“If you are an ignoramus like me, the credibility of global warming is supported by a few inconvenient truths..”

Mr Cook, If you are an “ignoramus” then perhaps you should not be writing articles on GW but rather, join the rest of we punters in general debate because as a rule, “ignoramuses” do not have the ability to detect a “few inconvenient truths.”

“…. has been cooling down since 1998.”

That Mr Cook is an inconvenient myth for the mean global temperatures are not cooling. You like “Curmudgeon” and Plimer will of course throw in the red herring of El Nino during 1998, however the La Nina 2008 remains one of the hottest years on record as the following graph provided by expert, climate scientists reveals:

http://cdiac.ornl.gov/ftp/trends/temp/jonescru/global.dat

http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/temp/jonescru/graphics/glnhsh.png

Nevertheless the planet may cool in later years and the uncertainty remains but there's no uncertainty regarding the planet's ecosystems which are under constant and escalating pressure from carbon pollution, emitted by humans, where many ecosystems are on the brink of collapse.

Furthermore, carbon A/aerosols are well known for affecting climate and seemingly you know little about particulates, soot, atmospheric pollution or the impacts of sulphur dioxide on climate?:

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/GISSTemperature/giss_temperature4.php

Mr Plimer appears to have had a fabulous academic position in a university. I sincerely wished I'd had a boss like his for Mr Plimer has spent most of his time preening himself on screen, speaking into microphones, writing books, addressing litigious matters, cracking rocks or addressing gatherings of climate sceptics. Has the taxpayer subsidised his university salary?

But this is a gentleman who likes to mine lead and we all know what lead does to humans and the earth’s biodiversity. In addition, he is a director of CBH Resources and I understand at last years AGM, the board of CBH Resources incurred the wrath of shareholders who voted down the directors' greedy remuneration packages.

If mining geologist, Plimer persists in declaring himself an expert on climate change, then I would suggest he discloses his conflict of interests even to the chagrin of the merchants of greed who support him.

Good article Michael, I don’t need to read Plimer’s book, I know the ending.

Ian Plimer’s book, like that of Richard Dawkins-God Denial, it is just another manifestation of the anti-Christ. For rationalists it makes perfect sense. For the “croakers” it will become the target for ever more complex mumbo-jumbo, vilification and irrational venom.

The good news is that as scientists increase their understanding of our climate, the AGW’ers will fade away into the sunset to quietly enjoy the scrambled egg conveniently stored on their faces.

The bad news is that they will eventually find some other “great moral imperative” by which they can again drive rationalists to gnaw off their own limbs in frustration. Can anyone suggest a benign cause to which we could direct their energy?

How about?

“Darwin’s Origin of Species as a creationist theory on the introduction of carbon as a personified interventionist God in the form of a gas, distributed throughout the universe to balance the neural network as a means of compensating for tendencies to sin, thus avoiding the need for legislation, law enforcement, the judiciary and the penal system.”

Please pass these idea’s to anyone you know who has nothing in particular going on in their life and needs to get one, a life that is.

Protagoras, did Hugh Morgan or Lang Hancock run over your puppy when you were little? There must be some explanation for your irrational outbursts directed against anyone involved with the mining industry.

On the subject of people speaking outside their strictly professional jurisdiction, and of the possibility of pecuniary interests influencing opinions, I know we've been down this road before, but your side really shouldn't be throwing stones on that one.

After all, the poster idols for climate alarmism stand to make an awfully big pile of the old filthy lucre too, if they successfully spook everyone into doing what they say (which, oddly, is so often the polar opposite of what they actually do - yes, it is good to have a private plane, isn't it Oprah!).

Global cooling will prove to be more disasterous than warming.If we go into an ice age,then food production will fall dramatically.We would see death and destruction never invisaged in our wildest dreams.

We may have to generate more so called AGW gases in order to save the planet.

In the past we have had CO2 18 times the present concentrations and the world did not end.At one point of 10 times the present CO2 concentration,we even had a serious ice age.

The complexity of climate just leaves too many open doors for conjecture of various interest groups to push their agendas.

In the realm of improbability,believe in nothing of what you hear and only half of what you see.

good god. experts may have agendas, but so do ignoramuses. i would suggest that people read scientific reviews of plimer's book. people may find that it is in fact plimer who has no clothes, 2311 footnotes notwithstanding.

Clownfish

I would question who is the irrational one. There is little you can tell me about mining. I was born into mining, bred into mining, held senior positions in publicly listed and private mining companies, collated a myriad of quarterly and annual mining reports and my best friends and several relatives are miners. I have also spent many hours at meetings in the boardrooms of miners therefore, what do you mean by “my side?”

Please refrain from your ongoing, foolish attempts to “sell ice to an Eskimo!” I have no intention of deifying one of the largest polluters on the planet, nor do I intend defending the staggering human and environmental toll, wreaked on developed and developing nations around the globe from the mining industry for the sake of my mining affiliates, at the expense of humanity or of the common good.