My point is, you've accounted for a handful of datasets. 5 or 6 at the most. There is more climate data than that. Things happen. Data gets lost. Twisting that into something sinister is incredibly dishonest.

Darwyn - I rather suspect that UEA was not the only institution with raw data. The fact that the raw data has been lost does not invalidate their findings - it would be more noteworthy (IMHO) if they were showing results against the prevailing consensus. The raw data from my Ph D thesis is long gone, does that make it invalid?

The challenge is that science is rarely 100% black or white. The killer for me is that no one on the 'denier' (for want of a better term) side of the argument can ever come up with a working model that does explain the fluctuations we are seeing in the global temp. Given the complexity and mass of data, it's never going to be 100% accurate. It's always about something other than the conclusions from the mass of global data. Even if you exclude UEA, the balance of opinion is still firmly on one side of the discussion.

You keep saying think for yourself, and then you just quote other people who've come up with outlandish conspiracy theories. You keep saying "think for yourself" and then reaching the most unlikely conclusions. I do think for myself. I just realize that "think for myself" does not mean I absolutely have to disagree with every single other sane person in the world.

News flash...Climate IS change. You just need someone to demand money from you for you to believe it.

Sad.

"side of the argument can ever come up with a working model that does explain the fluctuations we are seeing in the global temp"

It's called climate. And there's a direct correlation between it and solar activity. There you go.

Re the global warming debate specifically and science generally:

Much 'research' now takes the form of computational modelling, often for reasons of economy, if nothing else. Scientists then understandably become wedded to the results of the model and these starts to assume, in many people's eyes, the qualities of raw data. Of course they are no such thing; for example, any global model which does not constrain the affect arctic melt water on the gulf stream, is baloney. Yet people remain wedded to it as an article of faith. I have even seen people change the raw data input into the computer model because the results were 'wrong'.

"you just quote other people who've come up with outlandish conspiracy theories"

I've quoted people who have admitted to exaggerating data and news articles that expose the loss of data.

Darwyn - please don't quote the Daily Mail as a source. It has a reputation for a broad interpretation of the facts.

With regard to the 'no warming since 95' - its a complex system, so different levers are going to pull at different times. The last 10 years are still the warmest in recorded history. The rate of change has never been constant - it speeds up, slows down, and has the odd reverse blip.

And of course the climate has changed in the past. Well, like, duh! And it will again. That does not immeadiately invalidate AGW.

The media cannot (or will not) point all these things out, and a scientifically illiterate population lack the skills to understand (and challenge) the science. It gets distilled down to black and white, right or wrong, no middle ground where sense can be spoken.

As Mafa said, there is a huge amount of data out there. Look at the mid and low predictions, rather than the high, and it's still worrying. Global businesses are falling over themselves to reduce emissions and usage (which can't be a bad thing), so risks are being managed. Or are they all stupid?

it's a scientific fact that green-house gases cause temps to go up, also a fact that we are producing lots of them. Neither of these facts are disputed by anyone.

"You keep saying "think for yourself" and then reaching the most unlikely conclusions"

When some admits to exaggerations, how is the conclusion that they are full of shit so unlikely?

"it's a scientific fact that green-house gases cause temps to go up,"

But no one can tax cow farts.

Darwyn - can you show me the data that directly links solar activity solely with global temps? Oh, hang on, we should be cooling because solar activity has been low.

Fulhamish - I agree with models and their dangers - but as I've said, the media will only ever report the worst case prediction, rather than the most likely result. The challenge is that we are living through this, so we cannot build a model after the fact, and then say a) CO2 has a negligble effect, or b) CO2 is a disaster.

they ought to be taxing the hell out of meat, methane is a big chunk of the problem. But that's a political error, not science.

A quick check on atmospheric methane levels (from Vostok ice cores) shows no real change in the last 10000 years (it's wiki but it's a start). I'll look for some more data, but tha suggests taxing cow farts is not required

Oh, I didn't mean to imply that solar activity alone effects global temps. Just that it is a factor that I think AGW people seem to forget.

And yeah, I'm freaking cold right now. So is the rest of the world by record low temperatures in some parts.

And I need to correct myself - according to the article, methane is about 20% of the issue. Still better focus on CO2, no?

Thanks Darwyn - I've never said otherwise re other factors (if you read what I typed). That doesn't invalidate the impact of human activity.

I don't know Pete, do you think it's a good idea to ignore 20% of the planetary disaster?

Darwyn, you fail to understand what adding energy to a complex system will do.

It would make the extremes more extremes as energy is added. But basing your rantings on scientific principles isn't your strong suit, obviously.

Nor is your rhetoric skills... your basic strategy is to relentlessly imply that the investigators are outright liars instead of addressing the data directly.

@Ghost: your ability to win a debate on either side of an issue says more about you (and the weak-minded people you debate) than the truth of the issue.

What you may not realize, not being in the US, is that climate change denial is directly linked to young earth creationism. A big chunk of the US population has been told since birth that an anti-Christian conspiracy in the science community has deliberately misrepresented data showing that there have been wild changes in the climate of the earth since it was created 6000 years ago. For them, science is meaningless from the get-go. And the basic scientific argument, which is that current climate change is taking place in decades instead of millennia, is invalidated because young-earth creationists don't believe in millennia.

Since you seem to be the kind of person who thinks science is real, I have a question--what are the odds, in your opinion, that catastrophic climate change will take place if we don't make major changes to our energy production and consumption?

