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?