Oh well I'll just add my tuppeny ha'porth to forestall the usual crowd who claim global warming is a myth or that it peaked in 1998.

It'll help if you open this graphic in a browser tab:

http://skepticalscience.com/graphics/ENSO_Temps_500.gif

It's compiled from data supplied by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) for the skepticalscience.com website.

The graphic shows mean global temperatures by year classified as follows:

--El Nino present (red squares)

--La Nina present (blue squares)

--Neutral -no El Nino or La Nina (black squares)

The last El Nino year was in 2005. 2009 was not the hottest year on record but it was the hottest La Nina year on record. Ditto 2010 was the hottest neutral year on record while 2012 was the second hottest La Nina year. This gives the lie to claims that global warming stopped in 1998. When we adjust for the effects of El Nino and La Nina we see there has been no "pause" in global warming.

1998, the year the "sceptics" point to when they claim global warming peaked, was an exceptionally strong El Nino year. It is not surprising that it is such an outlier in the temperature record.

For explanations about El Nino and La Nina see:

http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/history/ln-2010-12/ENSO-what.shtml

Those who are interested might also want to read:

What ocean heating reveals about global warming

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2013/09/what-ocean-heating-reveals-about-global-warming/

Here are links to two excellent websites for people who are interested in learning about climate science:

http://skepticalscience.com/

http://www.realclimate.org/

Real science, not the pseudo-science of either the Murdoch owned media or the ABC.

A few more points.

Ehrlich along with people like Flannery, Suzuki and Al Gore are NOT climate scientists. They're not even scientists.

They are members of what has become a CLIMATE CELEBRITY CIRCUIT or CCC. You should pay no more attention to them than to pundits like Andrew Bolt and James Delingpole.

Focus on what actual scientists say in peer reviewed journals, not on the froth emanating from "pro" and "anti" evangelists. The evangelists, "pro" AND "anti" are trying to sell you a product. Trust them as little as you would a used car salesman or politician.

Thanks stevenlmayer.

The fundamental message, as hard as it is to swallow, is that fossil-fuels must remain buried. That a (now ex-) Big Oil/Coal/Gas man, Ian Dunlop is saying so is excellent. However it will be business as usual until we again have a government, of whatever political persuasion, that bites the bullet on this.

Australia can, and should, act unilaterally, regardless of where the rest of the world is at right now, and it can do it without adversely affecting our industry while preparing it for a global ETS system when the world is inevitably forced down our same path. (I brainstorm this briefly at http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=6023#173266 plus see follow-up comments. This is where OLO discussion should now progress rather than dealing with denialism)

The science IS settled, and no amount of squirming and avoidance can bring escape from its fundamental conclusion, expressed by Ian Dunlop.

>>Australia can, and should, act unilaterally, regardless of where the rest of the world is at right now>>

Just to be clear:

The science and the policy responses to the science are separable issues. My intent in the previous posts was to point out some facts about the science.

FOR THE RECORD:

I do NOT, repeat NOT, believe Australia acting unilaterally would serve any useful purpose. I do NOT, repeat NOT, endorse any such policy.

I do think we should be building more dams though.

Why not, stevenlmeyer?

The resources in the ground will still be there if the world does not follow, become more valuable as their supply becomes shorter. We can sell them off in the future to finance a nice life for all of us until the curtain comes down.

Furthermore, we will have no obligation towards the compensating third world adversely affected by the first world's failure to limit warming to 2 degrees as we will not be culpable for the affects.

Please share your reasons, stevenlmeyer, as this discussion must be had on OLO and everywhere.

stevenlmeyer - look, sorry but your first post added precisely nothing to the debate. That attempt to adjust for la ninas and el ninos to explain the 15 year pause, for example, is ludicrous. All it really shows that the la nina and whatnot have heating and cooling effect around an average of the temperature increase. The fact that you can draw lines which sort of averages the increase between the two dates you give, goes without saying. The period is sufficiently long so that on the right graph the pause doesn't look too bad. But to really explain the pause you need the la ninas and volcanic eruptions and so on to be clustered up around the pause.