"And as experience in Europe has already shown, polluters will simply buy the license, and pass the cost on to consumers. The pollution will continue, has continued; the only real change is that goods and services cost more than they did before."

- and that is how economics is supposed to work, supply of carbon neutral services has not increased, so without the government directly deciding who should do what businesses are able to choose for themselves how to react. And it is perfectly right for a corporation to pay society for the damage it does to our environment. (instead of taking 'air resources' for free)

This is the free market solution at work.

"There is a huge amount of money at stake on convincing the people of the world that the Earth is getting warmer, that it is all their fault, and atonement lies with submitting to new taxation."

Or people are already convinced and 'Carbon taxes' are the best way to tackle the problem. Sure this is politics but you have to look at the science before you decide whether it's good or not, don't look at the resulting politics and then decide it's all a big conspiracy...

"Warming periods have happened before - but NOT due to man-made changes" - yes very good point, this period of warming has been show (apparently) to be qualitatively different, so while NON-man-made warming has occurred, this occurrence of warming IS different, so we have to assume the difference is something to do with man-made activity... we've built model, and our computers are millions of times more powerful than those used in the 70s when climate science was in it's infancy.

But i'm glad you bring up this point.

mcbry - 80/20 is a heck of a good rule of thumb. If we can deal with the 80%, we've done most of the heavy lifting. As we cannot (yet) control the output of the sun, we should be dealing with the things we can potentially influence

Just because methane is only 20% of the problem doesn't mean CO2 is the rest. And why would we only focus on one source of the problem? What do we lose by dealing with both? There probably ARE certain industries/interests that are trying to turn a buck on this issue, and we probably should be careful about how perspective gets skewed in the process. You don't need to convince me that human activity is destroying the planet's natural balance, but the politics involved leave something to be desired.

@ orthaic: "that is how economics is supposed to work, supply of carbon neutral services has not increased, so without the government directly deciding who should do what businesses are able to choose for themselves how to react. And it is perfectly right for a corporation to pay society for the damage it does to our environment. (instead of taking 'air resources' for free)

This is the free market solution at work."

The problem is, that's not really a solution at all unless it results in greenhouse gas emissions significantly decreasing. The free market cannot solve this problem.

Darwyn,

With respect, you appear to feel that a flaw in one segment of a discussion indicates that the entire discussion is based on a flawed premise - not that the one piece should be discarded as flawed.

If you give me an example of something you believe, I am willing to bet I can find someone who believes the same thing, but has used flawed data to back themselves up. Does that automatically invalidate their conclusion? Or does that indicate that *that specific source* should be viewed with suspicion and not considered as part of the evidence?

You state, for example, that Al Gore somehow manufactured "Global Warming" from the whole cloth in order to profit from carbon credit trades. If that is the lynchpin of your concern, would someone be able to refute that and alleviate your concerns?

I ask that not to try to paint you into a corner, but to try to understand how to exchange views with you. If your views are, bluntly, unfalsifiable, then just like any other subject based on faith, it would seem that debate would be pointless. Do you disagree?

Gah, one final reply to Darwyn. You keep pointing to cases where people have done unusual things with data or done things wrong in a newspaper or other newsmedia source, and then claimed that all climate science is problematic. I think this argument is based on a misunderstanding of how "news" works. You can remember this simple concept with the old joke about how "Dog bites man" is not news but "Man bites dog" is. I'll test your knowledge of this concept with a simple multiple choice question.
You have not read a headline which reads "Climate scientist able to provide raw data used to write paper when asked for it, and upon examination data did indeed support the conclusions drawn." This is because:
A) It has never, ever happened in the history of climate science.
B) It is fairly routine and is therefore not something that would generally be reported.
C) It is not controversial and therefore unlikely to sell tons and tons of newspapers.
D) Some combination of B) and C).

"The problem is, that's not really a solution at all unless it results in greenhouse gas emissions significantly decreasing. The free market cannot solve this problem. "

Yes and no Jamie. *If* carbon credits are structured in such a way that the emission of carbon has a definite cost associated with it, then the supply and demand curve changes.

For example, right now it is far less expensive - in the short and long run - to run a coal power plant than any number of renewables or nuclear. If, on the other hand, a tax on carbon is enacted (and that's basically what 'carbon credits' are), then the cost per kilowatt jumps. If it jumps high enough, then other, carbon neutral solutions become feasible.

The downside to this, of course, is that the public is used to paying X per kilowatt hour, and they'd inevitably have to pay Y were carbon taxed - even if every carbon producing plant was closed tomorrow, renewables in general are more expensive today, and there is only so much economies of scale can do to bring that down.

Politicians tend to be loath to spread pain to the voters, lest they lose their jobs, so while the economics of the issue are plain, the politics are such that getting a carbon tax passed would be... challenging

Oh, and just to enter into the CO2 / Methane / Other Greenhouse Gases issue, here are the stats as I understand them, based on enhanced warming (that is greenhouse gas impacts taking into account carbon cycle feedbacks, and taking out the natural contribution of water vapour):

CO2 accounts for about 60% of enhanced warming
Methane accounts for about 20%

The remaining 20% is made up of a number of GHGs including Nitrogen Dioxide, Sulphur Hexaflouride, Hydroflurocarbons, Perflurocarbons and others.

Carbon dioxide is the biggest contributor, but I strongly feel that there is currently too much focus on "carbon, carbon, carbon" and that we should be working hard to tackle emissions of ALL the above gases, such as methane, and not just CO2.

Finally (at least in terms of an initial response):

Darwyn - have you ever heard of the precautionary principle?