"Ruler-of-the-World Robert,"

Ah; if only.

Viv Forbes is seriously confused. He allows himself to be side-tracked by inventing his own definition of ‘pollutant’ as a substance that must be visible to the human eye. He claims that carbon dioxide affects temperature only in ‘theoretical climate models’. And he somehow concludes that by rejecting renewable energy he can safely reject the science of climate change.

This kind of nonsense would be harmless except for one thing. The conflation of climate scepticism with renewable energy scepticism damages the considered and genuine case that modern renewable energy sources (not the timber, windmills, whale oil and beasts of burden of the past) might not be the effective replacement for fossil fuels that so many advocates claim. This is, I fear, the same logical trap that many conservative governments the world over have fallen into. On economic grounds they resist expensive measures to reduce emissions with solar and wind energy but then they fail to declare, forcefully as they should, that they fully accept the authoritative conclusions of international climate science.

Retaining some, or even much, doubt about the prospect of running an industrialised economy on renewable energy is sensible and logical. Rejecting the physics, chemistry and mathematics of climate science is not. We need to find workable ways of combating climate change or of learning to live with it. Ignoring it is dangerous

Another technically wrong post from Viv Forbes. This seems to be the trend on OLO, those who write about science are lawyers and retired geologists, not people with any expertise on the topic.

That might not matter except for the Dunning-Kruger bit where these writers think they are more expert than those who have spent the professional careers examining the topics.

Talking about lawyers, why haven't we had an article bashing the BOM today. They have after all just published an analysis stating 2014 was the third warmest year on record in Australia after 2013 and 2005.

http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/current/annual/aus/

And then 2014 will probably come out as the warmest year on record. So there will have to be a new start to cherry picking. "Global temperatures haven't risen since 2014".

Nice sensible article Viv, but you sure have to give the greens one thing.

They are great at networking, & raising a noisy rabble, whenever logic & scientific analysis is applied to their favourite scam.

It would be interesting to know how many are actually dumb enough to believe the rubbish they push.

Aidan
you are redefining what is meant by pollutant.. or rather you are talking about a different type of pollutant.. Viv and I are talking about local pollutants.. the stuff that matters at local and regional levels.. you are talking about the supposed, long-term, world-wide implications of excess CO2.. extra CO2 has no local effect. They take CO2 plant greenhouse atmospheres up to 1000 ppm (more than double present levels) all the time with no problems to the plants. In fact its done so to improve plant growth.. local pollution will have a direct effect on the quality of life.. extra CO2 is supposed to have a long-term effect on earth temperatures, but has no local effect..

Courtesy of Loudmouth, we discover...

>>Slaughtering all new-born babies ? Didn't even work for Jesus.<<

Sheds a whole new light on "suffer little children..."