In spite on increasing scientific evidence that the climate is NOT driven by CO2, that the earth is entering a cooling phase,that current climatic trends are no different than they've ever been, and that most of the scientific papers supporting the theory used fabricated evidence (Mann et al), Al Gore's Chicken Little act still enthralls the gullible who quickly dismiss any 'deniers' of being in the pay of 'Big Oil', in spite of the fact that 'Big Oil' will be one of the major benefactors of any cap and trade scheme due to their substantial investments in carbon trading and offsets companies, including some started by Gore and his pals. The only effect any cap on carbon emissions will have will be on the price of energy and food, and the biggest losers will be the world's poorest people.

sillyfilly: natural warming sometimes hides and sometimes accentuates man's influence?

Sounds complicated. When I breathe out CO2, is that natural or unnatural?

sisyphus: We should all be driving '56 Chevies for the environment?

I've heard it all now.

Q&A: the non-faithful should be tortured and executed by those who strut the corridors (cloisters?) of the Church of Climatology.

Has it ever crossed your mind that there may be some things YOU don't understand?

And, Agnostic of Mittagong, the frog boiling story is also a myth.

ManBearPig?

You make some bold assertions but don’t cite references to back up your opinions.

Time-series analysis of temperature anomalies show that the Earth’s climate has been warming since about 1850 – ergo, since the dramatic increase in fossil fuel burning and expansive increase in agricultural activity. Climate models suggest that most of the rise is due to GHG emissions. The accuracy of the models has been questioned (as they should) so the models are getting better as a result. However, hindcasts (comparing model forecasts with historical observations) are proving quite robust. Nevertheless, ‘climate science’ is not just about GCM’s, nor is it about the one bristlecone pine temperature reconstruction. Contrary to what you/others rely on, there are many other palaeo-temperature reconstructions that show this ‘hockey stick’ trend.

Lean et al (Geophys. Res. Lett. 35, L18701, 2008) find that only four factors – ENSO, volcanic activity, solar activity, and anthropogenic forcing by greenhouse gases – are required to explain 76% of the variance in the (recent) temperature records. Furthermore, 90% or more of the warming trend of the past 100 years can be explained by invoking anthropogenic effects. Solar forcing on the other hand, can only explain a negligible percentage of the rise in temperature over the past 25 years. They also find that temperature response to natural and anthropogenic forcing does not increase rapidly with latitude from mid to high latitudes and that human induced warming effects are more pronounced in the latitudes between 45°S and 50°N than at higher latitudes.

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fungochumley

Your attempts at ‘Bait and Switch’ are symptomatic of someone in denial.

FWIW, science is not a religion (proponents of ‘intelligent design’ are confused about this) and yes, there are things I don’t understand. My research interests lie in coupled ocean/atmospheric systems and how they impact on the hydrologic cycle. AFAIK, the weight of evidence supports AGW – this is why it is imperative that those with an alternate view publish their hypotheses in the appropriate forums – not in populist media or ‘denialist’ blogspots.

Your dig at sillyfilly - do you understand signal to noise?

Q&A,

You accused me of not doing my homework. Have you ever thought through geothermal? Do know how the rocks get hot? From radioactive decay. This decay has contributed helium, argon and radon to our atmosphere. The helium escapes into space, the radon decays, and the argon is now 1% of the atmosphere. It constantly amuses me that people have this great hangup about nuclear power, and promote geothermal, which is still nuclear and has significant radiation issues. I can only presume it is because the nuclear activity is buried underground. It could also be because there is no question of making nuclear weapons, but of course conventional nuclear power stations can be designed using light water reactors, and they are unable to make weapons.

It is always interesting to note how different people latch on to different aspects of the same article.
For me, the important point (rather periphally addressed, admittedly) was the matter of what's affordable.
I would love to buy a solar hot water system, but as a low income earner, all I can afford is instant hot water.
Yes, I am well aware that the instant service costs far more every quarter, but if you don't have the money, what can you do?
I would love to go back to living in a solar powered home, if I could afford it. 12 years of solar power, purchasing solar panels, batteries and a back up generator taught me it is not a cheap solution. Considering the amount of petrol I had to put through the gennie, I was probably less green than if I had been on the grid.
All these things are great, if you don't have to go into debt to finance them.
which is exactly what China and India are saying.
I fully agree with Bernie Masters on the matter of Government spending. It would probably be more fiscally responsible as well as environmentally responsible to buy every house a water tank, rather than to build more dams.
It would be more responsible to spend money on solar electric panels for every roof, than build more power stations.
As someone with personal experience, I can assure you the diciest part of solar power is the batteries.
With a grid connection, power can be poured into the grid during the day, and drawn from the grid at night. The panels by themselves require little, if any maintenance. Just hose them off occasionally.
We already have the solutions. All we need, is to step out of the box.

plerdsus I agree that granite geothermal is nukular-lite. In fact where some of the outback experiments are located is essentially the same block of granite under a sandstone cap as Roxby Downs some distance away. The difference is that controlled nuclear fission gets high temperatures and thermodynamic efficiency whereas dispersed natural decay doesn't. By now an outfit called Geodynamics was supposed to have electrified the town of Innamincka population 12 using hot froth from underground looped through an ammonia boiler. Their silence is deafening. That hasn't stopped many enthusiasts from claiming that geothermal solves the intermittency problem which bedevils wind and solar. Yes I do have solar panels. Given that intermittency problem, the non-advent of geothermal, the high emissions of coal and the example of the Brits squandering their North Sea gas I wonder what options are left. That's one for Bob Brown.