Please have the patience to read and/or print the following link:

http://www.amos.org.au/BAMOS_GGWS_SUBMISSION_final.htm

The Great Global Warming Swindle (GGWS) is a controversial documentary on climate change by British television producer Martin Durkin. This documentary argues against conventional scientific understanding of the degree and cause of recent, observed climate change.

The overwhelming view amongst climate scientists is that twentieth century global warming is largely due to an increase in atmospheric greenhouse gases resulting from increased industrialization during the last 100-150 years.

Durkin presents an alternative view that recent global warming is neither significant nor due to human activity.

The documentary does not attempt to argue the latter view through any critical deconstruction of climate science orthodoxies. Rather, it contends that modern climate scientists are at best seriously misguided in their collective opinion on the nature and causes of global warming, or are at worst guilty of lying to the rest of the community. Publicity for the documentary leans heavily towards the latter, stating that global warming is “the biggest scam of modern times”.

In summary the documentary is not scientifically sound and presents a flawed and very misleading interpretation of the science.

While giving the impression of being based on peer-reviewed science, much of the material presented is either out-of-date, already discredited or of uncertain origin. A number of the graphs and figures used in the documentary are not based on any known or published climate data, while others are presented schematically, and hence may confuse and mislead the viewer.

So who is swindling who?

(Reproduced with permission)

It seems as though the GGWS program is going to strongly work against its own purpose and reinforce the view that global warming is anthropogenic and is highly significant in its magnitude.

By all indications, the vast majority of people are going to see straight through the highly flawed scientific basis for the notion of it all being one huge swindle. The debate after the program is bound to concentrate on this aspect.

But is this good or bad?

It is probably bad, because it will reinforce the need to put huge amounts of effort into the issue…when there is stuff-all that we can do about it.

Look at the rate that China is opening up new coal-fired power stations – about two every week! Their growth rate in CO2 emissions is simply overwhelming. Yes they are making some efforts to be more efficient. But that is aimed at improving average per-capita efficiency. It certainly doesn’t mean reducing overall greenhouse gas emissions, or even significantly slowing the huge rate of increase.

I think it is a crying shame that GGWS is not going to be seen to be significant. If it was, a good part of our collective energies could be redirected away from this futile global warming issue and onto the much more important issue of genuine sustainability.

At the core of the sustainability issue lies the continuous expansion paradigm that at present seems unchallengeable.

It is time that we addressed continuous population growth and the concomitant continuously increasing demand for all manner of resources….and fought back against the absurd notion that lies right at the heart of just about all national economies and political regimes around the world – the concept of innate unquestioned continuous growth – that we must be continuously growing or else we will fall into recession and social decay.

This is what really matters

Davsab, if that critique is the best response then it's a pretty lame, nitpicking effort ........i.e. the essence of the doco remains unchallenged.

Perhaps you can explain how high carbon dioxide in the past has never prevented subsequent cooling. Shouldn't be hard for you to explain. lol

Also, i feel you really need to be more specific in your use of this terminology ..."climate change". What is your definition of climate change? Are you simply believing that climate should be constant and any change can only mean humanity is sinfully responsible? Or to put it another way, climate change itself is the problem and that someone needs to be accorded the privilege of deciding the optimal climate for all humanity?

I have no idea who is correct.
However as ASPO points out the projections in the IPCC report assume
a continous supply of oil, gas and coal till the end of the century.

It just won't happen and the supplies will not be enough to produce the
required projected CO2.

So thats the end of it actually, no point in arguing whether man is to
blame or not.

You can also read about GGWS's arguments (please have the patience to read and/or print) here:
http://www.greatglobalwarmingswindle.co.uk/

The Great Global Warming Swindle (GGWS) is a controversial documentary on climate change by British television producer Martin Durkin. This documentary argues against the misguided scientific understanding of the degree and cause of recent, observed climate change.

