This is a new low, the author has filled this article with Anti-science talking points and no facts. Every single point has been address by people far more competent then the author.
For those interested in the actual science rather then the author assertions.

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Global_warming
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/monitoring-references/faq/

and one talking to directly to some of the authors points

http://solar-center.stanford.edu/sun-on-earth/FAQ2.html

If your the type to get financial advice from taxi drivers then this is the article for you. If not then stick with the national science organisations.

Here is another relevant link http://blog.hotwhopper.com/2014/06/viv-forbes-is-caught-red-handed-again.html

Also its always fun to play talking points bingo http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Fun:Global_warming_denial_Bingo

This article scores quite well.

Irrespective of what 'causes' climate change, nothing can be done about it. Anybody who thinks that giving money to Third World countries, huge subsidies for wind and solar companies, or driving around in expensive hybrid cars is helping, is seriously deluded - or seriously cracked.

Cobber the Hound - looked at the first of your posts.. Its just basic restatement of the greenhouse case which degenerates into propaganda. Take the first three points down the page of what the writers imagine is the skeptics case.. in fact I don't know anyone who's made the claim that climate hasn't changed - of course it has. You should find propaganda that isn't obviously wrong.

As one of the other posters notes, whatever you may think of climate theory, the bulk of the money spent on fixing "the problem" has undeniably been wasted. You should link to posts that talk about fixing that problem.

Risible rubbish Viv.

Simply put, the great solar furnace in the sky has been in a waning phase since the mid seventies.(NASA)

Therefore, ipso facto, the world should be getting considerably cooler! Instead we have seen indisputable evidence of just the opposite.

Including record ice melts/retreats. The almost and formerly unknown in living memory, of the complete absence of summer sea ice in northern climes, with the unprecedented opening of a northwest passage.

Equally unprecedented northern tundra permafrost (permanent frost) melts, with the consequent release of millions of tons of methane, and far more efficacious greenhouse gas than Co2, and given the associated water melt, hundreds of new Alaskan lakes!

We have just experienced one of the hottest years on record and during an ongoing waning phase.

In future you should study the unbiased research material,Viv or failing that, just the indisputable facts and indeed, try talking from a little higher up next time.
Rhrosty.

This is a great article. Well said, Viv.

Great, because it is the sort of thing that gets the warmist bedwetters hyperventilating in typical fashion telling us to believe the mythical 97% of idiots who get the biggest taxpayer funded research grants to tell us the opposite; that we are frying up and will all die ... and don't forget the cute rolly-polly bears.

I don't see any factual errors. I understand the dangers of being cold are far more dangerous for us than any minimal natural warming. The bedwetter, pantywaists don't.

If only the bedwetters could nominate the Goldilocks style, not-too-hot, not-too-cold, but just right temperature and notify us of the setting for the big CO2 knob controlling the earth's thermostat that will keep us there, that would be great and the world will be saved, and we'll all live happily ever after, amen ... in their ideal world of one world government with the supreme leader holding the keys to the knob.

Ignore them.

Or, in a more Christian vein, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

Given increasing Co2 levels are the undisputed cause of man made climate change; there's plenty we can do about it!

Firstly change from carbon causing coal to non carbon energy.

Large scale solar thermal does that and at comparable rollout costs to new coal fired projects.

Moreover, solar thermal has no ongoing and growing fuel costs, and given the latest technological advances, now competes with coal fired power for peak load applications.

Then there's cheaper than coal thorium, and given very local applications, for less than half the cost of coal fired power.

And we have the option of turning all our organic waste into storable methane then converting that into electrical energy via the Aussie invented super silent ceramic fuel cell.

And given an energy coefficient of 80% for the ceramic fuel cell, for quarter of the price of reticulated coal fired power.

Which by the way, comes, with around 11-16% transmission line losses and 64% distribution losses. All of which could be effectively prevented by very local applications.

Finally we could, given intelligent leadership, decide to grow algae as a very broad scale crop.

Some algae are up to 60 oil, which is child's play to extract.

Under optimised growing conditions, algae absorb 2.5 times their bodyweight in atmospheric carbon.

Thus one million tons of purpose grown algae, grown in large clear plastic pipes on around 10 hectares of drought ravaged salinated land, will absorb 2,5 million ton of Co2.

And given those same optimised conditions, double that bodyweight and oil production and absorption capacity every 24 hours. 5-10-20-40million tons in just 5 days or if you will, in excess of 15 million tons of recoverable ready to use jet fuel or diesel in just five days.

There's absolutely nothing to fear in decarbing the economy, just the very opposite!

Profit graphs and profit growth being more important than a possible extinction event?

And yes, given timely adaptation and change, far bigger profits in view, for those willing to accept almost inevitable change.
Rhrosty.

Captain Col you continue to present yourself as a Runner avatar.

