Your site fails to tell the whole story, Sympneology. Increased CO2 follows temperature increases, not the other way around. You have the cart before the horse when you say;

“After each ice age the CO2 and CH4 have risen steadily and the temperature has risen correspondingly until a peak has been reached where CO2 is about 280 ppm and CH4 is about 700 ppb. Then after a comparatively brief warm period (a few thousand years) some control mechanism kicks in and temperatures drop back to normal (ice age) levels for the next 100,000 years”

You should see www.abc.net.au/rn/science/ss/stories/s605542.htm the intro of which states;

“Increased CO2 brings higher temperatures, Right? Wrong. Measurements of the Vostock Ice Cores reveal records of CO2 dating back 400,000 years and it’s been found that, contrary to the prevailing wisdom, the lowering of the temperature precedes the lowering of CO2 by several thousand years”.

Of particular interest is the period from 125,000 to 110,000 years ago when the CO2 lingers for 15,000 years in the upper 270 -280 ppmv range while temperatures trend consistently down to the opposite extreme, some 10 degrees C cooler. The increases and decreases in all the other interglacial temperature spikes precede the corresponding CO2 changes. So while there is obviously a correlation between the two data sets, changes in CO2 levels are clearly an effect rather than a cause of temperature change.

You, and the rest of the CO2 Flux Clan, cannot have it both ways. You cannot claim, on one hand, that CO2 causes temperature to rise while leaving the cause of temperature decline to “some unknown control mechanism”, as you call it . For the cause – effect relationship to exist it must operate in both directions. It operates in neither. And 15,000 years is a very long time for an inconvenient anomaly.

What kind of nonsense is Mr Carter mouthing when he infers that Lord Robert May, President of the Royal Society and someone who can understand the mathematics of chaos theory and a great deal more, is so lacking in intelligence and integrity that he can have the wool pulled over his eyes in the matter of global warming?

What are the alarmist claims he refers to?

Are we to believe that Fred Singer’s views merit greater attention than those of the major scientific bodies around the world? Perhaps we can explore the research which supports a finite universe, that Wegener got it wrong about colliding continents, that dinosaurs were contemporaneous with earliest humans.

Perhaps social anthropologist Benny Peiser can contribute further scholarly research to those questions. Just as he did to “Adapt or Die” purporting to document the politics of climate change and supported by Exxon-Mobil. Peiser certainly is a most widely knowledgeable fellow. He has also analysed the published research on climate change. He has concluded, in a response to David King, Britain’s Chief Scientific Advisor, that “most researchers who support the theory of anthropogenic global warming are by no means agreed that it will result in large-scale calamity even if CO2 emissions were to double”. What researchers?

He also says, “'Throughout history, moderate warming has significantly contributed to enhanced living standards”. Peiser publishes in Spiked on-Line, a website like TechCentral.

Carter refers to the British House of Lords expressing scepticism about climate change. This is the select committee on economic affairs, not the select committee on science! Lord Wakeham, Chair of that Committee, was a director of Enron. It is not relevant to the argument that he is to be investigated over his role in the collapse of that company.

Mr Carter seems to have missed the fact that whether or not the Kyoto protocol will reduce global warming is not an argument about the causes of or evidence for global warming!

It is a great tribute to free speech that Mr Carter is able to air his views! Again!

Perseus quoted from the ABC site:
"Increased CO2 brings higher temperatures, Right? Wrong. Measurements of the Vostock Ice Cores reveal records of CO2 dating back 400,000 years and it’s been found that, contrary to the prevailing wisdom, the lowering of the temperature precedes the lowering of CO2 by several thousand years”.
and added:
Of particular interest is the period from 125,000 to 110,000 years ago when the CO2 lingers for 15,000 years in the upper 270 -280 ppm range while temperatures trend consistently down to the opposite extreme, some 10 degrees C cooler. The increases and decreases in all the other interglacial temperature spikes precede the corresponding CO2 changes. So while there is obviously a correlation between the two data sets, changes in CO2 levels are clearly an effect rather than a cause of temperature change.

You will note that the only gas Michael Ghil referred to is CO2, not CH4. In the Vostock graph of the latter the fall in CH4 levels during that period _preceded_ the drop in temperature. Furthermore, the CO2 graph shows only one spike where the temperature rise slightly preceded the CO2 rise, the last glacial maximum, and there the temperature rise followed the CH4 rise.

Of even more interest is the sudden dip in temperature at the time of the Toba eruption, 74,000 years ago, which _was_ followed by a drop in CO2 levels, presumably as a result of the mass extinctions of mammals it caused, but had negligible effects on the CH4 levels.

The conclusion I draw from all this is that although climate change is an incredibly complex phenomenon, there is enough evidence now available to feel reasonably certain that anthropogenic greenhouse gases, not just CO2 but methane and chlorofluorocarbons as well, are an avoidable hazard to future life on this planet. Those who so strenuously try to deny this are either whistling in the wind or have a short term agenda to enrich themselves at our children's expense.

Not a very convincing effort, Sympneology. You forgot to mention all of the instances where the temperature drops while the CO2 merely trends down. You are still left high and dry with a leap of faith that the historically lagard CO2 will now become a cause of rising temperatures.

Qld DNRM as quoted earlier highlight the same leap of faith when they state;

"The cycles are driven by slight variations in the Earth's orbit and the angle of tilt in the Earth's axis towards the sun that cause fluctuations in climate AND SUBSEQUENT CHANGES IN GREENHOUSE GASES AND ICE SHEETS. We are now in a favourable warm period between ice ages".

But they provide no actual cause/effect to explain the leap of faith that followed when they continued with the predictable;

"The increase in greenhouse gas levels is causing further warming and pushing global temperature TOWARDS (my emphasis) levels not seen for thousands of years".

Note the term TOWARDS does not mean those temperatures have already arrived. Indeed, the Vostock graph clearly shows the past 10,000 years to have fluctuated within the temperature range exhibited in the past 150 years. It is the usual departmental spin.

I suggest you take a good look at "still waiting for greenhouse" at www.john-daly.com

well, thank goodness he has been unmasked as a stooge for the oil industry.

having just been nearly broiled alive in the northern hemisphere, I reckon the evidence of my senses (and record electricity use, record temperatures, record droughts) is enough to persuade anyone that something unpleasant is happening to our climate. oh yes, and the record number of named hurricanes early in the season. connect the dots, Bob. Working for big oil means you can never shed the grease.

I'm not a scientist, but I did study geology at university. The preceding debate just goes to show how raw data doesn't mean a thing, it's how you interpret it that counts. Does the truth depend on philosophical leanings or financial dealings? I don't wish to incur a debate on objectivity and truth, but I applaud Sarah's injection of common sense into this debate. Going on first principles, the greenhouse gases we have released into the atmosphere since the industrial revolution is IN ADDITION to any natural causes/fluctuations we can analyse from ice cores, etc. What we have done is unprecendented. In that sense, Professor Carter, and indeed the "influential" (cue exaggerated bow) Economic Affairs Commitee is right in asserting that climate science is "uncertain". Is that a permit to dismiss alternative views blindly and buy shares in ExxonMobil? We can gaze at ice cores and associated graphs as long as we like, but no-one really knows the consequences of human input into the carbon cycle.