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.

Still don't trust what man and his modern technology is doing to this earth.

So please, you Denialists, try being truly realistic and sinking your thoughts deeper than just behind the eyes and ears.

Even re-planting with agricultural-style herbage will never absorb the carbon that a forest will.

Even in our wheatbelt it was marvellous the tree and scrub growth that thickly covered both red clay and plain, creating its own moisture as proven by the rainbow creepers etc, that grew even in a dry year.

There are also genuine stories still how where our wheatbelt joins the dryer natural grazing country, showers do choose to follow the uncleared land, especially in the gullies.

To see so much of our jungle forest country being cleared these days makes one shiver with shame for the future of mankind.

Cheers - BB

This article is a reasoned and worthwhile assessment of the current state of play in this astounding debacle.

Paul Biggs is to be congratulated for his clear headed analysis.

It is fact based, and Paul gives scientific authority for his assertions.

The picture which is emerging is that the IPCC is a crumbling edifice despite the trouble it has taken, to pretend that its spurious Summary is a reflection of the science prepared for the IPCC Report.

The alarmists invariably refer to the fraudulent IPCC Summary to support their claims that global warming is caused by human activity.

There is no scientific proof of this assertion, and much material is put forward by serious scientists to show that it is a flawed assertion.

PeterJH says the same old names are rolled out. In this article Steven McIntyre and Ross McKittrick might be the same old names, but it would be unnecessary to mention them if Gore did not persist in presenting false science, in his purported documentary. If he took out what was false there would be little left of his presentation, but that is hardly an excuse for misleading the community.

There are not, as you assert, PeterJH, “truckloads” of peer reviewed articles supporting alarmist assertions ( or “mainstream” as you have the temerity to call them) .

The authority for the alarmist nonsense is the IPCC Summary, not written by scientists, but falsely purporting to be backed by the peer reviewed scientific works in the IPCC Report.

Scientists on both sides of the debate acknowledge that there is no scientific proof of human activity causing global warming.

The alarmists do not have scientific backing for their assertions, and global warming to date has been negligible. The little global warming which has occurred ceased in 1998.

All the fuss relates to virtually baseless, and certainly unproven, assertions about what might happen in the future.

“Scientists on both sides of the debate acknowledge that there is no scientific proof of human activity causing global warming.”
A variation on a well-known tune of pestilential endurance.
In an earlier arrangement it went like this:
“Scientists on both sides of the debate acknowledge that there is no scientific proof for smoking inducing lung cancer”.
That held the stage of public attention for many profitable (yet murderous) years. And there seems to be no shortage of similarly- committed disk-jockeys to do a re-run for the public with the current one.

All of these points have been rebutted at length elsewhere; see for example Coby Beck's website. To take just one criticism, that of the lag between warming and CO2 increase, it is not even claimed this is anthropogenic. Rather it is an astronomical cycle extending way back before civilisation whereby proximity to the Sun warmed the Earth and then CO2 increased as a secondary effect...nothing to do with burning fossil fuels which is a relatively recent phenomenon.

I do agree with Michael in Adelaide that IPCC needs to re-examine its assumptions on recoverable fossil fuel reserves. This is not to say their models are structurally flawed but the external variables are questionable. Nonetheless there is certainly enough coal (but not oil and gas) left to transform the climate even if it runs out earlier than IPCC predicts.

Some of those who watched the ABC presentation of The Great Global Warming Swindle last week may have indeed gotten the point that the smart money is not on whose dramatisation of the global warming science has fewer flaws and furphies.

The smart money, it appears, is on risk management. That which may not happen, but carries significant risks with its occurence, ought to be planned for. That's the direction most governments and global corporations are heading: planning with the risks of global warming in mind.

A quick scan of the posts above leads me to believe I should leave this item to the die-hards, conspiracy theorists and movie critics.

Both sides of the debate have merely confused the issue. They have embellished their evidence and have used a variety of dramaturges, cozeners, fabulists and prophets along with others to sell their side of the debate. With the amount of hot air they are generating they alone may be responsible for increasing the world’s temperature appreciably.

Never mind what Coby Beck says - this is what a genuine, published physicist Nir Shaviv says about CO2/temperature from ice cores:

http://www.sciencebits.com/IceCoreTruth

Regards,

Paul Biggs

I don't see the sense of not using a relatively cheap resource because it will eventually run out. It will become more expensive as it becomes rarer.

