Leo Lane: you are spot on. Contact me (tcurtin at bigblue.net.au) for my submitted paper that confirms your assessment in spades - but pleass, no attribution or circulation until I say so!

So Leo, you can prove that AGW is not real or not significant? Or very strongly indicate this?

Can you assert that we should be doing nothing about AGW and just continuing with business as usual?

These are supposed to be neutral questions. I’m not trying to be smart or get offside with you. I’m just trying to clarify your position, starting at the most basic level.

I could go back and read some of your older posts, but I thought it would be easier just to ask you up front.

Tom Tiddler

I look forward to reading your paper

Tim/Tom: "Leo Lane: you are spot on. Contact me (tcurtin at bigblue.net.au) for my submitted paper that confirms your assessment in spades - but pleass, no attribution or circulation until I say so!"

Tim Curtin, have you no professional or scientific integrity at all? The peer review process does not work like. Really, you and Leo are starting to sound like two pre-pubescent little boys with ADHD.

A pity, in my opinion you have just killed Steven's thread, one that started off so well and had so much potential to enlighten, particularly the onlookers. Bye.

I think what has startled me most about this thread is the flat rejection by so many posters of established scientific fact. By that I don’t mean AGW but the existence of a greenhouse effect at all. For anyone not blinded by ideology this is actually beyond doubt. I’ve given a link to the Britannica article explaining the mechanism which is as I stated.

In summary here are the facts.

--There is a natural greenhouse effect that keeps the Earth warmer than it would otherwise be. This has been known for decades – long before the controversy about AGW. No reputable physicist who has studied the atmosphere doubts this. You can detect it yourself by purchasing an inexpensive IR detector and pointing it at the night sky. If you deny the existence of a natural greenhouse effect you’re in looney tunes land.

--The main greenhouse gases are water vapour and CO2.

--The only question worth asking is this: What, if anything, is likely to be the effect of increasing the concentration of one of the greenhouse gases, CO2? Physics theory says it will most likely have a significant effect but the Earth is a complicated place and, for reasons I’ve explained, may not conform to theory.

--Much as I would like to be more definitive all I can say is that the available evidence broadly supports the physics. Adding CO2 to the atmosphere does appear to be warming the planet. If you consider these “weasel words” so be it. I am not prepared to ignore the evidence but neither am I prepared to go beyond it.

And that really is that. I hope people who are not blinded by ideology found my piece and subsequent additions useful and informative. For the rest, there is nothing more I can say.

bonmot

In the end people will believe what they want to believe. I'm afraid a measured assessment of scientific evidence will not sway people blinded by ideology.

Thanks for your kind words.