Actually, Clownfish, I have a first class honours degree and a PhD in physics, and have also held a radiation licence, so I might just have a basis for opinions on things nuclear. So far as aircraft are concerned, I would take the advice of the relevant engineers, pilots, etc. and not tell them their business. If the vast majority of climatologists tell me there is a problem sufficient to justify taking action, I shut up and listen, even if they are telling us things we would rather not hear. I might follow any well founded sceptical arguments with interest, but would leave the climatologists to sort it out in their journals.

Damn, Divergence, I just *knew* I was setting myself up for a fall! I'll pay you full points for that one.

Nevertheless, I still think the analogy stands.

And nonetheless, I still remain skeptical. Perhaps I've missed something, but it seems that the causal link between warming and atmospheric carbon dioxide remains a chimaera. Rather than rely on the predicted possibilities generated by computer models, I prefer to look at what has happened in the past. Why were atmospheric carbon dioxide levels so much higher than today, yet climate so much colder?

Why are we so afraid of warming anyway? If the past is anything to go by, greenhouse periods have always seemed to be pretty good places to live in.

That doesn't mean that there won't be difficult transitions, but humans are nothing if not adaptable. Which is where we should be putting our money and our efforts: adapting, not vainly hunting snarks like carbon trading.

I also, btw, liked your reference to Wegener. I'd have also added Samuel Warren Carey, a fellow Tasmanian who well and truly swam against the tide, or Tommy Gold, or even Freeman Dyson and William Kinninmonth.

Top comment, Q&A. Messiah...not. Ha. I love the 'not' bit. What a classic.

No expert in any field should consider themselves above scrutiny. Ideally, they should encourage it. Otherwise, it is about blind faith, which divergence seems happy to invest. There is potential for corruption of quality with absolute power. Peer review is not infallible. There are good and bad in every field. Any person should have the right to question anyone and their work - doctor, lawyer, phrenologist - much as the likes of Q&A would like to silence those who do with bullying, smearing and intimidation (weak as it is). His defensive attacks suggest a lack of belief in his work and only makes me trust it less. Climate scientists are getting their moment in the sun and it seems to be going to their heads. It is good to see more skeptics coming out of the woodwork and refusing to be silenced.

Some history of the IPCC on this website:
http://www.ipccfacts.org/history.html

"The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was established in 1988 by two United Nations Organizations, the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environment Programme to assess “the scientific, technical and socioeconomic information relevant for the understanding of the risk of human-induced climate change.” Review by experts and governments is an essential part of the IPCC process. For its first task, the IPCC was asked to prepare, based on available scientific information, a report on all aspects relevant to climate change and its impacts and to formulate realistic response strategies."

It would appear that the IPCC had already made up its mind on 'the risk of human-induced climate change'. They were not tasked to see if there was AGW they were tasked to highlight the risks of AGW. They were operating under a foregone conclusion in 1988.

The IPCC is a political organization. It was told "this is the argument we need to make, so find something to support it. "

Don't trust politicians (or the media) ...

“They were not tasked to see if there was AGW they were tasked to highlight the risks of AGW.”

Naturally Ratty since those who’ve been genuinely interested in the health of the planet, know that the first theory of global warming came around 1824, from French mathematician Jean Fourier who discovered the Earth’s temperature was slowly increasing. By 1850, the temperature of the Earth had warmed considerably and scientists were looking for an answer.

By the end of the 19th century Fourier’s theory was labelled the “greenhouse effect” when Nobel Laureate Svante Arrhenius, one of the founders of the science, physical chemistry, coined the term to explain how carbon dioxide traps heat in the Earth’s atmosphere and he linked the burning of fossil fuels to GW. However Arrhenius thought warming would take many centuries.

Present levels of carbon dioxide - which continue to rise inexorably each year are unprecedented for the long period of geological history that scientists are able to analyse.

As a result, the thousands of scientists who support the endeavours of the IPCC accept the correlation between increased warming and the burning of fossil fuels, therefore, any unscientific squawks from non-believers are not that important.

The only criticism I have of the IPCC’s ongoing research (and if necessary, corrections) is to ask: “What took them so long?”

‘The IPCC is a political organization. It was told "this is the argument we need to make, so find something to support it "’

Who are you quoting in the paragraph above Ratty? Please advise.

IPCCFacts.org was created with support from the United Nations Foundation to publish "The facts surrounding the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change". See http://www.ipccfacts.org/about.html

The final two paragraphs are all my own work and follow logically from the paragraph I quoted from http://www.ipccfacts.org/history.html. That paragraph had the phrase "for the understanding of the risk of human-induced climate change". Note that it did not say "the risks associated with climate change".

The IPCC is a political (interGovernmental) organisation charged with the task of proving that humans are responsible for climate change.

Speaking of Arrhenius, he did not have access to the data from the Vostok ice core project which began in 1957. When CO2 levels are high, temperature plunges still occur, which suggests strongly that CO2 is not an important driver of warming. CO2 alone cannot keep the planet warm when other factors are at work (eg Sun cycles, orbital variations, volcanic eruptions, etc).

The problem in understanding climate is to recognize that the Earth is NOT a greenhouse. It is NOT an enclosed system: It is an incredibly complex global circulation system with many influences. CO2 is only a very small part of the equation.