Note that over 31,000 scientists in the USA alone have signed a petition that states: “There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth.” http://www.petitionproject.org/

The bushfires that recently burnt in my home state of Victoria pumped more “greenhouse” gases into the atmosphere than the entire country of Australia had managed to do for the past year and to quote global warming as a cause of the bushfires is madness – I live in regional Victoria, in an area affected by the bushfires – one of the the primary causes is the state government allowing the fuel sources to build up through the cutting of budgets within forestry management – see this article (written by on of Australia’s primary environmental scientists)… http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25031389-7583,00.html

When looking at climate, or in fact science in general – there are NO definites – science is about theory, inference, repeatable experiments and HEALTHY DEBATE – not being prepared to enter debate and to take a broadbrush approach to attempt to ridicule and undermine any argument or debate is essentially politics of the worst kind – deliberate supression of valid points of view – we may as well have let Hitler win.

If it were around the globe on your desk it would be less than a millimeter thick. Yet into this thin veil we are pumping billions of tonnes of carbon. My small state in Victoria in Australia just pumped out 2.016 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions in the past week alone. (27 Feb – 5 Mar). 2 million tonnes! We know the impact that changes to the concentration of carbon has in our atmosphere. To deny this is human induced is ludicrous – even for the lay person. For the 210 people killed in our recent bushfires and the 8,000 made homeless the extreme weather events predicted by climate scientists here are very real- try telling them climate change is a joke in one minute.

Its interesting that you point out ingenuity. Thats precisely what the new green movement has developed. New ways of living. Its peope like you that want to remain in the status-quo and continue business like usual. Its people who are environmentally aware who want to change our cultural behaviors and adapt to an “ever changing climate” .

Until this happens any action taken to “fight” global warming should be on a “no regrets” basis. i.e. it should as far as possible be restricted to actions like increasing energy efficiency which make sense in there own tight whether AGW is taking place or not.

By the way, James Hansen also worked on the original research that ultimately led to the Global Cooling theory…….

For the past 10 years I’ve been asking a simple question, and can’t get an answer. Can anyone produce any evidence that increasing carbon dioxide is or can cause significant global temperature change? I don’t want failed computer models – just real data to back it up. I want more than the usual answers eg “what else could it be”, “isn’t it obvious” Perhaps someone here can come up with something based on real data. Remember we’ve just seen 11 years of cooling, despite a 5% CO2 increase – makes it a bit hard, doesn’t it?

The factors involved in climate change are hugely complex: distance between the Earth and the Sun (which is variable by the way…), position of the continents, behaviour of the deep ocean currents (which transport most of the energy), CO2 levels linked to the deposition of calcium carbonate by micro-organisms in the oceans, ice cover (reflecting sunlight), extensive volcanism (e.g. pumping CO2 in the atmosphere or blocking sunlight causing “nuclear winter”) and so on… These global climate and energy distributing factors interact and work on timescales of thousands to millions of years.

You may think that scientist understand the interaction of Earth’s climate factors, I mean the data and computer models clearly show that the Earth is warming up. But the same computer models have so far not been able to satisfactory “predict” Earth past climate (which we know from the fossil climate records) and can also not forecast the weather two weeks in the future! Besides, there is clear evidence that the climate has actually slightly cooled in the last 2000 years and the last 100 years with only a slight warming on the first half of the 20th century.

Oh,… and as someone wrote before me… (and he/she was right)… the Antarctic icecap is actually growing! Does make you think doesn’t it!?

It just doesn’t add up that we are the only cause of climate change. What seems even more unlikely is that we can “stop” climate change (unless you are capable stopping Earth from rotating around the Sun…). It would be much wiser to accept that, inevitably, climate is going to change and to spend some money on how we are going to deal with it rather then how we are going to avoid it.

On a personal note, I have always been interested in geology and the Earth climate. At one stage I had started postgraduate studies at quite a renowned university. It was suggested by the department I studied with that I should write something about climate change in my research proposal. I was told that even if I didn’t end up researching climate change it would look favourable on my grant application and could attract up to $100,000 extra for the department… I knew that I was in the wrong line of research then.

Anyway, if global sea level rises I won’t buy a house at the beach (even better, my place might end up at the beach!). If we end up going into the next glacial period (as we are supposed to) I’ll light the fireplace hopefully emitting so much CO2 that it will be nice and warm the year after.

A special note for all you alarmists: there are some large rocks flying around in our solar system of which some may even hit Earth and kill everything. Luckily there are some people watching out for these rocks but for every rock they find they miss about eight or so. Besides, even if we find one there is not plan or funding to seriously do something about it. Also, on another happy note, if any star within a ‘quite a few’ light years of Earth goes supernova we will be hit by some major gamma radiation killing everything with zero warning… I haven’t heard anyone loosing sleep over it.

Merry Xmas…

Global warming would be regenerative. Oceans which have served as a buffer by absorbing atmospheric carbon dioxide will be releasing dissolved carbon dioxide as they warm. Warmer air will carry increased moisture which is another greenhouse gas. Melting of snow and ice will decrease reflectivity of sunlight thus increasing heating of the globe. These regenerative actions, of heating promoting more heating, may produce thermal runaway after a tipping point is reached. We cannot know when that point may be reached. Perhaps it has already occured.