I fully share Dr Glikson's concerns. However I think that nothing meaningful coming out Copenhagen is a whole lot better than some piss-weak agreement.

The last thing that we wanted was an agreement which basically meant the continuation of business as usual with piffling and meaningless reductions in CO2 emissions.

Such a deal would have had a big placating effect. At least without any deal, the level of concern remains right up there, with the urgency even more heightened in the minds of the world's decision-makers and those that influence them.

So now the trick is to make this count for something.

What's the chance of that? Tiny, but certainly better than if Copenhagen had produced some pretend-to-be-concerned-about-climate-change deal.

Equally likely is the possibility that Andrew Glikson and his fellow conspirators are blackmailing the rest of us with their phoney global warming hypothesis.

Has not anthropogenic global warming been correctly identified as the scam of the century?

OMG - we're doomed!

Another hysterical article, oh well nothing new there is there?

Another conspiracy theory, I know lots of skeptics and none of them are getting paid by big oil, so your inference is incorrect, but of course emotional that there is a conspiracy. People can be skeptical without being paid for it, normal everyday people.

Can't you understand that not everyone sees it the way you do, or is that the problem, like most eco types, you're a control freak?

For a conspiracy, try CRU, who even got to control the peer review process of climate science which is now completely in doubt in everyone's minds - except die hard believers.

Maybe we wouldn't have you all in such a tizz is some years ago we had not let "A massive denial campaign waged by a coalition of contrarians supported by 'pseudo Eco' interests is holding the world to ransom" deny us Nuclear Power .. where were you then mate?

You also have the reference to Caligula incorrect, mankind did not intentionally and knowingly set out to change the climate. (there may be contributions to climate change by man, but man does not change the climate, it changes on its own)

The more correct comparison to Caligula is the misguided and deluded ones (like you) who now want to control the climate, just tweak this gas by this much in this time and that will happen - yes, of course it will. /sarc.

What folly!

Do you have a book coming out soon?

Are you government funded, of course you are, are the grants coming due?

Government AGW research grants, quite competitive, so going to the press is one one to one up your grant money competition isn't it?

Your future is tied to alarmism isn't it, so why do we expect any different.

What a load of rubbish!
My emails to the oil industry for financial support don't attract a reply, much less funds.
For centuries man thought that he could control the climate and prayed to his Gods to seek success.
When openly peer reviewed science proves that CO2 is a pollutant I will start taking action to stop it.
In the meantime, remember that your father, if you knew him, was one of those who cried "The World is Doomed - The End is Nigh".
Nowadays we send them to University or Parliament. Many work for Government agencies.
I suggest, with great respect, that you resume taking your pills.

Andrew Glikson: if Copenhagen had succeeded (or its successor) in reducing emissions below the current annual incremental increase in global biotic uplifts of annual additions to atmospheric CO2, it would have produced global famine on an unimaginable scale. But then like most of your colleagues at ANU you are unaware of any aspect of photosynthesis without which we would have nothing to eat or drink except H2O.

Yet another depressing display of OLO's best and worst. Glikson has endeavored to present the key evidence related to global warming, only to be assailed by GW deniers in their typical evidence-free rantings and personal insults.

The pattern seems to be emerging: There are three main groups participating in the GW debate- in one group are about 100,000 scientists trying to exercise their craft of evidence-based logical positivism- that is, presenting observations in a way that is open to support or refutation. Another group, which includes many OLO bloggers, are essentially faith-based free-riders: they cower to authorities ranging from popes to politicians to corporate executives, using the open attitudes of scientists as a medium for exercising their prejudices. They are free-riders as they accept the fruits of science (including the capacity to blog on the Web) while denying that science is the most honest form of discourse that we have.

The third group are the cynics- including some corporate mouthpieces, some politicians and some God-mongerers who simply choose to use the deniers to do their dirty work of fighting reason. They have other agendas, but see a crisis like global warming is an opportunity too good to waste.

It is painfully obvious that it is impossible in a democracy to take any meaningful action on reduction of carbon emission and the current point scoring by our new leader of the opposition simply confirms this fact. Unfortunately it seems equally impossible for an oligarchy or autocracy to take any action either (vide China). This sort of leads to the inevitable conclusion that as a species, or at least one living as opposed to surviving we are – to put it technically BU*GER*D.

I noted the sentence 'Science reveals that climate is close to tipping points'. Could I be directed to any scientific papers that demonstrate (i) that there are such tipping points in respect of climate, (ii) what causes them, and (iii) the data or evidence that support their existence.

Hell! Canberra really is full of then, isn't it?

The worst thing is that this one is not in parliament, where we could vote him out in a few years. He probably even has tenure, so we've got him for life.

It indicates how little some of them really know, when you see that some of them actually do believe in this rubbish. Like the Argo buoys. They expected they would show increasing ocean temperature. Of course, when they didn't, we got miles of bullsh1t "corrections', to try to cover their error.

Blogger Hasbeen demonstrates the point I was trying to make in my previous blog- another display of unpleasant vituperation and bald assertions. what are Hasbeen's motives?

Consider the following quote from the Argo buoy website (http://www.argo.ucsd.edu/global_change_analysis.html)

"The global Argo dataset is not yet long enough to observe global change signals. Seasonal and interannual variability dominate the present 5-year globally-averaged time series. Sparse global sampling during 2004-2005 can lead to substantial differences in statistical analyses of ocean temperature and trend (or steric sea level and its trend, e.g. Leuliette and Miller, 2009). Analyses of decadal changes presently focus on comparison of Argo to sparse and sometimes inaccurate historical data. Argo's greatest contributions to observing the global oceans are still in the future, but its global span is clearly transforming the capability to observe climate-related changes."

You can't get more upfront than that. Obviously they are keen to squeeze meaningful analysis out of their data, but acknowledge that science is the business of weighing probabilities.

It's an intrinsically uncertain world and assessment by analysis of probabilities is all we have to guide our actions, other than craven obedience borne out of blind faith.

Jedimaster
"in one group are about 100,000 scientists trying to exercise their craft of evidence-based logical positivism- that is, presenting observations in a way that is open to support or refutation."

But into which group fall the scientists that falsified data, suppressed data, excluded data, destroyed data, manipulated data to exclude inconvenient truths, and stifled dissent, themselves blocking peer review while decrying dissenting views as unqualified because not peer reviewed?

Come to that, where is the EVIDENCE of catastrophic man-made global warming? No, Jedimaster, I don't mean computer models. Oh by the way, how did you average the whole world's temperature and get a single figure? And the cooler-than-earth atmosphere transmits heat to the earth, does it?

The UN itself agrees that 280 of the past 300 years cannot be put down to man-made causes; and of the last 20, 10 have been cooling.

The persistence of the warmist camp can only be attributed to blatant dishonesty, cynical snout-in-the-trough self-interest, or arrant and hysterical stupidity.

Well said jedimaster.
For these deniers to continue to "freeride' on the fruits of scientific endeavor and achievement while at the same time decrying anything to do with climate science is just breathtaking in its brazenness and mystifying as to why so many seemingly intelligent people have fallen for the oilmen and the other vested interests propaganda.

If you think the thousands of scientists supporting AGW are wrong then why dont you think the thousands of scientists working on health, drugs, genetics, technology, IT et al are wrong and why do you still trust their products? Why/how can you trust your medicine, doctor, computer, electric gadgets etc etc if scientists are all part of some global conspiracy?

Either science is worthwhile, productive and trustworthy or our whole society falls apart. You cant pick and choose which science you like and which doesn't suit you

Must agree wth Ludwig, Jedimaster and others who feel moved to laughter at the bucolic brayings of assinine recruits from the Dark Ages.
I detest this almost superstitious fear and loathing of "gummint taxation" and "socialist plots" and the like and wonder if the civilised world has not regressed into something akin to a global Arkansas, overrun with inbred hillbillies.
Redneck cranks, go home. Or better still, learn to use your brains, if most of you have any!

I notice that Glikson fails to mention the $70bn spent on climate science thus far, funding people like him and his Institution. To put THIS in perspective. We and the Tax Payers in the other countries that go to make up the $70bn spend, could have built, and staffed:
• About 35,000 schools in the poorer states.
• Improved the water supply in about 10,000 villages in Africa and Asia.
• Campaigned more effectively stop the logging in the SE Asian hardwood forests by Chinese and Bumi carpet baggers.
But then Glikson goes on to expand his swipe at everything. Where is the evidence to support runaway climate change? There is plenty of evidence to support that fact that the IPCC has over stated the climate sensitivity factor alone, by a factor of at least 6. We won’t raise the subject of whether clouds are positive or negative in their feedback either, nor is the latency of Co2 gases in the atmosphere not the 100 years that the IPCC and Flannery/Gore and other money makers say it is.
Who are these fossil fuel interests who are holding the world to ransom? Come on names please, like most other people I would like tap into this funding source to counter the crap from the Glikson’s of this world.
Who are these ex lobbyists of the tobacco companies? Names please.
Who are these economists, engineers and ego driven ex professionals who appear to confuse the weather with climate etc?
If this is an example of his ability to use evidenced based reasoning, then god help us all.
But then it is only the ANU.

WTF Bigmal? You dont see climate scientists living in mansions in Vaucluse or Toorak do you. Seen many driving around in their rollers lately? How many have chauffeurs, nannys, maids, butlers, a private jet?

Now tell me which oil or mining or car or power gen executive dosent have all of the above?

Who has their snouts in the trough? Who is better placed to conspire? Who has the resources and the ownership of the media? Is it scientists? I dont think it is?

The brazen idiotic, illogical, inconsistency of these denialist fools never ceases to amaze me.

Then MIKK it is only is supposition on your part.
But almost daily we see the bias of the ABC and the antics of red Kerry and Jones, not to mention the thousands of NGOs who rolled up to the bun fest in Copenhagen to do their best at distorting and spinning.

