Q&A demonstrates here a very stubborn, convoluted and mischievous lying to levels defined as "sophistry". The practitioner's apparent creative enjoyment here says a great deal too about the "theory" (AGW) being promoted.

Q&A now screams: "...YOU said that I “slapped” or “branded” that letter to Ban Ki Moon from the Lavoisier Group. You are a liar, I did not ... THEY (the Lavoisier Group) did the ‘cut-n-paste’".

This is not a new device; the dickie-Q&A tag team made the same creative performance against Ian Castles (see: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=8132&page=0).

Therefore, deliberate self-misrepresentation is clear from Q&A's own statements. Q&A insinuates that the Open Letter was "from...Lavoisier" (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=8407#134632) when, as its name "open letter" suggests, and Lavoisier's reproduction of it as "appendix" states explicitly, it was not. But Q&A then alleges that Lavoisier was somehow dishonest in using the letter as an appendix source, as if they had branded it "Lavoisier" themselves.

I have no particular interest in Lavoisier itself - and I was unaware of its existence before being distracted so deliberately here - and am unsure about Lavoisier's own networked or even party-political agendas. But I hope Q&A publicizes his allegations more widely and explicitly, because a Lavoisier-based lawsuit on this would be an ongoing storm of justice a.k.a. "extreme legal event".

Q&A uses a similarly dishonest and (fittingly) fictitious approach when posing a theatrical "counter" to the substantial case made around the very fact of the dissident scientists' petition to Ban Ki Moon. Rather than trying to challenge the petition's actual case or inform us how the 103 scientists somehow do not deserve their qualifications and specialist positions of expertise in climate science, etc., Q&A just repeats the flippant claim that the letter is "trotted out" as a mere tactic "time and time again". When and where, we may ask. Oh, back into the circus spin: as an appendix to the Lavoisier Group's Garnault submission!

Fair dinkum folks ... I swear milli-vanilli is not my sock-puppet.

(how's that night-time temp analysis going mil?)

No kidding, Q&A? I've been standing on the sidelines of this stoush, because mil-observer often posts cogent stuff about other issues. However, when it comes to climate change s/he's the embodiment of denialism gone aggro feral.

The sad thing is that as climate change starts to bite - as I think we're currently witnessing - we will have to start talking to, rather than at, each other. Some of the more extreme denialist crew seem to have painted themselves into a corner from which their egos won't allow them to escape for the time being.

However, they'll either have to see reason eventually or quite literally go mad. It's that serious, IMHO.

Thanks CJ

I guess I don’t involve myself enough in other threads to have seen any of mil-observer’s cogent stuff.
Even OLO’s most opinionated accountant has very cogent things to say ... about accounting. When it comes to other stuff, while I may have an opinion, I tend to leave it alone now.

It’s a truism that scientists dot every ‘i’ and cross every ‘t’ for our peers – we have to be precise and tell it like it is.

Unfortunately, we have not been well taught in communicating to those not well versed in the scientific process. Consequently, we often ‘come across’ as aloof and condescending ... and boring conversationalists at dinner parties :-)

This is why you will find that most scientists don’t involve themselves in public forums like OLO – the personal attacks and vitriol in response can be staggering, as you well know. A shame really, because we only want to help people understand what they (should I say it) obviously don’t.

It is frustrating at times to talk to antagonists about the intricacies and complexities of something like climate change when their arguments have been repudiated, rebutted and renounced ad nauseam – here and on dedicated climate science web-sites. I give it a go ... for what purpose I sometimes wonder.

How do you talk to someone who is not prepared to listen or learn, let alone understand? Communication is a two way street and is fundamental to having a reasoned and rational discussion.

Major policy and decision makers understand the issues of climate change (and all that entails) and are trying to produce a road-map. They leave the science nuances to the scientists. A lot of individuals also understand, but as you allude to, clearly not enough.

What irks me is the abysmal science reporting in the popular press, or worse – when it is reported reasonably well, the recalcitrant ‘read’ it out of context or ‘twist’ it for their own agenda.

How do you talk to these people – the people that ‘have the eyes and ears’ of many more other people?

Q&A: "...given you know twat about stats...". Nice try at plain workers' slang Q&A, but fail. You'll find that "knowing twat" would refer to sexual experience with females a la "biblical" knowledge. I'm not so much flattered as bewildered at your effort at seeming to be other than a condescending middle class conformist and poseur. What would many ABC/SBS male journalists say? "Fair dinkum folks..." - "oh yes, cobber er, digger!"

And the overwhelming majority of nights too are very cold here compared to my lifetime of experience of Melbourne summers; it's nights that we mainly depend on the central heating now this summer. I understand that Perth too just recorded its coldest November since 1971. China's winter became by early 2008 its coldest winter in a century. But then, maybe my sources are from "The Lavoisier Identity" (sequel to "The Scarlatti Inheritance" or "The Holcroft Covenant").

As I've stated here before, I used to follow the AGW line when it had much less publicity than this last decade. The theory was seductively simple, apparently plausible, and suggested some valid moral and just socio-economic motives and results. Single-user cars, cow farts, coal-derived electricity, and the universal mega-"pollutant" CO2: I had been warned of the danger as clear and present, so I was alarmed.

Then came some seriously confronting facts. The major "conversion" came from reading findings from ice core data. One aspect was confirmation that increased CO2 concentrations FOLLOWED higher global temperatures by centuries - not the other way around as AGW assumed and claimed. Such scientific discovery is of fundamental significance to the debate; in fact, it altered completely one of the most basic aspects of discussion about global climate. A related revelation was American C19th direct atmospheric testing where CO2 recorded up to 500ppm. Such factors together challenge all key assumptions behind AGW, proponents of which either avoided and ridiculed, or gave no convincing explanation. This now became a case of over-committed AGW supporters now using every filter and negative to claim that black was really white.

[cont.]

Studies of cosmic cycles and solar radiation, especially between the 1970s and 1990s, exposed the scale of mistakes, misinformation and deception in AGW. What appeared to me most convincing were those studies after Koeppen, where orbits locate the earth at the 11,000-year mark of cyclical ice ages at 10-12,000 earth years.

And there was no case of some failure by AGW PR at all. Indeed, AGW publicists seem to have been the most consistent and impressive performers from that camp. Of course, they have been backed lavishly by monetarist oligarchs, the same people who brought us the toxic black balloons of the quadrillions of dollars in derivatives trade, now finally bringing crash after crash. What new bubble do these usurers hope to save their system? ETS/"carbon" [sic] swaps, etc.