Hello Mr Duck. You ask a very good question -

"How does the ordinary every-person come to some kind of intelligent informed understanding of the question/problem re whether climate change and global warming are real and/or caused by human activity?"

As an ordinary person (not academic elite) I might venture to offer an answer. And that is, I would like the AGW climate/elite persons to explain exactly the scientific facts about their beliefs and conjectures. Now that isn't too much to ask, is it?

Even the most complicated theoretical science can be put into formulae that us common folk can manage to get our heads around. We can then also witness that theory being played out in reality as we go about our ordinary feeble lives.

But climate "scientists" can't do that. That's their problem. I want facts. I want confirmation of those facts mathematically and I want repeatable, predictable life examples and experiments that demonstrate certainty. That's how the ordinary person comes to some kind of intelligent informed understanding about most things in their spheres of experience.

And I believe that also answers Ms Poirot's question put to Mr cohenite. "How is climate science different from medical science?"

Most respected medical science does offer repeatable, predictable life and death examples and experiments that do demonstrate reasonable certainty. That's how science works. It's not just a have-a-convenient-guess and then declare it as science. Especially when those who do, are seemingly doing it with overt, contemptuous, elitist authority.

voxUnius - quite right and a slap on the wrist to Poirot.

The difference is that there was proof and evidence for the germ theory. As I have pointed out many times, climate science needs a track record in successful forecasts - that is, some indication that the orthodoxy has some validity - to be taken seriously.

There are obviosly problems with forecasts over such a short period (20 years from the earliest IPCC forecasts), but the problem has never been tackled rigorously. Until that occurs, and climate scientists can point to a track record there is no reason to pay any attention to their forecasts.

Poirot, your point about germ theory and the ability of the masses to see and understand the scientific evidence for the theory is really the reason why the public have rejected AGW; AGW has not been proven and the evidence against it is substantial. If the public are capable of understanding evidence for a scientific theory they are capable of understanding evidence against a scientific theory.

Do you really think Joe Punter reads Murdoch, or listens to Jones, or watches Channel 9 and accepts holus bolus everything the journalists at those outlets say unquestioningly? If you do I have a bridge for sale which I would like you to look at.

Have you really ever considered it is the likes of you, no doubt self-assessed as one of Manne's elites, who is the gullible one and not the "ordinary person"?

Poirot, you fkn fantastic woman! You are still sane and managing to respond to the stupidity of the usual suspects on this suspect site; hang in there, truth will win out over the dark side.

I so admire you for coping with the hate and anger and triumphalism that is a feature of the right wing conservative personality - not to mention the ignorance and foolish claims that have been made in comments above.

Check out this website; it is an advice column that is just brilliant; lots of different problems and always I am impressed by the good sense shown in the response.

http://therumpus.net/2009/11/dear-sugar-26-emergency-whats-a-girl-to-do-about-glenn-beck-edition/

Cohenite's response to Poirot is much to the point. Here's another example, from my peer reviewed paper to the Australian Economic Society's Conference last year (ACE2011, available at that website and at my own, www.timcurtin.com.) From 1831 to 1864 there were some dreadful cholera epidemics in England and especially in London. The scientists of the day thought that cholera like Malaria was caused by a miasma in the air, which some even thought was CO2.

A London surgeon (John Snow) spotted that cholera was at its worst where the local water supply (eg Broad Street in Soho) was taken from adjacent sewerage outlets in the Thames, by mapping the domains of the deceaseds' source of water supply. There were several competing water supply companies then, and customers of those companies that obtained their water upstream from London proved to be immune to cholera. It took another ten years before Snow's conjecture was finally accepted.

My papers (ACE2011 and TSWJ 2012)show how while the level of CO2 in the atmosphere is virtually the same everywhere, the trends in temperature at places like Barrow in the Arctic, Mauna Loa in Hawaii, and Cape Grim in Tasmania show NIL correlation with atmospheric CO2, but are actually determined by changes in the levels of atmospheric water vapour which have nothing to do with CO2.

The actionable truth is that 100% of climate scientists refrain from performing econometric (i.e. least squares regressions) because the results are not to their likeing and/or grant applications, Hegerl & Zwiers, authors of AR4 AG1 Chapter 9 are exemplary.

Interesting point Poirot, but I think it's a matter of scale. It's hard to conduct and confirm an experiment on the Earth's climate. Not like a fetus you can throw in the bin; hitting the wall and sliding down, leaving a trail of blood. Hi runner!

Interesting in that you could one time eventually convince people of a theory without explaining the detail. Not sure it's possible in the age of marketing.

Spin, spiii -i -iin spin!

Just like every shop is always on sale, the boy has cried wolf too many times. BTW: Is anyone else suspicious of a shop that isn't on sale for any day of the year? wHO WOULD WALK INTO A SHOP THAT ISN'T ON SALE!

I don't want to believe any more. I have no desire to buy a Harbour Bridge.

I remain a vaguely interested AGW agnostic.

I also think we need to separate the existence of AGW from the likely success of a carbon tax or trading scheme.

In the end, WOman kind will do sweet FA until the last minute (It's always been a successful strategy for me), and it will turn out it's really not such a big problem, or else we'll find a way to cope.

No biggie really.