..and who is the biggest crook of them all but Al Gore whose own wealth has gone up by some $200m since he started this caper..and you talk about snouts in the trough..some snout...some trough.

and whilst we are about it why didnt the scientific fraternity have something to say about the MBH Hockey stick..they knew it was shonky but kept silent, and by their silence they are complicit..in exactly the same way as those scientists here in Australia who were photographed at the showing of Gores AIT and rated it highly ..only to be embarrased by the UK high court ruling.None of them has had the fortitude to retract.

If the science is so sure why does it require such unmitigated spin and bulldust to sell it. Even the Chief Science Adviser to Rudd did her bit just before the Copenhagen.

..and as for this piece by Glikson... sheeeeeesssh.

PS Obviously Glikson has got his students posting here as well, its obvious by the childish nature of the invective

jedimaster "typical evidence-free rantings", the onus is on you hysterical types to produce evidence not the skeptics, you are trying to turn the debate around as usual with the same tricks from the "believosphere". Produce evidence that directly links temperature rise on the planet to CO2, more than a mere coincidence, and we'll get somewhere - talk about a lack of evidence, where's yours?

I can see why you have trouble understanding all this.

As to "personal insults", and I quote from the article "coalition of contrarians supported by fossil fuel interests is holding the world to ransom, These people include ex-lobbyists of tobacco companies, medieval fundamentalists, socially backward, denialists"

In the title "A denial campaign waged by contrarians supported by fossil fuel interests is holding the world to ransom"

If you're going to write an emotive article insulting people and their intelligence, then you obviously expect to get some back - so why are you so thin skinned, little petal?

Do you regularly p*ss people off with such pig ignorance and expect no response?

Did you read the article?

"Another depressing display", yes, jedimaster of a drama queen! jedimaster indeed, jedi princess more likely.

The "massive denial campaign" is not an organized conspiracy as some would like to believe, it is human nature to distrust prophets who try to call the future.

Agreed rpg.The science is not settled.All true scientists are skeptics.They [IPCC] constantly refer to computer models,yet I've not seen real models on CO2 potency that make it more powerful by a factor of over 3000 times of all the other gases in the atmosphere.

In the realm of improbability,believe nothing of what you hear,and only half of what you see.

We need to move on from whether climate change is real or not and ask, what can we do about it? Can we fix it the way we did the ozone hole? It's not simply a matter of developing a new aerosol, we need to make radical changes that, let's face it, we're not going to make. The human race will be fine, it just has to go through a mass die-off, like mice do when there's a plague and they've devastated the resources that hitherto sustained them. What's happening is a perfectly natural event, it's just a shame that withal our giant brains we haven't had the sense to prevent it. No, the cornucopia is inexhaustible and we can tuck in for all we're worth! Anyway, God'll fix it, or man's ingenuity, or something.
The thing is we can't stop; if anything happened to hinder production, supply and demand, the same thing would happen. Most people seem to have no conception of just how precarious our situation is, with a panarchic armageddon just waiting to kick in the infrastructure, and positive feed-back loops ensuring a thorough purge. It's just a matter of whether the planet or man-made chaos does us in first.
Moreover, if we want to keep a hand on the tiller while we go down the tubes, then we have to keep capital and production going. Capitalism is the only thing that can fund and manufacture the quantum technological leap needed. The world's billions of consumers are the means of production; they produce the surplus that funds the R&D that will ultimately save us(a few). These vital new technologies will be the by-product of continued and unconscionable human avarice.
Change must be gradual, the least spook could precipitate the system into chaos before the means of survival have been developed. Copenhagen was thus a resounding success; even the rudimentary intellects of the most bovine denialists are persuaded that something should be done, as long as it doesn't affect them.
So be it; we are doomed to die-off suddenly, to suffer the ignominious demise that confronts any plague.

De Andrew writes

'Early humans survived a rise of +3 degrees Celsius about 2.8 million years ago. Homo sapiens survived an abrupt temperature rise of about +5oC during the two last glacial terminations ~130,000 and ~14-11,000 years ago, in part through migration'

No wonder so many people treat gw with contempt. Science fiction at its best. The only dishonest campaign was run by scientists willing to prostitute professionalism in order to give the UN what they wanted to hear.

andrew, good article which won't do a bit of good. you'll also notice you've received a (seemingly) genuine request for references from armchair climatologist, don aitkin.

jedimaster, nice summary.

arjay, scientists may generally err on the side of skepticism, but they're not denialist loons.

To all those denialists, a simple question: what evidence would be enough to convince you that AGW exists? You currently dismiss the vast majority of climate scientists and the vast vast majority of peer reivewed literature. You dismiss everything else as part of a global conspiracy. So, what evidence would convince you? Is it temperature? Is it sea level rise? Is it acidification? And what do you require as a source of legitimate data? And what is the nature of the review that this data must undergo? Will anything convince you? I'd love to hear - or are you simply in a zero sum game, where nothing is all you desire and all you accept?

It was amusing to see Robert Mugabe having a rant at Copenhagen about how the "rich" countries were ruining his country through climate change. What a hoot! He and his henchmen turned a prosperous country into a basket case, and GW alarmists want to turn cash over to tinpot third world dictators?

Would a few belts around the ears, with an 8Lb sledge hammer get into the heads of these warmers, that their lot have been caught.

Yes, caught out cheeting lying altering data & in fact conspiring to defraud. It's over, their names are going to be dirty words.

I like to think that their intentions were honourable, that they believed their theory. I think they got into trouble when they saw they could not prove it.

Some of them, like our warmers, probably still believe it, & would do anything to try to keep it alive. That was the problem, they just could not tell the truth, when it went against all they worked for.

Yes, it did become a conspiracy then, & our pollies saw a chance for more tax, they could blame the tax payer for, & helped them.

It's all now stinking like last weeks prawns.

Get off the bandwagon now you blokes, before all the wheels fall off.

The Science is settled. There has Never been any evidence of anthropogenic global warming. There has only ever been a weak theory which was perpetrated for devious reasons by the UN and depended on Western guilt and corruption of scientists through selective grants for its longevity.

There is virtually no evidence of any sort of warming. It has been correctly identified as the greatest money scam of all time.

The real problem is that leaders of Western countries have bought into the whole deal and promised OUR money for an unspecified period of time to developing countries, many of which are corrupt and dangerous.

Mugabe and his ilk will be subsidised by us! Does anyone really think they care about climate change - the money will go to fund military and personal ambitions.

The head of the IPCC is Rajendra Pachauri former Railway Engineer and Head of Indian Oil company with shares in Carbon Trading companies.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rajendra_K._Pachauri

"We need to move on from whether climate change is real or not and ask, what can we do about it?"

Ah, the wonderful Precautionary Principle: Bad Things might happen so we have to Do Something Now. Or in other words: we need to move on from asking whether Santa Claus exists and ask, what kind of cake we should leave out for him?

But then AGW must be a serious threat -- since it's capable of changing temperature readings retrospectively, even from over 100 years ago:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/11/14/the-evolution-of-the-giss-temperature-product/

It's over guys:
"No Rise of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Fraction in Past 160 Years, New Research Finds"
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/12/091230184221.htm

Next asks: What would the sceptics require?
A little of this would help: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCVZXlvDcrk

--Bushfires are written-up as evidence of AGW.
The accumulation of natural debris/fuel, sometimes for decades, &
population expansion into bushlands was of no consequence ?
--Typhoons devastating river deltas are held- up as evidence of AGW.
The last fifty years of clearing natural cover and settlement of such marginal regions had no bearing?
--And each time we get a few hot days AGW advocates ( including, on occasion, our PM) cite it as evidence of AGW [ though I note they were strangely silently about the recent cold snap in the northern hemisphere which ironically started about the time of the Copenhagen conference-LOL]

I would have thought that any reputable scientist –and I’m told they’re the only sort to be found on the AGW side!– would tell you that such claims, being the shortest of short term measures, were highly suspect . But those reputable scientists behind AGW have been rather slow to debunk, or complicit, in such claims.

There are from time-to-time natural changes/cycles in the worlds climate:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg16221874.500-born-in-a-storm.html

The real issue here is not changes in temperature but over population.
If you have a bucket half full of water –it takes a lot of perturbation to spill it.
On the other hand, if it is full to the brim the slightest disturbance is likely to cause a accident.

The problem is this time around (if indeed what we are seeing is a trend up –its hazardous to guess since the time frame for most measures is very short) is that we are packed to the rafters with people. There is little room to manoeuvre –there is little scope to accommodate/dampen perturbations.

In the past when climate change occurred , we simply retreated to a safer spot –now all the spots are owned.

Which is yet another reason we need – honesty--since if one was really committed to disaster mitigation,one would also be running hard on population REDUCTION,But we hear nary a word ---why?
Because the poor can’t be scammed!

HermanYutic,

You may have misunderstood the nature of this news item, which reads:
"No Rise of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Fraction in Past 160 Years, New Research Finds. ScienceDaily (Dec. 31, 2009) — Most of the carbon dioxide emitted by human activity does not remain in the atmosphere, but is instead absorbed by the oceans and terrestrial ecosystems. In fact, only about 45 percent of emitted carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere."

Which means, 45 PERCENT OF THE >1170 BILLION TONS OF CO2 emitted since the 18th century have remained in the atmosphere, pushing atmospheric CO2 concentrations from 280 ppm to 388 ppm. When the rise in CH4, N2O and Halocarbons (a total of 0.98 Watt/m2) is taken into account, CO2-equivalent levels are now at 455 ppm.

The latest report regarding CO2 retention by is below:

Trends in the sources and sinks of carbon dioxide. Corinne Le Quéré, Michael R. Raupach, Josep G. Canadell (both of CSIRO), Gregg Marland et al.

"Efforts to control climate change require the stabilization of atmospheric CO2 concentrations. This can only be achieved through a drastic reduction of global CO2 emissions. Yet fossil fuel emissions increased by 29% between 2000 and 2008, in conjunction with increased contributions from emerging economies, from the production and international trade of goods and services, and from the use of coal as a fuel source. In contrast, emissions from land-use changes were nearly constant. Between 1959 and 2008, 43% of each year’s CO2 emissions remained in the atmosphere on average; the rest was absorbed by carbon sinks on land and in the oceans. In the past 50 years, the fraction of CO2 emissions that remains in the atmosphere each year has likely increased, from about 40% to 45%, and models suggest that this trend was caused by a decrease in the uptake of CO2 by the carbon sinks in response to climate change and variability. Changes in the CO2 sinks are highly uncertain, but they could have a significant influence on future atmospheric CO2 levels. It is therefore crucial to reduce the uncertainties."

