It won’t tear conservatives apart because whether they accept the informed guesswork of the climate scientists or believe it is hokum, conservatives are united in believing that the worst way to deal with this problem would be to wreck our economy and capacity for growth. Conservatives will be keen on new technology approaches and on market based solutions like carbon trading. Even personal carbon trading.

“This result closely agrees with expert surveys, indicating that [about] 97% of self-identified actively publishing climate scientists agree with the tenets of [man-made global warming].”

“Turkeys vote for christmas !!” shocker

Not in any way connected to the fact that their careers, their presteige, their power and their research grants are all dependent on continued buy in to the MMGW myth

And what does “agree with the tenents” mean – do they think we should return to agrarian communism or not ?

“…many conservatives have made themselves irrelevant in it by simply cupping their hands over their ears…”

Spot on Mr Kay.

“the worst way to deal with this problem would be to wreck our economy and capacity for growth”

This doesn’t even make sense on its own terms – recessions reduce CO2 emissions. So do oil price shocks. The trick on tackling climate change, therefore, is reducing CO2 without a recession or oil price shock, which is really only by decarbonising the economy and forcing up the price of oil controllably.

“Not in any way connected to the fact that their careers, their presteige, their power and their research grants are all dependent on continued buy in to the MMGW myth”

Hey, an argument involving use of an unfalsifiable premise! *kerplunk*

Matt Munro @ 2

Not in any way connected to the fact that their careers, their presteige, their power and their research grants are all dependent on continued buy in to the MMGW myth

You are correct because none of the things you mention are connected to MMGW. The reason that these scientists accept the existence of MMGW is because the laws of science tell them it does. Believe me; if MMGW was found NOT to exist then we would need to rewrite the entire laws of physics, chemistry and thousands of other disciplines as well. The research grants to do this would make research into Global Warming look like small change.

You are making a mistake that many halfwits make. You assume that because you are too stupid to understand the science means that the science must be flawed. Well sorry Matt, that is not true, it is you that is flawed and that millions of people cleverer than you can understand the concept of science. We can manage to get our head round the fact that the laws of physics are non negotiable; You cannot choose to believe or disbelieve scientific evidence because the political implications appear unpalatable.

Matt Munro you been to http://www.skepticalscience.com yet like I suggested?

Most of the queries which you have on climate change are answered here http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php

Its written for a lay audience (like you and I) but it is all referenced by peer reviewed studies.

I think it would be wise for you to learn about climate science before commenting on climate science.

Tom @4

/ applause /

I haven’t seen anyone invoke the killfile in such a delightfully Usenettish way in a good long time. Thank you for a moment of dial-up geek nostalgia.

A post on the subject of Climate Change, and guess who the first two comments come from?

At least Phil Hendren has (wisely) left this one alone.

Sunny, I’m not sure that James Delingpole has any credibility to speak of: his method is just non-stop abuse towards anyone who doesn’t agree that he is right. No surprise that he is in awe of Monckton – at least *he* attempts to advance some kind of coherent argument, however misguided.

The sophomoric style of argument that casts climate sceptics as stupid, “unable to understand the science” etc rather ignores the important issue of who the sceptics are. Richard Lindzen, perhaps the best known and most widely quoted sceptic, is Professor of Meteorology at MIT, an institution not known for giving chairs to dummies.

That doesn’t necessarily mean that he is right on this particular issue. But it should mean his views are given a respectful hearing.

Jim for your information I have a BSc (Hons) so I am aware of the empirical method. One of my oft repeated observations is that the science around global warming is flawed, to the point where it ignores basic principles of data gathering and analysis that would be familiar to a GCSE chemistry student (provided he was privately educated and hadn’t spent a decade at a nu labour reeducation facility, sorry school).

I really can’t be bothered to repeat them here, suffice to say it is you who is the hysterical half-wit. What exactly are your science qualifications, Jim ? I’ll take a wild guesss that you read the Guardian (written by humanities graduates) supplemented by a few warmist blogs (yawn). And like all lefties you think that makes you an expert and gives you the right to shout down anyone who questions your pathetic, self-serving, middle class hollow gesture politics?

“You cannot choose to believe or disbelieve scientific evidence because the political implications appear unpalatable.”

Indeed – but that’s exactly what the warmists are doing – ” we don’t like the inequality that capitalism produces, and we’re too lazy/thick/unpopular/ugly/boring to profit from it ourselves so lets attack it by pretending its going to cause armageddon”

Get this Jim, people have been predicting the end of the world for *centuries* you aren’t the first and you won’t be the last. Get over yourself, you simply aren’t that important, and you never will be.

