ODO What's the collective noun for catastrophists? - the Sustainable People Lobby.

Yes, the Mum's and Dad's are losing interest. One way to get people's attention is for the enviro-storm troopers to:

A. suspend democratic rights
B. institute sterlisation programs
C. de-industrialise the economy
D. stop all immigration

That would get my attention. Of course one other method is to:

A. hunt these wierdos down like dogs and sell the film rights
B. institute global sex health education programs
C. feed and educate women and kids in developing nations
D. monitor refugees - those who are genuine -stay, those who aren't - see ya later.

I await the usual end of the world comments here ..

A very good question.

"What will it take to rally people behind the need to take strong action on cutting carbon emissions?"

Honesty would be a really good start.

If we don't have proof, but have a good deal of evidence, then say so. Don't turn it into a political crusade, or media-driven circus. Simply tell us what is at risk, then help business find a solution.

Leaving it to governments to organize themselves is a recipe for chaos. Which is, of course, what we have right now.

Remember the hole in the ozone layer? Without much fuss, the Montreal protocol was agreed, CFCs were banned, and lo! the hole showing signs of closing. As predicted.

The solution was: tell business to find an alternative to CFCs. Which they did.

So, now tell business that they are too dependent upon (oil/carbon/methane/whatever). Tell them that you will start to tax the crap out of them for using (oil/carbon/methane/whatever) in a couple of years time. And give them tax breaks on their search for alternatives.

I'm fairly certain that your average Joe can understand the concept of finite resources, and would be impressed by a government with the foresight to organize itself accordingly. What they don't understand, and are naturally cynical about, is the welter of complicated, convoluted, incomprehensible and occasionally conflicting statistics that are pressed into service with the apparent objective to make them first feel stupid, and then feel guilty.

Punishing people - because that's what it feels like - because no government has so far had the moral courage to address the big picture in a holistic fashion, is not the way to rally them to your cause.

The reality is that it doesn't much matter whether the planet is warming, or cooling, or whether "we" caused it (or indeed whether "they" caused it), but that we get the message across that the planet needs smarter ways to create and distribute energy.

That's something that we can all get our heads around, without being bogged down with whether icecaps are growing, shrinking, or simply behaving normally.

The wisdom of Pericles! Too right.

Bravo Pericles and Bravo Desmond! Desmond has bought up the link here. Religionists are always banging on about the end of the world. Also they are quite happy to take money today whilst helping us tommorrow, just like the wonderful folks who bought us. What is it again? It was Global Warming, then AGW now it's climate change.
The Nutters who believe this should shut off all utilities they use and show the way. Some chance, the foremost AGW scientist bought a waterfront unit on the Yarra and told us we will all end up under water, Sure sell it to me for what you say it is worth lol!

I am reminded (by climate skeptics) of the difficulty that Charles Darwin must have experienced when dealing with the creationists of his time who thought that believing in the divine creation of man hadn't hurt them so far, so it must be correct or appropriate to continue. Despite any evidence that Darwin had to the contrary.

Darwin was challenging conventional thinking with his theories of evolution and natural selection, but the big and scary one was the notion that man was descended from apes and was in fact a mammal species and part of the ecosystem.

The thing the Ted's, Michael's and little brother's seem to miss, is that the balance between man and the planet is the problem and we'll have deal with it anyway; because of overpopulation alone etc. Darwin and pre history both confirm that the planet will have say in our future, not just man. Helping the planet and therefore ourselves now (if it's still possible for us), seems smarter than waiting for divine intervention or a sign that something is wrong!.

Let's continue on steady as she goes, more jobs, more growth, more consumption, more emissions until someone can categorically prove that there is a problem. This is the position of climate skeptics world over.

And finally "Thank God for whistle blowers" ends little brother, confusing them with people who illegally hack into someone else's email and post it on the internet.

The reason people don't believe the world is getting warmer? Because it isn't. As Abe Lincoln said: you can't fool all the people all of the time. Sooner or later reality breaks in, despite all the conniving, personal attacks and data manipulation revealed in the HADCRU files. (And we only have a selection of those so far! What goodies are yet to come, I wonder?)

Here's a good overview of the bloody-minded stonewalling paranoia revealed in the HADCRU data. Anyone who can read this and still think these guys had nothing to hide needs to take a long hard look at themselves:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/24/the-people-vs-the-cru-freedom-of-information-my-okole

And just to make it clear that Hadley is not the only institute engaged in dubious manipulation of data:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/25/uh-oh-raw-data-in-new-zealand-tells-a-different-story-than-the-official-one/

It's not one bad apple in a barrel of healthy ones. It's the one bad apple that's been rolled out from behind a screen of disinformation and cronyism, and the fact that it is so rotten through and through makes it look pretty bad for the other apples that are still concealed behind that screen (but hopefully not for long). Let's let some sunlight and fresh air on to these data.