I do not have the time to address the twisted logic in this article and it is sufficient to say that most of us are hoping to pass on a viable, livable planet to our children and their children.

However as a cleric does the author really believe that his God doesn't mind his works being destroyed by entrepreneurs driven by greed?

What about people who consume far more raw products than (say) and hundred people in a less developed country?

Does God want an American to drive around the block in a six litre two ton tank while spewing gas into the environment or would God like that person to use his/her God-given legs for once?

I think that the Creator would be sickened by the wastage of resource and by the consumerism that leads to blackened skies and polluted rivers and seas.

Meanwhile in Australia Malcolm Turnbull and John Howard have discovered light bulb environmentalism so maybe the author need not worry because the government is in denial about global warming too, but for different reasons - their mates are making a bundle of the status quo and they don't believe they are going to be around when the proverbial hits the fan.

I dont really know what moved Scott to write this article - some form of self deluding self interest I guess.

Putting on my pedantic hat I find it odd he sees concern about the climate as know being all the rage - my guess it was at the fore front of the mind od a lot of policy makers well before the Kyoto agreement - well before 1997 or how the hell did Kyoto get up in the first place ?

the pace of awareness has changed a bit and Howards about face is linked to the electoral climate more than the enviromental one - environmentalism has been with us for decades.

And invoking the memory of Kant also strikes me as odd - there is nothin contradictory with receiving a benefit for what might me altruistic - he is implying the only force behind environmentalism and action taken under that banner is self interest - it can at the same time be driven by an over arching concern about the planet - our children to come and our neighbour etc etc - just becasue we reap a secondary gain is incidental - he should read The Gift Factor by Titmus

Black Adder sums up this article perfectly with his immortal words: Utter Crapp.
I would also say that this article is also an example of the ideological bias of the editor.
Meanwhile why not check out the work of Father Sean McDonagh. He was interviewed by Philip Adams last week--check out the Late Night Live website.
And what about the work of Father Thomas Berry. Try your google.
And then there is the amazing Earth Bible Project directed by Norman Habel via the Flinders University School of Theology.
And I am sure there are hundreds of other religiously(from all traditions.) inspired conservation movements

what a shame that the author really seems to believe that those who are secure enough not to have to base their moral beliefs on authoritarian fairy tales and imaginary friends, somehow actually need religion and are less able to understand science.

environmentalism isnt a religion, but an understanding or long-sighted view of where we are headed, and an attempt to make sure we have a future. religion is about attempting to placate a non existent vengeful deity in the hope that one ends up in an after life and nothing more. it shouldnt be any surprise that many of the worlds most hateful atrocities were committed by the church or under the name of 'god'. shall we add 'climate change denial' to that list also?

If it were up to the Frosty Hardisons of this world (google him) we would sit on our hands while waiting for the earth to cook, heralding the return of jesus... if we're wrong, we go without a plasma tv or two. if he's wrong, we've ruined much of the life on earth all because of a perpetuated fairy tale.

Oh dear. Maybe the universal purpose for Man is to degrade the earth.
Who knows ?
And maybe all this is simply the usual attempts at dialectic many modern humans are prone to - particularly those who sit near keyboards.

Here we go again with Julatron et al and their "get it wrong and we fry/cook/barbeque the planet" bollocks. Get this straight folks, the changes to date are extremely marginal. They are barely, if at all, outside the historical range of variation. Yet we have these hideous replications of some sort of planetary inquisitors who insist on extrapolating to extremes to reel in the gullible.

This modus operandi of the IPCC and the key climate cretins is entirely consistent with the behaviour of people who know full well that they have a tenuous case and seek to shore it up with such unscientific props as "the weight of public opinion", "consensus" and gonzo journalism.

The Gullible Warmers have never, never, been content to let the arguments rest on their scientific merit. Everything they touch is tainted by ideology, spin and demonisation of dissent, to the point where ordinary, cautiously sceptical people who did not come down in the last shower, wouldn't have a bar of them.

My goodness, Scot, you have really shocked me. From experience as a moderate Anglican, years ago out in the bush we did work in with the Uniting Church and found them far more liberal than our Anglican hierachy.

The point is, in trying to be more worldly, haven't you followed the wrong road sign by preaching a doctrine that believes the industrial revolution was not only God's gift through nature, but its quicker and easier clearing of forests, etc, and the resultant lack of clarified oxynated air, made worse by the usages of oil and coal, is also God's gift to man.

Well now, Scot, you now have this ordinary Aussie who has studied Greek philosophy in his old age, really now backing Socrates when he declared 'Out with the Gods and in with the Good!.

As a matter of fact, Scot, as regards the industrial age, we've been entangled in it so long now, reckon it could help destroy our great great grandkids if we don't shut it down for a few years and do more than a mite of commonsense thinking.

Pity about your God, mate, but reckon his faith might be much better toned down with Socratic Reasoning - just as St Thomas Aquinas decided, and as a matter of fact, so did Immanuel Kant with his thesis on Pure Reason.

Scott... Seeing you are a religious person I will speak in parables so that you achieve greater understanding.

God who loved his people so much he gave them a planet called Earth which was bountiful and he called it Eden. He gave this special gift so that man would be in paradise.

Once there was a man who loved his son so much that he too gave him a beautiful property with a splendid house on it.... The son tore up the floor boards, threw paint in the rooms, kicked in the doors until the house was almost in ruin. Was the father pleased? Did the son do the right thing? No! He was a vandal!

To explain the parable .... the Earth is being destroyed by us (the sons) the ice sheets are melting, extinctions are occuring on a daily basis (God's creations), the seas are rising and pollution is destroying God's Eden.

So God sent many prophets to try to stop mankind from destroying his work of art not just for his sake but the sake of mankind himself. The Pharisees and Sadducees of modern times still did not hear the word of God - and called those who tried to do the right thing -athiests.

Why haven't priest's and ministers been preaching protecting the Earth - God's greatest gift to us Scott? Churches get mighty annoyed when a church or graveyard is vandalised and rightly so - and yet when it's God's planet Earth they ignore it all - extend your thinking laddy! Jesus is probably thinking Scott needs help!

Perseus:
"Here we go again with Julatron et al and their "get it wrong and we fry/cook/barbeque the planet" bollocks. Get this straight folks, the changes to date are extremely marginal. They are barely, if at all, outside the historical range of variation. Yet we have these hideous replications of some sort of planetary inquisitors who insist on extrapolating to extremes to reel in the gullible."

your 'get this straight folks' isnt actually what the science is predicting (and you know it), particularly with regards to (methane etc) feedback loops and the lag between reduction of emissions now and the temperature rise we are stuck with already, and the variation we are seeing ALREADY is outside what is considered natural variation.

yes perseus, we know you have no scientific background beyond reading a copy of new scientist in the doctors waiting surgery. you'll only ever read the debunked junk-science of the deniers, and then in the same breath attack the science & methodology of the IPCC.
nice paradox there, im glad you're comfortable with it.

From the letters in the Age of Monday Feb 19th

Could we be in for a greenhouse shock?

SENATOR Minchin is right ( The Age, 18/2): there is intense scientific debate about climate change. However, the debate is not about the reality of human-induced climate change; the debate is about whether or not predictions from the Inter- governmental Panel on Climate Change (and similar predictions by Al Gore) underestimate the likely extent of climate change.

The debate is about such things as the strength of climate feedbacks. Feedbacks are when climate impacts add to the causes of climate change and consequently magnify the human influences on climate. Barrie Pittock, formerly of CSIRO, includes several emission feedback mechanisms in a recent summary of ways in which consensus science may be underestimating the degree of climate change. Over the 21st century, the amount of extra carbon dioxide added by such feedbacks may equal all human inputs over the 20th century as warming and drying trigger processes that emit more greenhouse gases.

