A pithy quote, Sirvivor, but the general idea is that one is normally expected to come up with a detailed explanation of why the simple solution is supposedly wrong. But what did you do? You went on with a completely irrelevant tangent on South African Aids policy. You're not going to seriously hold that out as intelligent discourse, are you? Give us a break.

Sir Vivor is right. Whats going on? Politico's have chosen to ignore emperical evidence for anthropogenically driven climate change. In god and the emporers new clothes they trust, shoot the messenger and ignore the maggots in the pudding. Pity ape society and selfishness cant keep up with cerebal evolution.

Sams: Richard Castles wrote: "Here are a couple of other inconvenient pieces of evidence that you might like to check out, and perhaps horror of horrors," [FALSE - where did you get this from?]

Johnj: "Richard has made it clear his article didn't "focus on the climate science" [TRUE] He isn't interested in the science [FALSE ASSUMPTION AND A NON SEQUITUR], except to denigrate those who disagree with him." [FALSE - I can't find any comment that actually endeavours TO disagree with me, which I imagined would be arguing the case that sceptics should be shut out of debate. I haven't denigrated anybody, only tried to respond to the falsehoods thrown my way [Compare Sams's comment that some people are a "waste of oxygen".]

Sir Vivor, I apologise for not addressing your questions. My posting limits have unfortunately restricted me to correcting the inaccuracies of the posters above, which Perseus suggests do much to confirm the point of my article. I am interested in climate science but can't possibly cover everything here. I am, as my opinion stated, concerned about the reduction of the complexities and uncertainties of climate change to a singular, unquestionable, unverifiable truth (fundamentalism), and the censorship of those, particularly eminent people in the field, who maintain a sceptical view.

Richard, you have certainly rattled a few cages here, congratulations. I think "sams" has got the two of us confused, you would have thought he'd be a bit more polite about a recent NASA discovery, just makes my point, some people would rather do anything than think for themselves. Wonder if his PhD in physics is in fake metaphysics?
Richard42

Dear Mr Castles,
Re Perseus’ query, which begs a response:
"When asked what management actions we could take in response to change [global warming], we advised that we would simply adjust the stocking rate of trees in the same way that nature does now. That is, instead of thinning a stand of regrowth back to 800 stems per hectare we would reduce this by 10% to 720 stems to ensure that each retained tree had the same water budget as before."

Does Perseus have evidence this intervention is applicable to silviculture generally, for the increased average temperatures predicted by global warming?

If thinning trees on plantations by an extra 10%, for a "1 degree increase in temperature and a 10% reduction in average rainfall", is a mitigating response to global warming, then I commend his solution to the rest of the world. But what about the natural forest? Would it also need thinning, or would nature do that, then, too?

Thus Scientific American Editor John Rennie, on "The Skeptical Environmentalist”, quoting H. L. Mencken: "For every problem, there is a neat, simple solution, and it is always wrong." "

My underlying concern is that global warming requires multiple interventions, because of the risk of unpleasant surprises due to unexpected feedback patterns in a vast, complex, interlocked, nonlinear system of global flows of heat energy.

A current diagram of the earth’s Global Radiation Budget is shown on page 2 of “Determination of the Earth’s Radiation Budget from CERES”

http://lasp.colorado.edu/sorce/2006ScienceMeeting/presentations/Day01_Wed/S2_01_Loeb.pdf

It’s a shame there’s no linkage shown with the earth’s industrial energy budgets, because that’s where surplus energy is being added to the system, along with GHG’s such as CO2, as a result of global economic systems, which are growing, on the balance, exponentially - that is, faster and faster.

The principal author, Norman G Loeb, says on Page 14, that “Given climate variability, 15 to 20 years is required to first detect climate trends at cloud feedback level with 90% confidence”.

Mr Castles, do you think we should wait that long before deciding on a climate change strategy?

“In every relativist”, he says, “there is a fundamentalist about to be born, and in every fundamentalist there is a relativist waiting to be liberated”. Both forces, he maintains, are products of the pluralising effect of modernisation, and both serve only to shut down reasoned debate.”

Why can’t they encourage debate? Didn’t shut down a fundamentalist anti-green like Leigh did it? It just gave Leigh and co some ammunition. Pluralising affect - I would have thought would create more debate as the different ideas and positions come into discourse.

Why can't we just be ordinary folks who look around and see the smog getting thicker; the dams getting emptier; the weather getting more extreme; the sun burning harder on our skin and so on and think gee whizz: " Something needs to be done - maybe the conservationist movement wasn’t a communist plot to take over the world or slow down western development for the communists – maybe they had a point way back when the “born again fundamentalist” or “liberated relativists” fell foul of the pluralising affect of modernisation and shut down debate with anti-conservaton-measures fundamentalist essays like Richard Castles'?”

Hmmm - maybe it is just anti-green fundamentalists spinning their usual yarns to shut down debate. I thought political correctness did that. What- is the PC scam too passé and need a new demon? I been pluralised eeek! Born again! No liberated! Wait maybe we been borerated or liberborn!

At least we can have a guilt-free life now. We can rest easy as we waste our resources on warfare; we can mass produce juice guslers; we can cut down forests; we can forget about over population; we can ignore the consequence of our rationalising for the generations that follow us and so on.

Share prices still okay there guys. Greens still on the back foot. Shut them up good mate. Sweet. Nice one Richard. We all born yesterday - like hell.