Thank you for that well-founded information Q&A. The connection between the planet’s surface temperature, GHGs and water vapour was of particular interest. More later.

For the moment, I'll indulge myself in a brief recall of my memory pegs, in relation to the true motives of IanC and the associations/citizen affiliations of which he boasts:

1. Grain Council of Australia: Supporters of single desk and AWB/Saddam/kickbacks/wheat for weapons

2. National Farmers Federation: Live exports/biodiversity/abominable animal cruelty/ “Lies, damn lies and statistics.”

3. Peter Walsh/ supporter of Graeme Campbell, former MLA (and migrant)/Australia’s League of Rights/White Australia Policy/bigot and nutter.

Campbell (recently deprived of his "free market" right to pollute), ordered by Kalgoorlie/Boulder City Council to cease cooking filthy café oil in backyard to convert to “biofuel” which polluted ambient air and stank out the neighbours and beyond!

4. Ian Castle/former head of ABARE: The Commonwealth government relies heavily on figures provided by ABARE.

For its economic modelling of the impacts of meeting greenhouse-gas targets, ABARE raised $1.1 million from oil companies and industry lobby groups, offering them the opportunity to pay $50,000 to sit on the steering committee and "have an influence on the direction of the model development" (as stated in ABARE’s literature).

Those who took advantage of the offer included Mobil, Exxon, Texaco, BHP, Rio Tinto, the Australian Aluminium Council, the Business Council of Australia, and the Norwegian oil company Statoil.

The Australian Conservation Foundation, which could not afford the $50,000, requested a waiver of the fee to be on the steering committee but was refused.

IanC, You have failed to acknowledge the previous links I provided – a covert but typical strategy of the “free market at any cost” cabal with which I have been intimately associated. I shall not debate with you in future posts.

The Lavoisier Group publicly reported that you were a member of their group which you denied.

The Lavoisier Group are either devious or extremely incompetent. Either way, why would the people of Australia want to do deals with a group which has the competency skills and/or ethics of a used car salesman?

Dickie, that should have been:

http://www.wwf.org.au/publications/openletterafrv2.pdf

Ian, my pleasure. I haven’t been “trawling” (your word) ... indeed, I have been reading and watching the Lavoisier Group for a number of years now – long before they represented themselves on the ABC’s programme on “The Great Global Warming Swindle” last year (but that is another story). I don’t have blinkers on (try to be objective) like so many of the, umm ... ‘deny-n-delay’ crowd

Yes Ian, dogma ... your belief and conviction held for ideological purposes of an organisation (e.g. Lavoisier Group) and considered to be authoritative and certainly not to be disputed, let alone diverged from. I think this describes your perspective quite well, but that is only my opinion.

You still don’t get it (it’s not about you or nostalgia trips down memory lane – I too have ‘senior moments’). I think the fundamentalists on BOTH sides should pull their head out of their collective nether-nethers - a point ignored by you and your defence team, Mr & Mrs Fungochumley.

For example, I think the IPCC have got it wrong over the SRES, and you guys (econometricians) have not been able to model correctly. Unfortunately, you guys have not been able to produce more meaningful models or scenarios, preferring to play ‘power & control’ games with the world’s economy and its inhabitants.

Nevertheless, basic laws of physics and chemistry clearly demonstrate that we (the oceans, atmosphere and terrestrial biosphere) have a problem. I really do want scientists (the likes of Lindzen and Spencer) to knock AGW out of the ground (and its ludicrous to think that research on AGW should be curtailed) but they haven’t be able to do that – no matter the musings of Dick (whose science I quite admire albeit with issues) or his sour-grape political motives.

Of course there are “deniers” and “believers” on both sides of the political spectrum – see the outcome of the Xtrata case, or ‘Arnie the governator’ progressive actions in one of the world’s biggest economies – what is your point?

