What a waste of our money.
The science is settled as 95% of climate scientists support AGW.
This is an attempt to waste time and do nothing in the mean time.
Typical of denialist

Re: 'consensus science': as physicist Lubos Motl has commented, 'how many silly people at an institute controlled by cranks raise their hand is absolutely irrelevant'.

excellent post; a Royal Commission is the only way to get the truth and see what else has been hidden, exagerated or fabricated by the well funded, and ever so left-leaning climate 'scientists'

An excellent post.

I seem to recall that almost all other scientists believed that Einstein's Theory of Relativity was rubbish until it was borne out by actual observations.

Science is always developing and what might be "popular" among scientists at the moment is not definitively right. Scepticism is healthy and assists the development of new explanations.

A Royal Commission is certainly needed.

Great post Dr Dennis Jensen. Thanks for explaining this to me. You make a good deal of sense. I’m just sorry the left loves to censor politically-incorrect voices that embarrass their “activist science.” To deny millions of years of natural climate changes, has always sounded suspect in my view.

Denis Jensen says nothing new, and much of what he says is political spin. Scientist do not claim that “the science is settled”, except insofar as there is a high probability (more than 90%) that human activities do influence climate. This is enough for researchers to move on, and to refine the measurements and observations on which the science is based. Meanwhile, there is robust debate within the climate science community as more evidence is gathered, from satellites, ocean buoys, balloons, earth observation, phenology, and so on. Science is never settled, but levels of confidence can fluctuate. If Jensen were genuine, he would join the debate, adding his own observations, data and conclusions.

Jensen asserts that the IPCC “assumed anthropogenic factors” as the cause of climate change. He should do his homework. The IPCC went to considerable lengths to define risks, and to define levels of risk, based on a global survey of the most current climate science.

Jensen is also sparing with the truth in his quotations. For example the recent (characteristically cautious) statement by the Royal Society concluded (par.57):
“There is strong evidence that changes in greenhouse gas concentrations due to human
activity are the dominant cause of the global warming that has taken place over the last
half century. This warming trend is expected to continue as are changes in precipitation
over the long term in many regions. Further and more rapid increases in sea level are
likely which will have profound implications for coastal communities and ecosystems.”

Jensen’s call for a Royal Commission is another diversion from the urgent need to address the problems of adaptation and mitigation. Climate change is probable, and probably not in humanity’s favour. We insure our houses, belongings and indeed lives, against a much lower risk.

Well said Dennis, it's nice to know there are some brains coming through our parliament. We are sure going to need some, with the number of dumb lawyers in there now.

Good luck with a royal commission though mate, I don't like your chances. Not only would the labor party, & their fellow traveling academics end up looking really stupid, but so too would more than a few of your lot. Even if you get into power, I think you'll find much resistance to having the truth come to light.

If only governments would be honest. They have taken over so much expenditure that should still be personal cost to the public that they can no longer meet the bill. I would prefer they just said so, & either raised taxes, or dropped some services.

Unfortunately they aren't prepared to do that. They prefer to feed us this load of bull sh1t in their grab for cash to get out of the hole they have dug.

You know, life really is nicer for those too dumb to see the wood for the trees.

There’s no need even to mention climate science in order to demolish Dennis Jensen’s main reasons for calling for a Royal Commission on the subject.

• Based on a few examples, Dr Jensen rightly points out that that science sometimes gets it wrong. One lesson is that scientists need to maintain some level of humility when arguing contentious matters. If only he had followed that prescription! Labor, he says, is ‘using flawed science’. No humility there. Dr Jensen knows the science is wrong. That’s why he wants a Royal Commission, to prove him right!
• Then he attacks the ‘mission statement’ of the IPCC. It is, he says, ‘asking the wrong question’ because it has ‘presumed anthropogenic factors as the cause of climate change’. But that’s not at all what the ‘mission statement’ (the IPCC uses the term ‘role’) from which he quotes actually says: ‘The role of the IPCC is to assess ………… information relevant to understanding the scientific basis of risk of human-induced climate change’. No presumption there.
• Finally, what on earth does Dr Jensen imagine an Australian Royal Commission could achieve? Could its terms of reference look much different from those of the IPCC? Hard to imagine. Will it call on experts smarter than the IPCC’s 2500 to review once again the massive amount of material compiled in IPCC reports and elsewhere? Or will it simply ask Dennis Jensen for his opinion? After all, he seems entirely convinced. He must have his reasons.

There is certainly a need for more understanding and debate about how to tackle emissions and the consequent economic impacts. A Royal Commission won’t help

As a loyal member of the Liberal Party, Dr Jensen may well subscribe to the view of his leader that global warming is a load of crap. Some would describe his call for a Royal Commission in similar vein and as pointed out by nicco and Tombee (18/11), with good reason.

The peer review process is a lot more effective than any Royal Commission could ever be in scrutinising and vigorously challenging the research and findings of scientists, particularly those engaged in the area of climate. That scrutiny is relentless and continuous and is quick to dispute the conclusions reached by scientists and the basis on which they have been reached.

Peer Review has not found that either climate science or its major findings are wrong. We often hear from so called “skeptics” and climate change deniers who challenge the findings of climate science but in order to substantiate their views they have to resort manipulation and misrepresentation of scientific data and empirical evidence. Scientists are permitted no such indulgence.

"A Royal Commission into the science of climate change will allow an honest public debate, free of emotion, based on the evidence."
-Dr. Jensen, MP

Yeah, that'd be nice - but I consider it wishful thinking. How are we going to stop the denialists and the extreme greenies and all the other varieties of lunatic who will crawl out from under their rocks of ignorance to make contributions to this Royal Commission? It will facilitate public debate, but it won't ensure honesty, reason or empiricism from participants in said debate.

Then again, maybe a Royal Comission would be helpful in sorting the non-science from the science. Right now we have this strange situation where one side denies sound climatological research (global warming is real, and humans are the cause), which is not scientific. Meanwhile, the other side accepts unscientific research (economics) as science and treats untested hypotheses (predictions that the world is going to hell in a hand-basket) as irrefutable fact, which is also not scientific. Anything which helps to rectify this situation cannot be considered a bad thing.