"Peak oil" will occur when the cost of extraction and production exceeds that of alternatives and will only be recognized in retrospect which is all beside the point.

The IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (2007) is hardly unequivocal about anything except that the climate is warming.

The temperature rise predictions over the century vary from 1.8°C to 6.4°C.

But they are only 90% sure that over 50% of the increase is due to human activity, i.e. up to 50% could be due to other factors.

To a layman (someone who will have to pay dearly for any unwarranted mitigation measures) TGGWS was a fascinating and entertaining exploration of those uncertainties and other factors.

we need to remember the critical issue here: "global warming" (placing humans as solely responsible) is a means to go NUCLEAR.
these debates are but a platform (a convenient truth) to instill fear and confusion in the general public.
(opposing view points, by their design, bombard people to states of confusion,apathy and surrender).

This gov. wants to:

to amp up uranium mining
offer our land to the u.s.a to dump nuclear waste
own indigineous land to mine and exploit for profit
become a police nation

Global warming is real- as is global cooling- which will happen in due course- as history outlines.
we are being programmed to believe that we have to solve this crisis NOW- hence the need for $$, carbon taxes and nuclear plans.
when the u.n get on board...one knows that something is very sinister....

Nick, as an old cockie who has seen a lot of change both in politics and environmental damage caused by greedy ruthless man, would also reckon you have a lot to learn. Further, if you are in fact, a veteran, might wonder where you've been all your life?

Cheers - BB

Quite a number of my posts here in OLO have been critical of a media that simply takes the lazy path of accepting handouts and opinions from perceived authoritative sources, especially when it comes to reporting science. The ABC handling of the Durkin doco should represent the warning sign that there is something rotten to the core here because the specific role of investigative science journalism seems dead and buried.

Dumbo Jones had a trip to England and thought it was glib doing a kiddy job on the messenger. How much more respectful of his audience would it have been to leave the politics/conspiracies and examine the science by interviewing serious scientists from the program like Richard Lindzen, Patrick Michaels, Nigel Calder, John Christy, Syun-Ichi Akasofu, Paul Reiter, Nir Shaviv or Piers Corbyn. Like, just how does it become so controversial to not consider our largest plasma discharge formation, sunnyboy, as somehow being related to changes in climate? or ... Have we reached the frontier of our knowledge and there are no more new mysteries? Hardly, but what about prevalent paranoia.

Frankly, I am perplexed as to why in Australia we seem to have any number of these media jocks (with pommy accents) pushing misinformation in the name of science?

Oh man. Not another denialist article on OLO. If you persist with this crap I'm going to stop reading you.

I haven't seen An Inconvenient Truth but I saw Durkin's work and as far as I'm concerned any claims he made were totally discredited when he omitted the last 20 to 30 years of data and fabricated a few hundred years of additional data to support his thesis.

Claiming that Durkin's documentary has "evolved" is just pathetic. What you really mean is that it's has gotten shorter and shorter as the dodgy bits get cut out. At the rate it's shrinking it won't be long before all that's left is the scene of the girl on the beach.

Incidentally, you supporters of the TGGWS ought to listen to the fawning interview he had with ABC Counterpoint's Michael Duffy. At one point he claimed that Environmentalism was born of resentment by the middle-class at no longer having servants. I kid you not. Have a listen (towards the end) at http://www.abc.net.au/rn/counterpoint/stories/2007/1973934.htm . Michael hasn't gotten around to putting up a transcript yet. I wonder why.

So the wanabe self-acclaimed pseudo-scientists on OLO want to debate the 'science' in this thread about two very good propaganda films?

What outcomes do you expect Paul, some kind of mass revelation? And for what purpose?

Does anyone want to comment about the "Truth", or who is being "Swindled" in terms of the 'debate' on climate change?

Check out who is telling the truth or being swindled at this link

http://www.highanddry.com.au/extract.cfm

What is your opinion? Do you have any?

I was after some genuine comments from some GW deniers and while the link has been posted elseware, they refuse to comment on Guy Pearse's revelations - the silence was/is deafening, why?

I hope Paul's article engenders more profound comments than that found in a self admiration society.