Currently these concerns fall short of the IPCC's criterion of "well-established science". The IPCC consensus process is slow and cautious. Developing well-established science for climate feedbacks is where the real scientific debate over climate change is taking place.

Meanwhile, the US journal Science is about to publish a study showing that recent years have followed the high end of projections made by the IPCC in 2001.

Professor Ian Enting, former head of the greenhouse gas modelling team at CSIRO, University of Melbourne

I will trust the views of a climate scientist over a theologian any day, and I have been aware environmental issues since the Franklin Dam.

Economic principles might be immutable, but economic conditions are not. It is the most important task of governing authorities to tweak economic variables, so that what we value can be grown and maintained - and this includes our environment.

As the article author implies, globalization poses balancing problems, but this is precisely why the economics of environmentalism must also be globalized, using international standards (Kyoto being one unsuccessful example).

And what could be more moral than that, under the circumstances? We are talking about billions of individuals, not your (or my) own petty personal morality. The only way to organise billions of competing splintered moralities is through sound economic management.

Just praying instead - for billions of people to spontaneously start adhering to a set of simple, common, and compatible moral standards and priorities - is so foolishly naive that I personally consider *it* highly immoral.

I guess Doomsday predictions are the property of the religious nuts. For 2000 years we have been repeatedly told that the world as we know it will come to an end soon and there will be trials and tribulations etc. Now some scientists say it and have some data to back it up, they are attacked by God-botherers. I guess there is always the "We thought of it first" spite one can expect, or perhaps they believe the can be no Armageddon until Jesus turns up.

I don't see why several commentators seemed to object to Scott Stephens ideas. It is pretty obvious that today the prevailing assumption is that no-one will do any good thing unless it can be shown to be in their own economic interest.
This assumption seems to be accepted everywhere. This is why everybody rejoiced at the Stern report - because it came from an ECONOMIST. In the religion of our times - it is unthinkable to suggest any actions that might actually cost us financially.
Therefore any environmentalist, concerned for the well-being and beauty of the natural world cannot expect to be taken seriously.
Still, what can Al Gore, or any concerned person do, in this mental climate?
The only course of action is to put your case in economic terms, even if, secretly, you care about the ecology and its beauty, more than you care about money ( - if they find you out, people will think you are stupid)

Yes, the climate change thing looked very convenient for the nuclear industry, and for Howard’s Australia to go on to become the lucrative quarry and waste dump of the world
But I rejoice that nuclear power is so utterly more expensive than any other power source, (with full cost pricing, and perhaps even without it). The economic argument is the only argument that's likely to stop this industry. Christina Macpherson www.antinuclearaustralia.com

ChristinaMac,

where did you get the impression that economics was about money? Money is an abstracted measurement of value - it can model anything you value, including your family or the environment or anything you want. If these things are not worth money, then people do not really value them.

I couldn't have said it better myself Julatron. Why doesn't Mr Stephens pray to his interventionist god to put everything right. All these religions have an absurd superstition that there is some sort of guiding hand that only has to be invoked to bring order and balance to this planet of ours.

What I never hear is the connection to population that has created the mess this world is in regarding pollution and sustainability. Half a century ago we had half the number of people on this earth and it is the accelerated rate of change that has drawn the attention to our dire plight, and this is increasing exponentially. Yet nearly every country in the world is exhorting their people to breed (except China)and offers financial subsidies to encourage this when they can. As other philosophers in the past have queried - is there such a thing as pure altruism ? I am motivated by self interest as everyone is if they are honest with themselves. We have to reduce the world population or reduce our standard of living. We cannot embark on expansion for ever on a finite planet.

If this is Scott Stephens’ best attempt to round up more souls he’s got to count me out. Perhaps he likes us to live by this unselfish quote from the bible: “Whoever is a friend of the world is an enemy of God.” Peter 4:4

What is wrong with wanting to protect nature from destruction?
Even if you are denying Global Warming, doesn’t it worry you that our next generations will be stuck with a polluted and damaged earth? Without nature we cannot sustain ourselves. Is it therefore selfish to want to protect it?
I thought Christians were supposed to be pro-life?

Thing is, that even *IF* environmentalists are as selfish as the author makes them out to be, destroyers of nature are also selfish.
If both are selfish, then it’s better have the environment saved by the selfish than to have it destroyed by the selfish.

If I’m reading the author right, the ethics of this piece are pretty loathsome. Politicians are blamed for endorsing action on climate change only when they have assured themselves that the costs are worth the benefits. Seems like they’re doing their job to me. The alternative, to commit to a course regardless of the damage it inflicts, reflects the worst form of “environmentalism as religion,” which sees sacrifice and moralistic asceticism as both the end and the means of public policy.

Altruism is held up as a virtue, but it is a peculiarly-defined form of altruism. While the origin of the word means “other-regarding”, in this case it is not self-denial in the service of other people’s welfare, but mortification for the supposed good of environment that is held as the highest virtue, regardless of the cost to human welfare. This is pagan idolatry, not Christianity.

Like many of the environmentalists he sneers at, what seems to motivate the author is not desire to achieve the best environmental outcomes at the least cost, but to impose on the rest of us his own vision of how society and the economy should be run – changing our “excessive, self-seeking and idolatrous” lifestyles, and “curtailing the very excesses we call ‘freedom’”.

Lord preserve us from puritan control-freakery, the creepiest form of so-called Christian ethics.

"...the one possibility that must be considered - altering the seemingly immutable laws of economics themselves, which means curtailing the very excesses we call “freedom” - is never considered."

Curtailing the excesses of our consumerist culture would be more pertinent to the issues of poverty and third-world hunger.
I don't really see it as great solution to environmental problems. These would be better addressed by innovation; finding and developing and *putting into use* more efficient and environmentally friendly methods of manufacturing, transport, etc. Not to mention uprooting and dispensing with old methods that are not efficient or environmentally friendly, despite the various forces that attempt to keep them firmly planted. This need not impact too heavily on the comforts and excesses we take for granted.

Certainly brought out plenty of god haters and earth worshippers. Normally hapens when you uncover false religion. As one blogger commented you won't see to may greenies putting up their real estate for sale even if it is right on the beach. This Global Warming hysteria is hilarious and to think many have the audacity to question our Creator.

Talk about dragging the Doomer groomers out of the woodwork, I note sneekpete has made her return to the earthly atmosphere once more;

I find the whole Environmentalism argument boring- dull- and quite silly; it seems to have some new age Religious connotation tantamount to a sacred Cow the Altruist Idiots need to worship ; to make up for their other short comings and self delusions of grandeur ;

Enviro SS;

If anyone is interested, you can learn the basic principles of Astrophysics and Cosmological cycle here in this Publication;
It is one of a great many;
http://www.thule.org/crustaluplift/index.html

Or if that is too difficult, a shorter essay is here;
http://majorityrights.com/index.php/forums/viewthread/138/

I don’t think paying some looter money for the privilege of Farting as a carbon tax trade off, and to relieve the guilt was just a Yes Minister Sketch; But it is not; Fairdinkum.
And this is the legacy for our future generations?

But in the Proletariat Labotomization process, I guess the sacred Cow and anti everything take precedence over scientific probability and facts.

Al Gore should be locked up for crimes against Intelligence; that is tantamount to Intellectual Terrorism and deserves a long stint in Guantanamo Bay in his Orange overalls; and he was vice President?

I suppose I'm one with the audacity to question your creator runner. If you can provide me with a mailing address where I can submit my queries, I'd be much obliged.

Anyhow... an amusing collection of railings against this article. Though I'm still a little sketchy on what you're all railing against. The title of this piece hinted at another global warming sceptic; but the content was a diatribe against those who refuse to compromise on the environment.

The flaw here isn't the author's take - it is morally sound, if not a little self righteous.