Unfortunately even Royal Commissions can be stacked, as were the farcical British 'investigations' into the Climategate affair, in which most of the evidence pertaining to the probity of Phil Jones was volunteered by-- guess who? Phil Jones! -- and the overall amount of time and effort just about added up to a long working lunch for each participant.

Besides, AGW -- sorry, climate change -- sorry, climate disruption -- (just what IS this week's new attention-grabbing term?) is hitting the skids so hard that by the time the Royal Commission gets organised there will be nobody to interview; just a bunch of clear-eyed and deeply sincere scientists explaining how they were tricked into it by those wicked public servants, and a bunch of innocent and empty-handed bureaucrats explaining how it was all the fault of those evil scientists.

And Al Gore sneaking quietly away muttering: "I would have got away with it too, if it hadn't been for those darned sceptics!"

I for one think a Royal Commission is an excellent idea.

Ah, have matters of science settled by lawyers!
Actually this just comes across as more promotion of denial, doubt and delay with an emphasis on a means of exaggerating perceptions of doubt and creating more delay. Mostly by the same means used within the mainstream media - pretending both 'sides' deserve equal consideration. Sorry, but the reason the vast majority of people who study climate conclude AGW is real and of great concern is because the science supports it. The other side relies primarily on ignorance , misunderstanding and misrepresention of that science. They don't deserve any more equal time or voice than giving it to those who think AID's isn't caused by HIV, smoking has nothing to do with cancer and the world is flat, not round!

A few cherry picked comments about uncertainty in science on top of examples from the very early days of science (when the well known was thoroughly overwhelmed by the unknown) of getting things badly wrong are deeply misrepresenting the current state of knowledge on climate are disingenuous at best. Climate science's complexities are mostly about multiple, interrelated phenomena, mostly understood reasonably well; that predictions of exact temperature rises or precipitation changes in particular regions are elusive doesn't mean it's much more likely there won't be temperature rises or precipitation changes that will have economically harmful consequences are deceptive. Actually the major uncertainties aren't ones that make it more likely the whole issue will go away, rather over some seriously damaging possibilities like interuption of the Gulf Streams thermohaline currents or rapid disintegration of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.

If there's any cause for Royal Commissions it's into corporate funding of the promoters (like think tanks and PR firms) of denial, doubt and delay on this important issue. And their excessive influence over our politicians and political process.

Uh-oh, Ken's been watching 'The day after tomorrow' again.

Let's hope he doesn't see '2012'!

Dear Denis, I have long thought that AGW exists because of political sponsorship, particularly within the EU and the UK.

This week has seen an astonishing number of anti AGW media articles in the UK, eight articles within three days, perhaps started off by Christopher Booker of the Telegraph in his “Climate Fools Day” address to members of parliament.

Add to this the announcement that the Chicago Carbon Change, the worlds largest, will stop trading carbon. The comments by Rupert Soames, Scottish MP and head of temporary power group Aggreko, who has called for the abolition of the UK’s Renewable Obligation Certificates. The announcement by German Chancellor, Angela Merkel that not only will Germany not now decommission its 19 nuclear reactors as planned, but that Germany is embarking on a new coal powered program using Lignite.

These are profound and rapidly developing changes from previously AGW committed sources. If these developments do not get publicity in Australia, either from politics or our media, we are likely to adopt the very same disastrous and economically crippling policies that Europe is trying to wind back.

It still staggers me that, if the entire settled science, consensus, peer reviewed conclusions are so good, why will they not stand public scrutiny? How could anyone possibly object to a royal commission? Especially, since we have seen so many other nations squealing at the costs of carbon mitigation.

This phenomena as unraveling at such rapid pace, what politician in their right mind would now ask Australians to pay a carbon price without a royal commission?

You’ve got my vote, how can I help?

Clownfish - haven't seen either. Try CSIRO, BoM, NOAA, NASA or US National Academy of Sciences for sources on climate science - and they tend to underplay the extreme possibilities, some of which, even at a one chance in a hundred, should be enough of a concern for concerted action to avoid. You think if the well financed fossil fuel interests could have funded real science that shows the problem is inconsequential or non-existent they wouldn't have? They employ very good scientists within fields they consider relevant to their businesses and a major fossil fuel industry lobby group - the Global Climate Coalition - did request scientific assessments of climate science's validity. From New York Times - http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/24/science/earth/24deny.html?pagewanted=1&_r=3 ....

"But a document filed in a federal lawsuit demonstrates that even as the coalition worked to sway opinion, its own scientific and technical experts were advising that the science backing the role of greenhouse gases in global warming could not be refuted."

They deleted those views from their publications and worked on their campaign to convince the public - and politicians - the opposite, that climate science was in doubt, something these people knew not to be true.
Not me being suckered by unfounded 'alarmism' Clownfish. It's a serious problem with lots of good science backing it and the successes of groups like the Global Climate Coalition at promoting denial, doubt and delay and sucking in unpaid disbelievers to argue their case will make the problem worse and more expensive to deal and live with.

Or Clownfish could start posting on http://www.skepticalscience.com/ seeing that he is an expert or is he not game to do so?

They have a thread running at the moment called 'Human fingerprint on climate change' I am sure he could contribute to, as could some of the other deniers that have posted recently.

Ken Fabos, the real science that shows the alleged problem of anthropogenic global warming is inconsequential or non-existent, is not financed by the fuel industry. The real science which clearly demonstrates this, is produced by reputable scientists who simply wish to disclose the truth about AGW.

Robert Carter, Ian Plimer, Joanne Nova, Jennifer Morahasy, to mention just a few are not financed by any fossil fuel interests and they have shown beyond doubt that the AGW assertion has no science to back it.

The IPCC itself, does not assert any scientific backing for it because there is none.

