The basic argument in the climate change debate boils down to whether you believe that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas.
Carbon dioxide in our atmosphere has the effect of absorbing radiant heat from the ground and warming the air thus allowing us to live. This is the basic science of atmospherics and climate and if you accept it as true then you must believe that climate change is happening or will happen. The rise in carbon dioxide in the past century or two is well documented and if it is a greenhouse gas then there is only one logical conclusion to make and that is that a rise will warm the planet.

How do the sceptics get around this? Do they not agree carbon dioxide works as a greenhouse gas the way climate scientists say it does? It is a long held theory that has been accepted for a long long time now. Do they find some mitigation to all the extra carbon dioxide in the atmosphere now? Some sink or counterbalance maybe? All I have seen from them lately is strange talk of sunspots and a few arguments that recent years have been cooler than 1989. Where is their scientific rebuttal of the basics behind why scientists think there will be global warming?

Mikk,

The problem with Anthropomorphic Global Climate Change is that it can't be boiled down to one issue i.e. CO2. Although some skeptics claim that CO2 is natural therefore natural is only partially true.

The truth is the issue is far more complex. One has to take into account a whole raft of issues they include deforestation, pollution levels. Not only In the atmosphere but where abouts in the atmosphere. Both in a height and in what part of the globe. To mention a few of the factors involved.

It is IMHO the this all becomes a problem because of issues like human nature and vested interests and to quote from a 60's song "many can't hear because they have beens in their ears" (have beens, living by past examples) things/scientific knowledge has changed but many find it difficult to acknowledge that what was once known has a sting in the tail (a yes but). e.g. powered flight was once considered impossible.
Quantum physics challenges Newtonian physics ad nauseum

mikk/you have simplfied the issue so clearly[...lol..]..simplisticly comes to mind..[yep its a greenhouse gas..[but so is the methane comming from your rectum..and your compost heap..[and that chemical used to clean the solar-cells..on your tinfoil hat/roof]

[that latent heat..came from the sun..[before the co2 could''..warm the air allowing us to live'''[get it...[the sun is the heat-SOURCE[the co2 the vector..that transmits it..[in part]into the air..[im sure other gasses also do their bit..

[but often you global/hollowcost..prophits of doom..love the kiss principle..thinking ..to keep it simple..for us ignorants..but in reality dumbing it down so much..as to be revealed to be absurd

but here is a thing..for your simple-mind..[get some dry-ice..[pure co2]..and let it mist in a bowl..[notice the mist flows over the edge[and crawel's accros the floor..[mate thats because the 2 oxigen molicules are joined to a carbon molicule's..[making co2/heavier than air..[ie its too heavy to float..up into the sky]

but..while you got your co2..in the bowl..blow some bubbles onto the dry ice bed..[see how the bubble FLOATS on top of the co2 mist?..[go figure eh..[who would have thunk it]..co2 is heavier than air..[thus cant ever go into the atmosphere..[unlike your compost bins methane]

but what am i explaining things/to one as clever as you...[mate just stop breathing so excitedly..[your excited heavey-breathing is putting the whole planet in danger..[your excitment/plus your methane emiting excriment..from your com-post,..reveales the heights of your own short thinking delusions

you want to pay the tax..then go for it..[but mate your not speaking for me..[you think the sky is falling..your found the blame..that leaves you blameless...great one kid..[go study the real science]..

stop listening to those rich guys..[mainly econimists]..in suits,..needing to put the blame/on the people..needing guilt via faulse science..,.to bring in their new guilt/tax..

to allow the commodities/speculators..their new-carbon cash-cow..[for them to buy/sell..[with bonus]..[and set the price of..[so business can sell their..free..credits..govt gifted/extra..carbon-credits..for our cash/tax..

[a compulsory tax..deduction on everything..we buy..for the rest of time,..or untill the climate stops changing..lol]...so they got the cash/to rebuild/their bankrupted in-dust-ry,..build even more poluting industries,..

pretending their capitalistic/model..[deception]..is suss-stain-able[only as long..as we tax-payers subsidise..ever more of its cost,with our tax dollaRS

The most basic of people can see that even with an increase in carbon emissions, temperatures have dropped over the last decade. Until the story tellers can explain that they should shut up and stop making up fairytales.