To make matters worse for you explanation everyone now agrees that there has been a pause. The accepted explanation is that the heat has gone into the oceans, plus some cooling from aerosols. the other approach is to treat the current pause as too short to be worthy of attention. Its all natural variation, so they now tell us. I think that graph has been taken from old material

Fossil fuels must remain buried? Well no! Not all fossil fuels are the same or contribute as much to global warming!
Take fully imported Middle East oil and compare that with traditional Australian sweet light crude.
Fully imported oil has gone through at least two energy consuming carbon causing refinery processes, before it arrives in this or any other country, and also has a considerable carbon footprint added to it when it does!
Whereas, Australian sweet light crude traditionally leaves the ground as a virtually ready to use diesel, needing only a little insitu, chill filtering to make it engine ready.
Meaning, from well head to harvester, Australian sweet light crude, produces only 25% of the carbon created in total, by fully imported foreign oil!
Meaning if we were actually serious about climate change, would would immediately start to explore and exploit the reef, for its possible bonanza of low carbon creating alternatives!
Besides, NG can be consumed in ceramic fuel cells, with the end result, the production of very cheap energy, and pristine water, but little if any carbon!
Which is hardly the case for Canadian tar sands or shale oil!
We need to grow more food, and cannot do that without using more energy and water, not to mention the demands for more soil nutrients. And we simply cannot achieve that by pricing the input products, fuel, water and fertilizer, off the table!
There are answers, that don't have to include fossil fuel, but quite large funding imposts.
They include an inland shipping canal!
Salt water can be used in underground applications to grow a variety of crops! Those very crops and orchards, will help mitigate against both global warming and carbon caused climate change!
The answers include quite massive reliance on non fossilized algae sourced fuels, and the converting of waste to energy, rather than pumping massive amounts of energy into it, to pump it out to sea, where it simply compounds many of the problems, we already confront!
Rhrosty

steven you seem to have some sensible ideas but have fallen into the pit of pseudo science of AGW big-time.

1998 is irrelevant to the issue of the temperature pause. Look at this neat, and scientifically valid analysis by Walter Brozek:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/04/08/are-climate-models-realistic-now-includes-at-least-february-data/

Walter analyses the official temperature data from all the main sources including the satellites. Brozek uses 2 criteria; the first from NOAA to test for flatness or zero warming; the second from Dr Phil Jones to test for no statistical warming; the 2 criteria overlap with the second allowing for some slight warming and the first for even cooling. The first shows zero temperature for 15 years; the second for up to 23 years. The first is climatically significant by NOAA standards, the second by Dr Santer’s standards. This means the temperature is not being caused by AGW. The only line going up is CO2.

1998 is irrelevant to this analysis which uses official criteria for measuring temperature trends. I really don't see how you can argue against this.

And again another doomsday, alarmist article about AGW with not a fact between its silly ears up and running on OLO.

Rhostry, that I understand certain fossil fuel use in mining and agriculture is unavoidable based on the current level of alternative energy technology. But given Australia is the most urbanized country in the world we are well placed for nuclear (thorium), which is a major and inescapable part of the bullet we must bite. So too is pricing carbon, so both major sides of politics have give up something to get us where we must go.

Curmy, cohenite and stevenlmeyer, given the nature of the article we are discussing, your conversation on the cause of GW is background noise and can be pursued (please? on the other threads already running for this purpose on OLO. This thread is for adults who accept the CO2 and AGW hypotheses are sufficiently supported by the evidence.

I'm off air for a few days and I'll be interested in how this thread progresses by the time I re-enter. Best wishes all.