The mistaken belief amongst climate scientists is that twentieth century global warming is largely due to an increase in atmospheric greenhouse gases resulting from increased industrialization during the last 100-150 years. Piffle!

Durkin presents a more likely view that recent global warming is neither significant nor due to human activity.

The documentary contends that modern climate scientists are at best, seriously suffering groupthink and at worst, have become members of a cult like religion.

In summary the documentary asks some scientifically sound questions and presents an alternative hypothesis to the flawed and very misleading interpretation of the heavily politicized IPCC.

The documentary is based on peer-reviewed science and calls on the opinion of some of the world's leading climate scientists.

Are you being swindled? TONIGHT AT 8:30PM ON ABC TV...DON'T MISS IT!

(Re-edited without permission)

Keiran, your figures are wrong.

We were not "due" about now to come out of an ice age. The last (Milankovitch) ice age ended about 8,000 years ago. The "Little Ice Age", probably due to the Atlantic's slower version of El Nino in which the Gulf Stream slows to a crawl, wasn't cold enough for year-round snow in Iceland.

Carbon dioxide is not 0.054% of the atmosphere, but only 0.038%.

Human activity has contributed "only 1% of that" in just the past nine months.

We have increased the concentration by half since the start of the Industrial Revolution.

Even so, almost half our emissions to date have been absorbed into the ocean and the biosphere. As the surface layers of the ocean warm up, and as the concentration of dissolved CO2 there rises, it will cease to be able to absorb CO2 and become a net CO2 *source*.

In previous warming periods, warming waters have caused CO2 levels to rise as a positive feedback. This time around, the oceans are still absorbing it, but it can't go on forever.

High CO2 levels don't prevent cooling, because temperature doesn't stop CO2 slowly falling again. The circulation of ocean waters will carry CO2 to the depths and allow more to dissolve at the surface. As the biosphere adapts to the new climate, plants are able to bind carbon (eg. wood, peat, coal).

You are right to say the climate has changed before, and changed dramatically; right to say that 5 or 65 million years ago the earth was warmer than today. But two things are fundamentally different this time around:

(1) This time, warming is not due to natural causes. We have our foot on the throttle, and can choose to floor it or to ease off.

(2) This time, six billion humans are utterly dependent on agriculture and will suffer devastating consequences from unpredictable changes in rainfall.

Kieran, please stop preaching complacency.

It is time to be afraid. Be very afraid, then do something about it so we can get on with the Industrial Age in a sustainable manner.

I watched the Swindle program on the ABC and was dissapointed that
no one asked why the hockey stick graph was deleted from the latest
IPCC publications.

I understand that it was because the climate model used produced the hockey
stick for almost any input and was found to be faulty.

Anyway as I said, it doesn't really matter there is not enough oil
and coal to have any human causal effect.

Bazz,

The so called “hockey stick” was not deleted from the latest IPCC publications – there is no reason to be disappointed.

Your understanding is misinformed, probably based on accepting what the deniers say.

Human activity has had a causal effect, and this can be demonstrated from by any number of studies, the most strident being from Carbon isotope analysis and various attribution studies.

It amazes me that some people (generally the layperson, not the scientists themselves) are willing to deny or criticise the science when they obviously haven’t a clue what they’re talking about.

At the very least, they should read the IPCC’s technical chapters in the AR4

http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/wg1-report.html

Unfortunately, they don’t.

The AR4 compiles a dozen reconstructions of the temperature records (and all very consistent with each other) including the original "hockey stick" reconstruction you said was deleted.

ALL the reconstructions show that temperatures are now higher than at any time during the past 1,000 years confirming and strengthening the conclusions drawn in the previous IPCC report of 2001.

Go to the paleoclimate chapter and check out your "hockey sticks"

Figure 6.10 (panel b) on page 467

Hi Everyone,

i have limited knowledge on the scientific data that would be required in order to make any real judgment.

However before this movie was made public i found myself thinking quite regularly about the Global Warming Topic, something did not sit right.

