Katy,

I read your essay with interest and pleasure. I also agree with you that the need is to admit uncertainty in the whole AGW debate, work out what we really do know (not very much) and try to find out more — especially about what 'natural climate variability' is and how to distinguish it from AGW.

If you have not yet ventured into it, I would recommend the 'Climate etc' website, run by Judith Curry, a 'lukewarmer' and eminent scientist in the climate science field. She is doing her best to get both 'sides' to engage in critical thinking and problem-solving. It has become a runaway success, and seems to me the best way forward so far.

Bazz, which report of Uppsala University are you referring to? I've looked at their website - http://www.fysast.uu.se/ges/en - and there are many reports that you might be referring to. Can you please point me in the right direction? Thanks

Hello Bernie,
Here is the link to an article on Kjell Aleklett's blog
about the paper and it contains a link to the full paper.

http://tinyurl.com/yhqn2pv

I think, from memory it was published mid year 2010.
I think that with the uncertainty of computer models, we should at
least have the most acurate inputs available.

Thanks for the link, Bazz. Interesting article, in that it states that all projections by IPCC of fossil fuel usage are likely to be gross over-estimations, in part because of peak oil (which I agree will happen but I believe is still quite some years away) and in part because "The size of the tank, i.e. the resource base, is of secondary importance as it is the tap that governs the flow rate and future utilization of fossil fuels in the society". The only area of disagreement I have with the article relates to the future availability of gas. A large number of companies in the US have been assessing the amounts of shale gas - non-conventional gas occurring in very tight sediments such as shales - and the available resource is huge, so large in fact that natural gas prices in the US have plummeted due to oversupply.
That aside, I agree that the IPCC have significantly over-estimated fossil fuel energy usage by developing countries, one additional reason being that they have not looked at how well such countries are improving the energy intensity of their industries, which will deliver very large energy efficiency gains.

Agnostic,

The proof you are talking about is the center of this debate and is ABSOLUTELY not accepted as scientific fact.

Your incredibly simplistic assertion -> that because we know of a greehouse effect, therefore we know that We have caused "global warming - lacks any intellectual rigour.

Just because there is such a thing as the greenhouse effect, doesn't tell us anything about what we see. It is a theory which needs to explain the facts that we see, and thus far, it has not done a very good job.

The Non-Governemntal International Panel Climate Change has found that the level of warming in the last decade of the 20th century was considerably lower than the IPCC claimed, and that in the 21st century, the earth had cooled.
http://hatch.senate.gov/public/_files/ClimateChangeReconsidered.pdf

31,000 scientists signed their memo which, among other things, stated " ... There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate ...."http://hatch.senate.gov/public/_files/ClimateChangeReconsidered.pdf

Heartland and the “31,000 scientists” wail from the public gallery Kate?

Very few in the scientific community have claimed “catastrophic” yada yada except the “alarmists”.

However, climate change will be bad enough - adaptive and mitigative measures will be required – this doesn’t happen overnight.