote that date trees could grow in Greece if planted, but could not set fruit there. This is the same situation as today, and suggests that southern Aegean mean summer temperatures in the fourth and fifth centuries BC were within a degree of modern temperatures. This and other literary fragments from the time confirm that the Greek climate during that period was basically the same as it was around 2000 AD. Dendrochronological evidence from wood found at the Parthenon shows variability of climate in the fifth century BC resembling the modern pattern of variation.

The Medieval Warm Period (MWP), Medieval Climate Optimum, or Medieval Climatic Anomaly was a time of warm climate in the North Atlantic region that may also have been related to other climate events around the world during that time, including China and other areas, lasting from about AD 950 to 1250. It was followed by a cooler period in the North Atlantic termed the Little Ice Age. Some refer to the event as the Medieval Climatic Anomaly as this term emphasizes that effects other than temperature were important.

So Doogood, the Earth warmed from 250 BC to 400AD, cooled until 950 AD, warmed again until 1250, then froze from 1500 AD to 1800 AD. Now we are once again living in a warm period. That is called, "natural climatic variation."

You got conned, because the Marxists who dreamed up HICW were world savers like you, and their lies and scientific falsifications which demanded an end to the consumer society (which they choose to live in), in order to Save The World, conformed to your own beliefs about saving the environment.

Lego. Unless you can pinpoint what actually caused the variation, your findings don't have much to go on. The timescale you are referring to i imagine was quite volcanic, possibly several volcanoes in action at the same time, which is well known to cause weather patterns to change. It's probably lucky that volcano's have a cycle of their own, and are not permanent features.

What is happening now is quite different we can't blame volcanic activity, our atmosphere is clogged with man made Co2 and now with added extras from the softening of perma frost, which now has a life of it's own, and i believe non reversible. Unless your wisdom can see a way out.

Oh god! Can you imagine doog & his mates if we were to have a real climate disaster.

Just think how they would go off if the American dustbowl drought were to reappear. They would of course be in their heaven. Nothing would be too bad for them to claim could be laid at the feet of industrial man.

They have been continually caught out doctoring the records, to try to support their agenda. It has got so bad that even blind Freddy can see through their concoction.

Bet some of them will be claiming the freezing conditions sweeping north through the eastern states right now is due to CO2 & the nonexistent global warming. Just watch the next couple of days news broadcasts on the ABC, & in blog space.

Hasbeen That freezing weather is from all that itinerant sea ice which has expanded year after year from ice melt.
So it's only logical to say we are talking about the same scenario, if you have such adverse ideas about what is causing all of the ice melt and expansion of sea ice, please share it with us all, don't keep it to yourself.
All i can tell you about is my findings, and i do not use models that are out of date tomorrow.
Everything going on with our atmosphere at present all relates to man made pollutants that have compromised nature.
There is no agenda, or religious leanings, the situation is there to be seen.

Doogood, they are not "my findings", they are the historical record that can be found in any history book dealing with the progression of human history in the past 2500 years. I get the distinct impression that you have never even heard the term "natural climate variability" before I shoved it in your face a few hours ago. Some educated, all seeing, super intellect, world saver, you are.

Whatever caused climatic variation in the past is subject to much speculation, volcanic activity has been suggested, but the primary reason is thought to be the natural variation in the sun's energy output. So, if the Earth is warming, and it apparently has not warmed for the last 15 years, what makes you so sure that any warming that is occurring must be human induced instead of natural causes? Your friends at the IPCC are backtracking at the moment, including "natural climatic variability" in their new "definition" of "Global Warming." The cat is out of the bag, and the ideologues who claim to be scientists are trying to cover their tracks with the public, because they know that the whole global warming nonsense is unravelling.

But if you want to keep thinking that the world is flat because a new bunch of moral puritans and ideologues masquerading as scientists say that it is so, then go right ahead. My reason for writing this was to give you fair warning that it was time to jump ship before your went down with the IPCC.

But maybe you are an ideologue yourself? And you desperately want to believe that Human Induced Global Warming is a fact, because you want to save the world from catastrophe? And you think that only by claiming that Earth is going to look like Venus in a few years, will scare people into becoming some sort of Amish? Your problem is, that most people just don't believe it. Polls taken in advanced countries indicate "global warming" somewhere around 20th in their concerns. And that after 25 years of screeching left wing propaganda.

Lego This has nothing to do with public opinion. Public opinion can not change fact. Nor can saying, nothing is abnormal. Visibility is everything. If you can't believe what you see, you are only fooling yourself.
Which part of what i have written is fiction, or is it a blanket non belief.
Saying it's cyclic, hardly explains anything, we need proof, and without that you can not argue.
There will be no apocalyptic scenario as far as i am aware of. Surely we can have change without such events. Providing we prepare for abnormal events which are quite apparent.
Sea level rise will not have to be gigantic to create mass movement of people from Ocean islands and low lying ground. A little preparation and forward planning is well and truly in order.
So there is no panic unless we do nothing.

doog: Unless you can pinpoint what actually caused the variation, your findings don't have much to go on.

Unless you can pinpoint accurately what actually caused climate change, you have no scientific evidence grounds to argue that human-induced factors are the cause.

Do you really believe this stuff doog, or does your living depend on you convincing the gullible to believe it?

The cause of past climate change particularly the last few ice ages are primarily due to Milankovitch changes in the earths orbit around the sun.
They are not related to changes in the sun's output, which is remarkably constant despite minor changes due to changes in sunspot activity.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles

The Antarctic holds most of the worlds ice and it is on land. It has been clearly shown that the Antarctic land ice is melting and the rate is increasing. The evidence comes from various sources such as satellites which measure local gravity. From memory the ice loss is up around 100 cubic kilometers per year. That the sea ice has increased is largely irrelevant as it is seasonal.

http://www.antarctica.gov.au/about-antarctica/environment/climate-change/ice-sheets-and-sea-level-rise

To Doogood.

Natural climatic variation is a fact, and it is part of the historical record. Along come a bunch of Marxist climate scientists, who make the claim that the consumer society which is fuelled by cheap fossil fuels is destroying the planet. It will turn Earth into something resembling Venus, oceans will rise and drown cities, and demons and dragons will rise from the Earth and devour mankind.

That is an interesting theory, but the onus is upon them to prove it. The idea with science is that you don't espouse a theory as fact before you have compelling evidence to back it up. And you don't exchange Emails like the comrades in the East Anglia Climate Research Institute did, where they argued about hiding the evidence that proved that their little theory was wrong. Nor do you slap lawsuits on eminent climatic scientists like Tim Ball, or other scientists who vehemently oppose your theory, to shut them up.

Public opinion is sceptical because the visibility is important. And what the climate alarmists have been predicting has not conformed to self evident reality. Himalayan glaciers refuse to melt. A bunch of climate scientists get trapped in sea ice which they predicted wasn't there. Australia's own "Climate Commissioner" Tim Flannery claimed the "the dams (in Australia) will never fill again." Well Doogood, they are not only full to the brim, one of them overflowed and drowned Brisbane. Then Tim shot himself in the foot and bought a waterside property to show everybody what he thinks of rising sea levels.

I have lived through a time when some scientists predicted that the Earth was returning to an Ice Age. Some scientists claimed that smoking did not cause lung cancer. Some claimed that the world would soon run out of food, and later, that it would soon run out of oil. I have lived through the "millennium bug" hokum, where passenger airliners were predicted to fall out of the sky. And in every case, there were Chicken Little's like yourself, running around in a panic, and screaming that the sky was falling

Lego
"That is an interesting theory, but the onus is upon them to prove it. The idea with science is that you don't espouse a theory as fact before you have compelling evidence to back it up."

Actually you have this back to front no physical theory can ever be proved beyond doubt. Scientists always try to disprove any new theories that are brought up. A good theory will lead to a number of experiments that will quickly demonstrate whether the theory has merit or not. In other words it is easy to prove a theory wrong but impossible to prove it is right.

The theory of climate is all about heat and how it moves through the system. A simple example is on a clear night heat leaves the earth much more easily leading to much colder overnight temperatures compared to a cloudy night which limits heat loss to space. We knew long before Marxists that greenhouse gases do the same thing except that they do not restrict the heat coming in from the sun.

The usual bleating from the usual strawmen denialists who frequent this website including Lego and Hasbeen. And you are little better Curm. Call yourself a rational professional journalist and you fail to call out drivel like all climate scientists are 'alarmists' engaged in a 'marxist conspiracy theory' who know about natural climate variability. You are really a paid propagandist. God knows if you other persistent bleaters are paid or not or whether you just have a lot of shares in coal but you are certainly deluded. Why do I waste my time responding to the same old rot? That'll do me I've had enough.

Here we go: The sun has an eleven year cycle, Not 65 year cycle. Your brand of science has no meaning, only denial of everything to do with climate. With your ideas of what may be causing the change [at least you recognize change is happening, the cause is in question] has not any evidence at all.
Has been says twice as much Co2 in the atmosphere would be beneficial, that experiment failed 20 years ago.
400 parts / million at present, With a planet that is reducing it’s Co2 output is not going to decrease Co2 in the atmosphere, because of the damage that has already been done by ice melt releasing more and more Co2 into the atmosphere.
So it is best to plan for change. I don’t know how to put it any simpler

LEGO,

Could you point me to something supporting your claim that Tim Flannery said "the dams will never fill again"? I can't find where it was that he said that.

Could you also please tell me what the email exchange was regarding these alleged arguments about to hiding information that "proved that their little theory was wrong"? I can't find anything on that either.

One last request. Could you please tell me when Timothy Ball was sued in order to silence him? I know about the libel cases, but they had nothing to do with silencing him. It is possible, after all, to argue against anthropogenic climate change without being libellous.

