Don't tell me this is another one, swanning around the world, pumping out CO2, & telling us we should give up our lives to pay for it.

They sure learn how to pull the con young these days.

Just maybe a little concerned for their own future, if nothing is done. The young people are the ones that are at the brunt of climate change. Even skeptics acknowledge there is change happening, they are skeptical as to the extent of change. We can only await more statistics from NASA. When there is no polar ice left. Who knows it could become a ski resort. Sea temperature has risen .9c mostly in the last two decades, and is now causing volatile weather conditions, instead of a ten year cycle for warm ocean currents to return, we somehow have a return in one year, so albeit not as strong as last year, but enough to cause drought and floods. So lets hope it doesn't follow the same pattern as last year. Europe is broke so can not do much about their extreme weather problems at the moment. Runner reckons it's in the lap of the gods, and there's nothing we can do about it. But that is religion for ya. Maybe god can not compensate for all the mistakes of man. May need a little help.

579: "Even skeptics acknowledge there is change happening, they are skeptical as to the extent of change."

No, you don't get it. We acknowledge there is change happening, we simply don't believe that anyone knows enough about the change to assign it to a particular cause: and if nobody can do that then nobody can predict with any certainty what will happen in two or five or ten or a hundred years.

It got warmer on several occasions in the past without the help of anthropogenic CO2, and then it got colder again. Can you give any kind of principled reason why we should assume that this time is different?

According to the provisional list of participants in the UNFCCC COP 17, there are a massive 14,570 people taking part in Durban. The list is so long that its been broken up into three parts to include the 192 Governments and their 6,164 delegates and 5,884 from non government organisations.

Just what is the carbon footprint of these people jetting around the world to conference for two weeks to attend the 17th meeting of the treaty created in 1992.

Surely if carbon pollution was such an issue the 14,570 people could have stayed at home and communicated via the world wide web, rather than jetting into this tourist resort.

One of the first actions at the conference was to decide that the next meeting will be in Qatar, yet another tourism resort.

Australia's government has a large team in Durban at taxpayer expense led by the Minister for Climate Change as well as many observers on the frontline from the Non government organisations, many of the ENGO activists trips are funded by tax deductible donations.

Just how much is this conference costing in terms of both dollars and 'carbon pollution'?

Sea level rise. Global sea level has risen 17 cm in the last century. The rate in the last decade is nearly double that of the last century. NASA. Genuine boat people in the making.