Steele,

The changes you refer to are small and well within the error bars for such data. Second, nothing whatever in them points to carbon dioxide as the cause. That, as someone else has pointed out, is the problem for those who would try to use the courts to compel governments to do something. Unless of course the courts rely on the IPCC material as the Bible of science. It could happen.

The delusional Steele Redux reports global warming in the alternate reality he frequents.
Meanwhile, in the real world:
“Since September 1994, University of Alabama in Huntsville’s satellite temperature data has shown no statistically significant global warming trend. For over 20 years there’s been no warming trend apparent in the satellite records and will soon be entering into year 22 with no warming trend apparent in satellite data — which examines the lowest few miles of the Earth’s atmosphere.
Satellite data from the Remote Sensing Systems (RSS) group also shows a prolonged “hiatus” in global warming. After November of this year, RSS data will be in its 22nd year without warming. Ironically, the so-called “hiatus” in warming started when then vice President Al Gore and environmental groups touted RSS satellite data as evidence a slight warming trend since 1979”.
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2015/07/17/satellites-earth-is-nearly-in-its-21st-year-without-global-warming/#ixzz3m4UIUrYD

Our courts have rules about evidence, and Steele’s delusions would not make the grade.

Dear Peter Lang,

Sorry old chap but I've been following this for the last 25 years.

You write;

“At the moment we don't whether GHG emissions are likely to do more good or more harm.”

No but the best experts have predicted great harm. Why should I doubt them?

You added;

“all the other derogatory terms most CAGW Alarmist resort to when they cannot provide a rational argument “

and then proceeded to use the term “cultists” and “alarmists”. What does that mean for your own capacity for rational argument?

Dear Don Aitken,

The changes I refer to are incremental as you would expect, but they are inexorably heading in the exact direction as predicted by climate scientist. At what level would they have to reach before you changed your mind on this issue?

Dear Leo Lane,

Mate, you have me at a loss. How on earth can you look at the graph you posted and decide there is no warming occurring? That beggars belief. Now I get that poor old Roy Spencer, right-wing Christian, Heartland Director and Marshal Institute fellow might have many motivations to drive self imposed blindness to facts even when he collects them himself, but what is your excuse?

Any flow on of such an action to the burners of coal would mean that
power stations would immeadiatly turn the big switch to OFF !

This raises a point I have wondered about, if the greenies keep
screwing the power generators and their profitabilty drops to the
point where they become insolvent they will just turn that switch off
as it is a criminal offense to continue trading while insolvent.

SteeleRedux,

Wrong! The best experts have NOT predicted great harm.

Policy relevant facts on climate change:

1. Climate change does not change in smooth curves as the climate modelers' would have you believe. It changes abruptly. Always has and always will.
http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=10136&page=1 ,
http://web.vims.edu/sms/Courses/ms501_2000/Broecker1995.pdf

2. Life thrives when the planet is warmer and struggles when colder. It thrives during warming periods and struggles during cooling. See Figure 15.21 here: http://eprints.maynoothuniversity.ie/1983/1/McCarron.pdf . Note that the climate warmed from near glacial temperatures to near current temperatures in 7 years 14,600 years ago and in 9 years, 11,600 years ago. And guess what? Life loved the rapid warming periods. Life burst out and thrived.

3. For 75% of the last half billion years - the period when animal life has thrived - there has been no ice caps at either pole http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch6s6-3.html . We are currently in a cold-house phase. It strains credulity to argue that 1% warming (i.e. 3K/273K) will be catastrophic when we won’t get anywhere near the global average temperatures of the previous warm times.

4. The planet has been cooling for the past 50 million years and we are currently in only the third cold-house phase in the past half billion years.

5. We won’t get out of the current cold-house phase until plate tectonics movements reopen a path for global circulation around the equatorial regions http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/Carboniferous_climate.html .

6. Warming and increased CO2 concentration in the atmosphere has been a major benefit to life and to humanity for the past 200 years. It strains credulity to accept the increased plant productivity that this positive trend is delivering will suddenly change and turn negative.

7. Despite 25 years of climate research and spending reportedly $1.5 trillion per year on the ‘Climate Industry’ http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2015/07/30/377086.htm , we have only a very poor understanding of the damage function. In fact, most people who blabber on about 'climate science' and call those who do not accept their interpretations of the relevant facts "climate deniers" haven’t even heard of the damage function, let alone able to define it and quantify it.

cont ...

8. According to the most widely accept Integrated Assessment Model (IAM) for projecting future climate damages, abatement costs, social cost of carbon, net-cost benefit of proposed policies, the abatement policies that have a net cost - irrespective of any climate considerations - would be a net cost, not a net benefit for all this century. See the chart here:
http://catallaxyfiles.com/files/2014/10/Lang-3.jpg
explanation here: http://catallaxyfiles.com/2014/10/27/cross-post-peter-lang-why-the-world-will-not-agree-to-pricing-carbon-ii/

9. Figure 3 in http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10584-012-0613-3 (free access to earlier version here: http://www.copenhagenconsensus.com/sites/default/files/climate_change.pdf ) shows that global warming projected by the climate modelers would be net beneficial for most of this century. The only component that becomes a significant net cost, late in the century, is energy. This cost is based on the assumption that energy costs must rise as GHG mitigation policies force us to move to renewables. However, we won’t move to renewables (because they cannot provide the energy the world needs). We'll move to cheap nuclear power. With cheap energy and all other parameters summing to be a significantly net-beneficial any GW that does occur would be net beneficial to well beyond this century. (Professor Richard Tol - has been a recognised world leader in estimating the damage effects of climate change for 25 years or so.)

10. What is needed to support rational policy analysis are probability distributions for:

a. time to next abrupt climate change

b. direction of next abrupt climate change (i.e. warming or cooling)

c. duration of next abrupt climate change

d. total amount of change

e. damage function (i.e. net economic cost per degree of warning or cooling)

It is concerning that we’ve spent 25 years on climate research (and are spending some $1.5 trillion per year on policies justified on the basis of CAGW) to get to the point we are at now where we know little that is relevant for rational policy analysis.