Links and quotes would be good.

Thanks.

Tough questions there A J. These blokes make big statements and never follow up.
The instigator of this thread has not come back either.

Dam predictions wrong: http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/slippery-when-wet-tim-flannerys-climate-warnings-questioned-after-recent-flooding/story-e6freuzi-1226355256833

Flannery predicts parts of Sydney will be swamped by rising sea levels: http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/rising-sea-levels-will-swamp-parts-of-sydney-20101215-18yak.html

AJ, you are one of the biggest sceptics in the Forum, how is you buy into the man-made climate change propaganda without giving the any credence to the alternative perspectives? I'm honestly surprised we even disagree on this issue.

You've probably already written him off, but if not have a look at some of Bob Carter's work. Bob is certainly as qualified as Tim Flannery.

"Could you also please tell me what the email exchange was regarding these alleged arguments about to hiding information that "proved that their little theory was wrong"?

There is nothing that says their theories are wrong exactly but that the primary scientists were manipulating and hiding data that didn't fit the models. Michael Mann's hockey stick theory was a good example and has been totally debunked since.

The gist is here: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/07/climategate-and-the-big-green-lie/59709/

The hockey stick theory debunked: http://joannenova.com.au/2009/12/fraudulent-hockey-sticks-and-hidden-data/

ConservativeHippie,

Those links don’t bail LEGO out from my first question to him. Your first link even perpetuates the same BS claim LEGO made. But at least it wasn’t dishonest enough to use quotation marks. Either way, AGW doesn’t stand or fall on what one guy says.

And no, the ‘hockey stick’ has not been debunked. It has been refined and corrected over time like anything else in science, but it hasn’t been debunked. “Hockey stick” seems to have become a locution for denialists like the so-called “missing link” we keep hearing about from creationists. The links you provided (with their doctored graphs and all) are debunked at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CY4Yecsx_-s.

But perhaps you could tell me what this data was that was being deliberately omitted and hidden, in case we don't hear from LEGO?

(A word of caution: I already know what you're going to say because it's such a frequently discredited bit of quote-mined BS that gets passed around denialist circles.)

<<AJ, you are one of the biggest sceptics in the Forum, how is you buy into the man-made climate change propaganda without giving the any credence to the alternative perspectives? I'm honestly surprised we even disagree on this issue.>>

Did you not understand anything I said in my last post to you? (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=17458#309048) Scepticism isn’t about just rejecting every claim for the sake of it. There is a very big difference between denialism and scepticism too. Michael Shermer (a prominent, and actual, sceptic) outlined the difference between the two in a New Scientist article that can be found at http://www.seccca.org.au/2010/05/18/state-of-denial-a-new-scientist-article-to-distinguish-between-sceptics-and-deniers.

Actual sceptics fight many forms of nonsense such as religion, clairvoyants and astrology; conspiracy theories such as the 9/11 conspiracies, chemtrails, alien abduction claims and the JFK assassination; and pseudoscience such as creationism, the anti-GMO movement, alternative medicine, vaccine denial, and yes, climate change denial.

Denialism isn’t just an insulting term used to attack others with differing views, it’s an actual recognised form of junk-science/quackery (http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/flavors-of-nonsense).

Dear LEGO,

If your politics doesn't allow you to accept the science that is well and good but for you to put forward this line is a little too much;

“But if you want to keep thinking that the world is flat because a new bunch of moral puritans and ideologues masquerading as scientists say that it is so, then go right ahead.”

The flat earthers were famous for not accepting the scientific evidence that the world is indeed a sphere.

It most aptly applies to those who can not accept, despite all the evidence, that humans are responsible for warming the planet.

We of course look upon flat earthers more with bemusement rather than derision and naturally question their intelligence. I find it poignant that so many of your posts contain phrases like;

“Some educated, all seeing, super intellect, world saver, you are.”

“if you really want to display to the world how intelligent you are,”

“If you wish to display your credentials as a true world saver, who is oh, so much more intelligent than the hoi polloi”.

I'm wondering if you ever felt like taking to time to tease out the real driver behind your rather bombastic attacks on those who accept the science of global warming.

Oh Hi AJ. I will be happy to ream you out next, but I have got Doogood by the throat at the moment. I am trying to deprogram him, and I am about to exceed my 24 hour post limit.

Now Doogood.

Your friend Warmair did a "hit and run", so you can't expect much help from him.

The sun has an 11 year sunspot cycle, which represents the repositioning of it's lines of magnetic force. To the best of my knowledge, this has nothing to do with variations in solar temperatures, and has no bearing on the Earth's weather, unless we get hit by a solar flare of ionised gas.

Now, the point I was trying to make, and which you keep artfully dodging, is that history, (which the climate scientists have not yet found a way to airbrush) tells us that in the last 2000 years, the Earth was warm, then it cooled, then it warmed again, then it cooled, and now it is warm again. Now, please open your eyes. What do you clearly see here? A cycle of global warming and cooling, 1800 years of which clearly can not possibly blamed on HICW.

The hoax perpetrated by the IPCC, is that our present warm period must have been caused entirely by HIGW. And the present IPCC proposals are the "last chance" to save the Earth. The onus is then upon them to prove it. But what have we got?

Here is one of the famous "Climategate" emails.

"We can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and that is a travesty that we can't."

Got that? They admit that the Earth is not warming and they can't "account" for it.

Now we get the next notorious one.

"I have just completed Mike's Nature (the Science Journal) trick of adding in the real temps for each series for the last 20 years (ie, from 1981 onwards) to hide the decline."

They fudged the figures to "hide" the fact that the steady rise in temperatures have declined.

Dear LEGO,

You wrote;

“The sun has an 11 year sunspot cycle, which represents the repositioning of it's lines of magnetic force. To the best of my knowledge, this has nothing to do with variations in solar temperatures, and has no bearing on the Earth's weather, unless we get hit by a solar flare of ionised gas.”

Oh dear me.

Here you go;

“Solar activity predicted to fall 60% in 2030s, to 'mini ice age' levels: Sun driven by double dynamo”

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/07/150709092955.htm

Perhaps it is now time for you to add astronomers from the Royal Society to your hit list.

Or you could just accept that 'the best of your knowledge' really isn't up to it.

SteeleRedux,

I thought it was also cute of LEGO to compare the acceptance of AGW with the denialism surrounding the connection between lung cancer and smoking when both claims are the result of the same mindsets and motivations.

ConservativeHippie,

Unless you have something else to add (perhaps the legitimate practice of data homogenisation?) it doesn't look like you need to answer my question. LEGO's already given the answer I was waiting for in his address to doog.

LEGO,

I don't usually get into the these climate change debates because this forum is overrun with denialists and we have word limits. But I just couldn't resist having some fun with the naive enthusiasm that you're displaying at the moment - suggesting that you have only just stumbled upon all the repetitively debunked denialist arguments.

Funny how there's this alleged this grand conspiracy and yet “climategate” (consisting of thousands of emails over thirteen years, mind you) could only find those two lines you mentioned that sounded suspicious when taken out of context. Quotes mined in a way such that even a creationist would blush at the mere sight of them. So, since you’ve provided them for our convenience, let’s take a look at them, shall we?

<<They admit that the Earth is not warming and they can't "account" for it.>>

They “admit” no such thing.

Tremberth was referring to the cooling that occurred in 2008-2009 and most climatologists explain that by the fact we were at the nadir of the eleven-year solar cycle and that 2008 was a particularly strong La Niña year. Tremberth argues that the warming effect of CO2 should be able to overcome these temperate cooling influences. But had you actually bothered to read the emails that preceded Tremberth's, then you would have seen that two other climatologists (who accept AGW, mind you) disagreed with him.

You hadn't even gotten that far, though, had you LEGO? No, you just swallowed the usual denialist BS.

<<They fudged the figures to "hide" the fact that the steady rise in temperatures have declined>>

Firstly, the word "trick" is used as far as computer science, chemistry and biology...

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165176504003143
http://ageconsearch.umn.edu/bitstream/122615/2/sjart_st0151.pdf
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11982-008-1003-z?LI=true#page-1

If “trick" really meant "a piece of fraud", then the above scientific papers above would be admitting fraud before they even began.

As for the phrase "hide the decline"? Well, that was in reference to the decline in tree ring data. It had nothing to do with actual temperatures. It was in regards to the tree ring responses to climate. It questioned whether tree rings should be used when reconstructing climate data from the past. That's all.

You lot are such a bunch of uneducated conspiracy theorist McExperts. Here’s a website that should keep y’all entertained…

http://listverse.com/2012/12/28/10-reasons-the-moon-landings-could-be-a-hoax

To Steelredux.

Doogood's post, was that the three historically recorded variations in Earth's temperature in the last 2000 years could not have been caused by solar fluctuations, because "the sun has an 11 year cycle." Doogood is suggesting that the sun could not be the cause, because sun warms and cools only in 11 year cycles, which is nonsense. As an amateur astronomer myself, I was aware at the last solar minimum (I almost purchased a sun telescope myself, but the model that I wanted was sold out) that astronomers were concerned about the differences in sunspot activity in the last solar minimum, which they predicted may be a portent to solar activity never before recorded.

Now AJ. This is the first time I have ever written on climate change too, AJ. Our first time together. We had better make it a good one.

