Mongcton's main claim to fame was as a policy adviser (specialising in science) to the Thatcher government. There were pre web days and of course most reporting in confidence but I understand from commentaries that he was regarded as one of the best policy advisers to serve any Government.
I think if you read both the essay and the back-up you would have to admit that we would be well served by such quality advise in this part of the world.

He has been retired because of serious ill health for some time and I am surprised he remains able to make such a contribution at this time. We should all be so lucky.
Science does not make policy. That is why Governments depend on policy advisers to supplement the science.

Sea level rising of from 1.5 to 2 mm per year are lost in the coastal "noise" and of course at that rate most coastlines respond with a mix of erosion and accretion. No cause for action. After all, what action has Australia taken over the last 100 years?

Hi ChrisC, thanks for your input.
However, I take issue with what you say about rapid global warming. Professor Bob Carter, who probably knows a lot more about the subject than us, says:
”Consider the simple fact, drawn from the official temperature records of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, that for the years 1998-2005 global average temperature did not increase (there was actually a slight decrease, though not at a rate that differs significantly from zero).” Also the articles about sea level rises, to which you referred us, if you read them in their entirety, are equivocal and it is difficult to draw any firm conclusions from them.
The whole science of climatology is so impenetrable for the average layman that we have to rely on experts. The experts do not all agree, despite the claims of the “climate change alarmists”.
The more I see and read of the "Anthropogenic Climate Change" activists, "Stern report" protagonists, the more they remind me of those other fantasists, the religious movements of the world.
They believe because they want to believe, and go around preaching at the unconverted pagans whom they call "climate change sceptics" (even though this is wrong as most "climate change sceptics" acknowledge that the world's climate changes over time - they simply don't agree with the alarmism spread by these great moralists).
With messianic zeal and religious fervour, they castigate all who dare to disbelieve their pronouncements, accusing them of all sorts of base motives, while never acknowledging their own equally base motives. Gore is their High Priest, perfectly suited for the job, as an ex-politician.
None of this means that we shouldn’t try to minimise, within reason, man’s impact on the planet. However, I am not personally convinced there is cause for alarm.

It is obvious climate change is real. From the NSW 1 in 1000 year drought to the horrendous 2005 US hurricanes to the 2006 lack of US landfall hurricanes, climate is NOT as stable.

However the notion that climate change equals greenhouse warming is not proven.

The implicit linking of the two by political opportunists is a calculated ploy that is clearly wearing thin. Hopefully there will be public backlash on this NOW-all-important-issue to sort those politicians out at the polls.

Why? The 2006 US hurricane season is proving greenhouse warming false while its economy and CO2 emissions are booming.

Before May 11 this year, SST maps were showing considerably more heat in the Gulf of Mexico and the TWA (Tropical Atlantic) than 2005. There were GREAT CONCERNS and the US was trying anything to prevent another Katrina. One thing they tried was a wastewater mitigation program. US authorities had been warned that colloidal matter from US outfalls was altering the heat capacity of the top few metres of the ocean surface. The concept was to reduce the colloidals, increase evaporation and remove built up heat on a more regular basis, denying hurricanes fuel to develop into Katrina monsters. I have no doubt that US authorities were flying blind with this.

Deference to organisations like NOAA and the NHC is why the great success of this exercise has not been advertised.
However there is a clear audit trail of wastewater mitigation in the SHA (sea height anomaly) maps between late May and late September when the danger period was deemed to be over.

Further proof of these observations will occur in 2007 when the SHA and SST maps will be scrutinised more closely in their correlation to fewer hurricanes and more storm events.

The point is, hotter and colder versions of climate change are real, independent of greenhouse warming and dependent on human coastal demographic changes.

Mounting evidence from the US EXPERIMENT will indicate that simple alterations to wastewater management can mitigate climate changes over periods from 2-7 days if regular management regimes are properly policed year round

For those who haven't yet read Naomi Oreskes' essay, in Science Magazine (published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, I offer the caveat she included:

The Scientific Consensus
on Climate Change
Naomi Oreskes
3 DECEMBER 2004 VOL 306 page 1686 SCIENCE www.sciencemag.org

"The scientific consensus might, of course, be wrong. If the history of science teaches anything, it is humility, and no one can be faulted for failing to act on what is not known. But our grandchildren will surely blame us if they find that we understood
the reality of anthropogenic climate change and failed to do anything about it."

Fact is, whether you wish to disagree, or merely post to forums saying you disagree, the world is warming.

The following succinct summary of the essay is included, in easily read blue text of a different font:

"Without substantial disagreement, scientists find human activities
are heating the Earth’s surface."

It doesn't matter whether you are disagreeing, or disagreeing about what substantial disagreement may mean, or counting angels on pinheads. You are wasting your own time, maybe pleasurably. Meanwhile, the earth is warming.

Immediate, practical, market-driven energy efficiency strategies can decrease the amount of energy we are using, increase our use of solar input, (light, heat and wind) and decrease our electricity base and peak load requirements and other fossil fuel commitments. These same necessities were identified over 30 years ago, well before the Stern Report was published.

If you are young enough, you can think a worst-case scenario with you as an environmental refugee. I am at retirement age and consider myself maybe young enough. I am more concerned for my children.

A more optimistic scenario has "us" using limited energy resources efficaciously and thus cutting back on CO2 production. And the skeptics could keep saying anthropogenic global warming was never real anyway.

Would the skeptics call that a win-win solution?

Sir Impossible,

"Fact is, whether you wish to disagree, or merely post to forums saying you disagree, the world is warming."

What a load of rubbish. You just haven't looked at the Sea Surface Temperature maps (SST) for the Tropical Atlantic between May and October this year.
Despite increased US economic and CO2 output this year the bloody ocean started to COOL down during the most dangerous time of the season thereby stalling hurricane formations. This can only have been human induced and shows climate can be controlled and climate has little or nought to do with CO2 levels.

That shows you to be WRONG!

Look at the data! If you don't know how to extract the SST maps I will explain it for you. Do not be so lazy. This is far too important!

Grandchildren indeed!

Ludwig, it has taken a lot of waiting for one of the CO2 flux clan to let slip the actual volume of ice melt each year. And this has enabled us to determine that at the current rate of ice sheet melting it will take 11,000 years for the greenland ice sheet to melt away.

And after all the scare mongering about a 7 metre rise in sea level from loss of the greenland ice sheet that has been implied to be just around the corner, we find that the actual risk over the next century is marginal.

Even you could handle the maths. You just divide 7000 millimetres of sea level rise by 11,000/100 and we discover that we can expect 7 centimetres of sea level rise from greenland by the year 2107.

This assumes that it all continues and we don't go into an ice-age before then.

But the problem with the greenhouse spivs is not the fact of their gonzo science. The real problem is that they have consistently resorted to deceptive conduct to sell their product. Once a shonk, always a shonk.