From the article:

“… given that the world has continually been experiencing climatic variation, how can we be certain that any present warming is at least partly attributable to human action?”

Because the evidence suggests that we are still supposed to be experiencing a cooling trend:

http://skepticalscience.com/should_earth_be_cooling.html

“… surely the vast majority of experts can't be wrong? Sometimes they are. History clearly attests that the scientific consensus hasn't always entailed scientific truth.”

Yeah, this is a fallacy that anti-vaxxers commit too:

http://vaxopedia.org/2017/05/03/science-has-been-wrong-before

It’s interesting to note that the past examples cited when this claim is made are always really old ones where the initial claim was not based on reliable evidence or methodology.

--

Yuyutsu,

‘Climate change’ is a term that has been used for just as long as ‘global warming’. The claim that a change occurred is a lie conjured up by deniers based on the myth that there is a hiatus in the warming, to make it look like scientists are fumbling around, tripping over their own lies. Here’s a paper from 1956 talking about "climate change":

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.2153-3490.1956.tb01206.x/abstract

One other little point Mark, that you need to add if you are to look at the whole story philosophically.

It takes dozens of us mere mortals slaving away, doing something productive, to support just one academic, waxing philosophic in his ivory tower.

To do things productive enough to support the huge proliferation of these academics we have recently experienced requires not only millions slaving away, but for those millions to be slaving with the help of vast amounts of energy. To increase their productivity sufficiently the keep these academics in the style they demand has consumed vast amounts of energy, which still can only be practically supplied by a combination of burning fossil fuels, & by nuclear reaction.

Perhaps you should add to your philosophical discussion, that any increase in CO2 can be laid at the feet of the leisured class, much of it peopled by academics.

Not that the CO2 is of any importance, but the fact is that any society can only afford so many leaches sucking it's life blood, & academia is greatly exceeding the number western society can continue support

There's some compelling phenomena that simply can't be ignored or dismissed as just cyclical!

That said, the choices that we have to effectively address the issue are fraught with quite massive sovereign risk and players determined by any and all means to avoid that risk!

The profit graph and their increasing returns being the most compelling issue for a very powerful few, with all their skin in fossil fuel or big nuclear!?

Were this not so, we could move as soon as tomorrow to begin to address the issue with the means we have at our disposal!

And they are ultra-cheap, walkaway safe thorium based carbon free energy, coupled to new space age low cost desalination. that together puts low cost water into former desert regions to turn them back to what they were before us.

And in so doing massively reduce poverty and want. And with it most of the current stimulus for armed conflict! It really is that simple and easy as!

All that prevents that is Benedict Arnold politicians and power brokers with an agenda, that's focused on very narrow vested interest, rather than our ultimate survival and that of the planet.

Venus is inside the so called Goldilocks zone so are we and Mars. However Venus, whose atmosphere is largely Co2, Carbon monoxide and sulfur dioxide is the hottest planet in our solar system! Whereas Mars has most of it's heat trapping Co2 frozen out as dry ice in her polar regions, which makes it very cold!

Those irrefutable salient facts and on the ground realities, should remove any trace of agnosticism!
Alan B.

Hi Alan,

So ....... are you suggesting that we cancel any plans to live on either Venus or Mars ? Wow, that limits our options.

Maybe the sea-level is rising: those stone walls along Sydney Harbour would surely show signs of that ? Cm by cm ?

And day after day, on the Weather page of the Australian, they also list the hottest and coldest days ever on that particular date. Again and again, it seems that it was hotter in 1884 and 1916, etc. than in 2017. But live in hope.

Of course, one major way to limit CO2 production would be to stop Indians from using wood and cow dung for their fires. They could probably get used to raw food, in time. A bit harder for babies to digest, but never mind, they should think of climate change and realise they're doing their bit. By the way, how's the air-conditioning going this morning in Balmain and Richmond and Burnside ? Cold enough for you ? Never mind, just turn it up a bit.

OR, of course - since clean-coal puts far less CO2 into the atmosphere than cow-dung, perhaps all Indians could get all of their electricity - i.e. the same levels eventually as we are all used to - from coal-fired power stations, hundreds of them. Win ! That would need Australian coal and iron ore, helping to employ tens of thousands for a very long time. Win ! AND, at the same time, massively reduce the level of COs that would have to be produced by cow-dung to match the levels of electricity use that we take for granted. Win ! They could use it as fertiliser. Win !

So, what's not to like about the Adani project ? Coal production in Queensland for the next hundred years of growth in India - win-win-win-win-win!

Joe

This sums up the author’s dishonesty:” , hopefully discovering more evidence that sways us consensus-leaning agnostics ever-closer to the acceptance camp. "

He is not an agnostic, he is a supporter of the climate fraud.
There is no science to show any measurable human effect on climate.
He relies on the consensus, which is not based on science, but on ignorance and dishonesty, on frauds like Hansen and Gore.
You are a climate fraud supporter, Mark, but feebly trying to pretend that you are not.
Any honest scientist acknowledges that there is no science to support the assertion of any measurable human effect on climate, so support for the climate fraud is based on dishonesty or ignorance.

We all have some work to do in order to help in this issue,let us help by refusing to pollute the earth with the use of junks chemicals.