First your questions. 1. Tim Flannery's foot-in-mouth quote has been very widely reported in the news media, and you know it. 2. If they are hiding data from sceptical scientists, moaning over the figures which say that the Earth is not even warming, and fudging them to pretend that they are, then that is an tacit admission that they themselves know that their theory is scientifically unsupportable. 3. Here is Timothy Ball himself on the lawsuits.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FKB1fzX1Eo

Now the Emails. The authors of the Emails are claiming that they were taken out of context, and I will admit that they could have been. Other posters on debate sites have done it to me deliberately. But then again, some of my opponents have claimed that I have done it to them, when they knew that I had not. You are prejudiced to believe them, while I am prejudiced to disbelieve them. They look like stand alone admissions to me, and since the information they are moaning about in the Email is correct (the Earth has not warmed in 15 years), and since the Australian climate figures were similarly "adjusted" by the Gaia worshippers at the Bureau of Meteorology, it validates that they mean exactly what they say.

LEGO,

1. Yes, I know what the quote is that you’re referring to. I just want to see you quote it. The full quote, I mean. You won’t though, because it would then become obvious that he’d never said what you claimed he said. In fact, I’m willing to bet that you don’t even know what his exact words were. You’ve just swallowed the denialist crap from those with whom you are politically aligned.

2. This doesn’t answer my question at all. It evades it entirely with yet more unsubstantiated conspiratorial thinking.

3. Thanks for the link, but I already knew about the libel cases. Ball himself filed a similar lawsuit. Does that suggest that he’s trying to silence others as well?

<<The authors of the Emails are claiming that they were taken out of context…>>

Not only are they claiming that, but we can check for ourselves and see. Even if they were saying what you had assumed they were saying, it’s hardly evidence for a grand conspiracy given that there were thousands of emails spanning thirteen years.

<<…and I will admit that they could have been.>>

Then why don’t you read them? I’ll tell you why: because you’re not actually interested in what they were really saying. This goes back to the difference between scepticism and denialism that I mentioned earlier.

<<Australian climate figures were similarly "adjusted" by the Gaia worshippers at the Bureau of Meteorology, it validates that they mean exactly what they say.>>

If you’re talking about data homogenisation, then no, it validates nothing and is a legitimate and necessary practice. You don’t even know if that’s what you’re talking about, do you?

By the way, it has warmed over the last fifteen years. This old canard started because Bob Carter apparently doesn’t understand how temperature trends are analysed and thought he could simply get a ruler and draw a line from the highest point in 1998 to the highest point in 2005.

Sorry, LEGO, but your powers of deduction could be perfect and it still wouldn’t matter if they’re working with false information.

Dear LEGO,

My post to you nothing to do with what doog posted so why raise it?

Instead I expressly focused on this particular comment from yourself;

“The sun has an 11 year sunspot cycle, which represents the repositioning of it's lines of magnetic force. To the best of my knowledge, this has nothing to do with variations in solar temperatures, and has no bearing on the Earth's weather, unless we get hit by a solar flare of ionised gas.”

What you need to be able to illustrate is you are capable of recognising when you are wrong on a statement of fact.

So my question to you is do you accept that you were wrong and that the repositioning of the Sun's lines of magnetic force do indeed have an impact on Earth's weather?

I await your response with interest.

Steelredux.

I raised it because Doogood can't flash on the fact that the Earth has warmed three times in 2000 years, and cooled twice. I suggested that this was probably caused by differences in solar output. He suggested that this could not be correct, because the sun has only an 11 year cycle.

I pointed out that the cycle he was talking about was a sunspot cycle, where the ever twisting magnetic force lines of the sun return to zero. I told him that to the best of my knowledge, sunspots have no bearing on Earth's climate, unless they fling out a solar flare in our direction when springing back to their default position.

What you seem to be talking about, is suggesting that sunspots are the cause of solar variation. No. Differences in sun spot activity can be indicative of changes in internal solar activity, which may indicate a warming or cooling trend. It is not the sunspots which cause solar variation, they are only an indicator of the internal workings of the sun.

To AJ. Tim Flannery is notorious in the media for his foot-in-the mouth predictions, of which the above quote is his most hilarious. He has also been quoted many times referring to "Gaia", which seems to suggest that he is less a scientist, and more a pagan religious activist. It is not "the climate change deniers" who publicised his clangers, it was all over the media.

Tim Ball's lawsuit against Robert Mann would be simply a standard legal response when threatened by a vexatious legal writ.

"Data homogenisation" sounds like a euphemism for "fiddling the figures". The Australian" newspaper investigated by sending reporters to remote area weather stations where families had been recording climate data for generations. These people were incensed that their figures had been "homogenised", and they noted that none of these figures were ever "homogenised" to indicate a cooling trend.

I have not read the climategate Emails in their entirety, any more than you have read the latest book on the climate hoax co authored by 25 noted scientists and journalists.

Dear LEGO,

What on earth are you on about?

You wrote;

“What you seem to be talking about, is suggesting that sunspots are the cause of solar variation.”

No I wasn't and nothing I had posted would give a reasonable person cause to think I had.

A less polite man than myself may well accuse you of obfuscation.

As the paper I posted a link to spells out;

“"In cycle 26, the two waves exactly mirror each other -- peaking at the same time but in opposite hemispheres of the Sun. Their interaction will be disruptive, or they will nearly cancel each other. We predict that this will lead to the properties of a 'Maunder minimum'," said Zharkova. "Effectively, when the waves are approximately in phase, they can show strong interaction, or resonance, and we have strong solar activity. When they are out of phase, we have solar minimums. When there is full phase separation, we have the conditions last seen during the Maunder minimum, 370 years ago."

Your assertion was; ““The sun has an 11 year sunspot cycle, which represents the repositioning of it's lines of magnetic force. To the best of my knowledge, this has nothing to do with variations in solar temperatures, and has no bearing on the Earth's weather, unless we get hit by a solar flare of ionised gas.”

The paper directly contradicts you. The 11 year cycle has quite a lot to do with solar temperatures and have an impact on the Earth's weather.

My direct question to you obviously needs repeating;

Do you accept that you were wrong and that the repositioning of the Sun's lines of magnetic force do indeed have an impact on Earth's weather?

How about a direct answer.

Still waiting for that quote, LEGO.

<<Tim Flannery is notorious in the media for his foot-in-the mouth predictions, of which the above quote is his most hilarious.>>

And yet you still can't give me a single example. Or are you actually claiming now that your "above quote" is accurate?

<<He has also been quoted many times referring to "Gaia"...>>

A precise and complete quote please? Of course not. What was I thinking? It would become apparent that he was only using it as a figure of speech if you were to do that.

<<It is not "the climate change deniers" who publicised his clangers, it was all over the media.>>

Actually, the first one you mentioned was initially misconstrued by Andrew Bolt and is really only perpetrated by him and the Murdoch media.

<<"Data homogenisation" sounds like a euphemism for "fiddling the figures".>>

Then perhaps you could explain why it's not necessary? Homogenised or not, the readings still show an increase anyway.

<<These people were incensed that their figures had been "homogenised", and they noted that none of these figures were ever "homogenised" to indicate a cooling trend.>>

Over what period of time? And why would these people be “incensed”? Did they have an interest in there being a cooling trend? Were they under the impression that the data should have reflected a cooling trend? If so, how did they measure this? Were their measurements taken at regular intervals? Did they control for all the possible variables? How did they determine what the discrepancy should have been between the old location and the new?

All these questions you didn't even bother to ask. Denialism vs scepticism.

<<I have not read the climategate Emails in their entirety, any more than you have read the latest book on the climate hoax co authored by 25 noted scientists and journalists.>>

I haven’t misquoted or read anything into what the authors of that book have said though, have I? So this doesn’t somehow make us equally foolish, if it’s the Tu quoque fallacy you’re going for here.

What’s this book, by the way?

Dear Steelredux, since you did not state plainly your position, and you only directed me to a link where it was up to me to figure out what you were whining about, then I object to your claim that I was misrepresenting your position. And then you claimed that you were being polite?

What you have posted from your link equates exactly with what I wrote about sunspots being an indicator of internal solar activity. Changes to the normal pattern of sunspot activity can indicate changes within the dynamics within the sun. But the repositioning of sunspots every 11 years does not affect Earth's climate every 11 years. That was the point I was politely explaining to Doogood. Please scroll back and put things into perspective before you cherry pick what I said and jump to the wrong conclusion.

To AJ.

Just scroll "Google", type in "Tim Flannery quotes", and there are dozens of sites to choose. If you are saying that Andrew Bolt was responsible for spreading the Tim Flannery quote, then that has great credibility to me. Perhaps you could convince the government to shut him up by making it illegal to "offend, insult or humiliate" climate alarmists by quoting them?

That is what it all gets down to. We both believe the people who champion our own views. I believe the people who talk sense and do not have a chip on their shoulder about the white, western, free market civilisation. You believe the people who think that Marxism is paradise, even though it failed everywhere it was attempted. You believe in the people who champion traitors like David Hicks and Snowden. You believe those that claim that successive state and federal governments "stole" aboriginal children "to breed out the black" and thereby commit "genocide" on aborigines. You believe the lefty historians who air brushed Australian history to conform to that view. You believed the climategate conspirators and the statisticians in Australia who "homogenised" the original climate data to conform to a left wing view that the world is going to end unless we all become Amish

Let’s not pretend I need Googling lessons, LEGO.

<<Just scroll "Google", type in "Tim Flannery quotes", and there are dozens of sites to choose.>>

I know what the quotes are. But I want you to post the first one (at least) for two reasons: firstly, I want it splashed all over this thread; secondly, I don’t think you actually know what it is and I want that to become apparent.

Perhaps one of OLO’s many denialists can help you out? There’s no shortage of them, after all.

Or perhaps not?

You see, I did a Google ‘site’ search of OLO for Bolt’s quote-mined snippet of what Flannery said, and it turns out that only one person has ever quoted it. Only one person out of hundreds of mentions of dams never filling again! And even then, it wasn’t the full quote - just the snippet that Bolt quote-mined.