For the fourth time Ken, if you know of any such science, give us a reference to it. The IPCC will be delighted to learn of it, as they know of no such science. If they did they would not be reduced to a pathetic guess that it is “very likely”.

That is the best the IPCC can do.

So back up your confident assertion about the science, Ken. Where is it?

As for your disingenuous reference to the documents backing AGW, in the link you supplied, they are old and they are wrong, and certainly no more scientific than the IPCC’s science lacking guess.

You are deliberately attempting to be deceptive, Ken. It is obviously not a mistake, putting forward this material.

However, you may redeem yourself if you disclose some genuine science.

Don’t just disappear to another thread, and post your unsubstantiated nonsense there, again, as you have done on each occasion on which I have previously asked you the question.

I think Leo Lane should also try his misinformation on http://www.skepticalscience.com/
All the persons you have mentioned have been totally discredited, by creditable scientist.
All you do is to make assertions without anything to backup your statements each can be pulled apart with a little research.
There is no point in responding to your requests as you really do not want to know anyway.

Leo Lane
An analogy for you and other deniers of AGW.

I have a sick child and I take him to the doctor and his opinion is that urgent surgery is required.

I decide on a second opinion and third and eventually get them from a 100 doctors, a very few (less than 5%) say no problems do not worry.

Will I take the risk?

Especially when I know the 5% (names of the people that you mentioned) have been discredited by their peers, researchers and others.

I am surprised you did not put in the ‘expert’ Monktons name is a well.

I will also point out some of the names you included are speaking out of their area of expertise they are not climate scientists.

Coming back to the analogy, the problem with my child is an appendix and the doctors who said not a problem are surgeons specialising on breast augmentation.

Talk about grasping at straws! The names Carter, Plimer, Nova, Marohasy are certainly well known, but not as climate scientists, merely as contrarians with some significant links to the mining sector, and a long record of hostility towards conservation. LL wants the IPCC to assert as absolute certainty that human activities influence climate. Sorry Leo, that's not how science works. There are levels of confidence, and accumulations of evidence, and the IPCC has conservatively stated 90% certainty. There are thousands of published scientific papers addressing different aspects of the research. Before the 2009 Copenhagen meeting, of ill memory, a group of eminent climate scientists (including several Australians) compiled a booklet intended to summarise the latest in climate research. It is called The Copenhagen Diagnosis, published by the University of New South Wales. The six pages of expert references will give you a good place to start with the real science, rather than the politico-economic protestations of mining engineers. See: http://www.copenhagendiagnosis.org/

Talk about grasping at straws! The names Carter, Plimer, Nova, Marohasy are certainly well known, but not as climate scientists, merely as contrarians with some significant links to the mining sector, and a long record of hostility towards conservation. LL wants the IPCC to assert as absolute certainty that human activities influence climate. Sorry Leo, that's not how science works. There are levels of confidence, and accumulations of evidence, and the IPCC has conservatively stated 90% certainty. There are thousands of published scientific papers addressing different aspects of the research. Before the 2009 Copenhagen meeting, of ill memory, a group of eminent climate scientists (including several Australians) compiled a booklet intended to summarise the latest in climate research. It is called The Copenhagen Diagnosis, published by the University of New SOuth Wales. The six pages of expert references will give you a good place to start with the real science, rather than the politico-economic protestations of mining engineers. See: http://www.copenhagendiagnosis.org/

Oh Leo, try the US National Academy of Sciences - a more careful and conservative - and competent - assessor of the state of climate science would be hard to find. Try every leading scientific institution in the world that studies climate. SkepticalScience is a good place too - every assertion includes links and references to peer reviewed scientific papers and climate data. You could find all the supporting science yourself - if you really wanted to and didn't consider claims that climate science is wrong to be self evidently true with no skeptical critiquing (those like skepticalscience being self evidently wrong too).

The hottest decade on record, following the next hottest decade on record, following the next hottest decade on record, rising sea levels, rising ocean heat content, glacial retreats, accelerating ice loss from Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets .... and you reject outright the only scientific explanation that successfully explains it all. Plimer, Carter, Nova and Marahosy? But never the US Academy of Sciences, CSIRO or NOAA? And you think I'M gullible?

So, PeterA, and nicco, you have no science to back the assertion of AGW, and resort to the usual alarmist farrago of misdirection, misinformation, and sliming of reputable scientists.

The IPCC approach is not science. It is not science to produce a summary setting out a political statement and then, months later, produce the science and conceal and misdirect, to hide the fact that the science does not match the mendacious summary.

Only when this nonsense comes before a Court, which compels disclosure of facts can this be clearly seen.

In the XStrata case the fourth summary was shown not to conform with the very science attached to it. A swatch of colour had been added to a graph to distract readers, but the graph was able to be read and showed that the assertions in the summary were incorrect.

That is science the IPCC way.

Do you pair have any facts or science to back the AGW fraud?

A rhetorical question, because if you had any, you would have put it up.

Why not spend your time on a ratbag site, like sceptical science, where they all post nonsense, instead of making fools of yourselves on a sensible site like this?

Ken Fabos has disappeared, as he routinely does, when questioned, and is no doubt posting nonsense somewhere else.

We need a Royal Commission to put a stop to this madness.

Once enough petitions hit the desks in Parliament House, the politicians will face the inevitable, and this sick game will be stopped.

Leo, perhaps we should have a "Climate Fools Day" in Oz like they have in the UK. At least we could have a good laugh instead of trying to get facts out of the warmers

LL
So where is your science to backup your misinformation.

You are pointed to sources that are impeccable, why should anyone respond directly when the information is readily available.

I think it is because it is beyond your ability to understand the science or it frightens you to death and want to bury your head.

You, as stated above, need to do some serious reading on the subject as what you are writing is nonsense and unsupported.

The real science is their go look and do not ask people to spoon feed you.

Warming continues: year to date (Jan-Oct) tied with 2005 for hottest on record, despite La Niña cooling so are you denying http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/?report=global&year=2010&month=10

Are you going to risk your child or have the surgery done?

