What I find interesting in the climate change debate is that the skeptics invabiably roll out one or two names each time whereas the 'mainstreamers' can list peer reviewed articles from many disciplines by the truckload. It's creationism all over again.

I agree that models should be treated with caution but I'm comfortable that apart from a few angry old men the consensus about the causes seem fairly well reasoned.

I don't see an issue with the IPCC. Invariably it'll leave some out in the cold but given that climate change is, by definition, a world-wide issue it should be addressed by a world-wide approach. There is nothing stopping those with an alternate view forming their own group, if they could all actually agree (Dirkin's offering put forward a couple of explanations), especially as such a forum could be cyber-based.

David Rutledge, Chair of the Division of Engineering and Applied Science at Caltech (one of the world's absolute top technical universities) estimates that there is only one tenth the coal that will be accessible for burning that the IPCC has assumed in its climate change scenarios. See:

http://rutledge.caltech.edu/

Watch the one hour lecture at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTUcxYdMmj4

and see also the article by Kjell Aleklett, Professor of Physics at Uppsala University, Sweden, that states pretty much the same thing, published here at Online Opinion:

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=5933

Regards,

Michael

Congratulations OLO for publishing and Paul Biggs for writing a fair and balanced piece about these two documentaries. Both contain errors, both exaggerate to get their points across. The reaction to TGGWS has been over the top both here in Australia and overseas. Perhaps Durkin went too far calling it a swindle, certainly helped the ratings, but TGGWS does ask some important questions that are not easily brushed aside. There are some major discrepancies, some of which are well described by Biggs in his article, between the hypothesis of AGW and empirical observations.

Most people would agree that before massive changes to lifestyle are undertaken, these misunderstandings should be cleared up. If we have to wait 10-50 years to do so, then lets wait. Technological breakthroughs can be pursued aggressively in the meantime.

mia, does that mean the energy crash will prevent the ecological catastrophe?

or can we have both, if we leave the pollies in charge?

What it means is that, if we had half a brain, we would undertake to massively reduce fossil fuel use now to prevent an energy crash in the not-too-distant future. A side benefit would be reducing the risk of climate change. However, I believe that we are too trapped into an insane economic and population paradigm of continuous growth in a finite world to make the required change in time. So my bet is firmly on a crash.

It amazes me that the IPCC scientists who generated the scenarios could have put so much work into ideas that simply lack the resource base to occur. In science, and all other parts of life, it is always mistaken assumptions that lead to failure - but with thousands of scientists contributing to the IPCC report, this is a failure on an epic scale!

Your embarrassed scientist (sigh),

Michael

P.S. I am NOT implying that climate change is not human-driven and that it will not have very severe consequences for Australia.

I have made the point elsewhere, but will make it again. There is a case to clean-up our energy act regardless of climate change speculation. We, and the forthcoming generations, are entitled to expect clean air, clean water, unpolluted oceans, uncontaminated ample food supplies, and a satisfactory level of creature comforts. This entitlement derives from our self-developed technological capacity - we can do it, and should do it. We should do it because we can. Climate change is a red herring. If by cleaning up our act (a cleanup which necessarily includes a reduction of industry-generated CO2) we solve a future climate change problem, then well and good. If there is no problem to solve, or if the the problem exists but is without solution, then so be it. In any case a cleanup will have a positive effect on our well-being and future happiness. The climate change issue is incredibly complex, and both sides of the climate change debate have financial and political axes to grind - waiting for consensus is an exercise in futility.