Poirot, my apologies I got the name of the BBC person wrong. It is Richard Black not Robert Blacks.

Banjo, thanks for the BBC link. Interesting that Robert Black allows the AGW expert to say his piece then constantly interrupts and talks over the skeptic, a bit like Kerry O’Brien.

The damage to the AGW case is tragic, I say this because there are no winners when the trust we place in the scientific community is brought into disrepute. Regardless of which side of the fence one sits (or even on it).

The case for AGW has four main pillars. Those are “Scientific Consensus”, “Computer Modeling”, “Peer Reviewed Process” and “Data Integrity”. Since all of these have been badly tainted the whole process must now be examined because GW “could” indeed be a serious problem and there “might” be some basis for blaming human activity.

I often wonder if the UN is part of the problem or the solution. The UN has a less than glorious history. They blamed mankind and demanded action on CFC’s, acid rain and DDT. They got those completely wrong, so wrong that the forced withdrawal of DDT tripled the cases of malaria in Africa resulting in millions of extra deaths.

The UN in it’s role as “global policeman” has “officially observed” the extermination of millions of people in Somalia, Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kosovo, Bosnia and South Lebanon just to mention a few.

Those who believe in the UN have every right to feel angry. For the believers, this will manifest as mitigation, ignore the facts, trivialize, increase the alarmism and crank up the vilification. This will happen because fundamentalism is based upon ideology and has nowhere else to go other than to hit rock bottom and start digging.

One that amuses me is “the e-mails are taken out of context”. Reality clearly shows the dates, times and sequences of over 2,000 e-mails. One has to ask just how much context one needs.

The establishment will defend, the “movement and the cause” will prevail and we will add yet another “whoops” to the UN’s list.

spindoc,
You've made my day!
More religious analogies:
The four pillars of AGW.
The five pillars of Islam.
Don't you love it?
Even funnier is the story of Obama's science czar, John Holdren
(whose emails have also emerged in Climategate).
In the seventies he was warning of the devastation awaiting mankind from the coming ice-age,
anthropogenically caused funnily enough.
Fast forward to the 21st century and he is now at the forefront of the AGW movement,
preparing us all for the coming man-caused heatwave.
But who bothers about the minor details when they're on a mission from Gaia to save the planet?
Holdren's proposed measures included forced mass-abortion and forced mass-sterilisation.
Seems reasonable considering the stakes involved.
After all, who wants to freeze or fry to death (take your pick).

That's just a little misleading, HermanYutic

>>story of Obama's science czar, John Holdren (whose emails have also emerged in Climategate). In the seventies he was warning of the devastation awaiting mankind from the coming ice-age, anthropogenically caused funnily enough.<<

What he predicted was that "human emissions of carbon dioxide would produce a climate catastrophe in which global warming would cause global cooling with a consequent reduction in agricultural production resulting in widespread disaster"

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?pageId=112317

He's really just a population-control advocate, though, using climate as a bludgeon. Any change, hot or cold, would cause a disaster.

"Whatever adjustments in crop characteristics and cultivation patterns might eventually be made in response to rapid climate change would come too late to save hundreds of millions from famine"

Just another distraction, among many.

The sad part is, that as the battle between AGW enthusiasts and deniers gets increasingly emotional, the chances of us lerts being able to separate fact from fiction rapidly approaches zero.

Being a "keen observer" of the arguments pro and con is also becoming a reviled status - we apparently now occupy that most reprehensible, and uncomfortable position of "fence-sitter".

Since when has insatiable curiosity become evil, that's what I'd like to know.

Trouble is, there's now too much personal intellectual capital invested in being firmly in one camp or the other, that the chance of anyone actually changing their mind is also decreasing rapidly.

The AGW industry seems to be working in overdrive to discredit, disallow or otherwise trivialize the now-famous emails.

Personally, I'm enjoying the insight they provide.

http://www.wikileaks.org/wiki/Climatic_Research_Unit_emails%2C_data%2C_models%2C_1996-2009

Nothing can beat shining a light in dark corners.

UN Secretary General Ban Ky-moon calls for a reduction of carbon pollution.
Science teachers assert that CO2 is essential to life and is a natural plant food.
UN Secretary General Ban Ky-moon calls for food production to rise so that an increasing world population can be fed.
Are you with me so far?
Reduce CO2 and increase food production.How do we increase crops if we reduce the fertiliser?
Lets forget Climategate and work out how we can increase food production with a decreased amount of fertiliser.
Lets think like a greenie. How can we reduce the world population? Yess. Of course, starve them to death.

The whistle blower has been named. I won't repeat it here as the source
was very careful how it was stated. It was an insider who had been
uncomfortable for some time with what was going on.

It seems to becoming clearer, to me at least as time goes on.
Now that programmers are taking the programs and data apart just what
went on is clearer.

See this url; http://tinyurl.com/y9p4xn4

This one has an explanation of what was meant by the decline.
It was not as many presumed the decline since 1998.

phoenix94,

The term "Carbon" is a generic one that includes methane, ozone and several other greenhouses gases - not just CO2.

The problem isn't simply CO2, its too much CO2.

That's what "too much" means.

Just as sugar is OK for most of us some people have a problem processing it when things don't work as they should.

Unfortunately plants need water to grow too and if the rainfall patterns change in food growing areas, CO2 alone is of no use.