A tiny problem with the global cooling theory; parts of Australia and I suspect NZ are about to report their warmest driest autumn ever.

Whether cooling or warming Taswegian it confirms climate change predictions. Warmest this, coolest that, driest the other.

Yet another attempt to muddy the waters.

Yet another author who has fallen victim of the dismal state of scientific reporting. If one does a search through the peer reviewed literature one finds a consensus that human activity is having an impact on the climate. Those scientists who argue against climate change tend to be published in mainstream literature. Where there is disagreement it tends to be about the impact that concentrations of CO2 will have on the climate - here the results tend to be on how one constructs the models. An increase in CO2concentrations can do anything from trigger a new ice age to major global warming - a new Permian age. Ultimately prudent policy is not about 100% certaintity - just as you take an umbrella out if there is the threat of rain so it would be prudent to take the necessary steps to ensure we do not unwittingly contribute to climate change.

Is that smoke I see coming out of Mr Dunleavy's pockets? I just took a quick look at the New York Times report on the paper in Nature he mentions in his third paragraph and found this:

'The authors stressed that the pause in warming represented only a temporary blunting of the centuries of rising temperatures that scientists have projected if carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases continue accumulating in the atmosphere.

“We’re learning that internal climate variability is important and can mask the effects of human-induced global change,” said the paper’s lead author, Noel Keenlyside of the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences in Kiel, Germany. “In the end this gives more confidence in the long-term projections.”'

GlowBULL Whining?

If you earth and peace loving, enviros that are needlessly scaring the crap out of our kids, really cared about anything BUT yourselves, you would stop taxing and banning things and making everyone else pay for your selfish do-gooding based on a non-existent crisis.

Ask any kid what life will be like for them or their kids later on a melting planet ravaged with storms and drought causing untold world suffering as promised by Al Gore, NASA, EPA and the UN. This is the first time since ancient sieges where an entire generation of young people now coldly accepts the possibility of suicide in their future.

25 years of Climate change is clearly just weather, a green Da Vinci Code, political and a media perfect storm that reminds us that yes, a civilized society can be so twisted, it thinks we are stronger than nature itself.

We are living longer than at any time in history and it is obviously not the environment that is killing us.
So get ahead of the curve because history will laugh and cry at humans changing the temperature of the planet.

GREEN IS MEAN

It really is a pity that Online Opinion continues to provide a forum for these disingenuous liars. By all means, have a debate on these issues, but let's have legitimate opinion, rather than this kind of deliberate misinformation from nonsense pedlars and shills. Come on Graham Young, you can do better than this.

The NZ interview with Bob Carter on U Tube is well worth watching, no matter what your views. I, for instance, have never given any credence to the human cause/CO2 argument; but Bob Carter says that it has a slight effect on both warming and cooling. Certain human activities have a warming effect, others have a cooling effect. Nobody knows which is which, according to Carter.

Carter also believes that scientists are so subjected to bullying on climate change, that we simply don’t know what the ‘consensus’ really is.

Give Carter a go. We should all stop expressing uninformed opinions based on political views, and start listening to people with no personal axe to grind.

Doesnt the use of the word HYSTERIA in the title of this essay say it all re the authors position.
And frame the parameters of his presumptions too?
And also limit all possible rejoinders?

Meanwhile, I dont know if it is relevant or not, but there is a new report in the "news" which points out that the percentage (or rather parts per million) of carbon di-oxide in the atmosphere is at an all time high, and that this fact alone is having, and will have all kinds of enviromental effects.

This idea and the factuality of the CO2 factor was first written about by Bill McKibben in The End of Nature.

1. http://www.billmckibben.com

By the way Bill is also a commited Christian and profoundly conservative in his attitudes altogether. Conservative in the sense promoted by Orion Magazine and Wendell Berry.

