Andrew Hewett writes, "The debate about whether climate change is occurring is over. The question now is how do we respond?"

Me - LAUGH OUT LOUD!

And for the simple reasons that are presented in the sensible, logical and scientific arguments presented above by Owen and Grey. I never thought I'd see the day that the story of Chicken Little would come to life for real - especially not on global scale.

How can so many so-called educated people get so-sucked in to a such a so-so-so-obvious political scam over the control of energy?

LAUGH OUT LOUD again.

Wildcat,
I believe the report you are referring to is the Report by the House of Lords Select Committee chaired by Lawson. It was a sane reasoned report and hence totally unnaceptable to the fear-mongerers. You can read it, and responses to it, at
http://www.climatescience.org.nz
This is a group of New Zealand, Australian, South African and UK scientists, economists and policy analysts who remain sceptical.
We are unique in that we have a science panel, an economics panel and a policy analysis panel because all three require their own expertise.
Stern's report is extraordinary if only because it reports on two "parallell" universes. In one universe all developed nations have become as wealthy as America and hence generate an extreme emissions scenario. But these same nations simultaneously occupy a parallel universe in which the women remain so poor that their "gender inequality" is increased because they have to spend more time carrying water and toiling in agriculture - just like all those American women!

Let me get this straight. A former banker delivers a report on climate change that supposedly ends the debate on human induced global warming. And in this report the banker ignores the very existence of double entry bookkeeping.

There is no more fundamental tool to the bankers arts than double entry bookkeeping. It ensures that we record both losses and gains so our decisions can be based on a "true and fair" view of the matters under consideration.

And more than 1000 years of case law on fraudulent dealing have highlighted the fact that those who would seek to influence a debate by only mentioning debits, without off-setting credits, are clearly trying to impair the debate, not win it.

Stern calculated a total cost but failed to calculate a total benefit. But what else could one expect from someone who has worked for a bank that has spent the past 50 years lending obscene amounts of money to dictators, watch as it is syphoned off to Switzerland, and then turn the screws on the luckless citizens to maintain the interest payments on money they never saw.

Just another day in shonk city.

Andrew Hewett just needs to relax.

The Monckton 'Battle of the Graphs' picture puts it in perspective.

Sixty leading climate scientists write to Canadian PM putting climate change in perspective.

Notice this wasn't reported and run with like the hype around enhanced greenhouse.

http://www.lavoisier.com.au/papers/articles/canadianPMletter06.html

The debate is certainly not over.
See these comments by Dr Mike Hulme who is Professor of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia, and Director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research in this article from Auntie BBC:
“I have found myself increasingly chastised by climate change campaigners when my public statements and lectures on climate change have not satisfied their thirst for environmental drama and exaggerated rhetoric.
It seems that it is we, the professional climate scientists, who are now the (catastrophe) sceptics. How the wheel turns.”
This is not all he says.
Please read the link before getting swept up in the hysteria.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6115644.stm

Interesting to look in more detail, at two of the quotes from the above replies:

http://www.lavoisier.com.au/papers/articles/canadianPMletter06.html

""Climate change is real" is a meaningless phrase used repeatedly by activists to convince the public that a climate catastrophe is looming and humanity is the cause ... We need to continue intensive research into the real causes of climate change and help our most vulnerable citizens adapt to whatever nature throws at us next."

and

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6115644.stm

"I believe climate change is real, must be faced and action taken. But the discourse of catastrophe is in danger of tipping society onto a negative, depressive and reactionary trajectory."

"[author] Mike Hulme is … Director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research"

Clearly no "consensus", but both quotes acknowledge climate change.

The question is how much time do we have to reach a consensus?

All of the relevant arguments, the concerns and "yes-buts", are reasonably canvassed and updated in the Wikipedia article to be found at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming

The article also mentions 5 categories of interventions:

"Reduction of energy use (conservation)
Shifting ... to alternative energy sources
Carbon capture and storage
Carbon sequestration
Planetary engineering to cool the earth"

Of these, the most immediate is energy conservation. This seems preferable to expensive, subsidised solutions like carbon sequestration, nuclear electricity or a cloud of sunlight-reflecting mirrors fired into orbit (“A Sunshade for Planet Earth” (Science Now Daily News 31 October) see http://blogs.physicstoday.org/newspicks/.

Practical, market-based energy conservation strategies are already here to implement, for those of us who want to move on, using the precautionary principle. See, for example, www.rmi.org/ - the Rocky Mountain Institute.

The graphs of CO2 increase in the Wikipedia item show an abrupt pattern of great increase, that forbodes catastrophe. We can choose to promote and implement immediate proven conservation measures, or we can scoff and deny and wait for "scientific proof". Denial will not fix the problems that we can already attribute to fossil fuel pollution and anthropogenic climate change.