<<If you are saying that Andrew Bolt was responsible for spreading the Tim Flannery quote, then that has great credibility to me.>>

So you didn’t even know that? And how do you figure this when Bolt’s actions here have been thoroughly dishonest? Bolt’s past legal troubles are not indicative of his credibility or his ability to quote others accurately.

<<That is what it all gets down to. We both believe the people who champion our own views.>>

Not really. You see, I’m in the habit now of checking the sources of both sides of any debate. This is why my participation on OLO is limited to only a handful of subjects and I don’t appear to have an opinion on every issue as some others do. I simply don’t have the time to thoroughly check every little claim on every single topic. This is goes to the fundamental difference between denialism and scepticism that I’ve been highlighting, with your help.

Nice attempt at a diversion there too, by the way, but when you have to resort to generalisations and characterisations, and back a conspiracy with more conspiracy, then you’ve lost the argument.

Still waiting on the name of that book.

Of course, that should be "caricatures", not "characterisations".

Hi AJ. The book is called "Climate Change, the Facts."

http://www.amazon.com.au/Climate-Change-Dr-John-Abbot-ebook/dp/B00S5L5Y0W

You want a quote from Tim Flannery? OK, here is one.

"I wake up in the morning thinking there are lots of times when people have woken up feeling like this, like the Old Testament prophets."

Like I said, this guy is more a pagan religious activist than any sort of scientist.

Look AJ, what Steelredux posted a few days ago about the sun's intensity reducing, which is predicted to cause global cooling, was published in "The Australian" newspaper today. The human induced climate change deniers just won. Got that? We just won. Changes in ocean currents caused by continental drift, changes in the tilt of the earth, changes in the Earth's orbit (which cycles from a circle to an ellipse, then back to a circle), all cause changes in the climate. But in the short term, it is the intensity of the sun which seems to be the primary factor in the cycle of warming and cooling of the Earth over the last 2000 years.

There was the Roman warm period which lasted until 400AD, then it cooled until 950 AD. Then came the medieval warm period, followed by "the Little Ice Age". The Earth is again in a warming period, and it looks like it will soon cool again. What I plainly see is a natural cycle.

The hoax that you and your foolish friends fell for, was that Marxist academics and Gaian worshipping activists claimed that the warm period which we were living in was proof that the earth was heating up and all sorts of catastrophes would ensue because of Human Induced Climate Change. And all of you Chicken Little's were stupid enough to swallow it.

On behalf of all climate change denialists, we accept your collective apologies. Next time, make sure your brains are in gear before you open your collectivist mouths.

No, not just any quote, LEGO.

<<You want a quote from Tim Flannery?>>

So I’m still waiting on the one where Flannery said that dams will never fill again.

As for the quote that you did actually provide, that didn’t even mention gaia:

"I wake up in the morning thinking there are lots of times when people have woken up feeling like this, like the Old Testament prophets."

Gee, the guy can’t even use a metaphor or an analogy without having some denialist read something into it. Our vernacular is filled with religious expressions (e.g. ‘a labour of love’, ‘a wolf in sheep’s clothing’). We use Freud’s terms all the time too (e.g. 'anal retentive', 'protection mechanism'), does that mean we all want to be psychologists?

You’re quote-mining, LEGO. Nothing more. Two can play at that game…

Here's Darwin doubting evolution:

"To suppose that the eye, with all its inimitable contrivances ... could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree." (Darwin 1872)

Here's the Bible itself admitting that God doesn't even exist:

"There is no God." (Psalm 14:1)

<<The human induced climate change deniers just won. Got that? We just won.>>

Oh, the humanity!

Could you link me to this article in The Australian that reveals what scientists already knew about insolation and continental drift? I can’t find it. You’ll also want to specify what you mean by “...in the short term”. How short?

By the way, you can add particulates, amplification, and of course, greenhouse gases to insolation, too, as climate-influencing factors.

I know about all those warming and cooling periods. If you go back further, there’s even more, like the Eocene thermal optimum, and the Permian triassic period where it was 14 degrees hotter than today.

<<What I plainly see is a natural cycle.>>

Of course. But the question is, how did you determine that the CO2 we produce is not a significant factor this time around? Bear in mind that the two recent warm periods weren’t good for every continent and they weren’t as hot as today.

Dear LEGO,

Lol.

This is actually quite fun my young lad.

Okay, perhaps we could try it in bite sized chunks.

Does the 11 year solar cycle have anything to do solar temperatures? Or to put it another way does the wattage of solar energy reaching Earth vary measurably because of the fluctuations within the cycle?

See very simple.

Hi AJ

You asked for a Tim Flannery quote, so I just googled "Tim Flannery quotes" and got heaps of sites. I just picked the first site, and selected the first quote. It is very easy. You can do it too. And you will find plenty of "Gaia" references. As to the most famous Tim Flannery clanger, I will try this afternoon to find it. But I am off to work in a few minutes, (another ten hour day in the freezing cold) so I don't have time to do your research for you at the moment.

The reference to global warming and cooling, being the result of changes in ocean currents caused by continental drift, changes to the Earth's orbit, and changes to Earth's axis of rotation, was not in the newspaper article. It was simply something that I presumed that everybody already knew. However, I can now see that I am dealing with very ignorant people with no knowledge of geology or astronomy, and who are more interested in hammering ideological square pegs into round realities. So, could I suggest you purchase the very excellent "How The Earth Was Made" DVD series, so that you can partly close the appalling gap in your vestigial knowledge?

"The Australian" newspaper had an article which was pretty much a rewrite of the article submitted by Steelredux, which pointed out that astronomers are predicting a cooling Earth because of the pattern of sunspot activity. This activity, is apparently identical to the pattern observed during "the Little Ice Age." Thanks for that, Steelie, you did me a great service. Have you jumped ship too?

So AJ, how are you going to sell human induced global warming on a cooling Earth? It is not surprising that another recipient of Robert Manne's "shut them up at all costs" lawsuits was Anthony Soong, the astrophysicist. Still, you shouldn't worry too much. If the Earth is about to cool, you can always rely on the pseudo scientists in the East Anglia Climate Research station to "homogenise" the data to make cooling look like warming.

Once again, LEGO, I didn’t just ask for any quote.

<<You asked for a Tim Flannery quote, so I just googled "Tim Flannery quotes"...>>

You’re stalling.

For the fifth time now, I know what all the quotes are that you’re referring to. The question is whether you do or not. Particularly the one regarding dams never filling again. I also want to see you find one where Flannery uses the term ‘gaia’ in more than just a colloquial sense.

Again though, even if you could prove that he had some strange beliefs, that would say nothing about the science. You’re hyperfocusing on the personalities and the utterances of individuals, exactly as creationists do, because you have nothing else.

Denialism vs scepticism.

<<As to the most famous Tim Flannery clanger, I will try this afternoon to find it.>>

So you don’t know what the quote is then? If you did, then you could have Googled it just as quickly.

<<So, could I suggest you purchase the very excellent "How The Earth Was Made" DVD series, so that you can partly close the appalling gap in your vestigial knowledge?>>

Actually, I’ve already seen it, so if you could explain to me how the series highlights a gap in the knowledge of myself or anyone else, then that’d be swell.

<<"The Australian" newspaper had an article...>>

Thanks, but I’d still like to see it though. I want to check their actual claims and sources. Especially now that a new argument of yours hinges on it, even if your, "We won", claim didn't.

<<...global warming and cooling, being the result of changes in ocean currents caused by continental drift, changes to the Earth's orbit, and changes to Earth's axis of rotation, ... was simply something that I presumed that everybody already knew.>>

There are other factors too. I even listed the broad categories under which they fall in my last post. This is something I presumed you didn’t know. And it turns out I was right.

As for homogenisation, you still haven’t explained how it constitutes “fudging”, or why it’s not necessary.

Lol!...I'm sure we were arguing this thread around 5 years ago...nothing changes around here : )

Here's a tweet I noted which pretty much sums up the denier argument...

"NASA: Here is Pluto.

World: Wow!

NASA: Earth is getting warmer.

World: No, it was cold at my house last winter."

Here is the direct quote from Tim Flannery that predicts the dams will be running out of water, possibly with 18 months (that's by 2009 AJ):

"Desalination plants can provide insurance against drought. In Adelaide, Sydney and Brisbane, water supplies are so low they need desalinated water urgently, possibly in as little as 18 months. Of course, these plants should be supplied by zero-carbon power sources." 16 June 2007

http://www.sciencearchive.org.au/nova/newscientist/105ns_001.htm

Oh, I think I see what you’ve been talking about, LEGO. Suddenly social media is abuzz with an impending ‘little ice age’. Unfortunately, this is just a media beat up.

I’ve found the article you were talking about and it’s no wonder you weren’t quick to provide a link to it (http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/health-science/little-ice-age-to-hit-in-2030s-say-university-researchers/story-e6frg8y6-1227439206910). It’s not the smoking gun you made it out to be.

The article that triggered this little flurry of gloating from right-wing media outlets can be found at http://www.ras.org.uk/news-and-press/2680-irregular-heartbeat-of-the-sun-driven-by-double-dynamo and never once mentions weather.

The researcher who started the furore has since tried to clear things up: http://www.iflscience.com/environment/mini-ice-age-not-reason-ignore-global-warming.

Sorry to burst your bubble.

Anyway, even if we were looking at a significant cooling period, that wouldn’t negate what is known about the effects of human-produced CO2 in the atmosphere. It would just mean that we got lucky and that nature had bought us some time. I don’t think that anyone, at any point, has asserted that the planet absolutely will heat up, and that in no way is it possible for any climate-influencing factors to counter our influence on it, for a period of time.