1. http://www.orionmagazine.org

Berry recently wrote an essay in Harpers Magazine re the absurdity of the bigger and better at all costs ruling paradigm. Faustian Economics. He has spent his entire life promoting the only REAL politics and culture, namely Small Is Beautiful

Berry also wrote two essays in response to Sept 11. They were/are profoundly conservative in their content---conservative in the REAL sense of the word.

The essays were titled: Thoughts in the Presence of Fear and The Idea of a Local Economy.

I would suggest that Wendell Berry is a far more apt mentor, companion, and source of Wisdom, for the author of this article than Carter or any of the one-dimensional IPA clones and their simplistic sophistries.

Bennie,

What absolute rubbish.

The Author says >> “It has become commonplace knowledge, and is unchallenged, that global average temperature has not increased since 1998. This corresponds to a nine-year period during which the level of atmospheric carbon dioxide, in contrast, did increase, and that by almost 5 per cent.”

That’s fact. These people are not trying to muddy the waters, they are criticizing the hysterical green lobby, like Al Gore, who made predictions which were “chicken little” in their proportions.”An Inconvienient Truth” has since been shown to have been anything but truthful. Predictions were out by a factor of 10 from even the most ardent AGW supporters modeling.

Northwestshelf,

Where are the lies in this document? Point them out please. Graham would be better off getting rid of posters like yourself who don’t even attempt to back up anything you say. The climate modelers currently suggest that any human influence on global temperature is so small that it cannot yet be differentiated from natural cycles of climate change. Bob Carter has compelling evidence to suggest that solar flares are behind some of the variation in climate we have seen over the last 100 years.

Taswegian “parts of Australia and I suspect NZ are about to report their warmest driest autumn ever.”

Driest autumn ever?

Maybe “driest autumn since records have been kept” but that is less than 200 years and “Australia” and “New Zealand” have been around a lot longer.

One thing with all this, which interests me is “Krakatau”. Just look it up, massive climate changes and disruption on a scale not yet echoed by supposed “Anthropologic” warming or other action. Yet, whilst the worldwide consequences of Krakatau’s eruption were seen for at least a decade after the eruption, the world did return to what we have believed to be “normal”. So issues of “irreversible climate change”, as made by some “pro-AGW” activists, seem to be based on pure speculation and not on empirical evidence.

How is this for a “conspiracy theory”:

consider the cause of “internationalism” and its misguided followers.

Basically, this warped body of thought and philosophy saw its future entombed with the collapse of the USSR in the late 1980s

All the little Trotskyites and left wing grubs go off and burrow into the “Green” environmental movements, to lick their wounded pride.

The anti-capitalist lefty entryists turn the green agenda into an indirect anti-capitalist organisation.

Then, in acknowledging the “industrial world” is managed by capitalism, promote “industrial carbon emissions” as the new boogey man and

Try to produce mass support, by developing bogus issues around supposed carbon emission induced global warming.

Next, promote “carbon trading” as devices to economically curb the natural ability and advantages of capitalism to out-perform and out deliver against the international socialist centralist economic model.

Use carbon taxes to deliver the “levelling effect” demanded by socialism.

Result, the carbon tax “social levelling effect” can be, basically, described as “Socialism by Stealth”.

NorthWestShelf “misinformation from nonsense pedlars and shills.”

Maybe this article “balances” the “Make a stand for good science” (8/5/08).

Brook opened his pro-AGW spin with the immortal line “Don’t feed the troll!”.

Morthwestshelf is expressing intolerance to and demanding censorship of others who exercise their sovereign right to express a dissenting opinion to his.

Shameful.

History will view global warming being to liberals, what WMD's were to conservatives.

It is essential that there be proper debate and not censorship on this issue. Global warming activists seem to want their views to be unchallenged irrespective of the consequences.

Why is it worth responding on or discussing an article where the first paragraph is wrong? An extremely simple use of statistics, graphs and averages can discredit it.

http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2008/05/04/weather_vs_climate.png
zzz.

Not quite so, Baldpaul.

Problem is the sceptics can be divided into three groups.

