This is a strange conclusion somewhat akin to saying if medical experts diagnose a serious condition you shouldn't accept their proposed remedies. It could well be true that weather damage gets more expensive due to humans putting themselves at risk. However that could be analysed by checking the incidence of damaging events compared to survivable extreme weather eg Cat 4 vs Cat 2 cyclones. Already in Australia we seem to get 'once in a hundred year' floods every second year.

I think climate change will tend to be gradual via sea level rise, food and fresh water issues punctuated by extreme events. At some point if extreme events recur faster than people can forget they may be willing to make sacrifices like carbon pricing. By then the horse may have bolted. My view is that if climate scientists say we should make severe carbon cuts now then we must act upon it.

PS This website is a favourite of GW deniers. Soon we will see a range of pet theories which the proponents seem unable to check against the literature. A preferred tactic is to conflate climate science with side issues like dodgy carbon trading. Let's hope if those people ever do their homework they will back climate mitigation efforts.

On the contrary Taswegian, the strange conclusion is the opposite.

After an artical admitting that the whole thing of AGW, caused by CO2, has been fabricated, & blown out of all intelligent consideration, our writers suddenly find a nonexistent bipartisan agreement of a need to decarbonise our energy supply.

WHY?

Having admitted the whole thing was mostly a con, what reason do they give for this "decarbonisation"? None at all.

After billions spent on trying to find a non nonexistent link between CO2, & global warming has proved, by default, in fact that there is none, why this requirement to decarbonise anything.

Once these people get on a particular track, they appear to be completely incapable of changing direction.

I think that, like old cars of the pre WW11 era required regular decoking, with a valve grind, it is time to decarbonise the halls of academia, & the whole science comunity.

However, a valve grind may not be enough to rejuvenate this lot. Only the wholesale replacement of faulty parts can get science back on track.

Let me be the first to cast a stone. We need to get rid of all the dead wood, proven to be able only to follow the leader, no matter how wrong that leader may be.

Perhaps the most dangerous thing in our world today, is tenure in academia.

The article is a strange, I agree on that point. But at least it is an admission that the extreme makeovers of our energy economy required by some environmentalists are just never going to happen.. getting to 20 per cent penetration by renewables will be quite hard enough, then you still have the problem that there may very well be no reduction in emissions, just an imagined or nominal saving..
We also still have the issue of whether there is a problem in the first place, but the analogy of a medical specialist used by another poster is inaccurate. Medical specialists can mostly point to a track record of forecasting (or the medical equivalent of making a prognosis) and studies showing that particular treatments have worked and so on. Climate scientists cannot point to any such track record. In fact, just the opposite.
The real question is why have public policy makers been bulied into accepting any of this?

there was no such thing as "climategate". i'll grant you it was an effective denialist beat up, but it is now completely debunked, so clearly the whole article is the usual head in sand gibberish and an utter load of bol@ocks.

This article is just thinly disguised denier porn.I couldn't be bothered with any sort of refutation,it is so pathetic.

Summary: We can't prove AGW with science, so let's ignore the science and do something expensive and futile right now, while we still have enough credibility to get away with it. After all, if it's good enough for our defence policy...

Ted and Michael: your article is dangerously irresponsible drivel with no redeeming features.

CO2 really is pivotal in the heat balance of our atmosphere and planet and the need to cut emissions is absolute. The science is good enough for every serious institution that studies climate, backed by every peak science body that counts for anything; you guys seriously want to bet the future of the world that they are completely and utterly wrong? Or expect people to share your absolute certainty that it's not true and take our advice exclusively off the sore losers and liars of climate science? Does the possibility that leading institutions like The Royal Society or the US Academy of Sciences could be right even enter your thinking? Do you even consider the consequences if the world's leading scientists are correct and humanity makes no effort to reduce emissions - of advocating that we choose to risk the world to the worst case climate change scenarios - because the high priests of climate change denial, who don't hold a candle to real scientists, tell you there is no risk at all?

It's the quasi-religious dogma of climate science denial that's a shaky house of cards, only propped up by wealthy vested interests who fund and promote it's weak arguments because they know that funding real science will just add more papers to the many that show climate change to be real and serious; they probably think that being wealthy will insulate them from the costs and consequences.

It's time to wake up and realise this is issue is deadly serious and isn't going to ever go away in the lifetimes of people now living and start acting on the warning that we are fortunate science has given us