Please be patient, I'm fairly busy these days and don't have tons of time so I might be a bit slow to answer.

Have you really put in that much study on the issue?

Anyway I'll not let you get away with the claim that I didn't address each of your issues.

If you want to go through this in detail I will respond to your claims one at a time on my blog;

http://ablankspotonthemap.blogspot.com/

See you there.

Here is the point you missed:

The fact is that when people realize energy savings they enjoy cost savings as well. As a result of the cost savings, they often increase other activities (since they more money available). Those increased activities often result in higher total energy use. People's behaviour is not static. That's what Seth meant by “it's not a zero sum game.”

For example, higher gas mileage cars tend to get driven more. The increased number of miles driven uses as much or more gas than efficiency increase saved. The result is and total gas usage is either flat or goes up.

The way you simultaneously made the point was by continuing the efficiency argument while missing Seth's point.

But I'll give you a gold star for excellent snark.

“Not at all. The warming is way off from normal and the major change is CO2 levels that are higher then (sic) they have been in more then 400,000 years. Nothing else explains this warming.

It all fits… it's all pretty straight forward.”

So you’re saying, “It’s really warm now, and CO2 is elevated so that must be the cause of the warming.” Again, correlation does not prove causation, so your logic is wrong – this is not proof of anything one way or the other. On top of the bad logic, your statement isn’t even true.

As you have pointed out multiple times, woody plants have been discovered under melting glaciers. Obviously, many years ago, the planet was much warmer than now or those plants wouldn’t be there. That proves conclusively that present global temperature are within historical norms.

Next you fall into the fallacy of personal incredulity Daniel mentioned before (i.e. “I can’t see any other explanation, so it must be CO2”). Not only that, but we’re discussing the anthropogenic component of warming not total warming. One of the links you provided earlier shows that anthropogenic CO2 is ~4% of production. IOW, natural processes produce 24 times more CO2 than human activity. When you understand that CO2 has much less impact than water vapor on warming and see how small the impact of human activity is on CO2 it is difficult to believe we have an imminent catastrophe looming before us. Of course, I’ve made these comments before and you’ve yet to address them.

Even further, the hypothesis that the CO2 concentration increases we’ve seen will drive substantial warming has not held up well to reality. Computer models built with those assumptions have consistently been dramatically wrong. The inescapable conclusion from that is the computer models are worthless. Obviously, we do not understand the global climate process as well as you seem to think. I’ve brought this up before on other threads and you’ve never addressed this point either.

What of the missing hot spot in the tropics at mid troposphere levels Sam keeps asking you about. You’ve never addressed that either.

But other than that it all fits. (that was sarcasm in case you didn’t realize it)

“Do you understand that when Dr Hansen stood before congress and warned of major man made warming many of these findings of 4,000 year old vegetation HAD NOT EXISTED or been discovered.

Isn't it a little likely more then a coincidence these discoveries are recent and happened only after the claim was made.”

This is the kind of argument you find convincing? No wonder you’re so confused.

“Now if no such finding were available, if the surface data showed cooling or even no warming then I'd be embarrassed to be pushing claims of man made climate change.”

Funny thing is the surface temperature shows just that for the last decade even though the models based on the hypothesis you espouse show we should have seen steady warming. What that means is we do not understand the global climate system as well as you thing we do – it’s definitely not as simple as you think it is.

“But you guys push claims that are just as proposperous (sic). You claim the warming is natural when there is no evidence to support it and a huge CO2 elephant sitting in the room to explain the man made hypothesis.”

Here you try to lump me in with some imaginary group you can demean. I’m not pushing any claims; that would be you. Since the temperatures we see now are within historical variation and we do not understand the global climate process well it is obviously possible that the warming we have now could be natural.

And, as I wrote above, the “CO2 elephant” is more like a miniature jade elephant you bought in Chinatown for $5 (that analogy means it’s small, not huge in case you didn’t understand).

“You guys simply do not want the truth. It's very clear..the truth… but you can't handle the truth. Kicking and screaming and denying and throwing tantrums and being illogical like some of the 2 year olds I see here everyday. It's pathetic.

You really are creationist equivalents and there is just no way for you to see it. Very sad.”

And of course, you have to throw in the obligatory ad hominem hoping to distract readers from the fact that you have no argument. What’s humorous is that (like most of your ad hominems) it describes you fairly well. So please fess up – the parody is intentional, right?

If Mother Gaia was that warm 6500 years ago, what caused the globe to cool to the point that glaciers covered these plants for 6500 years? Why was the globe warm enough for those glaciers to recede 6500 years ago? It was colder 12,000 years ago than it was 6500 years ago. Why? (Please note that twelve-thousand is a bigger number than six-thousand.)

It's been both warmer and colder on this planet than it is now. Why? It's been both warmer and colder on this planet than it was 6500 years ago. Why?

It all fits… it's all pretty straight forward.

Do you understand that when Dr Hansen stood before congress and warned of major man made warming many of these findings of 4,000 year old vegetation HAD NOT EXISTED or been discovered.

Isn't it a little likely more then a coincidence these discoveries are recent and happened only after the claim was made.

Now if no such finding were available, if the surface data showed cooling or even no warming then I'd be embarrassed to be pushing claims of man made climate change.

But you guys push claims that are just as proposperous. You claim the warming is natural when there is no evidence to support it and a huge CO2 elephant sitting in the room to explain the man made hypothesis.

