"...is something of a non sequitur: pollution and the squandering of resources is one thing, global warming another, and the two are very indirectly related, if at all."
Fossil fuels are resources, last I heard, Joe. Non renewable and largely irreplaceable, at that. Sending them up literally in smoke is both "squandering them", and pollution.
Burning fossil fuels is generally credited with being the greatest generator of AGW, so I'd say the two were very directly related, personally.

Well, there is a hell of a lot more, Grim, contributing to pollution than 'just' coal. By all means, reduce the consumption of coal, but there are so many other sources of pollution - and pollution is not by any means the only concern of environmentalists. As I keep trying to point out, it's not one or the other - we have to work simultaneously on all of those environmental problems.

AGW is just one of them, and probably the most remediable. Discuss.

"AGW is just one of them, and probably the most remediable. Discuss."

Would love to Joe (perhaps you can start a general discussion thread) but how about discussing Michael Rowan's piece first.

For example, would like your response to Michael's concluding remarks:

"... South Australia has experienced seventeen years in a row with warmer than average temperatures. And Australia as a whole has become warmer in each of the last six decades ...

... So to those who don’t think that the science of climate change is well supported by the evidence, what do you make of that? The Bureau of Meteorology is lying? We are heating up but not the rest of the world? And what is your scientific theory to explain why the world is not warming?"

It is his article, after all - and you both share the same state :)

Bonmot,

Indeed we do .....

Okay, I'll try to check out whether what he claims is valid. I do recall picking apricots in 46 degrees in the early eighties, but never having experienced that sort of temperature since, but I could be mistaken. Over the past thirty years, we have had summers of no days over the old century, and years of twenty-day stetches over the old century, but I'll try to find some more systematic way of making judgments than merely personal experience.

Meanwhile, I'll stick to my point that there are many, many issues AS WELL AS AGW - not instead of it - which genuine environmentalists must be concerned about. That's why I'll - conditionally - keep supporting the Greens.

"Well, there is a hell of a lot more, Grim, contributing to pollution than 'just' coal"
I was thinking more specifically about petroleum, Joe. I think you should check out this list;
http://www.ranken-energy.com/Products%20from%20Petroleum.htm
I agree there are other concerns about our environment that desperately need addressing, but I reject utterly your claim that they are not intimately linked to the whole AGW debate; starting with another oft used argument of the 'denialist' camp, that CO2 is beneficial to plants.
While that's undeniably true, does it make sense to increase CO2 levels at the very same time as we destroy forests at an unprecedented rate?
Peak oil is inescapable and inevitable, whether believe (as I do) that it is already here, or whether it is still coming.
How much more are our grandchildren going to have to pay for all the items on that list, above and beyond the inflation that we have created?

bonmot,

the urban heat island effect explains the increase in temps measured by local weather stations.It distorts the temperature readings when compared against a baseline in the less urbanised past.

Sattelites give a more accurate reflection of the earths changing temperature. But why aren't the temperatures in the upper atmosphere increasing as would be expected when warming is due to the greenhouse effect?

In any case. the fact of warming doesn't prove the AGW theory. There are other explanations for warming which don't rely on CO2. Solar activity is an explanation that covers both the warming, and the lack of upper atmospheric warming.

Grim,

using fossil fuels is not squandering them. We are not short of coal and gas, and we have uranium after that if we need it.

With no reason to believe that humans won't be around for hundreds of thousands more years, there is NO WAY to ration fossil fuels. It just won't go that far. Unless you give each person a thimbleful to last a generation. We WILL develop an alternative as soon as fossil fuel prices start to rise significantly. That WILL happen as soon as the resource starts to become less available. I'm betting nuclear will be the way forward.

There is only one reason to use less fossil fuels and that is IF it is creating a significant warming of our planet. the AGW orthodoxy has yet to convince people that is the case. And the more the anti-consumption, anti-devellopment, anti-population, anti-people green extremists get involved in the AGW debate, the less likely ordinary people are going to listen.