Australian alpine parks face threat of hotter, dryer climate

[tasadam]

An interesting article on Tasmanian Times.

http://tasmaniantimes.com/index.php?/we ... r-climate/

OUR alpine parks face a hotter and drier future, with up to a quarter less rain and snow forecast for the region by 2050.

The first official update on the state of the Australian alps in more than half a century warns that the region’s dwindling snow melt and run-off ....

And on it goes.

[eggs]

Yes
Someone else noticed this too
http://www.real-science.com/julia-snow-australia#comments

[photohiker]

Yes
Someone else noticed this too
http://www.real-science.com/julia-snow-australia#comments

Comments very interesting there eggs, not surprising seeing that the host Steven Goddard is one of the small time climate denial cranks often found to be just plain wrong.

Australian snowfall has been accepted to be in long term decline as far as I can remember ('70's), and climate change is only going to make it decline faster.

[Nuts]

climate denial cranks

There's that term again , was trying to recall whether there were 'Ozone Hole Cranks'?
Winter was pretty dismal though, record dumps down here but then fizzed, i put it down to government lobbying the weather gods

[photohiker]

climate denial cranks

There's that term again

Spade = Spade. No sense beating around the bush. Sorry if it offends.

I've got time for genuine scientific sceptics, but little to none for fake sceptics.

[alliecat]

climate denial cranks

There's that term again , was trying to recall whether there were 'Ozone Hole Cranks'?
Winter was pretty dismal though, record dumps down here but then fizzed, i put it down to government lobbying the weather gods

Well, what else do you call people who deny reality? Goddard is definitely a crank and a climate change denier. He takes scientific incompetence to a whole new level. (He once posted an "analysis" that showed that a sine wave had a positive trend as "proof" that arctic sea ice was increasing not decreasing...)

As for the ozone hole - yes there were, and still are, cranks who deny the existence of the ozone hole(s), and that the cause is CFCs from human activities. In fact, many of the vocal climate change deniers are also ozone hole deniers. And smoking-causes-cancer deniers. And HIV-causes-AIDS deniers. Many of these people are serial cranks who don't have the faintest, tiniest clue about science. They are the living embodiment of the Dunning-Kruger effect - too stupid and ignorant to understand just how stupid and ignorant they are.

To be on-topic, if you want a detailed look at what science says about the future impacts of climate change in Tasmania, have a look here: http://www.dpac.tas.gov.au/divisions/climatechange/adapting/climate_futures The CFT project was a very good piece of work (cutting-edge in fact) on downscaling clobal climate models to produce detailed regional data. If you have any interst in climate and weather, it's worth having a flick through the summary reports. The recently released "Extreme events" report is of interest to bushwalkers since it is the extremes that probably have the most impact on what we do.

Cheers,
Alliecat

[Nuts]

climate denial cranks

There's that term again

Spade = Spade. No sense beating around the bush. Sorry if it offends.

I've got time for genuine scientific sceptics, but little to none for fake sceptics.

Perhaps you already knew Professor Murray Salby before the conclusions here: viewtopic.php?f=10&t=7341&hilit=climate+change ???

Im all for actions to prevent further damage to the natural world, its the actions (aligned with politics) that i'm most sceptical about. As for the cause, I guess 'one' interprets what they read, read what they want.

'The Science' is likely leaning the correct way, doesn't really seem to matter if it wasn't though.

Personally, hotter dryer sounds appealing , i'd like some good snow with that though

[South_Aussie_Hiker]

I am not a complete climate change sceptic, but then I'm not convinced either.

Whenever something like climate change comes along, you have to first exclude anyone who has anything personal to gain by supporting one way or the other.

I don't listen to politicians - because they don't understand the science. Nor do I listen to scientists who can't wait to get their name and face on the 6pm news by telling us we are all doomed. Scientists don't just do research day in/day out for no benefit. You really have to look at where they are getting there funding from, and think carefully about how this might effect their research outcomes before making your own decisions.