I did watch Al Gores documentary, but i was craving another point of view. My tendency before last night and after remains tilted towards, an against view of Human Activated Global Warming.

Just Simply if co2 increases have preceeded Higher Solar activity thus causing higher temp in the past, but conversly higher Co2 has provoked higher temps also, would it be not safe to say that to stick to one side of this argument would be silly.

We have to be careful this does not become a debate of ego and not of environment, if it isnt already.

I assure you that this debate will continue with no result! However it is entertaining and we love entertainment!

Also

Why are we treated like aliens on our planet like we are seperate from it and trying to destroy it? we are the planet, we are connected to it, if our activities change then the environment around us adapts, if the environment changes then we adapt.

All this topic has done has caused industry to become dynamic and adapt to a real or imaginary threat which in any case is great.

Its the fear associated with the driving force behind the pro Global Warming Debate which is the real danger.

Like Always it will be the significant Global Environmental event we didnt expect that will be the one that occurs! perhaps a meteor!

Davsab,
Thanks for your reply. I went to have a look at the AR4 but
the chapters are so big they would put me over my 400Mbyte limit by
a long way.

However it does not matter as Professor Kjell Aleklett of Uppsalla
University and who is President of ASPO has pointed out there
will not be enough hydrocarbons available to push the world temperature
up to the IPCC projections.

I would have liked to download the projections in AR4 and see if they
made any allowance for peak oil, natural gas and coal.

Xoddam rather than Davsab attempts to explain one of my questions. i.e. "Perhaps you can explain how high carbon dioxide in the past has never prevented subsequent cooling."

Xoddam says "High CO2 levels don't prevent cooling, because temperature doesn't stop CO2 slowly falling again. The circulation of ocean waters will carry CO2 to the depths and allow more to dissolve at the surface. As the biosphere adapts to the new climate, plants are able to bind carbon (eg. wood, peat, coal)."

Sounds somewhat contradictory so my next question then is what exactly do you believe starts the new cooling when you have CO2 at such high levels? Keep in mind that cooler ocean waters tend to absorb CO2 so what exactly begins this new process of cooling? Can CO2 do it? Nope but you may have other ideas. Please explain.

Also I'm far from being a preacherman, Xoddam. You may say I'm guilty of asking many, many questions though and sometimes I make some errors too. Like I'll accept your correction of CO2 being but 0.038% of the atmosphere which is even more minuscule. But I must confess that I love CO2 because it grows better roses, bigger tomatoes, greens the environment and even leads to stronger, healthy people. We just need to get out there and kick the greening on a bit with some good conservation programs.

By the way your understanding of what is called the "Little Ice Age" is wrong and nothing to do with El Nino at all. What started the cooling then? Hint .... you may refer to my question above and perhaps Davsab can offer his scientific explanation too.

Kieran,

Arrhenius pointed out in the 1880s that burning coal adds CO2 to the atmosphere, but this wasn't thought relevant for ages because it was understood that the oceans contain 50 times as much CO2 as the atmosphere, and could dissolve plenty more.

But in the 1950s it was realised that the layers of warm and cold seawater mix surprisingly little:

http://www.aip.org/history/climate/Revelle.htm

The surface of the ocean now contains more CO2 than the deeper layers, and dissolves correspondingly less than it would if the ocean were homogeneous.

The oceans do circulate over a time-span of several hundred years, rising in the North Sea and the mid-Pacific and sinking in the North Atlantic and Arctic, so (providing CO2 emissions stop and the circulation continues) dissolved CO2 will eventually sink and the oceans will achieve equilibrium with the atmosphere. Just not this century.

Similarly, the biosphere can absorb CO2 indefinitely as long as it is available, but due to land clearing it is actually a net emitter of CO2 today. Warm up the earth fast enough in the next few decades, and accelerated decomposition (especially in the tundra) will make it a net greenhouse gas source even if we halt clearing altogether.

