@Walker

My grandchildren are already enduring climate change and will almost certainly continue to do so. This will be worse if any political campaigners manage to win a few votes from global warming denying lobbyists. Sometimes, just a single, elected independent member in an otherwise hung parliament can manage to throw a spanner in the works of remedial action. What is about to happen in my country in September's election is the axing of the few measures which would help steer us in the right direction and put us in line with world best practice. That's why the promotion of climate change denial is dangerous.

Sounds like a pretty broken system then, don't it? :) 1 person to make or break the climate..

I very much agree about science vs bad science (well, it's not really bad science. Either it's science or it's not.). However, I'm getting a feeling you equate independent, non-commercial, "good" science with science carried out with government grants. This I do not agree with (hopefully neither do you, and my notion was wrong). It CAN be (good) science, despite gov. grants. But so can "commercial" science. It's science or it's not. Although, it can be pretty hard to get to the bottom of it sometimes.

To think there is never an agenda with gov. funded science seems naive to me.

Carbon taxes work, because all taxes work. Governments can tax anything: income, inheritance, luxury goods. You might as well tax energy consumption.

France's Bonus/Malus system works, self-funded, by giving 700 Euros to everybody buying a low-emissions car, funded by those who bought clunkers.

California's tax on single-pane glass windows worked; soon there were no manufacturers bothering to produce anything but double-glazed windows, so they got to be really cheap.

Many modern European houses are now low-energy now. It's taken time to build a critical mass of construction practices and materials. It needed a hand at first, and now it's taken for granted. People complained about the first solar hot water panels on their roofs. There were teething problems. They don't complain now.

Here in Aus, there's no need to tax power so as to encourage people to insulate, economise and let the sun do some of the work... Because the privatised power companies have raised tariffs anyway - more than taxes ever could; in my state Power and water went up by 30% this year.

Taxes are about the only thing governments can get right! Take the home-insulation scheme, where the gov't forgot to set aside cash for the inspections. Shoddy builders set up insulation business and a couple of installers died on the job from electrocution and heat stroke. Governments make bad builders. Best let them stick to taxing us.

Since you can tax anything, you might as well tax, say, food less and energy more.

All these things are happening, are enduring a recent "economic crisis" hiatus, but the benefits in savings to households and industry will endure.

Well at least both sides of the argument can agree on one thing. Things like the Carbon Trading Scheme and other current governmental and corporate initiatives are useless.

I don't think the CTS is a needed as a wealth moving scheme, the current banking system is easily enough to allow that

One thing that always bug me about these temperature charts is that they stretch too far back in time to make sense to me. Take walker's chart for example, it goes back to 1880! I mean, how can they know the global mean temperature over all land, let alone all the ocean? Did they get data from weather reports back in the 1920s and mix them up with temperature readings from sophisticated, state-of-the-art measurement devices in the 2000s? Even if that is scientifically acceptable, back in the early 1900s such temperature records couldn't have been available in the less developed parts of the world, and that's just the land part only! I just can't believe such data exists at least until the second half of the 20th century. I don't know much of anything about climatology, so can anyone enlighten me?

Averaged over all land and ocean surfaces, temperatures have warmed roughly 1.33°F (0.74ºC) over the last century. More than half of this warming—about 0.72°F (0.4°C)—has occurred since 1979. University Corporation for Atmospheric Research

It is relatively easy for laypersons to find climate peaks and troughs which can be cherry-picked to pass off as exceptions. (My supermarket does this, to trick customers into believing prices have gone down).

Climatologist Noland Doesken explains how hard it is to see patterns in the spikes this way:

for almost every bizarre weather scenario happening now, he can find a year just like it.

I cited this interview before in this Hot In My Backyard episode. Transcript HERE but much more fun to listen HERE

In spite of the long process, there is now, finally:

• No longer any climate change debate among scientists. There never were any climatologists denying that the earth is warming and now there is consensus that humans are the largest contributors. The current warming trend is of particular significance because most of it is very likely human-induced and proceeding at a rate that is unprecedented in the past 1,300 years. NASA [the planet today is warmer than it has been during 70 to 80 percent of the time over the last 11,300 years.] -Oregon State University
• A consensus that the earth is warming faster than anybody had predicted. Global sea level rose about 17 centimeters (6.7 inches) in the last century. The rate in the last decade, however, is nearly double that of the last century. Church, J. A. and N.J. White, 2006
• Widely held suspicion that the most recent climatic extremes might be symptomatic of global warming; The temperature differences between years are usually measured in fractions of a degree, but last year’s 55.3 degree average demolished the previous record, set in 1998, by a full degree Fahrenheit Scientists said that natural variability almost certainly played a role in last year’s extreme heat and drought. But many of them expressed doubt that such a striking new record would have been set without the backdrop of global warming caused by the human release of greenhouse gases. And they warned that 2012 was probably a foretaste of things to come, as continuing warming makes heat extremes more likely. NY Times

and now to scepticism...