You will most likely find that a lot of climate change scientists are funded by big corporates with a financial interest in things like solar power, wind power etc. Likewise you will find climate change sceptic scientists funded by oil companies or big energy consumers. History shows us this. The oil companies have spent billions of dollars over the last thirty years discrediting electric concepts for cars.

What it comes down to is you have to do your own digging.

About two years ago, I worked with a pilot who was previously employed for over twenty years as a climatologist and meteorologist with the NZ air force, and she spent over 12 months living in an underground cave as part of her climatology PhD. Now there is someone who doesn't have anything to gain by siding with climate change believers or sceptics! As we flew over the decimated, dry lower lakes in South Australia I brought up the climate change debate.

Her opinion was very, very simple:
1. It is almost undeniable that climate change will cause some sort of change in climatology, but it is almost IMPOSSIBLE to know
a) to what extent it will have an effect (ie might be so minor it is undetectable)
b) what changes may be caused as a result (ie she felt it just as likely that we would get MORE rain/snow in Australia than less)
2. While she was agreed that more CO2 will change SOMETHING, she was adament that we will never know how much because climate change has been occurring for tens of thousands of years, and we have no way of knowing if it is natural or artificial. She said the rate of global warming at the moment has been seen time and time again over history occurring completely naturally, and sometimes at even greater rates.

What did I get from all this? She knows more than me, or most so called "climate change scientists" on TV, and she was unconvinced that the current global climate change could be proven to be anything other than a natural phenomena.

Alliecat, would you call her

too stupid and ignorant to understand just how stupid and ignorant they are

I wouldn't.

[photohiker]

Murray Salby before the conclusions here: viewtopic.php?f=10&t=7341&hilit=climate+change ???

Good point.

I'm not saying its evil, I am saying that until he puts up, scientists working in the field appear to think he's not right on the basis of what he has said.

If he's genuine, he will get a paper published for proper inspection. I hope he does that rather than just disappear...

So, what about Salby, and where did his big revelation take science? Did it turn thinking upside down, and change the course of scientific understanding of climate change? Is he being lauded as the new father of climate who brought down all the wrong conclusions of thousands of climate scientists and many thousands of published scientific papers?

Of course not. The only thing he changed was his reputation. No paper has yet come to light, but apparently there is a book in the works. Great. Advances in science claiming to overturn established and accepted knowledge will be delivered by lay published book, not peer review.

No change then. Salby is exactly where he was when he delivered his talk, except he has probably lost a lot of respect from his peers.

[Nuts]

ha ha, yer, no paper yet (its was due around now iirc).

That topic, to me, was more about the terms being used and the view 'all is known worth knowing' that seems to creep into the thinking about these issues. At odds with science..

Salby never used the term 'revelation'..

To me those (hopefully by the thousands) interested in science would welcome Any challenge to their conclusions (putting aside politics, grants, reputation)..

Anyhow..

[alliecat]

You will most likely find that a lot of climate change scientists are funded by big corporates with a financial interest in things like solar power, wind power etc.

False. I know quite a few climate scientists - I have never met any who was funded by solar power companies or anything like that. You'll find that the vast majority of climate scientists are funded by national research funding bodies - in Australia that would be the Australian Research Council.

Actually, the "solar power" companies (as an example) are the oil companies. The oil companies bought up most of the solar power patents years ago.

Likewise you will find climate change sceptic scientists funded by oil companies or big energy consumers. History shows us this. The oil companies have spent billions of dollars over the last thirty years discrediting electric concepts for cars.

Correct. In fact all the standard denier lies about climate change can be traced back to original sources funded by fossil fuel companies.

What it comes down to is you have to do your own digging.

I suggest you start with http://realclimate.com/ and http://skepticalscience.com/ if you are genuinely interested in what the science says.

