The biggest problem I have with the whole debate it seems to me that most people just can't see past the first step.
i.e. the difference between weather and climate and reason(?) in minutia missing the point. A bit like reasoning that if the arch duke hadn't have been assassinated in 1914 WW1 wouldn't have happened...

Tell the public that there are 10,000s of people starving/dying unnecessarily daily and you'll get little response tell them that 4000 people died in a spectacular fashion and you get panic out pourings of sympathy and a culprit must be found at any cost, Because it is personalized.
The real issue is well beyond any argument about IPC, Gore, Penny Wong's understanding, modeling and CO2. These are all irrelevant figureheads...over simplifications for the public consumption.
Put simply the science of ACC is complex, multi-disciplined....and requires a perspective beyond the first person imperative.

It is of little interest to me (personally I'll probably be some surgery students practice cadaver or ashes before the worst scenarios eventuate) whether the sea raises 1 or 10 meters, the mean temperature goes up by 1 or 5 deg et al, per se. As several people have said it is the COLLECTIVE and CONSEQUENCE issue that is at stake.

Concentrating on the minutia is simply an exercise in denial-ism. A bit like telling the Titanic passengers that they missed 40 bigger icebergs and then reasoning that they were safe the risk of catastrophe was the product of quasi doom sayers fanatics.

Fielding's vote by extraordinary circumstances has been elevated to a level beyond its real importance(see my earlier comments)

byork,

So many 'sceptics' (I use the term loosely on OLO) don't "follow" the IPCC (or trust its process).

I don't think it helps to suggest that even the likes of Al Gore thinks sea levels could rise by 100 metres (there is not that much water locked up in all the ice of the world combined).

Nevertheless, the IPCC have reviewed their 59cm projection from AR4, upwards to 80 - 120cm (I suspect you knew this). This is worrying enough.

fieldings vote is NOW..nothing....the opposition has decided to pass the bill...[after lobby...lol...from big business...now you get the point?

its about the new busines..bubble..carbon credits...to prop up big business..[capitalism..via speculation on the carbon-credits...ie a compulsory tax..paid by any taxpayer..[directly to prop up big busines carbon derivitives specualators]

govt creates them..[like it used to create money...except now its only ...lol..a carbon credit...convertable to cash...lol..[then business speculates UP..their cost to as much..as you tax paying mugs.. will pay for them...ha ha

thus...they..big busines lobby WANTED cap and trade...yet/not give tax payers an upfront credit...to offest a carbon minimum..[but that the worst poluters their carbon credit..that..THEY can sell off direct to the carbon trading floor..lol..owned/created by the very business lobby..lobbying for carbon tax...lol,..credit

[like any other derivitive]..a reducing cap..ensuring an ever more valuable/rare.. carbon credit to trade..[for huge commisions...their new trillion dollar a year cash cow..[subsidy]..from the pay as you earn[spend]..taxed wage-slaves...

the great unwashed/unrepresented swill subsidising the black suits..[as usual]...but now directly...via compulsory taxation..[without representation...as usual...the loudest lobby got the cheese..

,,..that will only be traded..via companies owned by al gore..[and leighman'sax]..the oppositions wealth provider..[and past empolyer...who leaned on the opposition...so it can quietly cave/in..on the issue..while the press,tax payer's and two party loyalists..[govt/servants..lol.]..sleeps

OUG

So, one minute the whole issue is driven by 'socialism' and the next it's by 'capitalism'? Why can't you make up your mind?

Let me try and make it simple for you:

The issue is NOT about the science. The issues IS about how we (humanity) are going to deal with the problems now on the horizon. The politicians AND economists are in a bun fight, NOT the scientists.

Examinator, The difference between weather and climate is a difference in short-term and longer-term but measurements of both are necessary - otherwise the hypothesis cannot be subjected to testing. On climate, the long-term - the 150 year period for which consistent measurements have been available - shows a warming of about 0.8 degrees (less than one degree). Almost half of that increase occured in the past three decades - hence Margaret Thatcher's taking of the warming issue to the international stage around 1980 in her attempts to discredit coal, defeat the miners' union and promote nuclear. As for weather, given the initial emphasis on the past 30 years by those who were alarmed by the spike in global temperature 30 to 20 years ago, it is reasonable of sceptics, like myself, to draw attention to the levelling of temperature of the past decade, despite the increase in CO2 emissions.

Q&A, sceptics question and even dispute the IPCC - just as Galileo challenged the authority of Europe's greatest Academy of Science in his time. Sceptics appeal neither to authority nor to popularity but rather to reason. I think it's a sign of our very conservative times that scepticism is seen so negatively.

Q&A, I didn't know the IPCC had updated its estimate of sea level rises from 59 cms to 80 cms - 120 cms. The figures are worst case scenarios (again, those computer models) for the year 2100. That's 90 years away and nine decades in which to adapt to any observed actual increase. As I've said before, observed change matters more than computer modelled scenarios, especially when the two don't tally.

Several countries and cities live quite happily below sea-level. A quarter of the Netherlands, an affluent, modern and in some ways progressive country, is below sea-level - almost 7 metres below sea-level at its deepest point. No need to worry too much about an increase of 1.2 metres (which is a little more than a centimetre per year), should the computer models turn out to be right. Human beings already know how to deal with much worse.

Indeed byork.

While Svante Arrhenius is no Galileo, he also challenged the "thinking of the time" when he postulated the enhanced greenhouse effect - now a well established and robust problemo.

I agree with you;

"sceptics appeal neither to authority nor to popularity but rather to reason. I think it's a sign of our very conservative times that scepticism is seen so negatively."

A true sceptic evaluates, tests, etc all components of an argument. With respect to AGW, this is not done by the 'casual' sceptic (they can't) - preferring rather to base their 'scepticism' on ideological grounds.

As to sea level rise. Yes, it is oh-so-slow in humanity's frame of reference (but the observed increase is quick in geological time).

Adapt we must, because it will take decades to do so, as you say. However, populations in low-lying developing nations will have a harder time trying to adapt than the people in Denmark. This will increase pressure on all sorts of other things - international security being one.

Anyway, some species of fauna and flora can't adapt as quickly, you know this.