Oh ... I also subscribe to Quadrant.

dickie & Q&A the Inquisitor,

Predictably, with backs to the wall you go on the ad hom attack. Like the salem witch hunts, you PUT people between a rock and a hard place - float and you are a witch - and are of course unwilling to undergo the same trials by ordeal. Did you say something about playing the ball, meaningful responses, engaging, Q&A?, as you have not made a judgment on the relative merits of the accuracy of the references that were being discussed, but attempt to annihilate with tyrannical abuse. Is this your academic MO?

Dickie, Your memory pegs have let you down. My name is Castles (not Castle) and I’ve never had any connection with ABARE. Your claim that I formerly headed that organisation is another figment of your imagination, and your account of its fund-raising activities is irrelevant except as an indictment of the IPCC for selecting two ABARE economists as the only Australian members of the writing team for the chapter that reviewed the Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES).

As I don’t have any affiliation with the Grains Council of Australia, the NFF, or the Lavoisier Group, why do you say that I’m boasting about it? I don't have any connection with the Labor or Liberal Parties either, although I was appointed to positions of trust by governments on both sides of Australian politics. You didn’t provide any support for your claim that I’d had my name removed from the Lavoisier website - another memory peg that let you down.

Q&A, thanks for agreeing that ‘the IPCC have got it wrong over the SRES.’ I put this view in a letter to the Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering in 2002, in which I proposed that they ‘sponsor a professional technical review of the SRES projections.’ I argued that such a review could ‘best be conducted in Australia, rather than in countries in which the reputation of prestigious institutions would be at stake.’

But unfortunately I copied my letter to a number of experts who were subsequently to be named as contributors to the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report, and at least one of these future Nobel Laureates forwarded it to members of the IPCC milieu who had an interest in killing the proposal. Among the IPCC contributors on my mailing list were Roger Beale, Geoff Love, Brian Fisher, Neville Nicholls, Andrew Pitman, David Karoly, Ann Henderson-Sellers and Bryant McAvaney.

So my effort to inject some openness into the IPCC’s deliberations facilitated their successful campaign to retain the status quo. In this the Panel had the enthusiastic support of several prestigious Australian institutions who knew the SRES couldn’t survive expert scrutiny.

IanC

While I advised that I would no longer debate with you, I am obliged to offer you an apology for confusing ABARE with ABS. This is no doubt a result of my propensity to glean statistics from ABARE. I am well aware that your surname is Castles – the error was simply a typing omission.

"You didn’t provide any support for your claim that I’d had my name removed from the Lavoisier website - another memory peg that let you down." Not quite IanC.

According to my research the following is the first paragraph of a letter you wrote to John Quiggin in response to the Lavoisier claim:

“Yes, at my request the Lavoisier Group will make clear (I think at their Annual Meeting later this month) that I am not and have never been a member of the Group. Please feel free to confirm this with Ray Evans, the founder of the Group.”

At your request IanC? Why did you obfuscate this information, assuming the letter is authentic?

I note that you have again failed to allude to the “1978 error” regarding Lomberg or to advise the reasons for your ambiguity on peer reviews yet you persist in answering questions with a question.

Contd………

...before you continue, dickie,

"Not quite IanC."

Yes, quite. You didn't support your claim. That you provide your "research" NOW doesn't negate IanC's statement. Do you have a problem understanding time, as in the "reference" debacle above, are you confused, or are you simply lying?

The letter you quote to John Quiggin in which Ian asks it to be made clear that he is not nor ever has been a member of the Group does not in the least validate your claim, whatever it is you are suggesting. Why wouldn't ANYONE request a correction if they discovered they were listed as a member of ANY organization to which they didn't belong? It is, again, you who is obfuscating, or possibly, again, attempting to smear with deliberate distortion.

IanC also quite clearly alluded to your “1978 error” regarding Lomberg (sic) and it is you who has failed to acknowledge this. Unless you can find a page reference in The Skeptical Environmentalist, or elsewhere, perhaps you should write to your sources to correct their error.

In the name of honesty, I will not stand by and let such pathological confusion, or deliberate deceit and smear, pass unchallenged.

Continue with caution.