You denialists are a bad flipping joke!
You have the cheek to jump up and down over the leaked email beat-up, while all the pseudo-science your side has managed to conjure up is predicated on lies, corruption and self interest. You're actually not worth responding to, but unfortunately you gather a large and credulous following (this is the trouble with democracy), and so you have to be confronted. But to answer Next's question above, no amount of evidence or logic will move prejudice.
On the dishonesty of those scandalous leaked emails, which so offend you scrupulously honest folk:
http://www.youtube.com/user/greenman3610#p/a/u/2/P70SlEqX7oY

http://www.youtube.com/user/greenman3610#p/a/u/1/eJFZ88EH6i4

Yes, Mr Squeers, the trouble with democracy - as with genuine science - is that it does not depend on faith, in rulers, in authority generally, or with the Word, but is healthily sceptical. Not cynical, or denialist, but quite properly sceptical. Read your Popper.

I watched your videos and was even less persuaded. Sorry.

Joe

get your hand off it. popper would be absolutely disgusted with the denialist garbage being spewed.

"trying to exercise their craft of evidence-based logical positivism-"

Or stated another way ; trying to exercise their craft of turning Bullcrap into Gold .

You Scientists have betrayed the Trust of the Common Man .

Now your faced with the dilemma of regaining your Bono Fides ; well here is my say : You will not succeed by snarling adjectives at the Common Man he has a faculty called scrutiny , honed by Experience .

A well written article by a working scientist. We need more scientists to get more vocal; the continuing attacks on the best available understanding of the impacts of human activities on the climate we depend on are only going to get worse as real attempts to do something about it begin.

Thanks Andrew. Don't let the tirades by the mistaken, misled and misinformed stop you from expressing your views. There are lots of people who take this issue seriously.

Over time the science from the world's leading institutions will be widely accepted and hopefully result in significant action that will avert the most serious climatic consequences.

I cannot believe a real Scientist would say this:

"Using some emails by scientists who desperately try to alert humanity to the looming climate catastrophe, the denialists tried to sabotage the UN Copenhagen conference."

What?! 'Some emails'!! He conveniently left out the fact that the emails were blatant evidence of a conspiracy to defraud at the highest levels.

If the information about AGW was accurate and self-evidently true why would they need to change any data? To make it 'more true'??

I've never heard of a Scientist having to change data to get the correct answer. Except when they start with the answer first and then went looking for facts to back it up.

Well Ken Fabos if sweeping assertions which the auther has so far not been able to substantiate, is what passes for the calibre of research coming out of the main stream institutions you are referring to, then I am afraid you will be waiting a along time.

I think Glikson's piece herein is a perfect example of why climate science is in such trouble, and has to resort to nefarious tricks and subterfuge.

Even the Chairman of the IPCC Pachauri is now looking more like a Gore clone than a competent independant chairman.His conflicts of interest are just beggar belief.

As they say in the classics a fish rots from the head down and we can follow the smell all the way to the bottom

Loudmouth: "Yes, Mr Squeers, the trouble with democracy - as with genuine science - is that it does not depend on faith, in rulers, in authority generally, or with the Word, but is healthily sceptical. Not cynical, or denialist, but quite properly sceptical. Read your Popper."

Genuine science puts its faith in empirical foundationalism, but yes it is rigorously sceptical.
Do you really argue that our decadent democracies are "healthily" or "properly sceptical"?
Democracy in any ideal sense is extinct--like the Unicorn or the Griffin. Our modern democracies are rule by orchestrated popular opinion; there is nothing rigorous about it. Our worst drives are the yardstick of polity, hence so-called democracy represents the tyranny of our sins--an oligarchy of the seven deadly sins--much as I hate dragging religion into it). This is fine in a boundless and amoral world, but in a closed system (with professed humanitarian ideals) it eventually poses a few problems.
Mice plagues are comparable to modern democracies; there is of course a small percentage (of humans) who can use their heads and see beyond the manic drive for glut (etc.), but of course in a democracy they are overruled by the majority.

Genuine science constantly questions and tests both its premises and its conclusions
Are our western democracies predicated on this kind of aspiration?

Now Andy1,

1) Compare the two:
Your source: “Corinne Le Quéré et al”
“Between 1959 and 2008, 43% of each year’s CO2 emissions remained in the atmosphere on average… In the past 50 years, the fraction of CO2 emissions that remains in the atmosphere each year has LIKELY INCREASED”

With Herman’s source: Science Daily--Wolfgang Knorr of the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Bristol
“No RISE of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Fraction IN PAST 160 YEARS”
Both cannot be right!



2) Consider the implications:
If there has been "No RISE of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Fraction in Past 160 Years”
“Yet fossil fuel emissions INCREASED by 29% between 2000 and 2008”
Where is your smoking gun?
Where is your correlation between atmospheric CO2 & increased emissions?
And indeed, where is your case for urgent CO2 cuts?

3) And, lets get our bearings right :
You mischievously try to bluff with large numbers –“high means, 45 PERCENT OF THE >1170 BILLION TONS OF CO2” --Sounds frightfully impressive!
BUT , 97% of CO2 in the atmosphere comes from non-anthropogenic sources.
I’ll say it again, 97% Comes from non-human sources.
So however large and threatening YOUR figure, it is only a tiny fraction of all CO2 emissions.

4) AND mull a little over the following admissionS in “Corinne Le Quéré et al” submission:
i) "Progress has been made in monitoring the trends in the carbon cycle and understanding their drivers. However, major gaps remain, particularly in our ability to link anthropogenic CO2 emissions to atmospheric CO2 concentration on a year-to-year basis..."
ii) "If the model response to recent changes in climate is correct, this would lend support to the positive feedback between climate and the carbon cycle ...However, these models DO NOT YET INCLUDE many processes and reservoirs that may be important, such as peat, buried carbon in permafrost soils, wild fires, ocean eddies and the response of marine ecosystems to ocean acidification."

No Herman you didn’t get it wrong –me thinks Andy1 is trying to give us all a bum steer

Horus,

You are mistaken regarding the carbon cycle.

Whereas a vast amount of CO2 (over 100 GtC) is exchanged each year between the various reservoirs (ocean, biosphere, atmosphere), the NET ADDITION since the 18th century is due to the more than 320 billion tons of carbon emitted by human industry, transport and land clearing, which resulted in an increase in atmospheric Carbon from 540 GtC to 750 GtC.

For detailed information read the Global Carbon Project reports (by CSIRO and other): http://www.aussmc.org.au/documents/Raupach.CarbonCycle.V01.pdf and other reports by the GDP. http://www.globalcarbonproject.org/

for the rise in atmospheric CO2 (280 to 388 ppm since the 18th century) look at: http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/

For a review of the effects of CO2 on global climate look at:http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm

For the most recent update regarding climate change look at:
1. Steffen's Report to the Department of Climate Change "Climate Change Science - faster change and more serious risks" http://www.climatechange.gov.au/en/publications/science/faster-change-more-risk.aspx

2. Oxford conference "Beyond 4 degrees C" October, 2009 http://www.eci.ox.ac.uk/4degrees/

Those who believe they have credible data and arguments which contradict a relation between anthropogenic CO2 and climate change, ought to formulate it in quantitative terms and publish it in detail through the scientific literature or other venues.

What a relief this would be.

Excellent article - couldn't be clearer. But where does OLO find these mad climate change deniers and believers in the great scientific hoax/conspiracy? Does it pay desperate people to spew such nonsense just for the sake of getting a dialogue going?

Andrew, your panic is palpable. Your personal and professional credibility is going down the proverbial plug hole. This article accelerates that progress.

In a recent audit and analysis of the IPCC’s “evidence based forecasting principles” (see Kesten C. Green Uni of S.A. and J.Scott Armstrong, Uni of Pensilvania), the IPCC were found to have violated 72 of 89 relevant principles.

Add to this the fundamental questions of “Consensus”, “Peer Review”, “Data Integrity”, Modeling” and “Scientific Qualifications” and you begin to get a picture of the extent of which you have been let down by some members of the scientific community. Get over it and move on.

This academic nit wit has the gall to say that " there is a massive campaign of denial by a coalition of contrarians supported by fossil fuel intersts and is holding the world to ransom" completely oblivious the fact that the Chairman of his precious IPCC has just pulled all almighty con, courtesy of his many conflicts of interst, which he is permitted to engage in by the venal UN.

The last para on its own should cast major doubts over this Chairmans motives.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/6890839/The-questions-Dr-Pachauri-still-has-to-answer.html

Like I said a fish rots from head down and it doenst get any more rotten than this.

..and there is more .

Andy1
Since you obviously missed the questions in my last post, I’ll repeat them for you –one at a time:

What do you suppose this means: “No RISE of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Fraction IN PAST 160 YEARS”
This is'nt some denialist make-up –it's from Dr Wolfgang Knorr at the University of Bristol, and here’s his abstract:

“Several recent studies have highlighted the possibility that the oceans and terrestrial ecosystems have started loosing part of their ability to sequester a large proportion of the anthropogenic CO2 emissions. This is an important claim, because so far only about 40% of those emissions have stayed in the atmosphere, which has prevented additional climate change. This study re-examines the available atmospheric CO2 and emissions data including their uncertainties. It is shown that with those uncertainties, the trend in the airborne fraction since 1850 has been 0.7 ± 1.4% per decade, i.e. close to and not significantly different from zero. The analysis further shows that the statistical model of a constant airborne fraction agrees best with the available data if emissions from land use change are scaled down to 82% or less of their original estimates. Despite the predictions of coupled climate-carbon cycle models, no trend in the airborne fraction can be found.”

It seems to run directly counter to the core AGW argument that the earth’s natural CO2 sinks are weakening—indicating instread, that natural sinks have been expanding as anthropogenic CO2 emissions have increased.

