"When JKJ's most forceful rebuttal is "You've lost the argument" - and "....BWAHAHAHAHAHAH..." you know you're dealing with a giant of intellect."

My most forceful rebuttal is the questions that you keep running away from because you know they prove you wrong and you have no answer for them.

So your misrepresenting what my argument is, is just more intellectual dishonesty on your part.

All
Still looking, folks.

You see unlike the warmists, who assume they're right from the outset and then look for something, anything, to confirm it, I always *ask* them what makes their belief rational, and then seek to falsify my own beliefs.

My questions of Poirot and all warmists are just that. An attempt to have the warmists prove me wrong. They seek to know whether they have the information, or the process of reasoning, they would need in order for their beliefs to be rational, and disprove mine, even in their own terms.

And yet all we get from all of them is simply evasion. Faced with the opportunity to prove me wrong, and them right, they simply don't answer, and try re-running all their gabble-yarp all over again.

The reason NOT ONE of them has ever answered them, is because they can't, obviously, otherwise they would have done it.

It's the warmists who are the real denialists. Their method is to fervently hold an article of faith, circularly seek to confirm it, castigate anyone who dares to question it, and steadfastly reject any fact, any thought, and any process of reasoning that does not conform with it - the exact opposite of science.

These people are just a throwback to the worst kind of dark ages superstition, and they JUST HAPPEN to be funded to the tune of billions by the State which has every interest in encouraging it.

Ask them to demonstrate the rational basis of their assertions about "science" and ... nothing, nada, zip, zero, not a sausage.

Don Aitkin...at it again:)...Well Don, the cooking's are still in the oven as per-unmasked. I try to give an honest opinion, "but" ( and I know you hate that word)....speaks of higher volumes.

Tally

Very useful article by Don Aitken but can I take the debate about what we should be doing one step further in terms of our goal being something that people can understand and which better reflects what people are actually doing to cause climate change? Instead of setting 2 degrees C or 450ppm CO2 as the desirable goal, we should be saying to world governments things such as:
* motor vehicle engine technology allows cars to have fuel efficiencies of 3 litres per 100km - this should be the world standard and all governments should mandate this as their 2020 target
and
* solar hot water systems are environmentally and economically sustainable in climates that enjoy X hours of sunlight per day and average year-round temperatures of Y degrees C - all governments should implement policies to assist 100% of private dwellings to have a solar hot water system on their roof
and
* lighting technology has moved beyond incandescent globes to compact fluorescents or LEDs or whatever, with an energy usage of ..... etc - governments should move to phase out incandescent bubs by 2020
and
* waste to landfill should be banned by 2025 and all domestic waste used in waste to energy plants in all towns or cities with urban populations above 50,000 people
and
......I hope you can see what I'm suggesting. Stop pushing a difficult to understand goal that's remote from human conceptualisation and instead provide a list of what's achievable right now and ask all governments of the world to commit to these practical steps, most of which provide economic as well as environmental benefits far in excess of their costs.

Bernie, your suggestions shows that you are not understanding the issues.

Rationality requires that we compare apples with apples. In order to avoid making a suggestion that is not simply illogical, in order to avoid coming up with a "solution" that is actually worse than the original problem, we need to use the same measure to compare the different things we are talking about, whether that is the same angle, or the same length, or the same common denominator, or whatever.

You're not doing that, so your suggestion fails to meet the most basic standard of rationality.

If you add a value on one side of the equation, and don't account for the same value on the other side of the equation, it means your process of reasoning is invalid.

You can't just *ASSUME* that the actions of government automatically and necessarily make the use of resources more optimal for satisfying society's most urgent and important needs. If you don't understand why, let me know and I'll explain, because there's a number of important reasons.

And those reasons totally invalidate your suggestion.

For your suggestion to be rational and therefore valid as a starter, you need to take into account the relevant human evaluations in the use of resources in both scenarios, for example, policy action versus policy inaction. You haven't done that.

Go ahead. Show your workings because I have never seen anyone do it yet, and I don't believe they can. I think it's just an irrational belief system, like the traditional Christian religious belief that the world is going to end soon because of man's sin.

Prove me wrong please?

"In order to avoid making a suggestion that is not simply illogical..."

Sorry, I mean in order to avoid making a suggestion that is simply illogical.

Jardine, the point of my post was not to suggest that the measures I listed would reduce global CO2 emissions by X million tonnes. It was to explain to the public that the measures needing to be taken to move from our current fossil-fuel dependent economy to one that is more carbon free will have to have a host of actions taken that look like some of the suggestions I listed. The climate change debate has, in my view, gone way beyond the science (which shows that anthropogenic CO2 is causing most of the changes we're seeing to our climate) to the political and social actions needed to act responsibly in response to the science. Sorry if my original post wasn't clear enough to explain that I'm not focused on any one side of the energy equation which I think you were referring to.