What would this McMahon guy would say about the hundred or so signatories to the open letter to Ban Ki Moon? see: http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=164004 and http://www.nationalpost.com/most_popular/story.html?id=164002

I guess he'd have to try discrediting them. Btw, they're all scientists - Plimer just one among this glittering crowd of dissidents.

Scary thing is: once the conforming, ambitious and financier-backed AGW pack take greater control, we'll see even less chance of such dissent breaking through.

Sorry Dr McMahon your job as a lecturer in sustainable development is not safe yet. Far from the debate about climate change being settled there is talk that the present orthodoxy may have another two years to live.
Note this global temperature sequence taken from the Hadley centre which tracks temperatuers
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/climon/data/themi/g17.dat
1998 0.526
1999 0.302
2000 0.277
2001 0.406
2002 0.455
2003 0.465
2004 0.444
2005 0.475
2006 0.421
2007 0.399
2008 0.326
2009 0.356
The peak was in 2008 since then temps have jumped around somewhat but have basically been trending colder.. since 2005 this cooling trend has become more noticeable.. 2008 was colder than the others due to the la nina climate cycle.. 2009 is based on the the first four months of the year.. Although you still can't point and say there is a problem.. the trend does not look good for the AGW people.

Dr McMahon's article reads more like a piece written by a lawyer with its "on the one hand - on the other hand" style (except that he seems to have many hands), rather than the well thought out arguments of a lecturer in sustainable development. He should go and read the previous article by David Cook and have a serious look at the writings of Ian Pilmer before he dismisses the scientists who are popularly classed as sceptics.

It may be that up until now, they are actually right, although the increasing reliance by countries such as China, on fossil fuels, may ultimately produce a man made increase in atmospheric CO2.

Their only hope, Curmudgeon, is to re-spin their whole mythology.

Once the trends become even clearer towards cooling - or an ice age starts to cut in fast, just as ice ages are reputed to do - the'll need a whole new line. Something like: "Gaia was so abused that she summoned all her models' feedback loops and covered the warming with her cool inner glow".

Curmudgeon. That is an interesting set of figures, particularly when you construct a graph of the ten year average vs time. There has been a rising trend since the early 1900's as well as peaks which seem to occur every sixty years or so. We seem to be just past one of those peaks, so it will be educational to see what happens during the next ten years.

David

"Gaia was so abused that she summoned all her models' feedback loops and covered the warming with her cool inner glow".

LOL.

Next thing it will be the dire need for policy to "tackle" global cooling.