The flaw is that the author appears to be living in some mystical wonderworld - if success means approaching this from a practical standpoint: i.e. the importance of beneficial economics to induce a postive change, then by all means it is the way to go - that is merely pragmatic.

The author, whether it is intentionally or otherwise, raises the age old notion that the only true virtuous act is one that gives absolutely no gain to he who does so.
The problem with this ideal, is it places all acts into two categories - the virtuous and the selfish, and by the way they are categorised, all the virtuous acts will either harm, or provide no net gain.
So the only people that can possibly succeed are the selfish.

The ironic thing is, this system is inherently selfish, as it rewards the unjust.

Most amusing.

Christian Scott is no authority on environmental change, he is an academic in theology. What on earth is OLO doing asking students in theology important questions on the environment.

He asks why we "suddenly" have to take this seriously.

There is no sudden seriousness. This has been a serious problem for a long time and some of us knew about this for 20 years. Its just that idiots like this theology science wannabe, claiming to be an expert, used to deny the evidence.

Now it is almost too late because fools refuse to see the writing on the wall.

I think OLO and Graham young cheapen debate in Australia by choosing such dimwits as this writer. This is really a cheap stunt. Shame on you Graham Young. Another black dot next to your name!

It seems as though this argument in general misses the main point and that is that we as a nation are responsible for only 0.04% of world pollution. A much better discussion would surely be, how on earth are we to get the real polluters, such as the USA, China, India and Russia to change their ways? Another point of discussion may well be that as the world heads for nine billion humans that perhaps we are well and truly over represented!
Brian2

No Scott. The issue is more simple and pragmatic than atheists worshiping the environment - combating Global Warming is about the human survival instinct. We didn't evolve intelligent brains to be stupid. It is a dumb thing to allow our villages, towns and cities to slide under the sea if we can prevent it.

Brian, like any behaviourist knows, the best way to make a point to unwilling people is by example. For Australia to tell those countries what to do without doing it we as a country would be hypocrisy.

We will have a perpetual stalemate if we play this came if "I won't do it before HE does it" and so on. China, India and Russia parrot the same thing back to the world. "We won't do it before America and Australia does it" and then they have the trump card in victim politics of "poor bloody us, we were never rich and lucky, unlike them": pointing to us.

On and on and on it goes.

"Environment worship" lol. Well, that's a new one on me. What crazy rhetoric will they come up with next? My eyes roll so much; I could go into catatonic epilepsy.

Interesting article. Noteworthy that environmentalism didn't really kick off in the west until we had attained high economic growth & high gdp/capita. And not surprising that enviro concerns aren't on Africa's list of priorities.

The surprise about notions of 'fake morality' is that the author seems surprised. Maybe what he is writing about is also a reflection of himself & he doesn't even know it, or he does and it depresses him?

I have no positive view of humanity per se. For me, the human being as an organism (as with all organisms) is TOTALLY selfish (I can't emphasise that enough). Not inherently bad or good. That's just the way life is designed - "twas always thus, & thus twill always be". When the human being is channelled in the right direction, however, we can be a force for good (and also one for evil). But we do have to be channelled. It won't happen on it's own.

If we can get people to see win-win, rather than win-lose, then that's about as good as we can hope for. Lose-win is the stuff of pipe-dreams.

I often wonder if the authors of these articles read the comments and modify their knowlege/views accordingly. It appears that ideas created illogically can never be displaced by logic.

So many well thought out replies to an article which places religion where it belongs, in the bin. I said RELIGION, not belief in a God or higher authority which is a personal thing which some people need to function.

We are custodians of this small planet. What gives us the right to destroy 'Gods' creations or the environment that supports it.

Religous texts state "man has dominion over all....." which most religous adherants take to mean we can do what we like with our bountiful resources. Well wake up and look around. The countries run by fanatics, religous or singular self serving autocrats, are deserts completely devoid of life except those things directly required to support millions of aimless,hungry, argry people waiting to emmigrate to Australia/America/Europe where a secular more humanistic form of society works. Unfortunately this is polluted by a few who drive the 'ecomomic' model which supports their habit at the expense of everyone elses quality of life.

I hope a few disillusioned god botherers read the words in these replies and take a good hard look at what they believe.

Julatron betrays his intellectual limitations when he refers to "the science" as if it was one, homogenous entity that supports his opinions. It is not a case of the science but rather which science.

Some of the so-called science supporting gullible warming has been a complete shocker. Like the now completely discredited collapse of the Atlantic Conveyor due to Greenland Ice melt which would have needed to completely melt in just a few decades to have any impact on the salinity of descending water in the North Atlantic. The guys who first raised the scare now have confirmed funding for the next decade to monitor sub-ocean flows so they are set for life.

Meanwhile, we still find plodders in the blogosphere who still think Greenland is about to slip away when, at current melt rates, it will take 11,000 years for the entire sheet to melt. But to maintain the scam the climate cretins are now talking about some imaginary "tipping event" that will prompt an increase in melt rate but, curiously, can point to no logical reason why such a tipping point would occur in the next 100 years when ice volume will still be 99.1% of current volume.

So run along now, Julatron, you are totally out of your depth.

Brian2:
Where on earth did you come up with this wildly ridiculous (and heinously wrong) statistic?
"It seems as though this argument in general misses the main point and that is that we as a nation are responsible for only 0.04% of world pollution."

try about 50 times that amount! Australia, depsite having 0.5 of the world population, omits 2% of the worlds CO2 - our per capita rate being second only to the US; 6 times that of china and nearly 16 times that of india (both much poorer countries who cannot so readily afford the technologies that can reduce emissions).

http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science/each-countrys-share-of-co2-emissions.html

get your facts straight

Having watched the arguement grow over 20 years, piece by piece from having to prove the that the earth warming to having to prove that it was not I have come to the conclusion that there are 3 kinds of global warming denyers. The ignorant, the fearful and the greedy. The ignorant because they are ill informed. The fearful because they don't want to know and greedy because thay are doing well out of the statis quo. As ever the prophets of the status quo are those that profit from the status quo.
Mankind has been in the freezer several times but this will be our first time in the oven. We have been however, drowned at the end of the last ice age. Dramatic sea level rise drowned coastal areas with prime farm land and perhaps protocities. Unfortunatly this happen just before writting or they forgot writting. Flood myths and the coming vengful gods replacing the Mothers tell us it was not a heart warming exprience. Probery better that we avoid it happening again if possible.

We are also responsible for the millions of tons of coal we export to those countries which then burn it for energy, thus contributing by default.

Why can't we, as a wealthy nation, demonstrate and put in place a strategy for living within our REPLENISHABLE resource limits. We can evaluate those limits fairly easily. We can then work out a strategy to reduce our population and maintain our standard of living.

All this can be done while we live off the income derived from selling coal to our neighbours. When the rest of the world wakes up we are in the position with the experience and expertise to roll out the technology we have developed.

We have done it in the past. The Snowy Mountains Scheme/ Corporation to name one. If we elicit the help of the coal lobby and use their financial and considerable technical clout we are perfectly positioned to do this.

Why wait till we have to follow along in the wake of America and do what they do. I am sick of this country being a follower of America and Europe. How do we get politicians that will not roll over when the coal lobby comes knocking?

How do we develop an economic model for enhanced prosperity while reducing consumption and population?

I would like an "economist" to answer that one please.

“Why can't we, as a wealthy nation”

That I do suppose is the post scripture of intent: the fact remains a great deal of wealth is headed to wards the new Barons who in turn hijack commodity and Raw material industry, only because it is in great demand;

Then we have the Proletariat Lobotomized who loots more money from stupid useless idiots in Government as Perseus points out above creating their own science and fudging the numbers to get more grants; and we are not talking a few thousand.

And NASA is just as guilty of exactly the same tactic; well, have a guess who funds project SETTI; yes NASA, only because it attracts more funding from Mystery; you see, it is Looting hard working tax payer money and nothing to do with science or fact.
The only fact you can extract is it is criminal.