Not in any way connected to the fact that their careers, their presteige, their power and their research grants are all dependent on continued buy in to the MMGW myth

1. There would be a massive amount of prestige for any scientist who was able to prove AGW to be false.
2. Climate scientists tend to be very highly qualified people who would be able to earn high salaries in the private sector.
3. Changes in the earth’s climate will have a big effect on human civilisation whatever the cause so there will always be a need to study it. Do you think that the likes of CRU and GISS would shut down if it were not for AGW?
4. Given that our climate is undeniably changing and we don’t have any alternative explanation if AGW were to be proved false there would probably be a need for more research grants rather than fewer.

So Matt, you genuinely just don’t know much about climate science?

Oh and you’re understanding of Public Choice Theory leaves a lot to be desired too.

There’s a lot of information on this page for you http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php, directly addressing your concerns I don’t know why you aren’t more appreciative.

@ 11 1. “There would be a massive amount of prestige for any scientist who was able to prove AGW to be false.”

Er I don’t think that was Gallileos experience.

“Climate scientists tend to be very highly qualified people who would be able to earn high salaries in the private sector”

Why don’t they then ? The private sector isn’t exactly crying out for people to tell them their products are going to kill the human race off for good

“Changes in the earth’s climate will have a big effect on human civilisation whatever the cause so there will always be a need to study it”

Quantify “big”. Doesn’t follow from that that all changes are unprecedented (“extreme” weather events are documented in Egyptian times) or universally a bad thing. The Sahara desert used to be a sea, the UK used to be part of france, the alps haven’t always been a mountain range, etc etc.

“Given that our climate is undeniably changing and we don’t have any alternative explanation”

Changing compared to what though ? The climate has never been static, it is by defintion a dynamic system. Global warming could just be a return to normal temperatures after the cool period which followed the medievil warm period. If the change is within historical parameters then who cares ? Just because we don’t understand “climate change” it doesn’t mean we should get hysterical about it.

The simple, and far more likely explanation (which no one is allowed to talk about) is that there are too many people living on it, population is the problem, not the climate.

There would be a massive amount of prestige for any scientist who was able to prove AGW to be false.

While I remain the Switzerland of the climate change debate, this rings false to me. When a massive stake – financial and reputational – has been invested in a theory, its believers wouldn’t be inclined to celebrate refutal.

“I haven’t seen anyone invoke the killfile in such a delightfully Usenettish way in a good long time.”

Eee, it be 17 years on the net for me this September. We had proper summers then. Cool ones.

Er I don’t think that was Gallileos experience.

Well we have moved on slightly from those days.

Why don’t they then ?

Because they actually enjoy doing what they are doing?

Quantify “big”. Doesn’t follow from that that all changes are unprecedented (“extreme” weather events are documented in Egyptian times) or universally a bad thing. The Sahara desert used to be a sea, the UK used to be part of france, the alps haven’t always been a mountain range, etc etc.

My point is that regardless of AGW studying our climate and how it changes is an entirely neccessary endeavour given how much we depend on it. I don’t see how any of that contradicts this.

Changing compared to what though ? The climate has never been static, it is by defintion a dynamic system. Global warming could just be a return to normal temperatures after the cool period which followed the medievil warm period. If the change is within historical parameters then who cares ? Just because we don’t understand “climate change” it doesn’t mean we should get hysterical about it.

Changing compared to what we have seen almost certainly for the last 1,000 years, probably much longer. Temperatures are much higher than before the LIA started so “returning to normal after the LIA” is certainly not a credible argument. Certainly the changes are significant enough to be worthy of study, regardless of whether human activity is the cause, so the notion that scientsts would not get their research grants if it were not for AGW is nonsense.

The simple, and far more likely explanation (which no one is allowed to talk about) is that there are too many people living on it, population is the problem, not the climate.

How does population explain climate change (other than further increasing GHG emissions?)

I do like to pop climate-change deniers, flat-earthers and creationists on the same pedestal. Their arguments and tactics are, generally speaking, distressingly similar,

@ 16 “How does population explain climate change (other than further increasing GHG emissions?)”

Are you serious ? Given that it’s not possible for an individual to have a negative carbon footprint, every person on the planet contributes to gross emissions, the more people the more emissions. In any climate change model the biggest number will be the number of people.

