Cyclones are more violent in a cooler climate not a warmer one, perhaps you should investigate the subect before you make ignorent claims. That means if the earth warms hurricanes will be weaker, wait until global cooling sets in within the next 40 years humanity will be in its biggest fight for survival ever. We built our industrial world during the warming period of the past 300 years hence why we have flourished, we have no idea how to cope with this new ice age. I hope somebody in power somewhere has the intellect to reconise this and help save our industrial world.

James Ferris, Kent,

Objections such as "100 years of data is not enough to know thousands of years of past climate" should never be said in the first place.

Now I ask, who are you to state that? Have you studied the various competing statistical models for integrating proxy data into supersets? Can you even tell which parts of that sentence are valid, and which ones I just made up? Or are you just applying that common sense is so illequipped for evaluating complex scientific evidence?

Dr. Acula, Stockholm, Sweden

Jonathan Wojcik

You have to put forward one or two actual refutations of some of these ideas, not just deny them, or attribute bad motives to the people putting them forward.

Frank Upton, Solihull,

I'm currently reading Unstoppable Global Warming Every 1,500 years by Avery and Singer; I must say that this book is exceptional.

The solid and long standing scientific evidence documenting our planets climatic change without the assitance of man debunks the greenhouse gas theory.

Steve, Staten Island, New York

The majority of these so-called predictions never came true at all. Starting with #1, there is no evidence that the world is any warmer today than in 1890. Why do we know this? Even today, we cannot measure the average temperature of the earth with enough accuracy to make any such statement, never mind 1890.

CyBear, Saint Paul, USA/MN

I can't read the comments here without wanting to scream. I have studied the climate all my life and all I can say is that NONE of you doubters have the slightest idea what you're talking about. You've been brainwashed by a mainstream media that doesn't want to care about the environment. Every argument posted here against global warming is a laughable fairy-story. The problem is real, the problem is significant, and the problem is our fault. Deal with it.

Jonathan Wojcik, fallston,

How would you like to make another list of the predictions that did NOT come through?

Like, for example, the rush to hysteria about "global cooling", in the 70's.

The earth has warming and cooling cycles. It did so before man trod on its surface -- and will continue to do so until the sun implodes.

B Saivetz, Longboat Key, FL, USA

if climate change was as big a problem as the governments said, don't you think they'd ban frivolous activities like formula 1.

If climate change really was a big problem, wouldn't they ground planes?


All I hear is governments taxing Westerners more, and stopping industrialisation for china (a big economic threat), repressing africa (has lots of fossel fuels still) ...

non_believer, london, uk

"Becoming True"
Definition - An attempt to fill a column called "Ten predictions about climate change that have come true" with a few that are yet to fully happen or be proved to have happened.
:D

Oxford, Bookland,

I think that all the governement need to takes position about this global warming.

During the last G8 Sarkozy and Mertel tried to reach an agreement with goals but it's impossible to discuss with American and British peaple about this subject

But when we tried to have a result every discussion is blocked by british pretroleum lobbies

I hope that in the futur all governement will heard the population in order to have a global accord against global warming...

Pierrou, LILLE , France

John Latham has pointed out that we can use a well-known piece of atmospheric physics known as the Twomey effect to reverse the thermal (not the chemical) effects of CO2 increase. We spray very small amounts of sea water into marine stratocumulus clouds to change the size distribution of the drops in them. This makes them reflect more solar energy back out to space. The ratio of the energy needed to make the spray to the energy reflected is several million.

Details of practical hardware can be downloaded from http://www.see.ed.ac.uk/~shs then the folder global warming.

Stephen Salter, Edinburgh, Scotland

Not being a scientist I've worked out that dinasours didn't produce emissions, drive 4 x 4s and have hundreds of coal fired power stations, the world is a far greater power than anyone can understand and be there or be there not global warming, the world is in what I would consider to be a "Natural Cycle" that goverments are monopolising on tax wise.
In other words, its happening and there is absolutley nothing we will be able to do, can we stop earth quakes and volcanoes from erupting? far smaller powers than global warming !!!!!!

PATRICIA S, TRIMDON, DURHAM

What does "becoming true" mean, scientifically speaking?

Godfrey Wind, Bath, UK

This past winter was the longest, coldest and produced the most snow in the Pacific Northwest in the twelve years I have lived here.
Another thought...if CO2 causes global warming, why isn't there more outrage over Los Angeles County wanting to ban all dry cleaning solvents in favor of CO2 and water to refresh all garments in LA County which are currently dry cleaned? Come to think of it, last I heard, LA County doesn't exactly have an abundance of water! TAXPAYERS OF LA COUNTY...ARE YOU GETTING YOUR MONEYS WORTH OUT OF YOUR ELECTED REPRESENTATIVES?????????

JPT, Marysville, WA

Paul, feedback loops, including from water vapor (a passive, non-causal greenhouse gas) are a particular concern with additional warming, but there are limits to them on long timescales.That shouldn't be reassuring, considering paleoclimate data suggesting great, multi-millennial amplification potential. The relative rate of warming leading up to this is already unprecedented in a thousand years according to several independent proxy studies. And we have yet to see the full atmospheric effect of recent emissions (thermal inertia along with feedback and the long persistence of a large CO2 accumulation).

Sam, Portland, Oregon, US

Previous preductions from Flannery -

"The ongoing drought could leave Sydney’s dams dry in just two years. "

Not so. His prediction was out by 1,250,000 MEGALITRES.

After 14 days on continuous rain, that city's dams are now over 50% full, the highest in three years.

"Brisbane and Adelaide - home to a combined total of three million people - could run out of water by year’s end. "

Again wrong. Without receiving a further drop of rain, Adelaide has enough water to last until late January, 2008 and Brisbane has sufficient supplies to last until October next year.

BTW - The last couple of weeks it has been pouring down here as well.

Cory Olsen, Brisbane, Australia

all the answers to skeptics here :
http://www.realclimate.org/

DM, Arras, France

Wake up! It's here and even if we did something "ABOUT" it. It would take hundreds of years to start seeing any change. The only thing we can do is prepare. Quit building right next to the ocean! We have not done that and have in fact accelerated our construction "ON" the water. It's going to wash away! Our biggest problem always has been topsoil erosion, Hello? "The capabilities of the human being can only be surpased by their capacity for greed! That's my quote!

Todd, Fallon,

Hey, Doc Zuiderwijk--

Try reading accurately, or admit to intentional misprision. Longer and stronger hurricanes is an entirely different thing from more hurricanes, and papers in _Science_ and _Nature_ demonstrated this pretty convincingly back n 2005.

Increased acidification of the oceans is demonstrated in lots of places--I'll direct you to _Nature_ in 2004.

Malaria in the Arctic in the 1920s has no relationship whatsoever to whether or not tropical disease is increasing or decreasing in the world, which is related to rising temperatures expanding the range of Anopheles and Aegyptis as much as to increasing humidity. If it's warm enough and the eggs are about, you'll get the mosquitos after it rains unless the rain comes to an end entirely. Australia may be having a drought but that hardly means that mosquitos have vanished there.