Curmudgeon there three points to this.

1) Are our activities causing global warming. Answer for main stream science is yes.

2) Can we do something about it, yes we can mitigate global warming by reducing CO2 emissions and we can capture CO2.

3) Are any of those mitigation viable? Answer yes, Solar, wind and nuclear power are all viable options and we should continue to support the R & D to improve these and developed more, as well as carbon capture systems.

Lastly can you please show me "You should find propaganda that isn't obviously wrong." stuff?

Meanwhile I find the very sobering perspectives on the state of the humanly created world, and the prospects for the survival and/or continuation of business-as-usual provided on this site to be more or less accurate http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com
Even the titles and subtitles of the authors several books are an education.
Start by reading the essay Down the Rat Holes of the Future.
Then go to the websites Nature Bats Last, and Club Orlov.

Cobber the Hound
Of course the answer from the mainstream is yes. Just as with the millennium bug and the cause of stomach ulcers, only a few mavericks oppose the orthodoxy. Glad we could agree.

Nuclear power is certainly viable as a means of reducing CO2 - solar and wind no - but will reducing CO2 do anything? Is there any clear, demonstrable link between CO2 levels and temperatures? As with many others I would be much happier with accepting such matter if climate science could demonstrate a successful forecasting track record. That's the point you have to establish and never mind the propaganda sites.

Rhosty
where does this nonsense on renewable power come from. Nuclear is viable, if not cost competitive with coal etc, but not even activists have tried to claim that solar plants are competitive with conventional power plants.. there have been claims that wind is competitive - although only on an output basis, not as part of a network - but not solar..

You really have to Laugh Out Loud when someone invokes the christian patriarchal "God" in there criticism of those who promote the very real phenomenon of humanly caused global warming, climate change and environmental destruction.
These 2 stark prophetic images could be titled applied patriarchal christian politics 101:
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~spanmod/mural/panel13.html
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~spanmod/mural/panel21.html

The systematic destruction of the environment and simultaneous of humankind and all of the other living-breathing-feeling non-humans that live on this planet IS the INEVITABLE outcome of the destructive power-and-control-seeking syndrome of what is communicated in these two stark very prophetic images - and of the other images on this website too

Cobber, my name is Col and I'm a captain so if you want to confuse me with someone else, that's your problem. Are you afraid that there is more than one person who thinks you are wrong (on everything so far)?

Now some scientific answers to your questions.

"1) Are our activities causing global warming." Answer by Dr. Richard Lindzen of MIT, who stated that “The claims that the earth has been warming, that there is a greenhouse effect, and that man’s activities have contributed to warming, are trivially true and essentially meaningless in terms of alarm.”

Google him. He's a world renowned CLIMATE scientist.

"2) Can we do something about it" Yes we can do lots of things including , but the question(s) should be "Should we do something about it? and If so, tell us the costs and benefits of action versus inaction? and What are the guarantees of success? and Is this the highest priority for action at the moment?"

"3) Are any of those mitigation viable?" Well I suppose it depends how much other people's money there is to flush down this particular toilet. See my answer to 2 above.

There is one aspect to climate change that I think we can all agree on; that is, the climate has always been changing.
Also, we can agree that the sun has slight changes in its intensity periodically.
Right now the sun is in a dimming phase, which means temperatures should have been going down. Just to get it clear...dimming sun equals lower temperature on earth. But......temperatures have been going up.

Cosmic rays have also been discounted as a current influence on Earth's climate.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/cosmic-rays-not-causing-climate-change/

https://www.skepticalscience.com/cosmic-rays-and-global-warming-advanced.htm

The Japanese Meteorological Agency has stated that 2015 has been the warmest year on record and 2014 was the second warmest.

Anthropogenic climate deniers like to use satellite data as a means of pushing their views on warming. The irony is that because satellites do not directly measure temperature quite complicated calculations need to be employed to reach temperature. Surface temperatures are measured from the same spot at the same time on a daily basis, not the case with satellites.
Surface temperatures have been continually measured for well over a century.

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2016/jan/18/ted-cruz-fact-check-which-temperature-data-are-the-best

Robyn Williams, Science Reporter has stated that he is sick of climate change contrarians continually bringing up the same arguments that have been debunked; which is exactly what Viv has managed.

Of interest:

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jan/18/world-oceans-warming-faster-rate-new-study-fossil-fuels

The 11 year ARM study based at two locations shows the direct relationship between CO2 and radiated infrared long waves:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/02/150225132103.htm

https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-noaa-announce-2015-global-temperatures-climate-conditions

Viv. Excellent article. However, you will never get past the climate 'deniers' that still hold desperately to the 97% climate scientists meme and the poor deluded deniers that still believe the 'evil CO2' nonsense. Keep plugging along and let the climate record the veracity of your clear, readable and sensible assessment as you have presented.