Or maybe Flannery has (not that it would mean much)? We’ll have to see if you can find that quote, and read what it actually says.

ConservativeHippie,

No, that’s not it. We’re talking about dams never filling again, not just running out of water (which was looking like a very real possibility back then, so Flannery's comment was entirely reasonable).

You should know very well that Flannery is often quoted specifically in the way that LEGO quoted him. It comes from a well-known misquote of Bolt's.

But thank you for helping me to demonstrate the difference between denialism and scepticism through your ignorance of the misquote's origins. Apparently not many denialists at all know where it comes from and yet they're so desperate they'll use it anyway.

Thank you too AJ, for showing us you can prove black is white.

One last point AJ, why hasn't Flannery ever denied he said those things, about ten different predictions, if he never made them?

If the dams were so under threat that Flannery believed desalination plants were required, it stands to reason he wasn't foreseeing enough rain to ever render them useful again. The rains came and we all know what happened in Brisbane. Flannery couldn't have got it more wrong.

But hey, you know better Mr Smarty Pants.

Hi AJ

Here is your Tim Flannery quote.

Quote. PROFESSOR TIM FLANNERY: ... We’re already seeing the initial impacts [of global warming] and they include a decline in the winter rainfall zone across southern Australia, which is clearly an impact of climate change, but also a decrease in run-off. Although we’re getting say a 20 per cent decrease in rainfall in some areas of Australia, that’s translating to a 60 per cent decrease in the run-off into the dams and rivers. That’s because the soil is warmer because of global warming and the plants are under more stress and therefore using more moisture. So even the rain that falls isn’t actually going to fill our dams and our river systems, and that’s a real worry for the people in the bush. -

And sorry to burst your bubble, but Flannery did predict that the planet would heat up.

Quote. The respected scientist said the UN’s prediction of a three degree Celsius temperature rise was conservative and in fact could be double that figure resulting in “truly catastrophic” conditions for all life on earth… “It could be worse than this - there’s a 10 per cent chance of truly catastrophic rises in temperatures, so we’re looking at six degrees or so,” Prof Flannery said.

The Little Ice Age coincided with the Maunder Minimum. What we seem to be observing with the sun today, is a repeat of a Maunder Minimum, which it is reasonable to predict, will result in reducing temperatures for an unknown period. You claim that rising temperatures on Earth are caused by Human Induced Global Warming, and a lower temperature sun will only give a temporary respite from rising temperatures caused by HIGW.

I simply observe that the Earth has gone through heating and cooling periods in the last 2000 years caused entirely by solar variations, and we are simply in a warm period. But if the sun behaves as it has done previously in the last Maunder Minimum, this will soon revert to a cold period.

How do you sell global warming in a cooling world?

ConservativeHippie,

If convincing yourself that I can prove black is white is how you explain the drubbing you’re witnessing here, then I guess there’s nothing I can do about that. I suppose it’s only to be expected.

<<...why hasn't Flannery ever denied he said those things, about ten different predictions, if he never made them?>>

Maybe as a way of rising above it all? I don't know. What I do know is that you're committing the Shifting of the Burden of Proof fallacy here, and possibly the Argument from Ignorance.

What are these "ten different predictions", by the way? Sounds like a conveniently neat number to me. Was it made up?

Even if Flannery got them wrong, what does it matter? As I've said multiple times now, the science doesn't stand or fall on what one guy says. The mistaken belief that it does is symptomatic of denialism.

<<...it stands to reason he wasn't foreseeing enough rain to ever render them useful again.>>

Or he simply he understood that even a short period of time without water would be devastating enough to a major city to justify desalination plants. Nothing wrong with a contingency plan if more droughts are inevitable in the future too.

LEGO,

You found the quote! Good stuff! That’s not the full quote, but it’s a damn sight more than what Bolt quoted. Bolt only quoted that last line there, so you can understand how misleading it was when not read in context of the whole comment. As you can see, Flannery said nothing about dams never filling again.

That was big of you. I'm impressed.

Continued…

...Continued

<<And sorry to burst your bubble, but Flannery did predict that the planet would heat up.>>

I'm sure he did. That is, after all, the consensus view. How is this bursting my bubble? And why are you still waffling on about him? What part of, “the science doesn't stand or fall on what one guy says”, do you not understand?

<<The Little Ice Age coincided with the Maunder Minimum.>>

You didn't read the article you were referring to earlier very closely, did you? Not this bit, at least:

"Scientists do not say the Mauder Minimum was the only factor in the little ice age and the Met Office was quick to say that weaker solar activity would not completely cance­l the effects of rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere on global temperatures.

The impact was likely to be colder winters in the northern hemisphere."

That’s what we sceptics call “confirmation bias” (http://skepdic.com/confirmbias.html).

<<You claim that ... a lower temperature sun will only give a temporary respite from rising temperatures caused by HIGW.>>

No, I was speaking in hypotheticals. The article you referred to suggested there would be little difference (only resulting in colder winters in the northern hemisphere), and this is the view of most experts.

<<I simply observe that the Earth has gone through heating and cooling periods in the last 2000 years caused entirely by solar variations, and we are simply in a warm period.>>

“Entirely”? The medieval warm period was believed to have been caused by higher levels of solar radiation, reduced volcanic activity, and possibly a change in ocean currents, but solar irradiation has been on the decline since 1960.

Which brings us back to the question I asked you earlier, that remains unanswered: how did you determine that the CO2 we produce is not a significant factor this time around?

Also, how did you rule out particulates and amplification in the past warm periods?

Hey AJ, I think you have now grabbed at every straw left to the warmist brigade.

I don't think you have a leg left to stand on, or anywhere left to go for a crutch.

Time to find another line.

Errrr, AJ. Tim Flannery said " So even the rain that falls isn’t actually going to fill our dams and our river systems......”

Please explain how that differs in meaning in any way to "the dams will never fill again."

I burst your bubble because you said in your post (July 15) that "nobody" (including Flannery) has "absolutely asserted that the planet will heat up." Wrong again.

OK, so you are saying that the article said....."Scientists do not say the Mauder Minimum was the only factor in the little ice age and the Met Office was quick to say that weaker solar activity would not completely cance¬l the effects of rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere on global temperatures."

Emeritus Professor of Geology Ian Plimer has publically stated that geologists have hard evidence in the form of carbonaceous rock samples, that prove that the Earth's atmosphere once had 40 times the concentration of CO2 in it's atmosphere, and it was cooler than it was today.

Since climate effects caused by volcanic eruptions are known to only persist for a few years, (Mt. Pinatubo, Mt. St. Helens, Krakatoa) how did the odd volcanic eruption play a part in global cooling periods lasting hundreds of years? And since changing ocean currents caused by continental drift is an extremely slow process, you can rule out changing ocean currents for the cyclical changes of the last 2000 years, Including the apparently rising temperatures of today. And that only if you believe the "homogenised" data anyway.

So, what is left, is the changing intensity of the sun. And there is not a damn thing that we can do about that. All of the carbon taxes and green power in the world can not stop the sun doing whatever it wants to do.

Hey Hasbeen. How about you actually give an example of what one of these straws are that I'm supposedly clutching at, eh? Can't? Didn't think so. More likely you just snuck in a butthurt hit and run.

LEGO,

This is beyond confirmation bias, it's delusional…

<<Please explain how that differs in meaning in any way to "the dams will never fill again.">>

Flannery was talking about run-off not reaching dams and rivers for irrigation in rural areas. So far, lack of rainfall is still a problem for many rural areas. But even just taking that one line, Flannery never mentions a timeframe. Furthermore, your quotation marks suggested that you were quoting him verbatim, and that's dishonest.

<<I burst your bubble because you said in your post (July 15) that "nobody" (including Flannery) has "absolutely asserted that the planet will heat up.">>

No, I didn't. You're quote-mining again with your dishonest use of quotation marks.

<<...Ian Plimer has publically stated that geologists have hard evidence…>>

PUBLICALLY stated?! Well, it's official then. Did he also "publically state" that the data he was using has a 10-million-year time-step, which means that the period with higher CO2 levels could have been (and likely were) as much as 5 million years before and/or after the period of glaciation?

<<...how did the odd volcanic eruption play a part in global cooling periods lasting hundreds of years?>>

So because you don’t know the answer to this, you ruled volcanic activity out altogether? How scientific of you. You’re contradicting the claim from denialists that a drop in volcanic activity is entirely responsible for what we see today.

Here, this paper should answer your question: http://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00298051/document

Increased volcanic activity played a significant role in the 'Little Ice Age’ too: http://go.owu.edu/~chjackso/Climate/papers/Crowley_2000_Causes%20of%20Climate%20Change%20Over%20the%20Past%201000%20Years.pdf
http://ww.w.climateknowledge.org/figures/Rood_Climate_Change_AOSS480_Documents/Hughes_Medieval_Warm_ClimaticChange_1994.pdf

What about ocean atmosphere? How did you rule that out? Your understanding of climatology is simplistic.

<<...only if you believe the "homogenised" data anyway.>>

You still haven’t explained how homogenisation is not necessary or constitutes “fudging”. Nor have you provided any evidence for fudging, or explained why the fudging is not made apparent through discrepancies with non-homogenised data.

Jesus, AJ. You claimed that Tim Flannery never said that the "dams would never fill again", and when I gave you the exact quote where he says just that, you say it is "dishonest" to quote people "verbatum." Are you for real? You haven't been smoking whatever it is that has afflicted Arjay, have you? ConsevativeHippie is wrong, you are not just clutching at straws, you are clutching a ton of bricks and your credibility has sunk right out site.

