The 50% who don’t know that global warming is caused by human activities may not be ignorant; they may just disagree.

The elapsed time is not what is important. The significance is that the CO2 has increased 21% while the temperature shows no sign of significant increase. Trenberth considers it a travesty that they can not explain this separation.

As the atmospheric CO2 continues to increase and the average global temperature does not some people may begin to wonder if maybe they missed something

A simple equation, with inputs of only sunspot number and carbon dioxide level, calculates the average global temperature trends since 1895 with 88% accuracy. See an eye-opening graph of the results and how they are derived in the pdfs at http://climaterealists.com/index.php?tid=145&linkbox=true

Roger am I hearing you right that you believe that catastrophic climate disruption will cease to be a threat if we just reverse our high consumption lifestyle? What would give you such an idea?

Making lifestyle changes will do nothing to prevent naturally occurring catastrophic global climate disruption. History teaches us that catastrophic climate disruption is a fact of life regardless of CO2 levels and has already destroyed large populations of humans via crop failures, famine, disease, etc. For instance mitigation of CO2 will not protect us from future climate disasters and if you are serious about a precautionary strategy it needs to be comprehensive and include consideration of the natural catastrophic climate disruptions that will still occur even if CO2 is reduced to 350PPM. The only way to do that is to channel our limited supply of money and resources into disaster preparation and adaptation strategies.

For example how would lifestyle changes have stopped a CAT5 hurricane from causing a breach in New Orleans levees? I would submit that money spent on much stronger levees would be the proper course of action not lifestyle changes. Our choice today is no different. NYC was under 90 feet of water 110,000 years ago and it will be again even if we keep CO2 levels at 350PPM by reducing consumption. Reduced consumption is not a serious solution at all.

Well said!

The only thing I might quibble with is the idea that that there is no hope of educating the public. A segment of the public can be educated, and a far better job could be done with the rest than is done now.

The basic problem, in my view, is that scientists have for so long said “the public could never understand” and have therefore simplified and distorted, and “dumbed down”, that it has become a self-fulfilling prophecy. It is so long since the public saw real science that they no longer understand what it is, and would indeed struggle to catch up. Science has been replaced with ‘scientific authority’ – an oxymoron if ever there was – as scientists, struggling to meet journalists’ demands for simplicity and drama, substituted assertion for explanation. A new generation has grown up believing that scientific thinking consists of believing what the experts say.

It’s not irreparable, given time and effort, but it’s not even recognised as a problem yet.

All these wonderful things and the earth has warmed just 0.6 deg since the onset of significant carbon fuel burning.. SOME of that warming is likely due to humans but no one knows how much.

Humans advance. There are side effects. We discover them and try to mitigate them. We debate the costs and benefits. People disagree. This is normal. This is good. This is human progress. Take a moment and listen to informed people who disagree with you.

As a meteorologist with a child who will likely live to the year 2100, I’m not at all concerned about climate change ruining her future. But I’m closely following the science and will change my mind if the facts warrant.

However, there is huge disagreement within the scientific community about the complexities and severity of climate change. Unfortunately, there is a concerted effort to say things like
…”all scientists agree”
…”skeptics are no different than the flat earth society”
…”scientists who disagree are all paid off by the energy industry”

The reality is there are many scientists such as myself who are very skeptical of climate change disaster scenarios. I’m not paid by anybody, I’m not religious or Republican or a stooge of the energy industry. But I’m sickened by the state of the science.

I’m appalled at the scientific ignorance on all sides of the debate including from climate scientists who seem to have lost sight of the fact that a good scientist is a skeptical scientist.

As if that’s serious statistics. Say a baseball player hit a career high of 70 home runs in 2001, and hit between 67-69 each year after that, and had an average of 20 for the preceding years. Does that mean in 2010 his average is “down”?

To paraphrase Mark Twain, sounds like lies, damned lies and statistics to me…