The genuine experts will continue to critique the science, and their hypotheses will be peer reviewed, in the appropriate fora - not in forums like this.

Journalists have warned of climate change for 100 years, but can’t decide weather we face an ice age or warming. The 100 year old lie.
http://www.inteliorg.com/archive/FireandIce.pdf

In order to be an intelligent reader you must have a basic knowledge. Please do your own homework, a starting point http://www.InteliOrg.com/

The truth and the swindle are all one and the same. No scientist worthy of the name will project a future based on the last couple of decades of record keeping. There is no evidence or proof. It is all hypotheses based on what if models using inconclusive data and an enormous amount of fear. Ask a scientist to work out a model based on what we do know and you get a resulting future that looks just like today only hyper-exaggerated. If all things remain the same and configured for exponential growth in consumerism. What is a likely scenario? Doom my friend, doom. But what about constant advances and changing technologies, biofuels, LNG, hydrogen vehicles and who knows what waiting for tomorrow? Shut up. It's doom I tell ya, dooooom. And ah, I like my steady paycheck from the governmint dude. I get the tenure and the cost of living and the pension, you know. Can't have the wife leaving me for a tradesman. Now stand back while I fire up my new Lexus with the 400hp V8. The family and I are jetting across Europe tomorrow and I mustn't be late.

Gee it is cold this morning.

Where is the global warming when you need it??

I wish you well bushbred, but sadly, from your posts, I gather that you were sucked in by nonsense lovers at University, and saddled with the illusion that the nonsense you imbibed was education.

Education is of little use without the ability to distinguish sense from nonsense.

colinsett for instance, wants to believe that smoking causes lung cancer, but finds that there is no scientific basis for it. He is not just content to believe it purely to feed his love of nonsense. He wants to deride the scientists, who have found that such a belief has no basis. He wishes to inflict his love of nonsense on others, and have them believe it.

What harm is there, in nonsense?

Let us look at a nonsense of the green movement, based on a nonsense book, written about 40 years ago by Rachel Carson, which achieved the banning of DDT, despite a lengthy and thorough official enquiry, which confirmed that DDT was harmless. The head of the EPA announced that his decision was not scientific, but political, and banned it.

The death toll from that decision is at least 30 million, all of them children, who died from malaria. Is Rachel Carson derided? Are the green movement sorry? Rachel Carson, the nonsense writer, remains an icon of the movement. As to the 30 million dead children? The world was overpopulated anyway, according to the greens.

I hope that in 40 years time, if we remember him at all, we look back on Gore as a nonsense talking clown, and not someone who gave impetus to a movement which wrought immense damage on the community, as the global warming myth has the potential to do.

Be grateful for an author like Paul Biggs, and for all authors who disseminate sense.

Tch Tch James H. Haven't you been paying attention?

>>Where is the global warming when you need it??<<

Global Warming has been re-branded as Climate Change, so we don't have to worry about the anomalies any more.

The mantra is "You're to blame, and you will have to pay."

Just get used to it.

As "South Park" put it, Gore is fixated by "manbearbig", the root of all evil, that is half man, half bear, half pig. Gore's numbers never add up.

The climate cretins continually focus on a relatively small part of the ice core record, that is, the short rises out of glaciation periods. The remaining 90% of the record shows numerous instances where the temperature moved in the opposite direction to the CO2. And by up to 6 degrees C.

And when they claim that the lag is not really a lag but actually a "feedback loop" they fail to explain why this claimed feedback seems to stop at the same temperature each time. That is, why does this "feedback" only apply to the middle of the rising trend and not apply to either the bottom or the top?

If the past rises were a result of vegetation feedbacks then why did they stop? It couldn't be due to a dryer climate because the more ice melts the higher the sea level and the greater the evapotranspiration. For the feedback theory to apply to the actual circumstances this feedback should continue into the very "runaway greenhouse effect" that the climate cretins have been predicting for our future. It didn't happen in the past because the planetary ecosystem is bigger than CO2.

Leo Lane, you seem so sure of yourself, you sound much like G W Bush and Co before the mess now in Iraq.

Would also like to know your age, Leo, because you do sound very much like so many of our right-wing corporate cultists, so damned sure of themselves still, believing the future world is their oyster, and thus blind themselves to the truth that man has been destroying this world, ever since the beginning of the machine age.