About two years ago, I worked with a pilot who was previously employed for over twenty years as a climatologist and meteorologist with the NZ air force, and she spent over 12 months living in an underground cave as part of her climatology PhD. Now there is someone who doesn't have anything to gain by siding with climate change believers or sceptics! As we flew over the decimated, dry lower lakes in South Australia I brought up the climate change debate.

Her opinion was very, very simple:
1. It is almost undeniable that climate change will cause some sort of change in climatology, but it is almost IMPOSSIBLE to know
a) to what extent it will have an effect (ie might be so minor it is undetectable)
b) what changes may be caused as a result (ie she felt it just as likely that we would get MORE rain/snow in Australia than less)
2. While she was agreed that more CO2 will change SOMETHING, she was adament that we will never know how much because climate change has been occurring for tens of thousands of years, and we have no way of knowing if it is natural or artificial. She said the rate of global warming at the moment has been seen time and time again over history occurring completely naturally, and sometimes at even greater rates.

What did I get from all this? She knows more than me, or most so called "climate change scientists" on TV, and she was unconvinced that the current global climate change could be proven to be anything other than a natural phenomena.

Alliecat, would you call her

too stupid and ignorant to understand just how stupid and ignorant they are

I wouldn't.

Sorry, but she clearly is ignorant about climate science and the evidence for anthropogenic climate change.

Her statements as reported by you are simply false and display a complete lack of knowledge about climate science. Climate change beyond natural variability has already been detected unambiguously in many ways. There are ways to distinguish between natural and anthropogenic causes (they are called "attribution" studies in climate science). The rates of change observed now have not been seen in historical natural climate change. Being a meteorologist does not make a person a climate scientist - or even knowledgeable about climate science. (That's not a criticism - I know several meteorologists at the BoM who would be the first to admit that they know next to nothing about climate science!)

For the record, I am not a climate scientist, but I have worked on statistical analysis of climate data. I understand the physics, the observational data, and the analyses, as summarised in the IPCC assessment reports. I'm all too familiar with the standard set of denier lies and I'm not interested in debating them here. I'm not going to waste time on people who take a stance on the subject without making the slightest effort to inform themselves first. To be blunt, if you haven't already come across the two websites I mentioned above or at least skimmed the IPCC reports, then you aren't informed enough to discuss the subject.

Cheers,
Alliecat

[South_Aussie_Hiker]

Hi Alliecat.

If you read my original post more accurately, you would have realised I said she was a CLIMATOLOGIST AND meteorologist, and in fact her PhD was in climatology.

I find it mildy amusing that you (a non-climate scientist) call someone with a PhD in climatology ignorant. You obviously have a background and training in statistical data analysis - what would you think if someone who had no such background/training/qualfication said you were ignorant with numbers?

I might not have a background in climatology and I made it quite clear that I was UNSURE about global warming. I have seen those websites, and many others.

I also understand the stark difference between climatology and meteorology, having done four semesters of meteorology subjects at university and having won a prize from the Bureau during my second year. What did my very limited study in met teach me about climatology? One thing only - pretty much that unless you have professional, high end qualifications in climatology you not in a position to understand the complex problems involved in carbon induced climate change. That's what my original post was getting at.

You and her will have to agree to disagree on the severity of climate change, but calling a QUALIFIED climatologist ignorant because you don't agree? That's a bit rich!

Hopefully, no matter what the long term outcome, Tasmania (my favourite walking destination) remains a wonderful, unique environment and an asset to our country.

[La_Pahina]

Her opinion was very, very simple:
1. It is almost undeniable that climate change will cause some sort of change in climatology, but it is almost IMPOSSIBLE to know
a) to what extent it will have an effect (ie might be so minor it is undetectable)
b) what changes may be caused as a result (ie she felt it just as likely that we would get MORE rain/snow in Australia than less)
2. While she was agreed that more CO2 will change SOMETHING, she was adament that we will never know how much because climate change has been occurring for tens of thousands of years, and we have no way of knowing if it is natural or artificial. She said the rate of global warming at the moment has been seen time and time again over history occurring completely naturally, and sometimes at even greater rates.