Leo, you state that there is "no science to back the assertion of AGW" when I and others have given you clear direction to sound science, published in reputable scientific journals. It seems that you are not interested in evidence. I can only repeat my recommendation to you, that if you are seriously interested in learning about the science, a good place to start is with the many pages of references to peer-reviewed scientific papers, at the end of The Copenhagen Diagnosis.
Most of these papers, and certainly their abstracts, are freely available on-line.

Peter A, I think you made the point succinctly. Sceptics are pretty convinced that the AGW sources are now compromised, tainted and more importantly, overstated.

You on the other hand, think they are “impeccable”.

Some of us feel that the only reason this debate in the public domain is because it is politics and not science. You on the other hand suggest that “it is beyond our ability to understand the science”.

So why would you demand scientific support from sceptics when the public has no scientific skills. Not making much sense are you?

Why do warmers wish to bully the general public with your favorite links, like minded opinion and your conclusions when we are mostly not equipped to make scientific judgment?

When are you going to take your “scientific” understanding and challenge the “scientists” that disagree with you? Go bully a scientist.

The only people that seem to have moved on are the sceptics, what part of total ambivalence don’t you understand?

Spindoc, mate .. well said, completely agree with you.

Of course the alarmists are now blaming the skeptics for subverting the general public, when you are quite right, they are ambivalent, the alarmists are yet another crowd of irritating, chanting, money demanding, self interested, finger waggers who the general public pays as much attention to as fish to bicycle salesmen.

the alarmists now accuse the skeptics of conspiracy, yet reject at the same time any conspiracy on their side (CRU anyone?) it is becoming a farce. Where is all the skeptical finding? We know where all the alarmist funding is, billions of it, yet somehow the skeptics, with no funding at all are successful? What?

No, the general public reject the alarmist manifesto, plain and simple, you all just want someone to blame and skeptics are handy. It won't change anything, because you won't learn why the public has turned off and change, it's easier to fall into the same old rut, blame someone .. when, it's really you alarmists who are the problem.

Hardly even amusing anymore, alarmists are like those pitied folks who wear sandwich boards proclaiming "the end if nigh", who wander the downtown areas of big cities.

I looked at the last paragraph:
History demonstrates the science is not "settled" and never will be. Only a Royal Commission into the science of climate change will provide the most climate effective and cost effective solutions in this debate.

Therefore does it not follow that since the science isn't settled that the recommendations from a Royal Commission will be equally suspect?

Indeed the call for a Royal Commission reminds me of the the good Catholic who confessed the same sin of theft to several different confessors - his reason? He wanted to strike a confessor who didn't demand that he pay restitution to his victim.

This absurd piece or reasoning will lead us to infinite regress of authorities until the science meets the prevailing political consensus.

(Of course this is already happening the the IPCC reports - at no stage Jensen deals with the way political spin doctors massage the report before it is published.)

The fact that Climate alarmists do not welcome debate is not just unscientific, but highly troubling and ultimately suspicious. So is the fact that the IPCC was headed by an individual (Rajendra Pachauri) with zero climate credentials and investments in the India Oil company!! He was a railway engineer and a weirdo to boot, yet he was in charge of the whole climate circus!

Manufactured statistics, the faked Hockey Stick graph and the rise and fall of the CRU all seem to have had little effect upon the fervour of Climate worriers. Al Gore's investment in a Carbon Trading company does not seem to concern them, nor does Ross Garnaut's history of mining and pollution of third world ecosystems. They seem to be unperturbed by David Suzuki's rallying cry to jail non-believers and seem blissfully unaware of how politics and power games are subverting science.

Climate alarm is driven by the left leaning UN whose clear agenda is one of wealth redistribution through stealth. They are entirely unconcerned about Climate change, a fact demonstrated by their willingness to reward a totalitarian regime, China, to pollute at will in order to 'catch up' economically to the West while the rest of us pay for years of democracy, human rights and civilisation.

Western governments are keen to reap the benefits of a tax grab which is otherwise difficult to extract from people without losing votes. Leftists want to punish the West for its success and reward the failures of Communism and Greenies are so full of the Save the Earth ideology they are completely unable to view the world in an objective manner.

In addition, barely average Scientists are set to receive megabucks and academic promotions for research into the effect of 'Climate Change' on anything you can name.

And where is all this money coming from? You and me of course. Hang on to your wallets , Ladies and Gentlemen.

Could it be satire? Is Altman a very black comic, creating a great inflated bouncing bogeyman? Alas, it seems that he is serious. Every cliche from the anti-science lexicon, every false attribution, every scary non-scenario ... oh dear. To start at the beginning: there is robust debate, in the scientific literature, and in the blogs, and anyone can take part (even Altman). All you have to do is produce a rational argument and you are ahead of the game. The point of scientific publication is that your facts and figures are laid out for public scrutiny. Nothing is faked, and everything can be challenged. Debate is alive and well.

Altman objects when/if individuals make a profit (Gore, Garnaut) - isn't that what capitalism is all about? Shouldn't he be praising them for seizing the opportunity? Apart from that, I have no interest in Gore and little in Garnaut, or Pachauri. It's the science that matters.

"Climate alarm is driven by the left-leaning UN" says Altman. More conspiracy! In fact climate alarm is driven by good science, and has been for decades. Australian researchers like Graeme Pearman and Barrie Pittock have been investigating atmospheric CO2 since the 1970s. In 1988 Pearman edited a major book, Greenhouse, Planning for Climate Change, based mainly on refereed papers from the 1987 Greenhouse conference at Monash University. A lot has been learned since then, and the IPCC was created to supply the best scientific information to all governments.

"Scientists are set to receive megabucks" says Altman. Go and have a look in a CSIRO carpark and count the limos and SUVs. But CSIRO announced this morning that it was sacking about three dozen scientists, mainly in the environmental sector, to save money. Where are those megabucks?

