Steven as you see climate science is a hard topic to sell, Hasbeen is sort of a skeptic, and probably a good informant to Mr Abbott, he says it is crap. Some will not get the consequences until it is all too late. When there is no more polar ice left and see level rise chase people from their beach side resorts, there will still be a logical explanation for the happening. A day in the life of earth is probably one million years, but for some reason we can have a whole range of occurrences, within 2 minutes of earth time. Science will always be changing on this subject, which is fodder for skepticism.

The solution to HUMAN caused Global warming is CLEARLY to reduce the number of humans.

There is NOT ONE AGW adherent looking at that ONLY solution.

The reason? All peer reviewed AGW scientists are nerds. They are sexually dissatisfied LOSERS who believe that by increasing human populations they increase their "chances". All that testosterone, all that oestrogen raging is why THEY use more OIL and COAL and personally do more damage to the biosphere than people who actually BREED.

The point is that until laws are passed to make women truly EQUAL: To restrict women's breeding rights to one to two children per lifetime, its resource shortages, global wars with WMD's, all fueled by sex-hormones, that will destroy humankind.

Equal rights & Global warming are JOKES. Its just another failed NERD's revenge!

And another thing. REAL SCIENCE, you know the one that makes progress and things happen. Specifically the SECOND LAW OF THERMODYNAMICS, says that if you reduce energy use you reduce order, approach thermal-equilibrium and destroy life by wars of boring sameness.

Further, no SOLAR renewable or any wind/wave derivitive can replace baseload energy. Essentially the cost of collecting sufficient low density energy over vast distances yields less baseload energy than the collective manufacture & collection costs.

That means only Hot Rock GEOTHERMAL can replace dwindling OIL or COAL which is too dirty to support pre 1900, sub 2 billion populations.

No AGW scientist is serious about GEOTHERMAL because they all have vested interests (grants, shares etc) in scientifically impossible renewables.

Think of all the AGW science $billions and endeavour going to population control, Geothermal and REAL progress in Solar system exploration if we could invent a germ to eradicate AGW scientists and their dysfunctional psyches.

A measured argument, Steven, and thanks for not simplistically dividing the world into ‘deniers’ and ‘believers’.

I’ll accept your major premises. The world is warming, yes. Climate scientists know a good deal more about that than the rest of us, yes. By and large, public opinion should defer to those who’ve done the hard yards to become ‘expert’ in their field, yes.

All within limits, of course. We have three problems to deal with.

First, science is about confirming or denying a hypothesis. It’s easy to confirm the hypothesis that CO2 is a ‘greenhouse’ gas. Thus far, however, climate scientists produce climate models, not testable hypotheses. Models consistent with AGW tenets prove nothing: GIGO. You can’t confirm AGW in the same way you establish a hypothesis within QED.

Still, models are useful; we rely on them all the time, if they’ve got ‘skill’. QED makes very precise predictions, hence we conditionally accept the underlying hypotheses as true, even before the theory’s complete. Is there any climate change model that DOES show ‘skill’? Temperature change over the last 15 years, f’rinstance? The last 2000 years? Nothing’s even close yet, and that’s problem #2.

But I don’t want to wait until Bangladesh is underwater to confirm or deny the AGW hypothesis. Whose ‘expert’ opinion can I trust? I’m most likely to accept the arguments of those whose respect for the scientific method is beyond question. How do I find her, or him? I’m looking for the climate scientists (or senior practitioners in related disciplines) who acknowledge that Al Gore is guilty of hyperbole. I’m looking for the dedicated researchers who were first to denounce gross perversion of science at UEA. I’m looking for the senior experts who slammed the IPCC for including WWF propaganda in their ‘peer-reviewed’ summary. Etc, etc, etc. Where do I find them?

On the list of so-called ‘deniers’, almost every one.

There’s water aplenty in the climate science well ... but it’s poisoned by some very bad actors, by institutions which prefer grants to ethics, lazy media, and green fanatics. Methinks we’re stuffed.

Steven,

The reason that I remain a sceptic is that it is very clear that very much remains to be learned about the complex climate system.

First, is it even warming? It is very clear that there are many problems with the data. And why are all the "adjustments" (eg NZ, Darwin) in the direction of increased warming??

Second, if it is warming, are we talking about local, regional or global warming? People experiencing local desertification for example, might be inclined to blame that on global warming, but is it really?

Third, if is warming, what is causing it? Clearly there are natural cycles. Also, as intimated above, there are regional and local effects arising from land-use factors - deforestation, interference with natural hydrological systems etc. Maybe anthropogenic CO2 is having some impact, but how much compared with the other factors?

Fourth, the big question is what is the climate sensitivity to increasing CO2? You may not be aware, but a vigorous controversy goes on, with some arguing that the feedbacks are neutral or even negative, whereas the IPCC crew ASSUMES that it is strongly positive. The case has not been made.

When the beneficiaries of the global warming funding bandwagon start answering these questions, then maybe we sceptics will start to listen. Until then.......

whats new.

Scientist's at the cutting edge of new research and climate change often get nasty with one another.

The level of uncertainty is high. The potential of climate change with many other important environmental disasters, peak oil and population growth are collectively going to contribute the culling of the human population and that is he is the only certainty. The dice of human ignorance is still rolling and we still ignore the complexity of the disaster ahead of us when the lights of our planet will no longer be seen from outer space.
RIP.

Bye Alan.

Bugsy
good, you're getting it. Quite right. There is no track record for solar activity either. Although there is a lot of evidence of a link between climate and solar activity up to 1985, this has not been use to forecast so still counts as tentative. The link breaks down after 1985, as far as anyone knows, leaving some room for human influence on climate but what's the mechanism by which the sun influences climate? Three have been suggested that I know of.

However, its not an either or.. If neither of two theories have any track record to speak of you rule both out, or treat both with the same degree of contempt, if you like. The number of scientists exrpessing support for or against either has no relevence.