Reading some of the commentary, some of the theories explained in the Catastrophe theory may well have some credence in regards to Psychology; a full moon scenario seemingly appears minor compared to this phenomena.

Well if you’re lucky, I will visit you in your cave and remember one other important thing; someone famous was a Proletariat Luddite and a Green;
Give you a hint; Zig Halle.

Our only redemption will be the religion of science and logic.To know your god is to know the rules of his/her universe.It is the endeavour and good will of the human race that makes civilisation possible.The religion of superstition and absolute truths that portrays a static universe with paedophile clergy lurking in the pews,makes a lie of the concept of god.

As Dave Allen used to say,"May your god go with you."

Perseus you seem to replace scientific consensus with wild fantasy, 11,000 years indeed. Are you ignorant or perhaps fearful? I am fearful but I must accept the most likely outcome and update constantly. You on the other hand read like an Exxon Mobile acolyte, are you?

Do the numbers yourself, Whispering Ted. The average thickness of the ice sheet is 1.5km, google the area of ice, multiply the area by 1.5 to get the volume in km3, google the current rate of ice melt and then divide the volume by the current melt rate. You will actually get 14,000 years but if you adjust for the past few decadal changes in rate you will get 11,000 years. Go on, clown, it is year 4 maths that even you could do.

And no, I am not in the pay of any oil company and am sick to death of every bombed out plodder that leaps to that intellectually lazy cop-out whenever they see some facts that contradict their climatic religious beliefs.

The Greenland Ice sheet will not melt anywhere near as fast as sea ice because the rock underneath it does not circulate heat in the same way that water does. And the un-scientific spivs that extrapolate from the rate of ice shelf melting to the land based ice sheets know full well what sort of sleazy scam they are trying on.

I look forward to you presentation of results.

Beats me what this article is trying to say. Altruism is a furphy? Being green is being selfish? That if you don't aspire to own a house, only then is your concern for the environment valid?

Scott you've listed all the reasons we should care, and why change is difficult. You even sound a little envious that people have flocked to this new 'religion'. But couching your argument in religious terms only confuses things.

Perseus:
"Julatron betrays his intellectual limitations when he refers to "the science" as if it was one, homogenous entity that supports his opinions. It is not a case of the science but rather which science."

time and time again perseus, you push out endless amounts of baseless rhetoric and cherry picked facts in some attempt to add weight to the rapidly diminishing deniers argument. you like to ask everyone else for references and replies but you seem incapable of doing the same when challenged yourself.

there will always be differing hypotheses and methodologies, but i dare you to try and suggest that the methodology of the miniscule numbers of scientists, papers and reports vainly attempting to discredit peripheral issues of climate change are scientifically more valid than the framework of scrutability and peer review as the constantly reviewing, reassessing IPCC method.

you cant keep flogging the 'fallability of science spivs' dead horse in one breath and then use junk science and google to try and disprove it in the next. well you could choose to, but no one is going to take you seriously.

Perseus,
"The Greenland Ice sheet will not melt anywhere near as fast as sea ice because the rock underneath it does not circulate heat in the same way that water does."

Where did you get this info from? Are these sources more scientific than the research done by NASA climate scientists?

As far as I know, there have been satellite studies by NASA, that show that the ice cap is melting TWICE as much as five years ago.
The implications can be dramatic if this is not slowed down.

Even two years ago the ice sheets were in balance.

Is that a classic weasle, Julatron. What I provided was some simple maths based on verifiable facts about the Greenland ice sheet. Any projection or wild extrapolation that is inconsistent with those basic facts is exposed as bollocks.

And Celivia, are you seriously telling me you need a cyber link to confirm for you that water under ice produces different melting outcomes to solid rock under ice? That is an incredibly stupid question, ma'am. Next you'll need a web site to confirm that mothers are female.

The NASA stuff did not show a doubling of melting of the entire ice sheet. Some of the glaciers have speeded up on the coast but there has also been increased snow deposition in the interior.

At the current melt rate it will take 11,000 years to melt the entire ice sheet and that assumes that no ice deposition takes place at all. And at that rate, melt water from Greenalnd will only raise sea level by 6.4cm by year 2100.

I'm terribly sorry if this clashes with your religious beliefs but thems the facts. If you want dumb superstition then best get a voodoo doll.

If anyone would care to google "Greenland Ice Melt" they will get a good look at some of the sensational reporting on this issue. But amongst the froth and hype you will also find some basic facts to test the data yourself.

Greenland has an area of about 1.68 million Km2, the ice sheet is average 1.5km thick which makes for a volume of 2.5 million KM3. One report puts the volume at 2.84 million KM3 but in the interests of avoiding overstatement, lets just use the lower number.

The paper by Rignot of NASA estimates that the glacial melt rate has increased from 62KM3 in 1996 to 162KM3 in 2005 and other melting has taken this to 220km3 each year. This was based on modelling, not hard data.

But what he did not mention was that Johannessen had determined that snow and ice was adding 5.4cm each year to the top of the ice sheet and this amounted to 91KM3 of new ice each year for a net decline of 131KM3.

So when the 2.5 million KM3 is divided by the net annual melt rate of 131KM3 we get 19,084 years for this ice sheet to melt.

Rignot has tried to claim that a rapid collapse could start to take place soon as the lower altitude of the ice sheet would expose the ice to even warmer weather but this is pure bollocks. At this rate, the ice sheet will still be 1000m thick in 6000 years if the snow stops falling on it.

It should also be noted that the satellite scans that detect some summer melting on the ice sheet do not tell us what happens to these pools of melted water after the six weeks of summer is over. It freezes again, of course, as it has done for millenia.

Just one minor correction to the post above. The 220 cubic KM of annual melt from Greenland, minus the 91 KM3 of ice formation equals 129 KM3, not 131 as per my post above. (it was 12.44am).

So the 2,500,000 KM3 of ice sheet, divided by 129 KM3 of net melting will take 19,380 years to melt away completely. Even if there is no more ice formation, it will still take 11,363 years to completely melt.

And I think that gives the kids more than enough time to come up with low cost, high tech solutions to our so-called carbon crisis, don't you? We will certainly be in a post-oil, post-coal economy by then.

But if you must have a panick attack, at least do it in the privacy of your own home.

Perseus

For someone who often warns of the inaccuracy of computer models, it is astonishing to see you sucked in by their ancestor, the calculator and scrap paper model. But I guess that as it is your own creation it must be infinitely more credible that that created by the coordinated efforts of many scientists.

I'll indulge your egomania though, Perseus. You mention that the net melt of the Greenland Ice Sheet is 129 cubic kilometres per annum. Now according to the boffins, the rate of ice melt has been increasing at a rate of 20% per annum for the last 21 years.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/06/020625063721.htm

http://www.physorg.com/news10948.html

So if this trend continues I can use it as a basis for my own spreadsheet model. And guess what? There is no more ice sheet by the mid 2050s! Such is the power of exponents. Try it for yoursely, though you you will definitely have to use your own software.

(Perhaps Perseus can now confidently return to his inherrent distrust of mathematical modelling?)

I don't know why any of you feign concern for the next generation. What have they ever done for you? Nothing like a little global desolation to teach people to respect what they could have had if they hadn't wanted something else more or weren't motivated solely to live according to the Jones. Then again what have the Jones ever done for you that deserves such attention and emulation. Sheeple.

To add to my last post, the rate of glacial melt described by Perseus for Greenland between 1996 and 2005 is only 11%. Unlike Perseus, I cannot blame a late night, so I can only vouch for my own stupidity as a reason for this oversight. So, by changing the melt rate in my spreadsheet model to 11%, I note that the ice is all gone by 2080, thus giving another generation the chance to build a snowman there before the whole place is decked out in resorts replete with obscenely underdressed old sots untidily thrown over banana lounges. As for all the other resorts, they sould prove to be very interesting places to visit. Anyone for snorkeling?