Perhaps it is all satire after all ... perhaps Altman is just a huge noir joke. Ha. It's certainly ridiculous.

Nicco said->
"Altman objects when/if individuals make a profit (Gore, Garnaut) - isn't that what capitalism is all about? Shouldn't he be praising them for seizing the opportunity? Apart from that, I have no interest in Gore and little in Garnaut, or Pachauri. It's the science that matters."

The fact that you have "no interest in Gore and little in Garnaut, or Pachauri" is my very point. You are happy to ignore rampant corruption and deliberate factual distortions such as falsifying scientific data and carry on like it doesn't matter. To say you're just 'interested in the science' but not in the head of the top scientific body from where "the Science" (IPCC) is emanating, is simply odd. As is your lack of concern about who profits, whether the truth is being told and what the other side of the argument is about. Again, simply astounding willingness to bury your head in the sand.

There is no conspiracy, just out and out fraud. Perhaps the greatest misuse of science we have ever seen.

@altman you either do not understand science or are being obtuse. Whereas in some areas of intellectual endeavour one can point to vested interests as an indication that the conclusions are suspect with science one can only come up with testable conclusions. You do not have to consult the IPCC report. The Club of Rome in the early seventies came up with very similar predictions. The CSIRO examined these (Turner (2009). A comparison of the limits of growth with thirty years of reality.)and found them to be accurate. The club of Rome was likewise accused of having some sort of vested interests in its outcomes - whether those vested interests were a fiction or true is ultimately irrelevant all that ultimately matters is whether or not the science stacks up. Given that the peer reviewed climatology literature supports the arguments that the likes of Gore promote I would have thought Gore pecuniary interests is of little relevance to whether or not we should heed the science.

Altman, you are refusing to do your homework. In the first instance, the IPCC is not a scientific body, but an organisation set up to collate the latest in climate research and report on this, for the benefit of national governments. The IPCC carried out no research. Its conclusions were signed off by all member governments, including such "sceptical" nations as Saudi Arabia. The science is not "emanating" from the IPCC. The science, and the very robust and continuing debate, is to be found in the scientific literature, where researchers show their work to all comers, for anyone to refute if they can. If you wish, you can study the science of climate without ever having any contact with the IPCC; in fact the science has been studied for far longer than the IPCC has been in existence.

Secondly, your views about corruption and fraud are not supported by any evidence. Your statements are profoundly insulting to members of the scientific community, to whom integrity is fundamentally important.

And I fail to see why I should be interested in Al Gore, a middle-aged American politician of middle class, middle-of-the-road views and little relevance to Australia.

Baygon and Nicco

It is of grave concern that you would not seek to examine alternative views. There are HUNDREDS of scientific papers challenging the notion of AGW but you are blissfully unaware of these believing that there is only one side to this debate. (Please feel free to ask for some links to these, as it is clear you have not expended much energy searching for them)

Your religious like adherence to one view without examining the other, is quite scary and very unscientific.

You should read this resignation letter from an esteemed scientist.

http://my.telegraph.co.uk/reasonmclucus/reasonmclucus/15835660/professor-emiritus-hal-lewis-resigns-from-american-physical-society/

Surely, you won't discount this out of hand? And don't tell me this is 'only one opinion'. It would only mean you have conveniently avoided reading about the others.

My goodness, Nicco you said: "In the first instance, the IPCC is not a scientific body, "

Pity you didn't look at the IPCC site first. http://www.ipcc.ch/organization/organization.shtml. May I quote from the IPCC site.
"The IPCC IS a scientific body. " I think its you who hasn't done his homework!

You then said: "Secondly, your views about corruption and fraud are not supported by any evidence. Your statements are profoundly insulting to members of the scientific community, to whom integrity is fundamentally important."

I suppose eliminating unfavourable data, making wild unsubstantiated predictions and developing mathematically unsupportable 'hockey stick' graphs is not fraud to you. Then what is it? History shows us that Scientists views and results are easily swayed when there is possible funding on the horizon.

@altman - probably a waste of time replying yet again but one last try.
My response was to your post where you appeared to make the claim that one would have to judge the merits of a scientific argument by looking at the fact that people like Gore were making money from promoting a particular point of view.

My point was and remains simply this. One consults the peer reviewed literature by the particular people with expertise in the area. In the case of climate that is the climatologists.

When you consult the peer reviewed literature then you will find that there is overwhelming support for the notion of anthropogenic global warming. No it is not 100% But that is to be expected science, is not about absolute certainty.
The IPCC was and is a political body. This is not to deny that it is concerned with the science of climate change but simply stating what its role is - to review the literature and provide governments with advice about that literature.
What you and many other sceptics seem to ignore is that we will not know whether or not the IPCC is right or wrong until the data about is expected to happen by various dates in the future has been collected.
Neither you nor I can say with any certainty that they will be proved right about the projected impact of climate change we simply have to wait until it actually happens.
This is why I referred to the Club of Rome report. 30 years of data have demonstrated that their predictions were accurate.
However, you did introduce the idea that maybe we should reject people's opinions if it can be demonstrated that they have a pecuniary interest in promoting those opinions.
So then ask yourself who has a pecuniary interest in debunking the views of the vast majority of climatologists? Who benefits by ignoring the peer reviewed literature? Who stands to gain by a business as usual approach

Altman you are either careless, or as Baygon suggests, obtuse. I refer you to my earlier post, in which I pointed out that debate is alive and well. Debate implies a discussion between people of different viewpoints. As you say, there are hundreds of papers which dispute the theory of AGW. There are thousands of papers which support it. So far, no one has succeeded in refuting the theory.

Similarly, there a very few reputable scientists (eg Lindzen, Spencer, Christy et al) who dispute the theory, but the vast majority of climate scientists (97.4% according to Doran, EOS 2009) support the theory. The debate continues.

Similarly, there is a very small number of scientists (of the forty thousand members of the American Physical Society) supporting the stand of Prof Hal Lewis, a veteran cold-warrior with no climate credibility, no published climate research, and pronounced political views.

