Hi Noel,

It may have escaped your attention but the CAGW scare is imploding. This is mostly because of the alarmism and cheating associated with every single claim. That’s why the “scientist” who did the Polar Bear trash has been fired. That’s why the entire global infrastructure built to meet these alarmist claims has collapsed.

Your rear guard action is futile. Of course Australians should be aware of the risk of excess sun exposure, this is not a global warming attribute, just an Australian one.

You have clearly vested much energy in the promotion of CAGW scares, but sooner rather than later you are going to have to decide something. You have to chose between dropping it now, formulating an exit plan, having a “bob each way” or sticking with “please God let me be right”.

You choice of course however, the only things standing between you and career ending embarrassment are the ABC and Fairfax. Trust who you like.

Thank you, Noel, for a timely and informative article. I agree with you that we could be taking action to reduce skin cancer risk by working to reduce global warming, but action is long term and, unfortunately, susceptible to politics and disinformation. In the shorter term, again I agree that we should be more sun safe: "slip-slop-slap: big hats, avoiding the sun at the most dangerous times of the day, and wearing high SPF clothing. These should slow down the rate at which children and adolescents develop skin cancers.
For those of us, like me, in our sixties who frolicked freely in the sun in our youth the damage is mostly already done and we must regularly spend time checking our bodies for signs of cancers. Some can be frozen off and some can be cut out once they have developed to a recognisable size. It would seem more efficient to use Efudix [fluorouracil] cream to remove keratoses before they develop into something worse. With a maximum permitted coverage of 2% of the body and a cost of $53 a tube for that area Efudix can be very expensive in the long run: why is it not covered by the PBS?

Perhaps the question should be asked as to whether the now prevalent use of various creams etc to prevent sunburn has increased the incidence of both skin and other cancers. After all the ingredients of most/all of them are highly toxic and get absorbed directly into the body via the skin.

Most climate change is natural, not man made. Natural climate changes happen suddenly and rapidly.

How significant is man's contribution to climate change? Is our contribution good or bad? Will it increase or decrease the probability of, and time to, a sudden climate change? Will our contributions increase or decrease the negative consequences of a sudden climate change?

Why should we believe the planet is at the optimum temperature for life just when we happen to be alive?

What is the persuasive evidence that warmer would be net bad for flora and fauna?

Warming has been greatly beneficial since the ice age and since the Little Ice Age, and for the past half century. So, why do we believe it won’t continue to be beneficial. Where is the strongly persuasive evidence that warming will not continue to be beneficial?

Could it be that we naturally fear the unknown and that is biasing the scientists research? Could it be that, just as it seems climate sensitivity has been overstated for the past 30 years or so, the damage function has also been overstated – the negative consequences have been overestimated and the benefits under researched and under estimated?

We know life struggles in the ice ages. The are of deserts expanded. high winds blew the topsoil away and caused wide spread sand dunes and loess deposits. The Antarctic ice cores have high concentrations of dust during cold period and low during warm periods. And the coral reefs almost died out.

Conversely, when the planet has been in much warmer times than now, life thrived. The area of deserts shrunk. Coral reefs expanded and thrived. Oil was deposited from thriving life in calm warm sees.

cont...

“In a new study, 'The Positive Externalities of Carbon Dioxide', Idso estimates that rising CO2 concentrations boosted global crop production by $3.2 trillion during 1961-2011, and will increase output by another $9.8 trillion between now and 2050.” http://www.globalwarming.org/2013/10/22/social-cost-of-carbon-do-the-monetary-benefits-of-co2-emissions-outweigh-the-costs/

My interpretation of Richard Tol’s Figure 3 here: http://www.copenhagenconsensus.com/sites/default/files/climate_change.pdf is that, excluding energy costs, warming would be net beneficial to above 4 C from now. I believe low cost energy is plausable. If Richard Tol’s Figure 3 is roughly correct, if we cut the cost of energy, then GW may be net beneficial to beyond 4 C warming from now.
Look at Figures 15.21 and 15.22, pp392-392 here and read the associated text: http://eprints.nuim.ie/1983/1/McCarron.pdf . It seems to me the flora and fauna thrived during the warming periods and struggled and died out during the cooling periods. Life loves warming.

To repeat my initial question: why do we believe Earth happens to be at the optimum temperature just when we happen to be here?

Noel, your concern about skin cancer is reasonable, but your baseless connection of it to climate change is not.

You show yourself to be just one more supporter of the AGW fraud. There are already too many of these, despite the fact that there is no science to support the assertion that human activity has any effect on climate which is not trivial and insignificant