I look forward to your full & thorough rebuttal/explanation —without the cephalopod-esque "flee quickly, expel ink, or use color-changing camouflage" response.

In closing last time you said:
“Those who believe they have credible data and arguments which contradict a relation between anthropogenic CO2 and climate change, ought to formulate it in quantitative terms …”

Seems a bit rich coming from someone who stakes his faith on reports that declare:
“These models DO NOT YET INCLUDE many processes and reservoirs that may be important, such as peat, buried carbon in permafrost soils, wild fires, ocean eddies and the response of marine ecosystems to ocean” [ "may be important"?--what an understatement!]

<A massive denial campaign waged by a coalition of contrarians supported by fossil fuel interests is holding the world to ransom. These people include ex-lobbyists of tobacco companies - who all of a sudden have become interested in climate science; medieval fundamentalists - who regard climate change in terms of God’s will to purify the Earth; believers in human supremacy over nature; socially backward think tanks; some economists; and a few engineers and ego-driven ex-professionals who appear to confuse the weather with the climate.>

Andy, you need help. This is serious conspiracy theory territory.
Perhaps your next article should be written for the Fortean Times.

Can you produce a single fact to support any one of your assertions?

Speaking of weather, a couple of weeks ago the Sydney weather forecast was seriously wrong for the entire week. Yet the Andy Glikmans of the world reckon they can tell us what the entire global climate is going to be like a hundred years from now.

You hearing voices, Andy?

“A massive denial campaign waged by a coalition of contrarians…. Caligula waged war on Poseidon”

Such prose, such elegance of word and turn of phrase

It reminds me of a past English King who, at the town of my birth, commanded the tide to retreat.

Canute was not testing the strength of his divine right but demonstrating his humility.

His intention was to show to his court that whilst he may be a king, he was only human and not a force capable of competing with nature.

And now we have AGW theorists and zealots intent on demonstrating their ability to turn back the tide, to influence nature and turn it to their will.

However, they intend to do it not bu their own effort but by taxing the efforts of the rest of humanity.

They intend to impose

Socialism by Stealth

On the inventive efforts of their fellow men

They intend to inflict ETS and increasing taxes on people, justified by their efforts to turn back the tide.

Even though AGW is just a bunch of garbled theories,

Zealots are driving us all to suffer the whimsy of their foolhardy dogma and the consequences of their unproven and unjustified strategies.

No longer will you just buy gas or electricity or products from milk to cars

Now you will buy them and pay an additional ETS tax/cost for the privilege.

Margaret Thatcher wrote

"The larger the slice taken by government, the smaller the cake available for everyone."

ETS will end up as a lessening of your individual and personal discretionary purchasing power and more money for the state, to squander on lavish temples for worshipping the power of the state.

All just more resources needed to impose the

Socialism by Stealth

Which has repeatedly failed throughout history

AGW will be seen as just another fraud of an environmental movement infiltrated by collectivists and anarchists

Lenin described AGW:

“A lie told often enough becomes the truth”



As for “denialists” counter-conspiracies

Galileo denied "conventional wisdom", that the sun rotated around the earth and suffered the condemnation of the “authorities” too.

Some questions:

A) If scientists only want money, why would they go to the trouble of rigging a global conspiracy and faking data when they could just work for the denialist lobby and make a mint? Industry is pouring billions into fake think tanks and professional obfuscators. Why aren't the IPCC scientists jumping ship and going where the money is?

B) Where is the evidence of fraud in the CRU emails? I've asked this question dozens of times since they were released, but even the most committed inactivists seem unable to point out where the wrongdoing is. It seems that the emails are only evidence of fraud to those who already believed in a vast conspiracy. Even the 9/11 "truthers" have higher standards of proof.

C) Still waiting for an answer to mikk's excellent question: "If you think the thousands of scientists supporting AGW are wrong then why don't you think the thousands of scientists working on health, drugs, genetics, technology, IT et al are wrong and why do you still trust their products? Why/how can you trust your medicine, doctor, computer, electric gadgets etc etc if scientists are all part of some global conspiracy?"

Yes, why? All these fields operate to the same standards and proofs as climate science, so where is the massive "sceptical" opposition to discoveries there? And don't bother with the price tag rubbish. Australia sinks billions into medical and agricultural science each year, but you never hear inactivists whining about the government digging into taxes for that.

Funny, isn't it, that all of these scientific critics only emerged after backlash from the industry lobby and its pet politicians. You'd almost think the "scepticism" is entirely ideological.

Hear we go again with denilist coming out of the woodwork calling people names as that is all they can do.

Most have no ability to analysis the data or even understand it and reiterate information that is put up by others that do not know what they are talking about.

Climategate came up with a fat nothing.

And again people get confused about weather and climate trends hence the recent stupid comment on forecasts all it does is to show ignorance.

I suspect that denilists are dead scared that their cozy lifestyle or business is going to suffer.

Not one denilists had provided any evidence to dispute the experts.

I rather believe scientists than the backyard boys that show up on this blog.

Thank you Andrew for providing information that I can understand.

Good of Col to cite Galileo in defence of climate change denialism.

Galileo was persecuted by the Catholic church for using observable, testable evidence to challenge a faith-based status quo which granted the church great power and authority.

So, in the battle of climatology versus big industry, who is the science-wielding Galileo and who is the power-grasping church?

<next, Thursday, 31 December 2009 9:26:12 PM>

next, you've got it back to front.

You are putting forward a proposition - that human-produced CO2 is causing global warming. The onus is on you and your co-religionists to produce evidence to support that contention. Help poor Andy out, because he has shown himself to be incapable of producing anything but wild assertions, empty conclusions and appeals to authority.

You've raised one of the central issues. If your proposition is not falsifiable, it is not science, it is religion.

So, here's the list of things that have been claimed to be caused by global warming: http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/warmlist.htm

Each item on the list has been documented. You'll note that half the list is contradicted by the other, but that's the nature of AGW hysterics.

There is not a single natural phenomenon that has been left out, so far as I can see. A lot of grant money went into the coffers of AGW promoters to come up with each item.

So the onus, to the contrary, is on YOU to tell us what phenomenon you would accept to indicate that AGW is disproved.

If you cannot do that, it means that your proposition is unfalsifiable and therefore not science but religion.

Eagerly waiting for your world-first proof of the scientific validity of AGW theory.

Andy, feel free to help out.

Sancho "So, in the battle of climatology (Scientology) versus big industry" You're one of the AGW believers who is grasping at some obscure reason for skepticism, typical of the AGW church. Skeptics are not being organised and funded to be skeptical.

"who is the science-wielding Galileo: - the skeptics who demand proof of temperature rise as a function of CO2 rise, as per all the language of the IPCC, our government, CO2 is the "pollutant" must be reduced to reduce world temperature. Where's the proof that CO2 is the culprit?

"and who is the power-grasping church?" the AGW side of the house, with CRU corrupting the peer review process, changing data to suit their predictions. The side who calls the other side heretics for not "believing" and being deniers, who have their high priests, Al Gore, George Monbiot, James Hansen, they sell indulgences, or carbon offsets as they are now called,

Simple as that .. which is what Col was on about.

PeterA "Hear we go again with denilist coming out of the woodwork calling people names as that is all they can do."

So you call people "denilists", (cdenialist?) as an insult, to liken them to holocaust deniers, then accuse them of "calling people names", hypocrit.

I can understand all the die hard believers being upset, Copenhagen was meant to be the great pilgrimage to form a world government who would redistribute the hard earned wealth of a few to the many.

Bugger off, the haves are not going to give it all up for the have nots. If there was no way to make a profit, and no big industries in competition, there would be no innovation. Look how much innovation came out of Russia and China during their communist eras - none at all folks, zip, zilch - that's what you risk with your politically driven agenda.

You bray on about skeptics depriving your grandchildren of a future, I worry more for my grandchildren being victims of your misdirected hatred of a system that works - Capitalism. The US Democrats policies caused the GFC not capitalism.

Sancho you've asked reasonable questions; here are the answers:

1.IPCC is already where the money is and is going to be. Carbon Trading companies are set to make multiple Billions. Al Gore is involved with one
http://www.larouchepub.com/other/2007/3413carbon_swindle.html

as is Maurice Strong,one of the UN originators of the hoax who now lives in China.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122368007369524679.html

and high level financiers such as the Rothschild family
http://seeker401.wordpress.com/2009/11/06/rothschild-stands-to-become-the-carbon-trading-kings/

Rajendra Pachauri, Head of the IPCC was the former Board Member of the Indian Oil company also stands to make billions.
http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/pachauri-accusedmaking-/fortune/carbon-trading-firms/380212/

So you see, Climate Change is where the money is. The financial power is with the Warmists not the skeptics. That is another myth.

2. The CRU emails specifically mention "fudge factors" and "tricks" which are simply changing the data to get the answer you wanted. There is even a section where the Maths equations have a "fudge factor" listed. Its like saying 9+1=10 add fudge factor now 9+1=25. They even ask for ways to manipulate data of get rid of the Medieval Warming period. Even some Warmists e.g Monbiot admit they are evidence of wrongdoings. I cannot see how that cannot be fraud. There is evidence of corruption and fraud, its obvious and that is why Jones has been stood down and investigated.

3. The oft made quote about "thousands of scientists" supporting Global Warming comes from the false story from the UN that 1500 of the worlds top climate scientists agreed on the issue. If you care to check their credentials you will find very few climate scientists and a whole lot of government officials, policy makers and various hangers on. Many scientists were put on the list against their wishes. Only 52 Scientists actually participated in the final IPCC paper.Rajendra Pachauri, Head of the IPCC often called the Chief Climate Scientist is in fact a Railway Engineer and has no climate quals at all.(Check above reference)

No mention of climategate or that intellectual whore Al Gore.He could sell shoes to a snake.Al Gore according to his version of reality created the internet.

The whole AGW fiasco it seems,is a lie and will turn out to be the biggest con ever perpetrated on humanity.

'The whole AGW fiasco it seems,is a lie and will turn out to be the biggest con ever perpetrated on humanity.'