As "howlers" go, your post fufills the requirements nicely. As long as people neither read nor reason, they might believe you, eh?

Thane Doss, Tokyo

Thane Doss, Tokyo, Japan

It's refreshing to read so many readers who have seen through the biggest con ever launched on the public.

30,000 years ago, in the middle of the last Ice Age, a huge ice cap extended from the North Pole down to London and New York. It has been melting ever since and will continue to do so for another 20,000 years, when Earth will start cooling down for 50,000 years to the next Ice Age. This is not theory, but measurement, derived from the well established science of celestial mechanics, of the constantly changing elliptic orbit of Earth around the Sun. As a result, Earth's climate is always changing. The increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is not the cause of global warming, but is released from the oceans which release CO2 as they warm up and will be absorbed again as they cool down to the next Ice Age. Again, this is established science, not theory.

Alarmist IPCC reports are written by a small group of computer modellers who do not represent all scientists.

Peter Lloyd, Blacker Hill, England

The man thinks way above his capacity, all the talks about "global warming" is just a buisniess. Yes it is true that global changes are happening, but not because of the human activity, but because of the solar activitiy, there has been cycles through which the earth was passing in the past, showing that there was warmer and cooler periods, even the industry was not develop, than who emitted CO2? This came out by the resurch of some teams by Russia and Japan driling and taking out some ice from north and south pole, the ice has tendency to capture air so each deep level presented periods of the earth, with the extraction of the air the could see the earth activity through the past and come to some conclusions, but who will listen to them? Today is very modern to be antiglobalist and figth for the earth, meaning "green peace" and all the shit, they are just fighting for political and economic reasons, not that they realy care for the well of the mother earth.

Risto Petrovski, Skopje, Macedonia

It's refeshing to see that so many "ordinary people" (i.e., most of us) are not deceived by the biggest con ever launched on the public.

Just to make it clear - of course global warming is happenning, only an idiot could deny it. 30,000 years ago there was a huge Arctic ice cap, thousands of feet thick, from the North pole down to New York and London. It's been melting ever since, as we came out of the last Ice Age and will continue to do so as Earth warms towards the peak interglacial in about 20,000 years time, when it will start to cool down again to the depths of the next Ice Age 50,000 years after that. This is not theory - it is measurement, derived from celestial mechanics, of Earth's constantly changing elliptic orbit round the Sun.

Rising CO2 is caused by the warming of the oceans as the whole planet warms. Tinkering with mankind's CO2 output is a waste of time - we have to learn to live with the inevitably changing climate.

Peter Lloyd, Blacker Hill, England

It is interesting to see that the vast majority of exponents of the head-in-the-sand, nothing-is-happening, la-la-la-la I am not listening to you brigade are based in the US. This is a political issue and we are all given a different slant on it by our leaders. Oh, what about 'El ninho' (?), what happens when Europe is cooled by 15 degrees centigrade when the Gulf Stream and North Atlantic Drift fail (as other scientists predict). London would be frozen for 8 months of the year, the UK and most of Europe would stop producing food in anything like enough quantities for the population. The arguement here is can we afford to let the climate change vs can we afford to stop it. Everything is cause and effect but the difference is we have a bunch of cowboys across the pond who should know better, but big business and politics shroud the population in a tissue of lies and smoke screens to avoid difficult decisions. The evidence of misinfo? Shall we start with the tobacco industry then?

Matt, Reading , UK

Climate is not fixed...over the centuries it's been warm enough in the 10th and 11th centuries to grow wine grapes in England...est. at being 3 degrees C warmer than now. It has also been colder and these are linked to solar activity in two ways, over several cycles of varying period: first, solar output varies over at least the 12 year sunspot cycle...and its now, recently, measurably hotter as reflected by temperature rises on other planets untouched by man. Second, as solar winds distort the magnetic field to varying degrees, cloud formation triggered by incoming cosmic radiation varies, warming or cooling the entire planet.
Species have never stopped going extinct...so they have not "started" to do so as as predicted. Similarly for changes in climate and sea levels...they were never static to begin with. Same for ice melting, hurricane variability...and last year was supposed to be a bumper year..if your predictions are senseless, their coming true proves nothing.

Doug in Colorado, Colorado Springs,, USA

the biggest store of C02 and methane on the planet are the oceans, as they warm up they release these "greenhouse gases" in quantities human beings have never produced - a thousand years ago the global temperature was 2 degrees higher than it is now - the oceans would release these gases in buckets loads and yet there was no temperature spiral on plant earth why? in fact the planet got colder from the 14th to 18th century - climate change happens all the time, humans especially in the scientific,policital and entertainment classes have egos the size of planets - so the they think that humans must be responisble and second that they have the power to do something about it. Finally, if the quantity of CO2 that humans are throwing into the atmostphere has destabilised the climate, reducing CO2 back to levels of a couple of decades ago is totally pointless, all CO2 production would need to be halted immediately, resulting in a mass cull of humans, i'll take my chances on global warming :)

Steve Armstrong, brighton,

This article is extremely typical of press-as-science. Check your facts, people! Effect != Cause. I recommend that anyone reading this article who thinks it is insightful should read more on the subject and not from a newspaper.

"Less chilly nights" is my favorite. :)

Hal, Atlanta, GA, USA

MT, Woking, UK

Your anti-americanism is showing. There posters from several other countries who have similar opinions to those of US posters, yet you say

"Reading the views of Americans on here is disheartening, because they're the only ones who really have the economic power to affect this issue on any significant scale"

As usual the US is the only one who bears any fault or responsability for the problems of the world. Real or imagined.

RG, NC , USA

Mike in Savannah
So, just by looking at that haze of (invisible) CO2, you can tell it must be responsible for any change in the climate.
Have you thought of becoming a 'climate-scientist'? You seem to have an excellent grasp of the logic involved.

John B, Middlesbrough, UK

Flim Flannery was well christened. His next job will be as a carnival psychic, clairvoyant, or palm reader. He is well rehearsed in making vague predictions that fit any eventuality.

Global warming (oops, I meant climate change) is a hoax. A trillion dollar hoax.

Richard, Sydney, Australia

there'll be people denying climate change right up until the extinction of our species .....due to its unsustainable population growth. ...i think it's time for no more babies and protection of those places on earth , it's nice to live in.....no more houses....priorities, priorities....

Ade, Reading,

You only have to read the first claim to know this is unproven hogwash.."That the Earth would warm as more CO2 was put into the atmosphere"

It is totally unproven that warming of the Earth is caused by CO2 production, in fact there is plenty of evidence that the cause and effect are entirely opposite, ie, that CO2 production is increased BY global warming.

Will H, Phoenix, AZ

It seems to me that we are performing a giant slow burning chemistry experiment by pouring huge amounts of Carbon into the air we breathe. It is a mechanical/chemical process that wouldn't occur naturally.

So, maybe it is a problem and maybe it isn't. Some questions. Is it worth the risk to find out? Are we stupid enough to continue? Are we clever enough to find solutions to stop it?

