PersianPaladin

The floods are the worst disaster in Australian history:- http://news.sky.com/...tralian_History At some point you have to ackknowledge that the predictions from climate scientists concerning increasing frequency of these rare events - are very strongly linked to CC exacerbating existing cycles. Your last link also claims to "refute" the hockey stick temperature records. But of course, that is a nonsense claim. I'm sure you would ignore paleaoclimatological studies such as this too? http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/globalwarming/references.html#medieval

This sounds too good to be true:- http://blogs.howstuf...ce-has-arrived/ The fact that they refuse to explain fully how their technology works, or expose it to peer-review or studies on EROEI...makes me skeptical. How much energy exactly is used to generate the chemical processes which lead to the production of fuels? How much CO2 does it actually consume? And how much CO2 does the burning of this synthetic fuel produce? Has the process been verified or replicated by other scientists? Has the process been documented in peer reviewed journals? That the answer so far is 'no' or 'i don't know' to those questions doesn't lend any credence to the claims being made. Big claims require big proof. So we'll have to wait and see what transpires from this. Otherwise i'm all for trying to find viable technological solutions. Perhaps there's something in this, perhaps not - i'd like to know more, beyond the hysterically happy ravings of the author of this article. The patent describes some of the process in detail (albeit my questions above remain):- http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7794969.html

Which is why I bang on more about Peak Oil and peak debt...than climate change. Mainly, because the message is simpler and less obfuscated by natural uncertainty. The world will never change until the European and American people form solid communities, and chase away their leaders and hang every last banker in the streets.

What you should realise is that at some point; these events become strongly correllated to AGW. Basically, while no individual event can be linked in isolation - when taken with other recent events in a series; then the correllation becomes more valid (as it is seen in context). http://climateprogre...al-temperature/

MELBOURNE (Reuters)- Australian floods wreaked fresh havoc on rural communities in the south on Sunday, leaving a trail of destruction across four states, at least 17 dead and the prospect of reconstruction of historic proportions. http://uk.news.yahoo.com/22/20110116/twl-uk-australia-floods-a7cf3b4.html

Fair enough. I got the timescale wrong. However, it's important to consider the connection between ppm and solar output:- http://www.skepticalscience.com/CO2-was-higher-in-late-Ordovician.htm

To assume that low solar activity correllates to the weather patterns alone; is naive. It is also naive and intellectually lazy to assume that the strong La Nina alone - is contributing to the current rainfall anamolies around the world. It is more credible to consider that CC has increased the amount of moisture and energy in the atmosphere and this has exacerbated the affects of natural cycles. But of course, if you do not want to push for action and fail to see the urgency of the situation (because the science puts you off for some reason) - you may want to consider this other angle that may convince you:- http://hozturner.blo...ge-there-i.html

Life evolved in CO2 concentrations that were lower than 300 ppm. We are at 390ppm now and on course for disaster. And if you actually tried to read some of the climate science papers and leading blogs, you'd learn how credible the threat is. As an example, you can give this a read:- http://climateprogress.org/2010/08/09/rebutting-climate-science-disinformer-talking-points-in-a-single-line/

Science stunner: On our current emissions path, CO2 levels in 2100 will hit levels last seen when the Earth was 29°F (16°C) hotter Don't have kids. It would be cruel right now.

Video from a recent presentation by The Nation Institute:- http://www.youtube.c...h?v=J28W37jhZEA

IF those clathrates are all released at once, you can kiss goodbye to all life on planet earth (except the hardiest bacteria).

This is well worth a read, as it addresses your point:- http://climateprogress.org/2010/10/01/hansen-extreme-events-2010-2012-record-high-global-temperature/

And almost 100 years faster than the initial IPCC 2005 projections. Planet earth, we have a problem. We really do.

[b] I love some aspects of this country; but British nationalists can really be pig-ignorant, irrelevant, flag-waving fools. There should be a difference between loving the culture, the land and the working people - to glorifying the terrible British elite. [/b] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zYORP0YOo0

Ongoing debate over the role of cloud feedback in global warming picked up on New Year's eve with the online publication of an email exchange between two climate scientists on opposite sides of this important issue. http://www.reporting...hed-online.html Unfortunately, Dr. Roy Spencer seems to make the claim that clouds are causing ENSO. That is not a particularly credible claim. http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/12/feedback-on-cloud-feedback/

Yeah...but those extremes have gotten notably more pronounced as a result of climate change.

