Q&A - If you are a scientist in the field you have lost all detachment, and I take it from the strength of the response I have hit a nerve with the article. All the points made in it are clear and straightforward and mostly supported by quotes from the warmist side of the argument. You did not attempt to rebut any of the arguments but sneer, and aubse, and pick on small points. The reference to sunspots is typical in that sunspots have nothing to do with the argument, and only tangential to the article. The problem is that you simply don't have any creditable counter argument. The science is unravelling and all you can do is seer at me for pointing it out.

Part One:

Climate modelling is based on a number of simulations none of which can claim to be the ultimate proof of climate change and/or the final world on AGW.

Science has done much to help the environment particularly with major discoveries and understanding negative events like the impact of CFCs and other ozone depleting substances on the stratosphere. And the health and environmental impacts of greater UV radiation. In this case the science was more conclusive.

For those of us who are not scientists or only have a basic grasp of science (and this does not seem to matter as even the experts are grappling with the issue) all we can do is read with a critical eye.

Personally I do think some of the CC debate is alarmist but there is evidence that low lying islands are experiencing a rise in sea levels. Some areas of the globe are experiencing unprecedented low temperatures although there seems to be agreement about the increase in 'unpredictable' and unseasonal storms.

Climate does change. The bottom line is that if we act as if CC is real and work to reduce greenhouse gases - it is a good thing for many other reasons including pollution and reducing man-made heat in the atmosphere. Natural climate forces don't need any further help from humans.

In other words, working towards sustainability, reducing our need for fossil fuels, (population discussions have to be had as well) has positive spin off benefits even if AGW is proven to be the greatest hoax of all time.

Part Two:

We know that man does effect his environment. Since industrialization we have seen the increase in pollution of water, air and soil creating long term impact on human health and environments. We have also seen wonderful innovation in medical and environmental science to offset some of these negative impacts, each development bringing with it in some cases equal number of sceptics and believers. Healthy scepticism or belief is not a bad thing if not agenda driven. (Think Monsanto).

You do have to wonder how serious governments are when issues of population and social equity/welfare are missing from greater discussions on CC. The ETS system relies on goverments in consulation with scientists, to come up with the CAP for its cap and trade system. Who decides what the CAP will be given the obvious variance and dissension within the science community?

“Bushbasher, if you don't understand the science enough to argue about it, then you have no place in the argument. “

Graham and Mark Lawson – That specifically applies to you both since the consensus is that climate change is largely the result of anthropogenic carbon emissions. A consensus is widely accepted as a “majority” opinion therefore your persistence in corrupting the science demeans your position.

Further, your denialist side includes a significant proportion of the largest polluters on the planet, however, you appear happy to consort with known eco-criminals, refusing to acknowledge that anthropogenic pollution includes anthropogenic emissions of CO2 too –that’s scientific. Do you know the difference between a VOC and a sock?

On a domestic note, Australia is regarded as a first world country with a stringent environmental regulatory system. The system (the Environmental Protection Act) was legislated during the 70s “for the prevention, control and abatement of pollution and environmental harm, for the conservation, preservation, protection, enhancement and management of the environment and for matters incidental to or connected with the foregoing.”

Yet scientists from NASA wrote to Barrack Obama this year, stating that Australia’s use of coal and carbon emissions policies guarantee the "destruction of much of the life on the planet.” The letter states: "Australia sets atmospheric carbon dioxide goals so large as to guarantee destruction of much of the life on the planet."

Touche NASA!

This revelation no doubt is comforting to your polluting buddies for it is the large polluters who dictate to the senior bureaucrats in our Departments’ of Environment who are and always have been, the rent boys for Australia’s largest eco-vandals! That is precisely why Australia earned the ignominious title of the largest polluter per capita on the planet.

I will again remind posters of the more recent environmental abuse perpetrated on Australia's fragile environment by local and internationally known corporate criminals and I shall continue doing so until these vandals and their sycophants cease their side-step shoe shuffling, denying the grim state of Australia's environment and the urgent need for the capping of hazardous industrial emissions.

contd…….

21st Century – A truncated account on the violations of human rights and environmental vandalism in Australia:

1. Magellan Metals – poisoning of Esperance: Marine samples showed lead readings 29,000 times in excess of maximum recommended levels and elevated nickel levels were 6,000 times in excess of recommended levels.

2. Magellan Metals were responsible for the deaths of 9,000 native birds in 2007 from its mismanagement of its lead operations.

3. Barrick and Newmont Mining’s JV operations - Kalgoorlie Consolidated Goldmines, dumped 14 tonnes of mercury on the hapless residents of Kalgoorlie over two years.

4. Jakarta Indonesia: — Newmont Mining Corporation agreed to pay $30 million to Indonesia in a settlement of a civil lawsuit in which the government charged that the company had polluted a bay with arsenic and mercury.

The settlement will have no effect on a criminal trial of the company and its Indonesian director, that is now under way in the province of Northern Sulawesi.

5. Newcrest Mining killed 6,500 native animals in a six week period whilst laying a gas pipe for its operations in the Pilbara.

6. Two hundred and fifty Australians lodge lawsuit in the Supreme Court in the United States, with allegations that Alcoa has caused death, terminal diseases and environmental devastation in surrounding communities at its Wagerup operations. Department of Environment had ignored community complaints for twenty years against a company which also rapes WA’s jarrah forest to extract bauxite.

7. The Fremantle Ports Authority has begun using 174,000 cubic metres of contaminated industrial material to reclaim ocean bed, creating land for property development.

The report reveals that samples of groundwater at the site are contaminated with copper, cobalt, nickel and zinc above Marine Water Quality Guidelines and arsenic and tributylin (TBT) approaching these limits. Soil samples revealed the presence of heavy hydrocarbon contamination as well as traces of mercury and the class A carcinogen – benzo a pyrene.

Welcome Graham and Mark to the never-ending fight against greed, corruption, injustice, propaganda and pollution...

"For those who can make you believe absurdities, will make you commit atrocities" (Voltaire)

Bugsy, if you want to make a case for more money for climate research, go ahead. My argument is that there is not enough money being spent testing the catastrophic CO2 theories, and too much being spent on studies just because they claim some tenuous link with climate change. I've never argued for more money overall.

You haven't picked-up on fuzzy thinking. Your post implied that the unknown factors "would act in a feedback manner". I just took your argument and pointed out that CO2 had been higher in the past but none of the feedbacks had ever been sufficiently positive as to create a catastrophic effect. You don't have to know what the feedbacks are exactly, just point to the hard empirical evidence.

Temperature rise is caused by a combination of factors, one of which is CO2. It's not an either/or situation. The historical record points to CO2 having a very weak overall effect with CO2 concentrations following temperature change, not preceding it.

Bushbasher, I guess if you don't have the information or the skills to be in an argument you have to be in a meta argument, but you're still disqualified. And how do you define "expert"? Anyone you choose to believe?

Matt Andrews, they're pretty serious charges against Plimer levied without one shred of supporting evidence. How about you put your case up instead of just making assertions?

Protagoras, we're not talking about pollution, we're talking about CO2 emissions. The total CO2 content of the atmposphere has never been much lower at any time in earth's history. But I checked one of your examples because I thought I knew something about it. It's true that Newmont paid the Indonesian government $30 M, but you'd have to think it was a case of blackmail on the part of the Indonesian government. When the CEO of the company was charged the Indonesian court found the bay wasn't polluted and the company was in compliance with its licence http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buyat_Bay.