An inland shipping canal connected to rapid rail would negate the need to dredge new harbors up and down the coral coast.
It would allow oil laden shipping to have a shorter less energy dependent route, that would be subject to fewer tropical storms, although there would still be some still destructive summer storms in some areas!
Current geological barriers, (low hills etc) could be transformed into safe parking areas for storm affected shipping.
Most of the dredging could be conducted or completed almost exclusively by cutter dredges, which would reduce turbidity to an environmentally acceptable level.
A canal would relieve/reroute most of the shipping traffic that currently arrives here via the Great Barrier Reef.
Lock gates and a dual lane system, would allow huge 13-15 metre northern tides, to move shipping in and out, along with endless recharge water!
Simply damming the dams and locking up lower cost, lower carbon creating, essential energy products, is not going to allow us to grow more food!
Nor will closing our minds to cheaper lower carbon creating fuels, simply because of their location!
An already dead reef can hardly be further harmed by a few pressure reliving holes, which if not drilled, will eventually allow even more hydrocarbon products to escape, and eventually exponentially add to greenhouse gas emission, and foul (mystery oil slicks) even even more parts of still living reef!
Due to the ongoing effects of tectonic plate contraction, and consequent geological fracturing across possibly quite massive hydrocarbon reserves!
The totally closed locked and bolted mindet and rigid recalcitrant risible approach of the ideological warrior, is more than almost anything else we confront, part of the reason we can't seem to make any progress, in arriving at viable solutions!
Rhrosty.

I agree that both carbon pricing and Nuclear option (thorium) are both part of the solutions we must have.
However, I don't agree with a market based approach or an ETS, which as shown in Europe?
Is not only ineffective in actually reducing carbon, but is subject to all sorts of rorts and or corruption?
The problem with a market based approach and rising carbon prices, is this product could become the most traded and therefor the most valuable commodity in the world; churn historically huge amounts of money, and employ literal millions for no or little actual effect?
Yes we should have a a progressively lowered cap and then tax only those emissions above that cap!
Broker free Penalty and reward, which could be tax credits for lowering emission products and a tax for exceeding it?
We should also dump the national grid, which has become a very expensive gold plated white elephant and contributes around half the emission of coal fired power, via transmission line losses.
Local power would be a far better option and cheaper than coal thorium lends itself to that, as does helium cooled pebble reactors, which could be trialled on some shipping or submersibles.
We should also explore hydrogen and the water molecule cracking method of making it; utilizing sea water and solar thermal heat.
Once the infrastructure costs are recovered, we could make endlessly sustainable hydrogen using this older solid state method, for just a few cents a cubic metre!
Rhrosty.

Re Rhrosty’s inland shipping canal!

Well one way would be the link below;
http://www.mp3olimp.net/the-goon-show-the-africa-ship-canal/
And as for the “Lock gates and a dual lane system, would allow huge 13-15 metre northern tides, to move shipping in and out, along with endless recharge water!”

Well of course the bloke to bring into this project with his amazing genius would be Colin Barnett . He of course has the answer with his penetrating insight, the canal would run From the North to the South so the water would run downhill from the equator and bring the ships with it.

Aaah yes. He's back. Ehrlich that is. I cringe whenever I hear his name. His loyal devotees are legendary in their willingness to put up with the continued failure of his predictions. They still BELIEVE no matter what. Ian Dunlop, too, Club of Rome member gets a mention too. He is a former Chairman of the oil,gas and coal association but having profited nicely from that venture has joined other former industry execs in their new quest for fame and fortune in the world of Big Green.

As for the "too many people" hypothesis, I'm afraid this simplistic Malthusian view of the world goes nowhere these days. The world is better off than its ever been.

Stevenlmeyer trying "to forestall the usual crowd who claim global warming is a myth or that it peaked in 1998", is like pushing it up hill with a sharp stick, you just can't do it.

No matter how much you, Jenny, Luci & the others huff & puff, the truth as told by observation, is becoming overwhelming. Time to give up the scam, & go do something useful.

For many it is time to have the guts to say what they really mean. That is we must get serious about world population in general, & Oz population in particular.

If this comes across as mean & nasty, so be it. Trying to cover your nasty desire for self preservation with some gobbledegook about global warming is a cop out.

