XQZME, no-one is denying that the world has technically “cooled” since 1998. That’s far from incompatible with anthropogenic climate change, because the relevant scientific bodies never suggested that the change would be exactly linear. Climate is extremely complex, and it’s absurd to suggest that unless every single year is warmer than the last, then global warming is a “hoax”. There are other factors at play. 1998 is the global hottest year on record partly because of the enhancing effect of El Nino, amongst other factors. (Yes, I read your link – NASA does say that 1934 takes top spot, but that’s for the hottest year IN THE U.S, which covers a tiny fraction of the globe. Even if 1934 is were the hottest global temperature, that far from disproves man-contributed global warming) At least 4 of the 10 hottest years on record have been in the 11 years since then.

Of course there are a minority of skeptics, as there should be with any scientific theory, even one as well proven as this. But the fact still remains that every major scientific organisation in the world, every relevant peer-reviewed paper in the world and the vast majority of climatologists all support the consensus. It’s very easy to scream “conspiracy” without evidence to dismiss arguments that you disagree with, but that doesn’t change the facts.

A political consensus is not science…proof is science and you have failed to provide it.

The Oregon Petition is a well-documented fraud – I am surprised you did not realize that.

Beginning in 1998 and continuing today, a petition has been circulated that asks people to sign a statement indicating that global warming is beneficial to mankind and that humans are not responsible for the current climate change observed today. The petition, organized by the Oregon Institute for Science and Medicine (OISM), includes a letter of support from Frederick Seitz, former President of the National Academy of Sciences, USA, along with a Wall Street Journal editorial and an article from The Journal of Physicians and Surgeons. This journal is not a peer-reviewed journal for climate science nor any other atmosphere-related field. In essence, anything published in this journal that relates to climate science must be considered “questionable” at best.

The National Academy of Sciences has released the following statement regarding the OISM Petition:

The petition project was a deliberate attempt to mislead scientists and to rally them in an attempt to undermine support for the Kyoto Protocol. The petition was not based on a review of the science of global climate change, nor were its signers experts in the field of climate science.

When questioned in 1998, OISM’s Arthur Robinson admitted that only 2,100 signers of the Oregon Petition had identified themselves as physicists, geophysicists, climatologists, or meteorologists, “and of those the greatest number are physicists.” This grouping of fields concealed the fact that only a few dozen, at most, of the signatories were drawn from the core disciplines of climate science – such as meteorology, oceanography, and glaciology – and almost none were climate specialists. The names of the signers are available on the OISM’s website, but without listing any institutional affiliations or even city of residence, making it very difficult to determine their credentials or even whether they exist at all. OISM has refused to release information on the number of mailings it made.

Because this petition is still being circulated today, one would think that the OISM would support their dubious claims by including a recent article from a peer-reviewed climate-related publication. Because OISM has not done so, it speaks volumes to these unfounded claims. This petition can only be considered as fraud.

The IPCC 2007 and the Copenhagen 2009 Synthesis Report show that there is a virtual certainty about AGW and the unprecedented nature of AGW. You do not need to take my word for it. These are the experts from around the world. When we stop listening to experts in any field then we might as well stop going to school, stop reading, and stay in our caves.

The denialists all differ in their finger pointing while the climate experts are all stating the same thing. Denialists will point to changes in ocean circulation, land surface changes, solar fluctuations, cloud fluctuation, volcanic activity, cosmic rays, etc. but NONE of these has been shown with any consensus to be the underlying driver of climate change. Man-made greenhouse gas emissions HAVE been shown with great consensus. The IPCC 2007 and the Copenhagen 2009 Synthesis Report show that there is a virtual certainty about AGW and the unprecedented nature of AGW.

So we are left with three possible conclusions:

1) An overwhelimg majority of climate experts agree on AGW and are honest.

2) An overwhelming majority of climate experts are ignorant about their “expertise”. Basically they all have sudden and collective Alzheimer’s.

3) They have all agreed to conspire to delude the billions of folks on the planet and just a very small % of them – the denialists – are trying to save us all from this mass hoax.

Common sense and a sense of probability should lead you to the likely correct choice above.

One final comment: The first person to show proof of what IS causing the unprecedented modern day global warming and that it is NOT greenhouse gas emissions by humans is the next Nobel Science winner.

Perhaps you should consider reading what is being discussed in the peer-reviewed literature because when you cite Watts and Monckton you immediately lose credibility.