God, no wonder you believe in HIGW when you can claim with a straight face that black is somehow white. Thank you for confirming to me that climate alarmists have a real problem recognising self evident reality. In your case, you seem to have a problem understanding plain English also.

Plimer said that the geologists have hard evidence to prove that CO2 levels forty times higher than today were extant when the temperature of the Earth was lower than today. How glaciation periods somehow negate his evidence is something you did not bother to explain. Those straws just keep getting further away, don't they?

Your next trick, is the old "baffle them with bullshiit" ploy. You submit many pages from a scientific magazine written in diseased English gobbledegook, which quotes temperature data from climate alarmist supremo Robert Mann. Sorry mate, I just don't believe anything that Mann writes. Mark Steyn has called Mann's "hocky stick" climate graph "a fraud" and he is being sued by Mann in Washington DC for defamation. The smart money is on Mark Steyn.

Next you claim I forgot "ocean atmosphere". Eh? How does the atmosphere over the ocean cause periodic cooling of the Earth lasting hundreds of years? Jesus, you really are having trouble finding any straws to clutch at, aren't you?

The most telling evidence of how desperate you are becoming, is in your own writing style. Suddenly, the super cool AJ with the superior, condescending manner, is writing in a style more reminiscent of a petulant child who is saying total nonsense to defend the idea that Santa Claus really exists.

Err, no, LEGO. I didn’t say it was dishonest to quote someone verbatim. Nor was that what you did. I said it was dishonest to use quotes as if you were quoting verbatim when you weren’t, and you weren’t.

Have you lost the plot or are you just being as absurd as you can to get me to go away so you can claim victory and repeat that same naive arguments elsewhere?

And no, Flannery did not say the "dams would never fill again". I’ve just explained that and you ignored it. To make things even worse for yourself, you dishonestly use quotation marks, again, as if you were quoting verbatim.

Not that it matters, but just to demonstrate how confused you are at the moment, it was actually Hasbeen who claimed I was clutching at straws.

<<Plimer said that the geologists have hard evidence to prove that CO2 levels forty times higher than today were extant when the temperature of the Earth was lower than today.>>

Indeed he did.

<<How glaciation periods somehow negate his evidence is something you did not bother to explain.>>

Because that’s not what I said. Go back and read what I actually said.

<<Your next trick, is the old "baffle them with bullshiit" ploy.>>

I’m sorry if you find peer-reviewed papers baffling and don’t appreciate being referred to the actual scientific research instead of some amateur blogger’s website, but if that’s the case, then perhaps you’re not in a position to be forming an opinion on the topic.

<<Mark Steyn has called Mann's "hocky stick" climate graph "a fraud" and he is being sued by Mann in Washington DC for defamation.>>

Mann filed a lawsuit against Steyn for slanderous claims, not for saying the ‘hockey stick’ was a fraud.

<<Next you claim I forgot "ocean atmosphere".>>

I meant the ocean-atmosphere system.

<<The most telling evidence of how desperate you are becoming, is in your own writing style. Suddenly, the super cool AJ with the superior, condescending manner…>>

That’s more indicative of how easy this is becoming, as is the sheer panic in your tone.

'Your next trick, is the old "baffle them with bullshiit" ploy. You submit many pages from a scientific magazine written in diseased English gobbledegook, which quotes temperature data from climate alarmist supremo Robert Mann. Sorry mate, I just don't believe anything that Mann writes. Mark Steyn has called Mann's "hocky stick" climate graph "a fraud" and he is being sued by Mann in Washington DC for defamation. The smart money is on Mark Steyn."

Who's "Robert Mann".

LEGO can't even get the scientists names right - let alone offer evidence to debunk them....

Picky, picky, Poirot.

AJ. You claimed that Flannery never said that the dams would fill again. You insisted that I find the exact quote and hectored me until I did. The whole exercise was a wild goose chase meant to frustrate me. You knew all along that that was exactly what Flannery had meant. You are playing "let's stuff my opponents around" games by saying that the quote was not verbatum, and it is wrong to quote people without quoting them verbatim.

Look AJ, "down the road the dog ran" means exactly the same as "the dog ran down the road". The important point here is what Flannery said and meant, and you know it. But when you are as desperate to hide the truth as you are, any red herring will do to throw the hounds off the scent.

Oh. and it was Hasbeen, was it? That really supports your view that HIGW is a fact.

Mark Steyn in his speech the 10th International Conference on Climate Change explains that if he wins his court case, it will be a victory for science. (It will also be a victory for free speech.) What he claims, is that science is being perverted by ideologues who use the esteem that scientists are held in by the public to push an ideology using scientific terms which trashes the free market, democratic system. He notes that even the left wing press who don't like him are lining up to support him on free speech grounds. The idea people must not criticise a scientist, or a group of scientists, and their "research", because scientists are beyond criticism, is something even the left wing press will not support.

On the other hand, Steyn notes that scientists are lining up to support him. Real scientists are incensed at the way that science has been perverted by a bunch of Marxist, Gaian worshipping greenies, who hide data from sceptics, "homogenise" data not in accordance with the party line, and like Flannery, make predictions that everybody can see are laughably wrong

No, I didn't, LEGO.

<<You claimed that Flannery never said that the dams would fill again.>

Please point me to where I said that.

<<The whole exercise was a wild goose chase meant to frustrate me.>>

I already stated my reasons for requesting the quote and it turned out I was right. Either that or you were deliberately stalling because you knew that you had misquoted Flannery.

You have not yet demonstrated that he even meant what you implied, so you cannot claim this.

<<You are playing ... games by saying that ... it is wrong to quote people without quoting them verbatim.>>

Nope, never said that either. Please point to where you think I did.

<<..."down the road the dog ran" means exactly the same as "the dog ran down the road".>>

Correct, but you didn't just shuffle the same words around. You used completely different wording to read more into what was said than actually was.

<<Oh. and it was Hasbeen, was it? That really supports your view that HIGW is a fact.>>

Not at all. I explained why I mentioned that and even went out of my way begin with, "Not that it matters". That's how predictable you are.

I know what Steyn claims. I even watched the video you linked to (which was merely science-by-ridicule). I support Steyn's right to free speech too, but that does not entitle him to slander others, and if he does, then they have the right to respond legally. Steyn's claims regarding the 'hockey stick' are also based on cherry-picked data and misleading/doctored charts (one of which can be found in the Jo Nova link that ConservativeHippie supplied - see if you can spot the problem).

As for homogenisation, you still haven’t explained how it is not necessary or constitutes “fudging”. Nor have you provided any evidence for fudging, or explained why the fudging is not made apparent through discrepancies with non-homogenised data.

Did you see what I did there? You're becoming so repetitive now, and have left so much unanswered, that I can just copy-and-paste from an old response.

Sorry, LEGO. I misread this bit...

<<You claimed that Flannery never said that the dams would fill again.>>

I over-looked the first "never" because it should have been:

"You claimed that Flannery never said that the dams would NEVER fill again."

And indeed I did.

But since I'm wasting another post, I just thought I'd point out that it's occurred to me that I may have been giving you too much credit in assuming that you knew what Plimer was referring to, and when he "publically stated" it, in my last short and sharp reply regarding your confusion there. What Plimer was talking about was a glacial period in the late Ordovician period, and it was "publically stated" in his book, Heaven and Earth.

I should also point out that it does your cause no service to continuously appeal to free speech. Creationists pull the same desperate line, just as you do when you fallaciously appeal to Watson's authority after he was reprimanded for making offensive and demonstrably false claims regarding race. Similar to what I said regarding Flannery can be said for Mann - the science does not stand or fall on the actions of one person.

There are hundreds of qualified scientists. If you have to pick on the utterances or actions of two, and deduce from that what the science must say because peer-reviewed literature baffles you then you're unlikely to ever arrive at the right conclusion.

I'm not an expert myself and I'll admit that those papers were a difficult read for me too. But some of the terminology was easy enough to understand through its usage (e.g. "forcing") and the rest can be googled. If you want to understand this stuff, then they're what you need to read, and when you do, you will see as often as I do that the rubbish from people like Anthony Watts, Jo Nova and Bob Carter is wrong. Even when they bother to cite their sources, their don't usually say what they claim they say. I could give you a few examples.

I know that you social regressives have a problem with free speech, but that is your vice and not mine. Social regressives of yesterday, always claimed to be committed to every kind of freedom, but history showed that the commitment ended suddenly the moment they got into power themselves.

The whole climate alarmist case is promoted by a coven of left wing academics and the young scientists that they managed to convert to the green religion. It was no accident that the Aum cult in Japan targeted socially inept university geeks for the Aum's own apocalyptic vision of the future. Climate alarmists relied too much upon public ignorance of their work, and on the esteem that science has with the public, to pull the wool over the public's eyes. They relied on the propaganda manufacturers in the left wing press to propagate their propaganda, and they knew that lefties like yourself would unquestionably support them to display their brahmin caste credentials.

But the whole thing is coming unravelled because the scientists are standing up.

A perfect example of just how desperate the alarmists are to hide the truth, is not the "homogenised" data, the leaked emails, the lawsuits to shut up critics, or even the laughably inaccurate predictions of the climate alarmists. It is your own Do Whatever It Takes To Save The World tactics that are the perfect example. Flannery said the dams would never fill again, and instead of simply conceding the point so that we could move on, you saw an opportunity to obfuscate.

You beat around the bush demanding that I prove he said it, when you already knew he did. Next comes feigned moral outrage that I did not quote his words verbatum, even though the precis of his words did not change his meaning one whit. Then comes your mind boggling claim that "the dams will not fill again" does not mean that "the dams will not fill again."

Now you know why I stopped being a trendy lefty myself. I could no longer do what you are doing to promote a utopian ideology.

