The fact that climate ‘debate’ can be pushed off the front pages by another rough phase in the economy indicates both how too much importance has been placed on climate change, and how easily fickle human beings are distracted from one media-made crisis to another.

Both situations are obviously of interest; but they both occur regularly: climate change for longer than economic changes, although the economic changes have occurred more frequently in our lifetimes. In both cases, people are affected aversely, and some changes have to be made. But all the scare-mongering and claims that idiot politicians can do something about either ‘crisis’ is pure humbug and the stuff of ‘news’ making.

There are people, in the media and people who feed the media, who love to frighten people. And, there are millions of people who like to be frightened: the sorts who scream at horror movies, but cannot avert their eyes or stop themselves from seeking out the genre. There are also the natural pessimists who are not happy unless they have something to moan and groan about.

For the past week or so, just about everything in Australia has been dropped in favour of the inauguration of a foreign president – something else most of us had nothing to do with, have not been affected by, and will never be affected by in our day to day lives.

Most of the rubbish we have forced on us by media and minority publicity freaks will not affect 80-90% of us. Change is all around us; crises come and go, and everything eventually settles down.

So, while I would probably agree with Mark Lawson’s article, I’m not going to read it. Like most people, there is nothing I can do about climate change, the economy or the big ticket items the scare-mongers peddle.

Bugger climate change, the economy and what goes on in America.

More grist for the mill; more muddying of the waters. In the good old days when scientists weren't the target of every right wing lunatic and government campaign we'd take them more seriously.

There's no shortage of press releases telling of warming trends in the arctic and antarctic. Perhpaps once one of them melts the skeptics will admit climate change exists.

All previous warming trends and major extinction events have been preceded by some catastrophe or another - meteor strike, volcanic eruption - but this warming cycle has no other identifiable catalyst other than pollution.

As the beloved ex-president would've said, it isn't pollution, it's the impurities in the air.

All in all this adds zero to the debate.

Lawson seems to be using the old John Howard/ George W Bush trick: If we can't be absolutely certain, then we have no certainty at all. And all of those who are not absolutely for us must be absolutely against us.

Let's back off for a moment from the fine details and computer models and consider this: I have been flying around the planet on a regular basis for more than 30 years. The view out of a plane window is most telling. Thirty years ago, you could tell that you were getting close to a major city because of the increased opacity of the atmosphere (smog if you like). Between cities, the view was pretty clear and there was not "smudge line" looking out to the horizon. Over that time, I have seen the visible pollution grow so that now the haze is spread from coast to coast in North and South America, Asia and Europe. The smudge line in everywhere now- even looking south from Christchurch.

Now, visible haze is not the cause of global warming- it's the invisibles- CO2 and the like- that cause the enhanced greenhouse effect. In fact, the haze can cause global cooling by increasing the reflectivity (albedo) of the atmosphere. Nonetheless, the increased haze is correlated positively with the greenhouse gases.

As a physicist, I ask: Given the major changes that we have wrought on the atmosphere, is it likely that these changes will have NO effect on the complex dynamics of the climate? If the answer proved to be "no", then I would have to be surprised. Then I see glaciers retreating and increasingly wild fluctuations in the weather everywhere and I'm not surprised.

In summary- you don't have to be a climate scientist to see the bleeding obvious. Just get out and about in the world- talk to people who live there, look up at the sky. And think about it.

Good article .. and the usual tripe is already turning up, Bennie, those of us who question Man-Made-Global-Warming or Man-Made-Climate-Change do not and never have, denied or questioned that Climate changes (climate means change of weather over time) - you have created that straw man in your minds as the preferred way you want to perceive anyone who disagrees with you.

What is questioned is that MAN is changing the climate - there is a lot of conjecture and supositions, models that "predict" behaviour and lots of theories, but no proof that man is doing it,or how much. More important for all the believers of AGW out there, that it can be stopped, reversed or controlled. That's even more fanciful, so suppose you can "stop" it, what temperature would you like? I'm trivialising it now, well of course, since it's all fantasy anyway. That would be a good James Bond movie plot, if Blofelt got the Thermostat control for the world!

If there was proof that Man was increasing the temperature, there would be no debate, no questioning, no skeptics - do you get that, no papers with any other position, no "denial".

So you want to be frightened, go see a movie as Leigh suggests, or if you just hate everyone and want to see anyone who has worked hard to be successful go broke, keep waiting.

I'm not from "big oil" or "big industry" for the paranoid out there, who can only see questioning of AGW in terms of a conspiracy.

The article describes a wait and see position, that's what I'd like to see so we can gather more data rather than rushing off to some perceived solution to a problem that doesn't exist. There is no reason, other than marketing by alarmist greenie and enviromental fanatics, to do anything at all immediately. We will adapt to the climate where we are living, or do what people have done for thousands of years - move.

"Wait and see" yes that always works out...When your told a flood is on its way down stream do you wait and see if it does, or do you start moving to higher ground.
That money that has been found and spent trying to fix a problem in the finance sector created by a few greedy bankers. Is a great deal more than would need to be spent on creating cleaner energies sources. Even if global warming doesn't turn out as bad as some believe it will still be a good thing done.
The fact is you will always have people who can’t cope with new ideas or changes. They are a wart on the face of progress. Let’s ignore them.

Kenny: "you will always have people who can’t cope with new ideas or changes."

Funny. It's seems to be you who is worried about change? Or doesn't climate count?

Jedimaster, after 30 years flying around the world, have you considered that maybe it's your eyes that have changed? Or do you just see it with The Force?