Clearly, Al Gore, the IPCC, the Stern report, Tim Flannery etc etc are all wrong about climate change and Perseus is right.

I'm so relieved and impressed that right here in our midst we have such a visionary thinker.

Aqvarivs and perseus:
"You must unlearn what you have learned. Once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny, consume you it will..."
Yoda-

CJMorgan, Fester, Julatron:
"May the force be with you."

Fester, some people should simply stick to believing what other people tell them rather than thinking about things for themselves, and you are certainly one of the former.

The current melt rate is not 11% per year. It is 129/2,500,000 which is 0.0000516 or 0.00516%. And to extrapolate from the last two decades of data is totally wrong because it is the warming half of a 40 year temperature wave in Arctic temperatures that went from warm to cold and warm again.

And what incredible sophistry by Morgan to claim that the act of criticising the reliance on models would preclude someone from actually checking the basic data. Have you ever asked yourself why it is that the scare merchants never give enough hard facts to allow people to check the veracity of what is being claimed?

No, I guess you never have and never will. Thats why we call it Gullible Warming.

Persesus your assumption that the melt rate is remaining constant is at odds with the observed reality so your calculations, no matter how well you count are perfectly meaningless. There is no need for the ice to melt cause sea level rise the ice has only to slip into the sea. If you must use such a folksy info sources as google I trust you take care to exclude info from organisations funded by Exxon Mobile, 42 at the last count. You may find the list in last copies of the back copies of Independant online.
If you walk like a duck and talk like a duck it is reasonable that people think you are a duck. My question asking are you working for Exxon Mobile is valid. I am so pleased that you are an independant climate change denier. I note that in one of your missives you mention we. Who is we?
I think it is time we dismissed the mindless drivel cobbled together by "paper back scientists" and got on with the job of curbing our bad habits. If one seeks to limit waste of energy and materials the worse thing that can happen is it will cost less to live and then we can work less. This leaves more time for friends and family as well as lessening our footprint on the planet. A win-win alround.

Getting back to the article...

I am surprised that Scott Stephens (or anyone else) found the evidence he quotes for 'self-serving environmentalism' at all convincing (re: house prices and environmental views).

In the first place, if you know anything about quantitative statistics you know that a correlation is not a causation. Certainly, there is no 'finding' a causal relation. Causal relations are theories which ideally are tested with longitudinal data (and even then they remain contestable). Personally, I find the speculation on this particular correlation to be rather far-fetched and desperate. It looks like a case of fitting the facts and overstating the evidence for a pre-committed theory. Moreover, at least they way Scott interprets it, the theory relies on a highly reductive notion about the formation of attitudes that would not get much traction in the non-economic social sciences (or sophisticated economic sciences for that matter).

But I am also dubious about the strength of the correlation itself and would check the study's method very carefully to be convinced. It seems to me to be far too easy to think of contrary examples of people with strong environmental convictions living in unsalubrious housing situations for the reported correlation to be meaningful. I also happen to know that in the Australian Electoral Survey data Greens supporters are not the wealthiest group and are spread across income groups though they tend to be in the middle and above range (middle-class). What does distinguish Greens from other political groups is that they tend to have higher levels of education (many more postgraduates particularly) (and, yes, Green supporters do overwhelmingly pick the environment as their number one political priority)

The other thing that struck me was the way Scott called concern for the environment 'the ultimate expression of altruism'. But this economist jargon categorises experience in a way that only allows for two things: self-interest or self-sacrifice (altruism). More often than not, economists (the less sophisticated kind) will then try to collapse the latter into the former through slippery definitions and desperate logics. This article attempts to do just that.

I argue that even the initial 'altruism' category is a misnomer here by not allowing for other possible calculation configurations (after all, this is an internal state that can't be directly measured). What this definition misses is the possibility that people's prudential concern is not individuated when they are 'calculating' their concern for the environment. In other words, when thinking about environmental issues their moral/interest boundaries might include, for instance, their grandchildren, global humanity, wildlife or the planet. In assessments like these there is no distinction between self- and 'other' prudential interests - they are considered mutually as one. It is a different kind of collapsing in the sense that it is (variously) inclusive of others. In everyday language, this would be understood as thinking about the common good, public interest, common weal… the terms go back a long way. I also think this is a more apt way of characterising people's 'calculations' about their concern for the welfare of close family members (going some way to explain why some would die to save family members).

This doesn't of course mean that environmentalists or family members are always thinking in these inclusive or collective terms all the time (as though it were some permanent, immovable state). We are all brought up to, and are quite capable of, being strictly individuated in our self-interest calculations. Personally, I think we can slip back and forth depending on context and pressures. But as we all know from life experience, the extent to which and in what contexts people make individuated calculations or other more inclusive ones is highly variable. So some people are easier to share a house with than others. :-)

It was Aldous Huxley who said,

"To believe some things, one must be an intellectual,
ordinary men would never be so silly".

The other major correlation with green voters is a past or present history of substance abuse. And this, combined with education levels concentrated in the second quartile, not the first, produces a cohort who got where they are by indulgent parents and lax public sector study leave entitlements. Don't ever mistake education level for cognitive capacity.

"The other major correlation with green voters is a past or present history of substance abuse. And this, combined with education levels concentrated in the second quartile, not the first, produces a cohort who got where they are by indulgent parents and lax public sector study leave entitlements. Don't ever mistake education level for cognitive capacity."

wow perseus, such insight! and a 'taxi-drivers' notion of 'real world education' overcoming real study/science. so by your kind of reasoning, the overriding characteristic of liberal/national voters is that of sociopath with unbridled greed.

i really dont know where you have been hiding for at least the last 10 years, because study entitlements are still less than unemployment benefits, below the poverty line and are in receipt by very few who actually have tertiary qualifications.

some of the garbage you post is unbelievable, except im actually reading it with my own two eyes.

So, has environmentalism been simply a religion of atheists, conservation is a brand of, the WWF’s head is who?

Perseus

The 11% I was referring to is the increase in the glacial melt rate (And you complain about acts of sophistry?). The spreadsheet calculation is simple to do, and is quite an eyeopener. The most interesting thing about the calculation is that you do not start seeing a substantial sea level rise (1cm per annum) until about 2020.

As for the criticism that I use only 20 years of data, I would point out that you also take your annual melt rate from one year, then assume that it will be the same for the next 19,000+ years (well spotted whispering ted). Brilliant! But your extrapolation point is a good one, as the paeleological record shows that rates of sea level rise of greater than one centimetre per year are quite possible.

Sorry, I've missed a point of calculations as water circulated in a known natural process round a globe instantly, where human activities just in general a part of.

A question is -to me at least- how does the naturally contributing itself to this circulation alter accustomed human surrounding to a point of a new different human habitat?

Hands up who watched Four Corners on Monday night. If you're a sceptic of global warming I'd like to hear your response.

If you missed it - climate change denial is largely orchestrated by big oil, using dubious scientific findings, presented by the same bunch of academics who cast doubt on the link between tobacco and cancer. It turns out there is NOT ONE credible, peer-reviewed study that disputes the findings of the latest IPCC report.

I have to say that I am more inclined to accept the evidence of Al Gore and an ark load of environmental scientists than a man who has faith in the beliefs of a handful of superstitious fisherfolk two thousand years ago.

Perseus

Thank you for the advice about not connecting education level and cognitive capacity (see below), I'll keep that in mind if I ever make such a claim.