I concede that the IPCC describes itself as a "scientific body", but the fact remains that it does not carry out research, and its primary function is to collate existing research from published sources, for the use of governments.

And your wild accusations of fraud and academic misconduct are not backed up by any evidence; where enquiries have been held, the scientists have been exonerated. If you know otherwise, please provide evidence.

Baygon, please disabuse yourself of the notion that there is any scientific backing for AGW. The IPCC put forward an unscientific guess that it is "very likely", and anticipated that it would have proof from data gathered by the satellite instruments.

The data from the satellite instruments gives no such proof, so the notion that there is any measurable effect on climate from human emissions has no scientific backing. There were seven independent scientists originally backing the “very likely” assertion, but two thought better of it.

Fifty-five conflicted scientists (the equivalent of the Climategate gang) also backed it.

There is a petition signed by over 31,000 scientists based on the fact that there is no scientific basis for assertion of AGW:

“We urge the United States government to reject the global warming agreement that was written in Kyoto, Japan in December, 1997, and any other similar proposals. The proposed limits on greenhouse gases would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind.
There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth.”

http://www.petitionproject.org/

There are still assertions of a consensus on AGW when it is clear there is no scientific basis for the idea.

The IPCC have now blatantly stated that environmental considerations do not matter. Removal of wealth from the West is paramount.

“Climate policy has almost nothing to do anymore with environmental protection, says the German economist and IPCC official Ottmar Edenhofer. The next world climate summit in Cancun is actually an economy summit during which the distribution of the world's resources will be negotiated. “

Let us have the reference to the “peer reviewed science” to which you refer, Baygon, which backs up the assertion of AGW. No one else has found it

LL you assert. repeatedly, that there is no scientific basis for the idea that human activities can, and do, have an effect on the world's climate.

At the same time you apparently refuse to look at the scientific papers which have been cited, which give detailed evidence of the probable effects of human actvities on the world's climate. I and others have given references to peer-reviewed scientific papers, but you choose to ignore this.

The familiar "Oregon petition" of thirty thousand "scientists" has been refuted as a hoax. Even if it were not a hoax, it would be no more than the opinions of a fairly small number of people, with unknown climate credibility, while the climate scientists of the world (including atmospheric scientists, phenologists, oceanographers, vulcanologists, soil and water researchers) are in general agreement that we face a real and present problem. Pretending that it does not exist is not going to solve it.

Please check the science before you make more wild asertions.

Baygon.

At least you attempt to reason logically yet you seem to quickly discount other opinions out of hand which, as I have said, is unscientific and a little bit arrogant.

Your main responses to my post are:

1. The peer reviewed literature generally supports AGW so it must be right.

Climate science is in its infancy. Funding favours certain views. There is little or no money, especially from the IPCC, for Climate Scientists whose work contradicts the AGW theory. It is difficult to get a dissenting peer reviewed paper published because editorial boards of major journals have become stacked over the last 20 yrs with AGW proponents. You seem to be unaware of all of this which means in my reckoning, your view of the process of science and publication in Climate Science is too naive and simplistic.

2. You admit that "we will not know whether the IPCC is right or wrong".

EXACTLY. So, after all this political, social and economic disruption you might turn around and say " Oh well it wasn't right after all."
Sorry, not good enough.

AGW scientists failed to accurately predict 2009 global temperatures. How can they predict 30 yrs hence? (Don't do the weather v climate argument, it is really quite silly)

3. That making money is not in itself a sign of fraud or corruption.
Agreed. However, it is a well accepted principle in society that a pecuniary interest may impair one's judgment. So when Al Gore sprouts his views we should not be a little suspicious ? When Scientists' very livelihood rest on funding for one view only could their views be affected?

Do you believe the science about smoking and lung cancer from scientists who work for a cigarette company?

Nicco-

You jump immediately to make personal remarks which is common in AGW proponents and thought to be due to the weakness of their arguments.

You say-:
1. "So far no-one has succeeded in refuting the theory". It may have escaped your notice but no-one has proven it either.

2. "I refer you to my earlier post, in which I pointed out that debate is alive and well. Debate implies a discussion between people of different viewpoints."

What a laugh. AGW proponents only decided there WAS another side to the issue after Copenhagen failed miserably and they had to get dissenters on side. Prior to this they wanted to crush all dissent. (Even jail dissenting politicians if you ask scientist David Suzuki) Nice to see how conciliatory you guys are now you are losing. Nevertheless, though you pretend to, you never take the other side seriously.

3."And your wild accusations of fraud and academic misconduct are not backed up by any evidence; where enquiries have been held, the scientists have been exonerated. If you know otherwise, please provide evidence"

Pleae read below email. See terms 'hide the decline'

From: Phil Jones <p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
To: ray bradley <rbradley@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>,mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, mhughes@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
Subject: Diagram for WMO Statement
Date: Tue, 16 Nov 1999 13:31:15 +0000
Cc: k.briffa@xxxxxxxxx.xxx,t.osborn@xxxxxxxxx.xxx

Dear Ray, Mike and Malcolm,
Once Tim's got a diagram here we'll send that either later today or
first thing tomorrow.
I've just completed Mike's Nature trick of adding in the real temps
to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd from
1961 for Keith's to hide the decline. Mike's series got the annual
land and marine values while the other two got April-Sept for NH land
N of 20N. The latter two are real for 1999, while the estimate for 1999 for NH combined is +0.44C wrt 61-90. The Global estimate for 1999 with data through Oct is +0.35C cf. 0.57 for 1998.
Thanks for the comments, Ray.

Cheers
Phil

Altman, it seems that you do not understand the scientific process, nor are you aware of the history of climate science. The 'greenhouse theory' has been studied since it was postulated by Fournier in 1824 and Arrhenius in 1896. In Australia, researchers such as Graeme Pearman were studying atmospheric CO2 (with the help of QANTAS pilots) in the 1970s. CSIRO's Division of Atmospheric Research has been monitoring Australia's climate for decades, and Australian researchers pioneered climatic studies in the Southern Ocean, which they showed is one of the 'drivers' of the world's climate.

