When all is said and done and AWG is either proven to be a fact or fiction the 'winning side' will know all those who have caused the chaos (Whether that be in the form of weather or economic) and be able to wite hundreds of articles 'blaming' and ridiculing them.

My only hopes are twofold, firstly: that the AGW's don't renege on their urgency and change their timeframe for expected disaster thereby ensuring they can never be wrong.

My other hope is simple: I hope the AGWers are wrong.

I'm a fence sitter I don't know if GW is manmade.

Only those who have sat on my fence will be able to dodge the brickbats.

rstuart, I know the feeling. I apologise if I made too much of your idle comment, or read too much into it. In my defence, I was only making an idle one-liner myself. It’s true you were only offering an observation, and an interesting one in the context of Clive’s dummy-spit. My response was perhaps triggered more by Spikey picking it up and deceptively omitting Graham’s words “at the moment” to suggest some sort of inconsistency. It is, of course, perfectly reasonable to agree with someone rarely, but a lot at the moment, which says something about Spikey's grasp of logic. Or perhaps he does have a grasp which is why he had to omit the words to make it fit, making him either logically wrong or ethically wrong. Besides, it reads to me like Graham’s comment was also but a passing idle remark.

"... truth is relative..."

Is self refuting. It is the ultimate achilles heel of relativist post modernism as the manner in which it states itself, contradicts itself.

Why? Beacuse there's nothing relative about the premise... its an ABSOLUTE. Hence self immolating. If the statement is true, then its true in all cases of, ahem, relative/variant (perception). Ergo an absolute. If its not an absolute, then the statement is relative, hence meaningless.

The self referential nature of 'truth is relative'... to the viewer who confers 'meaning' by way of filtering perception through personal narratives (delusions)... is begging the question. It uses the 'self' to prove the 'self.'

Po-mo confuses MEANING for TRUTH. Conflates the two and bastardises them in the favoured way of post-modernism... define away the contradiction with self referential (relative) contradiction.

No wounder few can agree on anyhting and no one knows whats going on. No wounder folks have a hard time communicating with and understanding each other, or saying anything meaningful. If its realitve then... its all relative.

Post-modernism is essentially an allegory for the nature of the human condition, in its present form... unthinking, un-critical, herd-like, gullible, quick to follow, anything goes and especially LAZY. Most importantly its never wrong. Therefore its all valid, in a sort of redundant way that has no utility, beyond colouring the facade well enough to make for a good nights sleep, with all those absurd condractions swilling about in thy head.

Poor reasoning and flawed logic does not a 'good' philosophy make. It makes for good bastardisation of it tho. And po-mo has succeeded stupendously in this regard. Its amusing that academics claim to be about challenging and broadening perspective at the same time destroying the very mechanism by which that process arises and upon which it is fundamentally driven, namely... logic, reason, judgment.

In fact the dummy spit re global warming speaks to just how anti-intellectual the intellectuals have become. Of course there would be no contradiction here in the relativist mind. Which is ironic b/c... an intellectual is someone who watches and critiques their own mind.

Richard Castles on Saturday: "... there’s nothing wrong with changing your mind". [The reference was to Graham Young's inconsistencies.]

Richard Castles on Sunday: "I apologise if I made too much of your idle comment, or read too much into it...My response was perhaps triggered more by Spikey picking it up and deceptively omitting Graham’s words 'at the moment' to suggest some sort of inconsistency."

Methinks Richard you are too eager to support Mr Young ("Graham Young in a knock-out".) I'm sure Young can defend himself anyway.

Let's stick to the facts - not personal attacks on my motivation. We all omit words when we quote a text. Perforce: we have a 350 word limit. No deception; no ethical lapse. We indicate the relevant omission with three dots.

Young's key words in this regard were: "I rarely agree with" Hamilton and " I seem to be agreeing with [him] a lot". You can qualify those words all you like - but the truth remains: Young is inconsistent. He was clearly out to skin Hamilton alive.

You seem to rely in your defence and that of your hero on the concept of idleness - in addition to (a) rstuart's "idle comment", there was your own "I was only making an idle one-liner myself" and "...Graham’s comment was also but a passing idle remark."

Idleness is a euphemism for laziness and an unwillingness to consider both sides equally on their merits. That would explain your reference to Hamilton's "dummy-spit" while totally overlooking Young's intemperate attacks on both Hamilton and Robyn Williams which started this whole lop-sided 'debate' in the first place.

Mr Castles as you said: "... there’s nothing wrong with changing your mind." If you can get past idle thinking, please critically read the actual texts of both Hamilton's and Young's articles and hopefully you'll see what some of us on OLO are concerned about.

PS To correct another of your idle assumptions: I am female.

Graham,

Well put. Whether Clive's assessment of climate change is accurate or not does not give him the right to cry foul when others on an open opinion forum disagree with him.

One thing I have learnt over the last year on OLO is that most opinions are based on others' opinions and seldom on rational analysis of the facts. I was disappointed to find that Clive was one of those who merely echo the populist version.

I enjoy reading OLO not for the lunatic fringe but for the occasional nugget of cogent reasoning.

I bid a sad farewell to Clive, but would prefer that OLO remain as it is. Clive is welcome to start his own forum, but as only he and his ilk can contribute, it will be a sterile place indeed.

Whether current man-induced global warming is true or not, the fact remains that the earth has been going through warming and freezing cycles for millions of years.
The danger is not that present activities are adding to warming, but that the cleanliness and balance of nature, our ecology, is being destroyed.
That is a greater cause for alarm, not the regular, cyclic, unstoppable evolution of weather trends.