Except for the evolution fantasy which of course is closely related.

Runner is grasping at superlatives.Evolution is a theory based on logic and sound science.AGW is climategate fantacy land.

Just thought I'd post one of the "innocent" CRU emails; this time its not about faking data its about getting money from Big Oil.

From: "Mick Kelly" <m.kelly@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
To: m.hulme@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
Subject: Shell
Date: Wed, 05 Jul 2000 13:31:00 +0100
Reply-to: m.kelly@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
Cc: t.oriordan@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, t.o'riordan@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
Mike
Had a very good meeting with Shell yesterday. Only a minor part of the agenda,but I expect they will accept an invitation to act as a strategic partner and will contribute to a studentship fund though under certain conditions. I now have to wait for the top-level soundings at their end after the meeting to result in a response. We, however, have to discuss asap what a strategic partnership means, what a studentship fund is, etc,
etc. By email? In person?

I hear that Shell's name came up at the TC meeting. I'm ccing this to Tim who I think was involved in that discussion so all concerned know not to make an independent approach at this stage without consulting me!

I'm talking to Shell International's climate change team but this approach will do equally for the new foundation as it's only one step or so off Shell's equivalent of a board level. I do know a little about the Fdn and what kind of projects they are looking for. It could be relevant for the new building, incidentally, though opinions are mixed as to whether it's within the remit.
Regards
Mick
______________________________________________
Mick Kelly Climatic Research Unit
University of East Anglia Norwich NR4 7TJ
United Kingdom
Tel: 44-1603-592091 Fax: 44-1603-507784
Email: m.kelly@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
Web: http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/tiempo/

I don't know how many people are aware of this, but submissions to the next IPCC report from Australian scientists have to be approved by the Australian government. I seriously doubt any submission by Ian Plimer would get a look in. This is supposed to be a transparent process? What a joke. Any submissions to a supposedly "scientific" organisation are vetted by a lefty government.

viking13 has a point, though he has it ass backwards.

look at the governments involved. you honestly think these governments WANT to believe in AGW? you think they WANT to respond to it? don't be ridiculous! in the short term it's hugely politically difficult. they've clearly been doing all they could to AVOID admitting the obvious, to avoid doing anything of substance.

the idea that the world's governments are now part of some global lefty conspiracy or delusion is insane, even beyond the standard level of OLO denialist insanity. if there was ANY substantial scientific doubt, they'd be grabbing at it with both hands. the world's governments are convinced because they have no choice, because there is no reasonable scientific doubt.

but, i don't expect a single one of you morons to take note. you have no clue and you don't want to have a clue. you cherrypick this, cherrypick that, and it all amounts to smelling your own farts.

the fact of the matter is the scientific method works, the climatologist community has more integrity than the groups lined up in opposition, and MUCH more integrity than the pompous pseudoscientists some of you drag out. and the fact of the matter is, these climatologists, through THOUSANDS of peer-reviewed papers, are sure as they can be that AGW is real, and a real, huge problem.

and what do you have in response to this overwhelming scientific opinion? garbage. cherrypicked garbage. give it up. go back to moonlanding conspiracies or 9/11 conspiracies, but give this up. you're not galileos, you're not poppers, you're just dumb twats ignoring the obvious.

The key question is not whether;

1. Some denialists are fraudulently fabricating data and numbers (some of them do, some do not), or
2. Some climate scientists panick and wish to prevent publications by denialists (perhaps similar to the way medical doctors object to publications which suggest "smoking is good for your health".

THE KEY QUESTION IS WHETHER DANGEROUS CLIMATE CHANGE IS HAPPENING OR NOT.

There are too many who do not understand atmospheric physics and chemistry which underlie climate change. There are also those who do not wish to understand or care.

Those who care should:

1. Perhaps even read basic text books in climatology.
2. Try and understand climate reports such as the IPCC AR4-2007 and by the Department of Climate Change.
3. Watch the BBC program/video http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/757.html
demonstrating the impasse caused by the combination of emitted sulphur aerosols and carbon particulates, causing "global dimming", and the emitted greenhouse heat-trapping gases.

Cheap ad-hominem abuse of environmentalists and scientists is hardly a substitute to an intelligent debate.

Cheap ad-hominem abuse of environmentalists and scientists is hardly a substitute to an intelligent debate.

Tell that to your bushie mate above, who has a backwards looking donkey.

viking13

1) i'm not answerable for andrew and andrew is not answerable for me.

2) i said in a previous thread that what andrew was trying to do here was pointless. it is well-intentioned, but it is pointless. it is pointless because one doesn't argue difficult science in 300 word grabs. but more importantly it is pointless because there is absolutely nothing andrew can say which will convince you guys. nothing.

3) and you damn well know it. you all know it. NONE of you are in the business of good faith arguing, of honest weighing of the evidence. you are nothing more than anti-science conspiratorial loons.

4) ad hominem? if i were arguing the science then it would be ad hominem. but i'm not.
my argument is that you guys are anti-science conspiratorial loons. the evidence is this thread, and every other OLO thread on AGW. the evidence is the continual denigration of a whole scientific community, the continual cherrypicking of data, the continual absence of anything even remotely related to a substantive argument.

my argument is about you and your crazy mates. to harp on your craziness is not ad hominem: it's the central point.

Bushbasher. Beautifully put!
I have acquaintances outside OLO who are loons of the same ilk. With your permission I'll cut and paste your comments above and make epistles of them, however futile.

Andrew, thanks for the links. I did read through "Climate Change Science" during the wee small hours. Nothing new in it, but an overdue revision. The IPCC has long been to conservative in its predictions.

To the wilfully obtuse: are your positions negotiable or amenable to reason, as mine is, as the evidence comes in? Ask yourselves, am I capable of ignoring my prejudices and preconceptions on this debate, and striving to weigh the evidence objectively?
There's no shame in being wrong and admitting it, in fact that would be something to take pride in. There is always, was always, doubt, but that didn't drive the enlightenment philosophers back to scripture, or their insular and selfish cogitations and superstitions.
When disaster looms, thinking people mobilise to confront the threat---but unfortunately there are always those who will stare it in the face and deny it, the witch doctors of the tribe, who bewilder the susceptible and precipitate the disaster.

Andy1
The key question is why someone who has --read all the prescribed texts--has no answer for this finding :“No RISE of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Fraction IN PAST 160 YEARS”

Why someone who is --“an Earth and paleoclimate scientist at the Research School of Earth Science, the School of Archaeology and Anthropology and the Planetary Science Institute, Australian National University-- avoids the issue like some second class politician.

It appears that you are more interested in preserving your sacred status quo than doing the science.

Bushbasher
I have no argument with you that the Aust Govt is now half hearted with regard to many of its promised "green" strategies

Green politics (including AGW advocacy) was a neat little election ploy they used to help paint the opposing group as being, in general, yesterdays leaders & out of touch.

But having arrived in government, and seeing some of the costs of their promises, they are now hedging--but what's new, we see that after every election, on a range of issues.

Nice try KenH - you want the debate to return to the comfortable denialist ground of rejecting every bit of evidence. That is why I am suggesting a change to the proposition. I am not asking you to prove anything, I am simply asking denialists to clearly state what evidence would convince them that AGW is occurring. I'd like to hear what is the nature of the evidence, how it should be reviewed and published and any other criteria you might have for establishing its validity. The problem at the moment is that denialists are implicitly rejecting not only the science but well established scientific methodology and scientific review processes. So far, not a single substantive answer. Lots of evastion. What a surprise.

" Cheap ad-hominem abuse of environmentalists and scientists is hardly a substitute to an intelligent debate" Says Andy1

And quite so as well. But you should be directing his comments to the author (I am assuming that ANDy1 and the auther are not the same person..) who doesnt mind having swipe at everything with his totally unsubstantiated bitch as to the " massive denial campaign by a coaalition of contrarians..?

But to compound his hypocrisy he remains silent about the nefarious conflicts of interest of the illustrious IPCC Chairman Pachauri, whose position gets more odious and untenable by the day.

To those who say that one cannot criticise climate science without criticising all science, there is of course no comparison.Most of the other sciences have better developed ethical and professional standards, and further;

1.Other sciences are not the child of some UN subsidiary and thereby subject to its whims and venalities.

2.Involve scientists who are almost totally the beneficiary of public funding mechanisms.

3.Involved in a political process called the IPCC reports which is procedurally flawed to hell in a way that would not be tolerated in other disciplines.

4.Involved in a cause that is even to this day, is a political issue, and thats before there is any science worth considering

5.Involves people in key research institutions who are the beneficiaries of chunks of money that were handed over for purely political timings and ends.

6. Involved in a cause whereby the greeny NGO's are within their own ranks and influencing what is said and how it is said.

7.Involved in an area whereby there is deliberate misuse of key words such as climate change in a significant way (the definition was changed in a IPCC report,as a foot note), overiding that authorised by the UNFCC.

Cimategate and hockeystick, MET office connections to eading advocates, and the money making antics of Gore and Pachauri,as well as the shonkiness of Mann, Hansen, Jones, Briffa et al are all just examples of why the communty should be wary of anything these people have to say.

bigmal well said, the AGW believer attempt to try to turn all skeptics into flat earth troglodytes lives on. Have you seen the latest twist to skeptics and pseudo skeptics - talk about a lack of firepower if that's all you've got - trying to tweak your insults. Climatology is the only science involved in prophecy, which is why it should be cast out until such methods are put back in their place, as a tool.

Next - the evidence skeptics want is constantly stated. We all accept climate changes, no problem, your side states that it is manmade CO2 that is contributing to extra, and about to be out of control, warming (tipping points are mentioned constantly) but there is no "evidence" only models and coincidence and now we find CRU has convoluted data to match its narrative as the world is not warming as the predictions call for. Why do you keep saying no one ever says what skeptics want to see?

viking 13, why am I not surprised at the government wanting to control data, to match their politics.

