Because of this continuing AGW fiasco Scientists and Science is unfortunately rapidly losing credibility. Any scientist, no matter how credible who doesn't believe in AGW is immediately dismissed and personally discredited. Science has never been like this before in the Western world.

Case in point is Professor Nils Axel-Morner, formerly the pre-eminent world expert in Sea level measurement. He has 190 peer reviewed scientific papers in the field.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/5067351/Rise-of-sea-levels-is-the-greatest-lie-ever-told.html

"When running the International Commission on Sea Level Change, he launched a special project on the Maldives, whose leaders have for 20 years been calling for vast sums of international aid to stave off disaster. Six times he and his expert team visited the islands, to confirm that the sea has not risen for half a century. Before announcing his findings, he offered to show the inhabitants a film explaining why they had nothing to worry about. The government refused to let it be shown."

Recently character assassination attempts have been made to discredit him on a personal level because he can't be discredited on a scientific level.

Sadly, Maldives inhabitants reported a group of IPCC supporting Australian Scientists destroyed evidence against AGW on the Maldives by pulling out a tree which stood by the shoreline for 50 years. Now that is very scary.

A medieval anti-science climate appears to have descended, where Daniel Moynihan's dictum "everyone is entitled to his opinion but not to his facts" is forgotten.
http://www.e360.yale.edu/content/feature.msp?id=2218

Four years ago, public relations executive James Hoggan began looking more deeply into the issue of global warming. The more he read, the clearer it became that the overwhelming majority of the world’s scientists, representing the globe’s leading scientific institutions and academies, agreed on the basic facts: The world was heating up rapidly, industrial activity was driving much of that warming by pumping heat-trapping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, and continued temperature rises threatened the relatively stable climate under which civilization had flourished for the past 12,000 years.

Yet despite this near-unanimity in the scientific community, Hoggan realized that some segments of the mainstream media and an overwhelming majority in the conservative media were telling another story: The world might not be warming, and even if it is, that could be a good thing. Little evidence exists that humanity is influencing climate, the story line went, and spending billions of dollars to tackle a problem that might not exist is folly.

Hoggan began looking into what he describes as a well-funded and highly organized PR campaign designed to do one thing: sow doubt among the general public about the reality of global warming, thereby staving off government regulation of greenhouse gases. The more he looked, he says, the more outraged he became, leading to the creation of the well-known Desmogblog ­ whose stated mission is “Clearing the PR Pollution that Clouds Climate Science” ­ and a new book, entitled Climate Cover-Up.

The DeSmogBlog site is probably the worst offender when it comes to character assassination of Scientists with other opinions. They are blitzing the internet currently with their propaganda, claiming to be objective observers. They are heavily funded to do so. Their attacks are vicious, personal and not on a scientific level.

"DeSmogBlog, which is dedicated to claiming that climate skeptics are paid shills, happens to be run by James Hoggan and Associates, a PR agency that actually received the $300-large from the NETeller executive. His PR firm represents “alternative energy” companies, as well. Adding to the conflicts, Hoggan is also chair of the board of directors for the David Suzuki Foundation, a radical environmental activist group run by a man who — ironically — calls for climate skeptics to join Lefebvre in jail. This spin machine is aimed at discrediting skeptics."

That climate changes over a period of time is not under dispute. It also seems likely that CO2 levels change from time to time. According to Plimer there is a 180 year record of atmospheric CO2 measurements. In the nineteenth century this would have been performed by chemical titration. In the middle of that century the method described by von Pettenkofer (a scientific polymath) became popular. The level of the trace gas shows seasonal variation, variation with off shore and on shore winds and sampling over hot or cold water masses.

Since 1959 the Mount Loa infra-red spectroscopy method became standard, but has never been cross correlated with Pettenkoffer’s method (Plimer page 416).

The measurement of mean global temperature is also under dispute consider numerous graphs on the internet from Air Surface Temperature, Satellite measurements or weather balloon measurements, ocean temperatures etc.

Please how can you average this mishmash to make a useful “mean value?”

Assume for a moment that CO2 and temperature measures are reliable. One can not argue that a correlation by least squares, or a computer model is the proof of a causal relationship.

The story is even more complex because the carbon cycle is itself a complex of geological, biological and human factors.

Further the relationship between CO2 levels and infra red absorption is logarithmic so a change from say I to 100 ppm would be significant; a change from say 380+/-100 ppm much less so.

In my view the authors have not proved a causal relationship between CO2 of anthropogenic origin and global climate

And of course global warming is the cause of Washington DC today having the greatest December snowfall on record?

Care to explain how that has occurred when temperatures are supposedly rising. Surely common sense dictates if global warming was occurring the snowfall levels would be decreasing and not at record levels.

If you accept the argument heatwaves are the result of rising temperatures you cannot possible deny that record snowfalls are the result of falling tenperatures. That is pure logic.

The sciene is settled ! What a joke!

So let me get this straight. You guys (Barrie and Andrew) and CSIRO are telling us that this drought (unlike all the other droughts that have afflicted Australia since settlement) is largely caused by rising CO2 levels due to anthropogenic emissions. The problems of the Murray Darling basin are also largely due to this cause?

And you are telling us that if the world is able to lower CO2 levels from current levels, the droughts will disappear, and everything will be sweet in the Murray Darling basin?

Let me tell you something Barrie and Andrew. I DO NOT BELIEVE YOU!

I am not saying that anthropogenic factors are not a factor in droughts. However, it has NEVER been demonstrated that CO2 is the problem. And I challenge you now to show that.

Man IS having a major impact on local and regional climate, but it is due to land-use factors (deforestation, dams, draining wetlands, irrigation, industrial monoculture agriculture) and resultant interference in natural hydrological cycles. Roger Pielke Sr is a credible scientist arguing this, and he provides heaps of references in support of his views.

In the meantime, all that you guys have are your 'beliefs' which are apparently supported by models. Never mind that (as the CRU e:mail affair is demonstrating) the models have not been developed in accordance with professional software development standards, have not been independently checked and verified, and apparently can never be disclosed to interested parties, we are simply supposed to trust your bold assertions.

Something is happening here. And you don't know what it is. Do you, Mr Jones (and Mr Pittock and Mr Glickson).