Um, so what she said was:
She agrees that climate change is real and is happening;
She doesn't know what will happen (you've stressed the whole 'maybe not much will happen' but have conveniently ignored the whole 'maybe a lot will happen'; and
She agreed that more carbon dioxide will change something.

South_Aussie_Hiker, what exactly are you unsure about? Are you not sure, or are you just going to wait for twenty years and then say 'Yep, that's exactly what I said would happen'?

[alliecat]

You and her will have to agree to disagree on the severity of climate change, but calling a QUALIFIED climatologist ignorant because you don't agree? That's a bit rich!

Hopefully, no matter what the long term outcome, Tasmania (my favourite walking destination) remains a wonderful, unique environment and an asset to our country.

It's not me that doesn't agree with her - it's the world's climate scientists. (And the data )

Somebody can be trained in a (related) field and still be ignorant of the specifics of one part of it. I know people with PhDs in physics who know nothing about climate science even though much of climate science is just applied physics (fluid dynamics, thermodynamics, etc.).

Heck, there are large areas of statistics about which I am pretty much completely ignorant, but I could still offer an opinion! It would just be an opinion that should carry no weight because it is based in ignorance.

I suspect your friend received her training at a school that teaches "climatology" as essentially large-scale meteorology, rather than the more general field of "climate science." They are not the same thing - in general "climate scientists" are applied physicists whose knowledge covers a lot more than "just" meteorology. Lots of schools that teach climatology as an adjunct to meteorology are blissfully unaware that climate science has progressed since the 1950's...

Sorry, but she's still wrong.

Cheers,
Alliecat

[Nuts]

'Wrong'.. well there's a 95% chance (at most)..

[photohiker]

ha ha, yer, no paper yet (its was due around now iirc).

Like I said, AFAIK it will never be a paper, its a book.

Salby never used the term 'revelation'..

Correct. I did. Because it would be a revelation if what he was suggesting could be supported with a scientific paper that held up to scientific inspection. That paper would throw out much of our understanding of the effect of CO2 on our climate.

To me those (hopefully by the thousands) interested in science would welcome Any challenge to their conclusions (putting aside politics, grants, reputation)..

Absolutely. Its part of the scientific method you know - try and prove the theory wrong before you try and prove it right. In this instance, the many thousands of examples where those attempts to prove it wrong have failed are the essence of why it is so hard for a Salby to come up with something that will knock it off. There is just a huge weight of evidence, papers and effort behind the current understanding.

The problem we face is that this in no longer presented to us by the media as science, its presented as some sort of debate. I guess it sells more papers that way.

[tasadam]

Wow, I opened a can of worms with that one...
Haven't had time to read all responses (and probably won't get time), but I trust all is fair and people are remembering to "play the ball, not the man" so to speak.

[alliecat]

I thought I should try and explain why I said these statements are simply wrong. I'll try very hard to keep it non-personal

1. It is almost undeniable that climate change will cause some sort of change in climatology, but it is almost IMPOSSIBLE to know
a) to what extent it will have an effect (ie might be so minor it is undetectable)

Nope. There are constraints on how little, and how big, the changes resulting from pumping such huge volumes of greenhouse gases into the air can be. The fact that we have had ice ages and interglacials (non-ice-ages) puts lower bounds on how much the climate can change in response to a forcing such as doubling CO2. Relatively simple physics also puts upper and lower bounds on how small and large the changes can be. Other observations (e.g. the response to the 11-year solar cycle, the response to large volcanic eruptions, etc.) also put upper bounds on how much the climate can change.

So, while it is difficult (a long way from "almost IMPOSSIBLE"), we can know what range the effects will lie in. The part about it being "so minor it is undetectible" is completely ruled out by basic physics and historical observations.