Andy1 "THE KEY QUESTION IS WHETHER DANGEROUS CLIMATE CHANGE IS HAPPENING OR NOT." no it is not, the key question is whether man is contributing and if so how much. Methinks you are becoming shrill because of your own vested interests in this and thus are no longer objective, what a sad time for science when a bunch of self centered types are skewing science for their own pride and incomes.

Your post above is a twisted attempt to turn the argument back onto skeptics (denialists as you prefer to call anyone who has a different opinion) "Some denialists are fraudulently fabricating data and numbers" where did that come from? You made it up to make your point since you position is so weak.

Andy1, you are a dishonest person and you r posts on top of this article to nothing to change that, in fact your posts underline your inherent dishonesty.

Next. You ask: "I am simply asking denialists to clearly state what evidence would convince them that AGW is occurring. I'd like to hear what is the nature of the evidence."

I am a sceptic, not a 'denialist'. But I will seek to answer your question anyhow.

1. The first thing I would accept would be a temperature record that has been prepared without unseemly adjustments to early 20th C temperatures. One where delta UHI effects have been properly accounted for. And where temperature data collection processes and equipment comply with accepted standards. Oh. And one where the population of temperature stations is continuous for the period under review. I haven't seen one of those yet. Have you?

Note that glacier retreat, melting Arctic ice, droughts etc are complex issues that may or may not be related to 'warming'.

2. The second thing would be evidence that man-made CO2 emissions are actually causing warming (if indeed warming is happening at all). The proposition that doubling CO2 levels will lead to substantial (ie 3-5 Deg C) warming is not proven. Most would accept around 1 deg C (ignoring for the moment the logarithmic decay effect), but higher levels depend on unproven assumptions re positive feedback effects.

3. The third thing I would seek is some evidence/discussion regarding land-use factors and the impact of that on local and regional climate. Man is clearly having impacts. These issues are much more important than CO2, but largely ignored by the AGW proponents.

next, you are a dunce but others have already hosed you down, so I won't bother further.

For the more competent commenters, you may enjoy the following linked article as a diversion from dear old Andy's obsessive attempts to defend the indefensible:
http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/timblair/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/things_scientists_say/

RPG, in asking for evidence of AGW, you're implicitly rejecting a large body of science. The IPCC was a consensus view of scientists from around the world based on the peer reviewed literature. Denialists frequently reject the IPCC (despite its inherent conservatism). In doing so, you're rejecting their findings and their methods. So, I ask again, if you reject evidence of AGW such as that (and I'm afraid there's mountains of such evidence that is considered valid under current scientific methods), then tell me what evidence you would require and what you would require in the method of producing that evidence to convince you? My view is that denialists such as you will never be satisfied, will never believe the evidence and will never propose an alternative way of deriving the evidence that is remotely as rigorous as what we have now.

next - yes, correct I'm rejecting the consensus, it's not science, OK. A consensus is a political vehicle, not a scientific one.

The IPCC output is an averaged view extracted by a few people, to create a bite sized report for governments and laymen, the IPCC report is not science, it is a report on science.

It is obviously acceptable to you, but not to me or other skeptics, I'm an engineer and deal with facts not group think or peer pressure to believe something.

The central tenet to the skeptics view is exactly as I have described, and as others constantly do, if you don't understand it, it's not my problem.

You're spending too much time on the believeosphere with their circular and tricky arguments to accept the view of the majority as science, it is not. Do some thinking for yourself as you clearly do not understand which is why you're taking up residence in such sites.

Your post makes little sense, you asked me for a reason, I gave it to you and now you say it's not the reason, or the reason isn't good enough. That's the basis of my skepticism, get some facts and I'll be convinced.

I'll not be bullied though by a consensus, name calling, references to authority, gobbledegook or supposed conspiracy accusations.

Get the facts, get EVIDENCE, not models, not coincidences, not vague statements like "the probability is 90%" (Patchauri, a railway engineer) it might not be 90% as well.

"The proposition that doubling CO2 levels will lead to substantial (ie 3-5 Deg C) warming is not proven. Most would accept around 1 deg C (ignoring for the moment the logarithmic decay effect), but higher levels depend on unproven assumptions re positive feedback effects."

I would have thought that the obvious real example was that of Venus, which absorbs less solar radiation than Earth, yet has a uniform surface temperature of 450 Celsius. To put the comment into context, Earth's atmosphere would have as much CO2 as Venus with 18 doublings, whereas by the above reasoning we might only suspect a warming of about 18 Celsius with such an increase. So to refer to warming greater that 1 Celsius per CO2 doubling is clearly nonsense. And even if you didnt want to think about Venus (believe me, most sceptics dont), there is also the paeleological evidence, which would tend to suggest a warming of 2 to 3 Celsius for a doubling of CO2.

One question I have for the sceptics is what harm can come from the development of CO2 reducing technology such as recycling of organic waste into nutrients and biofuels, cheaper solar cells, safer and more efficient nuclear power, and better batteries?

Odo, the trick to denialism is staying right on the borderline of credibility so that lazy people won't question your statements. By claiming “skeptics are not being organised and funded to be skeptical”, you crossed the borderline and ran naked into the land of absurdity.

Fair suck of the sav, though. You cite for me five scientifically qualified “sceptics” that you think aren’t funded by or aligned with polluting industries, and I reckon I can demonstrate that they are.

Atman, if my questions are reasonable, why did the "sceptics" only attempt to answer one of them? Let's see how you went.

I didn’t read the first article. If that seems unfair, I promise I will if the other “sceptics” in this thread vouch for its credibility.

Atman's source is people who believe that the British Royal Family are drug runners who secretly control the world. No joke. That’s what they believe. Read all about it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Views_of_Lyndon_LaRouche_and_the_LaRouche_movement

Will Atman’s fellow "sceptics" back him up? Do you consider the LaRouchians a reliable source of information? If so, I’ll give him a serious response.

Then we have seeker401. Oh, my…

Did you read about the “on-going set of face-to-face meetings between U.S. military officials and extraterrestrial life”? Apparently, “the contact involves extraterrestrial groups known as Reptilians, and a silicon based life form dubbed ‘the Conformers’… {and} Ebens from the Zeta Reticuli star system, but known colloquially as the Grays.”

So, Atman’s source on this one asserts that the moon landing was faked, military officials regularly meet with extraterrestrials, George Bush engineered 9/11, and Freemasons are hiding Jesus' tomb.

Who needs peer review with this guy around?

Next up, an interesting article about a man who claims, without any supporting evidence, to have influence on the UN’s climate change policy.

Third link is meaningless. Please direct us to evidence of wrongdoing, not a simple insinuation that informal conversations equal global conspiracy.

Next…unsubstantiated statements about share portfolios and an appeal to the authority of – get this – Lord Christopher “people with HIV should be imprisoned” Monckton, and our very own Senator Steve Fielding.

>>>

<<<

You know an international news organisation is on the ball when it rests a case on an unknown Senator from Australia whose voters are outnumbered by Jedi.

None of those links questions the qualifications of IPCC scientists. Maybe you’re thinking of the anti-AGW petitions which are full of dead people, homeopaths, masseurs and scientists who never signed.

Similarly, none of the links explains how the IPCC scientists benefit from a hoax. AGW isn't an issue because a handful of rich people say it is, but because it's backed by solid data.

Any research scientist could double their income by working on the industry Astroturf, and imagine the coup! It would be front page news. Any purely self-interested researcher would have jumped ship ages ago to get those yummy petro-dollars. Can you give any explanation why supposedly mercenary scientists haven't done that?

Interesting that none of the "sceptics" have had a go at my other two questions. I'll try again:

B) Where is the fraud in the CRU emails? Where is the tampering with results?

C) Where have the "sceptics" been for the last fifty years? Where was the mass movement against climate science before it became political? What other scientific discoveries have OLO's inactivists railed against?

After lives spent accepting and defending the scientific process, enjoying the benefits of research and discovery, never questioning the peer-review process or the quality of data, these people want to be regarded as shrewd, evidence-based critics because the industry lobby has built a Right-wing bandwagon to jump on. Entirely unconvincing.

I'd particularly like rpg to try. Having claimed to be an engineer who deals "with facts not group think or peer pressure to believe something", please tell us what else you've been sceptical about, and link us to some of your criticisms of the scientific process outside climate science.

BTW, I particularly liked the claim of engineering qualifications as a basis for authority, followed by a dismissal of Patchauri because he's merely an engineer.

next,

you want the killer evidence against AGW.

1. We now know that the IPCC process was hijacked by Phil Jones and the gang at the CRU, who refused to hand over their data or the rationale for their ever-upward adjustments of data (and possibly deleted it to prevent potential critics from invalidating it).

We know they cherry-picked data, suborned inferior journalists, conspired to subvert the peer review process and prevent publication of contrary research. Gutless and pathetic, certainly, and possibly fraudulent.

James Hansen, whom Andy regards as an authority, seems to have been doing similar things at NASA's GISS. So the two main datasets are compromised beyond recovery.

Even if you were foolish enough to believe that it is possible to model our extremely complex climate when many major elements of the climate process are are simply unknown, you have now on the basis of Climategate to admit the models are themselves not worth a pinch because they were fed dud data. Garbage in, garbage out.

2. But all of the major models (the ones produced by AGW believers) agree that if human carbon dioxide emissions are driving global warming there should be a hot spot about 8-12 kilometres above the tropics.

The killer evidence? It ain't there. They've searched for years. Hoist on their own petard.

Here's a summary of the logic: http://joannenova.com.au/2010/01/is-there-any-evidence/

And here's a detailed synopsis of the full Climategate catastrophe:
http://joannenova.com.au/2009/12/climategate-30-years-in-the-making/

Kenhd. All discredited crap! The absence of your precious redspot can be explained by the first law of thermodynamics; in layman's terms, the cooling troposphere is consistent with warming below, which is contained or insulated by increased ghg's. The heat is increasingly contained rather than escaping to warm the troposphere. The missing redspot is in fact a signature of GW!
No one denies the complexity of climate change modelling, and no one claims to know how things will pan out, but science is based on evidence and inference--sufficient of the former to validate the latter. And we have it in spades that AGW is a dire reality.
All the crap you and your motley crew can gather up (there's nothing that stands up) is mere obfuscation, but the wasted time might be crucial.
So, what if you're wrong? Is that a possibility for you lot? If it is, it's stiff sh!t I suppose?
If the other side is wrong, despite mountains of evidence, we'll end up with a cleaner planet!
In anticipation of the response; shove it where the sun don't shine!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPA-8A4zf2c

Hey! Anybody notice that Andrew Glikson is developing a modus operandi of throwing a turd on the table, but then never responding to points raised by blog participants? He may think that he doesn't need to respond. However, it is evident that his failure to engage does nothing for his cause, and exposes his weak arguments.

