I wonder if the Indonesians were ever accused of invading Timor for the oil, when they invaded in 1975 ?

I don't deny it either but I'm not convinced it's a purely man made phonomenum.

There's always been climate change, there's always been weather related disasters and physical related ones like volcanoes.

Planets evolve so it may be a natural evolution of this earth.

However I do agree that pumping all that CO2 into the atmosphere is not a good thing thing whether it is having an impact on global warming or not.

I also think taxing will not solve this issue unless every penny is put toward the physical task of finding and developing alternative energy sources.

That's not what is on the table though is it? High emitters are going to continue and buy / exchange carbon credits.

One example I am aware of is that major cement companies are buying up old inefficient cement manufacturing plants around the world. They improve the efficiency in exchange for credits which they can use to make more cement (more CO2) in their other plants. End result is a global increase.
So they are playing the game and CO2 is still increased with the approval of the authorities.

This type of thing will happen in other industries I am sure. They will all play the game and the result will change nothing.

If you don't address the root of a problem it continues. Trading schemes and carbon credits are ballshit and will not solve anything. It will just shuffle things around the world.

Who uses energy? People.
Increase population means increased energy so I also agree with those who said population control should be number one on the list........but not just for energy reasons.

Right now global warming is the scientific equivalent of a Nigerian 419 scam. We are shown some graphs and charts and ordered to pay up.

Yesterday someone sent me an invoice for an ATM Mastercard with an $8.5M credit limit. I had to pay US$85 to have it delivered. They even included a photograph of the card. Some people take things like this for granted and pay up. Some years ago Nelson Sakaguchi, a director at the Brazilian bank Banco Noroeste, transferred hundreds of millions of US$ to Chief Emmanuel Nwude, Nigeria's most accomplished scammer.

I don’t deny AGW, I don’t believe in AGW. I am undecided on two things:
1. Is the world warming?
2. Is a significant proportion of this warming caused by man made burning of fossil fuels?

I was happy to keep quiet until that magical day that my government (which happens to be a Labor one) announced that the only answer to the problem was a tax.

You are entitled to your opinion Simon, and I respect it. But when someone asks me to pay for something I start demanding evidence. I don’t pay money to Nigerian Scammers either.

I'm glad everyone questions these things inside out, I really am. But it just seems to me that people fall to the conclusion that seems to be the easiest - normally denial. The media and politicians make a career out of twisting truths and outright lying for their own gain. As far as I know the scientific community doesn't. I'm sick of reading stuff in the paper like "10,000 people with phd's sign petition saying global warming isn't real" and these people turn out to have phd's in something like homoeopathic medicine. People love it though and they will frantically point at the article like it's proof of some conspiracy theory. There's only one set of people I will look to for truth about global warming and it will be in science journals and from environmental scientists. How much more proof do people need?

If everyone just got past debating about whether global warming is real then we could get on with ridiculing the government about what they're going to do about it instead of whether they're going to do something about it.

Sadly this is another myth.

Firstly,
Professor Tim Ball has a B.A. degree from the University of Winnipeg, an M.A. degree from the University of Manitoba in 1970 in Geography, and a Ph.D. degree in climatology from the University of London, England in 1983, writing a thesis analyzing historical weather records from Canada's north. Ball taught geography at the University of Winnipeg from 1973 to 1996, starting as a Sessional Lecturer and retiring as a Professor.

Not a “phd's in something like homoeopathic medicine”, A Professor with a PhD in Climatology.

Professor Tim Ball is a Global Warming Skeptic. Google him and see what he says.

Secondly,
An alarming number of people who contributed to the UN IPCC Reports WERE NOT Climatologists. They were ECONOMISTS! Do you think economists understand climatology any better than Homopaths?

If people stopped insulting those people who are wanting answers, maybe that would happen faster.

But generally, when people are insulted, the attention to the real subject matter gets diverted.

It is the same with Daylight saving. I know people who will vote against it purely because those that want it, have insulted their intelligence.