...b) what changes may be caused as a result (ie she felt it just as likely that we would get MORE rain/snow in Australia than less)

Again, this statement ignores all the work done that explores exactly that! There is a huge body of work looking at the impacts of the climate changes induced by increasing GHGs. As a simple example, we have good estimates of the range of how much the global mean temperature can rise under different GHG emission scenarios. On a regional level, scientists are only starting to explore the impacts in more detail, but to claim that it is "almost impossible" ignores the fact that it is already being done...

2. While she was agreed that more CO2 will change SOMETHING, she was adament that we will never know how much because climate change has been occurring for tens of thousands of years, and we have no way of knowing if it is natural or artificial.

This is false. There are numerous ways of identifying the source of, say, increasing global temperatures. There are "fingerprints" that show whether or not the warming is caused by solar changes, or volcanoes, or GHGs. The fingerprints all point to increasing GHGs being the major (but not only) cause of global warming over the last 4 decades. Isotope analysis then shows that the increasing GHGs have come from human activities. Therefore the recent warming is caused by human activities. The statement that "we have no way of knowing" ignores the thousands of published papers that work towards doing just that.

She said the rate of global warming at the moment has been seen time and time again over history occurring completely naturally, and sometimes at even greater rates.

This statement is flat out untrue. There are no historical or proxy records that show climate changes at the same rate as what has been observed in recent decades. None. Zip. Nada. Anybody who found one would be instantly famous in the climate science community. That's not to say that there cannot have been changes at the same rate as the present, just that there is no evidence to support such a claim. Saying it's been seen "time and time again" is just not true.

At a guess, I'd say that this person's knowledge of climate science is very, very, out of date. These comments show zero awareness of the state of modern climate science, in fact anything since around 1990 seems to be unknown.

Cheers,
Alliecat

[South_Aussie_Hiker]

Oh crap, just wrote a big post and lost the damn thing! It must have logged me out because it took so long to write!

[South_Aussie_Hiker]

Wow, I opened a can of worms with that one...
Haven't had time to read all responses (and probably won't get time), but I trust all is fair and people are remembering to "play the ball, not the man" so to speak.

Hi Adam!
I think it's all healthy debate.
I would probably be much less anxious to publicly label someone so highly qualified as stupid and ignorant (even if I disagreed with their opinion) but each to their own It is water off a duck's back (that's provided the earth doesn't dry out and burst into flames tomorrow due to global warming )

Um, so what she said was:
She agrees that climate change is real and is happening;
She doesn't know what will happen (you've stressed the whole 'maybe not much will happen' but have conveniently ignored the whole 'maybe a lot will happen'; and
She agreed that more carbon dioxide will change something.

South_Aussie_Hiker, what exactly are you unsure about? Are you not sure, or are you just going to wait for twenty years and then say 'Yep, that's exactly what I said would happen'?

Hi La_Pahina.

I'd like you to show me on my previous posts where I (or my colleague) ever said nothing should be done. I want to make it absolutely clear that I think we should act to reduce our carbon emissions and that I'm actually a staunch supporter of a carbon tax (for several reasons).

What I meant by "I'm unconvinced" was that I don't believe that the current global warming trend is in fact entirely (or largely) a function of human activity, and that if it were to continue the effects would be no rain/no snow/extreme freak weather/destruction of huge ecosystems.

Do I think unsure should mean we don't do anything? ABSOLUTELY NOT.

The parallel drawn earlier with stratospheric ozone is quite interesting.

The scientists at the time identified the problem (largely CFC related), and the fix very accurately.
Interestingly, some were also of the opinion that the ozone which had been lost would never EVER return and the levels would spiral downwards quickly to nothing, even if the cause of the depletion was completely and immediately rectified.
Luckily, this proved incorrect and current estimates show the ozone layer should have returned to historic levels in the next 40-60 years.