The last major CO2 sink which can operate over geological timespans, but not in the timescale of industry, is the weathering of rocks by rain and the ocean, converting dissolved CO2 (carbonic acid) to carbonate salts.

After enough time has passed, low CO2 levels will certainly result in lower temperatures.

The Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age aren't particularly well understood at all, but the leading theory is that they were the result of variations in the North Atlantic currents which bring heat to the Arctic from the tropics, not global events. In any case they would be lost in the noise of temperature variations on geological timescales.

I left "El Niño" in without adequate clarification while trimming the word count under time pressure; my apologies.

If you have a better idea of what may have caused the (very) Little Ice Age, I'd love to know what it is.

TGGWS is a masterful piece of propaganda, but so too is “An Inconvenient Truth” – can we see past this?

There are certain nuances in the scientific community that will always be debated, but as we have seen, the technicalities while appearing somewhat straightforward to a casual observer, are quite often not. It can be argued that the technicalities are best left debated amongst the scientists themselves, not in the public domain.

Some may think there is nothing that can be done, but many more people (countries and businesses alike) at the ‘coal face’ (pun not intended) believe we can, and we are. This is where the real debate should be heading. In this regard, I was particularly impressed by Nikki Williams’s comments in the later discussion.

Countries like China and India are extremely aware of the impacts of global warming – they will suffer extremely (and as a consequence, so will we) if their ‘food-bowl’ is annihilated by its impacts. So addressing global warming and environmental sustainability is inextricably connected.

Keiran,

Global climate is determined by the radiation balance of the planet. There are three fundamental ways the Earth’s radiation balance can change, causing a climate change:

1) changing the incoming solar radiation (e.g., by changes in the Earth’s orbit or in the Sun itself),

2) changing the fraction of solar radiation that is reflected (this fraction is called the albedo – it can be changed, for example, by changes in cloud cover, small particles called aerosols or land cover),

3) altering the long¬wave energy radiated back to space (e.g., by changes in green¬house gas concentrations).

All of these factors have played a role in past climate changes.

Local climate also depends on how heat is distributed by winds and ocean currents, xoddam alluded to it.

Your specific questions are answered in the AR4 report; you have obviously not cared enough about the science to read it yourself so one has to question your motifs.

You accuse Jones et al of “nitpicking” in the critique of TGGWS when in fact you (a non-scientist) are doing exactly that here.

Continued

However,

In paraphrasing various sources, including the IPCC:

Coolings (in Keiran's sense of the word) appear to be caused primarily and initially by increase in the Earth-Sun distance during northern hemisphere summer, due to changes in the Earth's orbit - the so-called Milankovitch cycling. Just as in the warmings, CO2 lags the coolings by a thousand years or so, in some cases as much as three thousand years.

DO NOT make the mistake of assuming that these warmings and coolings must have a single cause. It is well known that multiple factors are involved, including the change in planetary albedo, change in nitrous oxide concentration, change in methane concentration, and change in CO2 concentration.

Equally, there is no requirement that a single cause operates throughout the entire 5000 - year long warming trends, and the 70,000 year cooling trends.

It is specious to argue that, because CO2 does not cause the first thousand years or so of warming, nor the first thousand years of cooling, it cannot have caused part of the many thousands of years of warming in between.

There is a rich literature on this topic. Keiran, if you are truly interested, you would have read it, you obviously have not, so again – what is your agenda?

The greenhouse gases are best regarded as a biogeochemical feedback, initiated by the orbital variations, but then feeding back to amplify the warming once it is already underway. The lag of CO2 of about 1000 years corresponds closely to the expected time it takes to flush excess respiration-derived CO2 out of the deep ocean via natural ocean currents. So the lag is quite close to what would be expected, if CO2 were acting as a feedback.

In summary, the quantitative contribution of CO2 to the ice age cooling and warming is fully consistent with current understanding of CO2's warming properties, as manifested in the IPCC's projections of future warming of 3±1.5 C for a doubling of CO2 concentration. So there is no inconsistency between Milankovitch and current global warming.