@ 16 “Changing compared to what we have seen almost certainly for the last 1,000 years, probably much longer”

So on the basis of “almost certainly” over a ludicrously short time period and “probably” over an indeterminate one, we should return to a medievil standard of living ?

Sorry, not good enough

“I have a BSc (Hons)”

I think most of the scientists involved have one as well.

Matt, I agree, our climate has changed before. You know what has made it change in the past? Carbon Dioxide.

Instead of saying our “climate has changed before” and considering that to be the end of it, it is far more sensible to see it as a starting point. We should be asking; what made climate change in the past and are any of those things happening now?

If there’s one thing that all sides of the climate debate can agree on, it’s that climate has changed naturally in the past. Long before industrial times, the planet underwent many warming and cooling periods. This has led some to conclude that if global temperatures changed naturally in the past, long before SUVs and plasma TVs, nature must be the cause of current global warming. This conclusion is the opposite of peer-reviewed science has found.

Our climate is governed by the following principle: when you add more heat to our climate, global temperatures rise. Conversely, when the climate loses heat, temperatures fall. Say the planet is in positive energy imbalance. More energy is coming in than radiating back out to space. This is known as radiative forcing, the change in net energy flow at the top of the atmosphere. When the Earth experiences positive radiative forcing, our climate accumulates heat and global temperature rises (not monotonically, of course, internal variability will add noise to the signal).

How much does temperature change for a given radiative forcing? This is determined by the planet’s climate sensitivity. The more sensitive our climate, the greater the change in temperature. The most common way of describing climate sensitivity is the change in global temperature if atmospheric CO2 is doubled. What does this mean? The amount of energy absorbed by CO2 can be calculated using line-by-line radiative transfer codes. These results have been experimentally confirmed by satellite and surface measurements. The radiative forcing from a doubling of CO2 is 3.7 Watts per square metre (W/m2) (IPCC AR4 Section 2.3.1).

So when we talk about climate sensitivity to doubled CO2, we’re talking about the change in global temperatures from a radiative forcing of 3.7 Wm-2. This forcing doesn’t necessarily have to come from CO2. It can come from any factor that causes an energy imbalance.

How much does it warm if CO2 is doubled? If we lived in a climate with no feedbacks, global temperatures would rise 1.2°C (Lorius 1990). However, our climate has feedbacks, both positive and negative. The strongest positive feedback is water vapour. As temperature rises, so too does the amount of water vapour in the atmosphere. However, water vapour is a greenhouse gas which causes more warming which leads to more water vapour and so on. There are also negative feedbacks – more water vapour causes more clouds which can have both a cooling and warming effect.

What is the net feedback? Climate sensitivity can be calculated from empirical observations. One needs to find a period where we have temperature records and measurements of the various forcings that drove the climate change. Once you have the change in temperature and radiative forcing, climate sensitivity can be calculated. Figure 1 shows a summary of the peer-reviewed studies that have determined climate sensitivity from past periods (Knutti & Hegerl 2008).

Figure 1: Distributions and ranges for climate sensitivity from different lines of evidence. The circle indicates the most likely value. The thick coloured bars indicate likely value (more than 66% probability). The thin coloured bars indicate most likely values (more than 90% probability). Dashed lines indicate no robust constraint on an upper bound. The IPCC likely range (2 to 4.5°C) and most likely value (3°C) are indicated by the vertical grey bar and black line, respectively.

There have been many estimates of climate sensitivity based on the instrumental record (the past 150 years). Several studies used the observed surface and ocean warming over the twentieth century and an estimate of the radiative forcing. A variety of methods have been employed – simple or intermediate-complexity models, statistical models or energy balance calculations. Satellite data for the radiation budget have also been analyzed to infer climate sensitivity.

Some recent analyses used the well-observed forcing and response to major volcanic eruptions during the twentieth century. A few studies examined palaeoclimate reconstructions from the past millennium or the period around 12,000 years ago when the planet came out of a global ice age (Last Glacial Maximum).

What can we conclude from this? We have a number of independent studies covering a range of periods, studying different aspects of climate and employing various methods of analysis. They all yield a broadly consistent range of climate sensitivity with a most likely value of 3°C for a doubling of CO2.

The combined evidence indicates that the net feedback to radiative forcing is significantly positive. There is no credible line of evidence that yields very high or very low climate sensitivity as a best estimate.

CO2 has caused an accumulation of heat in our climate. The radiative forcing from CO2 is known with high understanding and confirmed by empirical observations. The climate response to this heat build-up is determined by climate sensitivity.