1. Those that are in the pay of those that have a vested interest in not responding to climate change.

2. Those who, through their own ignorance, are dumb enough to do the very same lobbying, though unpaid. Victims of ignorance.

3. An assortment of folk who genuinely want to explore all of the ins and outs of climate science. Devil's advocates.

The sceptics brigade is mostly made up of category 1 and category 2, but lack of disclosure means it is virtually impossible to differentiate between them.

Category 3 is very welcome in the debate. We should listen to them closely, once we certify that they are genuinely motivated. But we also have to acknowledge that they are vastly over-represented in the media debate.

The science backing human-induced climate change is very solid, overwhelmingly so. But for many lay citizens, their natural sense of denial overcomes their critical facilities. We have to accept this as a short-term phenomenon and not disrespect those caught in a state of denial.

Once the tipping point has arrived, social change tends to happen despite the efforts of those (vested or not) those who try to resist the change. I remember vividly the huge attempts within South Africa to prevent Apartheid being broken down, not least the Dutch Reform Church. In time, common sense prevails.

So let's come back to this site in 2018 and see where the climate debate has gone.

In the meantime, and in the interests of democratic values, those in denial have a value should be accepted, if for no other reason than as a wall to bounce, test and verify climate science and our responses to it.

Chad,

The leveling off of temperature is NOT a myth. It is a fact.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Short_Instrumental_Temperature_Record.png

Paul, that image proved my point, rather than yours.

See that red line? That's the one you pay attention to. It hasn't gone down yet.

So, if the decade since 1998 is the coolest, how do you explain THIS:

http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&q=2007+2nd+warmest+%22on+record%22&btnG=Google+Search&meta=

Top 11 Warmest Years On Record Have All Been In Last 13 Years
13 Dec 2007 ... 13, 2007) — The decade of 1998-2007 is the warmest on record, according to data .... 2007 Was Tied As Earth's Second Warmest Year (Jan. ...
www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/12/071213101419.htm - 60k - Cached - Similar pages
BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | 2007 to be 'warmest on record'
Last year was the warmest on record in the UK, Met Office figures show. The world is likely to experience the warmest year on record in 2007, ...
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6228765.stm - 51k - Cached - Similar pages
2007 was the warmest on record for Earth's land areas - USATODAY.com
In a separate study, NASA scientists announced that 2007 tied with 1998 as the Earth's second-warmest on record. NASA researchers analyze global temperature ...
www.usatoday.com/weather/climate/2008-01-15-global-temperatures_N.htm

Mike Stasse
Energy Efficiency Consultant -

For those who want it to have cooled since 1998, I have an article in which I explain why global warming doesn't mean it gets hotter every year: http://opinion-nation.blogspot.com/2008/04/why-doesnt-it-get-hotter-every-year.html

Short summary: natural variability (i.e., what happens if you don't have some external cause of warming or cooling) is relatively large -- you can see swings of over 0.5C over a few years. The warming trend we are seeing is heading upwards towards 3C per CENTURY, i.e., 0.03C per year.

You can only expect to see a trend like this over and above natural variability if you keep looking long enough.

As for Bob Carter: his position is "science", the opposition are "zealots" or "devotees". Funny he can't get a paper published on the subject. I guess in the areas where HAS published, he's a "zealot" and unpublished critics are the real scientists? He quotes a minority report from parliament as saying most global warming scares are from unqualified people. This is rubbish. Most opinions about ANYTHING reported in mass media are from unqualified people because the media likes to quote people the public identify with. You have to look at the science to see what most SCIENTISTS are saying. Carter of course does not do so.

His assertions that rapid climate change is nothing new so we have nothing to worry about neglect possibilities that mass extinction events have been related to rapid climate change (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_extinction). The examples he cites of fast temperature rises are generally exits from glaciation, which (while raising sea levels) increase livable areas of the planet and so are not comparable to today's conditions. He also conveniently fails to mention the difficulty of accurately dating and measuring the paleoclimate. If his graphs included error ranges they would look a lot fuzzier.