Let us move on people.

Davsab, when you say "so one has to question your motifs", I'm somewhat perplexed as there is no motif. But if it is motive you are referring to then let me say I have no association with any political or business organisation. However, as you well know, we are all motivated, and i tend to do it with questions.... i.e. difficult questions.

Xoddam and Davsab, one such question relates to what drives changes creating derivatives. i.e. In an infinite connected universe full of pushers, just what are the biggest pushers and what becomes a derivative or product process?

The biggest pusher in our part of the world is good old sunnyboy.
e.g. The Little Ice Age 1560 - 1830 with the Maunder Minimum, a 70-year period on the sun in which there were practically no sunspots at all.... is explained quite well here as a global phenomenon ... notice in the lead up to the MM an erratic solar cycle.
http://www.john-daly.com/hockey/hockey.htm

When attempting to understand solar influences on earth's climate, remember that sunnyboy interacts with our planet in a wide variety of complex ways and almost certainly that all these factors are influencing our lovely planet, even though we don't fully understand how. e.g. It is not only the cyclic warming and cooling of the sun, but others that we have little understanding of like changes with cosmic rays, changes in the solar spectrum towards greater ultra-violet radiation when compared with visible or infra-red light ... also the unknown possibilities.

As I've said previously, CO2 in the atmosphere brings with it a healthy greening (an abundance of weeds too) with no convincing scientific evidence of catastrophic heating of the earth's atmosphere.

Davsab, you may like to join the scientists at ....
http://www.oism.org/pproject/s33p357.htm

Hi Kieran,

The solar-activity theory for the LIA/MWP looks convincing, if the proxies clearly show it globally. Peer-reviewed papers are often torn to shreds on websites these days; but when valid, rigorous criticism is submitted for review it gets published properly.

On the other hand, an increase in incidental solar radiation is not adequate to explain warming since 1970: there hasn't been one, while there *has* been an increase in greenhouse gases.

You and joeme are correct, something beyond our control like the sun or a meteor just *might* change everything catastrophically and render all debate about anthropogenic climate change moot.

As far as I'm concerned the evidence that the Earth's climate is dynamic and sensitive to such things as having CO2 belched into the atmosphere is entirely convincing.

A great effort has been made to find out just how sensitive, and just how the climate works. It's bloody complicated, involves multiple feedback processes, and no sane, well-informed person would commit to *any* firm prediction about what might happen.

The complacent look at it and say, it hasn't changed much yet; some basic equations say CO2 can't change things much directly; there's no convincing evidence for positive feedback.

It's uncontroversial that relative humidity tends to be constant over water, (the concentration of H2O in the atmosphere varies linearly with temperature).
It's uncontroversial that water vapour is the most significant greenhouse gas.

So temperature clearly feeds back into the greenhouse effect.

A convincing-sounding argument against humidity feedback cites saturation of absorption spectrum windows, but the atmosphere is not a thin layer of glass: no spectrum window is saturated at higher altitudes, and the atmosphere is quite capable of blocking radiation even in the high stratosphere (think ozone & UV).

Other, delayed, feedbacks such as methane from thawing tundra will, if and when they happen, definitely cause a catastrophic warming.

That *is* a big if.

But are you so happy with your healthy weeds that you'll risk hitting such a tipping point?

You've just got to ask yourself a question: Do I feel relaxed and comfortable? Well do ya, punk?

Fads and fashions have always fascinated me. And there is no doubt that global warming is today's fashion accessory - like it or loathe it, it jumps from the pages of every magazine, every day.

The articles on the topic I saw recently in Europe verged on the banal. Every magazine devoted at least one piece to "what can YOU do about Global Warming?", and the handy hints ranged from the sublime to the ridiculous.

One of the more earnest described how an entire household had "gone green", eschewing cars for bicycles, meat for vegetables, computers for books and pen-and-ink. Needless to say, the subjects a) were extremely comfortably off and b) had come from the publicity industry, he from advertising and she from a PR agency.

