AnthonyV might have a point. Lord of the Rings (LOTR) might hold clues as to the motives & methods of the characters in the climate debate.

You will recall that when last we saw our two LOTR heroes, Sam & Frodo, they had just saved the shire and were hunkering for a new challenge.

Bilbo: [smiling] I think I'm... quite ready for another adventure!
[Bilbo climbs on board with Elrond. Galadriel follows with Celeborn]
Gandalf: Farewell, my brave Hobbits. My work is now finished. Here at last, on the shores of the sea... comes the end of our Fellowship...
Gandalf: It is time, Frodo.
Sam: What does he mean?
Frodo: We set out to save the Shire, Sam. And it has been saved... But not for me.
Sam: [weeping] You don't mean that. You can't leave.
Frodo: [hands Sam the Red Book] The last pages are for you, Sam.
Sam: [reading the book's title] There and Back Again: A Hobbit's Tale by Bilbo Baggins, and The Lord of the Rings by Frodo Baggins. You
finished it.
Frodo: Not quite. There's room for a little more.

Note the hint that there is a bigger challenge to come!

Then, I came upon this Hobbitesque little passage:
Thinker2: "Hope I'm not badgering about this, but here is another link regarding carbon pollution and ocean acidification"
AnthonyV: "Hi T2,I don't think you're banging on at all. And thanks for the post, I hadn't seen it...It's going to be a hard slog, but it has to be done if the planet is to be saved"

It got me wondering ...could it be?

Antony's website, with a banner picture of what could only be Tolkien's Mirkwood forest only deepen my suspicions.

But what really clinched it was this description of Hobbits:
"The most distinguishing feature of a Hobbit was their short stature...slightly pointed [ears] and their furry feet [with]leathery soles... [and they are] fond of yellow and GREEN.

Now, if Tony Abbot is Gollum ...who do you suppose are the impressionable little Hobbits who believe in fairies and goblins and see dark conspiracies behind every event?

Hi SPQR,
I never thought of my website banner as being the Shire, but you might have a point...
Hairy feet, hmmm, sort of.
Love green and gold? Well, who doesn't follow the Aussie cricket team.
And I must admit, I do like the idea of two morning teas every day.
I definitely share the hobbits' disdain for excessiely hard work.
I do hope this doesn't get out, or I shall have to give everyone else presents on my birthday.
The only bit I don't get is about the conspiracies. I thought it was the GW deniers who believe that there is this huge conspiracy among the climate scientists to rip off tax payer dollars.
But otherwise, I'd make a good hobbit.
Well, I'm off to the Bridge Inn beside the Brandywine River for a quick pint of ale, a puff or two of the weed and a song.
Cheers,
Anthony
http://www.observationpoint.com.au

That post shows that you've got nothing left SPQR , other than your creativity.

You have addressed none of the issues and your creativity is little more than an adaption of Anthonyve's original creativity.

A good balanced discussion on the current state of affairs. Worth watching through, no matter which team you barrack for.

http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/insidestory/2011/11/201111464716543397.html

Dear Grahamy,

I was interested in your comment; “Muller also says that he can see no evidence that global warming has slowed. That is contrasted against the claims that there has been no warming for the last 13 or so years.”

I have tended to keep out of debates on GW as I had spent a decent amount of time researching the issue and have been strongly convinced of its veracity. Therefore it seems pointless to be putting in more effort to further cement that firmly held belief or to try and convince others who are just as firmly entrenched on the other side of the debate.

However having a lazy evening keeping out of the way of a child wrestling with her VCE studies I thought I might dip the toe in again.

So I read what you have had to say on Muller's findings both on the forum and your blog. My first task was to find out the source of the graphic you posted. Thank you for having the link attached though might I suggest replacing the cropped version with the full one. It quotes the source and has the temp dip you discussed.

The Global Warming Policy Foundation Wiki entry rang enough alarm bells for me to want to see the data for myself particularly as they had accused Muller's graph of hiding the fact that “Global Warming has stopped for more than a decade”.
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2011/10/30/article-2055191-0E974B4300000578-6_634x639.jpg

What stood out like the proverbial “dogs balls” was the fact they were using a different y axis plus using what look like monthly data in the second graph rather than annual which gave the appearance of a confused mess with no obvious trend.

So obviously I needed the raw data. I downloaded the BEST 350MB odd zip file which unzipped was over 20GB however did not have the RAM nor a program to open it. After a few attempts I went looking for a more condensed summary of the data and found it here, http://berkeleyearth.org/downloads/analysis-data.zip

Cont'

Cont'

I downloaded the monthly readings of temperature anomalies from 1997 to 2010 into a spreadsheet added up each years worth and divided it by 12 to get an average over the year. My results were;

1997 0.58
1998 0.91
1999 0.66
2000 0.6
2001 0.81
2002 0.98
2003 0.9
2004 0.67
2005 1.1
2006 0.95
2007 1.21
2008 0.86
2009 0.91
2010 0.63

Could I invite you to graph the figures since when I do it they reveal what looks like a definite trend upward over the past 13 years.

Further you wrote; “However, the biggest point of interest in that for me is that 2010 appears to have been a quite cool year, even though other groups claimed it to be the warmest, or equal warmest http://www.ambitgambit.com/2011/10/31/best-data-show-2010-as-unusually-cool/. And by "quite cool" I mean "very cool".”

Muller's data only includes the first five months of 2010 but averaging these out shows it was warmer than 1997 and 2000, this is despite including April which was an extraordinary -1.035 degrees below the average 1950 to 1980 baseline of 7.11 degrees.

While I am more than happy to label the GWPF disingenuous for their manipulations I am certainly not pointing the finger at you. However as stated I think it would be a better look if your blog included a mention of the source directly or via a more complete graphic.

I feel while we might be on opposite sides of the debate we are equally frustrated by the excesses from both sides clouding what should be a rational discourse based on the science.

Finally my figures are probably worth checking as it has been a long day so I am happy to stand corrected.