It seems to me that the answer is, to coin a phrase, a no brainer. I don't know the answer to the ultimate effect but I know WE NEED TO STOP DOING IT ASAP just in case.

Mark Duffin, Stratford Upon Avon, GB

Katie M, London. There are many (including me) who will argue that the Loch Ness Monster and Bigfoot have exactly the same amount of scientific fact as the global warming debate and its effects.

David Leslie, Perth, Scotland

To be honest we shall see who is right within the next 50 years as once China and India embrace consumerism we shall really start doing damage to the planet.

My own suspicions are that the whole thing is multi-factorial and that whilst most of the climate change that we have seen is a result of natural global effect we are also speeding things up with growing global industrialisation.

I have faith in science - seeding the seas with algae will sort it all out but if not then none of us will be alive to ever truly know how responsible we actually were.

Andy, leicester, Uk

Nobody is denying that global warming is occuring, they are simply denying that humans are the cause of this. Frankly I'm inclined to agree as I've seen more convincing evidence that suggests that climate change is due to an increase in solar output than it is due to emissions of C02.

How do you explain the fact that methane and water vapour are hundreds of times more powerful 'greehouse gases' than C02 and more plentiful in the atmosphere?

Alastair, Leamington Spa,

All of this arguing about "Global Warming" with unsubstantiated "facts" simply makes me want to go out and purchase a second SUV, one which burns TWICE as much gas.

Anyone who considers Tim Flannery to be a font of scientific knowledge displays their own ignorance. He may be a bit better than Al Gore, but not by much.

Scott, Durham, NC, USA

I'm intrigued by your proof of increased tropical diseases. You link to an article by Michael Meacher, a man who famously believes in the conspiracy theory that the US government allowed 9/11 to happen for political gain.

There are several tropical diseases that have grown over the past 50 years. One of them, Malaria was almost extinct in 1970. Today it kills almost a million people every year. I seem to recall a campaign by environmentalists to ban DDT, and the importation of foodstuffs from countries that don't ban DDT around that time.

NDK, Edinburgh, UK

This is GREAT news. No more winters in Chicago and no snow in New York!! We now have longer summers and who cares if Australia dries up....as long as we save on heating bills and winter clothing.

George Bush deserves credit for turning four seasons into one!

Loxly, NY, NY

So Luke, Geneva, a simple question: If C02 increases because of temperature *and* causes temperature rises, then don't we have an vicious circle? Either that or a free ticket to infinite (within the laws of physics) heat? Please explain how c02 can both cause and be a cause of temperature rises.

paul, durham,

"It is disheartening to see people still denying global warming"

Oofloom

What is disheartening is that fact that those that keep an open mind, who cannot help but see the glaring contradictions and misinformation surrounding this subject are accused of being in denial. Just one example: what about the 800 year lag of CO2 emmisions? Where is the 'CO2 causes climate change' answer to this question? What probably makes a sceptic even more sceptical is the the fact that every time a sound, scientific argument such as this is put forward, the Climate Change protagonists lose their ability to argue logically or scientifically and just accuse the sceptic of burying his head in the sand! If you don't listen to and address those that have a different point of view how can you expect them to change their minds or imagine anything else but that there is either a hidden agenda or a gross inability to recognise a flawed argument?

Mark, Aylesbury, England

The climate is everchanging. Always has been, always will be. Man has nothing to do with it. It is due to something we like to call the sun. CO2, like Al Gore, is irrelevant. Water vapor comprises over 95% of the greenhouse gases with CO2 under 2%. If you want to control greenhouse gases, why ignore water vapor? Pass a law to control evaporation.

Head Climatologist, Cambridge, UK

Man creates 1-2% CO2
Ocean creates 80% CO2

Is CO2 the course of Global Warming - so say not!

Mark, Reading, UK

Are any of the skeptics here prepared to say that CO2 has no effect on global temperatures?

Are any of the skeptics here prepared to say that humans have no negative impact on the world?

Alva, Reading,

Of the ten items there are three that I know of in some details, and they are all nonsense:

1) the number of hurricanes, in spite of what you are being told, is not increasing (just look it up in recent issues of EOS),

2) the tropical desease thingy is a howler: it's supposed to be due to increased humidity, hence not in Australia then. But there was malaria in the 1920-ties in Archangelsk on the Arctic circle.

3) The "acidification" of the oceans is a complete myth. There is not enough carbon in the atmosphere to have any effect.

So, of the items I know in some detail, all are nonsense. Why should I believe the other seven?

Dr E.J. Zuiderwijk, Cambridge, UK

Funny how "Mother" nature is responsible for climate change, but GOD is responsible for putting man on earth. Who's putting all the black smoke in the sky, the Easter Bunny?

Timothy, ann arbor, MI, USA

A telling point is the fact that the worst polluters get off scott free. Under the CATO treaties and hammer the nations who have been cleaning there act up for over 40 years. If global warming is truly a man induced change, wouldn't science make every body at fault and all nations share the burden of the clean up? Also left out is the climate changes seen in the other planets of our solar system. Dam Martans with their SUV's must the the cause of their warming too. or do we get that blame also?

Chris gill, Lexington PK, maryland

Do I read Mr Flannery's article correctly? Does he describe himself as an internationally acclaimed scientist?

It is my understanding that Tim Flannery has no scientific credentials. His claims have little or no substance. I have been living on the waterfront for decades and let me assure Mr Flannerty that tide levels have not risen one millimeter.

As for Australia drying out, it has rained here for 40 days and 40 nights with a promise of more to come. The only extinctions are those species that can't swim!

Brett Jobson, Sydney, Australia

Yeah, much of the Earth was covered in a sheet of ice a mere 18,000 years ago, and I'm sure our ancestors were in a state of despair when it disappeared at a rate of a few inches a year. I mean why should we worry about losing many times that amount of ice due to our own causes, I'm sure not. I say optimal is in the eyes of the beholder, not those damn Pacific Islanders who'll lose their homes when the sea levels rise...WAH. And when we lose coral reefs that have existed for millions of years, too bad, they had a good run providing a necessary part of the food chain that without them the ocean ecosystem will be irreparably harmed . Damn crybabies

Shane, Frankfurt am Main,

The El Nino that kept Australia dry for the past few years has passed and we now have lots of rain and dams are filling. A growing Melbourne population combined with no measures to increase water supply has obviously put a strain on the dams here (we're finally getting a de-sal. plant). Prof Flannery sees only the bits he wants to see, the ones that supports his views. Even recent bush fires here get associated with global warming, bush fires in Australia, fancy that.

Dave, Melbourne, Australia

Look at history and you will see the earth has gone through warm and cold periods, this has nothing to do with global warming, it is a natural cycle.

Also, if it was not for global warming life would be impossible on this planet.

Mabon Dane, Haverhill, UK

What I find endlessly amusing is that the majority of people that will dismiss out of hand global warming have no problems at all when it comes to believing in winged Angels, horned Devils and god. Selective stupidity, methinks.

Dan, Hampton, UK

Ummm....ten of the most wishy washy unproven and heavily contradicted predictions of all time, I'd say.