Ironically, when skeptics cite past climate change, they’re in fact invoking evidence for strong climate sensitivity and net positive feedback. Higher climate sensitivity means a larger climate response to CO2 forcing. Past climate change actually provides evidence that humans can affect climate now.

16/17 – so your position can be summed up as: “global warming is happening, and one of the causes is greenhouse gases released by humans. I value my standard of living so don’t support any measures to reduce global warming that would impact on that”?

Congratulations, you’ve joined the majority moderate position.

It’s a shame that there are hundreds of millions of people around the world whose early-20th-century standard of living is going to be reduced by the effects of climate change, though.

Fortunately, all we have to do is sink loads of money into the problem and then they can keep their 20th-century standards of living and we can reach much better ones. Yay!

ahahaha. 18/19, that should be…

Matt Munro @ 10

information I have a BSc (Hons) so I am aware of the empirical method.

Then you have a very strange way of showing it.

I really can’t be bothered to repeat them here

Yes, I seen you ripped to pieces too many times to the extent it is no longer funny. You must surely be aware that your useless mutterings on this subject actually exposes you to looking like a complete fuckwit? Every time you post on this (and a few other subjects), you make fundamental errors that betray a level of complete ignorance that would embarrass anyone else. You must be aware that the science we are discussing has been thoroughly researched. You must surely be aware the law of physics that this theory is underpinned by is well established? Do you seriously think that the entire laws of physics are likely to fall apart based on the questioning of someone like you, with an absolutely blank knowledge of this subject? You really think you can spot a flaw in the science that the entire body of those studying the subject have missed. Can you possibly understand how mind bogglingly stupid that makes you appear?

You surely cannot believe that the science is just made up? You claim to be educated, but you cannot seriously think that the entire last 200 hundred years of science history has just been concocted to come to a conclusion that that you don’t like? You seriously think that every research paper, every experiment, every measurement ever published on these subjects has been falsified to create a set of circumstances in which…

…well that is the hardest part of your conspiracy theory, what would be the point of it? Why would the entire scientific community, sit down at a point, say 150 years ago to design a conspiracy so complex that they had to falsify the entire scientific canon to the point where this ‘fictitious’ greenhouse gas theory could be sustained. Not only that but the conspiracy be maintained and kept watertight to the point around a hundred years later the same falsified data could be further corrupted to coincide with ‘completely natural events’ in order that the scientists of the day could exert control over the rest of humanity?

And this whole conspiracy would be maintained for over a hundred and fifty years, with the only people noticing the flaws in the entire scientific data, being discovered by PR men in the car/oil industry?

Matt, you don’t think that is strange? You don’t question how much we know about the atmosphere? You really think the whole of the last two centuries have been a total lie and we actually know nothing and the entire thing was made up?

Indeed – but that’s exactly what the warmists are doing

Left Outside @21 wins the game.

@18 Matt the Twat

“Are you serious ? Given that it’s not possible for an individual to have a negative carbon footprint, every person on the planet contributes to gross emissions, the more people the more emissions. In any climate change model the biggest number will be the number of people.”

Is it me, or does this admit that carbon emissions are the cause of the climate change you deny to be happening?

Go play with your conkers you bloody nutjob waste of space.

@21

I’ve learned something today

@ This thread in general:

I love the way that climate change deniers have fallen back a step. No longer able to deny that climate change is happening over the short term, they admit it’s happening but deny that mankind causes it. Given that we all agree that it’s happening and that one of the key compounds that causes it is pumped out ad nauseum by human activities, I’d have thought the extra proof they demand is redundant.

I’d also like to add that the denier’s change of method is suspiciously similar to the Creationists’ “let’s pretend microevolution is a separate process to EVILution” tactic.

I genuinely can’t recommend…

http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php

…highly enough. Its from where I cribbed all that.

If you’re bored of arguing with people who don’t know anything about climate science you can just copy and paste one of their arguments and educate anyone willing to learn, or scare off anyone who is a moronic ideologue with actual, you know, science.

I suppose, for full disclosure, I should reveal that I have a humanities degree…

“I suppose, for full disclosure, I should reveal that I have a humanities degree…”

Shucks. Me too. But I think both you and I have grasped the central ideal of science, which is “Don’t hide, ignore and lie about evidence because it doesn’t fit your religious, political or paranoid worldview.”

Are you serious ? Given that it’s not possible for an individual to have a negative carbon footprint, every person on the planet contributes to gross emissions, the more people the more emissions. In any climate change model the biggest number will be the number of people.

