Herbert Stencil,

It's amazing how easily you cast aside any impact of sea level rise on Tuvalu, particularly when according to Wikipedia there has been a general sea level rise of about 20cm during the last 100 years, and when we have seen recent documentary footage of farmland and houses on Tuvalu which have been reclaimed by the sea in only the last 20 years or so. More amazing still when we consider where the water from the receding sea-ice, glaciers and Antarctic ice-cap may have been going. Up in the sky perhaps?

AGW sceptics point to natural cycles and 'natural' phenomena (volcanic activity, earthquakes, tectonic plate shift, solar/cosmic radiation) being largely, if not almost totally, responsible for all recent reduction in Earth's ice cover volumes, virtually discounting any significant contribution from human activities, even from the massive burning of fossil fuels during these last 100 years.

Have the sceptics then identified any other possible influences on the Earth's 'natural' climate cycles, anything else influencing the Earth's 'natural' oscillation between ice-ages and inter-glacials?

May we surmise that we are, and for far longer than the past 100 years have been, in a relatively stable inter-glacial period. Further, might we recognise that there has been a relative absence of major ongoing 'natural' upheavals during this latter 100 year period. If we can accept the latter (which I expect will be difficult for some) then it appears more likely than not that some human activities will have contributed to a measure of the environmental change seen as being responsible for the observed ice-cover loss and sea-level rise.

Can it be logical then, that burning of fossil fuels, land clearing, civil construction, deforestation, and the metabolism and respiration of many billions of humans (and of their even immensely greater numbers of livestock), could not have contributed to a meaningful extent to these (and potentially other) observed environmental results of climate balance change?

If the latter is not accepted, then irrespective of the difficulties with and possible deficiencies in 'the science', we do indeed have a problem.

The warmth of the northern hemisphere in the past 50 years is likely the highest in the past 1,300 years.
We do indeed have a problem, and accelerating, The top 700 meters of ocean are warming, and this is causing more severe weather. The bad news is if we stop the supply of carbon into the atmosphere now, it is going to take 30 years before significant reversal takes place.
Best dig in, and put an extra nail in the roof.

Saltpetre. Like so many issues in the so-called climate "debate", there are conflicting views on each side of the argument. For my part, I take the advice of Nils Axel Morner - an accepted expert - rather than the IPCC crew, especially following the exposure of their militant advocacy rather than science in the Climategate e:mails.

Morner's views are summarised here: http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/Articles_2011/Winter-2010/Morner.pdf

And lets say the IPCC crew are correct. Where do they show that rising anthropogenic CO2 is a certain cause of rising sea level? And even if they had shown that, what can possibly be done about it?

There is much flummery in this area of climate discussion, partly advanced by the aptly named Flannery.

Curmudgeon... You know your ENSO cycles..... What is so complicated about this known and well documented climatic event? What other 'unknown' factors are at play I wonder? Where does the Indian ocean Dipole effect fit?.. Solar activity? ... Perhaps governance issues could explain the impact of famine on 'poor people'... The level of both innocence and ignorance evidenced in Clanceys well written and constructed piece is disheartening.
Don Aitkin hits the mark with observation regarding access to energy and power for those in the developing countries, as does observations by Herbert Stencil..
579?... Oh dear, do not know where to begin.....

Bad luck, Clancy, but as in every other aspect of the AGW scam, the science is against you.

New Scientist published a study last year, which forestalls the rubbish you write in this article.

“AGAINST all the odds, a number of shape-shifting islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean are standing up to the effects of climate change.

For years, people have warned that the smallest nations on the planet - island states that barely rise out of the ocean - face being wiped off the map by rising sea levels.

Now the first analysis of the data broadly suggests the opposite: most have remained stable over the last 60 years, while some have even grown”.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20627633.700-shapeshifting-islands-defy-sealevel-rise.html

Apart from that, the sea levels are not rising, despite the greenies attempt to disguise the fact by ripping out an old tree, comparison with a photo of which, taken 50 years ago, showed that there had been no sea level rise.

I know you had to have the article published in time for the upcoming hot air AGW lie fest in Durban, but why inflict it on OLO? Nothing can give your article respectability, it is too obviously false.

How stupid does it make the Tuvalu Council look when they held a pretend underwater meeting to draw attention to the sea level rise which never happened.

Your article is deficient in facts as well as science, so you should not present your work as non fiction. It might make the grade in "tall stories".

Sea level is rising at 3.27 mm / yr
co2 concentrations highest in 650,000 yrs
co2 391 parts / mill
1.5 f temp rise since 1880
Global temp 2,000 to 2,009 warmest on record
Greenland ice loss doubled between 1996 to 2005 100 bil tons / yr
arctic ice decrease 11.5 % last decade.
NASA