Here's something else interesting to read on this: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/globalwarming/paleo.html

I find it ironic that for someone who attacks others for not being scientific enough Carter relies so much on innuendo and half-truths. I would certainly take him a lot more seriously if he didn't sneer at the other side.

The true believers are in a rightful flurry over this shifting public perspective.

They've gone the alarmist route because it sells better than facts, figures and reasons. The science isnt easy to understand for the unititiated and this inspires doubt.

Whether true or false, there's a general reluctance for people to believe its their fault and they have to change (read, moderate). It wont take much in the way of opposing facts and figures to breathe a sigh of relief.

Dont know if it will be enough to shift the political and economic direction, with its aspiring windfalls being leveraged off this thing.

Can see why both sides are resorting to insults, along the way. It started with the advocates doing the name calling. Now the other side is doing same, which is kinda funny, because on their side, by default, they have the natural tendency of people to skepticm, doubt, caution, reluctance, uncertainty, path of least resistance etc.

Now this camp has got some data to do what they've seen done. And it hasnt taken much. Nowhere near as much effort as the advocates. Plus, the name calling and vitriole looks bad, especially after having been apparently reasonable and scientific (along with escalating alarmist images and notions).

The name calling ensues and one wounders whose gonna fall on what sword.

It is interesting that posters like Northwestshelf want OLO to censor any opinions contrary to their own."Oh come on Graham ,you can do better than this."Fait accompli.

Well the matter is far from being resolved and the true believers need to put their religious fever in perspective.We won't be brow beaten by environmental religious zealots.

Nor, Arjay, will those who accept anthropogenic climate change be swayed by the blizzard of opinion pieces masquerading as science that is being pumped out by RightThink talk shops and routinely republished across all media. The New Zealand Climate Science Coalition has produced zero original research, spending its webspace instead promoting Fred-smoking-is-good-for-you-Singer and the mining industry funded Lavoisier Group
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=New_Zealand_Climate_Science_Coalition
Its few members include a yank and a queenslander, which suggests geography is not their strong suit, or were they scrabbling for a little camoflage any way they could.

Why do AGW deniers play so dirty? "environmental religious zealots", "terrifying our children", 'hysterical green lobby', “chicken little”, ..

Because they're hoping to drag everyone else into an emotional/illogical mode of thinking, much the way tv soapies get you prepped for the adverts.

I expect they'll keep succeeding.

Somewhat of a false accusation, Arjay, as you'll note I stated my support for a continuing debate on the subject! But I do grow a little tired of articles based on falsehoods, such as this one (as Chade and other commenters have demonstrated).

I also query the worth of publishing polemical articles by authors who are not really qualified to write on the subject (and I note that this applies to authors on both sides of the debate with respect to the AGW issue).

Unfortunately, even Bob Carter's OLO articles consist largely of talking points and attacks on his opponent's motives, notwithstanding that he is in a position to explain his scientific objections to AGW to his readers.

I concede my original language was intemperate (although it is clear that the author's claims, even viewed in their most charitable light, involve distortion of the facts). In part I was reacting against Peter Ridd's article, another disappointingly fact-free rant from a scientifically qualified author who is in a position to write something more informative.

But I suppose I must take the blame for the storm of name-calling that has ensued on this thread. I regret it.

Liam & NWS,most of us sane people are not deniers,we just want to see the hard core scientific proof.Most sane people are open minded about evidence,but it is not forth coming.I will not deny anything that has gone through the rigors of true scientific research.

Smoking causes lung cancer in many people.Accepted.CO2 an minor global warming gas which makes up .04% of our atmosphere has nowhere near the evidence of other cause and effect scenarios.

How can you logically deny something that is not self evident or even proven by meagre scientific methods?To deny means to defy facts & logical analysis.This is not the case with most of us sceptics.There is good reason to be sceptical since the science at best,is circumstancial.