Leave the global warming fabrication for the fairies down the bottom of the garden, & get honest with what must be done. Cover-ups never work, & only discredit the real message

Is there any more convincing demonstration of the strength of the environmentalists' Reality Distortion Field than the fact that Paul Ehrlich not only still has a job, but is invited and flown to gatherings of the faithful all around the world to give them at length the same warnings and predictions he has been absolutely and unequivocally mistaken about -- in principle and in detail -- since the very beginning of his career?

This is a man who has been demonstrably wrong about every single claim he has made in public since 1967. It's an absolute dead rock-solid certainty that if Ehrlich says something in public, it's a falsehood. Even if there was no other evidence against AGW, the fact that Ehrlich believes in it would almost be enough in itself to prove it false.

Making connections? making risible and absurd social science. Ehrlich was a joke back in 1970s and now, like the Kracken, he has surfaced again. Who pays for this anachronism to come out here? Who funds these conferences?

You and I do.

It's time we had a look at how Goldie's organisation, the SPA, is using generous tax deductable donations to promote a social engineering agenda. The SPA is NOT an environmental group nor is it a charity but an anti-population lobby group.

They should have their tax deductability removed.

Malcolm paddy Cheryl King: you say,
"The SPA is NOT an environmental group nor is it a charity but an anti-population lobby group."
Is there something wrong with that?
I would have thought that any one with any cerebral processes at all would be donating like mad to them to do something about it.

For denialists
Australia’s record breaking heat continues
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=599335653463672&set=a.171427712921137.44816.170992086298033&type=1&theater
October 2, 2013
warmest 12 months on record
From the BoM FaceBook page.
Breaking the previous record set in August by a substantial margin, September 2013 was also Australia’s hottest September on record—setting a new record for Australia’s largest positive monthly mean temperature anomaly (+2.69 °C).
The entire continent is experiencing above-average-to-highest-on-record temperatures.
Summer looks grim.

I'm afraid Bobby Page, no.

The anti-populationists collected less than 9,000 votes nationally in the Federal election. This is laughable. Some university political groups poll better than that.

The SPA are falsely representing themselves as an environmental group and therefore falsely claiming tax deductivity. Any one with any cerebral processes would understand the logic of that one.

The satellite temperatures prove the lie of the BOM's claims of the hottest ever year:

http://joannenova.com.au/2013/09/australias-record-hottest-12-month-period-junk-science-say-the-satellites/

A detailed analysis of BOM's methodology has been done by Australian scientist, Dr Bill Johnson:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/07/21/australias-average-temperature/

Bill concludes:

"1.Australia’s averaged temperature data were impacted on by climate shifts in the 1950’s, 1970’s 2002 and 2010. After deducting the impact of those natural events, no residual warming trend was evident that could be related to atmospheric CO2 levels.

2.Australia’s, ‘hot decade’ (2000-2010) was used to relentlessly market global warming by Australia’s Climate Commission; the Bureau of Meteorology; green groups and politicians in order to stir a sense of catastrophe and climate-fear. However, the fear was unfounded; the drought and associated high temperatures were a temporary aberration caused by El Niño cycles, not global warming.

3.The 2010 down-step exposed much of that decade’s climate-grooming as false and deceptive. Deceit continues under the guise of “climate change”. There is no evidence at this time that climate change and CO2 concentration in the atmosphere are related.

4.The outcome of Australia’s looming election will make no difference to the climate, or to the likelihood or impact of future climate changes. Ditching the carbon tax together with ‘direct action’ would save the Nation’s taxpayers many billions of AUD$ which would be better spent on Nation-building and improving access to services"

The promulgation of alarmism using shonky statistics by Australian and other scientific organisations which are funded by the taxpayer is nothing short of a scandal.

The useful idiots who adopt a superior tone but lack the wit to recognise their own gullibility in swallowing this garbage is merely a staple aspect of the human condition.