You guys simply do not want the truth. It's very clear..the truth… but you can't handle the truth. Kicking and screaming and denying and throwing tantrums and being illogical like some of the 2 year olds I see here everyday. It's pathetic.

You really are creationist equivalents and there is just no way for you to see it. Very sad.

You're claiming that human activity is causing the warming. If all you were claiming is that it's warming you'd have no disagreement here.

You should be embarassed by that post, but I doubt you will.

You are of course correct that in contradicting Seth's belief that it is “always lost” that “higher efficiency can result” in “a net increase in energy burned,” I both miss and make his point. I miss his point, in that I suggest he is completely wrong and assert that energy efficiency measures would be NPV positive across the economy. I simultaneously make his point, by citing evidence to back my own point.

My further point, which was that Seth's ignorance is illustrative of a broader lack of education about this topic among the general population, is of course negated by the fact that I was completely wrong in my premise. I'll try to be more informed (perhaps less teenager-like) next time. Once again, excellent job of putting me in my place.

OK yep I can't argue with that logic.

Cognitive dissonance is a truly amazing thing!

The fact that they teach, publish, present, serve on public panels, etc. is PROOF that the “consensus” side WILL listen to what they have to say, that they are NOT being dismissed out of hand. Don't confuse not agreeing with Lindzen and Spencer with not listening to them, Justin.

RE: “For the AGW crowd, if a paper doesn't fit their nice little neat model of humans being the cause of every ill in the world, then they just throw it to the side”

This is barely worth responding to, but I will anyway. (1.) No anthropogenic climate change advocate is saying humans are the cause of every ill in the world, and (2.) nobody just throws this research to the side. they engage it, critique it, and review it. Again – don't confuse “not being convinced by” or “not agreeing about” with “throwing to the side”.

RE: “So what are you trying to insinuate?”

I thought it was pretty clear, no insinuation involved. I doubt you recognize all the times that my side gets insulted and attacked for the conclusions they've drawn. Similarly, I doubt I fully appreciate all the times your side gets attacked. It's the bias of perspective. No insinuation involved – I'm saying it straight.

Re:”I doubt you are usually exposed to (or would recognize it if you were exposed to) insults from the other side.”
So what are you trying to insinuate?

Please explain how it's not going well for the skeptics? Did you read the link I posted? How about this one?
http://www.quadrant.org.au/blogs/doomed-planet/...

It's a FANTASTIC reason not to have a standing army. But this is my point. Now take it back one step further. If you have a “non-standing” army, a temporary army, you bear the very real risk of it becoming a standing army and of having that standing army confiscate guns.

So then is that an argument not to let the Congress raise any army? Of course not.

Slippery slope arguments have their place, but they can't legitimately be used to justify no action at all. I assume you support the Congress's right to raise a non-standing army, right? And presumably you would say “once they move to a standing army I wouldn't support it anymore”. That sounds legitimate to me! That is exactly what I'm trying to say.

You could concoct a comparable slippery slope argument to defend anarchy. It's not a valid point on which to challenge me because libertarianism is susceptible to the same critiques until it becomes anarchy. You can insist that I keep potential future eventualities in mind (and I do), but you can't insist that I defend future eventualities that I wouldn't support in the first place – any more than I can expect you to feel obligated to defend those evenualities.

But I must disagree with your second paragraph. That most certainly is a reason to not have a standing army, and not a bad one at that. An even better reason is the temptation to use that standing army is just too much for some politicians to resist. Maybe that's why our founders were so strong in their opinions against standing armies.

(BTW, don't take this too far. I have no problem with having a Coast Guard, Navy and Air Force. The same temptation exists, but to a lesser extent – it's hard to do an occupation without standing army. And, after all, national defense is one of the few things that is in scope for the federal government. But that's definitely OT)

“Democracy is two wolves and a lamb deciding what's for lunch.
Liberty is a well-armed Lamb contesting the vote!”
–Ben Franklin

Smart guy, that Ben.

How does that “prove” AGW? All this demonstrates it what absolutely nobody disagrees with – the planet has warmed lately. Duh!

(Please add that to the list of questions above.)

Are you really not able to understand that this kind of thing undermines your position????

• I have refuted many of your claims in several places on this thread (and others).
• You have not addressed those.
• I have pointed out how small the impact of human activity is on the greenhouse effect.
• You have not addressed that.
• I have pointed out that the geological history of the planet clearly demonstrates a stable system without positive feedback tipping points.
• You have not addressed that.
• Perhaps most significant of all, I have reminded you that the predictions of catastrophic AGW are based on analysis that ignores the role of clouds in the climate system, and clouds have a cooling effect.
• You have not addressed that.

So, to show some proof of substantial AGW you could start by addressing the many points and questions you've continued to dodge.

But instead, you've decided to stick with the dodge-the-question strategy using the tried and true demonize-your-opponent tactic (DTQ by DYO). In this latest installation you try to lump me in with those whose opinions are based on dogma and ideology, evidently without realizing that you appear to base your belief on just those things. Might you be projecting?

From comments you've made I think it's a safe conclusion that I have a much better understanding of science than you. I assure you I'm not being even slightly dogmatic on the issue – I'm doing my part to keep the politics out of the science. So stop the ad hominems or admit you have no argument.

Oh, and I also noticed how the impact of clouds global temperature was completely ignored. That wouldn't be because clouds have a cooling effect and therefore are inconvenient for AGW proponents?

Do you realize that you've undermined your own position?