And at the other end of the scale was the "bits and pieces" column, with advice on such critical issues as having your milk delivered in bottles rather than cartons.

Meanwhile, on another planet entirely...

The Chinese are building a new coal-fired power station every three days. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6769743.stm

European cattle, via entirely natural bodily functions, contribute nearly three times as much to global warming as the entire world airline industry put together. http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/newsnight/2007/02/meet_daisy_the_cow_global_climates_enemy_number_on.html

It isn't necessary to believe in conspiracy theory (it's a controlling mechanism by the nasty capitalist hegemony) or indeed in doomsday predictions (it's the early heat-death of our planet) to see that the current GW fad is a media fantasy concoction of half-truths and wishful thinking.

If it is a real problem, we should do what every normal person or business does: find the biggest contributor first, and eliminate it from the equation. Then move on to the next, and the next, and so on.

I personally subscribe to the insurance theory. Even though nothing is specifically "proven", it would be prudent to take some preventive action. But individual contributions are simply guilt-driven self-flagellation. A global political solution is the only real answer, and I can't see self-serving polemics, from either faction, moving us towards that in a hurry

Thanks for you kind invitation Keiran, but knowing something of Fred Seitz and the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, well - no thanks.

For those who want to understand my reasons for NOT accepting Keiran's suggestion, here is a pointer:

http://www.desmogblog.com/taxonomy/term/1680/0/feed

Xoddam, I like your style but (and I must say I find this maxim hard to follow myself) “it is not worth casting your knowledge before those that will not understand”.

Pericles, good post. While I don't believe GW is a fad (based on what I know) - you make some good points.

Dacsab;
Do you know if the effect of CO2 as a greenhouse agent is linear ?
I have read that a doubling of effect requires a four times increase.
Or was it to the cube ?

Davsab, my "kind invitation" simply ruins all your consensus, bandwagon arguments ... understand? Scientists can be just as venal as anyone else when it comes to funding or protecting their fixed positions on career and reputation. Please note Bob Carter here in OLO expressing this wisdom ..... "For you see, science is not about the triumph of the weight of numbers, nor about consensus, nor about the will of the social majority. An idea such as the greenhouse hypothesis is validated not by shouting but by experimental and observational testing and logical analysis." ... "Rather, science requires that to be successful a hypothesis only needs to be clearly stated, understandable, have explanatory power and withstand testing. It takes one person, not an army, ...."

No matter how aesthetically pleasing something is, or how prestigious its supporters are, or how many billions of dollars a certain "religious industry" has bet on it..... it will always come down to ..... does the theory over-ride the evidence? e.g. Just observe how the greenhousers embraced the "hockey stick " chart and hypothesis with a complete lack of critical evaluation, ..... and "for one reason and one reason only - it told them exactly what they wanted to hear."

My other concern and I include Xoddam here as well, relates to your obvious promotion of `scientism', which is a belief held by many scientists that knowledge not acquired by professional scientists is knowledge not worth having. Take note from that website and learn something ...... i.e. "Scientism is an affront to free people everywhere as it denies the right of the public to judge the work of science, even where this work is funded from taxpayer's money. It is a formula that holds scientists above criticism, and unaccountable to anyone but their own peers. It is an anti-democratic view of the world ....."

My other chief concern relates to the role of the media when it comes to examining science. The ABC the other night were truly disgraceful but this was no surprise when they see themselves as a powerful priest class.

I am no adherent of this alleged cult of "scientism". I fervently believe in the right of the public to scrutinise and discuss scientific reasoning and results.

On the other hand, given my limited resources of time and background knowledge, I carry a pinch of salt whilst reading non-reviewed websites; I rely on the peer review process as a good winnower of chaff.

Without indiscriminately impugning online commentators, I remind you all that there are well-documented examples of abuse of public confidence by well-resourced political opponents of the scientific consensus: people with something to lose from climate change mitigation.

