Hi Hasbeen,
Certainly not on the gravy train. Actually a self funded early retiree, ex-international corporate executive and ex-military.

Actually I read widely and I seek out opposing views. I've read arguments on both sides and have thought about this issue, (Global Warming) at length and am convinced that it's a fact.

What motivates me to act are my granddaughters, (5 & 7). I will do everything I can to ensure that they do not inherit a world in worse shape than the one I've enjoyed a long life in.

If I were to set aside my own analysis, weak as it might be, here's the choice I would be confronted with.

Either Global Warming is real, or there is a massive conspiracy involving virtually every scientific body in the world, virtually all the climate scientists.
And then I read as I did in yesterday's The Age of new research published by highly reputable German scientists showing that the disappearance of Arctic sea ice is accelerating and within three decades, three decades, there will be no Arctic sea ice; and that they are convinced that this is directly as a result of human activity.
Now, put yourself in my position. That such a conspiracy involving tens of thousands of respected scientists is in place or global warming is real. Occam's Razer really does apply, wouldn't you at least grant me that much.
So, in suymmary, I am simply and genuinely convinced, by the weight of evidence for, and the weight of respected scientist for, and by the sheer unlikelhood of the conspiracy that would have to exist for the alternative to be right.
I do hope that helps to explain my position.
Cheers,
Anthony
www.observationpoint.com.au

Antony
Firstly your reply consists of *nothing but* reliance on vested interests, appeal to absent authority, assuming what is in issue, or ad hominem arguments. That really says it all, doesn’t it?

Secondly, there is no need for to a conspiracy theory to explain what’s happening.

For example, I know a guy who is a very highly educated and senior scientist. He told me that he believes AGW because a very highly educated friend of his had assured him about it, and had referred to a scientific paper that purported to show that the water level of Fremantle harbour was rising, with which he challenged me. When I pointed out it would have to rise everywhere else to confirm the theory, he had nothing to say. In other words, his technique was assuming it’s true and seeking to affirm, rather than to disprove it – the religious, not the scientific method.

All that is necessary to account for the entire belief system is to understand that those climate scientists are people too and *might be using the same intellectual technique that you are*! Merely doing what you have done - assuming what is in issue, reposing faith in authority, and seeking to prove rather than disprove it, will explain the result. But that is not science. It’s groupthink, credulity, orthodoxy, reliance on authority – the OPPOSITE of science.

Thirdly, discussion of AGW is not as a mere speculation on climatology, divorced from any question of policy or government funding. The very nature of the discussion is that AGW presents us with the need for urgent political action, else the question would raise no more political issue than do the proceedings of the entomological society.

Yet you regard the vested interests of an entire industry and empire of government funded climate scientists, and the prospect of an enormous expansion in their budgets, as ENTIRELY UNPROBLEMATIC relative to the knowledge in issue.

Fourthly science does not supply value judgments, while policy requires them. So even if the positive science proved AGW, it is a *complete non sequitur*, and therefore unscientific, to reason therefore that *any policy action whatsoever* is indicated.

Fifthly, no-one ever rationally justifies the process of reasoning by which we go from the alleged physical problem, to government being ASSUMED to have the knowledge, the capacity and the selflessness to make things better than worse.

Sixthly, the difference between your ad hominem and mine is that the warmists’ ad hom is the *foundation* of their argument – that and begging the question and appeal to absent authority – without which the entire edifice collapses. Mine is the *conclusion* of an argument rationally and irrefutably disproving the whole religious belief system multiple times.

Got that citation of a single peer-reviewed paper showing evidence of temperature measurements (not surrogate measurements) proving the existence of a supposed tropospheric hot spot, on which the entire hoo-haa depends, yet fellah?

And just to clear up any possibility of evasion on your part:
- how have you accounted for the upsides as well as the downsides of global warming, now and in the future?
- prove how you know that the upsides of policy action will outweigh the downsides. How have you figured in the value of a human life now and into the future, including those whose sacrifice would be required by your policies? Show your working.
- prove that government has the necessary knowledge of all the relevant climatic, ecological and economic quantities, flows, costs and benefits
- What if you are wrong? What if government doesn’t have the capacity and selflessness that you attribute to it? Show what account you have taken of the possibility that you will kill large numbers of people.

BTW, try this experiment. Take out all the scientific vested interests from your analysis, and then see what a difference it makes to the landscape of opinion! Sorry to tell you this, but your belief system is credulous and you have been conned.

Anthony is seriously at fault when he says: "Either Global Warming is real, or there is a massive conspiracy involving virtually every scientific body in the world, virtually all the climate scientists".

Actually there is no conspiracy, only the massive incompetence of ALL climate "scientists", including ALL at CSIRO and BoM, all the authors of AAS (2010) and all at Will Steffen's Climate Change Institute shamefully hosted by ANU for the sole purpose of milking the DCCEE for millions of dollars from DCCEE (2011) with their combined inabilty to read trends into data series of GMT, atmospheric CO2 (aka [CO2]), etc etc., magnified also by their complete inability to perform regressions (LSR) on data on GMT as a function of human changes in [CO2] and non-human changes (for the most part) in atmospheric water vapour (aka [H2O]) (see my paper Econometrics of Climate Science,under peer review) at www.timcurtin.co

The actual addresses for my paper are www.timcurtin.com and www.ace2011.org.au

Appeal to absent authority, ho hum.

Okay, let's put aside your evasions and cut to the chase.
1. admit that you're arguing that science supplies value judgments
2. show how you accounted for the upsides as well as the downside of global warming
3. show how you've accounted for the downsides as well as the upsides of policy action
4. show how you've accounted for the value of a human life now and into futurity.
5. let us have your estimate of the cost in human lives of your policies. Show your workings.

Hey Tom, got that peer reviewed article showing *temperature* measurements proving the existence of the tropospheric hot spot yet? A simple humiliating admission that you're wrong will do.