"I will not deny anything that has gone through the rigors of true scientific research."

"To deny means to defy facts & logical analysis.This is not the case with most of us sceptics.There is good reason to be sceptical since the science at best,is circumstancial."

This is the main problem with the "sceptics" position. They sit back, fold their arms and say "Prove it to me beyond all doubt". They make no attempt to explain these phenonema through the same methods that wold impose on those who actually undertake research. In addition they turn the doubt aspect of the scientific method into a "beyond any doubt" test which is completely unreasonable.
It was Houdini and Conan-Doyle where the original public sceptics, they actively set out to uncover charlatans, the current crop of "sceptics " are actually gainsayers , they refuse to mount the debate based on the published research preferring to throw mud and fringe statistics.

Liam,

Why do AGW deniers play so dirty? "environmental religious zealots", "terrifying our children", 'hysterical green lobby', “chicken little”, ..

As Trade said, I think the same critisism can be levelled at the AGW believers.

pbrosnan,

'This is the main problem with the "sceptics" position. They sit back, fold their arms and say "Prove it to me beyond all doubt". '

I don't think that's true. All I ask for is for people to keep their minds open, and still consider new research and opinions. It seems to me most have made up their mind, and close their ears and say 'I'm not listening' if anyone dares dispute the orthodox opinion.

The scientific community has come to consensis on many things and changed their minds later when more research has clarified things. I for one wouldn't be at all surprised if in 20 years from now the consensis was that the original view was alarmist.

I think some people would be genuinely disappointed if it turned out we weren't all doomed. Certainly the media would have one less sensational thing to report.

Some of the debate has centred on the notion of scepticism. For those interested in making sense of scepticism, science and public policy will find a good article here http://www.zerocarbonnetwork.cc/news/hyper-scepticism-61.html the core of the argument is that part of the problem is that people fail to distinguish between scientific discourse and public policy discourse. We need and indeed should encourage contending views in the scientific discourse with respect to global warming. On the other hand in the domain of public policy the prudent course of action is to shape policy on the basis of the dominant scientific position.

Usual Suspect

I understand what you are trying to say but it is important to appreciate the difference between “orthodox opinion” in the scientific community and that in the public sphere. The dialogue I had with Don Aitken may clarify this better;

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=7335#113192

The vast majority of experts believe in something because the vast majority of data supports that belief – this if you like is orthodoxy, in the scientific sense. Can you see how this may differ in the wider community, when people may have an opinion on something they really don’t understand?

Yes, people should keep their minds open, many don’t … their heads are clearly stuck in the sand.

If you want to consider new research, take a look at this snippet.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v453/n7193/full/nature06937.html

You will have to subscribe to get the full picture, but I am sure the synopsis will be reported in mainstream media.

Oh, btw … the article subject of this thread is widely being misrepresented by the “don’t know what to call them anymore” brigade. Have you actually read the Keenlyside et al paper, or do you (like many) get your information from the popular press or blogosphere? I know it’s difficult, but as you say … we have to keep an open mind.

Ignorance is not an excuse and this article is based upon either complete ignorance, clever malevolence or both. All these perpetuated pseudoscientific “facts” are entirely refuted here: http://www.realclimate.org/
Editors need to tighten their rules and check the science behind what they are publishing. Even if their sponsors would not like it. What is sold as “science” is far too often plain gibberish.

BAYGON: << ...the core of the argument is that part of the problem is that people fail to distinguish between scientific discourse and public policy discourse. We need and indeed should encourage contending views in the scientific discourse with respect to global warming. On the other hand in the domain of public policy the prudent course of action is to shape policy on the basis of the dominant scientific position. >>

Excellent point, and one which the AGW sceptics/deniers evidently fail to understand.

QA,

From Don...
'the electorate there is not prepared to forego heat and mobility in the interests of abating greenhouse gas emissions, and my guess is that the Australian elctorate would be pretty similar, if pushed to the test.
'
I agree, and I think many greenies would secretly be in that basket too, and possibly a lot of what I call the AGW 'Parrots' don't even really appreciate the sacrifices to be made.