The websites published under the banner of keeping an eye on the "self-perpetuating socialist bureaucracy" of the scientific community contain well-researched information, most of it entirely credible, seasoned with well-researched *dis*information, also mostly credible on the surface.

Unfortunately I'm not always able to spend my time verifying every fact, contention and conclusion. Nor is most of the general public.

Other partisan websites exist with the purpose of countering this disinformation. The general public is, once again, not in a position to confirm the truth of what's published there.

The websites on both sides seem to be rapidly improving in quality and in comprehensiveness, in a popular-science-writing arms race. This are all the more interesting because they are aimed at interested lay people.

In the long run this dialectic is constructive, and it certainly seems to work *faster* than the usual to- and fro- of science in the refereed literature.

But in the short term we are left with a certain lack of confidence for the simple reason that the websites are known to be partisan. They also distract from effort which would be better spent progressing the demonstrably rigorous scientific record.

I believe that the refereed scientific literature is not partisan (though of course you are free to make baseless assertions that it is). Moreover it is guaranteed not to publish wilful disinformation. For that reason alone, I choose not to rely on the websites for facts or conclusions (though of course I'm happy to link to them for nicely-written arguments).

No wonder most scientists keep out of the public domain. Entering into open discourse on a particular field of expertise is open to misrepresentation. We have to explain some intricacies that are complex that on the surface are perceived to be simple and well understood.

Incidentally, this is why Carl Wunsch was so upset about Durkin’s “Swindle”, he was misrepresented and taken out of context.

Most people find scientific detail boring and unintelligible. These same people would probably tell these experts to pull their head in and go get a life. They can adopt a negative attitude to what the experts are telling them and either will ‘turn off’, adopt an opposing stance, pretend it is not happening or bury their head in the sand.

Or, vested interest groups have another agenda.

Research is published and peer-reviewed, the findings are critiqued by other experts. If this is scientism, so be it. If other people want to understand the science that is gained by years of experience and research – do the hard yards.

Scientists don’t want to be pilloried, hung, drawn and quartered by the public just for being scientists. No wonder it is hard to attract young people to science these days.

I may question my auto-mechanic or my doctor, I don’t question their expertise. If I want another opinion, I seek it. Sooner or later I have to make a decision based primarily on risk or cost. If 98% of auto-mechanics tell me I need my brakes fixed, I fix them. But, I am not going to see more than 2 or 3 mechanics.

Corollary, if 98% of scientists tell me the planet has a global warming problem, I expect countries, businesses and people to do something about it – and believe it or not – they are. They talk to 1000's of scientists.

Some scientists want to big-note themselves – often directing public to their websites. In the case of GW deniers, I hope they get a Nobel one day for proving the other 98% wrong.

"I may question my auto-mechanic or my doctor, I don’t question their expertise. If I want another opinion, I seek it. Sooner or later I have to make a decision based primarily on risk or cost. If 98% of auto-mechanics tell me I need my brakes fixed, I fix them. But, I am not going to see more than 2 or 3 mechanics."

Great analogy. Are you comparing the Earth's climate system to a car? Wow so easily understood. Continuing this analogy, a mechanic (or 2) usually also tell you that a great deal more work is required on your car than actually is. So you end up paying more than you need to, sounds a little Kyotoish.

"Corollary, if 98% of scientists tell me the planet has a global warming problem, I expect countries, businesses and people to do something about it – and believe it or not – they are."

Gee you must be important...

Well at least 1/4 of everyone else in the developed world think its important. You must be one of this miniority.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2007/07/12/eaclim112.xml

Look how seriously they're taking it in Ireland.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html?in_article_id=467897&in_page_id=1811

Xoddam, I appreciate your response on "scientism" and perhaps unfairly I grouped you with the political, Davsab. I also appreciate your genuine efforts to examine my question "how high carbon dioxide in the past has never prevented subsequent cooling". Whilst I'm not a scientist in the professional sense I have always had the view that because we spend our lives continually immersed in cause and effect situations then we hold fast to a belief in causality (the "how") where we are all scientists. We are also all artists concerned with the "what" and philosophers interrogating the "why".