Why is this interesting? Well the problem and solution were reasonably well understood, but the end result (ie permanent versus temporary effect) was dead wrong. I agree the greenhouse effect exists, and I agree eliminating human carbon emissions would solve OUR contribution to warming, but I don't accept that the current rate of increase in average global temperatures is PURELY a result of human carbon OR that the current rates could not have occurred completely naturally. I also don't accept that a higher average global temperature will definitely reduce rainfall/snow.
I've been to a meteorology lecture where the lecturer spent the first half of the lecture proving higher average temp = more rain, and then with a perfectly straight face, spent the second half of the lecture proving the absolute opposite. It was interesting to say the least.

This statement is flat out untrue. There are no historical or proxy records that show climate changes at the same rate as what has been observed in recent decades. None. Zip. Nada. Anybody who found one would be instantly famous in the climate science community. That's not to say that there cannot have been changes at the same rate as the present, just that there is no evidence to support such a claim. Saying it's been seen "time and time again" is just not true.

I know I'm probably wasting my breath (or finger muscles!) here Alliecat, but I do think it important here to metion that decades really mean diddly squat here. My colleague was adament that over much larger periods of time (ie tens of thousands of years) that even relatively simple methods (I think she mentioned ice core/earth core CO2 sampling, but don't know if was in relation to this particular point or something else) had shown much higher rates of increase/decrease in global temperature. If I am to get in touch with her again (she has moved home), I'll be sure to bug her for more info on this and see if I mis-understood her.

As you have been employed in statistical analysis of climate change, If my comment

Whenever something like climate change comes along, you have to first exclude anyone who has anything personal to gain by supporting one way or the other.

hit a nerve with you, then I apologise.

It is good to see someone so passionate about our planet.

[alliecat]

No worries at all SAH.

Re: the ice cores etc., the great thing about tools like that is they give us info that goes way, way back in time. The annoying thing about them is the low temporal resolution. Ice cores might tell us about climate in steps of 100 years, or 1000 years, or even bigger, but they can't be sliced thinly enough to tell us about chances on the time scale of 2 or 3 decades. Your friend is right if she said that the global temps have changed more (much much more) than what we've observed in recent decades, but not that the rate of change has been greater. Most proxies simply don't have the resolution to tell us anything about the rate of change. The few that do (some ice cores, some tree-ring data, peat-bog cores) don't show any temperature changes anywhere close to the rate that has been observed recently.

Cheers,
Alliecat

[andrewbish]

As someone who has an interest in climate theory, but doesn't have the time (or inclination) to wade through the sea of related scientific research, it would be fantastic if you guys with the strong views could add a few references to relevant articles, if available - having some verifiable facts would be great to help me/us understand your point of view.

[alliecat]

As someone who has an interest in climate theory, but doesn't have the time (or inclination) to wade through the sea of related scientific research, it would be fantastic if you guys with the strong views could add a few references to relevant articles, if available - having some verifiable facts would be great to help me/us understand your point of view.

Hi Andrew,

For an Australian view, the BoM has lots of good info now: http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/change/

As do the CSIRO: http://www.csiro.au/science/Climate-Change.html

It all depends on the level of science background you have, but a good place for more detail is here: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/05/start-here/

Hope that helps.

Cheers,
Alliecat

[stepbystep]

One of the problems with the argument is that is framed under the 'climate change' banner, it gives those who deny man-made climate change an easy argument, climate always has and always will change, they are then left to argue the semantics of complex science that leaves joe public feeling dis-empowered and detached from the issue.

I like this take on it

Attachments

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[phan_TOM]

I think your best bet is to have a look at a few of the university or government based websites Andrew, as the biggest challenge in the whole 'debate' is the condensing of complex scientific data (and there is just so much of it and it is complex) into managable and understandable bites of information for the lay public. I won't bother listing them as they are easy to find but some good ones have already been mentioned and I find that this one breaks it down fairly well for the non-scientific amongst us http://climatescientistsaustralia.org.au/index.html, the members are all highly regarded senior Australian scientists with a wealth of experience and knowledge behind them.