BB77, Melbourne, Victoria

Those predictions read like the horoscopes in any newspaper. And should be treated just as seriously. A bit like the people who say they can see into the future and control the weather.

Simon, Chatham, Kent

David, what I was objecting to was the claim that a week's weather can be read as more significant than a drought which has lasted much longer. My impression, from various reports, was that it had been more severe over the past several months. Also, no-one would argue that droughts never happened before - the question is their incidence, and severity. Nor is localized human activity the key to understanding a given area's weather patterns. No-one argues that this is why the ice is melting, rather, that our collective activity is the key to climate change. Hope all is well in Oz.

Nick, Boston, MA

Global Warming, the new bogus religion of our age!

Simon Icke, Aylesbury, UK

Why is population stabilisation not more frequently mentioned? On a planet with finite resources, human population numbers and concomitant levels of economic activity cannot continue to expand indefinitely, even if climate change were not linked with human activity (or were not occurring at all).

Many of us gain the impression that editors are reluctant to publish letters devoted to this theme, if not actively suppressing such correspondence from their columns. It seems they are under pressure from industrial interests to keep such topics off the agenda, since they presage limits to (and reversals of) economic growth levels, on which an uncomfortably large share of global industrial profitability is predicated.

The solution - reduction in both global human population and in total economic activity, the former more than the latter. Thus relative ecomomic growth per capita can continue, even as absolute economic output and human population numbers are in decline.

Douglas, Basel, Switzerland

For all those who view the Al Gore data using Michael Mann 'hockey stick' curve. i.e. that in the last 50 years there has been an unprecendented rise in temperature that has been postulated as man made, please refer to Ross McKitrik and Steve McIntyres' work on the analysis technique used and the accuracy of this data. There is no unprecendented heating in the last 50 years if you analyse the data (proxy temperature references) correctly. It is an artefact of bad mathematics. They even put in a random number sequence and got the same hockey stick.
What the correct results suggests is that we are coming out of a Little Ice Age and are at a temperature similar to 1400 AD.
Also coincedently we are just past the minimum in the Lomnicky index (solar activity index - Fe XIV emissions ) about now if there is a solar connection.

MC, London, UK

even if global is not man-made it would still be a good idea to control it cos of the impact on farming etc. Plus as I understand it the current period of global warming is far faster than any before it and no species cannot adapt this fast. Also the larger issue of putting a limit to degredation of this small planet has got to be addressed one day some way anyway.

Alva Gosson, Reading, Berkshire

True Irony: House Global Warming hearing canceled due to ice storm...

Its a true news story.

Timmy, London, UK

Global warming is happening, Ice caps are meling, whether this is human caused or not is immaterial. For thousands of years humans have abused nature, ripping the earth to pieces for our own proliferation. Cutting down trees, quarrying, burning fuels etc... All of this so we as a species can survive, all we have for protection in this world is our intelligence.

We have survived and become the most dominent species which has ever existed, even though we aren't big or stong in comparison to other creatures.

Now maybe we need to put that intelligence to use again, not to create new products and businesses with no real relevance to life, but to once again survive. This time the threat is not from predators, or larger animals it is from the changing climate. As sea levels rise people will die, as weather conditions worsen people will die.
We need to save not only ourselves but the world as we know it, or have selfishness and material possessions over ridden natural survival insticts

Chris, Cornwall,

David Leslie: CO2 increases with the rise in temperature, not the other way around.
This is true to an extent. The earth warms, more plants grow, more CO2 is released. That is a natural cycle, as far as we understand it, and past warming cycles, as shown by arctic ice cores, have gone some way to confirming this. In this model, warming might precede CO2 rise, but then the two get entangled in feedback loops - more CO2 means more warming.

This is because the more CO2 you have, the more warming you will have. This is scientifically proven, although you are welcome to question the 'consensus' on that one. What we have now is man-made warming, where high levels of CO2 released as greenhouse gas emissions ON TOP of any 'natural' warming process that might be underway.

So, even if that hypothetical natural warming process was to stop, we would still be left with the surplus of CO2 which we put in the atmosphere, a surplus which would have to work its way gradually out of the system.

Luke, Geneva, Switzerland

Very few people actualy deny that global warming is a fact,
but is there anything that we can do about it when it is entirely possible that this effect is all part of naturaly occuring climate change sequences, of which we have a huge amount of evidence of in history?
Everyone will remember that politicians have for years recognised the potent value of making people afraid - Weapons of mas destruction? Capable of being deployed in 40 minutes?... This helps to galvanise public opinion behind the politicians hidden agenda(s). I suspect global warming is also part of this ploy and is contrived to deflect us from our deep distrust of them and their self serving incompetence, of which there is daily evidence. If politicians can pursuade us that they have a 'crusade' to 'save' the planet we forget their past incompetences. Why can't they concentrate on a proper transport and housing policy - that would help everyone as well as reduce co2 emissions.

Newton, Liverpool,

Is it getting warmer? We were told in school that 20,000 years ago New Jersey was covered by ice a mile high. When the colonists arrived in the 1600s it was gone. So did the Native Americans cause it to disappear hunting the buffalo and deer from their SUVs? I figure I'll need the oceans to rise about 66 feet before I can finally have a beachfront home. Time to buy a bigger SUV.

It's fun to watch the Euros and tree huggers in the USA getting their panties tied up in a knot. We're talking about 0.6c over the last 150 years.

It comes down to the same old song, people who believe in this garbage want to tell you how to live your life. They are the ultimate control freaks who have looked around at their own pathetic lives and are envious of those enjoying themselves.

They should go back to staring at the sky and worrying about some large comet striking earth, at least they would do much less harm to the rest of us who enjoy living.

John, Washington Twp., USA/NJ

In the interest of balanced journalism, how about an article on Ten Things About Climate Change That DIDN'T Come True??

GLS, Liverpool,

If you bother to check the FACTS (not Dan Quale's alarmist fictions) you will find that rises in the amount of Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere lag temperature rises by about 800 years.
Surely even a Global Warming Alarmist can't pretent that the cause FOLLOWS the result?

Mike Bibby, St Albans, England -not EU

Noah built his Ark because of floods.There actually nothing new and can't be blamed on people picking up their kids from school in a Range Rover. or chopping down trees.I recall the floods of 1953 ,nobody had heard of global warming then.What has not helped England cope with the floods of the last few days,has been our attempting to cover a tiny island in concrete, often on land designated as flood plains.They were designated as such because based on years of experience that's where the rivers would flood.Believe it or not the authorities didn't throw darts at a map when planning where the flood plains should be .Unfortunately because of unplanned immigration,we now have to cover this island in houses to put a roof over everyone's head that wants to live here,and it can't be done.

Mike, Dunstable, England

I accept that global warming is happening, but until someone explains to me why the ice caps of Mars are melting, I will remain sceptical of the theory that man made CO2 emissions are to blame.

For what it is worth, here is my prediction : Scientist will continue to blame global warming on CO2 emissions for as long as their research grants last . . . . then they will blame it on something else.