This argument should be resloved in the next few years.We are in La Nina now,whereby the oceans are said to be absorbing heat energy.When El Nino returns we will some indication of trends.The believers have invested too much credibility and money in this religion to admit any wrong.The energy balances of our planet are extremely complex.We cannot even get our financial systems right,what chance have we of predicting climate change?

Remain sceptical and use your own common sense since there are many interest groups invloved with their own personal agendas.

Mikk's simplistic understanding of the effect of CO2 in the atmosphere highlights how people with almost no science education can be conned.

Mikk obviously honestly believes that they understand the whole theory. Trying to explain the logarithmic nature of radiation absorption by CO2 is unlikely to be terribly effective.

They will not be looking for better information, when they all ready believe they know it all, & telling them they are wrong, or stupid, will not attract them to another point of view.

OK, there's the problem, who's got the answer?

Runner, I'll give you one word- oscillation. Look it up.
A pendulum will swing wider and wider with force applied, in this case, humanities interference with the natural world.

<< OK, there's the problem, who's got the answer? >>

I'll bite:

1. Adapt to climate change (this won't happen over-night)

2. Reduce our dependence on fossil fuels (we will have to anyway)

Not the answer you were looking for, no doubt.

The planet has been much warmer than it is now at times when there was no release of CO2 from industries which did not exist. In those times the planet's population thrived; they had more to eat and they were healthier.

Read Heaven + Earth to see just how we have been conned by scientists and the IPCC.

Is that the same "Heaven & Earth" that's been roundly demolished by scientific reviewers, and for which the author needs to argue for immunity from the process of peer review which underpins the evidence-based science that's made the Western world successful?

On a practical day to day level perhaps you might peruse this web site
The reports are scientifically credible.
http://www.ghfgeneva.org/Default.aspx.

I admit that it's focus is more on others other than good old Aus although we do get a guernsey. It paints a good picture of what IS happening to people NOW. because of AGCC. Not exactly like us but people with similar dreams/hopes and ambitions.
http://www.realclimate.org/ is a web site quote "for climate scientists by climate scientists" their latest is about wind changes and the consequences. well worth a look.

Foxy if you're passing by this would interest you I think.

Hasbeen old mate the answers are there all we need do is implement the more moderate ones. and move from there. No need to go silly and go tribal just yet.
One line of endeavour was a terrific program the other night on ABC/SBS I forget which about plastic. Its history, its uses, the problems it causes, problems with recycling.

Among these were two facts I didn't know small pieces of plastic attract chemical toxicity from the water and when ingested by seafood it concentrates the toxins in the fish and birds .

If we eat the fish we ingest these toxins which accumulate in OUR fat tissues increasing cancer etc.
I recommend searching both sites for the programs well worth the effort.

Most importantly it showed several how companies in countries around the world including here in Aus HAVE INVENTED and are MARKETING some solutions NOW. Clearly what we need to do is encourage, co-ordinate even mandate appropriately.

Organisational theory tells us that the first objective of a business is to survive but I would argue that sometime that means adaptation.

examinator's law of apparent (labour saving) technology states “ the more it labour it eliminates the greater the increase in the need for labour to facilitate it. “

The Luddites were concerned about the 'ginny', the car, the telephone, mobile phone, computers that they would create untold unemployment....but have they? Remember the 'paperless' office? We use more paper now than we did then.

Point made?

I listened to a ABC Radio National podcast over the weekend which was a revelation to me. It was a talk by Paul Gilding on what the next 5 or so decades will look like. This is the first plausible description I have seen of what the medium term future will look like, from anyone.

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/backgroundbriefing/stories/2009/2592909.htm

Paul was a former head of Green Peace, who was then chucked out of the organisation. You can see why when you hear him speak here. He doesn't pander to ideologues from either side of the divide. There is evidently large contingent in Green Peace from the loony left, but Paul is evidently a strong believer in companies and in the capitalist system. He is also a amusing and engaging speaker.

