Disturbed by several posts here asserting that the bulk of the environmental science community at best incompetent, or at worst involved in a conspiracy to concoct climate change hysteria in order to perpetuate research grants.
Hope that's true, because seems to be little chance of human kind getting it together in time to avert the predicted effects.
Harry C has it right though - the balance isn't that delicate. Nature is tough and resilient, able to find new balances and equilibrate whatever the conditions, and will likely survive any man made disaster. So we can continue to self destruct, with deniers twisting science and concluding that black is indeed white - the planet will be just fine when we're gone.

Lilsam has got it about right.
No matter how good the data and science models are they will be howled down by those who don’t like it and haven’t the wit to accept reality.
Life forms such as algae have been around for more than three billion years, and are unlikely to go away. Humans are pushing their luck after just a couple of hundred thousand, and will soon vanish after a short tenure like millions of earlier species. Homo sapiens? – more like Homo stupidus. The insurance industry would have no customers if the general population was as obtuse as the posters who are dead keen to push the boundaries regardless of whatever risk is involved. Once again the meek will inherit the earth – the algae that is. A pity that we are heading that way so quickly when speed is not necessasry.

HarryC and others - life will persist, so will some humans most likely, but this global industrial civilisation, indeed all civilisations, have grown up in a very stable climate and the current one is unlikely to survive the first serious global warming blows. It nearly self-destructs anyway, without any outside help.

Shadow Minister, Mark is an expert on wind power. That's a kind of power generation.

This article brought out more mindless abuse than I've seen anywhere. I guess the real science is hard to take.

Dear Lilsam,
You may be able to help me understand climate change advocates when working weather scientists say prediction skills deteriate with time however forcasts are updated daily to provide estimates for 28 days, so how come the science is settled and offer predictions for the next centuary, as Working scientists can only estimate predictions for 28 days ahead.

Geoff,

In all the papers by Mark that I have read, he has not provided any of the raw data or the assumptions that he has used to reach his conclusions.

Some of the statements he makes are only superficially correct, for example:

“In practice, even base-load power stations break down from time to time and, as a result, can be out of action for weeks.”

Base load power stations typically have multiple units (normally about 6) that are taken down for routine maintenance on a rotational basis within the plant, and with co ordination with other plants. If this is taken into account, the availability of 5 of the 6 units as per design is close to 99%. If one looks at multiple stations, the required base load is practically close to 100%.

As far as wind is concerned, generation is extremely non linear. So for example 100% generation or peak generation is at 36km, but at 18km the generation is close to zero.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bb/Wind_power_coeff.jpg

“To replace the electricity generated by a 1000 megawatt (MW) coal-fired power station, with average power output of about 850 MW, a group of wind farms with capacity of about 2600 MW, .. is required….. this system can be made as reliable as a conventional base-load power station by adding a small amount of peak-load plant (say, gas turbines).”

Although there will be wind at most distributed sites, the data from the CSIRO on wind indicates that there is a strong correlation across NSW and even Victoria and Queensland such that generation can be expected to frequently drop to as low as 10% of installed capacity.

This would mean that even for a distributed installation base, the required stand by supply would need to be at least 590 MW.

Simple statistics gives an average generation of this stand by of at least 100MW, which considering the cost of this swing load means that the operation cost of the stand by for the wind farms exceeds the existing base load.

So while theoretically possible, it would be orders of magnitude more expensive than nuclear power.

Richie 10,
Prediction is by definition an inexact science, and yes, accuracy of forcasting diminishes with time between the forecast and the event.
What we are seeing now, though, is that almost every time the information is reliabley refreshed, the predicted outcome is reinforced.
Data upon data leads scientists of note to conclude that global warming is happening and accelerating right now. The timing of the tipping point does have a large degree of error, and much will depend on what we do in the meantime, but there is little doubt that the process is under way.
Look at it this way - if 9 out of 10 meteorologists were to tell you that it is likely to rain tomorrow, would you leave your umbrella at home because you can't see any clouds in the sky now?