Well Mr. Lawson if you are correct and it is a challenging article, climate scientists will have egg on their faces--to a degree.
Science is value free in theory subject to hypothesis overturning or correction. If it remained in the realm of intellectual endeavour time alone would make correction.
Two things happened Climate Change like Saddam in Kuwait, offered threat to vested interests and secondly funding for research in this accountants age depend on quick outcome.
Thus real cause to deny the , well not data as always attacking the person is better politically, being informed is not necessary. So whilst the honest attempted to refute data the others set too to destroy reputations, claiming that unlike industry of Politicians there is a vested interest. Money for research continuance and status, the latter of course being something the public has affinity with the more attackable.
One might of course argue that if the effect is going to be detrimental to humans one must act , prophesy and time is of the essence. The trouble with this thought is that media, commerce politicians and clergy have subscribed to this and ramp up the fear that might otherwise be just a niggling worry or of unconcern. (in their own interests? -shame!)
We saw it in Iraq, with whose invasion you agree 2004 on the grounds the UN failed to act. We see it in peak oil, and in the prophesies of biologists concerned with population dynamics and finite resources. We are indeed an age as credulous as of old or is that lazy? Effort can now generally yield the data necessary for conclusion even if such conclusion is to seek further data, not panic.
But no ramp it up to become the fodder of the media and would be powerful.

I hope indeed you are as uncommitted as you state these days one can never be sure just what lies behind apparent honesty. I even check the sun is shining when the forecaster says it is!

Is the Climate Denial Machine is already getting into gear ibn Australia on behalf of the fossil fuel lobby?

Still, they have to pay some lip service to global warming, otherwise Bush,Howard, BHPB & co won't be able to con us all into the nuclear industry - (as supposed cure for global warming)
Christina Macpherson www.antinuclearaustralia.com

Sorry Mr Lawson, you're a finance journo. I'll take editing lessons from you any day. I'll get my science from scientists - not just any scientist, as you have done, but something peer-reviewed and published somewhere respectable.

It's been shown before that if a scientists says something, it ain't necessarily so. If an overwhelming majority of scientists say something, and say it everywhere, that's good enough for me.

Look at the articles on OLO questioning GW and note they're by economists, religionists and lone crusaders. I never saw this kind of anti-intellectualism, this preparedness to dump on scientists and science in general, before the Bush government made an artform out of misleading the public over climate change.

What we need is real science.

Free speech science not paid for science.

Global warming, climate change, el nino take a pick.

But we as a nation can do better for the future.

We can create better ideas and conservation decisions and big business well they will just have to make a change as they always have, as sooner or later we will be in the Sh#t.

So if we can breath better not just for ourselves think smarter and not like in some country's wear a mask due to polution then we really are the lucky country

It interests me that when the scientific community invents or discovers a new type of plastic, or a vaccine for polio, or any one of a number of items like transistors computer chips, we embrace the new whatever with complete trust and open arms. We can’t wait to get the new DVD, the new Ipod, the new truck with the antilock breaks. These are all based on science and then applied directly or by engineers. Suddenly when the scientists say we have a problem they are met with a barrage of criticism and sleazy journalists and low-end scientists like Singer rear their ugly heads to deny the accuracy of the science. These people cherry pick some results, misrepresent other results and in some cases just blatantly lie.
Makes me ashamed to say I am a member of the same species as they, because it may imply that
I am as big a dolt as the writer.
From stueysplace.ca :
"To me it is so obvious that 7 to 8 billion people on a tiny planet with only a 10 mile high atmosphere are going to have a major effect on the climate if they burn everything in sight. It boggles the mind that anyone could actually think otherwise."

It is interesting that none of the critics of the author of this piece addresses his argument – instead they resort to ad hominem abuse, false comparisons, appeals to authority and dark conspiracy theories about oil companies.

Personally I believe that humans are contributing to global warming. But I also believe we need to consider the evidence and our response to it in a reasoned and informed way.

Scepticism, questioning received wisdom and pushing the boundaries of knowledge have usually been the starting points of scientific discovery. The vitriol heaped on those who question the scientific consensus on this issue, and the failure of the mainstream consensus to acknowledge is errors, corrections and uncertainties, is moving beyond scientific method