Sancho
Here are others saying exactly the SAME thing from reputable sources which won't cause you to get all hot and bothered.

Some of your complaints don't even apply to my post. Not sure where you were surfing. I'm sure you were just a little confused.

There were four links only:

1. Al Gore's Carbon Trading
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/6491195/Al-Gore-could-become-worlds-first-carbon-billionaire.html

2.I see you simply ignored the Wall Street Journal reference link re Maurice Strong.

3. Another Rothschild link for you saying exactly the same thing.
http://www.prnewswire.co.uk/cgi/news/release?id=90090

4. I see you simply ignored the information about Pachauri link.

You got obsessed with the links rather than the facts. Any complaints about these links?

You seem to think its OK that the Leading IPCC Climate Scientist has no relevant related qualifications. Being a Railway Engineer is probably about the standard you will accept to back up your AGW ideas.

Re CRU emails. I'm concerned you failed to read them on the net and that I would have to post them here but here is the exact mathematical equation with FUDGE FACTOR actually written in.

yrloc=[1400,findgen(19)*5.+1904]

valadj=[0.,0.,0.,0.,0.,-0.1,-0.25,-0.3,0.,-0.1,0.3,0.8,1.2,1.7,2.5,2.6,2.6,2.6,2.6,2.6]*0.75 ; fudge factor

Now is that CLEAR enough? FUDGE FACTOR.. do you see it?

I can't wait for your reply. I wonder how many of your AGW friends here believe that multiplying answers by 3/4 is real science like you do?

Your question about where have the skeptics been for the last 50 yrs makes no sense. Scientists have been protesting about this nonsense for a very long time but you have not researched it. They even protested when Al Gore tried the Global Cooling scam in the 70's which also failed.

Bigmal, excellent post,

"I have acquaintances [warmists] outside OLO who are loons of the same ilk. With your permission I'll cut and paste your comments above and make epistles of them, however futile."

Ken H Good post.

But not having the evidence is no problem for these guys, they'll just make it up!

Here is what one of these Scientists said:

"[We] have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified dramatic statements and make little mention of any doubts we may have. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest." -Dr. Stephen Schneider quoted by Dixy Lee Ray in Trashing the Planet (1990)

Schneider is one of the leading IPCC scientists, who by the way, used to believe in Global Cooling.

Sancho “So, in the battle of climatology versus big industry, who is the science-wielding Galileo and who is the power-grasping church?”

Actually I see little real “science” in “the collective theories of climatology”

the Catholic Church declared, 450 or so years ago, their omnipotent pet beliefs on an unsuspecting – but more gullible – world

Now, I see a lot of pseudo scientific egos pushing their own omnipotent pet beliefs upon an unsuspecting but less gullible world…

As someone who has spent 30+ years working in the area of forecasting and who has developed a range of different computer based models and applications and currently sells a bespoke process for select businesses to help them predict their own outcomes:

1 I know the effect of crap data – either inadequate, misunderstood, falsely signified etc

2 the basic rules of GIGO – in chronological modelling, in any media, if you cannot duplicate what historically happened, you cannot predict what might possibly be

and lets face it the cause of climatology is littered with the wrecks of modellers who had their throats cut with Occams razor

again statistics provides every basis for climatologists to prove probabilities, yet they don’t. the adopt a hypothesis and ignore the probabilities. Claiming a “probability” without quantifying its likelihood and even ignoring resultant null hypotheses.

So in the absence of scientific data I have my own hypothesis

That having failed to impose their bastardry, with the collapse of USSR

The collectivists

Having infiltrated the environmental movement

Are now intent on perverting the political systems and executing their goals, motivated by small minded envy and hatred of those who "achieve" by their own efforts-

Demanding increases in costs of services (ETS) and increasing taxes to fund stupid investments in sub-economic “Green Technologies” implements what Lenin described as follows

“The way to crush the bourgeoisie is to grind them between the millstones of taxation and inflation.”

So all this crap is just

Socialism (Collectivism) by Stealth

That’s my hypothesis

I am happy for any AGW climatologist or any other of Lenin’s “Useful Idiots”, like Sancho, to challenge it.

There is always Venus as a real example of the warming capability of CO2, Col. Not a computer model, no complex algorithms to recreate the climatic conditions, but a real system to observe. Venus absorbs less radiation from the Sun than does the Earth, yet its surface is uniformly >460 Celsius; hot enough to melt lead, or about 450 Celsius warmer than the average temperature of the Earth. It would seem to cast doubt on the idea of CO2 sensitivity being less than 1 Celsius, as with 18 doublings of CO2, Earth would have as much CO2 as Venus; yet the sceptics might expect a warming of less than 18 Celsius. I can see why the sceptics dont like Venus. In my searches of sceptic sites I have found little mention of Venus other than false statements about why it is so warm, and advice to the faithful that Venus is irrelevant as global warming is about Earth. Why should Venus be irrelevant other than for the inconvenient fact that it shows that CO2 is very good at warming a planet?

I'm also curious about the sceptical take of the paeleogical record. The Carboniferous Period had temperatures some 5 to 7 Celsius higher with a CO2 concentration of about 1500 to 2000 ppm. This evidence makes me think that a CO2 sensitivity of 2 to 3 Celsius is more likely. Do the sceptics think this evidence, also free of complex computer modelling, to be of no relevance either?

sancho skeptics have to be of a particular qualification now, and be able to demonstrate previous skepticism? So if you were ever skeptical about something, but kept it to yourself, how would you put that in your resume to Sancho's mind control police, presumably so Sancho can reluctantly accept you might be skeptical? This appears to be anti-science, or Luddite in application?

Truely delusional, if you think that only people who are paid by whoever is your conspirator, can be a skeptic? It would keep those danged skeptics to a minimum though, and I'm sure (your version of) science would only benefit, surely?

What about a nurse or doctor who is a skeptic they are scientifically qualified. What if you're a kid at school, can you be skeptical? A friend works for CSIRO as a food scientist, she is very qualified, PHds and all, and a skeptic - do you reckon you could show how she is paid by "polluting industries"? LOL

You have become absurd Sancho, not the people you are flaming, you are upset, need some remedial anger management services, have clearly gone over the edge, get help.

BTW - Patchauri as an engineer, should not be accepting 90% as good enough, certainly it is not good enough for bridge building or ship building.

There is some great frothing at the mouth (holy) rants in this forum, you go away for a couple of weeks thinking all is quiet and come back to this.

It seems to me that in many cases the denial is a function of fear, of change, of loss .

Some chant mind numbing droning mantras like 'socialism/collectivism by stealth' in awe of a long discredited system. Then waxing moronic to its arch demoness as though somehow this will make the observable go away.

Then there's professional sceptic who by means of unrealistic expectations of science obfuscates. By insisting the Hypothesis be 'absolute', failing that the hypothesis is rendered absolutely wrong (sic).

Most science today honours the law of Modern day Complexity (the Windows principal). Which is as follows:-
- Absolute simplicity = Null, therefore can not exist in reality.

- Occam's razor is a relative position.

- The more complex a topic is the less likely an absolute answer will be derived.

e.g. Windows as released has millions of lines of code.Given the financial, time and human constraints,it is reasonably expected that there will be many errors of all types, could have been betters and the unpredicted.

Despite it's less that Absolutely correctness/perfection it is still released as it is a functionally useful program. If this wasn't so there would be no need for updates, bug fixes, releases or maintenance.

People would consider dismissing/eliminating the product once these flaws have been found because by and large the product matches many of the needs (within tolerance).

Why then do people allow the professional 'sceptics' to discredit a hypothesis that is orders of magnitude more complex than windows because of some flaws and educated approximations.

AGW as a working hypothesis has coherent science, being tweaked by the ever increasingly reliable measurement data sets and most importantly, explains the observable 'symptoms'. In favour of what?

Ignoring reality or a geological alternative (sic) that is predicated on eons/eras rather than decades or centuries. No precise science and doesn't explain the observable symptoms and the probable consequences.

The IPCC report was written for politicians not scientists. However, it does consider the above law of complexity,with it's range of probabilities to possibilities.
There are no complex hypotheses that are Absolute.

Really, Col? Multi-billion dollar corporations using their politcal and financial clout to protect themselves by attacking scientists and data makes them the Galileo of this story? Poor Galileo.

That's right, Atman. I'm dismissing your sources on the basis of their insanity. To be fair, climate change denialism belongs in seeker401's territory, along with the alien overlords and Freemason cabal. Surely you understand that when individuals or groups constantly espouse the nuttiest ideas available, it becomes impossible to take anything they say seriously.

I didn't ignore the Strong article, it's just empty: "an interesting article about a man who claims, without any supporting evidence, to have influence on the UN’s climate change policy."

You've completely ignored my question: what does the profiteering of powerful people have to do with the scientific findings of thousand of scientists? And I'd say you're as much a mathematician as I am: http://www.jgc.org/blog/2009/11/very-artificial-correction-flap-looks.html

Sounds like one of those conspiracies you have to believe in before long before it's believable.

We're still waiting for any evidence of this groundswell of opposition to climate science before it became politicised. You'd think someone - say, the global media - would have noticed thousands of people objecting to it, and yet they didn't. Can you explain why this mass movement went unnoticed?

Also missing are the links and explanations of previous scientific findings you've criticised. Obviously, as rationalists you must do so regularly, otherwise we'd have to conclude that you blindly consumed the fruits of science in every other field for decades, then latched onto denialism when it became fashionable.