Chris Long, Thirsk, England

Since ANY unusual weather is taken as supporting the human-CO2 global warming theory, it is ceasing to be a scientific theory and becoming a matter of ideology. It's very likely true, but we shouldn't imagine that a downpour in Sheffield, however serious for those involved, is evidence for global warming.

Frank Upton, Solihull,

Can the GW afficionados tell me when the current hot summer ends. I long for a few cooler days!

Ed Zuiderwijk, Cambridge, UK

Global Warming Alarmists, you are making the wrong argument.

Accept that the facts are open to debate and cynicism.

Come back at us with the fact that national self sufficiency on renewable fuels will benefit the individual consumer and stabilize economies.

Let’s face it, dependency on the Middle East and the Russia for fossil fuels creates a global instability that could ultimately threaten life on this planet in much shorter time frame than global warming ever will.

BA, London,

I HAVE STARTED BUILDING ARK 2 how big will I build it
tickets £ 1 million each , or brainy people free,polish joiners
welcome,got to go b and q closes at 8 pm.

george william taylor, hull, uk

I agree with the posters on here who have brought up the issue of population. I do not know why politicians and opinion formers will not talk about this but unless population increase is addressed any action we take will be futile.

C Deg, London,

Lydia Bessiron.. Bigfoot and Loch ness monster have nothing at all to do with science.. and more to do with belief in super natural and faith.

katie M, london,

CO2 increases with the rise in temperature, not the other way around. Some food crops are adverseley affected, others are flourishing. It gets warmers so ice melts (totally unexpected). Species have been going extinct forever, whilst scientists are still discovering new species. The earths climate has been changing for millenia, not just for 7 years. The main predicition that has come true, is that the IPCC are spouting so much hot air that they are adding to the problem.

David Leslie, Perth, Scotland

Reading the views of Americans on here is disheartening, because they're the only ones who really have the economic power to affect this issue on any significant scale.

Ah well, as Lane Walker says (below) - I guess we'd better hunker down & enjoy the ride...

:*(

MT, Woking, UK

when did a hosepipe ban become a severe drought ?

keane, London,

People miss the whole wonder of all this. We are witnessing the very end of an interglacial warm period and the beginning of a brand new ice age. All these extinctions are merely making room for a whole new cast of animals and plants. Evolution is about to bloom once again and we are here. It's like getting to see the dinosaurs die out. Or being around at the end of the last ice age. Now that was some global warming! For the last few couple thousand years the climate was stable. Boring. The next 30 years are going to be very interesting. Whole nations will at first suffer the heat and then will freeze over. Massive shifts in populations will be a wonder to behold. Be excited! Prepare and enjoy the calamity. There's really nothing else you can do.

Lane Walker, Monroe, USA, North Carolina

If one considers every statement made by every scientist since such things began to be recorded, one is bound to fit!
When do we begin to accept the existence of the Loch ness Monster and Bigfoot?

LYDIA BESSIRON, reading,

It was the Neanderthals who ended the last ice age by inventing fire.

Ever since then, the Earth has gotten warmer.

So, stop making fires, and everything will be OK.

BigG98446, Portland, OR

It seems arrogant for us to suppose that whatever effects that we have on the planet are for the better. Climate change has been linked to the CO2 emissions that we are putting out, not just natural cycles of the earth. If that's the case, we may find ourselves in a possitve feedback loop that does not correct itself. We will also be responsible for any destructive effects we have on the planet.

Lauren, Greenville, South Carolina

None of this goes to the "cause" of climate change. The Earth has been changing for 4.5 billion years. Why would it stop now? The notion that Man is causing global warming is as ludicrous as a flea floating on his back down a river, with an erection, yelling "Raise the drawbridge!"
As a wise mystic once said, "Change is inevitable, except from vending machines."

Sam Earle, Plainsboro, USA

For he who commented on the Amazon -

Europe especially northern Europe used to be COVERED in trees, Scotland and Germany were basically uninhabitable due to forests as was the rest of Europe, our chopping down of those trees (first by the Romans to build roads and then subsequently for farming) did huge amounts of damage to the rate of CO2 to O2 (and I'm sure that North America was exactly the same). We are consistently penalising developing nations and telling them not to do what we did in order to get where we are today, which is ridiculous. The fact is that after achieving all that we have, we should replant all our countryside in trees and give them the chance to catch up with us, either that or perfect a machine to convert CO2 to O2 instead of trees. But the, "do as I say not as I do" approach is a joke! They want to develop, feed their population and become a developed nation! So we need to replant (and quickly), or just shut up and make do.

Graeme, Edinburgh,

It is disheartening to see people still denying global warming, even though their ranks continue to shrink.

Ironically, the very people who deny global warming today are likely to become its most radical adherents tomorrow. Why? Because they will be shocked by what they see in the coming years, and will suddenly be more afraid then anyone. By ignoring the "scientific consensus," they are blinding themselves not just to the fact that it has become overwhelming, but also to the knowledge that it is becoming increasingly dire. Things researchers didn't expect to see for decades are happening today. The projections are getting worse.

Still, I don't suggest radical policies to combat global warming. Even if we magically stopped releasing greenhouse gasses today, much of the damage has been done. The sad fact is that we don't have the will to prevent all but a small fraction of the warming that we would have experienced if we'd been comepletely ignorant of causes of global warming.

Oofloom, Slomagecake, NB, USA

Climate change is happening. Granted. But what if human impact is not the cause? What if the scientists have us spend countless dollars on investigations and mitigation schemes and nothing changes? But then, I'm sure they'll have an "reasonable" explanation..."hey folks we said it was climate change, but no, we never said it was human caused...".

phil, sacramento, ca

Surely the most destructive element is the exponential and catstrophic rise in the population which has reached over six billion at present and will be over nine billion by 2050. It is responsible for the enormous consumption of consumer goods, food, etc. which in turn causes rain forrests to be destroyed, species to die out, etc.
However this subject never seems to be mentioned or enter the equation in any way; Are we blind to this matter or have we decided this fact it simply is too hot too be dealt with?

Gordon, Orpington, Kent

makes climate change sound attractive, Surely ,though, climate has been changing since the planet formed. I read sonewhere that there have been only 25,000 years when the planet has been habitable by humans.
No-one doubts the climate has changed and it may be disastrously
It seems to me to be a perfectly reasonable argument that whilst there is a sound case for exterminating the human race which has been to the planet what a virus is to the body,climate change in itself is not entirely our fault. .

skidmore, march, cambs

Pile of tosh. You know the real reason the earth is heating up? It's all this clean air.
Since the industrial revolution started, we threw so much crap up into the sky, the sun couldn't even reach us. London for instance was covered in thick smog. No one saw the sun for months on end, I've looked at photos from 50 years ago and they just look grey, like they were taken in black and white or something.
So then, everyone starts banging on about ooh we can't breathe, me dog's got asthma, and they stopped polluting the skies. Now of course, the Sun can reach us through these new cleaner skies, so of course the temperature is rising.