But this blog gets a ton of spam comments, which are filtered out by an automatic program. I don’t have the time (or a strong enough stomach–you should see some of the filth we get) to check through the spam filter every day. One tip: don’t put tooooo many links in your comment. That’s one of the red flags the program looks for in determining what’s spam. The above comment by XQZME, for example — I just fished that out of the spam filter.

http://www.norcalblogs.com/watts/2007/08/1998_no_longer_the_hottest_yea.html
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124597505076157449.html
http://www.epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=10fe77b0-802a-23ad-4df1-fc38ed4f85e3

ALL FOUR MAJOR GLOBAL TEMPERATURE MEASURERS recorded declining temperatures in the last few years. Scroll half way down to “MEASURING THE MEASURERS” at
http://rfraley301.blogspot.com/2008_11_01_archive.html
http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/global_warming_ice_age/2008/04/24/90591.html

CORRELATION DOES NOT PROVE CAUSATION, HOWEVER:
Several independent, peer reviewed investigations over various time periods (one was 420,000 years) show conclusively that changes in the air’s CO2 content cannot be responsible for major climate changes, for it would be a strange cause indeed that followed its effect!
http://www.co2science.org/subject/c/summaries/co2climatehistory.php
See page 3: http://english.pravda.ru/science/earth/106922-earth_ice_age-0

A graph of temperature and Beryllium isotope concentration demonstrates that the warming of the 20th century was SOLAR-DRIVEN.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/03/17/beryllium-10-and-climate/#more-6286
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=38121&sectionid=3510208

The historical correlation between the regular fluctuations of THE SUN and earthly climate changes are so good that the odds of the correlation existing by chance are one in 100.
http://ibdeditorial.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=287279412587175
http://educate-yourself.org/zsl/inconvenienttruth20jan08.shtml

CONSENSUS:
There were four climate change consensuses in the last century. Consensus is not proof of a scientific theory. A petition by a substantial quantity of qualified scientists disclaiming a consensus is sufficient to REFUTE THE CLAIM OF CONSENSUS. 31,478 qualified scientists say there is no convincing scientific evidence that so-called greenhouse gasses are causing catastrophic heating of the earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the earth’s climate.
http://www.petitionproject.org/qualifications_of_signers.php
http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2006/6/20/134405.shtml?s=ic

Those who disregard the preceding scientific data, depend upon the following MYTHS.
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,25401759-5000117,00.html
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/monckton/goreerrors.html

Many observers on either side can not answer the following 10 QUESTIONS correctly.
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/GlobWarmTest/start.html

http://www2.sunysuffolk.edu/mandias/global_warming/greenhouse_gases.html

http://www2.sunysuffolk.edu/mandias/global_warming/smoking_gun_humans_climate_change.html

Of course, natural sources are NOT contributing to the rapid increases in greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane.

I hope we do a better job next time. It sucks that we tend to eradicate any groups of men that have harmonized with nature. Comanches
lived on the plains for a thousand years, yet it took us less than 150 to create the dustbowl on the same ground.

“What’s the use of having developed a science well enough to make predictions if, in the end, all we’re willing to do is stand around and wait for them to come true?”
– Nobel Laureate Sherwood Rowland (referring then to ozone depletion)

Unfortunately, he may be optimistic. Scientists are telling us that there is some chance we are as little as 10 years away from falling off a climate precipice with permafrost methane emissions and ocean acidification forming the leading edge of a very steep slope.

Have you global warming deniers never heard of insurance? What if they are right and you are wrong and in 10 years we hit an irreversible climate slide. Do we throw y’all in slave labor camps as punishment for your stupidity?

He lends his voice to the fury of who have studied the issue seeing us wasting time and treasure on too little too late technologies like wind, solar. biomass, carbon sequestration, conservation and silly tax schemes like cap and trade.

Meanwhile a workable extremely low cost liquid fluorine thorium reactor design is sitting on the shelf at at a government research site in Idaho put there by that philandering fat head Bill Clinton.

Senator Lamar Alexander advocates building 100 new nuclear power plants in the US over the next 20 years. He is way short. We need to start building one mass produced nuclear plant every day for the next 30 years, if we are to have any hope. Westinghouse’s recent sale to China pegs the cost at less than 2 cents a kilowatt hour. In the US,and around the world, it would end the recession putting everybody back to work and would be paid for by ending oil imports.

Ten years from now I would hope fast breeder nukes like the liquid fluorine thorium reactor and fusion technologies like polywell and focus fusion become usable on an industrial scale.

It does not matter who or what caused it. The climate is changing and the only questions that matter are:

1). Should we do something about it?

2). If so, what should we do about it?

Skeptics will likely argue until the sun goes dark about who did what to whom. This is a delaying sideline that takes us away from the more important questions.