CJ Morgan,

'one which the AGW sceptics/deniers evidently fail to understand.'

Ho ho ho ho. Another smug generalisation from CJ. I have noticed a history of CJ believing anyone who doesn't agree with him as stupid.

For every holocaust.. oops I mean climate change denier without any real knowledge or understanding to back up his opinion, there is an environmental loony with no real knowledge or understanding either, but the loony just happens by chance to be backed by the scientific consensus. Doesn't make him smarter.

Anyway I cant believe you think we shouldn't encourage contending views in public policy discourse.

As Don said,

'If the science really were settled, then governments would be in a very strong position to say, without risk of instant and respectable disagreement, that AGW was so important that we would all have to pull our belts in.'

I wouldn't class myself as a denier (I mean who would anyway they are considered worse than holocaust deniers), more a not totally accepter.

If every public policy was based on a swift unilateral reaction to the current scientific opinion with no thought of that opinion ever evolving we'd be in a very sorry state. Especially when you look at the complexity of the earth that the scientists are examining, the accuracy of all predictive models, and the consequences of the actions proposed.

Usual Suspect, I did not disagree with Don when he said “the electorate there (UK) is not prepared to forego heat and mobility in the interests of abating greenhouse gas emissions, and my guess is that the Australian electorate would be pretty similar, if pushed to the test.

In my reply I said “this would require a paradigm shift and my guess, like yours, is that dealing with the issues of climate change will take some people (and treasuries and finance departments) out of their comfort zones.

I’ll try and make it clearer. ‘Climate change’ is going to impact every one of us … somehow, sometime, somewhere – whether you believe in AGW or not. It is better to work together in dealing with the issues of adaptation and mitigation. Political, economic and social ideology has, is and will muddy the waters more so than the science. No one is saying it will be easy. There are many alarmists on both sides in the public arena but there are considerably less in the scientific arena.

You said “Anyway I cant believe you think we shouldn't encourage contending views in public policy discourse.” Where did I ‘think’ or say this, Usual Suspect?

Of course there can be discussion, but it would help everybody if that discussion was based on fact, not alarmist claims by either side of the camp or shock-jocks and media outlets trying to raise their ratings with sensational and distorted science – intentional or otherwise.

Of course public policy should not be based on “swift unilateral reaction to the current scientific opinion” (where have you been these last 20 years, in the US?) – that really is a no brainer and it shows the intellectual ineptitude in those that think or even imply that it is.

You obviously have not read the full discourse between Don Aitken and myself, it may help our discussion if you extended yourself to the end of that thread.

I thought you wanted to be open minded so was hoping you would respond to the Nature article released today. US, you contradict yourself.

We try again....The role of science and public policy is that sound public policy is based on a conservative view of the science. In other words it errs on the side of caution. For example the use by date on food products. Will eating food that is past the use by date kill you? Probably not but given the small chance that it will prudent public policy dictates that we err on the conservative side. Climate change in this context is no different. It is about assessing the risk of doing nothing and taking action. In the scientific community there is a robust debate not, as some mistakingly believe, about whether or not AGW is real or not but more about how serious a problem it may be. Prudent policy demands that we err on the side of caution. Or are we suggesting that for some reason this particular issue is exempt from such prudent action? It is a little bit like arguing for the removal of lifeboats on the grounds that the likelihood that your ship will sink is very small.

Geomagnetic flux changes at the core-mantle boundary may be driving climate change. If merely linked and not the driver, they still let fossil fuels off the hook - you cannot rev up old Holdens down there. The mag anomaly maps, both deep and surface, match the curious temperature anomalies around the Antarctic Peninsula, in eastern Siberia, and now south of Mocambique. The IPCC anthropogenic greenhouse warming model cannot cope with those. At all. See http://www.freewebs.com/psravenscroft for the prelims.