Bullitt, Bletchley, UK

I live in Australia, Melbourne and I can say we are no where near drying out. Its actually flooding in our catchment areas at the moment. It has been said that our drought is about to end with the rain we have been recieving the last few weeks. It really has been great.
But more so the trash that gets peddled out about Global warming and Climate change by Al Gore and associates is just wrong. Stop trying to scar us with this garbage.

Christian, Melbourne, Australia

global warming is a hooey. dont believe it

king, london,

Quite disputable I would say and not very hard facts presented in this tiny online article. Usually there is no life at all on glaciated mountain tops, the giant ice cap of Antarctica is growing (without counting in the peninsula) instead of melting, weather in this article is global which it is not, it is regional. Any intelligent person can dispute with ease the so called facts presented here. This is more a sort of advertorial for a book I presume?

Ton Biesemaat, The Hague, The Netherlands

Boo.

Jimmy Gaston, San Marcos, TX

Scott Q - see Al Gore's film. He has enough datra for anyone. I think Eric and Clive have got it right though. Even if you don't accept the data, better take the actions we can than have our children and grandchildren curse our memory in 50 years.

Linda, NY, US,

man made global warming idea is the lie of the century

aydede, ankara,

ScottQ: 'I've heard the assertions: Show me the data.'
No excuses, pal. If you can read, start with the IPCC reports. Or try NASA, or your government’s environmental protection agency. Or the Union of Concerned Scientists… a basic knowledge of statistics helps, but you can squeeze by without.
Mann: 'Most of this "earth-spoiling effect" is due to the human population growing at an exponential rate.'
Most of humanity lives in or scarcely above poverty, and has negligible effect upon global climate. The damage comes from a minority of the world’s population who live in states that operate a system of virtually uncontrolled industrial output and consumer consumption
Tim Lindsay: 'Surely for every species or region that suffers, there is another that thrives because of that change.'
True, if you can accept that billions will suffer from the changes that youand I can mitigate for. However, the recent spate of bad weather ought to make us think just how well we might be able to do that...

Luke, Geneva, Switzerland

Nick of Boston: The drought in Oz was not just a few months. It has lasted ten years. But it is not without precedent. There is plenty of evidence in early writings that indicate one of perhaps greater severity which ended in 1842. In 1914 the Murray river (our biggest) stopped running.
This is a country of extremes none of which can be blamed on human activities, either locally (our entire population is less than the eastern seabord of the US) or globally (we are in the low-population, low-pollution southern hemisphere).

DavidJ, on the Murray, Australia

Sir David Attenborough must mean a different Tim Flannery from the one here.

John Francis, Hobart, Tasmania

Nobody is really disputing WHAT is happening.
What is the real issue here is WHY all these events are happening.
A very large group of scientists are saying that the pronoucements about the increase in Co2 levels and planet heat are utterly wrong.
There is clear historical evidence to support the fact that Co2 levels have risen AFTER temperatures rose.
All sorts of groups are attempting to suggest that an increase in Co2 levels are to blame for rising temperatures . This is utter crap.
Look at the facts, at previous temperature/weather patterns and the empirical evidence suggests otherwise.

Mark Comerford, Worcester, Worcestershire

re "8) Australia - where the drying trend is already precipitating a new wave of declines and extinctions. "

Yeah right.
Large tracts of Eastern Australia have been subjected to heavy rains and flooding over the last few weeks.
More is predicted. Our dams are filling fast.

Flannery's ponderings place him in a similar category to tea leaf readers - like them, he knows if he makes enough predictions and keeps them general enough some are bound to turn out right...
The month of May was unusually hot . The Flannery followers seized on this as evidence of global marming. Hard to work out what they will say about June , which has been a lot colder than usual. Flannery's predictions sell books - "wooo scary stuff in the future" . People who have finished Harry Potter and Lord of The Rings may like his books. Inexplicably the library doesn't file them where they belong.
Under "F".
No not that F word you naughty minds.
Fantasy.

Steve Atkins, Berowra Hts, NSW

"Fantastic feature and ideally timed as the country has the worst floods in recent memory and the wettest June in history after the hottest April on record after the warmest winter on record after the warmest year on record."

Records which began about 100 years ago! During the Roman era the climate was a lot warmer, then I believe it was around 1500AD that it cooled a lot. They say that drilling ice and testing the carbon or tree rings tell us about CO2 levels but the only way to actually prove that, that experiment really works is to note the CO2 today and then drill the ice in 2000 years and see if what you get in the future matches the reading taken today... do scientists have a time machine? I think not.

G, Edinburgh,

Off to Mars I say, opps thats warming up too, someone must already be there or is Climate Change not man made.

John Holmes, Glasgow, Scotland

The retired head of the Paleogeophysics and Geodynamics Department at Stockholm University says the United Nations climate report prediction of a dangerous rise in sea levels due to global warming is a deliberate falsification.
Sea level expert Nils-Axel Morner says "there is no trend toward rising sea levels. But he says the scientists on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change added what he calls a "correction factor" in order to make the figures indicate that water levels are rising. He says — "If you go around the globe, you find no rise anywhere. But they need the rise, because if there is no rise, there is no death threat. Sea level rise ... doesn't exist in observational data, only in computer modeling... Their idea is to attract money from the industrial countries. And they believe that if the story is not sustained, they will lose it."

Viv, Lonon, England

I predict that in 20 / 30 years the Earth will be cooling and we will all say "Aaaaah" so it is just cyclical and fire all the scientists who rely on scaremongering for money.
1950's - SAME FLOODING AS NOW
1970's - ICE AGE IS COMING,
2000 - GLOBAL WARMING,
2030 - ICE AGE IS COMING (due to global warming),
2060 - NO ICE AGE, IT'S HEATING UP AGAIN BECAUSE OF GLOBAL WARMING AND CO2!!
2090 - ICE AGE IS COMING,
2120 - Global warming phenomenon is now widely compared to the claims of the world being flat (shouting about something you don't have all the facts or records to claim), also is accepted to be a cyclical normality, changes in temp can
vary, CO2 emissions have been reduced due to renewable energy resources, but climate continues to change regardless.
OTHER PREDICTIONS -
NASA continue to hinder space travel.
Windows ZOOMBLA is now free with all automatic, flying, recyclable cars
Israel is now the ISRAPAL power sharing territory, bringing final peace to the middle east.

Graeme, Edinburgh,

This article has more to do with selling Mr Flannery's book than proving a case against humanity for destroying the planet.
Tim Flannery is a professional alarmist who charges an arm and a leg to lecture you on his pet theories.
Not one bit of proof is offered and not one of the predictions in any way demonstrates that CO2 causes warming.
Like Al Gore his main concern is making a quid out of all the hysteria.

DavidJ, on the Murray, Australia

To determine what amount of global warming is the result of man, one has to know how much is due to natural causes. So far, no one has been able to say how much warming is due to natural causes.

Mike, Spring,

I'm already retired, & Australians and Africans have been undergoing drought conditions every year since I was in school. Since some of the other planets are getting warmer, maybe we'll get their enviro-wackos to voluntarily destroy their civilizations first. Did we even have an enviro-crisis before the totalitarian states collapsed, causing the "greens" to have to find a new cause?