Certainly time and existence are both cyclic, Leo, but it just happens that this cycle is getting a massive dose of a hurry-up through modern man's craze to create an ersatz
existence.

Us deeper thinkers feel it in Mandurah here, once covered in the Tuart tree, that wonderful adaptive eucalypt, its trunk and branches evolutionised to withstand the strongest of storms, a tree which man has destroyed to replace with buildings with so little freeboard they will be half under water even with the turn of a normal evolutionary cycle.

What really disgusts me with you people, Leo, is the way you hate the Avant Garde, which I do know as a historian and philosopher with Honours, such persons have been spurned right back through history by those like yourself, but have mostly been right in the long run.

Might pay you to study much more history and philosophy that you do, matey.

Regards - BB

Nuclear power is the go! Thus I will be voting for the Liberal/Nationals coalition, not the Labour/Greens/Democrats coalition. Sending the country broke by enforcing 60% reductions by 2050 (or pretending you will) may win the votes of naive professional students that spend their pitiful existences attempting to sound intellectual while they sip their lattes, but it will not win my vote.

shame on you mr briggs, you are a great gravy-train robber.

Paul: Most of the arguments about global temperature rise will be settled in our lifetime by watching the maximum level of the sea in places that matter to our expanding population. This clue should come partly from reading the previous thread with Peter’s discussion on rising seas, shrinking coast lines and coral formations as they relate to the GBR downunder.

My suggestion on another blog was to look at our sea level measurements on the near horizontal and more fragile marine slopes as opposed to the vertical rock face in terms of coastal wear and tear. That’s because frontal dunes formed at the ebb of the last rise have been protecting old sea bed flats and river deltas over some thousands of years while the current sea level remained relatively steady.

Rates of change today are now obviously driven by new causes and that’s become everybody’s problem despite the fact some here don’t want to know it

So some people still want to debate the science on OLO, a climate science website – NOT.

I suggest all “warmers” go to their favourite website/s and learn all you can from your point of view.

I suggest all “deniers” go to their favourite website/s and learn all you can from your point of view.

If you have strong conviction and no other agenda, you can then visit the “opposing camp’s” website/s and argue your case there. Some really interesting dialogue can occur, my only suggestion is that you engage with respect and an open mind – deal with the issues and not the personalities.

The real experts have dialogue in workshops, conferences, correspondence, journals, books, etc. They do their job and have little time or patience to partake in online forums such as this. Why should they waste time in places like this.

So no-one has comments on Guy Pearse’s revelations? What message is that sending to everybody? Is it another example of denial? Or not wanting to confront the real issues?

Think about it, why are all governments and political ideologies taking steps to address even the concept of GW (or as the Bush Administration prefers, climate change)? Are they all stupid, have they all been conned? Is there really a world-wide conspiracy perpetuated by some scientists marginalised all over the globe?

Why are some of the biggest right-wing capitalistic businesses in the world changing their policies to cater for climate change? Are they all stupid?

People on OLO want to espouse their musings (quite often in error or intentionally distorting) in this forum. GO TO THE SOURCE people. Ask other country representatives (try embassies, consular offices for a start). Ask business representatives. Ask your own member of parliament. Ask REAL climate scientists from a primary source.

Then, tell us about your findings. This will be more constructive than what has been demonstrated and certainly will contribute to a much more meaningful debate

The West will not decelerate or halt the growth of GDP let alone shrink their economies.
Asia and Latin America will not decelerate or halt their growth.
Africa must not forgo similar development.
It won't happen - get used to it.

What amuses me about you bushbred is that you never address the topic.

If you wish to ignore the topic at hand then give your opinion about the advances made in Australia over the last 12 years. Debt of $96 billion paid off and a surplus achieved; lowest unemployment; advancement from a third world tourist destination to a producer of great mineral wealth; a strong dollar; and with multiculturalism, and fiction based history of Australia, on the way out

This has been achieved despite the shackles imposed on industry by way of the bureaucratic nonsense of environmental impact statements, timewasting, pointless purported safety procedures, sacred site inspections and other antiproductive attempts to sink constructive enterprise, and despite the tenure of nonsense purveying academics in our learning institutions, The present government is not beholden to the greens for preferences, so is not bound to destroy positive effort.