Bob Inglis, in that Hot In My Backyard Read Transcript / Listen to audio cited above, has an explanation of Climate Scepticism - (as practised amongst conservatives) which does go a way to explain it and to give some sceptics a way out of their tight spot without losing face:

He says conservatives feel like their version of the American dream is under attack, that somehow, parents driving their kids through the suburbs in SUVs to soccer practice are being blamed as the cause of global warming, when in fact, everyone uses a lot of electricity and gasoline. Everybody flies on planes.

Bob thinks he can win conservatives over more effectively by saying to them, I share your values. I know you're not a bad person. But I think we got this one wrong.

Climate sceptics who say things like "Everybody has a right to their own Idea" are really talking ethics here, rather than science. But it's a growing trend and deserves looking into.

ABC Science Unit say¹

The Science Show receives innumerable lengthy dissertations showing that Einstein was wrong, that the universe is a pyramid or that atoms are basically made of custard. We politely ignore them. Margaret Wertheim doesn’t: she goes to meet the guys with the way-out theories. Now she’s written a book about them. Why? What is so instructive about these eccentrics and their world?

Partly because of the number of pseudo-scientists themselves, and the potential damage a pseudo-science can cause (ie children dying from disease because their parents refuse vaccinations).There are now social scientists, (Anthropologists, Sociologists and Psychologists) who are starting to look into the phenomenon.

(Opinion I believe junk media should be brought to account more often, too.)

In ABC Science Unit's Why listen to weird ideas? Margaret Wertheim explains why. http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/scienceshow/why-listen-to-weird-ideas3f/4666056

The CSIRO are Walkers source...hmmm .....and other sources are rogue? So the CSIRO are perfectly scientific and neutral then.

Obviously he has not checked on their status as far as being a truly independent Scientific source, but instead just spreads their propaganda. I could quote you a zillion articles including interviews from notable personalities that once were members of it, that show its a highly politicized organization and a rogue source itself.

QUOTE from Dr Art Raiche, retired CSIRO Chief Research Scientist

The original Scientists of the CSIRO were the best of their day and the CSIRO was a non-Government organisation working with quality science and how useful it was to Australia.

In the 80′s, I noticed we were under increasing pressure to become more “Business like” and the doors were opened to “Management Consultation.”

Layer upon layer of management was created, some intersecting others.

You think that your tax dollars went towards research but a lot of it was devoted to letting them play their management games…. the CSIRO was sent to fancy business schools in the US and Europe and they didn’t learn one thing…

Management learned how to bring the most senior climate scientist under their control. It was OK to think independently…AS LONG AS MANAGEMENT APPROVED OF IT.

We were given very strict, VERY strict guidelines on NOT PUBLISHING ANYTHING or publicly discussing ANY RESEARCH THAT COULD BE SEEN AS CRITICAL OF GOVERNMENT POLICY. If we did not do it, we would be subject to dismissal.

We had now become a GOVERNMENT ENTERPRISE. We were told by the Chairperson that we Scientists no longer worked for Australia, we had to learn that we worked for the CSIRO.

ANOTHER MORE RECENT ARTICLE

THE head of the CSIRO is at the centre of conflict of interest claims over her role as a director of a Tasmanian company that purchases land for carbon sequestration.

It was revealed in Senate estimates today that the peak science body's chief executive Megan Clark is the director of Cradle Mountain Carbon Pty Ltd and is also on the board of Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Reliable scientific source? I doubt it!!! Independent? Definitely not. Believe what you want to, but to state things as a fact because the CSIRO said so is questionable at best! Best thing is the whole organization is pulled apart ASAP and a proper independent scientific organization is established, not one that is a government mouthpiece.

@svart

Making flat assertions of fact ("it's pretty clear that increases....") based on selective (and often dubious) sources does not make your case. As previously argued, disputes among amateurs tends to be vacuous in these instances, as neither party has the competence, time or training to actually evaluate the scientific literature. The only advantage one party can have other the other is the reliability of their respective sources. And if one side rejects the scientific consensus, whether it's 97% or 50.5%, in favor of outliers, the argument can go nowhere.