Steve Austin, Hopkinsville, Ky USA

"As a field zoologist he discovered and named..."

My question is, why are we expected to believe a zoologist to be an authority on climate science?

As I look over the hordes of articles online about global warming, you know what thread seems remarkably consistent? Prominent climatologists, professors of atmospheric science, meteorologists... all say global warming is a load of hooey.

The folks claiming it's a huge threat all seem to be zoologists, biologists, paleontologists, and other scientises, who presumably are reputable enough in their actual fields, but would not be expected to know anything significant about climate change and weather science.

I'd tend to listen to the folks who make their living knowing what they're talking about; and on this subject, the folks who do, don't believe it.

Xeno, Lewistown, PA

Well, Tim Lindsay in Halifax, I would say that the "right" climate is one in which our crops grow, birds and animals give birth to their young in mild weather so that they don't die due to cold and people's houses aren't flooded with sewage a few times a year i.e. the kind of climate that sustains human life and settlements as we know them. Not too much to ask since that is how life has been lived in these islands (Britain and Ireland) since time immemorial.
If you fancy living in an ice age environment then that's great but you might want to think about the mild inconvenience of starving to death due to lack of crops - there'll only be so much wooly mammoth and seal to go around. Your indifference in the face of climate change that could wipe out life as we know it is Zen-like in its selflessness.

MB, Edinburgh,

Sir David King, Chief Scientific Advisor to the UK government is NOT a climatologist. Like the Hatton Report , he said what the goverment wanted him to say. I do not believe any claims made by politicians or 'experts' whose grants are paid by politicians.
It is much more likely that the Milanovitch Cycles are responsible for the regular change of climate. These refer to the changing elliptical orbit of the sun and also also the precession of the axis tilt by up to two degrees either way from its current 23 degree tilt. This cycle which takes 100,000 years . Is it, then, just coincidence that ice ages occur every 100, 000 years ?
The IPCC, however have chosen not to mention the sun except to dismiss the effect of suspots.
Politicians, anti capitalist and anti globalisation groups have chosen to blame man for increases in C02 even though an increase in temperature caused by the sun would also increase C02.
Their agenda is clear.

Chris Wood, Camberley, UK

451 - as for Australia, did you miss the severe drought over the past months? You can't judge complex situations by the last week's weather. As for the people who argue that the loss of species does not matter, provided we survive - first: remember that biodiversity is vital, second: why vote for an impoverished earth? As for the skeptics: if you can't see the obvious, you are simply avoiding confronting the overwhelming, and often quite conservative, consensus of the world's scientists. Or do you not believe that actions have consequences?

Nick, Boston, MA, USA

HOGWASH TO GLOBAL WARMING THE SUN HAS CYCLES
THAT WARM THE EARTH. NO SUCH THING AS CARBON
FOOTPRINT.

Billy, atlanta,

Maggie Whalley,

You should not compare global warming with the global cooling fears of 30 years ago. They are simply not comparable. The main reason is because there was no scientific consensus about global cooling back then. Scientists were agnostic about it. They didn't back it because there had not been enough research (hardly any even). It was a wise stance because today we know that what some people thought of as an unusually cool era was actually still warmer than it was during the 19th century.

"Global warming pundits seem to be afflicted by two very modern shortcomings: a lack of any kind of historical perspective (what is now is all there is) ... "

I genuinely don't mean to be insulting, but you should really think about whether or not what you just said actually applies to yourself.

Oofloom, Slomagecake, NB, USA

The Earth is warming and it will be one of the greatest things that could have happened during ours and our children's lifetimes. For those who commented "DONT DO OUR HOMEWORK" insurmountable geologic, ice core, tree ring, and fossil evidence suggests that natural warming periods cause a proliferation of life. Yes, ice caps melt (not entirely), and glaciers recede, this has been happening for hundreds of millions of years. Life proliferates during this time, species diversity has ALWAYS increased during a warming trend. Weather patterns (to include hurricanes) DECREASES during warming because of more dispersion of heat around the globe. Don't worry about buying a Prius or giving Al Gore and the IPCC more money, kick back and enjoy our naturally warmer climate. Tell your grandkids horror stories about what it will be like when the earth cools off again.....

Neil, Denver, USA

To people who don't belive in climate change I invite you to sit in rush hour traffic in Atlanta, Georgia USA and see 4.8 million cars and trucks produce 3 to 11 tons of Co2 per year. The city has its own climate of haze and smog created entirely by people, not "mommy nature going thru a cycle" Some people don't want to face the fact we are responsible for the planet.

mike, savannah, usa

The Amazon has other problems that are more important. How about the major leveling of it for farmland and other uses? We may or may not have control of Global Warming, but we certainly can stop cutting down the Amazon. Maybe that would even affect our climate.

Paul, St. Louis, Missouri, USA

I'd like to see the list of species that are now extinct due to global warming. What a farce! To cite a specific example as mentioned in the book "You've Got to Admit It's Getting Better: From Economic Prosperity to Environmental Quality", scientists discovered that even though the Brazilian Atlantic rain forest has been reduced by about 90%, the Brazilian Society of Zoology did not find even one species that had died out in a sample of 300 animanls, nor did they find any extinction in their list of plant life.

We keep hearing about species being "threatened" by man destroying natural habitats, but I have seen no examples of animals actually become extinct due to this cause.

Jippyskip, Tyler / TX,

Given the fact that we dont know with absolute certainty the effect mankind's industry etc has had on the planet and its climate, the wise course at the moment would be to continue accumulating and assessing the data and -- while so engaged -- to err on the side of caution.
If we are wrong about the human effect on climate then no harm no foul, maybe some whining from big money about having to dump their wastes somewhere other than the kiddie pool, but we try and either live or die anyway, global warming goes crazy or we have another ice age, whatever, nothing we could have done, thanks for all the fish.
But, if we could have prevented our own extinction, and granted that's a big IF, and we don't try, well that just makes us fools.
I say spend the money, invest in eco-friendly technology, do something a bit more forthright than 'hoping for a brighter tomorrow'.

Matt, WPB, Florida

Maggie, he never said that they weren't a selective sample. And, can you prove that any of the things that he said had come true or are coming true aren't? I also love how she used in quotes a word ('proved') a word that wasn't used once in Mr. Flannery's paper

Michael, Hudson, New Hampshire

Anyone remember an International Panel on the Imminent Ice Age?
No - because notions re ice age coming soon were fringe science, mainly a media issue.
As zoologist, Tim Flannery well placed to have seen effects of climate change (I've seen some of them), and to be aware of implications of temp rising at rate faster than many ecosystems may be able to cope with.
"Sceptics" seem to be mainly stay at home types. Too many of them with heads firmly thrust in the sand - or in the fuzz of disinformation and obfuscation.

