The quotation from Monbiot above is a classic

1. Does the atmosphere contain carbon dioxide?

Yes – all O2 respiring organisms produce CO2 and vegetation uses the CO2 via photosynthesis to produce complex hydrocarbons and so we have the building blocks of the Carbon Cycle.

2. Does atmospheric carbon dioxide raise the average global temperature?

Some debate about which comes first but that aside – Water vapour is a far greater cause of warming as is methane – not from dinosaur farts but rotting vegetation and bovine farts most certainly.

3. Will this influence be enhanced by the addition of more carbon dioxide?

This presumes (Monbiot is certainly presumptive) that he gets the answer he wants for question 2. and as the answer is more complicated than he would like the truth is that even if it did – the effect is small compared to other greenhouse gases.

4. Have human activities led to a net emission of carbon dioxide?

Yes – as well as methane and water vapour.

So the issue for me is not that we should not do something – it is “are the “believers” correct in their strident belief that CO2 is the sole guilty entity.

Deforestation for Palm oil production so that we can have less CO2 producing biofuel seems to me to be one of the most amazing opportunity costs that the “believers” have managed to shoot themselves in the foot with.

Thankfully people look at Al Gore with is huge carbon footprint from three mansions, private jets and 6 limos, rather sceptically when his film states that sea levels will rise 20ft and then the IPCC states sea levels could rise about 17 inches.

Personally I think that if one more failed politician (they are all failures in my book) or pop star (average 5 mansions, a Lear Jet and 12 vehicles) tells me that I have to change MY lifestyle to save the planet I am going to throw up or kick them in the groin – possibly both.

On a forum in a social network I belong to we have experienced the most bizarre cases of denial and that I have ever witnessed. So your comment here is like a breath of fresh air.

Be well and happy until we meet again. :)

The science is relatively straightforward, but the global warming story has been calculatedly manipulated by vested interests who have effectively ensured a misreporting of the status of scientific opinion within the media. This has helped to support an entirely misguided public belief that real scientists are divided on the issues. They are not.

The delusion of differing scientific opinions is peddled enthusiastically by a small number of isolated but vociferous so-called ‘researchers’, many of whom are funded by big oil. The tragic legacy of this cynical manipulation of so-called science and of public opinion began with the systematic undermining during the late 1980s and 1990s of the global negotiations leading up to Rio and Kyoto (see the dramatic account within Jeremy Leggett’s book The Carbon War.

A decade on, the present scale of deliberate misinformation (the denial industry) remains breathtaking, as explored in detail within George Monbiot’s recent book Heat):

Although increasing anthropogenic carbon emissions have a critical role in driving recent climate change, they are not the only factor, however. Specifically, it needs to be appreciated that global temperature variations reflect the superimposed effects of both anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions (increasing, and accelerating) and a lower amplitude natural cyclicity in solar insolation (currently entering a relative low).

There is a very clear and excellently framed analysis here: Climate change in the public debate. A basic appreciation of the science along these lines clearly refutes the oft-cited (but tragically inaccurate) red herring that global warming stopped in 1998.

Monbiot memorably invites anyone inclined to a sceptical view of global warming to answer the following four simple questions:

1. Does the atmosphere contain carbon dioxide?

2. Does atmospheric carbon dioxide raise the average global temperature?

3. Will this influence be enhanced by the addition of more carbon dioxide?

4. Have human activities led to a net emission of carbon dioxide?

Monbiot continues, “If you are able to answer ‘no’ to any one of them, you should put yourself forward for a Nobel Prize. You will have turned science on its head.”