Robert LePage - so after 25 years of grim warning about climate armageddon that's all you can point to.. a record temperature summer without condescending to say how much the record has been exceeded by. The 2.69 figure you quote is the total amount above a selected base line, not the amount of the increase over the previous hot September, so it doesn't tell us anything (its far too large to be anything else, something you should have realised). You'll find that the average for this September exceeds any previous September (back in the 1930s, probably) by a tiny amount, but you'll really have to scrape through the records to work it out. Most unimpressive.

Due the evolution of our economy, it has become linked with and based on population growth. While "growth" may be "good", we end up with higher and higher populations! We have populations growing, in Australia and globally, and at the same time declining natural resources, soils, fertilizers, potable water - overlayed by increasing temperatures and climate change. This inverse relationship is not sustainable, obviously. While Thomas Matheus may have been dismissed, due to increasing knowledge and technology in food production, whether it can outpace soaring demands is another thing.
We should be carefully adhering to the cautionary principle - by stablizing our population, investing in research into food and alternative energy production. and protecting our valuable food-producing land. Of course, this won't happen as long term concerns are outside the frame of reference of governments who are not responsible for time frames any further than economic growth, and the next elections.

The main driver to world population increase is Islam; what do the Ehrlich disciples plan to do about Islam?

Came across this interesting website courtesy of an essay by Helen Caldicott re nuclear power and global climate change (etc) on the Age website. http://www.ieer.org/carbonfree

Meanwhile as usual my favorite Avatar had this to say about the humanly created world in the 21st century and how business as usual is not an option. http://www.dabase.org/p2anthro.htm

cohenite wrote:

>>The main driver to world population increase is Islam; what do the Ehrlich disciples plan to do about Islam?>>

That's a common misperception. I wrote a piece on that about a year ago.

See:

The great Muslim TFR mystery

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=13944&page=0

See also comments where I present additional data.

While birthrates in Muslim countries are still quite high, they are falling rapidly and in countries such as Iran are now below replacement.

The outlier is sub-Saharan Africa

The only misconception is yours steven because you only look at HALF of the situation, the Muslim half; the non-muslim half shows TFR far less than replacement which means the above TFR population increase of muslims is MUCH greater than the non-muslim below TFR.

Watch this and maybe the condescending smirk will disappear from your face:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-3X5hIFXYU

I suppose I am not surprised by this given your support of the statistics of AGW.

Making connections, where is the empirical evidence connecting population (growth) with climate change?

It's not the point is it? Ehrlich was an assoicate of John Tanton's at ZPG then popped up again on the board of FAIR, then distanced himself "publicly" after Tanton was candid about his views of brown people etc..

What is Tanton's &/or Ehrlich's relationship with Dick Smith and Bob Carr? Why did O'Connor of SPA/SPP and Birrell et al of CPUR at Monash University contribute to Tanton's journal The Social Contract Press?

"TSCP puts an academic veneer of legitimacy over what are essentially racist arguments about the inferiority of today's immigrants."

By coincidence news from US today "The Population Bomb and the anti immigrant lobby" http://tinyurl.com/ph64mth

Just in the case the anti population trolls go all ad hominen (while claiming they are victims) my interests and some researched articles can be found here: http://tinyurl.com/nvg8tyc

They seem to have an issue with Australians who think clearly and have some conviction about the truth :)

Cheryl wrote: The anti-populationists collected less than 9,000 votes nationally in the Federal election.

Well it just goes to show that apart from the success of the denialist propaganda, you are blind when you have your head in the sand.

cohenite wrote: The main driver to world population increase is Islam; what do the Ehrlich disciples plan to do about Islam?

You know Muslims will die from extreme weather, from starvation and lack of water, just like everyone else.

There is one very remarkable graph that shows world population growth and oil consumption.

They don't just track closely but exactly !
The implication is that when oil production declines then population
"should" follow it down, however there are now new energy sources such as nuclear & solar electricity.
I will see if I can find it again.

Which economic dreamland did you get this from, Luciferase?

