It's on the cards some kind of panic reaction will take place in the next decade. That could mean a big coal shutdown with skyrocketing power prices or any one of several forms of geoengineering. The government of the day will be vilified whatever they do. In retrospect it would have been easier to get a steady emissions reduction starting a decade ago. That way we can say adverse weather at say 350 ppm CO2 is 'natural'.

I have to agree the IPCC have undermined their credibility. Without buying into the accuracy of their climate predictions their practical advice is naive and daft. For example they want a hydrogen economy which has so far gone nowhere in 20 years of effort. They should stick to their knitting, that is climate prediction, and leave the practicalities to others.

A sort of Ode to the religion of climate change and the great God of global warming: (when will this religion be outlawed)?

*...What is absurd is not the teachings of the founders of religion, it's what followers subsequently make of it. — John Cleese...*

What's the temperature of the dark side of the moon?

We just don`t know..........
There is little doubt that a panic reaction will be the worst result. On the other hand we do ourselves few favours by continually adding pollutants to the atmosphere and destroying our Environment, our one and only life support system.

"From 1940 to almost 1980 the global temperature went down."
No from mid 1930s to 1950 there was abnormal heating , then back to trend which is consistently up since 1900.

Co2 is at the highest in the past 1/2 million years breaching the normal cycling pattern.

any ice left at the artic? Oh dear another completely failed Flannery prophecy. No need for him to pay back the Australian tax payer.

>From 1940 to almost 1980 the global temperature went down

The cooling trend over this timeframe was very slight, and it was caused by increased anthropogenic particulate emissions. See http://skepticalscience.com/global-cooling-mid-20th-century-advanced.htm for more details.

> Since the best climate experts say that we can expect a gradual cooling over the next few decades as the Sun weakens

The sun's been weakening for a while now, yet temperatures are still going up!

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Taswegian,

Coal plants will undoubtedly close, but skyrocketing power prices are probably a thing of the past. I guess it would be possible if the coal plants all closed at once, but nobody is suggesting that.

'Twas Iceland, not the IPCC, that wanted a hydrogen economy!

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diver dan,
The idea of global warming as a religion was dreamed up by neocons who wanted to make it seem evil to gullible Christians and illogical to gullible atheists. Do you really want to shill their deceptive agenda that serves their own greed at the expense of the planet?

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nicknamenick,
As Gerry O'Driscoll (the Abbey Road Studios doorman) famously said:
"There is no dark side of the moon, really. Matter of fact, it's all dark."

Omigawd! The nuclear lobby won't like this article!

Right now the global nuclear industry is trying to get government subsidies, tax exemptions, advance funding - as well as public acceptance, by the claim that nuclear power solves the climate change emergency.

Dear oh dear - don't the writer and commentators know which side they are on?

"There is no dark side of the moon, really. Matter of fact, it's all dark." Ireland has many wise philosophers and solar warmists. The moon has no light, heat ( or precious little these days) or atmosphere. Kevin Rudd's nightmare, needing total insulation.

ChristinaMac the RET started in 2001 when electricity sector emissions were 184 Mt. Since then renewables have had billions in subsidies culminating in 180.4 Mt for the power sector in the year ending last June. During that time Hazelwood closed down removing 16 Mt a year. In other words renewables have been an expensive dud if the aim is lower emissions as opposed to virtue signalling.

If there is something better than nuclear we need to try it without going broke or failing abysmally. A small hint may be the fact that French electricity averages about 50 grams of CO2 per kwh compared to Australia's 800 or so.

This article has no credibility whatsoever Among the false claims is a 1991 eruption during a warming period When in fact our sun has been in a waning (cooling) phase since the mid-seventies. (NASA) Then he rabbits on about geoengineering.

As if any of those presented solutions, all while the miners dig and burn coal pushing CO2 already in uncharted territory ever farther into it. I mean if even blind Freddy can see that the CO2 production is entirely unsustainable. Yet we here and elsewhere dig and burn mountains of it! And put the rapid changes down to natural events!

And given we are in a solar waning (cooling) phase! Risible rubbish.

The answer has stared us in the face for several decades, but the miners and their mates in government won't allow a bar of it. As they waffle on about being technological agnostics.

