Mark Lawson is following in the footsteps of the other astro turfers who frequently infest the cyber world and try to push their version of denial onto the great unwashed.
He even has the temerity to differentiate the “greenhouse crowd, from the general public, as if they are a breed apart.
He comes of course from that well know refuge of journalistic integrity, the Murdoch group.
He is also invested with all the scientific know how of an accountant because of his long affinity with financial publications.
He drags out all the old well-worn clichés about “Climate gate”, even though that has been put to bed as a false beat up.
He produces readings that are purported to be untrue and graphs that show how it really is and expects us to be taken in by his pseudo scientific jargon.
Give up Mark. The jury has returned and the verdict is in.
Global warming/Climate Change is real.
It is caused by what humans are doing to the planet.

Mark Lawson here
Sarian - this sort of abuse in place of arguement has become quite old. If, for example, you think the graphs support a case for any supposed acceleration in sea levels due to emissions, as you assert, then lets hear why. As the graphs show, nothing much has happened in the last 20 year or so, and sea level increases vary by quite a bit naturally.

If you also look at the article you will find I don't say all that much about climate but I do say the general public is switching off the issue, which has nothing to do with the truth or otherwise of the various crises which are meant to be occuring.

Much of your aubse, in fact, show that you misunderstood the article

"The figures I have seen in the IPCC report, the Garnaut Report and the recent Garnaut Review, all agree with The Critical Decade report that Climate change exists, is man made and is now accelerating."

Well, of course they do: they are all based on the same models. The question is, are the models accurate, and the answer, based on their retrodictions and current success rate, is a resounding No.

"The climate’s position on the Hocky Stick Curve is well advanced and the next ten years are critical for our survival."

The Hockey Stick is nonsense and has been shown to be nonsense again and again: it was based on a bizarre algorithm which would have (and did) produce a hockey stick shape even when random data was fed in. Your attempt to appeal to it here just shows how ill-informed you are about the evidence against AGW.

"If we in the “climate camp” are wrong we will celebrate. If we are right and governments continue to procrastinate it will be too late to argue."

The trouble with your final sentence is that if you are right then it is already too late: other nations are backing out of the AGW hypothesis and Australia can do nothing of value on its own. It is far better for our own future and that of our children to work towards our own growth and prosperity rather than squandering our resources on futile gestures like the Carbon Tax.

And if you AREN'T right, then what? Will you give us our money back?

Mark Lawson/curmug,
I wonder how you can condemn “personal abuse” after your diatribe about the scientist involved in “climate-gate”?
My abuse is actually a comment on the fact that the denial industry has a far bigger place in the worlds press than it deserves for a small segment of the community that has an axe to grid and is aided and financed by the handful of big corporations and individuals who have large fortunes to buy all the press coverage they need to get their warped ideas out.
It is a proven fact that companies such as Exxon are paying large dollars to any authors that manage to get articles published that refute global warming.
In your case it is a question of, do you really believe in the nonsense you spout or are you in it for the money

I am trying to get around the fact that Mark Lawson, a member of the Fourth Estate whose writings have done than most to create the confusion on climate change, has written an article on "don't blame the media for the confusion".

Mark, we do blame the media, and you are part of that small rump that should shoulder most of the blame.

The irony is breathtaking.

Mark, I won’t comment on climate change because it is not my area of expertise. What I do have some first hand experience with is the Millenium Bug (Y2K). This is relevant because I think you may be confusing who the “experts” are.
In 1975, I was a computer programmer in the IT shop of a large mainframe user. When we wrote mainframe programs that involved date manipulation we were required to use a special subroutine because it contained an algorithm to properly handle time related data over the end of the century. I have no doubt that many IT shops did not have the foresight in the mid 70s or even the mid 80s that their systems might still be in use at the end of the century. They would have seen no need for such an algorithm.
By 1982, I was running an IT company supplying products and services to large IT users. We made a significant amount of business between 1990 and 1998 out of Y2K, helping companies make sure they would not be impacted, as did many other IT suppliers. To my knowledge, no Y2K “experts” seriously considered that there would be any catastrophe because of all the remedial work that was performed over that 10 year period to software systems everywhere, including personal computers.
There were certainly Y2K alarmists, made up of those who like doomsday scenarios and those that wanted to keep the gravy train going as long as possible. In my opinion these were not Y2K experts but opportunists.
In the climate debate the experts are the ones warning of pending problems – now considered to be alarmists. This is the exact reverse of the Y2K situation were the experts were the ones trying to calm down the alarmists not the other way round. Continued ...