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.