By the way, here's an interview with Proffesor Carl Wunch, the scientist who claimed to have been misrepresented in the original "documentary":

http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2007/s1977366.htm

A few choice quotes:

"
What I thought I was doing, as I said, was making a film about the science of global warming. What I ended up being in is what I think is a political film. It really isn't about the science at all, and I guess I'm somewhat troubled that TV companies around the world are treating it as though this were a science documentary. It's not. It's a tendentious political propaganda piece..."

"I had never before encountered a filmmaker who clearly quite deliberately understood my point of view but set out to imply, through the way he uses me in the film, the reverse of what I was trying to say."

"Al Gore is not a scientist, he's a lawyer, politician. I don't know him, he strikes me as a very smart man who's talked to scientists and has come to be honestly worried about what the future is bringing....

There are elements in that film that I think are scientifically incorrect, but in such a complicated business, it's not surprising that somebody trained as a lawyer might get them wrong. On the other hand, the general theme of the film I believe is right on."

"Al Gore doesn't pretend to explain nuances. He's telling you why he is so worried, and I share many of his worries without sharing his understanding of all the details that leads him to that conclusion."

"The changes that we're seeing today are consistent with a great deal of what we know about the climate system, where there's very little argument about the effects. So, for example, adding carbon dioxide very rapidly that is over periods of decades, which nature doesn't do itself, we can calculate, these are calculations that go back almost 100 years, how much the earth should warm on average. We tend to see that the pattern of warming where more of it takes place at the poles are consistent with an anthropogenic input"

"Well of course we are stuck within our limited knowledge base. If we weren't, we would have solved the problem already. Doh!"

Great well thought out comeback there mate....

Did it ever occur to you that I was referring to you, and your ilks knowledge base. There is plenty of farmers and corporations heading in the right direction. There would not be too many progressive businesses that have not already begun to assess the risk and search for alternatives.
As far as farming goes... try googling regenerative agriculture or holistic farm management, organic or biological farming etc etc.

I know I'm wasting my time Pericles, but maybe there is just a little piece of you that realises that you have much to learn.

"Optimism and persistence" (and some knowledge) are not all that is needed, but they are all needed to go in the right direction.

I don't believe all our woes are driven by greed etc either. It's more about having poor decision making processes to start with. That's why projects with all the best intentions and resources are capable(and regularly do)of not coming up with the desired results.

Ahhh now where is my half full whisky glass...

The denialists lost badly on Thursday night. It was much worse than Alex's minor acknowledgment that there were "some problems with Durkin's piece". Alex, it was completely demolished. Durkin and his documentary are totally discredited.

The interesting thing to me though is the response of the denialists. You would think that such a humiliating defeat would make them reconsider their points of view. They might think that perhaps, since every reputable climate scientist in the world says we have a problem, that maybe, just maybe, we have a problem.

No. Not a bit of it. They go for the man. They accuse Tony Jones of being unpleasantly querulous and truly loopy. They accuse the ABC of being unsporting in leaving in the bit where Durkin wiped his panic stricken face. They claim Karoly was given too much time and was rude. They accuse Robin Williams of being po-faced, a lousy actor, a crummy novelist and cast aspersions on his education. But most telling of all, they claim that Tony Jones and the ABC did a hatchet job on poor Mr Durkin.

Well, I can't comment on Robin William's acting career, but let's get one thing straight. Tony Jones and the ABC didn't do a hatchet job on Martin Durkin. Martin Durkin did a hatchet job on Martin Durkin. All Tony Jones did was basic research. He went to the climate scientists and asked them what questions he should put to Durkin. And then he asked them. And Durkin had no answers.

I have to admit I was surprised at how badly Durkin performed in the interview. The questions he was asked shouldn't have surprised him. "Why did you omit the last 20 to 30 years of data from the two key plots?" "Why did you falsify a couple of hundred years of data to support your thesis?" Durkin's answers were unbelievably pathetic. I loved it when he said that an underling had done it. It sounded like a version of "my cat ate it".

It's good when irrational, opportunistic, instant experts get their come-uppance. It should happen more often.

Nice try Bushrat, but not particularly convincing.

>>Did it ever occur to you that I was referring to you, and your ilks knowledge base<<

The inference here is that people not of my "ilk" do in fact possess this "knowledge base". Is it too much to ask what they are doing with it? Apart from the grab-bag of simplistic, piecemeal token efforts that we have seen so far?

The giveaway is this comment of yours:

>>I know I'm wasting my time Pericles, but maybe there is just a little piece of you that realises that you have much to learn<<

On the contrary, I am only too well aware that we have "much to learn". The difference between you and me is that you believe that you and your "knowledge base" actually have all the answers, refusing to recognize that yes, there is a ton of stuff that we do not know, and should actually devote our time to finding out instead of poncing around pontificating about optimism being the answer to all our problems.

I notice that you have declined to answer my earlier question "Give me an example anywhere of a corporation, business or farmer whose major goal is to be environmentally neutral". Surely this is a preprequisite, if your optimism is to be justified? Just vaguely waffling about "There is [sic] plenty of farmers and corporations heading in the right direction" doesn't exactly justify dancing in the streets, does it?

Xoddam, I used the Haddley data because the nasa/Giss stuff has serious variances with our own Bom data sets, which have not been properly explained by GISS. The 30 year mean was 13.97C.

The GISS series is likely to produce another distorted picture this year because of their overweighting of North American records and gross underweighting of oceanic data, which will show reduced Nth A. precipitation, esp snowpack, in this La Nina year.

The low pressure system due in the SE of Australia this week is likely to take snowfalls into an above average annual event which is likely to ensure that Australian data is down on past records.

Pericles,
Once again you run off at the mouth with your diatribe of negativity and somehow feel the need to attack me. How on Earth have you a clue about me being a 'poncing pontificator' just because I am optimistic about plenty that we can do.

You'd do well to remember "Whether you think you probably can, or you think you probably can't.... you will be right".

Some reading if your willing:

www.polyfacefarms.com
www.fromthesoilup.com.au
www.holisticmanagement.org.au
www.bfa.com.au
www.davidsuzuki.org
www.managingwholes.com
www.rcs.au.com
www.etiwanda.com.au
www.stockmangrassfarmer.com
www.holisticdecisions.com
www.pharocattle.com
www.holisticresults.com
www.principlefocus.com.au
www.kachana.com

That's just a few sites with plenty of stories of successful operators that are greatly improving their land in the process of being profitable.
Far more then being just "neutral" in their impact.

Also the biggest private landowner in the U.S. Ted Turner manages all of his land and business that way.

I remain optimistic because I focus on the positive stories that are available, and not on fools like you....