Lol!...I'm sure we were arguing this thread around 5 years ago...nothing changes around here : )

Here's a tweet I noted which pretty much sums up the denier argument...

"NASA: Here is Pluto.

World: Wow!

NASA: Earth is getting warmer.

World: No, it was cold at my house last winter."

Here is the direct quote from Tim Flannery that predicts the dams will be running out of water, possibly with 18 months (that's by 2009 AJ):

"Desalination plants can provide insurance against drought. In Adelaide, Sydney and Brisbane, water supplies are so low they need desalinated water urgently, possibly in as little as 18 months. Of course, these plants should be supplied by zero-carbon power sources." 16 June 2007

http://www.sciencearchive.org.au/nova/newscientist/105ns_001.htm

Oh, I think I see what you’ve been talking about, LEGO. Suddenly social media is abuzz with an impending ‘little ice age’. Unfortunately, this is just a media beat up.

I’ve found the article you were talking about and it’s no wonder you weren’t quick to provide a link to it (http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/health-science/little-ice-age-to-hit-in-2030s-say-university-researchers/story-e6frg8y6-1227439206910). It’s not the smoking gun you made it out to be.

The article that triggered this little flurry of gloating from right-wing media outlets can be found at http://www.ras.org.uk/news-and-press/2680-irregular-heartbeat-of-the-sun-driven-by-double-dynamo and never once mentions weather.

The researcher who started the furore has since tried to clear things up: http://www.iflscience.com/environment/mini-ice-age-not-reason-ignore-global-warming.

Sorry to burst your bubble.

Anyway, even if we were looking at a significant cooling period, that wouldn’t negate what is known about the effects of human-produced CO2 in the atmosphere. It would just mean that we got lucky and that nature had bought us some time. I don’t think that anyone, at any point, has asserted that the planet absolutely will heat up, and that in no way is it possible for any climate-influencing factors to counter our influence on it, for a period of time.

Or maybe Flannery has (not that it would mean much)? We’ll have to see if you can find that quote, and read what it actually says.

ConservativeHippie,

No, that’s not it. We’re talking about dams never filling again, not just running out of water (which was looking like a very real possibility back then, so Flannery's comment was entirely reasonable).

You should know very well that Flannery is often quoted specifically in the way that LEGO quoted him. It comes from a well-known misquote of Bolt's.

But thank you for helping me to demonstrate the difference between denialism and scepticism through your ignorance of the misquote's origins. Apparently not many denialists at all know where it comes from and yet they're so desperate they'll use it anyway.

Thank you too AJ, for showing us you can prove black is white.

One last point AJ, why hasn't Flannery ever denied he said those things, about ten different predictions, if he never made them?

If the dams were so under threat that Flannery believed desalination plants were required, it stands to reason he wasn't foreseeing enough rain to ever render them useful again. The rains came and we all know what happened in Brisbane. Flannery couldn't have got it more wrong.

But hey, you know better Mr Smarty Pants.

Hi AJ

Here is your Tim Flannery quote.

Quote. PROFESSOR TIM FLANNERY: ... We’re already seeing the initial impacts [of global warming] and they include a decline in the winter rainfall zone across southern Australia, which is clearly an impact of climate change, but also a decrease in run-off. Although we’re getting say a 20 per cent decrease in rainfall in some areas of Australia, that’s translating to a 60 per cent decrease in the run-off into the dams and rivers. That’s because the soil is warmer because of global warming and the plants are under more stress and therefore using more moisture. So even the rain that falls isn’t actually going to fill our dams and our river systems, and that’s a real worry for the people in the bush. -

And sorry to burst your bubble, but Flannery did predict that the planet would heat up.

Quote. The respected scientist said the UN’s prediction of a three degree Celsius temperature rise was conservative and in fact could be double that figure resulting in “truly catastrophic” conditions for all life on earth… “It could be worse than this - there’s a 10 per cent chance of truly catastrophic rises in temperatures, so we’re looking at six degrees or so,” Prof Flannery said.

The Little Ice Age coincided with the Maunder Minimum. What we seem to be observing with the sun today, is a repeat of a Maunder Minimum, which it is reasonable to predict, will result in reducing temperatures for an unknown period. You claim that rising temperatures on Earth are caused by Human Induced Global Warming, and a lower temperature sun will only give a temporary respite from rising temperatures caused by HIGW.

I simply observe that the Earth has gone through heating and cooling periods in the last 2000 years caused entirely by solar variations, and we are simply in a warm period. But if the sun behaves as it has done previously in the last Maunder Minimum, this will soon revert to a cold period.

How do you sell global warming in a cooling world?