Ken, if you're such a stickler for 'science-based reality', then you should admit that it is impossible to tell if any global warming due to increased CO2 emissions has even been significant, and that climate models are pretty much meaningless.

That's the 'science-based reality'.

"The Green Religion" has become a favorite theme of right wingers lately. Kind of ironic given the Right is almost entirely made up of economic, political and religious fundamentalists.

I think what it boils down to is that when Right wingers see people with commitment to a cause they mistakenly believe there is a move being made on their control over obsessive, looney politics. They mistake their own craziness for commitment.

Tell anyone you have a spiritual connection to the Earth and you'll get a hysterical and shrill response like the article above. Is a spiritual connection to the Earth any weirder than a spiritual connection to Sky Daddy or free market economic theory? At least conserving the Earth has some practical value for society whereas Sky Daddy is a crutch for emotional cripples. (Elevating the free market to the status of a religion is for people who never grew up and learned to share).

Ken Fados says:

/// To quote the head of the US National Center for Atmospheric Research's Climate Analysis Section “Certain events would have been EXTREMELY UNLIKEY to have occurred without global warming, and that includes the Russian heat wave and wild fires, and the Pakistan, Chinese, and Indian floods”. He could probably add the long drought and the recent Qld floods that broke it as well ///

Then Ken, how do you explain the frequency of these EXREMELY UNLIKELY EVENTS in OZ ?

Here is a list of the (major) floods:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floods_in_Australia

And here we have a list of the (major) droughts:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Australian_history/Drought_disasters

(I wish I had windfalls as infrequently as that!)

but it gets curiouser and curiouser-- one of your brethren had this to say:
1) “ The more energy into a system, the more heat- the more heat- the more water vapour- the more water vapour- the more snow and rain. Obeying the simple Laws of physics in a dynamic and chaotic Earth System “ and
2) “ As to 1940’s to 70’s – sulphate aerosols (by-product of fossil fuel burning) has a cooling effect”

So I checked out the BOM site –because he spoke warmly of it-- and this was what I found:

http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/climate/change/timeseries.cgi

Note two things from this graph:
1)If you were writing on the Forum in 1940 or 1960 holy (frozen) mackerel! with a series colds like those shown, you might well be calling anyone who didn’t think there was a coming ice age a “denier”!
2)But more important that this, interweave the above list of floods and droughts: these EXTREMELY UNLIKEY EVCENTS often occurred during a coolings! When there should have been (according to your brethrens template)LESS heat and LESS water vapour and LESS energy in the system!

Now, riddle that for me ?

The world's biggest miners and exporters of coal have nothing to do with rising emissions? They should not bear any legal or financial liability for the adverse consequences arising? More importantly they should not have any regulation imposed which restricts the continued expansion of their activities in the face of strong science showing enormous and near certain impacts to our future security and prosperity?

Nothing's known or proved or meaningful from climate science? It's good enough for every leading scientific institution but that's not good enough to have actual policy on emissions?

We've had droughts before and floods before therefore global warming can't make them much worse?

The media made a fuss about a couple of papers concerned about aerosols and cooling in the 70's - more papers at the time pointed to warming from CO2 than cooling and the US National Academy of Sciences said there wasn't enough known yet. More recently it says there's more than enough known to conclude warming is real and serious. They weren't sure in the 70's therefore now that they are sure we shouldn't take them seriously?

Is this truly representative of the opinions of most Australians on this serious issue? Is it even considered an outside possibility by the vocal opponents of climate science here that the science could be correct and they might be mistaken? Will we even get an "oops sorry" when the current warming trend continues and consequences get more severe or will it be blame shifting to those damned scientists who should have told us better? Or just the same repeated 'you can't prove it's not natural'?

SPQR

Are you trying to tell me these 2 points are mutually exclusive?

1) “ The more energy into a system, the more heat- the more heat- the more water vapour- the more water vapour- the more snow and rain. Obeying the simple Laws of physics in a dynamic and chaotic Earth System “ and

2) “ As to 1940’s to 70’s – sulphate aerosols (by-product of fossil fuel burning) has a cooling effect”.

Are you really trying to infer that as CO2 concentrations rise and as sulphate aerosols are 'scrubbed' out, that heat trapping gases won't take over as a major forcing?

Are you really trying to infer that sulphate aerosols don't have a dampening (cooling) effect?

Moreover, you give the impression that you don't understand radiative forcing - this does not bode well for meaningful dialogue. Perhaps you should look that up in your Wiki.

You went to BOM, and even tracked down a graph - why didn't you run the trend line?

http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/climate/change/timeseries.cgi?graph=tmean&area=aus&season=0112&ave_yr=T

I'm sorry Mr Bonmot, but I must insist you stick to the issue at hand.

Trademark put downs like:
---“ you give the impression that you don't understand...this does not bode well for meaningful dialogue. Perhaps you should look that up in your Wiki”
---“You went to BOM, and even tracked down a graph”

Are inadmissible (and may see points deducted!)

Here are the salient points of the case:

Mr Fados told us
---“[T]he US National Center for Atmospheric Research's Climate Analysis Section [said] ‘Certain events would have been EXTREMELY UNLIKEY to have occurred without global warming, and that includes the Russian heat wave and wild fires, and the Pakistan, Chinese, and Indian floods’”

---He then went on “ [ they]could probably add the long drought and the recent Qld floods that broke it as well “

And we know from expert testimony, AGW causes such by adding heat to the mix .
---“ The more energy into a system, the more heat- the more heat- the more water vapour- the more water vapour- the more snow and rain. Obeying the simple Laws of physics in a dynamic and chaotic Earth System “

But the fly in the ointment is that we had similar catastrophes (and, worse 1841 1993 ) occurring during pre-industrial times or periods of cooling (see my original graph).

Now of course you can (and no doubt will) fall back on the old IPCC-out that they are getting, or, will be getting more severe.


But independent research indicates otherwise.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/we-are-already-adapting-to-warming/story-e6frg6zo-1225797967898
“Although it is accepted that bushfire risk will increase with greenhouse gas emissions, there is no evidence in the time series of insured losses in recent decades of any effect of climate change
There is no indication that tropical cyclones, the single largest category accounting for 32 per cent of all losses, are becoming more frequent or more dangerous. A similar conclusion applies to the US for hurricanes, even including Katrina in 2005”

So where does that leave the cry "It's AGW that done it!" otherthan to expose it as a bit of cheap spruiking?