If we believe in the importance of the human desire to communicate, we have to believe in reason. Now with the internet we see it is communications many to many which is a rather significant difference because it is a meeting place, it is interactive, democratic with a deeper realism and our new enlightenment. The word is not with some exclusive and powerful group but with people who wish to unravel some exclusive knots. Scientists who genuinely believe in their expertise have an easy, economical and excellent platform to communicate their findings, thoughts, hypotheses, etc and to have them examined quite openly.

It is not surprising that television gave us the lateral but superficial postmodern, and it is not surprising that the ABC showing of the Durkin doco with its attempted debate went nowhere. However, the main point of this doco was the solar hypothesis which has historical supporting evidence that cannot be ignored if we are even remotely serious about the earth's climate. The main challenge here is our ability to separate cause from effect .... i.e. what drives change that creates derivatives else we will simply be left with this psychosis giving us closed systems "experts" who do their best to design their own climate with their faulty modeling, and unable to see outside the earth's troposphere.

Thanks for your respectful words, Kieran.

The much-maligned computer modelers definitely include solar forcings in their models; it's unfair to say they don't look beyond the troposphere. It is accepted on both sides of this "fence" that the largest driver for warming from 1890-1940 was solar forcing.

Less convincing is the hypothesis (presented rather badly by Durkin) that solar activity is the driver behind *all* recent climactic change.

It is not disputed that human activity adds greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. It is not even disputed that increasing them will raise the temperature; the only thing even questioned is how much.

The preachers of complacency would have us believe that adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere causes a mild effect which will level off logarithmically as concentrations increase, and suggest that the combined effect of different greenhouse gases is less than the sum of the effects, because of the saturation of certain frequency bands.

While it is true that some bands absorbed by water vapour are saturated on humid days at sea level, it is never the case that adding more of a greenhouse gas can have no additional effect, because in the troposphere pressures are low enough that there is no saturation. Warmth from the ground will be absorbed nearer to the surface than it is now. The absorbtion bands are also far narrower than they appear on most graphs.

Chaotic feedbacks make impossible to make firm predictions. The obvious, non-chaotic feedback of humidity may or may not be balanced by the highly-chaotic clouds (which have a greater warming effect at night than cooling by day, unless they are low). Even less predictable is the potentially very large feedback of additional methane.

If climate changes in past centuries did closely track solar activity, that makes it all the more alarming that the world has continued to warm rapidly through the last three decades as solar activity has fallen off: what was just an idea from 1880-1950, and merely a solid theory until the late 1980s, is confirmed.

Xoddam I keep returning to this examination of the question ... "how high carbon dioxide in the past has never prevented subsequent cooling". Perhaps for many people I will be perceived as a bit thick and somewhat complacent when persisting with the thought that the principal driver of the climate on earth is solar, driving all the other processes as effects although recognising the exception of minimal human emissions. (A pleasant way to gain some perspective is to zoom around the earth at a reasonable altitude using google earth and then begin to learn our true place by figuring out how to cope rationally with scales and inevitable change.)

Of course many people can have some concerns based on what you say here .... "If climate changes in past centuries did closely track solar activity, that makes it all the more alarming that the world has continued to warm rapidly through the last three decades as solar activity has fallen off: what was just an idea from 1880-1950, and merely a solid theory until the late 1980s, is confirmed."

But my thoughts on this would not yet be so alarmist because for one major reason ..... our earth and atmosphere are simply not expected to be in thermodynamic equilibrium with sunnyboy. This longer time frame to adapt, points more to a stronger cooling effect when it does happen. To put it another way, (cheeky me), we could be right now in a sharply cooling phase were it not for increased greenhouse gases due to solar and minimally to human input. We may also then exclaim thank goodness for that.