Many recent threads and responses to articles have started of well, then sadly degenerated. I suspect this is due to the fact that on the one hand OLO is meeting its objectives to draw opinion and stimulate debate, whilst on the other hand, provoking passionate defense of particular views.

I would have thought that with so much intellectual muscle and research capacity, we might have seen some changes to personal views. It seems however, that we actually take the first punch, return to our corners, and then come out “swinging”.

I’m just as guilty of this however, as a result of some of the OLO’s; I do feel closer to making a change in my opinion on a number of topics. Unfortunately, as a self declared realist, I close up in response to some of the entrenched ideological warfare that takes place.

So, if I were to stick my head on the block and say, “this is what it would take to change my mind” (on any particular topic), what sort of response might I expect? And would anyone else be prepared to nominate what it would take to change their minds?

So here goes. As and agnostic (I prefer this expression to the more offensively used “Denier” or “Skeptic”) on the subject of AGW, I admit to being closer to getting off the fence. I was brought to the realization of this imminent “flash of lightning on the road to Damascus” by Q&A on another thread.

There we have it, I’ve said it, and I’ve come close to coming out of the closet on AGW.
So what now?

Firstly I fully expect to be pilloried from both sides. Secondly, I have to state
“What it would take to change my mind”.

As discussed with Q&A, I do not want any journalistic commentary or opinion pieces, nothing from Al Gore or the IPCC. Happy with Climate Research results, Universities Research and anything that represents the scientific community, however, not comfortable with any results where the raw data has been removed.

Dear spindoc,

What would it take to change my mind?

I guess it would be someone whose knowledge
of the topic impressed me.

It would be someone who could open up for me a better
understanding of the topic at hand. It would be someone
who offered solutions, not just stated
the problems.

In the case of climate change - it would be someone
like Emeritus Professor Tor Hundloe who in his book,
"From Buddha to Bono: Seeking Sustainability,"
"opens up the world to anyone wanting to better
understand how we got into this mess - and how to get
out of it."

As the author points out, "We today should have a lower
material standard of living so that people tomorrow
will be able to have a standard of living at all..."

Hey spindoc,

Several years ago I remember asking a group of teenagers I was delivering a talk to just how many believed the drought was caused by GW, all put up their hands. I responded by saying that although GW might possibly have heightened the drought's severity there was probably little chance or evidence it was the direct cause.

I had been able to show local rainfall data going back 150 years that exhibits trends that are nearly as severe as the one we are experiencing now.

That being said I certainly have expected a strong and credible response from our government if only because of the 'precautionary principle' i.e. if our scientists are right we are in deep trouble so if something can be done to mitigate it lets do it to the best of our ability.

But I have recently taken a few more steps into the GW camp and I put it down to a number of factors, one is this summers 47.9C degrees as a record temp in a bayside Victorian town about 20kms away from us, assessment of the arguments from the negative, OLO forum discussions have influenced, but ultimately the number of predictions, some made nearly 2 decades ago, about GW that are coming to fruition is fast becoming the real clincher for me.

For me the talk about long-term trends needing to be viewed over thousands if not hundreds of thousands of years are entirely valid but the amount of CO2 and its equivalent gases we have been pumping into the atmosphere are real and accelerating so changes may well be being experienced within our lifetimes. If those changes repeatedly match predictions and can be experienced on a local level then at what point should one make the jump off the fence? Does it take a 50 degree day even though statistically it too could be explained away?

As unscientific as it may well be, what we personally experience probably has the greatest influence in changing our minds.

While I am to some extent still quite cautious, the parachute is strapped on.

I understand your view spindoc, but surely we all change our mind?
I have been forced to eat a large serving of humble pie, here, because I did just that.
Gday Horus, on the issue of saying sorry I once focused on the issue as a cash cow, and said no way we should.
I got it wrong , was wrong, by the time Rudd said sorry I had changed back and had nothing but support for him on that great day.
However a side issue may exist here, when people disagree with others, quite often they truly think the other fails to under stand the issue.
Or is unable to do so, or agrees but just wants to fight.
In debate all views have a right to be heard, and right may be a split hair away from wrong.
We can be wrong and others right, we may even change our mind.

In a general way, there are very few issues upon which I am immovable. I've changed my mind about issues when empirical truth has been presented; when someone has approached an issue from an angle I've never considered; when anecdotal evidence has been overwhelming and when I myself have gone through an experience I had never encountered before.

For all these reasons there have been issues brought up in this forum which have caused me to change my mind, which is why, I expect, I keep changing my mind about coming back to it when I think I've had enough.

Specifically on global warming? I'm still anchored to the fence. csteele said he was being lured off by personal experience and I think many Australians would agree.

However, being in the Northern hemisphere I personally haven't encountered such things. In fact last winter was the coldest on record where I currently am and snow fell in many areas that have never had recorded snowfalls before. This winter, while not quite so cold, has been the longest anyone remembers. It is April now and we are still wearing thermal undies and using heaters which are usually dispensed with by the beginning of March.

I recently returned from places in SE Asia where no difference at all in weather have occurred since the days when I used to live there myself.

Guess I am confined to my perch a little longer yet.

It is astonishing that a debate over global warming continues when it goes without saying that without the health and well-being of the planetary host there would be no life as we know it. Yet we persist in subjecting this planet to one environmental catastrophe after another, as if we were owners of an inanimate property, who could deal with it as we pleased.

Perhaps our planetary host is asking: “Where on your industrial journey are my rivers, oceans, forests or one inch of my earth which has not been poisoned by the hand of man? Why do you speak of the sciences? Are you not influenced by observation – the state of the physical world?”

Many men have always known through observation and deductive reasoning, that a planetary universal intelligence has existed in order to prevent all matter from decaying into chaos.

Yet egotistical man continues believing that consciousness is the exclusive domain of human beings against this background which is, I think, both petty and small minded. How absurd to suggest that, out of thirteen billion years of evolutionary history, consciousness only emerged with the development of homo-sapiens.

Man remains persistent in his belief that he has dominion over the planet (and all its inhabitants) and only he will decide its fate! We shall see just how influential puny man is when Planet Earth, in her heated wrath, throws us a few more tsunamis, earthquakes and raging fires.

In geological time, I think our day in the sun, as the leading "intellectual" force on this planet, is just about over due to our pathogenic thought processes which has created the reality. Hopefully, our planetary host will spare a few of our enlightened breeding pairs in the evolutionary shift.