From one who has grown up with only simple proofs about how man has contributed to global warming. Lived long enough to see in much of the Westralian wheatbelt freshwater lagoons now just permanent sheets of saline whiteness, which in summertime a child must not dare to cross with bare feet, the moisty salty loam close to boiling point.

Around these former lagoons in summertime, picnics were held with fresh water fit to drink, yet it seems from some of our critics there has been little change midst the apparent belief that modern man and his ken for invention has built mechanical monsters that can change the landscape far more rapidly, but with little harm to our climate.

It makes an oldie feel how lucky he has been to live in the better times, using the former freshwater lagoons on scorching days, to cool off, rather than having to sit in an airconditioned car to get away from the glare and heat of what is now a hideous saltpan. Now there are only memories left, as with all the clearing of our tropical jungles, scarring the earth from a hundred K's out in space.

Okay, go for it you younger fellas, keep on reporting that man has had little effect on global warming or climate change, but just maybe you guys have spent most of yourlives either by a seashore where climate change has little effect, or even in slightly perfumed airconditioned office apartments, were even human insights can certainly become a mite synthetic.

Interesting that so many folk still feel so threatened by the prospect of global warming that they not only shoot the messengers, they use their limited grasp of science to disagree with a concensus that has merged amongst virtually all professional climate scientists the world over. That's thousands of top scientists.

Sure you can still find the odd skeptic scientist, but these are almost in oblivion as the evidence mounts before our very eyes in the daily media and in our observations around us.

Talk about heads in the sand. More like heads in Araldyte

Faustino,

Before the Industrial Revolution, the transfer of carbon from soil to atmosphere and, via vegetation from atmosphere to biomass and soil, was in balance for many centuries at under 300 parts per million of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Since 1800, concentration has climbed and is currently 360 ppm. If present increasing rates continue, by 2100 it will be somewhere around 520 ppm. See the short video at http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Laboratory/PlanetEarthScience/GlobalWarming/GW_Movie5.html.

This cannot be described as small scale. Furthermore atmospheric carbon concentration for the last 1000 years is based on actual measurements, not models - flawed or otherwise.

Since bigmal appears to set some store by The Economist as a reputable source, it is worth reporting from this week's edition
that new findings about prehistoric periods when the Earth's atmosphere was much warmer than today were reported at the American Association for the Advancement of Science's annual meeting last week:

"The drama came when several researchers... tried to draw a link between... palaeo-results and the computer models that have been developed to study the modern climate. The snag is that today's climate models, when fed conditions resembling ancient periods, do not produce nearly enough warming to match the levels implied by the fossil record... it may be that the climate models are not sensitive enough to carbon dioxide, and so come up with temperatures that are too low. Mark Chandler, of Columbia University, who also presented research to the meeting, shares [a] worry that this indicates these models may also be producing forecasts of future warming that are much too low."

In other words, current models may be wrong, but the problem may actually be worse than we thought.

Mike M

Let me respond in reverse order
1. If you are not aware of Irans nuclear ambitions, and the outrageous statements being made by Ahmadinejad by just following the MSM, then you clearly dont know what is going on in the world about anything.You should be able to get any number of links to attest to this. Just google his name for starters.

2. The $50bn was scaling figure used by the Copenhagen Group when they were working through the issues to determine how best to spend this amount of money for the best public good. The key point to come out of this was that AGW came stone motherly last.

3.You claim that the earth is the warmest it has been for 100,000. years. This is very doubtful. It is true that some of the recent evident warming is attributable to AGW, but at the small end of the scale. I am so glad that you recognise that Kyoto is a poor solution to an even more poorly defined problem.

4 It would appear from your posts that you have little comprehension of how governments and business have to rank expenditure in order to get the best value for money, and society. The Copenhagen project was but one example of the tools used to do this.

Are you by any chance an academic with a barrow to push.?

I totally agree with Judy Cannon.

Every indication is that human-induced climate change started decades ago and is now well advanced.

But what can we do about it? The most extraordinary changes are needed. Kyoto has been an abject failure, in fact even worse than that – it has allowed its signatory countries to continue polluting at slightly reduced rates or even slightly increased rates in some cases. So it has in fact cemented business as usual. Even if Kyoto was to suddenly become highly successful, it still wouldn’t count for much for as long as China, USA and India are outside the circle.

The only way forward that I can see is for a new US president to take the strongest possible action to reduce CO2 emissions and then bring China into a bilateral agreement. Then once the two really big players are heading in the right direction, the rest of the world will follow.

If we are to stave off a massive escalation of the CO2 chain reaction by way of methane and clathrate release, the world needs to start lobbying for the right US president to replace the atrocious incumbent at the next election.

“But unlike terrorism, we can successfully combat global warming.”

How would you go about it Tubley?

Dear Bushbred,

Your observations in the WA wheatbelt are of course correct, regarding the transformation of many freshwater lagoons into salt pans.

I take it you're not stating that climate change is the main reason for that. You seem to be referring to the global overuse of contraptions and their effect on the Earth.

I read that in the dreamtime stories of some South Australian aboriginal tribes, they 'document' a change from a time when the region around Lake Eyre was fertile and rich with flora and fauna. (I'm sorry I don't have a reference for that right now).

Those vast saltpans called Lake Eyre and Friends formed naturally of course, whereas the wheatbelt(s) - (the wheatfields in the east too) are suffering much from long term monoculture farming practices.

This country's ecology is indeed very fragile! The soil in which plants grow is wafer thin relative to the underlying strata!

It is perhaps the loss of topsoil that is the greatest threat to humans, together with scarceness of fresh water. It would seem that one solution that is developing is that of creating synthetic foods using nanotechnology (worth reading up about). Companies like Kraft and Nestle are investing billions into research in this field. One of the first milestones will apparently be drinks that can change colour! Possibly available as soon as 2010 (only 5 years away!). Well I guess the worldwide suffering caused by monochrome beverages really should be dealt with. ;)

The actions of international criminals could and do cause great loss of life. But polluting the biosphere and stripping its diversity away will and does cause more. This and the development of nuclear energy.