Good onyer Ray! We can't be TOO dogmatic, of course - because the natural world is imperfectly understood; but Billie was off the mark when he/she said: "At the time of Chaucer it was warm enough in western Europe for grapes to grow in England, other parts of the planet were cooler in the same 300 year period." Previous papers, and now Miyahara et al 2006, "Variations of solar cyclicity during the Spoerer Minimum" J. Geophys. Res. v.111 A03103, tie cold/warm cycles in NW Europe to variations in solar activity. But solar activity is NOT a local phenomenon - it is more likely to be hemisphere-wide, or indeed lobal. The Mediaeval Warm Period and (say) Maunder Minimum (1645-1715) are events matching solar variability. It is implausible that these externally-driven variations are local - rather than regional and global. This raises a far broader question. Is observation the underpinning of science - or is it belief? Galileo, Darwin, Wegener would all have had a view.

Like it or not, "Global Warming" is now firmly on the political agenda, and anyone who tries to inject any rational argument that does not coincide with the premise that it is all the fault of carbon emissions is condemned to be ignored, vilified and - probably in the not too distant future - imprisoned for treason.

So if you are young and smart, you will swot up on the details of carbon trading and join a broker, to make a margin on every trade. The European Exchange alone traded over US20bn last year, and - according to Vancouver's straight.com, a "United Nations study says the market could be worth an astonishing $2 trillion a year by 2012"

So, forget hedge funds, boys. Hop onto the carbon credit gravy train.

Way before 2012, they will have found their way into our pension funds and at that point will have become fully institutionalized. While the question "do they actually contribute to solving Global Warming" will long have become a non-question.

Yet the evidence is clear that carbon credits are useful in theory only, simply transferring Northern Hemisphere Global Warming guilt into a profitable financial instrument. The schemes devised by the seller of the credit either deliver dubious measurable benefits (see the raging controversy on monoculture tree plantations http://www.alternet.org/envirohealth/45696/), or are downright idiotic. From India's Frontline magazine:

"Nearly 60 per cent of projects aim at destroying trifluoromethane (HFC-23), a potent GHG, in incinerators, which cost, according to one estimate, just $31 million to build and run for a year but generate an absurdly high $800 million worth of CERs."

So stop whinging about the evidence being flimsy. Sit back and enjoy, or get on board and have some fun.

H L Mencken got it right when he said:

"For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong."

He also said:

"Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance"

So billie, Lavoisier is criticised for being small and lowly-funded, while other organizations are attacked for being big with money behind them. You just can't win in your world.

"The potential risks to the global environment are simply too serious to ignore. ...I [endorse the] deep concerns regarding the impact of greenhouse emissions on rising sea levels and changing weather patterns ... especially low lying island nations. ... Australia will play its part in tackling the problem of climate change."

Guess who said it. Back in 1997?

OK, I admit it. I am SO NOT worried about these silly articles.

OLO: These articles are getting very boring. We've gone over all of this a dozen times.

Boring. Boring. Boring. Boring. Boring.

Funny really, that an article complaining about hysteria and dogmatism among climate scientists should be so, well, hyserical and, er, dogmatic.

A small suggestion Ray, you might look at updating your cliches. All the old favorites were there, "political correctness" "guilt-ridden hysteria", even "chattering classes". I'm sure that stuff goes down a treat at the H.R. Nicholls Society, but the rest of us have moved on.

For those who are interested the Observer article is here http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,2000533,00.html Prof John Turner of (potted bio here http://www.iamas.org/People%20Profiles/Turner.html) "using records returned by Russian research balloons that were flown over the whole of Antarctica between 1971 and 2003, discovered that temperatures in the lowest level of the atmosphere over the continent have already risen by about 0.7C. Their paper, in Science, was published in March, too late for inclusion in the IPCC's deliberation." I suppose Turner is another one of those "decarbonising radicals"?

Good to see white knight Richard Castles defending the poor beleaguered Lavoisier Group, especially seeing as he's made it very clear that HE'S NOT A MEMBER OF the Institute of Public Affairs and so therefore not associated in any way with the Lavoisier Group.

Ray should have mentioned his launch at Parliament House. You're all invited http://www.lavoisier.com.au/papers/ninefactslaunch.pdf
Give our regards to Sir Arvi Parbo, won't you, Ray?

We have all this handringing about the West being the cause of Global warming and thus must sign the Kyto Protocol to appease the UN.

It was western science and technology that brought about the Industrial revolution.Better food technology and antibiotics enabled third world countries to expand their populations beyond sustainable limits,but not one of the do gooders have even hinted at contraception as also being a solution.

So under Kyoto,poor countries can continue to pollute,increase their populations,while we suffer poverty.

There has to be a rule for all that accounts for not only greenhouse emissions but unsustainable population growth.Guess what,the UN won't engage the either the reality nor the truth because their biased agenda is about destroying Anglo civilisation,the foundation of modern prosperity and democracy.