Meanwhile, as the SMH reports today, the UK Climate Research Unit main database seems to be in a bit of a mess. The hacked programmers log has comments like:

"What a bloody mess,"

"Now looking at the dates. something bad has happened ... COBAR AIRPORT AWS [automatic weather station] cannot start in 1962, it didn't open until 1993!" (my comment - that’s 30 years worth of crap data guys)

"Getting seriously fed up with the state of the Australian data ... so many false references ... so many changes ... bewildering."

He states his information has "no uniform integrity".

"I am very sorry to report that the rest of the databases seem to be in nearly as poor a state as Australia was. There are hundreds if not thousands of pairs of dummy stations, one with no WMO and one with, usually overlapping and with the same station name and very similar co-ordinates. I know it could be old and new stations, but why such large overlaps if that's the case? Aarrggghhh! There truly is no end in sight."

I repeated my earlier comment: this bunch of goons are incapable of measuring the temperature of the Sunday roast in my oven.

And I am expected to believe them and pay extra taxes based upon evidence like this? Come on guys…. A joke is a joke…

(The Head of the CRU has now stood down)

According to the evidence of my own eyes I would say, that based on my observations over the last 40 years, that the UK is certainly going through a period of milder Winters... global warming?. Maybe.

One thing that I am reasonable confident about though, is, that nothing the governments of the world do, is going to make much/any difference to that effect.

Tbh, I plucked that jokey headline out of my head from something I remember hearing about a few years ago. I don't know who Tim Ball is but presumably he has something to do with the headline I joked about. I'm not sure how you expect to convince me that global warming is some kind of conspiracy theory because this one single scientist disagrees?

First of all, the reports had a to do with the economy as well, which normally require people with skills in economy. Secondly, you could pluck a lot of random observations like these forever and fill these threads with them, but you only have to pick up any random science journal and see that not a single one of them is debating this anymore, they're simply debating just how bad will it get.

I agree with this. Questions need to be asked. People need information. But you can also imagine the frustration of people who have dedicated their lives to this and then see their findings twisted and misrepresented by people who don't have a clue, whether that's the government or the media.

Unfortunately, I wouldn't rely on our own eyes to make these judgements. Temperatures will always fluctuate up and down every year and vary massively in every area. To try and observe with our own eyes in one area instead of collected data the world over wouldn't give anyone a fair observation. But the global trend is undeniably one of a warming world in the industrial age no matter which way you look at it. And it's directly correlated to the amount of carbon in the atmosphere.

However....
Confidence is.......... umm ...

Personally I would like to see more debate on what we do about it. There is the assumption that we have to take action to stop 'it' happening... and that action is to reduce carbon emmisions. I'm unconvinced that any actions we take from now on, particularly in the smaller polluting nations, will make any difference to the changes to the climate and that they would be better spending their resources on trying to prepare for any coming changes.


.

Which is why I tried to be pretty specific about my observations, just milder UK Winters, and even then I quantified it with a question on if it was related to global warming or not.

I think its undeniable that the climate is changing. That it is warming. For me the question is not what do we do about it, because I don't believe we can do much, but how do we manage that change.

Here is a record of temperatures from 1859-2005 in Sydney

http://australiasevereweather.com/li...rec/sydney.htm

maybe they need 250 years of records

I am bored with discussing this. I am still unconvinced, and all I being am told is “If the UN says so, then it must be true”…


I will end my contribution with this: Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but not to my money.

If I had to make a prediction it would be this:

1. Copenhagen will fail to reach accord. Governments will fight to ensure the best deal for themselves.
2. The ETS will not get through both houses in Australia, due to lack of support from the opposition.
3. Rudd will not dare to call a double disillusion. If he did it becomes a virtual referendum on a new Tax, and whatever the merits, it will be a millstone going into an election. A recent poll in the UK found that the majority of the population don’t believe in AGW. I am sure Australians are even more cynical. The poll on this site shows about the same.
4. The AGW lobby will retire, regroup and try even more scare tactics. At every natural disaster some windbag will stand on a soapbox and say “AGW did this”, even when it is patently obvious not to be the case.
5. Within 10 years a new scare will occur. Or a major conflict.

If I pay an extra $1,000 a year in the ETS tax, does the problem go away ?

Apparently so…..

Kevin07 most know more than me, after all he has spoken to the UN.

How many new Chinese coal fired power stations were commissioned in the time this thread has been running?