Apparantly the summers without ice are getting longer in the Arctic. But whatever. The people who have an interest in denying any climate changes due to fossil fuel will contiue to do so. Those of us who cant survive without the air con running 24/7 or have to drive the car everywhere are going to not feel so good about accepting any suggestion or posssibility of their lifestyle is effecting the planet.
I wonder what our grand children & great grand children will say about us IF our lifestyles does seriously degrade their quality of life?
Also its just a matter of arguing about when not if re Peak Oil. Some geogogists say as soon as 2008. After that demand for oil is going to increasingly exceed suply. One also wonders how our future grand or great grand kids are going to view us if we use up all the fossil fuel for things like air cons and driving around the city.

Forget science. The Alchemist reckons there's less birds about so let's put him/her in charge.

Does the word SCIENCE mean anything at all to you natasha?

We have a unique chance to solve climate change for Australia in the context of the Sth Pacific REGION. We can then concentrate on the easier problem of learning to adapt to alternate energy sources. Australia is a world leader here too with a major geothermal power station in Sth Australia's Cooper Basin.
You need to learn some Physics and especially Thermodynamics before letting your fears get the better of you. And remember, don't make that cardinal mistake that greenhouse warming scientists are making. You must account for all the heat energy sources in the Biosphere BEFORE applying dynamic solutions to scenarios like arctic melts and rising sea levels. There are alternate solutions to these scenarios and they are far more comprehensive when ALL the energy sources are knitted into them.

In the meantime the biggest problem for Australia and the world will not be climate change and peak oil. We will find solutions to these problems as I have hinted here. What we cannot find a solution for at the moment is the scouge of perpetual Americanised Greenspanian 3-5% economic growth rates and commensurate population growth rates in an already overcrowded world where everyone wants to live in just a few thousand square kilometers of highly sought after residential habitat.

Women in particular have a role to play here in lowering their environmental footprint by giving up their assumed right to as many children as they wish for. The strains of this deep conflict for women and for full throttle economies in an increasingly competetive world market will come to a head as peak oil bites. As I say, peak oil can be solved by technology but the technological solution for overcrowding is too dire to even contemplate. It is far easier for thinking women to restrict the urge to have kids and to demand an end to the brutal immigration schemes of the short sighted and mean spirited Howard government.

KAEP - if your were to ditch the arrogance and show some appreciation of the input of others (even the dreaded scientists!) then you might find your ideas are given more credibility and maybe you might get some way towards solving the problem.

"Why do posters assume you are an academic?"

KAEP, bigmal is the only poster who seems to think that, and you'll have to ask him. Perhaps he resorts to ad hominem slurs when he is out of his depth with the facts of the discussion.

"Physical laws are timeless n'est ce pas?"

No.

Newton's physics was different from Aristotle's, and Einstein's was different from Newton's. And quantum mechanics, discovered by Werner Heisenberg, Max Planck and Erwin Schrödinger, paints a different picture of reality again.

It is also worth pondering the fact that the general theory of relativity and quantum theory, whilst both are well established in their own right, conflict with one another. One or the other or both cannot be the last word.

Likewise, thermodynamics is an evolving science. Quoting from his Nobel Prize lecture in 1977, awarded "for his contributions to non-equilibrium thermodynamics, particularly the theory of dissipative structures", http://nobelprize.org/chemistry/laureates/1977/prigogine-lecture.pdf , Ilya Prigogine noted:

"It is a remarkable fact that the second law of thermodynamics has played in the history of science a fundamental role far beyond its original scope. Suffice it to mention Boltzmann’s work on kinetic theory, Planck’s discovery of quantum theory or Einstein’s theory of spontaneous emission, which were all based on the second law of thermodynamics.

"It is the main thesis of this lecture that we are only at the beginning of a new development of theoretical chemistry and physics in which thermodynamic concepts will play an even more basic role."

So, KAEP, your original statement of the second law of thermodynamics, as indicated in my brief quote from the Australian Research Council Complex Open Systems Research Network, is sadly behind the times. Study Prigogine. You will see.

I'm unmoved by the value of EWBs. Why don't you discuss this with broadcaster Alan Jones? At one stage he was a great proponent of turning rivers inland, http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/stories/popups/281002_s5c2.ram

And I think, KAEP, if you took onboard sajo's helpful suggestion you would find it would genuinely improve your contributions.

Yep. More alarmist rubbish from the green.

Even if global warming was caused by human actions (and that is a big if), dealing with it with rubbish like kyoto is a sure way to cause more suffering and problems than it solves.

All the global warming solutions are cures that are worse than the disease.