It will no doubt surprise the denial brigade that the US, where there has been a summer long series of "extreme weather events' have changed their belief of AGW to a 70% acceptance.
What will it take Australians to follow suit?

Roses1 and Poirot
as you have both been told many times now, expert consensus in and of itself is essentially meaningless. There is nothing in science to suggest that expert opinion, as such, caries any weight. What independently verified forecasting track record can climate science point to?

Certainly the consensus is that AGW is occuring, but without some basic and obvious indication that the consensus is of any use - notably that forecasting track record - there is plenty of room for doubt and every reason to question the "experts". In any case a good part of the subject matter is strictly in business not in science at all (the study of forecasting systems is a business subject, its in marketing).

So now we come to the point of the article. The point is that an incident (or series of incidents) that occured in the UK was used as an excuse to review the activites of the media here. But the main agenda for reviewing the media here was that sections of it actually questioned the climate orthodoxy.

Whether you believe in AGW or not, the point is cdertainly worth making.

Anthony. A particularly thoughtfull and intriguing analysis of the alternative possible strategies that may be at play in the coalition responses to the various AGW policy directions. Most enjoyable.
Cohenite. Trying to speak reasonably to those still stuck in the 97/98 % of scientist 'consensus' is like...like... Gee, 'p...ing in the wind' is the only analogy that come readily to the mind. Admirable to keep trying tho.

There never was a consensus on AGW. The US has taken no action, because there is no scientific basis of support for it. A petition signed by 31,000 scientists asked the US Senate to take no action in the face of this absence of any scientific justification.

The kindest scientific description I have seen is that it is “plausible, but not measurable”

There is no measurable effect of human activity on global climate.

Despite the outlay of in excess of $90 bn, no scientific basis for assertion of AGW has been established.

Climate has conformed to natural cycles, with no unusual variation, which could be attributed to human emissions.

The AGW scam is dead in the water. The small number of scientists, who support the scam, have been exposed by the Climategate emails.

The media reports have dropped off, lately, and the comments of the public, on those that appear, are anti-AGW.

Top scientists are now declaring that action on AGW is unjustifiable.

There is no reason to support the Finkelstein report. It is toxic.

“Some of the preeminent scientists involved in promoting global-warming alarmism have been disgraced and discredited, after being caught in flagrante in unethical and illegal activities. Even before the 2009 "Climategate" e-mail scandal, many leading scientists who had earlier been true believers in man-made global warming (anthropogenic global warming, or AGW) had begun jumping ship and joining the AGW skeptic side. Since then, the defections have turned into a veritable flood, making this one of the great untold stories of the major establishment media, which continue to trumpet the alarmist propaganda.”

http://preview.tinyurl.com/7mvumju

So much for the AGW “consensus”, asserted by the delusional.

Germany is a leader in renewable energy. The cost loaded on to householders has resulted in 700,000 German households having their power cut off.

Cohenite,

You are using a flawed argument.

If we decided that we needed 100% agreement on everything before taking action we'd never do anything. There are still scientists who dispute the correlation of smoking with lung cancer, yet most people accept it.

Science has never been about absolute certainty, a theory stands as the best explanation until it is disproven. But a lack of absolute certainty does not mean that a theory is inherently wrong. And when you have the vast majority of scientists in a field agreeing on a theory, you need a really good argument to refute it. So far there have been no really good arguments to refute the current position on AGW, just...perhaps there will be in the future, who knows. At the moment I'm convinced by the AGW argument - in my mind it stacks up pretty comprehensively.