So now you’re just going to repeat yourself, LEGO? Take every failed argument, role them up into one post and then give ‘em one more crack?

<<I know that you social regressives have a problem with free speech…>>

People sue people for libellous claims all the time. You are yet to provide an example of a scientist actually trying to prevent contradictory evidence from surfacing.

<<The whole climate alarmist case is promoted by a coven of left wing academics…>>

Ooo, how I loves meself a good conspiracy. I bet the Illuminati was involved too.

It’s funny how you denialists are quite happy with what this same ‘secret brotherhood’ of academics say when you think a cooling period has been predicted (as had also happened in 2011). The right-wing media goes crazy. Yet when it’s shown that that was never claimed, you go back to hating them. It’s a sure sign of denialism, as is the level of conspiratorial thinking and emotive language we get from you which rises with your levels of desperation.

<<But the whole thing is coming unravelled because the scientists are standing up.>>

Yes, with their armoury full of bogus quotes and citations; when they can be bothered citing, that is.

<<A perfect example of just how desperate the alarmists are to hide the truth, is not the "homogenised" data, [etc.]>>

Obviously not. Together, we’ve demonstrated that they weren’t even attempts to hide the truth. But why use them first if they weren't the best?

<<Flannery said the dams would never fill again…>>

So if your argument fails, just keep repeating it in the hope that I go away? Is that all you’ve got now?

<<Next comes feigned moral outrage that I did not quote his words verbatim…>>

You’re quite welcome to paraphrase, but the meaning still has to be retained and you shouldn’t use quotation marks if you do.

<<Then comes your mind boggling claim that "the dams will not fill again" does not mean that "the dams will not fill again.">>

Could you point me to where I've said that?

Of course not. Silly me.

No AJ, I thought the time had come to summarise it.

AJ, I lived through a time when left wing academics claimed that the Soviet Union was the workers paradise. The Sovs even recruited Cambridge graduates to be deep cover spies for the Soviet Union. Lefties in Britain tried to sabotage the British war effort when Hitler was palsy walsy with Stalin, but they managed to reverse their position when Hitler invaded the USSR, without even crunching their ideological gears.

Here in Australia, leftist unionists did everything they could to sabotage the Australian war effort, even when their own survival depended on them supporting the troops at the front. We have seen a tearful lefty female "historian" academic admit publically on 60 Minutes that she air brushed the historical record of Tasmania, to comply with the fiction that the Tasmanian government was committed to genocide. Lastly came the "stolen generations" hoax, which was demolished by the Federal High court.

That is all on the historical record.

Now you lefties have another "cause". This time to Save The World, by saving the environment.

Look mate, if you agree with Michael Mann's claim that the oceans will rise 2 metres and drown London and New York by the end of this century, the onus is upon you and your friends to justify that extraordinary claim. The elephant in the room is, that the earth has not warmed in 16 years, and that despite the "homogenised" temperature readings and any data that was hidden by climate alarmists from the climate sceptics. The next ploy, is to claim it is the oceans that are warming. I suppose that prevents some farmer peasant who's family has faithfully recorded climate data for generations, going public and saying the figures are being cooked. Along comes another elephant in the form of a solar Maunder Minimum, and you would be best advised to jump ship with all of the other trendy rats before your sinking cause indelibly labels you a Chicken Little sucker.

LEGO,

I'm not going to get suckered into your red herring generalisation regarding alleged Soviet-admiring academics in days gone by. Whether or not academics once admired the Soviet Union, file lawsuits against libellous claims, or say that dams won't fill, says nothing about the accuracy of the actual science. It's all out there for all of us to read for ourselves. That you choose instead to engage in conspiratorial thinking by making assumptions based on generalisations about the motives and political leanings of experts speaks volumes. Not once have I had to rely on such assumptions.

Denialism vs scepticism.

Your appalling inability to accurately relay and interpret facts gives me no confidence whatsoever in the 'facts' you provide. You can't even get what I say right, and I'm right here. Either you're really dishonest, or you're really delusional. Your reluctance to directly quote myself or others makes me suspect it’s the former. Whether or not you prove that you’re right seems less of a concern for you than whether or not you can simply create the illusion that you’re right for the sake of your ‘audience’, as I have pointed out in so many of our previous discussions.

<<…if you agree with Michael Mann's claim that the oceans will rise 2 metres…>>

I have said nothing about rising ocean levels because I don’t know. You are simply committing the Shifting of the Burden of Proof fallacy here to divert from all your, as of yet, unsupported claims. Clearly you don’t think they will, so what is your evidence for this? Something that doesn't involve conspiracies?

<<…the earth has not warmed in 16 years…>>

Where is your evidence for this?

<<…and that despite the "homogenised" temperature readings and any data that was hidden by climate alarmists from the climate sceptics.>>

You still haven’t supported these claims.

<<The next ploy, is to claim it is the oceans that are warming.>>

If you have evidence against this, then I would love to see it.

<<Along comes another elephant in the form of a solar Maunder Minimum…>>

I've already addressed this. (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=17494#309555 , http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=17494#309569)

To AJ

I don't need to prove that too many academics are trendy lefties with a chip on their shoulder about their own people, culture, history and civilisation. Everybody already knows that, including you. Next you will be claiming that the ABC is balanced and completely unbiased, and I hope that you do. Any impartial reader of this thread will know straight away that your credibility is blown.

Your position now, is that you are just submitting that there is a scientific consensus that global warming is a fact, and that fact is beyond reproach. You are implying that only a few renegade scientists are climate change deniers, and they must be just fringe group loonies. But simply looking the line up of distinguished scientists at the 10th ICCC proves that you are wrong. At the very least, you could consider the premise that there is no scientific consensus on climate change, and that the matter is still in hot dispute.

Therefore, if you have an opinion that climate change is scientifically correct, then I have the right to an opinion that it is scientifically wrong.

The basis of my opinion is firstly, the already well appreciated premise that too many academics are utopian idealists who can always be relied upon to oppose the interests of their own people as their default position. Secondly, the fact that the numerous wild predictions about impending doom by the climate alarmists have proven to be woefully wrong. Thirdly, the habit of the climate alarmists to claim that every normal climate related extreme phenomenon could only be explained by climate change. Fourthly, the desperation of the alarmists to shut up scientists and journalists who oppose their claims with lawsuits. Fifth, the reasonable suspicion that climate alarmists are cooking the figures and hiding facts from critics that contravene their already failing predictions. And sixth, the demonstrated tactic of people like yourself to never acknowledge already widely accepted facts, and to always muddy the water and obfuscate, as the only real means to defend an indefensible position which is under assault from all sides.

LEGO,

You do if that’s what you’re claiming.

<<I don't need to prove that too many academics are trendy lefties with a chip on their shoulder about their own people, culture, history and civilisation.>>

Not everyone “knows” that. Not even you can know that. There’s certainly not universal agreement on the matter and you (among others) may be just too paranoid or have biases that cause you to interpret things in such a way.

Not to worry, if not all of them are like that (as your wording does, and should, imply), then why don’t the others just blow the lid on it all? I suppose the CIA has silenced them, eh? All these emails and not a single hint of wrongdoing.

<<But simply looking the line up of distinguished scientists at the 10th ICCC proves that you are wrong.>>

How many actually had relevant qualifications though? One of the classic denialist canards is the petition consisting of 30,000 sceptical “scientists”. The wishy-washy wording of the petition aside, virtually none of them had the relevant qualifications; many of them were computer scientists; and one of them was even a wood engineer. A wood engineer, FFS!

<<At the very least, you could consider the premise that there is no scientific consensus on climate change…>>

Ninety-seven percent of peer-reviewed articles - by scientists with the relevant qualifications, over the last three decades - in support of AGW constitutes a consensus (http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/8/2/024024/pdf/1748-9326_8_2_024024.pdf). Make sure you know the peer-review process thoroughly before you argue that it’s 'mates checking mates' too.

<<Therefore, if you have an opinion that climate change is scientifically correct, then I have the right to an opinion that it is scientifically wrong.>>

No-one said you didn’t.

<<The basis of my opinion is firstly…>>

And the libertarians who oppose it aren’t? Either way, it only matters what the science says.

<<Secondly…>>

Such as? The IPCC’s predictions have proven to be quite conservative. (http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/climate-science-predictions-prove-too-conservative)

<<Thirdly…>>

More the increased frequency, but not even denialists deny that.

<<Fourthly…>>

I’ve already addressed this. ((http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=17494#309613, http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=17494#309613, http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=17494#309671))

<<Fifth…>>

Such as?

<<And sixth …>>

Try giving one example.

Since I have several posts up my sleeve and we’re listing reasons for our positions, here are just some reasons the denialist position smells of BS to me is the:

1. cherry-picking of data (e.g. Plimer’s “hard evidence”);
2. quote-mining;
3. eagerness to jump at anything that could be remotely interpreted as a cooling period from the same scientists whom denialists otherwise right off as Marxist, socialist, communist, Fabian, feminist, leftist, Trotskyist academics;
4. fact that they see conspiracy in consensus (and that’s when they’re not busy denying that too);
5. manufacturing of doubt and controversy (dubbed 'manufactroversy');
6. frequent use of ad hominems:

“Ad hominem attacks can take the form of overtly attacking somebody, or more subtly casting doubt on their character or personal attributes as a way to discredit their argument. The result of an ad hominem attack can be to undermine someone's case without actually having to engage with it.” (http://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/ad-hominem)

And that’s what your entire argument has now been reduced to:

One.

Big.

Ad hominem.

