It is a tragedy that the human influence on our atmosphere has been hijacked by the Cranks like this bloke .
Like religion science can be easily manipulated , I refer to walking on water , turning water into wine etc; pure boon dogghi . While you might expect boon dogghi to wash with a desert peasant 2000 years ago it is astounding that people still believe this crap today ; the fact that they do explains AGW acceptance today . Today we have got mod , who needs a Prophet today we have Professors they are still warm now isn't that the "Ducks Guts" . Aspiring Fame Claimants like Rudd can hire underemployed Dudes like Garnaut to cobble up a program to dull the brains of the people so Rudd can become famous fixing a problem that never was .

Curmudgeon, if you choose the hottest year on record as your start date it is hardly surprising that subsequent years are less hot. Why not show us the figures for a significant period of time, say starting from 1898, or do they argue against you?

Fractelle: The notion that humans are animals that evolved on a dynamic world is anathema to the religious types that assume God wouldn't allow something this messy to occur, or if He did it would only happen the 'sinners'. (Oh the irony!) The blunting of intellect effectively makes them fatalists: God will be done, party until He gets you.
Malrob: Glad to see some educated commentary! Some of the clathrates are more marginal than you mentioned and might be a problem. As you say, volcanism is probably necessary to start any sort of disaster. I would be more concerned about the permafrost melting as we are getting a Methane spike now, and this is just the beginning.
Curmudgion: 12 data points vs the millions used in real science. As Candide pointed out: your dataset is biassed.
I don't expect the "uber-skeptics" (I consider myself a skeptic) to change their minds until the science becomes so blatantly obvious that it isn't science anymore, but here is a few things to think about: Biologists are reporting *many* changes throughout the world that are consistent with GW. Things like migrations, insect pests, flowering plants, etc. Atmospheric measurements are consistent with CO2 generated changes, as are ocean pH, temperature and other minerals. Ice cover is retreating world wide except for very few exceptions, which of course are paraded as "proof" of NGW. The models predicted much worse fires in Victoria due to more extreme weather events. These are being seen all around the world and are reflected in old age deaths...consistent with GW. All these different disciples are seeing a very strong pattern. The only "evidence" to the contrary is politically manufactured doubt or "god of the gaps" type stuff.
So you take a gas with excellent heat retention properties and you double it's concentration in a blink of an eye (geologically speaking): How can this *not* change things!

Candide - you raise an important issue. I did admit that temperatues have been high, but the cruicial point is that they seem to be coming off that peak. There has been no warming for more than a decade. Where has it gone? Why has nothing happened in the past decade? These questions have not been answered. But even more embarrasingly for the green house lobby, it was around the beginning of that decade that IPCC first seriously started forecasting that temperatues would increase. One report was issues in 1995 (not sure of that date) another in 2001 and another in 2007, all forecasting the warming seen between 1975 and 1998 would continue, and accelerate. Instead it seems to have stopped. Why? Leave it with you.

Curmudgeon

10 years of weather does not indicate a significant TREND in climate change.

Climatologists have been following world wide CLIMATE records since the 1880's.

The following video which includes data from NASA explains climate patterns far better than I can and has the evidence to go with the theory.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0JsdSDa_bM&feature=related

I see that not a single faux-sceptic has even tried to attempt to justify business-as-usual.

Why?

Ozandy, there are some faux-sceptics on these pages who aren't devoutly religious, but apparently lack the ability to provide reasons to continue the cycle of consumption that is depleting our planet's resources and altering its environment.

Fractelle - sorry but the 10 years mentioned is crucial, precisely because scientists tried to forecast it.. the period before the forecast is irrelevent, as models can be fitted to past data too easily.. now the trend isn't definite yet but if it continues for the next two years or so there are going to be some seriously embarrassed scientists. They forecast one thing and the physical system went and did precisely the opposite. Difficult to argue.

As for trend pack to 1880 - you may be confusing climate and weather.. they have climate data in very broad brush terms back thousands of years with lots of peaks and troughs which simply cannot be explained in terms of carbon-based models. they aren't even quite sure why the earth flips in and out of ice ages.. the sun must be the driver but what is the mechanism or link? No-one really knows..