This is precisely my point. It is *perfectly scientific* for the vast majority of us who aren’t climate scientists (including me and AFAIK everyone else here) to be quite content to swallow a consensus as strong as it is on climate change. Rules of thumb and other people’s knowledge are how human beings construct the world about them – or one of these days I’d pour a kettle full of boiling water down my throat to check if it really does take the lining off my oesophagus, or whether that particular theory is just a vast right-wing copnspiracy to stop me enjoying myself. In the absence of expertise or revelation, the consensus is the rational / scientific / correct answer for most people.

http://www.donaldstrachan.com/archive/?p=4

As Sunny says, the ‘deniers’ are not the slightest bit interested in the science, merely in picking bits from it to push an agenda which just so happens to coincide with what they were pushing already. (And, yes, t’other side are the same, but alas this time they have the science on their side.) In this sense, they;re just like the ID creationists, who look equally silly.

Now, if you want to move the debate from ‘what’s happening’ (which to me seems open and shut) to ‘what can we reasonably do about what’s happening’ then there’s a discussion to be had. But this denialism just makes parts (mostly Internet parts, it has to be said) of the right look silly. Which is fine by me.

>why was 1924 the hottest year on record ?

My great-granddad smoked 150 woodbines a day and lived til he was 224. Same answer.

(And yes this is the genetic fallacy. It’s the direct equivalent of the “linked to big oil” argument put forward with such monotonous regularity by the greens. Sauce for the goose and all…)

Actually I’m not very impressed with the solar argument, although I don’t think anyone has firmly established either the case for or against. We don’t know yet.

Much like global warming itself, really.

Except, a lot of them are. They’ll hide in the language of not believing the science and will play up the sceptics but have you wondered why most of the sceptics are on the right? Its because they believe environmentalism itself is one vast left-wing conspiracy.

Of course, the fact that orgs like Greenpeace have been talking about such issues for decades, and not just the last few years like Cameron has, really annoys them too. Or, they think its a conspiracy to impinge on their own liberties/ pay more money.

The issue isn’t about the science – it is because they usually hate the politics of the people behind the science and instinctively want to rail against any suc agenda.

Re: #12 – that ‘sun spots’ theory has been discredited.
http://environment.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,,2123448,00.html

A spokesman for the Royal Society, the UK’s leading scientific academy, said: “This is an important contribution to the scientific debate on climate change. At present there is a small minority which is seeking to deliberately confuse the public on the causes of climate change. They are often misrepresenting the science, when the reality is that the evidence is getting stronger every day. We have reached a point where a failure to take action to reduce carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions would be irresponsible and dangerous.”

Channel 4 and Martin Durkin, producer of The Great Global Warming Swindle, declined to comment.

“So, compared to an antibiotic resistant viral epidemic, how tricky on a scale of 1 to 10 would it be to make sure a large proportion of those dying of COLD, NOW, in fact didn’t?”

Good point. In theory it should be easy, in practice it would appear not to be, as it’s not a new problem and is still happening, now in the 21stC.

You’re clearly not stupid, Matt, so I assume you’re just being obtuse. You’ve said yourself. in the same paragraph, that disease profiles are likely to change as climate changes. To say that ‘plague’ may be part of that changing profile seems rather uncontroversial to me. Especially in the majority of poor countries where ‘poor housing stock’ hasn’t been destroyed (lucky us!). And especially peer reviewed articles by proper scientists have said so. Unless you have something to add in ref. to the results and methodologies of those studies, I’m not sure where you’re coming from. Or why.

>it is carried by rat fleas

Most modern research has concluded that the most dangerous forms of ‘plague’ aren’t in fact bubonic plague (carried by *black* rats). The ‘Black Death’ in the 1340s and Great Plague of London in the 1660s were more likely viral.

>Did you know that more people die of COLD in this country NOW, than from any forecast effects of “climate change”

So, compared to an antibiotic resistant viral epidemic, how tricky on a scale of 1 to 10 would it be to make sure a large proportion of those dying of COLD, NOW, in fact didn’t?