This is despite money being drained from infrastructure in the States, where they are beholden to the greens, no new dams built, on spurious environmental grounds, new areas declared wilderness to be neglected to the detriment of productive landholders; transport and roads neglected by government, but developed by private enterprise for industrial development.

The destruction by man that you mention, bushbred, will no doubt come to a halt when capitalism spreads wordwide, and develops the third world. It will continue while there are people in the world, so ground down by poverty, and the efforts of the greens to keep them that way, that they consider only survival.

Our Australian environment is extremely adaptive. It survived the destructive methods of the Aborigines, by evolving plants which required burning to continue their existence. Nature is admirable at survival, I do not see your expressed concern as valid..

Confidence arises from researching facts, and knowing the topic being addressed. Perhaps this is why you perceived Bush to be confident He knows his topic, and gets it right, which enrages the nonsense lovers.

I tried a little experiment where my idea was to increase the level of CO2 inside my house to see it would make the house warmer.

The only problem is to increase the level of CO2, the level of O2 decreases. This creates other problems before the house has a chance to get warmer with the excess CO2.

So I figure before the house gets warmer, it becomes unlivable first.
and I am still cold

Cattle alone occupy 24% of the worlds land mass and consume more food and expel more waste than humans. This still leaves the other damage associated with cattle and other livestock to consider. Rain forests burned, fertile plains turned into desert, and climate threatened by global warming thanks to the 2billion odd cows spewing the byproducts of their incomplete use of grains and grasses. Then begin to figure in the impact of buffalo, sheep, goats,pigs, horses, mules, asses, camels, chickens and ducks, etc.
It becomes obvious that the first step in saving the planet from destruction is mass conversion of world population to vegetarianism. But before we all do that, BAAAARBIE'Q.

Reckon I guessed you right, Leo - a neo-colonialist to the back teeth. Really your crowd are so old-fashioned you would fit well into the contrabandit days of the East India Company et al.

Still hasn't changed much with Dick Cheney's oil grab mania. Matter of fact, my academic Honours was all about it and is still about it.

Cultural corporatism now all the Western rage, old Chum, like extreme capitalism, so reliant on business takeovers, can only finish up disappearing up its own Fascistic-style backside. China and India, and possibly with the help of the new Russia might see to that.

As I suggested previously, reckon you need to brush up with your reading, Leo, most of the graball stuff you believe in, has not really changed since the Roman Empire.

Any more advice you might need - ready here as you want - Cheers BB

aqvarivs,

It has been postulated that the current interglacial period has been lengthened due to the rise in methane levels, attributable to the development of agriculture. Personally I'm happy about that.

To go a step further, will the continued use of fossil fuels and other carbon emissions postpone the next iceage, perhaps indefinately. I think the current world population will find it easier to cope with localised catastrophe, than a future population will with a broadscale iceage. Some of the worlds most populated regions exist in areas blanketed by icefields in the past.

I think our interaction has gone as far as it can, bushbred, and is probably a misuse of the site, as it is far from the topic.

The only further observation I have to make, is that I agree with Jung when he says words to the effect that in human progress, error is as important as truth.

So I consider that everyone here is contributing to progress, even someone like davsab.

rojo, I've been up in northern Canada where such passing of the last ice age is obvious as well as holding geophysical markings of various rising and falling of sea levels. Earth is a dynamic multifaceted organisation of systems not the static model "global warmers" suggest. There is also found in various parts of the world evidence that entire ecosystems have come and gone, replaced by another or mutated from the original or combinations of multiples. The truth is we don't honestly know exactly the natural outcome. We may be experiencing a very natural and prescribed planetary course of events that would transpire in the absents of human beings. The swindle is that politically bent scientist have come out for or against using their degree from "your guess is as good as mine" U. as authority for the side they have chosen. And as predicted the dupes are running around like headless chickens going yup, yup, yup. They too believe they are fully informed and running the right way round the circle. There are a number of web sites dedicated to the idea of the negative impact livestock has had on the planet in ecological terms. I've also read some work on the ecological impact of changing dynamics of the oceans and sea life, especially algae and other microlife interfering with the oceans ability to absorb or utilise co2. There are a lot of theories. There is even theories on the theories, which is basically what the U.N. I.P.C.C. is promoting. A unified theory on the theory of mans responsibility for global warming.

