John thanks for your patronising comments, but you're clearly no philosopher. The logical extension of my precautionary principle is not that I would not get out of bed in case I got injured. The logic is that I would get up, but over the course of day I would take a whole range of sensible precautionary actions to prevent injury - even though I din't know for certain that they would be needed.
Do you put on your seatbelt when you get in a car? Surely it is not because you have conclusive proof on that day that you'll be involved in an accident. Traffic, like weather, is also a chaotic system where any such predictive surity is not possible.
What we all do know is that a range of factors (including some we can measure quantitatively - mass, speed, influences of alchohol on reaction times, etc) come together to mean that things might go wrong for us in the future. Therefore we take precautionary action.
There are plenty of other examples one might think of: flu inoculations, insurance.
You suggest that 'the only efficient way to deal with a threat is to understand it thoroughly and only then take action.' Unfortunately, in the case of climate change, this means in efect that we should do nothing until the effects of the changes we are so blithely contributing too are 'fully' in evidence (whenever that's supposed to be). In other words, when it is well and truely too late to take any sensible precautionary actions.
As you rightly point out, one of the FACTS! about this debate is that some people make an educated guess (the best kind of predictive effort we can make in the circumstances) that climate change tending to warm the atmosphere might, perversely, contribute to the on set of a mini ice age.
Is this any better that the prospect of increasing average temperatures? Does this somehow justify our childish and unnecessary messing about with complex systems that we cannot (in the sense of generating proofs of efects ahead of time) fully understand?

Thanks to Kenny, Martin Callinan, Des Griffin and biggav for exposing commentator Snowman as author John McLean, and for providing the many useful links showing how the malicious and misleading anti-global warming propoganda industry works, and the political payola that follows.

I have had my say on other forums about the vested interests driving this so-called debate and the misrepresentation of scientific method by foot soldiers McLean, Moran, Marohasy et al, so I won't waste any more space, except to wonder how McLean can afford to devote so much of his personal time and energy to this subject, as demonstrated by his overwhelming presence on these forums. As the French would say "cherchez le loot!".

Looking forward to that peer-reviewed article in a reputable scientific journal, Snowman (sorry, John McLean). Perhaps you could write a fictional work, disguised as science, like Crichton's "State of Fear". The Institute of Public Affairs would be sure to promote your work, boost your sales and give you that much needed income.

We are all so lucky there are dedicated people on the web exposing snowman as john mcclean. your powers are wasted on an online opinion website, go forth and expose some earth shattering cover ups for the good of the world.

really, if you had bothered to look at any of snowman's previous posts about the environment you would know his links are for a site which is run by mclean - was this just a coincidence.

it wasn't rocket science to work it out but the great exposition by kenny, des, biggav etc was a clever way to go off topic, attacking the man and not the ball.

t.u.s

That was because Snowman had played a dummy pass and never had the ball. Your happy with snowman’s position because it fits your world view not because it is backed by real facts. It is rather easy to come up with factual sounds statements that seem to cast doubt on real facts. We have a whole profession based on that lawyers. I’m not agreeing the merits of the facts but peoples ability to understand them and interpret them. It seem obvious to me that you get the right person for the job and snowman clearly isn’t the right man for the job and nor is the majority of the so called climate skeptics. Most of them are not specialist in the field in question. Also as has been pointed out on this site and in many other sources that there is a major misinformation campaign going on funned by interest groups on both sides , but the big money is being put up by BP/Exxon. I prefer to leave it up to the climatologist, they are in the best position to workout what is going on. There has been much talk about the consensus within the climatologist community about global warming. I would be very interested to hear what snowman thought this word consensus means.

"Thanks to Kenny, Martin Callinan, Des Griffin and biggav for exposing commentator Snowman as author John McLean"

Grace,

You have to be kidding. The persons you cite had no responsibilty whatsoever for "exposing" John Mc Lean as Snowman. He did it himself in a post on January 30, to an article by Des Griffin. You, yourself, on February 3 mentioned him by name in a post, so, that merely reinforces the opinion I formed of you that you are a careless observer and sloppy thinker, in spite of your claims to a scientific background and two degress, no less.

AGW is a serious subject that deserves a much better response than the fatuous name calling that infests this and other sites, and that has no bearing on the subject at hand. If you cannot refute data and logical arguments put before you by dealing objectively with them, then please hold your peace.

t.u.a and A is A,

I'm used to this attitude on these forums because I've met some of these people before and several like them. None of them can produce evidence to save themselves. All they do is attack the messenger and accuse them of being paid by someone. Occasionally they produce a URL to a website whose bias they seem unable to recognise.

Kenny doesn't even know what a fact is. He calls them "factual sounds statements[sic]" if they don't agree with his world. I had to tell him twice that I wasn't a travel writer and I can't be bothered telling him again about qualifications because it's clear that he takes no notice. I'd like him to substantiate his claims about skeptics being funded by BP/Exxon and to show me a clear example where a climate scientist's paper was distorted by such funding, but it's a waste of time asking because he won't provide any proof!

I've met Grace and her assertions before too. She says she has two degrees and I see that a G Pettigrew co-wrote a paper on schizophrenia. If this is her then since she appears to know something about mental states perhaps she can tell us some correct terms...
- someone who ignores evidence and relies solely on belief? (Deluded?)
- someone who says they know nothing about a subject but then attempts to defend the people that they (with no knowledge) consider to be experts? (??)
- someone who cannot distinguish fact from opinion? (this one for kenny!)

Also Grace, can you tell us if your findings were influenced by your source of funding - or would they have been if you had received funding from a commercial organisation? If you don't like the question then it's tough luck. That's the kind of allegation that you happily throw around. By the way, the answers of sceptical climate scientists appear not to be trusted so why should we trust your answer?


John