I am glad Clive is not President of the World, because he clearly does not understand the adage "don't shoot the messenger".

Clive look at me: the very point of this technology is that it allows a thousand flowers to bloom. That's important because we know from history that important ideas can come out of left field.

The Establishment (scientific or otherwise) is not always right, even when they are in the vast majority. Instance - Galileo and the solar system, the plate tectonics guy who most geologists dismissed as a loony and most recently Barry what's-his-name who was poo-hoo'ed when he said gastric ulcers were caused by bacteria, then given a Nobel when they realised he had a point.

Tread carefully, Mr Hamilton, for you are growing shrill.

How about having a go at Ziggy Sitkowski - now there is a real whacker. This guy is trying to convince us that nuclear is somehow more economically responsible than renewable. I mean, where does he get off? He is the one you should be attacking, not those who are asking questions. Asking questions is good. Making baseless assertions is bad. How about this for example: Nuclear is insane. Always has been, always will be. Anything that demands a 2,000 year attention span is nuts. And yet society continues to feed him? He should be locked up for his insolence.

How sad that if you do not agree with someone then you are pillaried! If this 'gentleman' actually looked at the science he would see that AGW is a myth. Climate Change is caused by natural cycles based on solar output and Milankovich Cycles. There may be other natural cycles that we know nothing about at the moment. CO2 is not a polutant but is a vital gas for all forms of life. Past levels that were up to 20 times that of today did not cause runaway global warming, in fact ice ages occurred with these high CO2 levels. So why the problem with the levels that we endure today?
This man should learn some humility and some science and talk to Prof Bob Carter, James Cook University, NSW, Australia, to get the whole picture. He denies AGW, as many scientists do, but believes in climate change as caused by natural cycles alone.

I stumbled across this post from Graham, evidently made in a different era:

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=154#2803

How times change. Perhaps they will change again, and Clive will see way clear to contribute again to OLO.

Reminders to smart-arse GW Bush lovers.

Flouting of our Strategic Laws

Geneva and Hague Conventions now illegally superseded by self elected pax Americana.
Caused by an elitist militaristic US now sidestepping the United Nations.

Formerly war-racked nations of Europe, now seem eager to keep mostly away from such problems, especially regarding the US.

Such earlier weaknesses said to have allowed little Israel to join the big powers, and now in possession of over 200 hundred nuclear rockets ready to go.

According to top historians the case of letting Israel begin an illegal nuclear programme so close to its being allowed to return to its original homeland after over two thousand years, has virtually left academic global historians dismayed to the point it is sometimes difficult to get an audience with them.

IT was Henry Kissinger who made a statement, now in Government archives warning Richard Nixon that keeping quiet about Israel’s venture into atomic warfare, could greatly upset the future balance of power in the Middle East –

And an Islamic resentment which surely helped to bring on 9/11.

Thus we now have the problem of Israel’s No 1 target, Iran, once former Persia, and now a greater nation of 70 million, in danger of an attack from tiny Israel, with the full weight of the GW Bush driven fake US Constitutional Prerogative behind her.

It is also well to remember that the above has not the backing of the American people, similar to the plan of putting the plentiful remnants of Saddam’s quarter million Iraqi Sunni national guard later turned insurgents against American occupation - and now on the US military payroll as the major focus of the Great Iraqi Awakening.

For more info’ try the Washington Post.

Cheers - BB, WA

Thank you, rstuart, for reminding us that it's not so long ago that Graham Young was making flattering remarks about Clive Hamilton ("(I seem to be agreeing with Clive Hamilton's Australia Institute a lot at the moment" - OLO 17 October 2006.)

That confession sits uneasily with this current comment from Graham: "...his positions have a place on OLO, even though I rarely agree with them." Which is it, Graham? Agreeing a lot? Or rarely agree with him?

For the several bombastics who have accused Hamilton of trying to censor or stifle debate by withdrawing from OLO - and who can blame them when Graham headlined his diatribe against Clive provocatively, "Silencing dissent" - it's enlightening to look at a few salient facts concerning Hamilton's history of contributions to OLO.

According to data provided by OLO, Hamilton has published a grand total of 12 articles in 6 years and only once has he contributed to a discussion of an article - and that was last week.

By contrast, our worthy editor, who presumably was responsible for his own headline, has allowed OLO to publish 88 of his own articles and 376 other contributions (194 comments on articles and 182 general comments).

Remember this is the editor of OLO who said: "No contributor has special privileges on OLO. We don't do editorials, and when I contribute to debate, apart from rare appearances as forum moderator, it is on the same basis as everyone else."

The discerning OLO reader will ask whether Graham hasn't been playing games with us: "Clive and I decided the basis of this duel before commencing it. I even gave him the choice of venues - here or the blog."

He then cutely asks: "...why is Clive taking the time to write to its editors?...before declaring that Hamilton is "a man who has forfeited any right to take part in this debate".

Who's talking censorship? Who's manipulating On Line Opinion?

Let's have no more nonsense about Clive Hamilton trying to stifle debate and free speech.

There is a long established relationship between the Earth’s variable rotation (measured by Length of Day (LoD)) and climate. As rotation accelerates the Earth warms; as it de-accelerates the Earth cools. But there is a time lag of most likely six years between the change in the Earth’s rotation and global temperature changes.

See 2001 FAO Fisheries technical paper No. 410 of “Climate Change and Long-Term Fluctuations of Commercial Catches – The Possibility of Forecasting”, by Prof Klyashtorin of the Institute for Fisheries and Oceanography Moscow, http://www.fao.org/DOCREP/005/Y2787E/y2787e01.htm

In 1976 Australia’s Kurt Lambeck, now President AAS, and authority on the Earth’s variable rotation, relied on a speed-up in the Earth’s rotation to predict that the planet wouldn’t freeze as then predicted by the world’s meteorologists, but would warm up.

In “Long Term Variations in the Length of Day and Climate Change”, Geophysical Journal International Vol 26 Issue No 3 pps 555 to 573 Sept 1976), Kurt with his colleague Amy Cazenave wrote page 570):

“Whatever mechanism is finally proposed it will have to explain the apparently significant lag that is found between the LoD and the various climatic indices, temperature and excitations. The interest of this lag suggests that the LoD observations can be used as an indicator of future climatic trends, in particular of the surface warmings. Without a better understanding of the interactions between the two phenomena the use of the LoD observations in predicting climate is of very limited value but if the hypothesis is accepted, then the continuing deceleration of m for the last 10 yr suggests that the present period of decreasing average global temperature will continue for at least another 5-10 yr. Perhaps a slight comfort in this gloomy trend is that in 1972 the LoD showed a sharp positive acceleration that has persisted until the present, although it is impossible to say if this trend will continue as it did at the turn of the century or whether it is only a small perturbation in the more general decelerating trend.