Let's face it folks, reducing carbon is code for reducing fossil fuel use. That's not a bad idea in and of itself, given the imminent (or just passed) "peak oil".

Whether it might also help to mitigate any impacts of AGW that may or may not exist is rather an unnecessary added complexity, surely?

one under god says
"but mate
please..dont quit trying"

Thanks mate.

Ammonite says
"Love capitalism and the lengths people will go to justify it."

This issues isn't about capitalism. It's abour real science vs pseudo-science. There is no evidence for AGW apart from the old Arrhenius (1896) nonsense and climate models. I have been a modeler and my professional judgement is that climate models are utter rubbish - garbage in garbage out.

Antiseptic says:
"Let's face it folks, reducing carbon is code for reducing fossil fuel use. That's not a bad idea in and of itself, given the imminent (or just passed) "peak oil"."

The problem with that is that taxing emissions favours the more scarce resource. We may be running out of oil but we are running out of coal much more slowly. So why introduce a system which favours oil over coal?

Luceferase
"I hope the Prof is right, but I'm not accepting the present position (red dot) says anything about the Prof's long-term view"

Akasofu is a hero of mine. When I was a young post-doc Akasofu came up with the idea of the "Auroral Substorm" which was THE major breakthrough in my field. He is a real scientist. He wants to see the data, see the evidence, not go along with some quasi-religious BS because it happens to attract funding.

Maybe you are not a scientist and not used to assessing data, but believe me those maps at

http://www.scienceheresy.com/2011_03/hindcasting/index.html

say it all.

I agree with you that the particular model is flawed, but that's more for political reasons than anything else. given the extent of personal indebtedness it would not be politically feasible to place an impost on consumer use of oil-based products.

Besides, coal is a concentrated emitter, which makes it much easier to deal with than all those cars, as well as being a much longer-term proposition. Oil will fade as a resource and electricity generated from coal will provide a great deal of the power that oil once provided. It actually makes some sense to encourage the development of new industry based on carbon (and other exhaust gases)capture and reuse/sequestration, since coal is going to be the main power source for a hundred years or more. Why allow all that useful carbon to go to waste?

Where it all falls down is in the creation of a complex, no doubt destined to corruption, derivative scheme. That won't encourage new industry here, it'll just encourage cheap, shoddy offshore schemes for growing trees or similar that will have no long-term benefit at all.

John, there are reasonable counter-arguments out there against Prof Akasufo's theory that we are simply exiting a little ice age. Just google them, eg. http://www.skepticalscience.com/coming-out-of-little-ice-age-advanced.htm

For the reasons I've already posted, there is doubt enough not to assume he is right. On the other hand, there is a lot of evidence from the work of many other scientists collated in the IPCC report to indicating AGW is not imagined.

John, you say "There is no evidence for AGW apart from the old Arrhenius (1896) nonsense and climate models"

Arrhenius demonstrated that CO2 is a greenhouse gas. This is tested, incontrovertible science, accepted by all but you, John (hang on, does this mean there is no consensus on it?) This odd position throws into doubt your own analysis of the IPCC report when you say there is no evidence for AGW.

Furthermore, you don't help by linking your odd statement about Arrhenius to your position on modelling. Any modelling involves calibration against reality and inclusion of new-found affecting variables and other adjustments until the resultant algorithm approximates reality as closely as possible. This does not mean modelling, per se, is nonsense or that its projections into the unknown must be unerringly accurate on any timescale.

Prof Akasufo's maps result from applying a model designed for long term projections to short terms, creating a source of dispute over his findings. All the while, the onus is still upon him to support his little ice age theory rather than expecting it to be an agreed upon assumption.

PS Arrhenius was a bit out on his experimental finding about the effect of doubling,say, CO2 concentrations, but pretty close for 1896. Perhaps he was carrying all that stuff on acids and bases around in his head, and many other areas of science he has credibly contributed towards.

Nonsense? have some respect, John

Luciferase

Arrhenius did not "demonstrate that CO2 is a greenhouse gas", he demonstrated that it is an infrared absorber.

The reason I use the term "nonsense" with regard to Arrhenius is because it has now been known for some considerable time that the temperature of the lower tropopause is controlled not by radiation but by the adiabatic lapse rate which is a consequence of convection. Convection completely dominates radiation with regard to heat transport in the lower atmosphere. Because this was not known at the time when Arrhenius wrote his paper, in 1896, it was neither considered nor discussed by him. I have no disrespct for Arrhenius but I do for people who continue to quote this paper as if it were still somehow relevant.

With regard to Akasofu, the issue is not whether his tentative, alternative Little-Ice-Age theory is correct or not, but his exposure of the failure of climate models to successfully account for past and present climate. If our model cannot do that, we must re-examine the model assumptions in order to find out what went wrong. It is not about adjusting the model to fit "as closely as possible"; that is called "curve fitting" and every experimentalist knows that it can lead to disaster.

The onus is hardly on Akasofu to get his model right. There are obviously major forcings in play which are not accounted for in "respectable" climate models. It is not Akasofu who is attempting to reshape the global economy.

Science progresses when a model (or theory or hypothesis) fails and thereby forces us to look for a better model. That is the essence of the scientific method. This why Ptolemaic astrononomy was abandoned. When we overlook the failure of a theory or model for reasons of ego or ideology we short-circuit this process and undermine the scientific method.