His "givens" are the globe is warming, we are running of oil and other resources, and the earth is over populated. If you are in denial about these things you won't find his talk as inspiring as I did.

"Heaven + Earth" has not been demolished by "scientific" reviewers. The only people who would think that they had 'demolished' it are the climate hysterics who have not used due scientific rigour and peer review to prove their own as yet unproven waffle.

The same people who no longer mention the infamous and thoroughly discredited (by totally independent reviewers) 'hockey stick' diagram which the IPCC used to 'prove' that the most warming in has occurred in the 20th century. This 'proof' came at the totally unscientific expense of leaving out data concerning the Medieaval Warming and the Little Ice Age.

The reviewers had to take legal action to obtain the raw data used by the fraudulent producer (a scientist) of the diagram, so reluctant was he to be proven a fraud.

The 'hockey stick' mysteriously disappeared from the IPCC agenda.

More attention paid to alternative and real scientists would save you from continually making a fool of yourself, Sancho.

Mikk,
There are numerous articles on Wiki about the logarithmic effect
of co2 on temperature.
There is one in particular that shows a graph and from the graph you
can see how doubling the amount of CO2 has a tiny effect on temperature.

I could not find that article quickly and she who must be obeyed is
after me to take her to the shops so I'll leave it to you.

It will explain to you why more CO2 does not necessarily mean more temperature.

The proof is in the Ice coring. Rising temp's (sunspots) and then rising co2's. The ocean is the greatest co2 sink. So what is the worry?
Can we not concentrate on more important issues...like NWO, and not being purposely distracted by these illitists?

Bazz

It's true. The higher the concentration of CO2, the less impact it will have on temperature rise.

However, what a lot of people (including yourself) don't seem to understand, is that this logarithmic relationship is only really significant on climate sensitivity at very high concentrations of CO2. There is much in the literature (not just wikki) about this.

We are no where near these levels yet.

A relatively significant temperature rise is a very real possibility within 100 years.

Put another way, the planet has experienced much higher temperatures in the distant past with higher levels of CO2. Venus too.

_______

eftfnc
Your comment typifies 'anti-science' dogma. Have you nothing else to be constructive about?

Leigh
You misrepresent and distort the scientific literature and legal findings for your own ideological agenda ... as usual.

Leigh: "Heaven + Earth" has not been demolished by "scientific" reviewers.

Demolished is such an emotive word. The book has prompted the usual frenzy of attacks and counter attacks, including claims it was demolished. There is nothing unusual in any of this, and besides methinks demolishment is in the eye of beholder.

What is a bit unusual is where the criticism has come from. It is not just from the usual peanut gallery. It is from people who prefixed their remarks along the likes (paraphrased from memory) "this is hard for me. I regard Ian as a friend and college, someone who I have spent many happy hours with investigating [some geological theory]", and then proceed to accuse Plimer of being deliberately miss leading. They also come from the current president of the Australian Academy of Sciences, who says his own work is quoted in the book - but in a way that twists completely the point he was trying to make.

I fact I have never seen so many people with the words "current Professor at Australia's XXX University" after their name step up to skewer a fellow college. He really hit a nerve in them. They say they have been betrayed, their words, their papers, their life's work miss quoted and turned into something unrecognisable. They are made to look as though they agree and support something they passionately disagree with.

The world desperately needs a book like "Heaven and Earth" to lay out a good argument against taking strong action against climate change. But Heaven and Earth ain't it. After seeing the intellectual depths Plimer had to plummet to in order to support his argument, it had the reverse effect on me.

No Q&A, not the answer I was looking for, I was after something useful.

I will agree with you that we will have to adapt to climate change, although weather hotter or colder is yet to be determined.

Your bland "reduce dependence on fossil fuels" is rather useless, unless some suggestion of how is included.

I first read that fossel fuels were about to run out in about 73. It was to happen around 79. Beauty I thought, as a bloke who had bred horses while at school, I loved the idea of usefull horses again. A damn good thing I didn't rush in, or I'd have had a lot of useless horses.

