Yes and no. The climate changers would say that the skeptics use exaclty the same tactics.

One point that needs to be made is that skepticism has a proud philosphical lineage. It's good to be skeptical - especially about politicians - but this doesn't mean there should not be action.

I'm in favour of carbon reduction as a precautionary principle. I'm not in favour of losing 20,000 jobs to an unfair impost on business. But I can see the greater picture from a skeptics point of view. Even though the IPCC has revised it's projections down about sea levels and global warming, there's enough good science done to act.

Quite right Rudd has wedged the Coalition and he could only do that if there was enough pro-climate change sentiment in the electorate. How deep that is will be tested at the next election.

I find it very amusing. It is no different from evolutionist who insist 'the science is settled. Mr Rudd looks very silly indeed on this issue. Barnaby Joyce is a voice of reason. Strange though that no one in the Labour party has got the guts to own up to being found out about the silly little man made warming theories. Failed prediction after failed prediction by the prophets of this religion has not made an inch of difference to the gullible. A lot has been made of Scientology of late. The deceit, the fraud and lies of Scientology is nothing compared to the gw scam. What people will do to make a name for themselves. You would think Gore and Flannery would be hiding by now, then again the self righteousness produced by this environmental religion completely blinds them of their own hypocrisy.

The ‘vested interests’ are all in the man-made theory of climate change gang: the ones who stand to make billions out of taxing Australians via an ETS which will have no effect on climate change.

These are the same sorts of people who brought us the global financial crash. The difference this time is that, thanks to our mad PM, Australia will suffer most as the only country silly enough to de-industrialise itself and actually commit economic suicide while the rest of the world goes its own merry way. The USA will go to Copenhagen without any particular plan but, little big-man Rudd wants to strut the stage and show how splendidly he will ‘solve’ the climate change problem. The man’s arrogance is mind boggling.

Rudd’s lunatic carbon tax scheme has nothing to do with climate change; it has to do with Rudd’s own massive ego and megalomania; in his drive to be a ‘world leader’, he is using and abusing Australia for his own ends. He has come so far with his nonsensical, dangerous and useless ‘solution’ for climate change – which most sensible people now see as nothing more than a crippling taxation scheme – that he cannot back down: hence the abuse of anyone who has the temerity to disagree with him.

There is little political opposition to this madman, thanks to the totally ineffective Malcolm Turnbull, whose best effort is to weakly offer amendments to a totally wrong scheme which needs scrapping completely for the good of Australians and their country. We have to look to a few Liberal senators the National Party to protect our country from sheer madness.

Even scientists who do hold the CO2 theory of climate change have spoken out against the little dictator’s ETS; they have offered much more Australia-friendly options. But, Rudd seems determined to undermine Australia, and transfer our wealth to others who will do nothing

While believing firmly in AGW I agree that carbon trading may be largely parasitic. Trading in 'debits' not so much but 'credits' a great many of which are exaggerated or illusory. The PM is himself in another category of climate change quibbler by professing to want action but in practice doing little but blame others. I have a suspicion that the penny dropped when he opened the large wind farm this week. It barely stirred and hardly seems like an alternative to coal on a 24/7 basis.

A saving grace of carbon mitigation is that over a 10 or 20 year time frame it may be 'low regret'. If we move away from coal a.s.a.p. then find it was cosmic radiation not CO2 that was warming the planet we can always go back to coal. Oil not so much as it has already peaked. However tomato growers tend to use greenhouses not cosmic rays so my money is on CO2.

It is refreshing to read an article that seeks to highlight the facts rather than denigrate those who question the views of the IPCC.

What has been on show in Australia is that, apart from a few good souls like Joanne, the journalists and people in the media generally, have taken the IPCC UN view without question and join in the denigration of those who do not. Fortunately this is not the case in the US where there is a gealthy debate going on and it is "on the cards" that legislation for an ETS will not get through both houses. I certainly hope so.

In Australia it is being left to a group of Liberal and National politicians to stand up to the Government and let's hope they are successful.

Joanne Nova: "Rudd needs to apologise for baseless attacks on all the scientists"

Says she, in her enthusiastic attack on Rudd.

To me this looks like another a shot in the Global Warming political war. May the fight be fair, may it be true, and may the one who throws most mud that sticks win.

Joanne Nova: "At the bottom of all this is the false idea that science is consensus."

True, but irrelevant. We are not talking about the scientific arena here. You are discussion in this article how the political arena comes to a decision.

So how do you suggest the pollies choose between all these competing theories? Surely you are not suggesting they spend months wading through the mounds of data, papers and publications and then proclaim they have a good an understanding as the the scientists who have spent a lifetime studying the same thing? No, of course not.

What they do look fairly reasonable to me - they ask the scientists as a group to give us their considered opinion. In fact we do over and over again it appears - the IPCC, the chief Australian Scientist, CSIRO, Advisory Panels. And they all give the same answer.

You apparently don't like the answer. But instead of working within the traditional scientific framework to get a different answer, you lambaste everyone that disagrees with you from your blog. Well fair enough - I am doing a similar thing here. But it is no more "science" than seeking a consensus is.