Just to clarify, Col, your hypothesis seems to be "The science of climate change is accepted by environmentalists and Margaret Thatcher, therefore communist conspiracy".

You're right. I don't know how to challenge that. It's just too seamlessly perfect to fault.

Horus, re Knorr’s recent paper.

As Knorr points out, approximately 43% of our CO2 emissions stay in the atmosphere (with the rest being absorbed by carbon sinks, primarily the oceans and the terrestrial biosphere). But, this is not new (although listening to the ‘deny-n-delay’ camp you would think otherwise).

Indeed, the IPCC’s 2007 report said:

“There is yet no statistically significant trend in the CO2 growth rate since 1958 .... This 'airborne fraction' has shown little variation over this period …”

Honestly, I don’t know what you (or Herbert) are getting all excited about.

Ok, Knorr takes it back further, and this is good work. However, neither he, nor any other ‘climate scientist’, disputes the fact that human induced CO2 emissions are increasing, CO2 concentration in the atmosphere is increasing, and that CO2 contributes (some say very significantly) to our current global warming. So much so that the vast body of experts, scientific academies and institutions, the world’s countries and captains of industry think that AGW poses a very real risk and that we should do something about it.

Ok, the politicians are arguing about how to deal with it and when … but, they are not arguing the science.

Yes, there is debate within the scientific community (about the degree of attribution and about the degree of temperature change per doubling of [CO2], for example) but that does not mean that just because the ‘denialosphere’ jump on or trumpet one paper, AGW is consigned to another conspiracy theory, really.

Sheesh, for every one paper that people like Anthony Watt purports to put a nail in the coffin of AGW (Knorr’s doesn’t), there are a hundred that makes AGW more robust.

Here is a link to Knorr’s full paper.

http://radioviceonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/knorr2009_co2_sequestration.pdf

There really was no need to misinterpret the abstract, maybe the full paper makes it clearer.

rpg

<< "Some denialists are fraudulently fabricating data and numbers" where did that come from? You made it up to make your point since you position is so weak. >>

I think he is referring to the recent fraudulent conduct carried out by the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition – a group of global warming sceptics who themselves got caught tampering with the data for NZ. They made the NZ warming trend ‘go away’. The NZCSC did this by treating measurements from different sites as if they came from the same site. They also claimed that New Zealand’s National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research wouldn’t explain how they adjust the data for site changes. That is simply untrue, another lie, rpg.

Or rpg, he may be referring to another story running around the ‘denialosphere’ … one based on a right-wing Moscow think tank (Institute of Economic Analysis) ‘revelation’. The IEA were trying to make a claim against AGW before Copenhagen (like the NZCSC) and it was they themselves who tampered with the CRU data-set for there own ends.

rpg, you go on to accuse the author of dishonesty:

<< you (Andy1) are a dishonest person and your posts on top of this article to (sic) nothing to change that, in fact your posts underline your inherent dishonesty. >>

Graham Young has accused me of the same thing.

However, when I have the audacity to challenge him – I am threatened with suspension and a “bounce” if ever I accuse another poster of being dishonest.

I see it’s one rule for OLO ‘deniers’ (and those that concur with OLO’s chief editor/moderator’s opinions) and those that have an alternate opinion.

The author (to his credit) replies to comments about his article – however, given comments like yours, I would not be surprised if he just walked away from this anti-science opinion site, imo.

"given comments like yours, I would not be surprised if he just walked away from this anti-science opinion site, imo."

It's been done before: http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=7580

"I see it’s one rule for OLO ‘deniers’ (and those that concur with OLO’s chief editor/moderator’s opinions) and those that have an alternate opinion."

You'll also find you can't open threads which are too critical of Malcolm Turnbull, because he and his wife have veto over articles and opinions here: http://www.theage.com.au/national/net-journal-cans-turnbull-story-20090715-dli5.html

Q&A

I think you get plenty of leniency on this site. I would suggest that if you and others were to make similar comments on other sites, you would be quickly expelled from them.

But is it of any use to abuse the sceptics? I think that it only draws attention away from the evidence that the sceptics rely on. A case in point was the recent Plimer vs Monbiot spat, where Plimer's strategy seemed to be one of evading any question to cite evidence for his claims, instead frequently citing climategate and complaining about Monbiot's rudeness. I thought that Plimer was looking for any opportunity not to discuss his evidence.

Sancho - You're an avoider of the first order, choosing to ignore relevant articles with links to a UK daily newspaper because you didn't like an earlier link. A bit childish really.

You still, after the third attempt, have not responded to the Pachauri link. Your Head IPCC Climate Scientist (as reported by the BBC) is a Railway Engineer with some economics quals - no climate quals at all. I guess that one's got you completely stumped.

You said "You've completely ignored my question: what does the profiteering of powerful people have to do with the scientific findings of thousand of scientists?"

Your question has been answered on a number of occasions but here we go again. If you spent time to read the earlier posts you would realise that there were NOT thousands of scientists as quoted by the IPCC.

Its actually quite bizarre that you can't see the connection between Al Gore's and others profiteering (which you at least admit) and IPCC climate exaggerations. Hint: Many of the major proponents of the theory have a financial interest in the outcome. The UN IPCC only funded Scientists who believed in AGW and not those who didn't. Again see the Pachauri link.

You said: "And I'd say you're as much a mathematician as I am"

No, in fact its clear you don't understand the fudge factor equation and provide a very strange link to some guy who you think agrees with you.

Its you who has to justify why you believe in this crazy theory so facts and logic would be greatly appreciated.

Q&A people get accused of a lot of things on this site, they are also lambasted and flamed constantly, you yourself are famous for name calling and snide comments, often unsubstantiated. So if you were challenged on a point of dishonesty, it must have been a doozy as you do get lots of bandwidth here for your intolerance, as do others, myself included of course.

So don't come the crying princess with tattle tales, it's out of character.

It's often a robust exchange here, not a debate at all, certainly there is no time or space for genuine discussions on science.

It's an opinion site, but I see some folks explode into demands of proof of anyone's opinion they don't care for, (Sancho is but one of these) You don't answer to me, nor I to you.

Andy1's comment in CAPS, "THE KEY QUESTION IS WHETHER DANGEROUS CLIMATE CHANGE IS HAPPENING OR NOT."

That is clearly a corruption of the truth. The key question remains, is man contributing to climate change and if so, how much, this is yet another attempt to pervert the debate and assumptively close any objection.

The following statements I referred to have not been answered, nor do I expect them to be, that's his call, he can respond, or not, to my opinion.

Whether he takes your hint and takes his bat and ball, as Sancho refers "It's been done before", and goes away from the playing field is his call, he may be made of sterner stuff than you though. I do see though that if he did you would be pleased by the drama it might create, and you could then harp that the skeptics, or as you continue to insultingly refer to skeptics, DENIERS, are to blame.

What a little game you play, little man.

Q & A,

You’re trying to sell us a pup –and a mongrel one at that.

The AGW charge :
--“Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice and rising global average sea level’ [ IPCC Climate Change 2007:Synthesis Report]
--- “The climate change initially triggered by CO2 emissions in the 20th and 21st centuries will be irreversible for at least 1,000 years” [Solomon et al. 2009 cited by Will Steffen : Climate Change 2009]
It’s pretty clear they’re fingering atmospheric Co2 for the warming.

On the other hand, Knorr has found: “The hypothesis of a recent or secular trend in the AF cannot be supported on the basis of the available data and its accuracy.” “ No Rise of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Fraction”

You fudge trying to make it appear such findings are as expected --but that’s demonstrably false.
“Le Que´re´ et al., 2007 ” (Andy1’s favoured source) expected an increase.
Even Knorr --trying to stay on side with the AGW inquisitors -- allows for future increases
But there’s been “NO RISE ” .

And what’s more ---even when the largest sink, the oceans’, uptake have diminished : “The fraction taken up by the oceanic sink, on the other hand, has shown a significant downward trend over the past 40 years, from absorbing about 32% of anthropogenic emissions in 1960 to about 26% now.” [Canadell et al. 2007] . there has been: “ NO RISE of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Fraction”

Where is your , linkage, between temperate rise and Co2 ?

You say: we’ve “got a real risk in [ climate change ] that we should do something about”
Reduce pollution, reduce waste, grow trees, development alternative energy – go for it!
But your mobs most notable achievement to date has been to issue blackmail letters to one half of the world, and tell the other half all they need do is wait for their cheques to roll in (when they’re not making babies

Horus

The 'airborne fraction' (AF) has shown little variation over this period …”

You obviously have trouble understanding that statement

Q & A

OK, how about you explain it all to me.

Please use simple language , so lesser mortals like me can "understand".

Pontificator “Most science today honours the law of Modern day…..

- The more complex a topic is the less likely an absolute answer will be derived.”


Ah yes, some things are so complex no rules can be applied

They are reduced to what amounts to “subjective judgement”

In educated circles such studies are called “the Arts”, so no one will confuse them with “Science”

Thus climatology owes as much to "science" as does to preferences of Picasso versus Chagall or Boticelli

And all that confirms my view

AGW / GW is not “science”

It is nothing more than a bunch of subjective opinions, held by some folk who also happen to have qualifications in the so called "scientific" disciplines.

As such, the notion of “climatology” and theories associated under its “political” banner have no more validity than

my assertion that the whole scam is the product of politically motivated “collectivists” attempting to impose

Socialism by Stealth.

And finally “Occam's razor is a relative position.”

Oh yes but "Occams Razor" is relative to…

what actually happened.

Strangely or not, I find more comfort in basing global theories on processes which can emulate history versus

processes which substitute history with the pure fantasy of some egomaniac scientists hallucinations

and to all those of the elitist lobby of AGW zealots remember, “skeptics” are people with an equal right to hold and express an opinion too,

it is what’s called “democracy

Hilarious, Col, brilliant!

I don't know though, socialism by revolution is more tempting--I mean, cutting off capitalist's heads and all that ... :-)

Shorter Col: "I don't understand science, therefore AGW is Socialism by Stealth".

Squeers, I don't think he was trying to be funny - it's his mantra.