In the mean time, I am interested in finding the data showing a correlation between green voters and substance abuse. Do you know where I can get hold of this information? I am presuming the rest of your claims in relation to green voters are not meant to be taken seriously but just letting everyone know that you resent these people, certain parenting practices and public sector study leave. At least we know where you stand. :-)

Perseus: "The other major correlation with green voters is a past or present history of substance abuse. And this, combined with education levels concentrated in the second quartile, not the first, produces a cohort who got where they are by indulgent parents and lax public sector study leave entitlements. Don't ever mistake education level for cognitive capacity. "

Would Bennie care to tell us how many climate research papers Al Gore has written lately? Or Tim Flannery? Give us a break. Four corners was nothing more than the usual superstitions dressed up for the punters. The same knee jerk stuff Whispering Ted came up with on this very string.

Fester, the only facts we have to deal with are the ice melt numbers to date, everything else is speculation. And where did this 11% increase figure come from? I didn't see any link. So try as will to weasel out of your tight corner, the facts remain that, at current melt rates, it will take 19,000 years for the Greenland Ice Sheet to melt away. And even if this rate did increase by 11% exponentially each year, it would still only be 11% of 0.0000516 of a huge lump of ice.

If you have detailed and verifiable evidence that would justify a different melt rate then by all means present it here. But so far all I have seen is political diatribes and weasel words.

And poor old Julatron, he tries on the old "green voters are smarter" BS and when challenged resorts to some standard bigoted stereotypes. It is a sure sign you just copped a hiding. I simply pointed out that one of the reasons greens appear to be overly represented in the education stakes is the fact that a large proportion of public servants are green (they can survive without reality) because they have such generous study leave. You don't fool us, matey, we know all about the departmental boofheads completing assignments during work time. In the private sector we actually work when we are at work and if we want to know how smart someone is we just get them to open their mouth. A prospect that will normally put a departmental moron in his place real quick.

Perseus

Where did I get the glacial melt rate from? From this:

"The paper by Rignot of NASA estimates that the glacial melt rate has increased from 62KM3 in 1996 to 162KM3 in 2005 "

Remember that? Those figures represent a glacial melt rate of a bit over 11% per year. From 2005 to 2006 the increase in glacial melt rate is over 35%, so I would agree with you that any modelling is highly speculative. In fact, the data shows that the change in melt rate is far from constant, so why then do you confidently assume that it will remain at 129 cubic kilometres for the next 19,000 years? Surely such an assumption from someone concerned with the use of extrapolation is the height of stupidity?

As for your comment:

"And even if this rate did increase by 11% exponentially each year, it would still only be 11% of 0.0000516 of a huge lump of ice."

Again, I would suggest that you have little understanding of exponential growth. Increase 0.0000516 by 11% per annum and by 2080 you have a figure of over 10% of the ice sheet mass per annum.

I missed Four Corners but will be watching the repeat tomorrow.

Perseus, your reasoning is not convincing enough- come up with proof, facts, links, evidence...ANYTHING.
Bush tried to gag his top climate modeller Jim Hansen when he found that the Greenland ice cap is breaking up at twice the rate it was five years ago.

Why are so many intelligent, well informed and educated people convinced of climate change; what would they have to gain from such a subterfuge that you claim?

Is it not easier to believe that everything is OK and that we, as human beings, do not need to change our wasteful ways?
Put simply why would Al Gore travel the world lying?
He doesn't need the money nor the notoriety.

However, the denyers have much to gain - or rather to retain, they don't have to change their greedy ways. And they don't have to look beyond the 'here and now'.
You will find you'll have to eat your words. Unfortunately.

I wish climate change wasn't true, but it is.

Fester, you have used the raw rate not the net rate after new ice formation on top of the sheet. And to extrapolate like you have from a single warm decade when that decade is merely the end of a cooling cycle that covered the last 4 decades, is blatant cherry picking.

It is also worth noting that the press made the same error.

So your compounding rate is grossly exaggerated. New ice formation is a fact. It cannot be ignored. And as long as it continues there is very little prospect of the Greenland Ice sheet melting away for many millenia. And that means we have a lot more time at our disposal to come up with better and cheaper carbon management technology.

Fester, you have to remember NASA has been broken up into 3 components;
You have the real science department;

You have the department of pseudo science and common fallacies.

You have the department of Mythical mysterious and the ridicules; but what the hell if people love this crap, and it gives us “Grants” and a boost in funding, Then give them what they want regardless.

It is a bit like when they say; “We have discovered the possibility of life forms elsewhere”;
Not even the most hardened skeptic would understand that is a coded message for; “Give me more money” ; “Increase our Funding by a few Billion”; and watch the money come pouring in.
Its called New Age Marketing.

Never underestimate the power of Greed and stupidity when it comes to those ethics being applied.

Where else do you this principle applied?

Perseus you still talk like a duck

Yes Perseus, my model is silly, but so is yours. Yet you seem convinced of your model with comment like this:

"And as long as it continues there is very little prospect of the Greenland Ice sheet melting away for many millenia."

Comment like that has no scientific basis whatever. The behaviour of ice sheets is poorly understood, and as a consequence so is their influence on sea level. It does not surprise me that the denialists are so vehement about melting ice sheets, as the consequence of a substantial sea level rise is the destruction of trillions of dollars worth of property. The funding applications of scientists pale into insignificance against this.

I for one would like to see the ice sheet research continued, as rising sea levels are perhaps the greatest threat of global warming. Only by understanding the ice sheet dynamics can this threat be understood.

Now I have heard everything Fester. If ice continues to be formed from snow on the top of the ice sheet, and given that we are dealing with 2.5 million cubic kilometres of ice that is only melting at 129Km3 each year then reasonable men and women would conclude that it will take a very long time, (19,000 years) to completely melt.

You used a rate of increase in melt rate that was based on only part of the evidence and then claimed an exponential growth based on that rate. Which makes you either a deluded green dropkick or a sleazy propagandist who thinks he has a right to mislead public debate.

And if you were even partially informed on the topic you would know that even the spivs at the IPCC have seriously toned down their guesstimates of sea level increase over the next 50 to 100 years. That is, they accept that the grossly exaggerated melt rate of the ice sheets was in error.

Well the show was not a documentary nor was it scientific to say the least. (Reminded me of "The Day After Tomorrow") Did you all miss the part in the movie where a neat magicians trick was used. AG was showing a graph about temperature rose and the correlating co2 rises? Right at the end of the graph he got on a lift to put emphasis on how much hotter the planet got in the last 10 years. Then in all the wizardry of the show, he neglected to show the corresponding rise in co2..... must have lost that data somewhere or was that part not important, or was the lift going up to the ceiling the fun part?... Anyways

Yes the planet is getting hot as we are still in an Ice Age for crying out loud. Are we contributing to it? Sure. Are we that arrogant to think that we have control over global climate change? Yes we are. But do we actually have any control? Not at all. It is going to get warmer with or without us.

Think about how hot the planet must have been 408 years ago. I chose that far back because between then and now entire continents have shifted, sunk and the surface of the planet changed entirely. Did we contribute to that? Not in the slightest. Could we have stopped it? Not a chance. But this was only 408 years ago. Check out some old world maps just for visual reference of the magnitude of these changes.

Should we each do something? Indeed we should. Do we need to be scared into purchasing worthless carbon credits to offset our lifestyles.... Go read AG site and see what it is really all about. Anyone want to invest in StormPay?

"Check out some old world maps just for visual reference of the magnitude of these changes"
Now we are right in the element of the skeptics!
Better believe those old maps from 408 years back. More credible than these incompetent modern scientists saying their direct observations, and geological history, indicate six and a half centimetres a year is not bad progress for continental plates flogging their way around the globe. If you were silly enough to believe them, the 408 year shift would be about 26 metres.

Do I like like answering my own questions?

Yes I do.

For those that like the truth there will be a further investigation of the ice caps by 63 countries over 2 years as reported in The Independant (UK). Understanding mechanisms may give finer measurement and better prediction of future rates of melting and sea level rise. For the lovers of fantasy there is to be a meeting of greenhouse sceptics in Canberra connected to, wait for it Hugh Morgan ex mining CEO

"Better believe those old maps from 408 years back. More credible than these incompetent modern scientists."