All while those regulations created by government, to outlaw nuclear power, remain in place, where they will remain until a real leader steps up and forces change or those doing all the blocking on both sides of the aisle are removed!

We've had an absolute bellyful of nice words and or, non-core promises!

Until then this sort of nonsense will be trotted out as if it had scientific merit? Whereas you'd be hard pressed to find any!?

If we change all our dispatchable power to MSR thorium and electrify all our transport options, we will allow the planet to naturally draw down our current record CO2 load! It's really that simple and too easy!
Alan B.

nicknamenick Quote "Co2 is at the highest in the past 1/2 million years breaching the normal cycling pattern."

Simple question for you.

What is the optimal level of Co2 that should be in the atmosphere?

If that question cannot be answered then they can't speculate on what the consequences of too much or too little could, would or should be.

What's the optimal length for a piece of string? If they don't know then why say that 3 tons of it is a bit much to fit in your pocket?

"Optimal " is irrelevant . Ice-age is not good for Woolworths fresh food , tropical swamp in central Oz keeps Coles prices up ,up.
Goldilocks had it right. Polar bears don't.

A new,correction, another Ice-Age is inevitable no matter what the puny minds of the sheele think. it'll definitely freeze up the scientist bandwagon.

The clowns at the IPCC, & the fraudsters who have hitched their get rich schemes to their wagon are really starting to panic now. They have access to the real science, & know damn well that the reduction in sunspots will lead to cooling for many decades. The only question is will the poms have ice festivals on the frozen Themes river again, & for how long.

The useful idiots will tell us global warming is real, or that nuclear power is the end of the earth, all we can hope is that the cool comes quickly enough to avoid us getting locked into even more stupid expenditure such as windmills & electric cars.

Hasbeen Quote "The useful idiots will tell us global warming is real"

That name was the scam but it did not take long for people to see it was not getting warmer so they changed it to climate change which encompasses everything and they now think they can get away with that.

500 polar bears can't be wrong. Tour the Arctic while the ice is still visible , it's too late for the barrier reef.

Polar Science Center » PIOMAS Arctic Sea Ice Volume Reanalysis
psc.apl.uw.edu/research/projects/arctic-sea-ice-volume-anomaly/

500 polar bears can't be wrong.
nicknamenick,
They're as right or wrong as the mammoths were & the sabretooth tigers & the Neanderthals although of the latter there are still some throwbacks here'n there.

The average polar bear family used to have steady fishing work with affordable real estate within reach. Now they have to travel long distances on slow unreliable routes, dodging bullets and dog-eat-dog rat-race. They're right , something's wrong and it's fossil fuel, melting the methane and mammoths.

Tom Harris and Tim Ball assert:

"The IPCC has been wrong in every prediction since 1990. It would be a grave error to use their latest forecasts as the excuse to engage in geo-engineering experiments with the only planet we have."

FACT CHECK: The IPCC did not mention a "man-made volcanic eruption" experiment. If you follow the link Tom and Tim provide for the NBC News article, it is clear that NBC NEWS is referring to others who have hypothesized about it.

Tim Ball and Tom Harris misled the readers.

"Dr. Tim Ball is a Victoria, British Columbia, Canada-based climatologist and former climatology professor at the University of Winnipeg."

FACT CHECK: Tim Ball is not and never was a climatologist or a climatology professor. He has a PhD in geography and was a geography professor at the University of Winnipeg. This is a matter of record and proven in a court of law.

Wrong on all counts. Global warming is not only real, its accelerating. The 12 years refers to the point beyond which we are all... ALL... screwed. If even 1% of this is genuine, dont you think risks of this magnitude need to be taken seriously? VERY damned seriously? Idiocy abounds in this whole set of denialist behaviours. Please remove bias from politics or religion from this subject, its a matter for public policy and science. Lets let them get the heck on with it. What we can do in the meantime is USE LESS FOSSIL FUEL DERIVED ENERGY, year in, year out, til we get to the point, sooner rather than later, where we're 100% clean. With the new battery systems coming onstream now, hydogen, wind and solar do it all.

omygodnoitsitsitsyou Simple question for you.

What is the optimal average temperature the globe (world) should be, before knowing if something is too hot or not hot enough you have to know what it should be, I await your wisdom now.

Higher sea level is not good for coastal populations and infrastructure. More intense weather events are less than optimal.