The universal variabilities you have identified here cannot be shoehorned into a computer model no matter how hard they try. Well done.

Keep up the good work Viv, if you can. It is obviously a hard task trying to educate those with their fingers in their ears, & their eyes shut.

This is a difficult subject. We have the greenie ratbags, obviously one in Melbourne, who will freeze to death before they would admit their pet theory is wrong. Then we have those simple souls who simply accept what their TV tells them.

Thank god we have some Donald Trump's, who will shout the obvious truth.

The ones who confuse me are the Rhrostys. Reasonably smart people, who can usually cut through the bulldust, & see the facts. It is usually damn hard to pull the wool over these people's eyes. It usually takes sound proof before they are swayed. How it is that some of these still fall for a totally unproven bit of fluff really surprises me. At least these will see the light as it becomes a little more obvious.

So do try to keep up the good work Viv, it was some like you, & JoNova, with solid facts, that started me thinking. It was soon obvious where the truth lay, & others see it daily, thanks to these efforts.

Viv forgot to mention that the Earths circle around the Sun is really elliptical & the Sun is not in the centre of that ellipse & the Sun itself does not rotate on it own centre, it wobbles around slightly off centre. Sometimes the Earth is at a greater distance from the Sun in Winter that would make for colder Winters especially when the Earths tilt it away from the sun. & Vici Versa & that's where we are now. Closer & tilted towards the Sun in Summer. But the Climate frighteners won't mention that.

Someone's making money out of generating Fear. Just like fear Advertising. It's all hype to put fear in to people so someone can cash in on it.

Jayb, We circle the sun in a eclipse with a common that the sun also circles. However this "cycle" has a duration of one year. While this does have a small effect of the summer for the southern hemisphere its not much. most of the seasonality is caused by the tilt of the earth.

Captain Col clearly you need to have another read of my post. Also can you tell me what power generation process doesn't require lots of public money?

@Curmudgeon "and never mind the propaganda sites" mate this stuff is thrust out in science journals not opinion site, you know places where Author would be laughed at.

@neverwas "Trump", says it all.

I see you are making an effort to understand.

CtH: However this "cycle" has a duration of one year.

Yes but every year that progresses a little & it does so for 13000 years, then the Earths circle around the Sun is further away than it was 13000 years previously. The entire process takes 26000 years to get back to the minimum cycle. That bit doesn't have any effect on the heating or cooling of Earth. The elliptical Cycle around the Sun does.

EG; When the Earth in at the bottom of it's Elliptical Cycle & goes around the sun at that distance then the Earth is going through a hot phase When the Earth, 13000 years later, is at the Zenith of it's Cycle then it's further away & going through a cooling Cycle. The tilting that creates the seasons has little overall effect on that except that the winters will be even cooler & the Summers milder but still not as hot as they were 13000 years previously.

It's sort of hard to explain without a diagram.

In the mean time our Solar system also oscillates up & down through the centre plane of the Milky Way Galaxy. Our Solar system just passed the centre point last year. (End of the World, remember?) That also takes a total of 26000 years round trip.

Cobber, an answer to your inane question.

No power generation system for public consumption in Australia requires "lots of public money". Power companies are perfectly happy to finance their own power stations and sell to willing customers. No public money should ever again need to be put into electric power generation.

And I include in that all subsidies for any form of power generation. There should be none - ever.

Power would be much cheaper if governments withdrew from the field entirely.

As for reading your post, perhaps you could give me a hint as to the particular thing I've got wrong. I can't see it.

To the author.

These are indeed inconvenient truths.

Your information should be suppressed forthwidth.

Otherwise a whole generation of climate scientist Yes Men and global activist True Believers will be out of a Job or have to alter a New Age Ideology.

The rest of the universe certainly doesn't revolve around the Earth, but, like so many topics in science, it's an oversimplification to say that everything orbits around the Sun.
Technically, Earth Does Not Orbit Around the Sun
Posted by Ross Pomeroy August 5, 2014
The discovery that Earth revolves around the Sun was revolutionary. It fundamentally changed how we viewed the cosmos, as well as ourselves.
But the Earth does not revolve around the Sun. At least, not exactly. Time to get pedantic.
"Technically, what is going on is that the Earth, Sun and all the planets are orbiting around the center of mass of the solar system," writes Cathy Jordan, a Cornell University Ask an Astronomer contributor.
"The center of mass of our solar system very close to the Sun itself, but not exactly at the Sun's center."
Jan. 8, 2013: In the galactic scheme of things, the Sun is a remarkably constant star. While some stars exhibit dramatic pulsations, wildly yo-yoing in size and brightness, and sometimes even exploding, the luminosity of our own sun varies a measly 0.1% over the course of the 11-year solar cycle.
If the energy from the sun varies by only 0.1 percent during the 11-year solar cycle, could such a small variation drive major changes in weather patterns on Earth? Yes, say researchers from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) who used more than a century of weather observations and three powerful computer models in their study. They found subtle connections between solar cycle, the stratosphere, and the tropical Pacific Ocean that work in sync to generate periodic weather patterns that affect much of the globe. Scientists say this will help in predicting the intensity of certain climate phenomena, such as the Indian monsoon and tropical Pacific rainfall, years in advance.

