Monika, I am afraid the scientists will not find in our favour.

Extractive metallurgists and miners ought to know, above all others, about the laws of natural abundance and diminishing returns. But do we have the courage to face the truth if it compromises our personal comfort?

It's like Peter Costello announcing one day that economics was just a swindle all along. He won't do it, because he doesn't have that sort of moral courage - and he's still a winner - for now.

I operated a really good, modern gold plant. The SAG-mill motor alone consumed more power than the whole of the nearby town. Yet the efficiency of the mill was only 4% on a good day. That's still about as good as it gets for SAG-mills. 96% of all that free, compact, fossil sunshine straight back up in smoke - for nothing.

We never gave it a thought, because electricity was cheap and abundant. We thought it would last forever. I should have known better, but hey, life felt good!

In sum, I spent years turning truckloads of diesel and coal into thimblefuls of gold - and was paid very well to do it. I had the market prices of these commodities for my yardstick, so the operation gave the illusion of being profitable.

The trouble is that "price" is an illusion - a human confection.

- and there's the rub. There's our blind spot. It'll be the death of us.

The old Feral Metallurgist discovered too late, that he had consumed his grandchildren's share.

Oh no! Perseus is back! He’s crawled out from under his rock….. and promptly told anyone with any commonsense to crawl back under theirs!

What an extraordinary contradiction – someone who cares deeply about the harmful effects of smoking, and rejects the entire notion of anthropogenically-induced climate change!

Wow! As bad as smoking is, I wonder which of these two scourges will end up having the biggest impact on us humans? And by several orders of magnitude.

Da mind boggles!

Chris

1. "If (we) base policy on your beliefs, and you turn out to be wrong, then clearly we are in a great deal of trouble."

You haven't read what I said. My only belief about climate is that it will CHANGE. We do not know with any certainty whether it will warm or cool, therefore we need to be prepared for BOTH. If you base policy on preparing to respond to either warming or cooling, then you'll be fine either way.

Your "policy" seems to be to try to stop an assumed warming (it hasn't warmed since 1998) using an untested mechanism (reducing human greenhouse emissions) in order to mitigate an imaginary ill (that if it occurs, warming will be harmful).

Trying to "stop climate change" in this fashion is no more sensible than trying to stop the clouds scudding across the sky. It is futile.

2. "Another commenter has noted the "dollar each way" nature of many global warming sceptics. It's certainly an apt description for your position in arguing that climate change is natural, but will soon begin cooling, so we shouldn't reduce our emissions?"

First, as a scientist it is my job to be sceptical, and especially so regarding strong beliefs espoused in the absence of strong evidence.

More specifically, however, I am not a GW sceptic in the sense that you use the term. Rather, I am agnostic as to whether the human influence on climate is dangerous, for the simple reason that the evidence for that hypothesis - such as it is - is weak, circumstantial and ambiguous. It follows that the correct null hypothesis is to assume that the climate changes that we experience are natural, UNTIL there is evidence otherwise.

Second, human greenhouse emissions having only a marginal (and so far unmeasurable) effect on climate, they are largely irrelevant to policy. Given (i) that there's a fair chance that cooling is going to occur, and (ii) that human emissions probably have a mild warming effect, the precautionary principle implies that for the moment we not moderate their production.

Cathy

Cathy,
you give the appearance of being intelligent.

I would have a little more willingness to believe your (somewhat distorted, to me) view if you had not twice now stated 'temperature stasis that has lasted since 1998' in suport of your claims.

Can you please explain to me how this is accurate given that 2005 was the year of highest global average temperature the world has ever recorded?

I would also point out that the six year appearance of a 'levelling out' is a levelling at the highest level since accurate statitics have been collected over the last 130 years (a short time in geological and climate terms admittedly but significant in that this century seems to be the hottest ever).

It may also just be a coincidence that this 'levelling' is occurring at a time when we are taking the first steps towards reducing our emissions?

Brain Drain,

1. "Please explain to me how "a temperature stasis that has lasted since 1998" can be the case, given that 2005 was the year of highest global average temperature the world has ever recorded?"

Sure. There are 5 major, largely independent records of global average temperature. 3 are different versions of the historic ground-level thermometer data since about 1860. The 4th is the weather balloon radiosonde data since the 1950's, and the last is the satellite MSU data since the late 1970s.

Four of these datasets show year-2005 to be about the same as or cooler than years-2001-03, and a full 0.4-deg-C-cooler than 1998. The exceptional record - which is favoured by Al Gore and which comes from Jim Hansen's NASA group - shows 2005 warmer than 1998. It is unlikely to be a coicidence that this conflicting, outlier result comes from the camp of the high priest of GW alarmism; it has little credibility.

2. "This stasis is a levelling at the highest level since accurate statitics have been collected over the last 130 years (a short time in geological and climate terms admittedly but significant in that this century seems to be the hottest ever)."

You have provided your own answer. You cannot make comparative judgements about climate on the basis of the trivially-short, 150-yr-long thermometer temperature record, much less on the 25-year-long satellite record. The late 20th century warming (which as yet has not continued into this century) is unusual in neither rate nor magnitude compared with previous natural climate changes.

3. "Can it be just be a coincidence that this 'levelling' is occurring at a time when we are taking the first steps towards reducing our emissions?"

Yes, it can and it is. If Kyoto were fully implemented (which it won't be), the theoretical result is a lowering of temperature of 0.02 deg. C by 2050. That's unmeasurable against natural climate noise.

Cathy

Good on you, Ludwig, mate, keep on the way you are. Having a rotten drought up Dally way this year. But Dally is a big district and straight up the line, Wubin-Buntine way, it's even worse. Only thing really saving us though is that because most of our land is West of the line, it also takes in quite a lot of the good light country which can grow a good crop with less rain. Used to be good wildflower country too, which you most likely know about.

Cheers, George C.