Hi James, I appreciate your use of a quote from my response to a previous article on OLO; I called it denialist drivel and, although you may feel that was harsh, I still believe it was a fair assessment of what you'd written.
I think anyone who believes that every leading institution that studies climate, and every serious report commissioned on climate change is wrong needs much better arguments than you have provided - which have amounted to little more than vague claims that alternative opinions are suppressed. Any arguments that the world's scientists are wrong needs to pass the same level of scrutiny as the arguments that support the current understanding of climate. None of your arguments pass even passing scrutiny by non-scientists and only prefixed disbelief based on deep ignorance of real science can support them.
The chances that science has the fundamentals of this seriously wrong are next to zero, but people with opinions like yours are holding back efforts to face this huge, developing crisis with eyes open. That is endangering the lives and livelihoods of my children and future generations. You are entitled to your opinions and have been given full opportunity to express them but I think any future policy based on them will be disastrous.

Q&A

<< A real sceptic critically analyses ALL arguments. >>

Does this mean I HAVE to read all of UOG's posts?

:(

RPG

Does your attention span run to at least 30 minutes? Then please consider the following:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdrBwZpRYSs

Thank you

Ken et al. Again the real point has been missed. That climate has changed frequently and rapidly in man's past and we have adapted, survived and often thrived is not denied by anyone, scientists, zealots, historians or 'deniers'.

The REAL DANGER IS NOT CLIMATE but our society's virtual ignoring of the very real and very fundamental environmental destruction that our so called civilisation is inflicting on this planet. And irrespective of whether or not climate change legislation is going to massively enrich banks, it will NOT deal with the vast majority of environmental problems that we are causing.

To give just one topical example, currently there is an oil slick off today the Australian coast that is 1500sq km's in size and it is getting larger by the day. Now examine how much press coverage that is getting compared to climate change.

I urge you to read the Environment archive at Open Your Eyes News. Ignore the climate articles we reference if you wish, but please don't ignore everything else.
http://www.openyoureyesnews.com/category/environment/

Sorry a correction to my last comment. The oil slick off Australia's NW is actually 15,000sq km's (fifteen thousand) in size at last count, not the 1,500 I quoted.

Q&A
Your response was:

["You exclaim << Collin reported one of the well known hypotheses about the cause of the Little Ice Age! >>

No, he did not.

He said; "A prolonged period of minimal solar activity in the 17th century caused Europe's little ice age"]

Your response makes no sense,Q&A, a prolonged period of reduced Solar activity IS one of the hypotheses of the cause of the little Ice Age.

Q&A, Fractelle, clearly you both have found a hero in this author and his spiel fits your world view very well I suppose. I found the ABC interview was just too swimmingly, so immediately suspected the message was going to be well in line with ABC thought, that is, anti conservative, and got it in spades - the line about being a fan of Al Gore was enough for me.

Q&A scorns of course but that's nothing new, the desire to prove people wrong, not address the article at all is typical of his posts. (typical of many scientists is the inferiority complex which forces them to argue to prove they are correct then to keep an open mind to the opportunity to learn.)

I don't have time to listen to 30 minutes of self effacing banter on a weekend, wish I could. In my role as an executive I have to often make quick decisions based on a small sampling, I'm successful because I'm more often correct in my analysis. In this case it was easy, as the interview dripped chummy, liberal, leftist, welcome to the ABC dear fellow traveler overtones. Watch what happens on the ABC if a conservative is in the seat, it is open cutting hostility and adversarial attacks.

I did look up some reviews though, and you both seem very keen on reviews when they reflect your views, so here's one from about.com: physics.

"The major failing of the book is that it doesn't provide much detail on how to fix the situation and, though it attempts to speak to a broad audience, the clear liberal bend of the authors will make it hard for many conservative readers to accept the politically neutral claims that are at the core of the book."

That's basically what I summed up in a few minutes of watching the ABC, and I picked it correctly - I don't need to listen to more of the "message".

Do either of you intend to comment on the article by James, or are you just going to snipe from the bleachers?

Typical!