Jonjay,

Well, I checked out your graphs (highly recommended for all readers) and it appears that:

* world temperatures have gone up by at most one degree Fahrenheit since the forties and possibly only half a degree (Graph 2A). Okay.

* according to Graph 2B, if anything, CO2 concentrations lagged behind rises in temperature from 1920 to 1970 or so. Which causes which ?

* Graph 2C, long-term trends: changes in CO2 concentrations seem to be as likely to follow, as to anticipate, temperature changes over the past 400,000 years.

* Graph 2D, modelled and observed temperature changes: it's a pity that the series ends in 2000, but even so, given the 95 % uncertainty range, temperatures rose between 1980 and 2000 by half a degree Centigrade above 'natural' background temperature. Presumably, all 'natural' factors were taken into account. Have world temperatures fallen since ? Just asking.

Professor Peter Bellwood, in his magnificent book 'The First Farmers' almost casually notes that world temperatures rose and fell and rose again by four degrees C or so about twelve thousand years ago, and notes that the warmer periods were marked by better rainfall and more favourable conditions for initiating agriculture. I sincerely hope that Professor Bellwood won't henceforth be called a 'denier' or even (horrors!) a sceptic, but what he wrote is worth bearing in mind.

God knows, I'm as paranoid as the next person, and on a bad day, I half-want to believe that the world is somehow doomed and humans are evil, but even for a fruitcake like myself, I need more than those Graphs can provide, Jonjay, because until I looked at them I was a sceptical believer: now I'm not so sure.

Joe Lane

JBowyer: You still fail to see the difference between ozone in the stratosphere (30-50 km. up)which protects against solar radiation and the lower troposphere (0-5km. up) where it is injurious to air breathing animals – like humans – and can kill them if the concentration is too high.

Loudmouth and Rechts: Thanks for correcting Sniggid’s claims that global temperatures have been cooling since 2001. As you point out it has in fact been warming and in recent years doing so with increasing speed. You are quite right about the earth having had warmer periods over the billions of years it has existed – but humans were not around to experience its effects.

Anyone is entitled to hold the view that CO2 had nothing to do with global warming or that ozone is not harmful if breathed in by humans, that global temperatures are falling, not rising or that an ETS is a wicked conspiracy to tax us more or put us under UN domination.

I am more than happy to accept such views, if they are supported by evidence which makes them facts rather than the expression an individuals belief. But in the interests of a good debate, perhaps we should attack the view rather than the person expressing it?

JonJay

Can you please justify this statement in your last post?

“As you point out it has in fact been warming and in recent years doing so with increasing speed.”

I quote from Mr. Andrew Bolt’s blog of to-days date:

“It is also worth pointing out that the fall in temperatures since 2001 is now so clear that even Rudd’s own department grudgingly acknowledges it. The trend lines since 2001 are indisputably down, against predictions, even though our emissions are fast going up:”

Mr. Bolt supports his statement with up to date data and graph from Remote Sensing Systems (RSS) and The University of Alabama in Huntsville.

The Pew Center Graphs seem to terminate a little time before 2005. However, the important point that I make is that the anthropogenic global warming hypothesis is NOT universally accepted. Many workers in the field of climate science strongly dispute the IPCC opinion.

Therefore is it not premature to introduce an emission trading scheme at the present time? The current bills before Federal Parliament should be abandoned.

Jonjay Look what is your point on ozone? The amount in the lower atmosphere has not killed anyone and I suspect that it will never reach the levels to do that. Oh! sorry some 90 year old with emphysema perhaps but the media forget about the age and health of the "Victim"
Also Rudd in Parliament said ten of the last some years have been the hottest on record? Andrew Bolt says no? So, an easily ascertainable fact is debated but someone is lying. Now if it was A Bolt I bet the full weight of the Government would fall on him. No dispute from the PM just baldly states a "fact".
Hitler was just like that, keep on and on spewing lies out with total confidence (arrogance) and who cares. The greens of course are first cousins of the nazis, vegetarians like Hitler and full of it too.

No, I feel obliged to break down for you the voice of a 16 year old still studying secondary education. And I don't think it looks pretty for you non-believers.

How can one year (2001) compare with the unfallible results of the past 70 years? Forget your graphs, forget your government admissions, forget everything; this change in the environment has not been so just because the government accepts or rejects it - you can take whatever you like. Look first toward the disasters occurring over only the past 20years. Look second toward the trends in the actual warming, recorded as early as 1950. As humans, we can't say everything is possible, in reference to those who say it is possible that it may only be a subjectively 'temporary' and suddenly the water on the moon may put out the sun. Look at the pure trends; we can only see increases in temperature subsequent to the increases in the use of fossil fuels, ergo the need for this ETS. I'll go by the Machiavellian, and say all that's occurred has so as of the past, and to predict the future we need to analyse the past. Hope is one thing; logic is another.