Good luck to those of you who are in personal denial about the strength of scientists' consensus on the compelling likelihood that the planet is warming due to human production of carbon Dioxide.

I remember, one year, patiently trying to convince several year seven boys that plovers do not have poison glands in their wings. It was plain that they knew far more than I ever would on the subject, even though I had checked my facts against my assumptions.

It seems as though the same mentality prevails in many of the comments here. I will offer one citation:

http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2011/10/bleak-prospects-for-avoiding-dangerous.html

Some may find entertaining, what the lads will have to say about this short summary. As for myself, I am retired, and am no longer paid to counter poor thinking habits.

Quote Prompete
Current total CO2 concentration represents less than one-twenty-fifth of one per cent.
Approximately five per cent of present atmospheric carbon dioxide is derived from burning fossil-fuels; that is, just 19 parts of CO2 per million parts of atmosphere.
End Quote
_____________________________________________________________________________________

I would like you to consider this simple thought experiment, paint all your windows with thick black paint.

1 What percentage of your house by volume would be black paint ?

2 What percentage of the radiation (light) do you think you would block.

Every object that has a temperature emits radiation which is dependant on its temperature. In the case of the earth it cools by emitting infra-red radiation. CO2 is opaque to certain wavelengths of the infra-red radiation thus reducing the rate at which the earth is able to cool.

Followed your advice Wamair. Took one hair from a black paintbrush, lightly dabbed it onto the top left corner of the loung window and......yep.... Nothing happened. That's 19 parts per million...... Not worried about the grand kids yet.

Perhaps you would prefer to talk with Cohenite again, he is far more paitient and polite than I, I generally ask the 7th Day Adventist knocking at my door to not bother, you know? Refer to Don's article above. Cheers.

Sir Vivor: "I'm giving the benefit of the doubt to the best evidence available: evidence confirming that anthropogenic global warming is happening, and is likely to wreak ecological and economic havoc."

It appears that you regard scientific consensus to be scientific evidence. If so, this is shameful for a science teacher with your experience.

On the other hand, if you are in the unique position of having found empirical scientific evidence that supports AGW, then don't be shy -- please table it for all to see.

With all these references to "the evidence" and "the precautionary principle" and "taking insurance"...

What IS the evidence? I don't mean ice core and tree ring data etc. which map changes over many years and are subject to much dispute over statistical treatment, but evidence that warming is taking place right now? And I don’t mean which grant-dependent researchers or journal gatekeepers are proclaiming what. Are there data that will translate into a graph for, say, mean global temperature for the past 15 years, no ifs or buts? Has such a graph been published, and if so what is a link to it?

What "insurance", precisely, is suggested and to what extent would that for example require a wind-back to, say, the way of life depicted by Pieter Brueghel? Answer in terms of required social measures, not ppmv CO2 since the relationship between ppmv CO2 and temperature is subject to dispute.

In citing the “precautionary principle” how about referring not only to the risk involved in doing nothing to “tackle climate change” but also to the risk of needlessly trashing the scientific and industrial revolution? If a little boy cries “Wolf” what precautions against any wolf are prudent, and at what level of wolf danger would that include burning the forest down?

If nuclear power is suggested, what is the carbon footprint of the process from minesite to delivered power, is it uranium-based or thorium-based (there's a huge social difference), and who would pick up the insurance premiums so that events like Fukushima are completely covered - and not by the taxpayer? On the way to an answer, how about an excursion into explaining just why many household insurance policies are currently subject to a nuclear exclusion?

The deniers are increasingly desperate in their attempt to discredit AGW and failing.

They link to debunked web sites or to ones that have cherry picked data like WeUseWishfulThinking, or graphs that do not tell the hole story and forget that the majority of anti AGW web sites are funded by the fossil fuel industry, as probably they are. Or they take a sentence out of context and hope that it stands as per the recent one from the leaked IPCC draft report.

They then start calling people names.

And they make up things like ‘increasing number of scientists are disputing AGW’ when the exact opposite is occurring or the scientists they mention have no expertise in the climate change that is happening.

They repeat myths that have been put down so many times it is funny.

In the mean time the world is warming and the deniers never put up credible evidence that it is not due to man.

There is not one peer reviewed anti AGW paper that has stood up to scrutiny, out of near 14000 papers on climate change only 24 do not support and they have been debunked.

Have you noticed how cohenite (and others) rambling are getting worse and desperate as he/she/they realises their little world is crumbling under the weight of evidence that the world is warming and it is due to man, and therefore nothing they say can be trusted.