Atman: << There never was any disaster looming, there's plenty of Polar Bears and species are not becoming extinct. The Western world is way less polluted than it ever was. And now everyone knows. >>

I think you need to get real, Atman.

What's happened is that the denialist spin doctors did their job very well, corporate greed and parochial self-interest prevailed at Copenhagen, and the denialosphere has gone into an orgy of short-lived self-congratulatory ecstasy.

Meanwhile, AGW continues unchecked, species continue to die out, and the industrial world continues to emit greenhouse gases more than they ever did. As everyone who's not in denial knows.

"...species continue to die out..."

Which ones, exactly?

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/01/04/where-are-the-corpses/

Where Are The Corpses? 4 01 2010

Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach

Abstract

The record of continental (as opposed to island) bird and mammal extinctions in the last five centuries was analyzed to determine if the “species-area” relationship actually works to predict extinctions. Very few continental birds or mammals are recorded as having gone extinct, and none have gone extinct from habitat reduction alone. No continental forest bird or mammal is recorded as having gone extinct from any cause.

Ludwig, you hit the nail on the head, there is much confusion and contradiction from both sides of the debate. Could be that “for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction”. Skeptism, for so long abused, trivialized and suppressed is perhaps, now venting its spleen.

Even this article from Gilling/Muscat tries to merge the issues of “climate change” and “AGW”.

Today’s The Australian quotes the UK’s chief scientist, John Beddington, endorsed by our own chief scientist Penny Sackett, as referring only to “climate change” and not AGW.

This is an interesting shift and merging. I am fully prepared to accept that humans have caused local/regional climate changes. We can point to the Romans clear felling much of the Mediterranean 2,000 years ago and the Chinese clear felling what is now North Vietnam in the 13th century to build their “treasure fleets”. Local climates were changed.

Climate change is positively not what is being sold by the IPCC.

What is being sold is “global warming caused by human carbon emissions”. The political “sleaze” in linking something many skeptics could accept, with something skeptics will not accept, is straight out of “yes minister”.

Interestingly, the thrust of Beddington’s article is to implore scientists to “be truthful” and not to “exaggerate” claims. Astonishingly, he then goes on to refer to the IPCC’s science as? Yes, you guessed it, 90% certain. Oh dear.

Is this astonishing duplicity? Well yes and no. From a scientific perspective it’s now seen as utter rubbish however, from a political perspective it’s a perfect fit. The public is being “played with”. We are “ignorant”, “flat earthers” for being skeptical of their science. For politicians (and the MSM) who have invested so much personal credibility in AGW, the desperate search for a graceful “exit plan” is on.

That plan, as always, will be about “holding this policy until it no longer serves me”, thus providing stalling tactics and obfuscation. This is followed by the “laying of blame” and if that fails “I will take down with me, the people who left me out on a limb”.

Having listened and read about both sides of the debate,it seems to me that there are a lot of "experts" who have their facts from a lot of information that could be unreliable.But tending to lean towards the scientific majority that says we humans are causing global warming to some extent at least.I consider that as every person on the planet bears some equal responsibility, fairness dictates that the extent of amelioration that each country should bear should be based on their population.The family of Nations at Copenhagan was not able to sit at the table and share the meal of goodies and share equally in the washing-up and other chores.

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This issue won't go away because the planet keeps getting warmer. The institutions that study climate continue to conclude that it's real, ongoing and not going away. That it looks to be hard and expensive to take effective action doesn't diminish the very high, verging on cetain likelihood that failure to deal with AGW will be much harder and much more expensive. The inability of our political institutions to deal effectively with what their scientific advice tell them about climate isn't surprising. Nor their capacity to put off hard long term decisions for short term expediency. But we allow them to do so at the peril of our and our descendents prosperity and security

Diploman, Ken, until the Bureau & the CSIRO publish a fully detailed explanation of their reasons for "correcting" upwards, the raw temperature readings in much of Oz, [for example Darwin corrected upwards by 2 C when the raw reading has not changed in 100 years], there is no chance I would be silly enough to believe a word they utter.

With more of the details of all the tricks these so called "Scientists" have used, being revealed every day, I find it hard to believe any thinking person, who was not a fellow traveller, could do otherwise.