http://www.helium.com/items/2129635-nasa-admits-all-previous-warming-trends-caused-by-sun Why did the IPCC include not include the Sun as a factor when reaching conclusions about so called AGW?

arjay, because it wasn't fashionable, because we weren't to blame if that was the case.

not so long ago there would have been rounds of laughter and derision if you dared mention the sun might have an effect on climate change on OLO, qanda would have sneered professionally down his nose at you, others still might.

there are still warmist and demander sites where they continue to support that notion, and defend it vigorously.

if that were really the case, then that might mean we are not the major cause of the climate changing, and thus taxing us will be ineffective .. can't have that now can we?

rpg: Did you actually read arjay's link? It contains such gems as:

"Another proverbial nail in the coffin for the AGW theory is the fact that the Earth has been cooling since 2007."

2007? Did they really say 2007?

You say you are an 'engineer'. If you are, then you must have done some statistics, no?

I can't believe an engineer could condone such blatant misrepresentation and distortion - but there you go, another one who thinks global warming means warming every year.

You obviously haven't read the IPCC's AR4 rpg. If you had you would know that not only Arjay is full of it, so is the article he linked to - FUD.

Of course the IPCC factors in the Sun - take a look at chapter 2, or 9 - on attribution and radiative forcing, for starters.

Your support and concurrence for this site's most renown conspiracy theorist tells me more about your credibility than his, rpg.

btw: that is not ad hom - it is fact.

No insult intended, but Geoff’s article reminds my of a course I took at uni many years ago ... Symbolic Logic. We spent hours formulating questions like ‘If A then not-B, and if C then not-A, but if D then A or B if and only if C, does not-B imply D’? It was a useful semester ... learned that, when the answer gets that complicated, maybe it’s time to pause for a moment and consider whether or not you’ve asked the right question.

Reducing carbon emissions isn’t fundamentally a taxation problem, or even an economic one. It’s a technological challenge. And technology exists in a Darwin Machine — the successful approach has to out-compete alternative strategies. There’s no way to predict in advance what might evolve, let alone which combination of technological advances will win out. There’s no endpoint, really. The process never stops.

If you really want to reduce emissions, you have to hop into your Darwin Machine, put the pedal to the metal, and let ‘er rip. That’s where economics becomes important. How do you create an environment in which the best technologies, the most innovative researchers, and the canniest investors compete for the opportunity to change the way energy is produced and consumed? In real time, and on a seriously national scale?

Anything’s possible, but I really wonder if a carbon tax lasting 3-5 years before morphing into an ETS is going to drive evolution of new technologies capable of replacing coal, maybe oil as well. Why should investors spend up big in 2012 on R&D that won’t mature before 2025, if they can’t see ahead even to 2014? How can new technologies compete when government subsidises solar photovoltaic & wind by forcing base-load power generators to pay inflated prices for it in the form of feed-in tariffs? What are researchers supposed to investigate, and why?

Gillard’s assumption that higher taxes will drive innovation seems flawed. New tech is expensive, researchers need committed sponsors, and investment is risky. I can’t see how a Carbon Tax will do anything other than stifle innovation..

bonmot, I was having some fun ..

so stop trying to bait me and just let the hate go, people can have different opinions to you and do not have to prove to you why they do

You don't have to prove anything rpg, your hate has been palpable.

It would have been nice if Arjay did a bit of fact-checking before he posted his "opinion", which in "fun" you endorsed.

You lost credibility for that - but that is just my opinion.