Now I’m confused. Given your reluctance to accept that human CO2 emssions are changing the climate I assumed that your claim that over population was the problem meant that there was some other factor which linked increases in population and globalwarming (UHI perhaps)? Now you seem to be accepting that CO2 emissions really are the problem.

So on the basis of “almost certainly” over a ludicrously short time period and “probably” over an indeterminate one, we should return to a medievil standard of living ?

Of course if I’d have said it was 100% certain you would have complained that I was ignoring the uncertainties in the science. Anyway the scientific basis for AGW is based on far more than the paleotemperature reconstructions, in fact it doesn’t require them at all – the hockey stick only dates from 1998 but we’ve known about the threat from climate change due to GHG emissions for longer than that.
And I’m pretty certain that neither myself or anyone else here has advocated returning to a medieval standard of living.

@14 Ben

While I remain the Switzerland of the climate change debate, this rings false to me. When a massive stake – financial and reputational – has been invested in a theory, its believers wouldn’t be inclined to celebrate refutal.

Given the weight of evidence in favour of AGW it is natural that scientists are going to be rather sceptical towards anyone who claims to have disproved it, and it would take a pretty remarkable breakthrough in the way we understand the climate in order to do so – remarkable enough to indeed grant a large amount of prestige to anyone who managed it. But ultimately scientists really do change their minds when the evidence changes.
As for the financial stake in AGW, the current scientific consensus is up against some pretty powerful financial interests itself but has survived unscathed because the science is sound.

Just as a side note: Why don’t they then ? The private sector isn’t exactly crying out for people to tell them their products are going to kill the human race off for good

No, but the ability to create large statistical models is extremely highly valued.

Flowerpower

“….Richard Lindzen, perhaps the best known and most widely quoted sceptic, is Professor of Meteorology at MIT, an institution not known for giving chairs to dummies.

That doesn’t necessarily mean that he is right on this particular issue. But it should mean his views are given a respectful hearing.”

Giving “views a respectful hearing” apparently doesn’t apply to the 97% of scientists who Flowerpower simply dismisses as “alarmist”. I agree Lindzen should be respected, but he is only a single scientist and his claims regarding climate sensitivity haven’t convinced many other scientists.

Anyway, I don’t know if Lindzen is the most quoted sceptic, but he is the sceptic of last resort – the one deniers turn to when the denialist crap of Watts, Monckton, Plimer et al has been exposed..

BTW, in a stunning display of ‘scepticism’, Anthony Watts was yesterday citing Nick Griffin. Watts has apparently taken down his post, but there is a cached version here:

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-GB%3Aofficial&channel=s&hl=en&source=hp&q=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwattsupwiththat.com%2F2010%2F07%2F19%2Fclimate-skepticism-could-soon-be-a-criminal-offence-in-uk%2F&meta=&btnG=Google+Search

“People who are sceptical of climate change could soon be facing criminal charges in the European Court of Justice, British National Party leader and MEP Nick Griffin MEP has said.

Speaking in an exclusive Radio Red, White and Blue interview on this week’s “Eurofile” report, Mr Griffin told interviewer John Walker about a recent sitting of the European Parliament’s subcommittee dealing with the matter, which had passed a ruling which in effect placed legal sanction against anyone who dared question the origin, cause or effect of “climate change.”
Mr Griffin revealed how he could not get a straight answer out of the committee while it was in session, but that afterwards it was admitted to him that that intention of the rule was to criminalise dissension on the topic of “climate change.”
Listen to the full Radio RWB report by clicking here, choosing the RWB player launch icon and clicking on “Nick Griffin 14 July Brussels” in the pop-up menu.”

the 97% of scientists who Flowerpower simply dismisses as “alarmist”.

Alarmists and catastrophists represent only a fraction of the total number of scientists who believe in AGW, but oddly a much larger number of people who contribute to blogs like this.

The reason is probably that alarmism is political, not scientific – a call to radical action rather than the dispassionate assessment of natural phenomena.

Flowerpower

“Alarmists and catastrophists represent only a fraction of the total number of scientists who believe in AGW.”

So now you tell us that although 97% of scientists might believe AGW is real, policy-wise they don’t think we should do anything about it? That is simply idiotic. Your use of the terms “Alarmists” and “catastrophists” are just your pathetic attempt at creating strawmen and to advocate no action.

“The reason is probably that alarmism is political, not scientific – a call to radical action rather than the dispassionate assessment of natural phenomena.”