The fact that we are disproving credible modern scientists from 100 years ago, goes to show that we will be still disproving current incompetent modern scientists 100 years from now. AG seems to think there is some agreement among scientists about climate change and or global warming. Unfortunately that truth simply is not correct. Not even the IPCC can get their story straight. NASA is a waste of time. Somehow pulled directly out of the arses of Amazon Pygmies is this "You are all going to Burn in Hell" scenario within our life time. Don't you think that is somewhat melodramatic and the kind of thing you see at movies and church? It is just as fanatical and delusional as believing in God.

We have spent billions to see if God exists, so much so even the scientific community is now divided on it. Darwins theories are being thrown out the door. So I would say that we will all pay our extra dues in taxes to support further fanatics to prove or disprove this new age religion and the god here is called climate.

Perseus;
Perhaps it would be better to prompt a question, and the obvious one would be ; "Why do they call it Greenland if it has always been covered with Ice" ?
I already know, but some might be a little confused.

Um, Perseus, don't you feel just a little uncomfortable having all these frootloops travelling with you?

All-: "Perhaps it would be better to prompt a question, and the obvious one would be ; "Why do they call it Greenland if it has always been covered with Ice" ?
I already know, but some might be a little confused. "

Do you really now?

Considering how much uncertainty there is about the origin of Greenland's name, you would be the first.

It is believed that Erik the Red was exiled from Iceland and set sail with his family to a land that was believed to lie to the northwest if Iceland. When he landed on the shores, he named the place "Grænland".

But it is uncertain if he named it Greenland because he wanted to attract more people there or because the southern part of Greenland is very lush and green in the summertime, especially compared to Iceland (and would have been even more so during the Medieval warm period).

What's also uncertain is whether or not he did in fact name it "Greenland" or if this was just a misinterpretation of "Gruntland" (Groundland). Some of the earlier maps of Greenland show it named "Gruntland".

So which is it All-? Which of these theories is correct? I think Historians would be grateful if you could clear this up for them.

Perseus, you kindly wrote “Which(sic) makes you either a deluded green dropkick or a sleazy propagandist who thinks he has a right to mislead public debate.”.

I presume that this comes from the same logical wellspring from which you drew your great model. And I dont think that reasonable men and women would think much of your model, which takes the melt rate from one year and assumes that it will be the same for the next 19,000 years, free of influences like orbital precession and variances in solar irradiance.

You might also note that the reduced IPCC sea level rise estimates more reflects a realisation of how poorly ice sheet dynamics are presently understood than it does an acknowledgement of exaggeration. The IPCC is simply being conservative and responsible.

All- asks “"Why do they call it Greenland if it has always been covered with Ice" ?”

Perhaps if this were the case All-, there might be evidence of a substantial sea level fluctuation around this time. Instead, the evidence suggests that sea levels were very stable. In truth, the name might simply have been a marketing ploy to attract settlers.

Suggestions of melting ice sheets contributing to rising sea levels prompt the most vehement responses from denialists. Given the trillions of dollars at risk, such behaviour makes perfect sense. Sea level rise is at present the big unknown.

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0217-22.htm

John, I rather think some archeological artifacts and reminance of villages would be a start;
Geophysical, who knows.
I don’t know about the exile part, but there were Scandinavian and farmers living there for some time when they stumbled across a green mass of land, as well as the native Eskimos.

From memory I read it to be and it was intended as an out post closer to England for their Looting /Rape pillage raids, but mummy nature had other Ideas.

I can only refer you back to Greek Philosophy that described the land of Green lush fields, and of course with the onset of an Ice age, the winter months became colder and longer until it was un inhabitable for Europeans and their farming, so as I read they jumped on board their boats and got the hell out of there (Who were left alive anyway.)

And they seminally perished at sea.

Perhaps if Alexander the Great Idiot did not torch all the libraries, we would have a great deal and depth of what happened so many years ago.

I think it mighty unusual that some can spit out such tabulated data of 40 years before and project 40 years to the future of Greenland then say not much is known about the history;

Quite odd and very unusual don’t you think.

Fester; Here is a publication, be it quite a radical theory; none the less it is consequential and important to explain all avenues of science when it is to address important issues such as this; and not apply a Fundamentalist religiosity connotations:

http://www.thule.org/crustaluplift/index.html

This charter fits in with Archeological – Civilizations before- and has been known for many thousands of years

I had posted the link before, but I fear it has hovered above many heads; be it belligerence or inability to comprehend;
The religious antitheses of global warming is akin to severing both legs to alleviate an in grown toe nail problem;
and perhaps emanates more from the Idiot realm of ; Proletariat;; “The Sciences and Metaphysics are our Comrade”.
Not surprisingly, Agnosticism had the exact same principles all those years ago;
Their science/Maths was proven crap – ridicules and stupid nonsense- and made up; for what purpose can be explained as our new agers do it.
Almost like some psychosis.

That is not funny at all, that is what we have today;Psychotic Idiots in influential positions. And cashing in on peoples fears.
Al Gore is a Very Rich Leftis manipulative polititan not a scientist;; that tells you more about the psychology used and deployed.

You don't need a model to predict what's gonna happen, peoples. You just need to look at what's happening now. What say the sceptics to the increasing number of reports worldwide about unexpected changes to our environment?

Some of the websites referred to in the post are indeed worth dipping into. For one reason or another.
The one recommended by All- I found very interesting indeed because it encapsulates, so well, much of the utter determination against acceptance of reason by many of the skeptics.
The particular web referred to concludes : "If you still believe you are descended from an ape, click here. If not, click here".
Darwin had his fight one and a half centuries ago.
Climate scientists are even now being tossed into the squared circle to don boxing gloves for the umpteenth round of basically the same stoush.
Human civilisation sure does drag a ball and chain.

Bennie "unexpected changes to the environment" is an anthropogenic construct. Just because we humans like order over chaos doesn't mean the climate does as well. It has no conscience nor does it understand averages or normality - it just is.

It is hilarious humans claim they know the reason for every climatic event that happens every day of every year. We are so arrogant to think we will ever understand our nebulous climate. The recent trend of attributing global warming to every extreme climatic event is pure folly. We can model, we can predict, we can do anything to make us feel more in control until the cows come home, but the climate won't listen to us. It simply happens.

If we have to continue convincing ourselves we are distorting the climate by our actions, so be it. The flip side is we can change our actions to have the climate we want. Whatever, but this waffle is deliberatly trying to create fear and parallels the rise of Catholism in Europe - fear over the masses and maintain the Church's power. The question is who is seeking the power? Are the masses debilitating the corporations to create a new world-wide socialist dynasty? Perhaps not, but whenever people have strong convictions they have a hidden agenda. The question is - what is that hidden agenda?

Climatology alone is not a singular Science subject; there are several disciplines that are a must;
Scientific breakthroughs are not a subjective based consensus of other like minded intellectualized anti –epistemology type psycopathy diseased afflicted, in any case; and if it is corrupted; then you know you are in deep poo poo.

The inference that the Proletariat mantra of: “The Sciences and Metaphysics are ours Comrade.” Is a supposed collective and consensus based principle; is only the antipathy of what it is to base knowledge second to a Psychopathic Ego.

It is called Totalitarian intent by deception and con; also used to enhance ones Wealth and position in society amongst the blighting Citizenry ignorance; Who Welcome the new massiah.

It is harder to understand how so many good thinking minds have become so Numb and dead;
That the obvious is no longer visible; and Worship their Twilight Zoned Idealisms and Super free ways to the garbage tip of dumb and stupid policies of meaningless junk.
Hale the New Junk era.

