I don't know all the science behind global warming, and unfortunately, I think very few people do - geologists may have a significantly different opinion than climatologists, who probably see things differently to marine researchers.

That being said, I can't help but wonder what the motive behind this 'scare campaign' (if that's what it is) could actually be.

Okay - I could believe that some people have become trapped in a paranoid environmentalist dogma, and have succeeded in convincing a large part of world that this is in fact true.

Though this camp would be acting with good intentions - even if they are flawed.

On the other hand, there are very strong financial incentives for the other side of the debate. Very powerful, and very influential people have vested interested in maintaining the status quo.

In terms of the likeliest situation, I can't help but feel the latter is more probable. When investigating the science has become a matter of pre-concieved notions and bias, it makes it difficult to properly ascertain the truth.

I find it hard to believe the scientists that have been persuaded global warming is real (which as I understand it, is a majority) have completely ignored the planetary warming cycle.
Again, as I understand it, this warming is proceeding faster than it has in previous cycles, though to be fair, there have been previous instances in world history where the phenomenon has occurred.

Bob next piece will be about the evil people who think the world isn't flat and then go on to prove the virus's don't cause illness.

Bob, using a statement from someone back in 1982 to back up your lack of any evidence other than bagging the writer, shows your lack of intellect.

I'd like to see your evidence that world temperatures haven't risen since 1998, against the constantly growing collapse of ice shelf's, decline of glaziers and melting permafrost around the world.

As Al Gore said, its a bit over the top, but if only 50% of what he says happens, we're in huge trouble. Actually it's your veracity that's in trouble Bob, as is our society, species and the planet

Are not the global warming scare mongers the same people who have come up with the conspiracy theories about 9/11. The movie would be better titled 'a convenient lie'.

Well said, Bob. The quote from the London Institute of Spivs says it all.

“the task of climate change agencies is not to persuade by rational argument. ... Instead, we need to work in a more shrewd and contemporary way, using subtle techniques of engagement. ... The ‘facts’ need to be treated as being so taken-for-granted that they need not be spoken”.

The sleazy end of the research community have found a "category 5" gravy train of government funding. It comes with no serious scrutiny of the realistic probability of threat and hence, has no effective audit function. And they then have the gall to accuse sceptics of having a vested interest.

It is the classic extrapolation to extreme to justify the unjustifiable and there is little wonder that they are not keen to argue on the facts.

More than 99% of greenhouse gas is water vapour.
CO2 is less than 1% of greenhouse gas and only 0.03% of total atmosphere.
So water vapour is 3% of the total atmosphere.

Are we to seriously believe that a change in CO2 from 0.03% of the atmosphere to 0.04% cannot be matched by nature with a reduction in water vapour from 3.0% of the atmosphere to 2.99%?

Give us a break. The natural range of variation in humidity, even in deserts, is from almost zero % to 100% when it actually rains. And the science is clear that plants use less water when CO2 increases. Less transpiration means less water vapour. But there is no funding for finding out how much substitution takes place

Gore's most damning assertion is sea level rises. Yet they are well within natural variability.

Further, if you integrate the amount of INSOLATION recieved by Earth over say the last 1000 years under the lagrangean constraints of global precession, Earth's spin, tidal motions and rapid transit of heat from tropics to poles via regular hurricane and storm singularities, you will reach the conclusion that the ice caps have already melted and the Earth is one Kevin Costner Waterworld planet.

Heating should be almost uniform over the entire planet given the constraints mentioned. It clearly is not. So something is MISSING. And that something is tied up in the physics of how ice has LOW ENTROPY (highly ordered) yet has almost ZERO energy and how the poles with such low Entropy can attract heat within the scope of the second law of thermodynamics.

That conundrum hints that ice somehow radiates incoming tropical heat. The physics of radiative properties of large scale supercooled macromolecular ice formations is not well understood and is known to involve complex quantum interactions (Bose-Einstein Condensation and superconductivity). These interactions occur as massive ice sheets expand upon freezing. A most interesting phenomena!.

NASA did a recent audit on uncertain snow cover over Nth Pole central for this very reason. I have not seen any results from this study to date. But I am betting the results did NOT show a consistent degradation of ice/snow cover for the reasons mentioned above.

Given the current lack of US incident hurricanes and information that suggests cleaner US coastal seas (mainland E-coli outbreaks, manatees in the Hudson, changes in sea-height anomaly patterns, SST heat reversal since MAY2006 etc) and the fact that the themodynamic gravitas of the planet is in global ocean surfaces, a more likely cause of climate change is wastewater pollution. This will become apparent as we see continuing hurricane free seasons in the US. This proposition also raises the possibility of ending the NSW/Victoria drought.