Skeptics also argue that smoking is not bad for you for the same reasons.

Durkin's doco highlighted that there are scientists who don't want to close their eyes and who can look at the Vostok ice core records, seeing clear evidence for half a million years that temperature leads CO2 concentration ( and CH4 concentration). Other ice core studies provide similar clear evidence. Any person on a galloping horse would see that this provides us with very strong evidence against CO2 as the driver of climate changes. CO2 almost seems irrelevant or minuscule at best as when heated it expands, becomes lighter, rises in the atmosphere and consequently more easily gives heat away. Whenever it has been at high levels it hasn't stopped temperatures falling ...... i.e. it can be heading in quite different directions for significant periods.

So what creates the rising and falling temperatures? We know that the solar/cosmic influence is large. We know that our largest plasma discharge formation, the sun, has obvious electro-magnetic features we call sunspots. We know sunspots flare up and settle down in cycles of roughly eleven years and that for most of the twentieth century has shown abnormally high activity. The present cycle 23 nearing its end has been a turning point and if it extends longer than eleven years then the next cycle is expected to be even quieter. Diminishing solar activity is a distinct possibility because the sun's polar field is now at its weakest since measurements began in the early 1950s.

Just seems that speculation of the next solar crash is about all we are capable of because there is profound ignorance and even a total eclipse of reason when it comes to understanding how the sun really ticks and what forms of energy become inputs to earth's climate. While ever we view the sun as a campfire, likened to a burning lump of coal, isolated, self-sufficient and self-immolating we may never come to terms with the desire for renewable energy.

Keirin jurkin the gherkin like furkin Durkin.

Gone a week and I come back to this same old waffle from this same old ‘wanabe’ scientist spruiking his same old rant and who obviously still hasn’t done his homework.

Alzo, Eclipse Now – enjoy your tête-à-tête. For one approaching emeritus status, there are much better fora to have meaningful discussions about the vagaries of global warming so cheers and bye-bye.

I apologise from the start that I have little opinion about climate change. I just felt like responding to the first comment above (right at the top, which also made no reference to climate change).

Who is Ian Plimer? He’s a guy well known for speaking on topics he knows little about.

He wrote a book about ten years ago derisive of creationists. It contained poorly argued science, character assassinations of respected scientists, half truths, total fabrications, and many spelling errors.

The funniest clunker that I still remember after the reading the book ten years ago was where he tried making an argument about probability using the analogy of spelling words by randomly selecting from the ‘23 letters’ of the English alphabet. He never said which three letters he couldn’t accept. The whole book carried on in a similar manner.

On that occasion, the ABC supported him wholeheartedly with much free publicity.

If Ian Plimer is offering to bat for your side in any scientific endeavour, best let him carry the drinks.

Notice Alzo’s interesting tactic of concentrating on SMALLER forcings and repeating endlessly, “What if they are bigger than that?” (Close your eyes and click your ruby slippers together 3 times as you chant.)

Alzo has not come up with a viable alternative to or critique of today’s theory, he just does not LIKE the current theory. Rather than look at the extensive papers covering all the minor forcings he quotes, he just asks, “What if?” That is not science.

Try plugging into Triple J’s “Hack” show covering the Swindle below.

http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/hack/notes/mp3s/hack_swindle.mp3

Or try Dr Karl’s own “Great Moments in science” on the Greenhouse consensus at

http://www.abc.net.au/science/podcast/gmis/gmis20070531.mp3

Or you can read the transcript here.
http://www.abc.net.au/science/k2/moments/s1938551.htm

One very salient point to quote:

“Now an important thing to realize in this debate is the role of the specialist. You wouldn't get a builder to do plumbing, and you wouldn't ask a pathologist to do some surgery. So if you wanted an opinion on climatology, you would not ask a meteorologist, or a virologist, botanist, metallurgist, or physicist - you would ask a climatologist. Among the climatologists, there is agreement that carbon dioxide levels are increasing, and that in turn, this is raising temperature and ocean levels. On December 3, 2004, Dr. Naomi Oreskes from the University of California analysed 928 scientific papers that dealt with "climate change", and that had been published in peer-reviewed journals between 1993 and 2003. Not one of these 928 papers disagreed with the consensus position, even though they may have disagreed in minor details.”

But Alzo just says “Eugenics”. Go ahead Alzo, say nasty words, they make 928 papers by the experts in this field just vanish into thin air. ;-)

I’ll repeat myself for Alzo’s benefit. If you think they reached this consensus by taking a vote on it, you’re only fooling yourself. I’ve highlighted how fiercely independent most scientists and scientific organizations really are. Science is progressed by studying new data and hypothesis and testing the current paradigms repeatedly... 928 times in this case.

Kieran quotes Myth 19 again which is debunked here:
http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/climate-change/dn11659

"Notice Alzo’s interesting tactic of concentrating on SMALLER forcings"
If 94% of Artic warming is caused by black carbon and mineral dust on snow it is hardly a smaller forcing, it is the main forcing.

"Alzo has not come up with a viable alternative to or critique of today’s theory, he just does not LIKE the current theory."
Correct! It doesn't fit the empirical observations which is what is required of a theory. When a theory doesn't fit the observations you find another. If there is no alternative theory it does not follow that you have to accept the failed theory. It's OK to say "we don't know", as there is a lot that scientists don't understand.

"In science, a theory is a mathematical or logical explanation, or a testable model of the manner of interaction of a set of natural phenomena, capable of predicting future occurrences or observations of the same kind, and capable of being tested through experiment or otherwise falsified through empirical observation."

Since a 0.4C rise in temperature occurred from about 1918-1940 when CO2 had barely changed from pre-industrial levels, warming had to be due to natural causes. So why not natural causes for the latter 20th century warming as well?

"Science is progressed by studying new data and hypothesis and testing the current paradigms repeatedly... 928 times in this case."
Thats enough for you is it? What if the 929th test failed? You would never know. Where do you draw the limit?