BB Part One

Cut out the officialdom, Leo. It is really yourself who has made a fiasco out of this. My main argument was about the way you mob treat the Greenies and Democrats, who like me have that simple sincere argument that man since the beginning of the machine age is gradually speeding up the present natural cyclic global change to its detriment.

Please put aside your complaints about not commenting properly on the main thesis because all you and your mate’s comments are only run of the mill anyhow. Though as a farm director, I am not in love with the Greenies, I do know as a qualified historian they are needed far more in today’s world than you and your mates ever will be.

Further, also please remember that it was you yourself who broke the theistic code by belly-aching to me about what political side your are on. As if I wouldn’t have soon found out.

As one formerly busy taking groups in general philosophy, your self centered empirical reasoning is easy to fathom. In fact I received Honours on the very subject in Ceylon, now Sri-Lanka, and called the Tea Economy, all about greedy grab-all colonialism - when the corporatised East India Company backed by British troops tried to force the Buddhists to give away their growing of rice in the valleys and clear their sacred hillsides to grow tea for the British market. Indeed, when the Buddhists and Janists refused, the company brought Tamils over from India to complete the colonialist corporatist endeavour

Now we're onto tea...hmm might go and have a cup

My view is that climate change is a feature evolution. Some things might accentuate it in either direction, hotter or cooler.

So who is to say by how much any human impacts on the earth?
It is arrogance to believe we are the determinant of earth changes or that we can even control (influence) them.

None of us are "inert" creatures. We were bred to manage our environment. Manage means to not leave as natural or as "wild".

Now, that might offend some folk who think that we should be inert. Those who think that "wildness" and "wilderness" is sacred and should not be tampered with but such notions are contrary to the very nature of mankind, who, as I said, before was designed to manage that wildness.

Managing resources and environment starts with cutting down trees and building shelters, it includes developing systems of farming and development of the use of minerals.

I suggest all those who think that life should return to subsistence farming, hunter-gatherer food collection and a zero-impact on the earth and its resources, switch off your PC's immediately, move out of your houses and go live by the values which you would seek to inflict on the rest of us.

For myself, I support the challenges brought by change and respect every human's ability to work to improvement of his resource use through "change".

Change is one of the outcomes of development and advancement and exercise of choice.

I am sorry to say, those who stand in its way are doomed to die beneath its advance.

Here we go again;

I was please to see that Michael of Adelaide has pointed to ;
http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=5933
written by Professor Kjell Aleklett.

It says all that needs to be known by both sides of the global warming
argument, ie you are both all wasting your time as the fuel is not
there to cause the warming projected by the IPCC.

That is it, but I'll bet quids it will make no difference to the pollies
and greenies, they will go forward spending billions of our money all
to no avail. The very least we should expect of them is to say;
What is this about ? How does it affect our plans ?

Fortunately some of the expense will go to projects that will be needed
to mitigate energy depletion anyway. eg Such projects as solar thermal
power station work at Liddell should be duplicated at other power
stations trying different trechniques.

Farming and transport will need to switch to electrical systems so we
are not going to get away with solar cells and windfarms on their own.
The electrical demand will be much greater than at present.

So forget about global warming, if it is happening then it is out of
our hands, get worrying about that which you can do something about.

While you are having that cuppa, Alzo, might pay you to think about borrowing a book called the Rise of the West, in which both tea and tobacco played such a big part in the late 18th and 19th centuries, the main actors, our forefathers, et al.

Oh, I forgot that Mr Howard if he gets in is going to prune down the Historical Humanities section in the universities, lest we might learn more about the cut-throat role that colonial corporatism played to get us where we are today.

Further, we might guess that those preaching GW denial right now are also those who support the reborn version of colonial corporatism, now called by critics the corporate company culture whose greed will destroy our democracies, anyhow, let alone the melee brought on by global warming.

I'll need a few cuppas as it is so freaking cold. Bring on global warming I say and save the planet from global cooling! I'll be burning a few more fires this weekend to get the party started. I've also decided to crank up my country drives before petrol gets too expensive to burn.

Hopefully Howard won't get back in (for bringing us Workchoices).

Re: 1 PeterJH

"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."