Well they haven't ignored the "concept" of Peak Oil, but they (albeit not all of them) HAVE ignored the present dynamics, timing and consequences of peak oil. I think this book is excellent in how it evaluates the issues of climate change, peak oil, peak debt, food shortages, terrorism, political breakdown, etc in an inter-disciplinary way:- http://www.plutobook...K=9780745330532

Right, as credible as all this global warming science is - it is also fast becoming irrelevant. There are far bigger issues at stake for people in the short-term:- http://hozturner.blo...ge-there-i.html

The Climate Change public relations machine is now obsolete. The attempt to get the public to listen; in a mix of obfuscated and complex science - has failed. End of story. It is quite clear that the world has hit Peak growth already. This is something that most climate scientists are not really understanding properly. They also seem to misunderstand the fact that it doesn't matter how much oil and coal remains beneath the ground. If it takes MORE energy to get out, than you get from burning - then it's a total waste of time. That applies for remaining coal reserves, oil shale, deep-ocean, tar-sands, etc. And burning these things to "keep warm" or "cook food" is not the sort of usage that has sent this world into crisis. It is the burning of these things for industrial profit, manufacturing, etc that has been the driver. I had an article published concerning Peak Oil vis a vis climate change, and one commenter wrote the following:- "It is supremely obvious ANY additional CO2e is not just ill-advised, but supremely dangerous, and this is an obvious conclusion. When we add in the residence time of CO2 being centuries." It is profound ignorance like that which makes me very irritated. Do they want poor people to starve to death or go cold? Really? Also..maybe they should actually check the figures of the sort of things that overwhelmingly contribute to CO2:- (In the case of Britain):- http://www.guardian....arbonfootprints Now think about what the figures would be if people started growing their own food, burned charcoal or bio-methane to heat and cook their own food, and used only public transport and local materials, etc. I also get arguments from people saying "well, recent studies on feedback mechanisms mean that we are going to face up to 4C warming from just a 1C rise - and this will happen even if we drastically cut CO2 today". They claim that the feedbacks are all inherently +C in their effects and that there is growing certainty in that +C picture. But there isn't - as this NASA/NOAA study seems to illustrate:- http://www.scienceda...01208085145.htm We now have no choice at all - but to change our economic system to one based on a steady-state, non-debt paradigm. We are facing a potential mass-default on the debt in every nation-state up to its heels in toxic derivatives. The collateral on the debt no longer exists in a world where oil has peaked and can no longer meet growing demand. No amount of fossil-fuels remaining on this planet - can replace the current global economic edifice that has been created by oil. Contraction is inevitable, and that threatens very dangerous geopolitical consequences. Oil is liquid hegemonic power. The consequences of global warfare are very great if powers insist on holding onto oil as some form of industrial hegemony. Climate scientist Kevin Anderson said in Cancun that “the only way to reduce global emissions enough, while allowing the poor nations to continue to grow, is to halt economic growth in the rich world over the next twenty years". If we are past peak growth and if we are at the point of debt-saturation, please explain to me how these nations can keep growing overall in the next 5 years (never mind the next 20)? And then please explain to me what happens when we go to war with China or Russia over energy-reserves in Eurasia? We have NO CHOICE but to act now. Our economy is going to shrink regardless, we are going to get poorer and poorer, we are going to get bogged down in wars, rationing is coming and potential mass die-offs of people. Look what happens to a global fossil-fuel economy when oil reaches $300 a barrel. It turns off like a light-switch. The "end of growth" reality is easier to articulate to people than the more complex issue of anthropogenic global warming. This is because we have zero evidence that oil production is going to regain its all-time peak that it acquired in 2006. Even if "abiotic oil" exists (unlikely) - it doesn't mean much for people if they can't have access to it and companies are unable to harness its apparent existence. I've even heard people on the libertarian right-wing who are contemplating preparing for a massive economic collapse and starting to engage in survivalist movements. They just need to realise that community is more important than rugged individualism in a post-peak world. That's the bottomline.

http://www.ourfuture...ak-oil-and-coal A read of the comments section shows a general misunderstanding from climate-science proponents about the structural economic factors that contribute to growth (including the exponential growth in CO2).

When facts fail: study notes that facts can reinforce false beliefs Yup. Having a look at the actual Abstract it appears that the headline of the Register article was somewhat misleading. Still - the NASA study does shows considerable uncertainties in terms of the extent of feedbacks.

1000's of species are lost each year because of the actions of human industrial civilization; yet..a few bird and fish deaths get people completely paranoid and conspiratorial.

I knew that somebody farted in here...

Meanwhile from people at NASA:- A group of top NASA boffins says that current climate models predicting global warming are far too gloomy, and have failed to properly account for an important cooling factor which will come into play as CO2 levels rise. According to Lahouari Bounoua of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, and other scientists from NASA and the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), existing models fail to accurately include the effects of rising CO2 levels on green plants. As green plants breathe in CO2 in the process of photosynthesis – they also release oxygen, the only reason that there is any in the air for us to breathe – more carbon dioxide has important effects on them. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/12/08/new_model_doubled_co2_sub_2_degrees_warming/