bpors I just reread my post, how did you interpret it to say I was against the climate changing, I have accepted that the climate changes and have no problem with that.

I'm curious but no one can read everything there is on climate and there are always new papers.

In the end it doesn't matter, we need to adapt as the climate changes as it has always done.

Fear of change, "And the climate goes thru natural lchanging cycles. But how does that cancel out AGW", how do you know it won't?

"the majority of scientists", science is not a democracy, where majority thought rules.

Ranting and shouting, articles on this site about climate change, there is a hard core of AGW believers who are apopleptic about anyone who disagrees, to the point of abuse.

"Doing nothing when when we have had several decades worth of warnings about this would be criminal", doing something stupid would be worse than doing nothing.

If the projections are not correct, and in time we learn more than we would be foolish to gamble everything on a solution now. Are you of the opinion we know everything there is to know?

You say you accept that climate changes yet you have been terrified by professional alarmists that there is some great doom approaching.

There have been so many doomsayers, they are inevitably wrong, but have often been involved in mass hysteria. Note there is never a specific time or date, within reason, of the catastrophe. it is always some time in the future, how handy that after 30 years as you say, it still is in the future.

odo agreed that some AGW advocates are extremists and overly defensive about legitimate questioning.

Just as there are doomsayers there are also naysayers who deny the evidence and risks. Both are a risk to serious discussion and risk evaluation.

Clearly we don't know everything yet, the science is not perfect however the weight of evidence suggests that we should be paying attention and reducing the risks associated with greenhouse gases.

It's correct that the climate is in continuous change however our civilisation has developed within a certain range of that change. We can probably adapt to change slightly outside that range (but at a large cost), it's unlikely that we can adapt beyond certain extremes.

As an analogy, the temperature in my fridge is not constant. Food in the fridge will keep for the expected periods if the temperature stays within a certain range, once the temperature goes outside that range stuff starts to spoil rapidly. I can't turn the power off or leave the door open for an extended period just because the temperature is not always the same.

The article points out that there are other reasons why we should be taking many actions which would reduce AGW other than just the risk of AGW. A reduction in reliance on fossil fuels being one that will cost initially. Changes in technology can be expensive during the transition phase but history seems to show that once the initial transition is done the payoffs can be huge.

I doubt that the answers to those actions lies in extra government charges and taxes. I suspect that such taxes reduce the money available to transition and that governments tend to become reliant on the income stream from such taxes and hinder anything that reduces them.

Rather than denying the possibility of AGW we should take the risk seriously and look for measures which reduce that risk while providing other benefits.

R0bert

Odo, at no stage did I say you thought the climate does not change. I stated the opposite, in fact. My problem was that you say (as far as I understand) that the only things changing the climate are natural and nothing to worry about if we just adapt to the changes. You don't make it clear that you think there is any effect from man made pollutants. You dismiss any possibility of large-scale global warming that would make it very difficult to easily adapt.

Fair enough, that is your opinion. But if you haven't read any serious scientific publications about it - and I can only infer this from what you say - how can it be reasonable for you to say about people that may be concerned and have read at least some of it that they are "ranting and shouting".

And no, I didn't demand that you have to "read everything there is on climate". Something published from the IPCC would be nice, just so you can know what you are talking about.

Also, "how do you know it won't" is no kind of an argument.

If the projections aren't correct the worst that we would have done is come up with newer better technology, and live in a cleaner world. Boy! What a disaster.

You seem terrified that any changes put in place to adjust for man-made global warming can only end up with doom and gloom scenario. I disagree.

And yes there have been many people concerned about the climate. I remember reading an article on the American economy in August 2008 entitled "What Recession?" The author triumphantly announced all the doom and gloom in the US economy was a lie and the economy was not about to go into recession and if it was, he sneeringly asked where was this recession they were predicting?

Could someone please suggest some medication for these guys :http://www.clim-past.net/5/183/2009/cp-5-183-2009.html

John, if I send my dog to your kennels, is he permitted to breathe out? Speaking of science, I understand CO2 has some sort of effect on candles which singularly explains the history of climate on our planet, and gets Eclipse Now very excited.

At least one of the sources cited by OUG (6/7 0908) is known for being fake.

Dailytech will print anything: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2009/mar/03/climate-change-poles

How many people do you think know that much of the shiny, professional-looking data from that link is fake? Not many. I only know because someone quoted it at me recently and I looked into it.

How many more of those links are deliberate lies? Not that I think a site like "exposingtheleft.com" might be careless in its presentation of scientific data, but throw it in there with a bunch of links to fringe ideologues and frothing bloggers, and it looks almost like a body of evidence.

And this is the beauty of it. Most people won't validate the science for themselves, so it's just two competing barrages of scientific information. It doesn't matter if the source is a peer-reviewed scientific research report or a couple of Young Liberals furiously quoting from a Michael Crichton omnibus - the public can be made to think there is a genuine divide among scientists on the subject of climate change.

It's morally and intellectually bankrupt, but a clever strategy.