The theory of human influenced climate change is supported by an overwhelming majority of the world's climate scientists. See studies by Doran (EOS, Transactions of the American Geophysical Union 2009) and Anderegg (PNAS 2010). Thousands of papers in reputable scientific journals reinforce this view. The point of scientific publication is to display your work, ask for comments, invite refutation. No one has refuted the theory of human influenced climate change, and the many lines of evidence give additional support, almost daily, as technology improves.

The quotation from the stolen CRU emails which Altman cites is out of context and misleading. A number of investigations have concluded that the only malpractice was in the theft of the emails. This is easily checked.

Although the sceptics will ignore it for those who are interested about the science in preference to dark conspiracy theories may find the links in this article of interest:
http://climateprogress.org/2010/11/15/year-in-climate-science-climategate/

Nicco-

Your condescending manner is out of place especially as it seems you have no or little scientific background. You are making some very basic scientific errors. Untestable theories cannot be refuted. Unprovable hypotheses cannot be proven wrong. Please stop spruiking that pseudo-scientific nonsense about "being unable to refute the theory". Theories can be challenged, but people like yourself seem to be unable to understand what the challenge is all about.

Re your Greenhouse effect comments. The Greenhouse effect is well known. The Greenhouse effect is not in dispute. You have confused the Greenhouse Effect with the Theory of Anthropogenic Global Warming which are two entirely different things.

You have ignored all the points made in the last post probably because you are unable to challenge them. So here's some reading material (which you won't read)which could help you catch up.

800 peer reviewed papers which support AGW skepticism.

http://www.populartechnology.net/2009/10/peer-reviewed-papers-supporting.html

Baygon

I could go through all the alarmist claims listed in that article one by one but I just don't have the time so I'll do the first one.

This Nature article is a PhD Students dissertation. A critique of the claim can be found here:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/07/30/now-its-phytoplankton-panic/

Its always worth reading BOTH sides of the story.

Altman, I am well aware of the 800 supposedly peer-reviewed articles, listed by the blog Popular Technology. As we all know, a very few reputable climate scientists (eg Lindzen, Christy, Spencer) have been published in a very few reputable journals. And, as we all know, there is a dense undergrowth of un-referenced material in blogs and un-refereed publications, often with a political or religious sub-text. (eg Be Alert! which takes a Christian fundamentalist line on the 800 papers); and of course there's a great deal in between. The 800 papers come from surprisingly few authors, some of them well-known (Loehle, Pielke Snr, Baliunas, Carter) and largely discounted - after examination - by mainstream science. Many of the 800 papers are published in the journal Energy and Environment, which is not highly regarded by the scientific community. The publication listing the 800 papers, Popular Technology.net, proclaims a specifically campaigning editorial stance against AGW. Taking all this into account, it is reasonable (1) to conclude that this list itself has little credibility, and (2) this list does not in any way damage the credibility of the very large number of scientific papers, published by reputable scientists, in reputable journals; (3) this list has an ideological underpinning, rather than a scientific underpinning; and (4) the 800 papers add a little to the real debate, which is robust and lively, and is happening elsewhere, ie the scientific literature.

The difficulty for the warmists is that over 50% of the population now believe the truth , that AGW is a fraud, so the politicians, who are poll driven understand that the game is up.

There is a remarkably frank editorial in the Washington Times on the demise of the AGW scam, and the wake to be held at Cancun. It is quite amusing.

“The mood of climate alarmists going into Cancun is decidedly downbeat…The November demise of the Chicago Climate Exchange - which sought to transfer billions of dollars to political insiders trading in government-rigged carbon markets - signaled that there was no money in the game anymore”

It points out the advantage of meeting at a beach resort in Mexico… “the Copenhagen meeting ended in an unexpected blizzard. It's harder to sell global warming to world leaders who have to flee the city before their flights are grounded by an ice storm.”

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/nov/27/climate-craziness-cools-in-cancun/

If anyone is interested in a clear explanation of what constitutes climate science and which scientists are climate scientists, Robert Carter sets it out clearly in his recent book “Climate: The Counter Consensus”. Nicco should read it and stop making a fool of herself. There are no scientists asserting that AGW has any scientific proof, and only five independent scientists who endorse the IPCCs assertion that it is “very likely”.

The petition signed by 31,000 scientists is not a hoax, just a genuine attempt to highlight the fact that there is no scientific basis for the assertion of AGW.

It seems Leo Lane is impervious to reason. Once again, she asserts that there is “no scientific basis” behind the theory of human influenced climate change. This is simply silly. What does she suppose climate scientists around the word do with their time? Where does she suppose the thousands of scientific papers, published in reputable journals, and presented at reputable scientific conferences, come from?

Look, for example, at the proceedings of the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographical Society at their 2010 national conference in Canberra, one hundred and thirty eight scientific papers on topics including Climate Drivers, Drought, Rain Extremes, Weather Systems, Climate Impacts and Bushfires, and so on. See: http://iopscience.iop.org/1755-1315/11/1/011001

Look, for example, at the five pages (a hundred or more) scientific references included in Climate Change 2009, Faster Change and More Serious Risks, ed. Prof. Will Steffen. On-line at www.anu.edu.au/climatechange/.../2009/.../climate-change-faster-change-and-more-serious-risks-final.pdf

Look, for example, at the seven pages of scientific references included in The Copenhagen Diagnosis, Updating the World on the Latest Climate Science, UNSW 2009. On-line at www.copenhagendiagnosis.org/

Look, for example, at The Science of Climate Change, Australian Academy of Science, 2010, on-line at www.science.org.au/policy/climatechange2010.html

These are just a couple of Australian publications which I have on my desk, and which are easily accessible on-line, part of the mass of accumulating evidence from around the world. The Washington Times, a failing newspaper set up to counter the percieved "liberal" bias of the Washington Post, and owned by the anti-communist Rev. Sun Myung Moon of the Unification Church, is not a reliable source for climate science or even climate opinion.