>>The resources in the ground will still be there if the world does not follow, become more valuable as their supply becomes shorter. We can sell them off in the future to finance a nice life for all of us until the curtain comes down<<

It is a policy guaranteed to impoverish not only ourselves, but future generations as well.

While it is true that if you don't dig it up, it stays there, the assumption that this somehow makes it more valuable is, frankly, laughable.

What you misunderstand about those resources is that they have no intrinsic value whatsoever. Coal would be worthless without furnaces designed to burn it, and those furnaces have a cost-threshold level above which they become economically unviable. If coal became scarce/too expensive, they'd simply shut down. Iron ore would have no value unless there were places that could smelt it, and below a certain volume they too become unprofitable. And if refusing to pump oil out of the ground caused the eventual disappearance of petrol-driven vehicles, who will you sell it to, when you finally deign to allow its sale?

You might also like to consider (that's jut a turn of phrase, by the way; I know you wouldn't really) the impact of "keeping it in the ground" on today's economy. There have been some extremely large investments in the mining sector recently which have been made in the expectation of a particular volume of output, so reducing the output would quickly send those businesses to the wall.

One of the messages I have drummed into my kids over the years is "think it through". It's been good advice, they tell me.

Pericles, thank you for being prepared to at least contemplate the real issue, despite the tenor. So, let's move from my brainstorm to thinking it through.

All depends on whether you are prepared to start with the premise that CO2 and AGW hypotheses are sufficiently supported and, globally, fossil fuels MUST remain buried to achieve a 2 degree limit on global average surface air temperature by 2100. If you aren't then, for the sake of argument, please think it through with me hypothetically.

Let's say Australia converts its power generation from a carbon base to a thorium-nuclear base. That might take 25-40 years to service all our major population centres if we get started soon. Fossil fuels will be needed for long-haul transport until hydrogen (water electrolysis) becomes viable in a distribution sense. Agriculture will need diesel for longer. Metallurgical need for coal will remain, especially for aluminium and iron, unless non-emitting extractive technologies arise. Cement making will be unavoidably produce CO2, which it may become possible to directly geo-sequestrate. Our carbon footprint would be massively reduced further by solar and wind developments within and beyond the grid.

Through all this, we would be diminishingly using our fossil-fuel assets. We must necessarily arrive at a point where profit opposes the need for self-preservation. That is the point where our decendants decide either to leave what is left in the ground or sell what is beyond their need e.g. They may wish to sell coal for industrial purposes but not for energy production. Whatever, let them decide.

If the world fails to follow our path, there will remain a massive need for fossil-fuels. Also, the price will be high as they will be globally depleted. Please explain, Pericles, why there will be neither the need nor a high price if the rest of the world fails to adopt the necessary remedy to AGW.

cont'd

My approach puts the decision of what to do with Australia's remaining buried fuels into the hands of our descendants rather than us choosing to send them to oblivion through our inability to bite the necessary bullet.

Regarding mining investors (let's stick to talking about energy miners), 25-40 years is a satisfactory profit horizon. They are going to have to bite on the same bullet, and negotiate with our descendants over what will ultimately their decision.

With regard to both your criticisms, Pericles, it's a case of "you can't have your cake and eat it too" in caring for our descendants.

Thorium is the way to go and I dispute it would take the grid 25-40 years to convert from fossils to Thorium or even 4th generation nuclear.

I don't think there is a peak oil aspect to fossils at all so protecting a diminishing resource in the hope it will be worth more to our descendants is spurious.

In any event AGW is a failed theory but it would have been partially worthwhile if it had facilitated the development of genuine new energy sources such as Thorium but instead all that is happened due to the pernicious influence of the Greens is that $billions have been wasted on the chimeras of wind and solar.