I'll also note that you're rarely able to answer my questions or justify your claims when I challenge them. You just ignore them and then repeat the claim a post or two later. The most glaring examples of this, so far, have been Flannery's quote-mined quote, your baseless claims regarding homogenisation, and your reading into the motives of others when filing lawsuits against libellous claims.

It's so easy to argue from a denialist position. As with creationists, you're able to fire off as many claims as you like with no regard whatsoever to the truthfulness of them, and minimal effort, because so long as you've planted seeds of doubt (whether it be for the benefit of yourself, onlookers, or the one you're debating), you've done your job.

Arguing from a more factual, scientifically-based perspective? Now that takes effort and I simply don't have the word allowance to discredit every one of your naive claims (multiple times), so instead I have to ask you to provide evidence so we can deal with claims one at a time.

Only to be ignored. Again.

Excuse me? If you support the climate alarmists who claim that temperatures on earth will rise and cause catastrophic consequences, then the onus is upon you to prove it. All you have is "computer modelling", where as Lord Monckton pointed out in his address to the ICCC, if you control the programming, you can program in what you want to get out.

The doublethink mindsets of trendy lefties is best displayed by your claim of character assassination which was done while you were doing it yourself to your opponents. As for your charge that I avoid questions, I have asked you twice to explain how you are going to sell rising temperatures caused by HIGW warming when the astronomers are now telling us that the earth may cool? And you dodged it twice.

Your claim that Flannery had never said that the dams would never fill again was an outright lie and you knew it. You knew it would be difficult to find Flannery's exact quote and you were surprised when I did it. Faced with your own personnel culpability with other climate alarmists, who also make assertions that they know are not true, you tried to wriggle out of it by claiming it is utterly wrong to use quotation marks to quote somebody unless they were quoted verbatum. You did have a point there. But it was all obfuscation, because you knew that my quote had not changed Flannery's meaning one whit.

Your tactics comply with the other climate alarmists. Make the most outrageous claims which you already know are not true, and then demand that your opponents do all the work to disprove them. Obfuscate, muddy the water, put the onus of proof on your opponents, label them "deniers" to give a connection to "holocaust deniers", slap on lawsuits to shut them up, hide the data, "homogenise the data", ignore the historically recorded instances of natural climatic variability, get your publically funded media to spread the propaganda, and when your predictions of impending doom turn out to be laughably wrong, avoid the publicity that you were previously craving

Wrong yet again, LEGO (do you ever get anything right?).

<<If you support the climate alarmists who claim that temperatures on earth will rise and cause catastrophic consequences, then the onus is upon you to prove it.>>

The burden of proof is the one making the claims (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burden_of_proof) and so far you have not fulfilled your burden of proof. Every time you’ve attempted to (on the rare occasions that you do) you’ve failed.

While, philosophically, the theist is the one who bears the burden of proof, as soon an atheist claims, “God does not exist”, they’ve saddled themselves with a burden of proof.

I hate to compare atheists with denialists, but it brings me to another point. Unlike the theist, the scientists who claim that climate change is at least in part the result of human activity have already provided sufficient evidence to support their claims. Thus, if you are to still deny them, then the burden of proof legitimately switches to the denialist.

Either way, I have provided links to support my claims. That you ignore or do not understand them is your problem. We don’t just get to deny, deny, deny when the other party is providing evidence. That’s not the way the burden of proof works. If it were, then one could simply deny a claim indefinitely whether or not the other has provided sufficient evidence.

<<All you have is "computer modelling"...>>

No, scientists have known since the 1800s that while CO2 doesn’t prevent shortwave light that passing through our atmosphere, it traps the longer wave heat radiation that would be reflected back into space. This can even be demonstrated in a laboratory. In the 1930s, Guy Stewart Callendar showed that the radiation absorbed by CO2 was at different wavelengths to the radiation absorbed by water vapour. By the 1960s, we realised that a warmer world would soon be inevitable (http://davidmlawrence.com/Woods_Hole/References/Keeling_1970_CarbonDioxide_FossilFuel.pdf, http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~eps5/writing_assignment/CLIMATE_BKGD/Sawyer_Nature_1972.pdf, http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF02001111, ).

None of this was dreamed up by the IPCC.

Climatologists can even measure exactly how much heat can be blocked from escaping our atmosphere. (http://harvardforest.fas.harvard.edu/sites/harvardforest.fas.harvard.edu/files/publications/pdfs/Bazzaz_AnnReviewEcologySystematics_1990.pdf)

I can keep going if you’d like?

Continued…

...Continued

<<The doublethink mindsets of trendy lefties is best displayed by your claim of character assassination which was done while you were doing it yourself to your opponents.>>

No, I was talking about the ad hominem fallacy, not character assassination. The difference is that you are relying on it to avoid having to engage with the arguments of climatologists (see my post above). To make things worse, unlike myself, you have not yet demonstrated your claims.

<<I have asked you twice to explain how you are going to sell rising temperatures caused by HIGW warming when the astronomers are now telling us that the earth may cool? And you dodged it twice.>>

No, I just ignored it for two reasons. Firstly, it’s not my job, but more importantly, you were simply committing the Shifting of the Burden of Proof fallacy. I’m sorry I didn’t have the word allowance to point this out earlier.

<<Your claim that Flannery had never said that the dams would never fill again was an outright lie and you knew it.>>

No, I had demonstrated that he didn’t: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=17494#309589. You are yet to prove otherwise.

<<...you tried to wriggle out of it by claiming it is utterly wrong to use quotation marks to quote somebody unless they were quoted verbatum.>>

Nope, never claimed that and I’ve already addressed this lie here http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=17494#309621, and here http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=17494#309671.

<<...you knew that my quote had not changed Flannery's meaning one whit.>>

Yes, I knew that so well that I even demonstrated otherwise here http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=17494#309589.

I love when we get to this point where I can just link back to my old responses. You’re so repetitive.

<<...slap on lawsuits to shut them up, hide the data, "homogenise the data"...>>

You are yet to demonstrate that these indicate fraud.

<<...ignore the historically recorded instances of natural climatic variability,>>

Show me one scientist, or one instance of myself, doing this.

Do you have any new material, LEGO?

Silly me, LEGO. Here even I was thinking I had ignored a dumb question of yours.

<<I have asked you twice to explain how you are going to sell rising temperatures … And you dodged it twice.>>

When I had actually addressed it all along. Twice, in fact. Here http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=17494#309555 and here http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=17494#309569.

That was the Tu quoque fallacy you committed there too, by the way.

So that makes five fallacies from you and zero from me; and [too many to count] questions left unanswered from you and zero from me.

I didn’t think my answer to this was complete either…

<<The doublethink mindsets of trendy lefties is best displayed by your claim of character assassination which was done while you were doing it yourself to your opponents.>>

What I neglected to point out earlier, was that fact that (unlike yourself) I directly engage with the claims of denialists/yourself; to the point of even quoting virtually every claim of yours (within what the word limits will allow). To ignore practically every point I make (engaging them only when you deliberately and overtly misrepresent them) only to then repeat the same discredited claims, and then accuse me of lying, is the height of dishonesty.

By the way, character assassinations are, by definition, unjustified (http://tinyurl.com/psslfdv). Try finding just one unjustified claim from me about denialists.

Finally, going back to what I said in response to your claim that AGW relies on computer modelling, here are some articles that are even OLDER than the ones I linked to earlier:

'On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air upon the Temperature of the Ground' (1896): http://www.rsc.org/images/Arrhenius1896_tcm18-173546.pdf

'The Artificial Production of Carbon Dioxide and its Influence on Temperature' (1938): http://www.ewp.rpi.edu/hartford/~ernesto/F2014/MMEES/Papers/ENVIRONMENT/1EnvironmentalSystemsModeling/Callendar1938-TheArtificialProduction-of-CarbonDioxide.pdf

'The Carbon Dioxide Theory of Climate Change' (1956): http://journals.co-action.net/index.php/tellusa/article/download/8969/10431

Hold up a second! Did the title of that last article say "climate change"?

Yes.

But didn't the secret brotherhood of academics only recently change "global warming" to "climate change” because there's allegedly no warming?

No.

It turns out that's just another steaming pile of cow dung from denialists. You guys are full of it.

I know what CO2 is, and I agree that if humans continue to release ever larger quantities of this gas into the atmosphere, it can contribute to global warming. I would agree that starting to think about using other means of producing energy is sensible.

But that is not the issue here.

The issue is, that neo Marxists have used the potential of CO2 pollution to frighten the public, by making totally exaggerated claims about impending catastrophe, into accepting the idea of a collectivised world economy where abject poverty is evenly spread, and everyone on planet Earth, especially the populations of the wealthy industrialised nations, see that there is no alternative to creating a subsistence farming economy where everybody communes with nature.

The extravagant claims by leading climate alarmists, that unless we make the most significant social and economic changes to our way of life right now, dams would never fill, hurricanes, cyclones and tornadoes would increase both in number and intensity, the polar caps would soon melt, seas will soon rise and drown both islanders and partly submerge major cities, most Australian cities would need desalination plants, Perth would become the world's first "ghost city", and the earth would open up and the demons from hell would consume everybody. The last conference by the IPCC was touted to be "the Last Chance to Save the Earth." Don't think about it, do it now or we are all doomed.

To prevent global scale human catastrophe, it is imperative that every wealthy country needs to create new government departments to give gainful employment to leftist greenies. And wealthy countries who caused this mess with their CO2 pollution, must of course donate thousands of billions of dollars to compensate the innocent poor countries for the results of their culpability.

The problem for the neo Marxists is that they can not support their outrageous claim. Even the IPCC admits that "In climate research and modelling, we should recognise that we are dealing with a coupled, non linear chaotic system, and therefore that the long term prediction of climate states is not possible.