Obviously, nicco has no scientific evidence to back the assertion of AGW, so she talks about everything else.

Talking about effects of global warming is an attempt to conflate it with AGW. There is no scientific basis for the assertion of AGW. Everyone knows that there has been global warming and that it existed before human emissions began, and will exist after human emissions cease, but human activity has no measurable effect on global warming.

AGW is dead in the water. It was nicco or one of the others, of that ilk, who asked about the science explaining the cause of global warming.

The peer reviewed study, which explains global warming as arising from natural cycles, and which was published in the Journal of Geophysical Research in July 2009 is here:

http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2009/2008JD011637.shtml

Professor Robert Carter comments on the study as follows:

“The close relationship between ENSO and global temperature, as described in the paper, leaves little room for any warming driven by human carbon dioxide emissions. The available data indicate that future global temperatures will continue to change primarily in response to ENSO cycling, volcanic activity and solar changes.
Our paper confirms what many scientists already know: which is that no scientific justification exists for emissions regulation”.

What the alarmist scientists had been doing, was taking “unallocated” global warming and attributing it to human emissions. Just one of the many “tricks” employed by the warmists, but time has run out on this one, as it has on everything else, for the assertion of AGW.

Nicco might come back to talk about something else, but not about science to back AGW, because there is none.

The paper quoted by Leo Lane (McLean, de Freitas and Carter) does show one thing, and that is that the debate about human influenced climate change is alive and well in the scientific literature. However, the paper itself was overwhelmingly rated as not credible by the climate science community. A detailed technical rebuttal of McLean et al (Comment on “Influence of the Southern Oscillation on tropospheric temperature,” Foster et al) was published in the Journal of Geophysical Research in March 2010.

Leo Lane’s continued assertion that there is no science to back human influenced climate change is simply wrong, and it is puzzling that LL continues to state this demonstrable untruth.

Wrong nicco. The attempt to discredit was of a previous paper, and was carried out by a group of climategate miscreants and their associates.

Here is an email from the climategate collection which gives the flavour of this tawdry exercise:

“Incidentally I gave a copy [of the Foster et al. critique] to Mike McPhaden and discussed it with him last week when we were together at the OceanObs'09 conference. Mike is President of AGU. Basically this is an acceptance with a couple of suggestions for extras, and some suggestions for toning down the rhetoric. I had already tried that a bit. My reaction is that the main thing is to expedite this.”
Kevin Trenberth to Grant Foster, September 28, 2009

Rushing into print with a “scientific” paper full of rhetoric, and unethically approaching a person in a position to shortcut the proper process.

This scurrilous group was able to block publication of the refutation of their rhetoric for some time after their paper was expedited into publication.

Michael Mann, another climategate reprobate (of “hockey stick” infamy) said in an email:

“a formal comment to JGR seems like a worthwhile undertaking here.
contrarians will continue to cite the paper regardless of whether or not its been rebutted, but for the purpose of future scientific assessments, its important that this be formally rebutted in the peer-reviewed literature.”

JGR is the Journal. The important thing to the reprobates was to have peer reviewed literature to which people like nicco can refer, to appear to rebut the true state of science in relation to AGW.

The climategate accomplices, of course, reviewed each other’s papers, contrary to the requirement that reviews be by people who are not associates. This is how they produce “peer reviewed” articles.

“Leo Lane’s continued assertion that there is no science to back human influenced climate change is simply wrong.”

It is correct, nicco, until you give a reference to this alleged science, which of course, you cannot do. I am telling the truth, which is more than I can say for you.

LL's use of tendentious words such as "reprobate" and "miscreant" suggests that LL is either incapable or unwilling to take an objective view of scince and scientists. I remind LL that five enquiries found no scientific malpractice in the the case of the stolen emails (aside, of course from the theft of the intellectual property itself.) However, if LL is convinced that climate scientists are involved in a conspiracy, there's nothing more to be said. (Belief trumps evidence every time.)

LL persists with the absurd assertion that there is no science to back the theory of human influenced climate change. In fact there is an almost overwhelming amount of research, published and in progress. I refer LL to my post of 1 December where I list three recent Australian academic publications, each with many pages of references to the science.

And to give some historical context, I refer LL to the 750-page book, Greenhouse: Planning for Climate Change, ed. GI Pearman, published in 1989, being a collection of papers from a climate conference held at Monash University that year, dealing with human-influenced climate change in past decades.

Nicco, you refer only to papers with an inbuilt assumption of AGW. This false assumption proves nothing. Your failure to acknowledge this, demonstrates that you either lack comprehension or are dishonest.

If there were any scientific basis for the assertion of AGW, the IPCC would be trumpeting it worldwide, because at the moment they cannot justify their parasitic existence.

I have given you a reference to the science which shows the natural causes of global warming, which leaves no room for the baseless assertion of AGW. The warming is accounted for, without any input other than from Nature.

Your assertion that there has been a refutation, I dealt with in detail, to show that the pathetic attempt by the Climategate crew to refute it, fell flat, and the emails showed them as the unscrupulous manipulators that they are.

That is an objective view, and I gave you the emails to back it up, in my post.

Belief trumps evidence every time. I give up. There's no point in offering scientific rationality to someone who is, at base, irrational.

Nicco-

A rather glib and superficial wiping of 800 scientific papers don't you think? Not a single scientific criticism of any paper provided. Also, a strange comment about a religious site which mentioned the papers. Some very weird sites believe in AGW too. Isn't that irrelevant? The reference to a religious group makes me suspect you are a Left wing conspiracy theorist.

Again you discount the other side of the argument while claiming a 'lively debate' is occurring in 'mainstream science'. References or Links to these 'debates' please?

You seem to be able to name(and disregard) Scientists who you claim to have been "discounted by mainstream Science". Please name the three or four Scientists who you believe are the major contributors to mainstream Climate Science?