Michael Mann's now infamous "Hockey Stick" Millennial temperature reconstruction study passed "peer review" and was published in leading science journals. The "Hockey Stick" also featured prominently in the IPCC Third Assessment Report only to be audited and unmasked later as a demonstrable and egregious fraud by two Canadian researchers working pro bono. So how do you explain that, Peter?

Maybe I've lived too "adventurous" a life. Perhaps that's why some puny change in temperature, in 50 or 100 years time seems too trivial to worry about. Probably I see everything a little simplistically, as a result.........

When I was growing up near Sydney I experienced heat-wave summers and chilly winters aplenty. It was 40 degrees at times and close to zero at others. but then, when I was 20, I went to live overseas for 12 years. For 8 of those it was Hot as Hell in summer, sometimes 45 Degrees for weeks on end; one day (a record) about 49. And no aircon. That was my kind of town!! Then it was off to Berlin for 4 years and the delights of minus 25 in December/February; even went ski-ing in Poland when it was minus 40 (winter '86-'87); that year we didn't have central heating in our apartment (just a"Kachel-Offen"), and in Warsaw everything broke down. Even the skilifts packed it in in Zakopane the ex-pope's home parish, which made for hard slaloming.

Anyway, just to let you know. I've already experienced a rise in average temperatures of about 12 degrees (on average) and a fall of far more. And survived them both!Don't be afraid; hot can be cool, and cold even cooler! Cheers

Yes punter57, you do see everything a little simplistically.

If you want to contribute to the "debate" on climate change, please go and do some homework on what global average temperatures are, or what the temperature anomalies are.

"Just to let you know. I've already experienced a rise in average temperatures of about 12 degrees (on average) and a fall of far more. And survived them both!" Glad you made it mate.

If the punter wasn't so serious I would think ... WHAT A JOKER ... Alas, very sad.

Great article Paul
I went to the link you supplied Nir Shaviv and have a simple question.
How accurate is the ice core because in a warmer world it would surely form more slowly and would this mean it could have its own built in lag for absorbing measurable co2 ? If so this would mean the speeding of the ice formation would record higher levels than possible when forming slowly.
On another matter history records warming and cooling.
It was proposed that the roman empires collapse was not aided by the spread of malaria to that latitude while Greenland had to be abandoned by the Norse when cooling stopped their farming there. I also read in a book (1421) that sea levels have already risen as much as 8 feet since 1421.
I would hope science can sort itself out before we are rash enough to interfere with african development and its importance.

Punter 57 makes a relevant observation. He has experienced extremes of temperature and is none the worse for it.

The alarmist fuss, is over an aggregate warming of one half of a degree in 106 years. Over that period there have been periods of warming and periods of cooling. Nothing of any consequence. There has been no warming of the globe, in any case, for the last 9 years.

We are asked to be concerned about what disreputable bodies, like the UN, assert might happen. Even they admit, when pinned down, that all their scare mongering is based on conjecture. It is easily shown that their guesses are most unlikely to eventuate, being based on computer modelling, which cannot work for this purpose.

There is no computer which can factor in all the climate variables, even if we knew what they were

None of the IPCC predictions have eventuated, and in their current Summary, some of the disproven nonsense of their earlier Summaries is removed, and replaced by new nonsense, yet to be disproved, but certain to be so dealt with.

They admit that there is no proof that human activity has any effect on global warming, and it seems obvious that it does not. There has been plenty of human activity over the last 9 years, and not a scintilla of warming, while there has if anything been a slight cooling. IPCC still say it is "highly likely" that human activity causes global warming, although there is absolutely no proof.

We are asked to cripple industry on the basis of their pathetic "what if" scenarios.

Based on our experience, it is ridiculous to be concerned about global warming. Based on the mendacious nonsense of the IPCC, it is some sort of emergency.

I agree with what GYM-FISH said. This is a red herring, and "In any case a cleanup will have a positive effect on our well-being and future happiness." "There is a case to clean-up our energy act regardless of climate change speculation."

Those questioning why nobody's talking about Guy Pearse's revelations, I'll comment. It appears to be a book about Australia's Liberal political party. He's upset about how the Liberal MP's are not grasping the opportunity to pass laws to reduce emissions, and he thinks Howard's greenhouse policy is a lie.