Even better, get a hold of the IPCC reports (the most comprehensive study done on the subject to date) and have a read and you'll be left with little doubt as to whats really going on, sure there were a couple of small and insignificant irregularities contained in the report that were hurriedly pounced on by avaricious 'cranks' (just for you Nuts ) and a handful of unscrupulous employees of corporate oil & energy all facilitated by our mindless media corporations but as has been widely publicised the reports major findings have been agreed upon, that its very clear that human activities are causing climate change and that the future is going to get a lot tougher, especially for those living in marginal environments. (unless you live in Greenland, then things are looking sweet, just string your hammock between the palm trees and relax!)

I finished a degree in Environmental Science in the not so distant past and there is a strong consensus that anthropogenic climate change is very real and I discovered that there are thousands & thousands of scientists and hundreds of Universities wolrdwide who are all in agreement that humans are causing changes to the global climate. It left me with no doubt that we are causing it but I'm amazed that this knowledge hasn't 'crossed' over into the public realm... It only takes a handful of deniers to get their opinion into the media and it seems that mass confusion takes over from there.

It's the evolution of the multidisciplinary sciences that have been providing us with the most answers in recent times, as a 'chemist' or a 'biologist' alone cannot hope to understand the big picture and as we know, climate science, like ecology and a number of other fields, is not linear, its a complex web of interaction with all sorts of feed back loops etc that combine dynamically making it incredibly hard to quantify or qualify. I think that we are getting there, albeit far too slowly...

that cartoon says it all to me stepbystep

[Nuts]

Everyone wants to be heard don't they theres no debate here for me
There is the observation that it seems (to me) to diminish credibility labeling others cranks, especially with amateur sleuths jumping in haste on those presumably learned..
What happens with the one who gets it right (as i'm sure we all hope for.., perhaps then money can be better directed at one of myriad environmental disasters) (unfortunately it is just as likely they would prove there is no hope, obviously not a good outcome either lol)

[alliecat]

Just to be clear - I reserve "cranks" for those repeat offenders who persistently argue against science that they don't understand or deliberately misrepresent. Goddard is a crank. So is Monckton. So are lots of others who mistakenly call themselves "skeptics" - they are not skeptical in the slightest. Calling them cranks is accurate - they don't deserve a more respectful term since they show contempt for the truth, for scientists, and for the scientific method. Some are out-and-out frauds. Debate, or even discussion, is not possible with such people.

Most people who disagree with the science on climate change are simply uninformed or misinformed - often after reading the rants of cranks and liars in places like The Australian. (Google "the australian's war on science" if you're curious.)

SAH - I'm sorry, I didn't mean to imply that your friend is a crank - she clearly isn't, she is just misinformed.

It's really not that hard - if you want to know what the science says, read the science. If you don't understand the science, read the summaries aimed at non-scientists. Start with the IPCC reports as they are just a summary of the state of the science at the time. Don't read the opinions of politically or financially motivated proven serial liars if you are genuinely interested in the topic, you won't learn anything except how pathetically dishonest some people can be.

Cheers,
Alliecat

[South_Aussie_Hiker]

Alliecat, I'll take your statement of

SAH - I'm sorry, I didn't mean to imply that your friend is a crank - she clearly isn't, she is just misinformed.

and read it as "she clearly isn't, i think she is just misinformed"

Hi Nuts!
You and I can be cranks or skeptics or whatever together Alliecat probably just used those words because he is passionate about our planet, and I'm all for that.
As for you and I, we're just obviously extremely resilient old buggers (even though I'm only 29). We have, afterall, survived ozone depletion, global warming, the y2k bug, and most recently the "end of the world" on May 21st 2011.

[andrewbish]

Interesting article on the topic by Mark Lawson in the AFR today.

http://www.afr.com/p/lifestyle/review/r ... hjNRyzAQpN

[Nuts]

'A Guide to Climate Change Lunacy – bad forecasting, terrible solutions', dismiss this guy, not a data analyst, book to sell
SAH, im not a climate change skeptic, i'm just yer average everyday skeptic