At a guess, I'd say this Adi Da character probably needs treatment for schizophrenia or at least to get back on his medication.

If he actually has a following, they'll probably all end up drinking Kool Aid in some jungle camp.

The world has had a long history of mystics who claimed universal knowledge and wisdom. Fortunately, we've managed to get along without them.

There's a good chance we will fail to deal with climate change. The mess we'll end up in won't be because climate scientists have decieved us, it'll be because so many people are so willing to believe that. Despite the fact that the best arguments deniers have are that a hot spike in a solid long term warming trend shows the world is cooling - utter nonsense - and that scientists are engaged in some kind of grand conspiracy - more nonsense. It's clear that they need to make up for lack of scientific substance with accusations and noise. As governments edge closer to taking real action the noise will only get louder.

I'll take my climate science off the institutions that study climate - as do most of the world's governments - even when their actual policies are more about doing the least they can do whilst not upsetting the entrenched status-quo and vested interests that have cash flows that make all the world's scientific funding look like pocket change.

Climate change since the 18th century is represented by a rise of the mean global temperature by about 0.8oC, with an additional 0.5oC currently masked by emitted sulphur aerosols, which increases the albedo of the atmosphere in the short term.

Mean temperature rises in the Arctic and Antarctic polar regions, about 3 to 4 times higher than the global average, result in high rates of ice melt, which threatens the sources of cold ocean currents and cold air vortices which cool and introduce precipitation to mid-latitude regions, including Australia.

The rise of CO2 from 280 parts per million, the normal level of the interglacial period, to 388 ppm, and of total CO2 and methane to a CO2-equivalent of 460 ppm, is tracking toward the upper stability limit of the Antarctic ice sheet, defined at about 500 ppm

The current rise of CO2 at a rate 2 ppm per year is unprecedented since 55 million years ago, a time when large scale release of methane resulted in a major greenhouse event and mass extinction of species.

Climate change is a direct result of the emission of more than 320 billion tons of carbon (BtC) as CO2 since the 18th century, more than half the previous concentration of the gas in the atmosphere in pre-industrial times. About 200 BtC stay in the atmosphere.

A major danger is represented by the potential large scale release of methane, hundreds of BtC of which locked in permafrost and sediments in the Arctic circle and surrounds may be destabilized as the polar regions warm.

Major consequences of climate change include migration of climate zones toward the poles, with attendant long-term droughts, extreme weather events and ocean acidification which, combined with warming oceans, threaten the marine food chain and reefs, including the Great Barrier Reef.

Lost all too often in the climate debate is an appreciation of the delicate balance between the physical and chemical state of the atmosphere-ocean-land system and natural habitats, which controls the emergence, survival and demise of species, including humans.

Human agriculture could only develop in river valleys from about 7000 years ago, when the climate stabilized and a balance was achieved between mountain glaciers and the monsoons, allowing near-constant river flow and thereby irrigation. A rise in mean global temperature results in melting of the mountain glaciers, such as in the Himalaya, disrupting the great rivers of south and southeast Asia and the cultivation on which the lives of hundreds of millions of people depends.

While decade-long climate trends manifest global warming, superposition by the El Nino – La-Nina cycle and the 11 years-long sunspot cycle results in a zigzag upward trend. As the globe warms and the energy levels of the atmosphere and the increase, the amplitude of climate variability is increasing. Following steep mean global warming by about 0.45oC from 1975 to 1997, a major El-Nino peak in 1998 drove mean global temperature upward by another 0.2oC. Following this peak temperature continued to rise by about 0.2oC between 1999 and 2005, followed during 2007-2008 by a strong La-Nina phase which brought temperatures down by about 0.4-0.5oC. Currently temperatures are rising, heralding a new El-Nino phase.

As distinct from changes in the weather, which can vary sharply by tens of degrees over short periods, a medium to long term upward trend of mean global temperatures by several degrees Celsius results in progressive shift in climate zones toward the poles. This ensues in drying of the mid-latitudes, such as southeast and southwest Australia, sea level rise, ocean acidification and intensification of extreme weather events, including floods and fires.

Andy has recycled his dreary post from 5 December.

Andy, given Climategate, there's no point in defending the anthropogenic-CO2-causes-global-warming bag, because the bag is empty and that cat has left.

Global cooling is real, Andy. Since about 2001, anyway.

The only chip the warmers have got to play is whether the CRU and GISS gang will come clean and explain how and why the raw data was adjusted. Oh, and hand over the raw data for real scientists to check.

The UEA CRU and NASA GISS guys are in an interesting position: continue to refuse to hand over the raw data and their explanation of how and why data were adjusted and they have no credibility; hand it over and they may have no jobs.

Apart from adjusted data, Andy, what have you got? Theories? Computer models? Hide the decline?

Snap out of it, Andy. You'll just have to go look for a new area of interest before you write your next grant application. Best be quick and avoid the rush.

"Climatologists say human activity is warming the planet" and ignores the Sun and the regular elliptical orbit of Earth that has for the past many years been bringing Earth closer to the heat and for the next many years further away. The NASA Earth satellite currently orbiting the poles has detected huge snow deposition in the Arctiv which might well be so if the current weather in the North is an indication. However,rising affluence of the poorer nations, and demands on the World resources from the extra 2.8 billion souls in the next 40 years ( U.N. figures), an increase of one third, will have a much greater impact,the potential of which has yet to be imagined. As an engineering thinker and amateur plantsman, increasing the CO2 in a closed environment rapidly increases plant growth. What difference is this mini environment to the atmospheric mantle protecting the Earth? If scientists and climatologists have shown that atmospheric CO2 has reached such alarming levels (but have they?) then my tomatoes should be size of footballs. More so when Mt. Mayon is spewing its pyroclastics and gases into the mantle for weeks and the bushfires adding a great deal more. So where does that leave the science?