Most of you buggers appear so smart and sure of yourselves, reckon in a country town in the old days you'd be run - out of town - .

Only let us hope you don't eventually dominate this OLO. You are making me myself worse, also, feeling if I wasn't so old, I'd enjoy knocking you off one by one.

Please to remember the ancient saying From Deserts the Prophets Come.

In this crazy modern age of Mobiles, Computers et al, it is becoming all to true that persons have not got time to take time and really use their brains to analyse.

Instead most of the thought processing these days is just behind the eyes and ears, as happens in the military when one responds to immediate commands, and never got time to really think - the reason Socrates gave away his job as a top military man, a Hoplite like a Spartan, in these days winning all the awards.

As Socrates explained, he let his reasoning go down deep, or rather more deep in the skull, where he was able to find true compassion for others, which can never be found in the crazy electronic rat-race we are living in now - under the command of the ersatz reborn Corporate Culture.

Cheers, BB - WA

BB, with respect and affection, you're letting your own side down. Think about it.

How many times have you seen an OLO thread get colonised by nutters with a single agenda? Every time abortion gets mentioned the pro-lifers do their machine gun keyboard thing and it looks very much as though they're in the majority, and if you're not paying attention to what's going on in the wider world, you'd form the impression that Australians don't support abortion, which is not true.

It's no different with climate change, global warming, whatever you want to call it. A majority of Australians are concerned about it and many other issues that fall under the humanitarian umbrella. Look to the younger folk and you'll be pleased with what you find.

In my opinion, OLO is one of the better examples of online public debate, but like any other online space it's vulnerable to nutterism and the generation about to inherit the mess is not here. They're over at MySpace talking about how disappointed they are that we're not taking an Arnie Schwarzenegger view of the whole debacle and peppering the outback with solar energy collecting paraphernalia.

The public debate has already been fought and won, and won by your side. For all I know, not being an expert at climate science, the denialists could be right. In a democracy the demonstrable truth is beside the point. What the majority believe is the decider in an election year. This is an election year and the majority believe the environment is in trouble.

Cheer up old chuck. You're on the winning side. And with your education you should know better than to draw conclusions on the basis of a single source.

My marks out of 10

David Karoly - 8
Bob Carter - 6
Greg Bourne - 7
Nikki Williams - 8
Ray Evans - 4
Nick Rowley - 8
Michael Duffy - 6
Robyn Williams - 5
Tony Jones - 6
Audience (questioners) 2
ABC - 8

What do you think?

ALSO,

Let’s do our own poll, I’m sure OLO can do the number crunching – might be fun!

There is only one assumption – GW is accepted by most scientists as fact.

IF you don’t accept this assumption, ONLY vote UNDECIDED (keep it simple)

Answer only YES, NO, or UNDECIDED in replies to:

GW is happening and we can do something about it

davsab,global warming is not the main issue,it is a matter of which human activity is the main culprit.None of the evidence is conclusive and it just depends upon how the evidence is compiled and whose bias interprets it.There is a lot of evidence saying that CO2 does not influence average world temperatures and thus we should all remain sceptical.

In the realm of improbability believe nothing you hear and only half what you see,but with probablity remain sceptical until all outcomes fits your hypothisis.

We should act on all forms of pollution including addressing third world population explosions.We should not in the short term be panicked by the religious Greenies since the way forward is through science and technology supported by a strong economy.

Consider this.The industrial revolution began in the West.Medicine and food technology was given to poor countries whose populations just exploded with no disease or lack of food to curb this expodential pop growth.Now according to our leftist Greenies,the West are the priahas who pollute the planet at will and therefore must be punished.Neither China or India will curb their burning of fossil fuels but expect the West to once again to become troglodytes to appease their perceived past injustices which were primarily self inflicted anyway.China has stated recently that it will not curb it's industrial expansion by limiting co2 emitions.

The ABC are just locked in a time warp of the evil West being the root of all evil which has affected all humanity.

The ABC have their own biased agenda.They want a leftist high taxing Labor Govt in power so they will get a lot more public funding.They are guilty of the same avarice of which they accuse business.The main difference is that they do not want to put in the same effort or risk going broke.Riding on the back of the tax payer is a far easier option.Who are the real cowards?

Ok, it looks like light banter is not “cooling” Global Warming.

Arjay, “global warming is not the main issue” as you say. I try to make a case for the real problem in the following posts on OLO here:

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=6038#86163

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=6038#86185

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=6038#86277

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=6038#86279

The real problem is not about the science albeit a lot of ‘non-scientists’ are prepared to have some sort of ‘expert’ opinion … hello!

The real problem (of which you seem to be exemplifying) is that of a ‘divergent world’ – you have expressed it yourself in statements such as “religious leftist greenies”, “troglodytes?”, “evil West being the root of all evil”, “leftist high taxing Labor Govt?”.

This will attract responses such as “religious rightist capitalists” and “neo-cons and the new-world order fascists”.

Can’t you see these views are not helpful in resolving the problems we are facing?

To solve these problems, opposing ideological views (you/me, us/them, right/left, liberal/labour, east/west, Islam/Christianity, socialist/capitalist, etc) must agree on a solution.

The UN tries, The APEC summit will try. Indeed, countries around the world now recognise Global Warming as a serious threat, as do businesses, research institutions, NGO’s and lots of individuals.

I am an environmentalist and it encourages me to see politicians of all persuasions (even Howard and Bush now it seems) take Global Warming seriously. It has been difficult for the ‘rightists and conservatives’ in developing a so-called exit strategy to their opposition of the Kyoto Protocol, but if APEC works – that will be good (they should not undermine the role of the UNFCCC).

As far as GW is concerned, the IPCC has given us a message and policy makers are trying to converge on solutions. We can work together to adapt to GW and mitigate GHG emissions – however, my fear is that greed and self-interest of some societies and groups will sabotage it.

And Arjay, alarmist greenies don’t do their cause any good either.

“Alarmist greenies don’t do their cause any good either”
Alarmist Greenie? - a definition up for grabs.
And the assessment of whether or not we think we are being swindled might depend upon our take on that definition. Is there a sharp dividing line, or a steady gradation, between extremes?
It might be possible to get some agreement that Harry Potter, Bob Carter, and John Howard, are together out on one limb in the science stakes, while Tim Flannery, James Lovelock, and Maggie Thatcher reside towards the other.
That is the comparatively easy part.
But, what agreement is possible in this “debate”, as to their position relative to the “alarmist greenie” line, for such people as Ian Lowe, Tony McMichael, Frank Fenner, Kurt Lambeck?
It would be interesting to get some feedback on this from the author of this article, and Davsab, and others who have not already flagged their positions