I'm all for passing laws that are environmentally friendly. But somehow I doubt the voting public cares enough. Hopefully, for the author and people that agree with him, people more in line with the author's views will be elected. I don't know enough about Australian politics and can't affect them, so what I think is moot.

Hope that helps.

BB I agree with a lot of what you say (Although some of it makes you sound like an anti-capitalist anti-corporation conspiracy theorist, which is why you are getting some of the above feedback). What I don't agree with is all of your conclusions.

My take on this specific statement:

"...man since the beginning of the machine age is gradually speeding up the present natural cyclic global change to its detriment."

First one, yes. No doubt we speed it up. Conclusion? I disagree. What is detrimental? What's the planet here for? Would the planet be "happier" if no humans were interfering with it? Is a road inherently "worse" than a forest? Is an atmosphere without particulates inherently "better" than one without? Were things "better" with the amount of oil in the ground 1000 years ago?

Nick. Average global mean anomaly 1997 +.37 C, 2005 +.51 (1998-2006 not sure.) In ’96, it was +.17 The anomaly shows gradual warmth: it's the time period you look at determining the answer. (1998 to 2005, the anomaly value has changed +.2) (1944 to 2005 +.39) (1944 to 1976, -.33)

The trend is -.4 to +.5 1880-2005 The last 126 years is +.9 or .04 a decade. That's a fact. Looking at 9 years (or 2 or 15…) isn't long enough. Picking specific periods lets you show either warming or cooling! Trend over time the only relevant thing; stick to the past 30 year period and trend. To say it hasn't been warming is incorrect. It has.

Don’t get me wrong. What those numbers mean in and of themselves (or how accurate they are) are two other different separate subjects. Mixing issues (what temps say versus what they mean or how good they are) is problematic.

As far as it seeming “obvious” that human activity has no effect on global warming, I argue the other way. There is obvious proof that what we do affects climate in various ways. Atmospheric heat transfer laws and ocean absorption of carbon dioxide is evident. Methane has a known effect. There wouldn't be all these food animals if we weren't raising them. So add to all the people, there's more animal life expelling CO2 and CH4. Particles in the atmosphere affect climate. Particles on snow affect climate. Large (and small) buildings affect wind flow. Urban and suburban areas affect ground heat patterns. Irrigation and farmland affect water patterns (dams and artificial bodies of water also) as well as heat patterns. Etc. The rain forest isn’t cutting itself down after all.

However, what the extent of the effects is, that's also a different subject. Exactly how the various factors interact with each other, also a different subject. (This is where the models come into play, and quite a few pieces are known, at least to tend to point to certain conclusions.) But that’s also a different discussion. It's best not to mix them all up....

davsab, the "global average temperature" has no real answer. The anomaly is what's tracked; a measure of the change from normal, not absolute temps. (For the temperature itself though, the estimated range is somewhere around 13-15 C.) The anomaly is a mean of averages of averages of calculated numbers from sampling; individually it's looking at areas covering between 74 and 556 square kilometers (5 degrees square). Around 1 C of warming over a century, and it's been over +/- .5 only once; 2005 at .51 (1909 -.46) (On a plantary estimate basis. But some single cities go from -50 to +35 C in a year. The hot/cold max temps on this planet cover a range of over 200 C.)

However we do have absolute temps from satellite measurements of the water.

Each of the individual average temperatures covers an area between 29 and 222 square kilometers (2 degrees square). I'm guessing there's about 8,000-12,000 of them total (which are then combined into the same size as the land's 74-556 sq km pieces to match water/land for the overall "global average").

As an average of them all, as a mean, what temperature is it right now? It's 14 C for "the water". Of course, that's warmer in the center (over a larger area of less squares per average) and colder at the ends (over a smaller area of more squares per average). It doesn't include the last 2 degrees at the poles (which would be mostly or all Antarctica / mostly or all the Arctic Ocean).

How much has SST gone up over 150 years? Ah. If you look at the min temp (-2 C) it hasn't gone up at all. If you look at the max temp (30 C) it's gone up .32. The mean is up .16 So if you compare the mean anomaly rise trend of the combined land/sea (.04/decade) with the rise of measured sea mean itself (.01/decade) both are rising, but not by much. (However it does seem to be accelerating.)