Get over it Ian, your view is not shared by the people that matter, the parade has past you by. I really don’t understand why OLO keeps posting these silly diretribes, they belong with the anti-Aids, anti-evolution, creationist, flat earther piece on some wacko website in the US.
Take this as a fine example, the author calls Penny Wong a liar, then admits she has just slightly paraphsed the report, but that it doesn’t matter because he thinks the reports is crediable anyway.
Maybe there is a good reason he is the former Head of the Australian Bureau of Statistics..

Corncob:
"Take this as a fine example, the author calls Penny Wong a liar, then admits she has just slightly paraphsed the report, but that it doesn’t matter because he thinks the reports is crediable anyway.
Maybe there is a good reason he is the former Head of the Australian Bureau of Statistics."

Ms Wong is a liar, and and as a statistician, well, there's the phrase "lies, damn lies and statistics". She had no "statistics" available the other night on Lateline, just a load of waffle.

What are your scientific credentials that allow you to dismiss those who question "AGW theory" as "flat earthers"?

I've noticed a funny thing lately: many people are loathe to believe a Bureau forecast for two days hence yet take as gospel an IPCC "forecast" for 40 years into the future.

Ian Castles: "I've never written anything for the Lavoisier Group, Sams. On several occasions I've been glad to agree to requests from that Group (and from other organisations) to publish papers of mine that have been published or presented elsewhere."

Yes, I'm sure you were very glad.

hotair: "No rational, scientific arguments just ad hominem attacks."

Good heavens, surely you must realise that:

"The theory of evidence depends to a large degree on assessments of the credibility of witnesses, including eyewitness evidence and expert witness evidence. Evidence that a purported eyewitness is unreliable, or has a motive for lying, or that a purported expert witness lacks the claimed expertise can play a major role in making judgements from evidence."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem

Re: rational, scientific arguments: this is not a science journal, it is a policy discussion. If you want a rational scientific argument, perhaps you should go an read a peer-reviewed climate science journal or two, or even contribute to them.

cornonacob: "I really don’t understand why OLO keeps posting these silly [diatribes]"

There is obvious bias on the selection of OLO articles. What about the huge headlines we were getting in the daily email updates advertising the deniers' conference while everyone else is is in small print??

Sorry Davids, no can do.

I think the BOM, & CSIRO are gambling a bit on history, with these rainfall predictions.

How many of you know of the barrier reef cores, taken about 35/40 years ago now. They gave information of runoff in the lower reef area, well before AGW was invented. In fact, they go back to the days when our mate Cook, was cruising our waters.

I'm a bit hazy on the figures now, & far too old to "google", but in the early 1700s there were periods of drought, drier than we have seen, which lasted for 27 years.

When I saw these figures, in the late 70s,I think, I wondered if Queensland, & the nation would be able to survive if/when these conditions return.

Of course, if they do, it will have to be AGW causing them, won't it? As I said, I think they are on a reasonably safe bet that their predictions will come to pass, some time, & we will all be too interested in survival to worry about our carbon foot print.

>Sorry Davids, no can do.
OK Hasbeen. You have my address. Cheers

Billie, I suppose you’re the same person who asked whether the Lavoisier Group paid me $20,000 for my previous article (‘Scientists, Politicians and Public Policy’, 9 August, 5:32:04 PM)? The answer is No: I’ve never received any money from Lavoisier for any purpose. I don’t understand the relevance to this discussion of your statements about Melbourne’s rainfall last year and this year. My point was about the IPCC’s projections for average rainfall in southern Australia in 2050, not mine. If you disagree with those projections you’re disagreeing with the IPCC, not me. I agree with John Zillman’s view that the question of how climate change will manifest itself at the national regional and local level is ‘completely unanswerable’.

Cornonacob, you say that I’ve called Penny Wong a liar. I haven’t and wouldn’t. I pointed out that, contrary to her statement on Lateline, the IPCC did not say that a reduction of rainfall of around about 25 per cent should be expected in southern Australia by 2050. Their median estimate is for a reduction of 4 per cent by 2080-2099. If you think that the Minister’s statement was correct, please provide a quotation from the IPCC Report and a page reference. If you think that my statement is incorrect, please provide a quotation in support of this from the IPCC Report, and a page reference.

Sams, You tell me that this article ‘attempts to look like a science paper.’ I certainly wasn’t making any such attempt. It is an opinion piece in which I discuss views that have been put by Ministers on television programs, and statements made in various official reports. Of course there’s not even a remote possibility that a climate science journal would accept this article, nor is there a remote possibility that I would submit it. If you have a contribution to make to the discussion on my opinion piece, please make it