As for "why they do it", that's a question far more likely to be asked of the global warming skeptics, since there's big money to be made in that activity, thanks to the fossil fuel industry and funding sources like the Koch Brothers. It's entirely possible Al Gore added to his fortune by promoting global warming, but that's small potatoes compared to the money to be made on the other side.

Liberalism in general pays very poorly, since there are so few billionaires willing to promote the liberal (much less left-wing) world view. Heritage, AE, Cato, etc. are far, far better funded than a liberal think-tank like the Roosevelt Institute. If you're looking for self-interested motivations, they're far more likely to be found on the rightward end of the spectrum.

@svart

Global warming is real, is manifesting itself in a variety of weather events and human activity is contributing to it.

My source is Australian Government CSIRO and university journal publications.

The rogue sources don't usually care about anything but making money. Like the tobacco industry, they counted on scientific doubt as their mainstay. Now there is no doubt in the scientific community, they are creating enclaves where rumermongering is left to thrive.

Ok, your point is what exactly, @Mirrorkisser? I see that you said a lot of things intending to elicit an emotional response from me, but no links or data to back your claims up. Do I believe that Monsanto is crazy? YES, I do in fact think that genetically altering food and things will lead to eventual trouble, especially when the drive behind it is not human benefit but monetary gain. That's my OPINION. However, I have yet to see any proof that there is anything wrong with their products. If anything, the fear of the largest lawsuit in human history from some botched outcome on their part would compel them to make sure their product is pretty safe. The only things I have seen are anecdotal evidence and alarmist propaganda from both sides of the GMO fight. As with climate science, only time will tell, but climate science has at least enough raw data to show that human predictions in the last 30 years have been horribly overblown.

Remember the global cooling alarmism of the 70's? Here's a reminder:

http://www.populartechnology.net/2013/02/the-1970s-global-cooling-alarmism.html

Oh, and I don't own a PS4 or an Iphone or Ipad/pod or any of those things. Just because I'm skeptical of the fervor with which people argue their opinions (mainly without backing them up with any proof, as I have yet to see you do), doesn't mean I'm materialistic. Your comment only shows your beliefs on who has certain attitudes is biased. Backhanded insult fail.

as for crazy Russians:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/04/29/russian-scientists-say-period-of-global-cooling-ahead-due-to-changes-in-the-sun/

@svart: and iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction, radioactive contamination is a myth and things like lobbyism do not exist, especially in the united states. on an ecological basis everything on this planet is in order. there are more trees grown than it is rainforrest chopped down. its a myth that daily dozens of species face extinction. its a myth that the oceans are almost out of fish due to massive overfishing. its a myth that we have limited resources on this planet. even starvation in the 3rd world is damn myth. you better just watch fox news and keep running in your hamster wheel while you disattract yourself with a nice PS4 and the next iphone, pad, pod, pud, pid...

have you ever heard of monsanto? dont believe what they tell you about them either. http://topinfopost.com/2013/05/28/russia-warns-obama-monsanto

just a crazy russian and some ecological terrorists trying to make it to the 6pm news...

@ Walker Personally I cant be bothered arguing with you...I have done loads of research on Global Warming, including who funds the IPCC, how many scientists are in it etc...not to speak of researching the scientists that are against it and why. Plus geo Engineering, Haarp etc...I cant be bothered with your arrogant "Warming Denial Trolls" type statements, "hoary old ear-bashing diatribe" etc...

Like you are some superior being, the only thing superior that you have is bucketloads of arrogance. Perhaps you should tell Al Gore to sell some of his fireplaces (of the 12 he has, now 6... I believe) He's arrogant too and doesn't practice what he preaches...yawn!!

Vitaliy said "dont get personal" but you just carry on. Take your agenda elsewhere...as I said tell your grandchildren mate. I have better things to do than listen to your propoganda.

Good Day

@BlackLegSanji @Astro

This fascinating thread, starting with an almost unreal piece of video depicting a big snow in May, deserves getting raised, expanded upon and contributed to. Like the snow, so should we be discussing @eyenorth 's link to NASA's Solar Storm Dumps Gigawatts into Earth's Upper Atmosphere. The weather is no longer a boring topic.

It's officially winter in 3 days and it's been 27°C today, 29 tomorrow. There's a cloud of mosquitoes in the house and I'm not sure how much of the insecticide I can inhale without getting sick. I've been here 40 years and this is another first.