What are you saying now? There are hardly any scientists out there that will agree that current climate change is a natural phenomena. Even your sceptic of last resort Richard Lindzen agrees that putting CO2 into the atmosphere will change the climate – he just disagrees with the extent of change that will result. You regularly seem to contradict yourself. Your contribution here barely makes sense.

Paul A

I’ve said several times on other threads that I’d be very surprised if man’s activity over the past hundred years or so (all those cars, trains, electric lights, central heating etc.) hadn’t contributed to some of the 0.7 or 0.8 of a degree by which global mean temps have increased.

And though I’d back any sensible energy saving/ energy efficiency measures, I certainly wouldn’t support a mad scramble to reduce carbon emissions. I don’t accept that they make that much difference, or that the threat is all that serious. And even if I’m wrong, the fact that the Chinese and the Indians aren’t going to follow any lead we give makes the whole greenie project a waste of time.

We’d be better off creating the wealth and the new technologies that can help us adapt to the warming – if necessary.

@ 32 Now I’m confused. Given your reluctance to accept that human CO2 emssions are changing the climate I assumed that your claim that over population was the problem meant that there was some other factor which linked increases in population and globalwarming (UHI perhaps)? Now you seem to be accepting that CO2 emissions really are the problem.

No, I don’t accept that there is a problem, what I am saying is that the problem described as “global warming” is really the problem of over population expressed in different terms, it’s saying:
“an increasing number of people means we must all produce less carbon”
rather than
“if we had fewer people we could carry on producing carbon at the same rate” .

@ 32 “And I’m pretty certain that neither myself or anyone else here has advocated returning to a medieval standard of living”.

Then you seem blisfully unaware of the implications of your own argument. No one with a brain believes that turning the TV off, unplugging your phone charging and riding a bike to work is going to make a significant difference. What exactly are you saying we should do, carry on as we are and just feel guilty about it (the default warmist position) ?

@ 21 “Instead of saying our “climate has changed before” and considering that to be the end of it, it is far more sensible to see it as a starting point. We should be asking; what made climate change in the past and are any of those things happening now?”

Why ? I genuinely don’t follow this logic. If it’s outside our control then what’s the point ?

“Alarmists and catastrophists represent only a fraction of the total number of scientists who believe in AGW.”

So Global Warming is happening and is man made, but most scientists wjo belive in it don’t think we should do anything about it ?? Laughable.

Then you seem blisfully unaware of the implications of your own argument. No one with a brain believes that turning the TV off, unplugging your phone charging and riding a bike to work is going to make a significant difference. What exactly are you saying we should do, carry on as we are and just feel guilty about it (the default warmist position) ?

There’s a pretty broad spectrum in between my riding my bike to work and returning to medieval standards of living. What we do about it is a huge subject in itself and I don’t have all of the answers, but obviously we need to take a pretty fundamental look at how we generate power, how we consume it, how we put incentives in place for people and organisations to reduce their carbon footprint – trading mechanisms and allowances and the like. To an extent we have to accept that it is too late to prevent some change to the climate and we have to mitigate it as best we can.

So Global Warming is happening and is man made, but most scientists wjo belive in it don’t think we should do anything about it ?? Laughable.

Believing we should take action on Global Warming does not make someone an alarmist or a catastrophist.

Why ? I genuinely don’t follow this logic. If it’s outside our control then what’s the point ?

If we understand why climate changed in the past we can get a better idea of why it is changing now. And we might conclude that actually it’s not out of our control.

Matt Munro @ 42

Why is it laughable to believe that the Earth may be warming a bit, but that doesn’t mean the end of the world is nigh?

It’s also perfectly rational to accept what scientists have to say about what has happened in the past while being sceptical of their predictions about what might happen in the future.

I’m not even sure Al Gore completely buys into the catastrophism he peddles. In the same year (2005) he was predicting massive sea level rises, he blew $4 million on an oceanfront condo. Were his predictions accurate, his concierge would drown and his investment become worthless.

“Why ? I genuinely don’t follow this logic. If it’s outside our control then what’s the point ?”

Without meaning to sound obtuse, I don’t understand how you can’t understand.

Your assumption that climate change is “outside our control” can only be valid in any way shape or form if it is informed by examination of past climate change.

Without working out why climate changed in the past then your position is completely untenable because you don’t know if the climate is “outside our control” and you are rejecting the one way of finding out whether to cornerstone of your belief is true or false.