In the early 80s, while I was rushing around the great barrier reef, in 2,500 BHP, 30 knot catamarans, full of tourists, it was on again. Beauty I thought, as a bloke who prefered sail to power, this will be good. I can build a small sailing cargo ship. & carry the produce of our coastal towns to the city. A damn good thing, etc again.

This time I know it's rubbish. We have at least 100 years of petroleum in the ground, along with shale, tar & gas.

I am damn sure that Mikk is totally wrong with his belief that AGW is a fact.

I sure hope he is wrong, not for me, I'll get by with my horses, & fresh water river front remote home, but for our city folk.

There is no way modern Oz can operate without cars & trucks, although they don't have to be petroleum fuelled. I'm afraid my horses would never handle the food in, & rubbish out of a modern city. They would have even less chance transporting the people.

Cities that grew with the car can not convert to public transport, at least not without knocking down at least a third of them. Even if they could, public transport uses more fuel per passanger mile than the private car, so not too much help there.

I would love to hear your answers, if you have any.

From what I've read, Alarmist and Skeptic scientists seem broadly in agreement that CO2 causes slight warming, and that this effect requires positive feedback to increase and amplify the warming to a "harmful" level. It really doesn't matter who gets to select what a harmful CO2 level's threshhold is, or who gets to decide what the best global temperature should be, and why. The main issue seems to revolve around whether clouds cause increased or decreased warming.

Alarmists claim that clouds trap heat and thus provide a net positive/warming feedback effect for CO2. Skeptics say that clouds reflect sunlight and thus provide a net negative/cooling feedback. Therefore, the entire AGW house of cards has been built on the assumption that clouds provide positive feedback, and that computer models, without using this positive feedback assumption, cannot generate their dire climate predictions. The bottom line: if clouds are shown NOT to cause positive feedback, AGW will have been disproved.

This being the case, why can't a definitive answer be obtained from observational or experimental data?

rstuart,

Don't be too surprised by scientists bagging Plimer. Scientists are just as vulnerable to the human failings as are the rest of us. If Plimer has disagreed with their theories, it could be because they cannot afford to be made look silly. Reputations, funding etc. at stake.

I would be interested to know what you regard as the " intellectual depths Plimer had to plummet to in order to support his argument..."

I'm not a scientist myself, and I may not have recognised the relevant material.

"I'm not a scientist myself, and I may not have recognised the relevant material."

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,,25433059-5003900,00.html

There's something to start with. And remember, this is from The Australian, the editors of which would gladly hand the CSIRO over to Plimer.

Wow Q&A..
'Your comment typifies 'anti-science' dogma. Have you nothing else to be constructive about?'

That comment is below the 'global warming flood' line!

Ice coring, which I mentioned, has been done by scientists and I do believe their work to be more realistic then some snotface polly making an alarmist so-called documentary, who also happens to be a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, see any connection with the NWO?
Wake up boy.

Maybe this is a valued addition: Scientists have told us that global warming comes first, then the rise of co2 follows, not the other way around.
What about carbon emissions? Well...scientists have also a green answer for this one, which btw also benefits our food supply: Use carbon for growing algae in the cooling waters of power stations in ponds, to be harvested for food and fertiliser.There are heaps of ideas around..but can you approach our pollies with that? Nah, they would be more worried about poisoning our water supplies with Fluorosilicic acid.

A quote from rstuart's link to Paul Gilding's talk:

>>How do we stop growth, How do we change that model. The answer is we're not going to have to because it's going to stop by itself. This is a really important point. We're not going to decide to stop growing the economy, but the economy is going to stop growing all by itself because it's had enough. Right? It's looked at the world and said, 'It ain't going to work for me any more' and therefore the physics and biology say We're not going to grow this economy any more than it currently is, because you can't do that. Right?<<

This caught my eye and it's something I've suspected for a while. The growth model will exhaust itself when it no longer works. It will barrel along for as long as it can until it dies (like a car being driven by a bush Aboriginal on an outback road. Ever see "Bush Mechanics" on the ABC?). A point will be reached where things will have to be done differently in order to fulfil mankind's needs and the adage "necessity is the mother of all invention" will come to the fore.

Isn't the current climate change debate rendered puny by this realisation?