Intellectual Terrorism is what it is and nothing less Al Gore.
PhD in Advanced Idiotry hardly qualifies anyone to be anything other than a Shop front dummy. Politics aside.

All-

Great conspiracy theories. I reckon you have the ticker to set up your own virtual soapbox. You certainly seem every bit as balanced and rational as other denialists.

I loved the way Four Corners, for people who still hadn't realised this, showed the link between the 'dangers of tobacco' deniers and the 'global warming' deniers.
Junk scientists/deniers were 'hired' and funded by big organisations to sow confusion about global warming now and about smoking effects in the past.

I'm concerned (but amused as well, I must admit) that a number of people (including OLO contributors) have obviously fallen for this crap.
Wake up, and deny the deniers now it's not too late!

Umm Fester, what conspiracy theory are you talking about? And what soap opera? ; The farting carbon trade off tax opera? ; Fairdinkum.
I must have missed something.

Don’t fret Celivia, if it is global warming, there is nothing anyone can do to reverse it; but you have to admire some imaginative people who actually have the arrogance and shier stupid gullibility to swallow it all Hook line and sinker. Let alone the Brainless nincompoops behind all this Idiocy.

There is a vast difference between skeptics and knowledge; and if people have become so silly that they can no longer distinguish between fact and fiction, and then it will not be global warming that will destroy them, it will be them selves. That is an irreversible and historical fact.
There is no polite way to say Pull your head in or else.

I give up

"Pull your head in or else"
- sounds like a threat.

"I give up" – me too – we should just continue to pollute, exploit non-renewables and generally continue to live beyond the planet’s limits to sustain; simply because bleeding-heart lefties have contrived a HUGE conspiracy just to get up the noses of those sensible right-wingers who are only greedy because either god told them to or because their wealth will eventually trickle down to the poor and save the planet.

I guess it never occurred to you that over several thousand years of Ancient structures that have been built,
Nohh, that flew to fare above some peoples heads;;;;

There are good reasons to produce a thesis that the world Cataclysms are caused by Astrophysical events.

And I bet this is the first time you have ever heard of it?

I will give you six months grace with the conspiratorial theology, after that, When a royal Commission is held into State / Federal- Local Governments;
A lot of peoples underpants have just changed colour; You will see; then I expect an apology.

Shucks Celivia, the comment was not directed at you personally ; and the difference between me and Right / Left, is I do not have any need to pee in peoples pockets, I see it as a duty to prevent it; but some people just seem to enjoy wet pockets; I can’t figure that one out yet.

If I said Allah told me so , that would make it all right in your books?
Well he didn't. so there.

Up up to the beginning of the industrial revolution the world was controlled by the Royal families of Europe. The source of wealth was the land and they owned the land. This easily verifiable. My question is where is the source of power now? Clearly the landed gently is not what it used to be although large tracts of London are still owned by one family. Has power become more diffuse or is it still in the hands of a few? If the latter is true who are they and what do they have in mind?

Whispering Ted,

Do you still ask this question after Quantas being sold-out?

MichaelK I would not call myself a conspiritory theorist. Sometimes one can apply logic and ask questions, like I have done. I have flown a kite, I seen windmills turning and I have sailed in boats but I have never seen the wind. Does this mean the wind doesn't exist or are my experiences invalid? If a group controlling world affairs exists, and would seem that they do, I want to know their names, I want to know the cut of their jib. Not just their fascade.

The answer on your question, Whispering Ted, ("My question is where is the source of power now?") seems to be old as a world itself:
the source of power now is accessibility to fossil sources.

And I do not agree that an article we deliberate named properly:
it's not a "Al Gore's convenient lie", it is his strong personal convinction.

MichealK, fossil fuel is important but your focus may be too narrow. I want to know the choreographer not the dance. Perhaps it is that a little but of paranoina helps to fill an idle day. Its a bit like ID cards, I don't trust the watcher.
I agree with your second statement and I think that he has done good.

Ted, it depends what supposed being narrow: the best choreographer realises nothing if no music, appropriate stage and staff available to deploy.

The best of personal convictions is not synonymous to the rightest way things are going factually.

And stillness is a part of the dance.

Interesting read:
"Sun Blamed for Warming of Earth and Other Worlds."

http://www.livescience.com/environment/070312_solarsys_warming.html

Whispering Ted, oh, definitely, stillness is a part as the rest was acquired.

I concur. The blank canvas exists before the picture, the silence before the song and stillness before the dance.

"I concur. The blank canvas exists before the picture, the silence before the song and stillness before the dance."

The blank canvas exist BEHEATH the picture, the silence WITHIN the song and stillness INSIDE and AFTERwards the dance.

That is what, to my modest suggestion, Al Gore professionally deployed to impress majority with.

Keith Windschuttle has a good take on what I had stated before about Sociology of science, Michael K’s Arts made me remember this, it sums up adequately and explained in full context, as well as answer why the confusion between actual real science and the principled philosophy of sociology Dialog of science- again, not rocket science and easy to establish real knowledge from pretend proletariat steaming pile of twisted wisdom , and as plain as a persons face, you will be able to distinguish between Science and conceptualized fiction or the said steaming pile of twisted wisdom.

http://majorityrights.com/index.php/forums/viewthread/139/

I know I've come to this discussion late, but was I reading the same article as most of the rest of the commentators? The author did not appear to be a climate change sceptic, just sceptical of the motives of many who have joined an increasingly popular 'soft green' agenda. While I disagree with his Kantian ethics, he makes the important point that shallow conversion to environmentalism is just that: shallow. Unless it deepens with greater insight into the world and self, it is too easily dismissed as the latest consumeristic fad.

bgs,

There *is* no greater insight attached to environmentalism. We're on a planet, it has living things on it, and most of us are concerned with how to survive, and how to live with some quality of life.

Why do we want to get so mystical about it? This is the same as any other global issue in economics and politics.

There is no moral dimension to looking after a lump of rock. If it's selfish to exclude rocks from moral consideration, then I guess I'm selfish.

Dewl,
Three points:
(a) how we look after this piece of rock has a great deal to do with how we treat our neighbour. Part of the greater insight offered by environmentalism is that due to the interconnections between ecosystems, we're all neighbours, to differing degrees. How I approach looking after my little bit of the rock will affect many others.
(b) this is not simply a piece of rock. It is the good gift of God, a wonderful world full of delight and diversity. It has far more than merely intrinsic value, according to what we can get from it. It has beauty and inherent worth.
(c) As a gift from God, how we treat this piece of rock also shows what we think of the giver.

Thus, far from being a-moral, our actions (and inactions) on environmental issues are all deeply moral choices.

Speaking of “personal motives” underlying “green ethics” should perhaps distinct personal convictions by their own from a reality universe runs.

I have already mentioned that a title of this topic is too sharp because Al Gore might ultimately be convinced in his personal conclusions-a real way nature is evolving is a different story, and any nowadays theory might surely be appraised by oncoming generations only, as ADAPTING to a natural change rather than ATTEMPTING to factually alter natural developments is seen by me to be more realistic and unifying the world approach.

bgs wrote:

"how we look after this piece of rock has a great deal to do with how we treat our neighbour."

No, how we treat our neighbour is how we treat our neighbour; the backdrop is entirely irrelevant. Now, it happens that our link to nature has wide-ranging implications, and of course that includes health and beauty and research and primary industry and so on. And the set of neighbours is also a variable - you might choose to include some non-human life-forms (and since we are related to all living things they are also to some extent "us").

But as for *intrinsic* value: to elevate what is essentially a "pretty rock" is to correspondingly devalue human life, and I find that prospect disturbing.

I won't even address the other points that pertain to your personal God - I honestly can't think of anything more selfish than invoking a *personal deity* in a discussion about global issues. Even if you were to mend all the schisms within the major world religions, not one of them would be even close to dominant.