NASA and NOAA have officially announced that 2015 has been the warmest year for global temperature ever recorded. The expectation is that 2016 could set a new record or near record if the 1997 El Nino is taken into account.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/01/20/its-official-2015-smashed-2014s-global-temperature-record-it-wasnt-even-close/?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_hotweather-1115am%3Ahomepage%2Fstory

Another measure of significance is that Ocean temperatures are increasing. Oceans take up 70% of the Earths surface and hold a huge volume of water; hence, it takes much energy to warm them.

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jan/18/world-oceans-warming-faster-rate-new-study-fossil-fuels?CMP=soc_567

That was a worse explanation then mine was 579.

Another straw in the bucket of denialism. Why not see the situation as it is instead of getting the latest conspiracy to help deny your future. Twenty two years and progress is just starting to happen.
The Sun-Climate Connection
The rate at which energy from the sun reaches the top of Earth’s atmosphere is denoted by the term “total solar irradiance” (or TSI). TSI fluctuates slightly from day to day and week to week. Superimposed on these rapid short-term fluctuations is a cycle related to sunspots in the outer layers of the Sun that lasts approximately every 11 years.
The current TSI varies with season, time of day, and latitude. Yet it is thought that small changes in this relatively small amount of absorbed solar energy can make a difference to our climate. Might changes in the rate of solar absorption, called radiative forcing (RF), be influencing our climate today?

(1) Direct changes in climate due to solar output
The average increase in solar radiative forcing since 1750 is much smaller (~ 0.12 W m-2) than the increase in RF due to heat-trapping gases (~2.6 W m-2) over that same time period. [3]The slight increase in solar absorption is, moreover, more than offset by natural cooling. The twentieth century witnessed the eruption of major volcanoes— the most recent, Pinatubo, in 1991—that spewed tiny reflective particles into the atmosphere. Incoming energy from the sun that encountered these particles was reflected back into space. In other words, natural processes alone would have brought about slight late twentieth century cooling—not the warming we have experienced.

Curmugeon, suggest you go to California and take a bo peep at the latest actual Solar thermal plant. One built by private enterprise in the desert, which by the way, does everything I've claimed!

Or are you so obtuse as to believe Rich industrialists are going to risk their own capital on a pipe dream?

Suggest all you other anti renewables go take a look see. Moreover, not everything I've suggested is a renewable.

With cheaper than coal thorium being mainstream energy production and simply abandoned in the fifties due to a lack of weapons spin off.

Incidently, thorium reaction uses up nearly all its fuel in almost complete inverse proportion to oxide reactors. With the waste product of thorium reaction being far less toxic and eminently suitable for long life space batteries.

Suggest you engage brain next time before putting your mouth into gear, or just opening your mouth to change socks!
Rhrosty

Ho Humm !

The first impressions of the Paris deliberations provided some promise; perhaps generated by the self congratulatory slaps on the back that politicians gave themselves. The seriousness discussed by scientists has not been replicated by political decision making since. Pushing for the Adami Mine is mutually exclusive to mitigating climate change; other governments are pushing similar projects though not on such a scale.

Over the last years the US has been hit by one major extreme weather event after another. Some of those extreme events being completely out of season.
The “blob” which was noticed off the West Coast of the US in 2013 has warmed waters extending from Mexico through to Alaska. The current debate is about whether the El Nino will dissipate those warm waters created by the "blob".

Lake Poopo in Bolivia (area of 3,191 km2) has just dried through the break down of glaciers, mining and climate change.
Last year the Atacama Desert in Chile was flooded, causing death and loss of infrastructure in a mining town.
The Amazon Basin has been impacted by set fires, wildfires and drought. Access to reticulated water has been an issue in some areas of Brazil, Mexico and Caribbean countries.

Around Christmas time areas within the Arctic Circle were experiencing above freezing temperatures when they should have been well into minus temperatures.
A current forecast suggests that the Arctic Circle is about to be hit by another warm spell.

The examples provided have been noted on the basis of being extraordinary; one or two of those examples might be accepted as being natural variation in climate; but, they are just some examples, there are many more.

Some here do not believe in anthropogenic climate change; what do they propose to do about the view that climate is changing naturally? Low lying areas subject to storm surge and sea rise, areas subject to extreme rainfall events, or bushfires will cause major problems regardless of being natural or man made.