With all of the hype about nuclear power, are you prepared to risk another Fukushima? If you are, then I will not argue with you any more.
Risky Repair of Fukushima Could Spill 15,000 Times the Radiation of Hiroshima, Create 85 Chernobyls http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/19073-risky-repair-of-fukushima-could-spill-15000-times-the-radiation-of-hiroshima-create-85-chernobyls
The Crisis at Fukushima’s Unit 4 Demands a Global Take-Overhttp://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/09/20-1
Nuclear Crisis at Fukushima Could Spew Out More Than 15,000 Times as Much Radiation as Hiroshima Bombing http://www.truth-out.org/buzzflash/commentary/item/18208-nuclear-crisis-at-fukushima-could-spew-out-more-than-15-000-times-as-much-radiation-as-hiroshima-bombing

Zero-emission power generation has to be a part of getting us out of the warming problem without severely curtailing standard of living. Clean energy will be at the basis of cleaning up every other environmental problem we create, also.

Uranium is passe. Also Australia is one of the world's largest thorium producers and

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium-based_nuclear_power

http://www.forbes.com/sites/williampentland/2011/09/11/is-thorium-the-biggest-energy-breakthrough-since-fire-possibly/

Here's a quick and breathless coverage of the benefits of liquid fluoride thorium reactors (LFTR aka "lifters"):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2vzotsvvkw (the first four minutes are about water cooled uranium reactors)

Or, you can take your time at http://energyfromthorium.com/

If there is "Direct Action" money it would most effectively be directed towards lifters.

The last thing the world needs is plentiful fracked oil to extend the life of a world carbon economy. The C02 and AGW hypotheses are more than sufficiently supported, and we must begin decarbonizing to limit warming to 2 degree by 2100.

"The C02 and AGW hypotheses are more than sufficiently supported, and we must begin decarbonizing to limit warming to 2 degree by 2100."

Typical argument by pronouncement; and regrettably comes from someone who otherwise seems reasonably sensible and well informed.

As part of your re-education research Ozymandias and King Knut as exemplars of the arrogance of humans who think they are important and powerful enough to control the weather.

You actually do believe this rubbish about that poor harmless plant food CO2 causing dangerous global warming don't you Luci?

Here is a suggestion. Write an explanation of why you believe it. Don't defer to authority, but try to understand & explain the theory.

If you put enough effort into trying to explain how CO2 can cause dangerous global warming, you will find you can't, & will ultimately understand it just can't happen.

Hell even the IPCC has backed away from all their fear mongering, & admitted there will be no dangerous warming this century. This is the first step in then getting the hell out of a dying cause, & looking for another scare they can use to rip off the west, to fund the dysfunctional societies of the world

I've already given up on the other climate thread trying to educate Hasbeen, who insists carbon dioxide is plant food, and who thinks he has a grasp of the IPCC technical report he obviously hasn't read.

Luciferase" It is hard to understand why Hasbeen and ilk, cannot or perhaps more likely, will not grasp AGW.
The reason has to be either because he ( and they) are getting a stipend from vested interests or they are genuinely unable to face the devastating facts of the ultimate results.
They continue to ignore the facts as they happen around the world and finish up with the ridiculous theory of a conspiracy of thousands of scientists from all over in a well crafted and choreographed performance to what end?
get more grants to add to their ill gotten gains?
This is so far fetched that the normal thinking person cannot understand what brings them to do it.
One day the penny will drop that they are out in fairy land and it is all in their minds.

We know CO2 is used in greenhouses to replenish levels depleted by photosythesizing plants. But what about plant growth out in the field? http://news.stanford.edu/news/2002/december11/jasperplots-124.html

dear oh dear most obviously are not old enough to remember the global cooling scare, the ozone oil scare, the peak oil scare. How many more failed predictions before the gullible wake up. The true scientist must be very frustrated.

I'm old enough to remember a fair bit, and to have forgotten as much. Thank you for reminding me that global action is reversing the growth of the ozone hole by changing refrigerants and propellants.

We can mitigate global warming with non-emitting power generation which can also be used to solve environmental problems and produce food. These are all connected. Cleaning up after ourselves adds to GDP.