Stern, what are your credentials that you can pass it off as 'pseudo-science'? Or is that just 'hubris' on your behalf?

Of course ALL of the "skeptics" and their many backers would have supported the world-view and hence the actions of the barbarian techno-cratic invaders depicted in the recent Avatar film.

A truth-telling parable for our times.

A modern re-telling of the mythology of USA cow boy "culture". There are always new frontiers to conquer and subdue.

Manifest destiny.

The techno-barbarians power and control seeking world-view, inevitably "created" a dying planet--so they had to conquer new "frontiers" (worlds) to even survive.

Such has always been the imperative of the Western "cultural" script.

Amicus

Whereas Hume commits the follies of rhetoric, you seem to be prey to the follies of false logic.

If the chicken claims that the sky is falling, then it could be asked: "at what rate have you seen it falling?" The chicken should be obliged to come up with a velocity, otherwise one could infer that it is deluded, because to claim to see it fall one must see it at a lower height at a later time. The sceptics could then debate as to whether the velocity is a natural variation insky height or a significant variation from the sky height.

If, however, the cjhicken claims that "the sky will fall, but hasn't yet", then we have a very different argument.Unless the chicken can point to a statistically significant number of situations where all the precursor events to a fall have been present, then we might deduce that the chicken is paranoid.

The present climate debate is surely like the former claim, not the latter. There is a vast amount of corroborative evidence that the planet is warming at a rate faster than any statistical variation can account for. This change is correlated with increased CO2 in the atmosphere. We can't "prove" that anything is going to happen tomorrow, but we rely on strong correlations - I'm betting that the sun will rise tomorrow.

Again, you imply that the cement hole makers are in league with the chicken. No-there's economic opportunists everywhere and it's an old adage that "where there's muck there's money".

And why are there no invites in your letterbox? Well- these guys only invite people who understand and play by the rules of logic and reason and evidence that Socrates and Galileo suffered for.

In other words, show us that you reason and logic system is viable and we might use it instead of time-tested empiricism and even invite you to the party. Until that happens, you'll either have to dine alone or with the other users of Humpty Dumpty logic.

Loxton - to complain that the rants against the IPCC is over the top and that therefore justifies the wild-eyed, extremely pesonal denounciations of those who have expressed mildly sceptical views is ridculous. And demonisation is not extreme. That's what's happened, like it or lump it.
As for the bit about refereed article where have you been? The refereed articles all now clearly point to cooling for the next few years. Is that what you want to hear? But in any case peeer review of scientific articles simply has nothing to do with forecasting.
The only way to verify a forecast is to check it against data unknown at the time the forecast is made. Sorry, the IPCC forecasts don't cut it. In any case, there has been plenty of peeer reviewed material casting doubt on the science, it just hasn't been thrust in fronmt of you. Again read my book. Happy to send you a copy. Drop me a line on ecocriminal@optusnet.com.au.. although you could always buy it.

If the chicken claims that the sky is falling, then it could be asked: "at what rate have you seen it falling?"
Jedimaster,
The chicken would more likely than not be answering " Dodo !"

Sceptics assert that believers should not be given any credence, unless their beliefs can be proven beyond any doubt. Believers say that you need to accept some unproveable premise on which to base beliefs. The two percieve the world differently. It has always been thus, and the extremes of the two will always demonise their opposites.
Malcolm,it is churlish to assert that sceptics are being demonised whilst in the same breath demonising antisceptics.
Interesting though. It is normally the sceptics who resort to use of scientific facts to refute the premises on which believers base their faith (religion for example). With climate change, we have the believers citing science, and skeptics refuting it