Pbrosnan “This is the main problem with the "sceptics" position. They sit back, fold their arms and say "Prove it to me beyond all doubt".

What those of the “anthropogenic global warming” church fail to recognise is this

If they were the only stakeholders it would be reasonable for them to speculate on outcomes and consequences.
After all, it would be their risk and they would be the one to either reap the benefit or pay the consequences of their errors.

However, the world is not their toy.

They are not the only “stakeholders” or those who have a “vested interest”.

The “forensic evidence” is not there.
Whilst a lot of folk can come forward with anecdotal witness accounts, their individual interpretation is no substitute for “objective science”.

The statistical sampling is poor and haphazard, the significance or relevance of samples is undetermined.

The predictive models are error prone, due to
a) the poor quality sampling
b) uncertainty to the relative significance or influence or relationship between independent variables
c) uncertainty to what are all the variables.

All in all, an immature and underdeveloped set of scenarios which do not hold up. AGW has not been “proven” to any standard approaching “without a reasonable doubt”.

Before we are all condemned to suffer carbon taxes and have our personal rights curtailed, to atone for some notion of anthropogenic global warming, it is appropriate to expect the jury find us guilt “beyond a reasonable doubt” if not “beyond all doubt”.

Q and A,

' I did not disagree with Don when he said ..'
I know, I just thought it was a good point.

'You said “Anyway I cant believe you think we shouldn't encourage contending views in public policy discourse.” Where did I ‘think’ or say this, Usual Suspect?
'

I was actually replying to CJ Morgans affirmation of BAYGON's
'We need and indeed should encourage contending views in the scientific discourse with respect to global warming. On the other hand in the domain of public policy the prudent course of action is to shape policy on the basis of the dominant scientific position.'

By that I read 'encourage contending views ' in scientific discource, but not in the domain of pubilc policy.

Sorry I was too stingy to pay for the Nature article. I don't generally have the time or inclination to keep up to date with every topic that interests me either. Doesn't mean I don't have an open mind when I do read stuff.

BAYGON,

'public policy dictates that we err on the conservative side. '
You're one of these people who decided to put 'Caution: Contains Nuts' on the packets of peanuts aren't you.

'It is a little bit like arguing for the removal of lifeboats on the grounds that the likelihood that your ship will sink is very small.'
That's a dumb analogy. What if the lifeboats were so expensive that we would never be able to make any new ships, and had to sell most of the ones we had?

All,

It seems to me the debate revolves around how much 'faith' you have in the scientist's ability to model the earth. I don't have much, I think Col agrees. As I said, I look at the complexity of the earth that the scientists are examining, the accuracy of all predictive models, and the consequences of the actions they propose, and I'm just not sold on it yet.

"The greenhouse hypothesis - which asserts that carbon dioxide increases of human origin will cause dangerous global warming - is clearly invalidated by these data."

With respect Graham. Pigs bum!

In that one paragraph you have shown that you do not understand the complex interactions of various forcings relating to global temperatures.
I don't need to go into any of the most obvious, they are readily available. Please avail yourself of them.

Despite obvious lack of consensus re global warming, I hope that there is a consensus that we cannot continue as usual with:
1. Polluting (not only CO2).
2. Deforestation.
3. Land degradation.
4. Energy waste.
5. Fresh water waste.
6. Food waste.
7. All other resources waste.
Growing population will increase pressures to the breaking point and our civilisation must change to avoid a collapse. Global warming is just one piece of the global puzzle. Even if global warming does not occur, the above wastes will backfire. Even if the global warming is a myth (which it is not), it would be irresponsible to advocate business as usual.
Carbon dioxide is good, but not too much of it. This cannot be said, however, for many other pollutants. Sustainable forestry is also good, but we have seen too much of unsustainable deforestation.
I can elaborate on this further, but the point is clear.
This debate is much wider in its implications. Think carefully, very carefully about what are you implicitly supporting.