rpg

If you see your scepticism as common sense, then say why. What is frustrating is to see sceptics like yourself paint their position as sensible, yet offer previously debunked reasons or no reasons as justification. This now seems to be the case with biosequestration, with Robert Merkel raising a couple of phoney arguments, which I will respond to.

"the fact is that natural gas fields have been storing CO2 for millions of years"

This is a bit like finding an intact ancient Greek olive jar on the seabed and concluding that ancient Greek olive jars last for thousands of years. The fact is that most natural gas escapes, and a gas field is the exception.

"There's evidence, for instance, that using biochar in forested areas can increase soil microbial activity. Guess what, that releases much of the CO2 back again."

Research has been done to compare the carbon loss from degraded agricultural soils with and without the addition of charcoal, and using natural forest as a control. The researchers found that while the agricultural land released more carbon than the forest, the charcoal treated soil released 2.75 t/ha/yr less carbon than the untreated soil.

http://ciifad.cornell.edu/activities/initiatives/biocomplexity/kimetu/kimetu0407iaipster.pdf

Even if there is no global warming,or it is natural,or if we cannot do anything about it,do we still want to use ALL the fossil fuels so quickly?.
Use fossil fuels less,they will last longer.
Use solar instead ,it will last 1000,000,000 years if we use it or not.

rpg,
I'm not saying that all climate change denialists are paid by the fossil fuels lobby - I'm saying that some historically have been.
I'm am not a natural climate change sceptic - it happens, and the scientific consensus agrees with that. The scientific consensus also agrees that this natural process is being augmented by human activity (little surprise when you consider that in the last century and a half, we have destroyed almost all the forests, mined almost all of the easily accessible fossil fuels, polluted the oceans and emitted all sorts of synthetic pollutants into the atmosphere. Not all of these things cause climate change, but it is little wonder that our activity has had some effect).
I think most sceptics would be horrified at the way in which people brand themselves as sceptics today. Scepticism is a time-worn and respectable tradition which says that truth claims about the world need to be verified through experiment and that hypotheses need to be tested rather than relying on blind faith. The hypothesis about anthropogenic climate change has been verified so far in that the expected changes according to the hypothesis have now been observed in reality.
Denialism is something completely different - it's to stare the whole body of scientific research in the face and refuse to accept it based on blind faith in the ability of the Earth to cope with what we have done to it, or a fear of the consequences of our actions. IF we can get over our fears then there is a small chance that we can act in a way which could save the biosphere.
I never argued that tectonic plate movements don't kill large numbers of people, I said that they don't put the majority of life at risk. Strawman arguments do not lead to healthy debate.

How about this - even if you disagree that human actions are causing climate change, what's wrong with the large-scale roll-out of renewable energy to replace coal? Look at it as a positive opportunity rather than an economy-destroying theory.

Hopeleft you are following in the footsteps of Tim Flannery. All the projections have been based on computer modeling and that is breathtaking in itself. The metrological people cannot even get tommorows forecast right so we are suppossed to trust 10, 20 years hence? The last ten years the temperatures have been stable.
Over thirty years ago Sting confidentally predicted the Amazon rain forest would be gone by 2000 and in the late 1990's the year 2000 bug would destroy computers. I have heard this fluff all my life (Born 1947), that we are all going to die very soon but! It will happen to me and it will happen to you eventually but these silly hysterical scares do not bother me one bit lol. You enjoy yourself and if you ever have a minute read the story of Don Quixote there is a lesson there for you and the other kids.

JBowyer:
I understand that climate science is a confusing minefield. I'll try to respond point by point:
* There is a big difference between weather and climate. Often people respond to climate change by saying "Ah yes, but this January was hotter than last January" (in fact, the Australian even made similar claims this year). The obvious problem here is that climate change has to do with long-term trends, not the meteorigical forecast for tomorrow.
* Regarding your claim that the past decade's temperatures have been stable: the facts are clear enough. The NASA global surface temperature record shows that the decade spanning the 1980s was, on average, +0.26C above the 1950-1980 reference period. The 1990s were +0.402 degrees Celsius (C) warmer, and the ‘cooler’ 2000s (through to June 2008) have been +0.625C hotter than the reference period. The global warming rate from the 1980s to 1990s was +0.141C per decade and has increased to +0.223C per decade in the first decade of this century. This is cross-confirmed by the other three global temperature monitors. Furthermore, this concerns global average temperatures, which smooths out the extreme differences. The number of extreme weather events has also multiplied in the past 15 years.
* It would be a different story if we were referring to a theory which was shown by history to be wrong (for example, the more alarmist claims about the effects of the Y2K bug). Unfortunately, the most "alarmist" claims about climate change have been shown to be far too conservative, particularly with regards to Arctic ice melt. Last week's global greenhouse emissions summary was shown to be worse than the worst-case scenario predicted by the IPCC. I'm not saying these things to be alarmist, but simply to demonstrate that the reality of what is *currently happening* in terms of climate change and greenhouse emissions (i.e. not disputable and easily observable) is not comforting. It is an alarming situation, but we need to respond with action rather than fear.

hopeleft - I see JBower has played into your hands by responding on why your denial of natural climate change is irrelevant - it gives you the chance to attack him with your strange logic, to be disparaging and to quote all sorts of things to back up your own faith, you're clutching at straws and looks it even from afar. If it's all so obvious, why are you in such a flap about it?

My own "common sense" which fester demands I back up with data (so you can attack it, I presume) is the result of living through multiple scares, being frightened as a child of things alarmists of the day bleated on about. I didn't develop common sense by reading articles or papers by scientists with personal gains at stake, who sold books (Tim Flannery) or made PowerPoint Movies (Al Gore) as you seem to. It was living through all this and studying history and realising there have always been false prophets, and they are always wrong - no one can predict the future.

You cherry pick events to suit your panic - it's all too familiar to me and others like me who look at these things and see them for what they are - natural events we have no control over and get on with our lives. I feel sorry for you, as some time in the future when you realise it's all been for nought, your religious zeal, your campaign for the climate to stop as you demand it should do, for all the countries in the world to stop and pay attention to some spoiled brats from down under who demand everyone look at them, because they're right (what egos you have), comes to nothing.

Renewable energy, like Nuclear? Really that's the only AVAILABLE energy resource we have, but that's not palatable to the religious deniers is it? Or are you talking about some future energy that we'll invent and everyone will be happy, come on, really do you believe that? Fairies at the bottom of the garden?