Martin Williams, Cheung Chau, Hong Kong

To think that global warming is a result of human influence alone is ignorant. To think that humans have had no impact on climate over the past 200 years is also ignorant. I find it funny that people refuse to believe this article and others like it because climatologists do not write them. If you want to read climatologists papers, look in a scientific journal, not in the online media. Earth’s climate records are not black and white, there are trends, yes, but scientists need to figure out the past before they can predict the future. You have no need to wait for a scientist to tell you when to start taking control. I learned at the age of five that not every family recycles paper, plastic, glass and metal. I learned that other people used air conditioners in their homes and cars instead of keeping the shades down or opening the window. I learned that other families have several full bags of garbage every week. I was appalled, and now I’m 22 and I feel like people still don’t get it.

Al, NYC,

Throw a thousand predictions out there and simply claim that ten came true. You can't miss with that formula.

Woody, Atlanta, Georgia, USA

This set of 'predictions' that have been 'proved' true is a highly selective sample. What about all the others (mid-70s: 'we are entering another ice-age') that have not even come close to realisation? What's next? Inspecting entrails?
Global warming pundits seem to be afflicted by two very modern shortcomings: a lack of any kind of historical perspective (what is now is all there is) and a complete inability to understand that weather is one of the most random events on our planet. Even the most sophisticated computer modelling cannot predict. Nor can man.

maggie whalley, oxford, uk

Mann,
You are the man!
To all who feel that global warming is man-made:
The time is now to do away with yourselves and completely remove your carbon foot print from the planet. Do it for the kids!

Pen&Papea, Southeast, USA

'That Australia would start drying out.' Checked the weather in Oz this week?

F451, Atlanta, USA

The Earth is some 3 Billion years old and during that time climates have been formed and are still forming.
At no time in the Earths history has information been so very proliferate and so available world wide, which does not mean it is true or even accurate.
Meteorology has records going back about 150 years and all the stupidity spoken and written about carbon dioxide is only an observation of the constantly changing climate of which man has absolutly no control over.
The best advice is sit back and accept what nature throws at us all.

Charles Horne, Bognor Regis,

It's a sad testament to the collective intelligence of the human race that there are so many people out there who argue that Global Warming is a farce without doing their homework.

Are there facets of Global Warming that are questionable? Yes. Are the ultimate effects of Global Warming going to be seen in our lifetime? Maybe not. But where is the harm in taking steps to improve our quality of life by cleaning up the air we breathe -- the land that we inhabit? Why would we not want to be sparing with our natural resources and live in harmony with nature? What's more important? Money, or quality of life?

Arguing against the theory of Global Warming is a sport practiced by those who refuse responsibility and want to claim eminent domain over nature without belief in consequence. Throwing nature out of balance is a bad thing. Remember...

With a nonchalant stroke of her mighty brush, Mother Nature turns iron to rust and cities to dust. It's best to work WITH her.

Eric, Westwood, NJ USA

Tim Flannery is a zoologist! His specialty revolves around animals, not the climate change. I find it asinine that the alarmist continuously quote, and rely on scientist that are clearly out of there realm. I wouldn’t go to a dentist for heart surgery; I’d find a good heart surgeon. If I want information about the climate I find a climatologist. BTW if we can’t get a reliable seven day weather forecast what makes you so sure about a multi-year forecast?

Anthony Nelson, Galesville, WI

Its about time we colonize the moon!

Jake, Rock Island, usa

It is a typically human trait to wish that everything remains the same, change is scary to the ignorant.
Humans have invented many things in a desire for a absolute unchanging universe religion for one. But change destruction and mutation of the old is the driving force of evolution to try and keep everything the same ,same plants animals,sea levels. is fundamentally unnatural.
For whatever reason it is happening it is a more natural than the strange static bubble these people seem to want to live in.
They should try not to project there fears on to there view of the world so much and realise nature does not care,not about you and not about climate change it will adapt as it always has.

M FLOYD, harlow, ESSEX

It's a sad testament to the collective intelligence of the human race that there are so many people out there who argue that Global Warming is a farce without doing their homework.

Are there facets of Global Warming that are questionable? Yes. Are the ultimate effects of Global Warming going to be seen in our lifetime? Maybe not. But where is the harm in taking steps to improve our quality of life by cleaning up the air we breathe -- the land that we inhabit? Why would we not want to be sparing with our natural resources and live in harmony with nature? What's more important? Money, or quality of life?

Arguing against the theory of Global Warming is a sport practiced by those who refuse responsibility and want to claim eminent domain over nature without belief in consequence. Throwing nature out of balance is a bad thing. Remember...
With a nonchalant stroke of her mighty brush, Mother Nature turns iron to rust and cities to dust. It's best to work WITH her.

Eric, Westwood, NJ

I'm not really worried if it is true or not because at least I will soon be getting better gas mileage.

KD, Memphis, TN

Tim, I think we can safely say that violent hurricanes, droughts and widespread flooding are bad for us. I'm quite happy to call a climate in which human life continues better than a climate in which we perish but some species of insect or algae prospers.

James Baldwin, New York City,

Tim Flannery is a scientific populist, certainly not a scientist. With his very limited palaentological background, he produces instant answers on all sorts of topics well beyong his fathom. About half of his "Ten predictions by climate scientists" are simply a re-gurgitated beat-up of what he learnt in Year 1 Geology. The rest are figments of his fertile,pathetically alarmist imagination.The study of earth's history was involved in the period of Enlightenment, but my fear is that ill-informed propagandists such as Flannery and Al Gore are leading us headlong into a period of Disenlightenment.

Bert Roberts, Canberra, Australia

Oh my God!! Head for the hills, the sky is falling!

I understand much of the earth was covered in a sheet of ice a mere 18,000 years ago. Imagine all the ice that was about, and imagine the despair our ancestors must have felt at the slowly eroding ice fields vanishing before their very eyes. It must have been heartbreaking, the knowedge the earth was getting warmer and there was not a thing they could do about it.

Who gets to determine the optimal temperature for a given location on earth, and a what point in time past shall we determine that temperature to be and allow no further variation?

Rigo, Portland, OR

It has been argued before, so I won't claim the idea, that we should act now (and the scientists have been saying 'now' for 15 years, but have been largely ignored until recently) to avoid the worst possible scenarios of climate change and to mitigate the unavoidable consequences of climate change. And that we should regard the cost and the effort in the same light that we regard household insurance - most people have insurance and most people don't suffer fires, subsidence, burglaries etc. We accept the cost and put the insurance in place just in case the worst happens, and thank our luck when, or if, it doesn't happen.

clive, surrey,

Here are the hard (selected) facts.... that support our case, we will avoid the ones that do not! We got it wrong with global cooling in the 70s so lets try er... Global Warming we have to be right one way or the other. Lets frighten people so they listen to us (please), then they can pay us lots of money for our predictive 'expertise'. If you don't agree you are a 'Climate Criminal' in the pay of Big Oil. End of argument, we have no time for intolerant fundamentalists, it is the enemy of our 'Scientific' consensus!

Alan, Luton,

The time has come to discontinue arguing over the causes of global warming - i.e. whether man-caused or a natural phenomenon - and to advise people in every region on earth how to deal with the present changes and predicted future ones. We need to know where it is safest to live, likely future food shortages, and precisely how man can counteract rises in sea levels and dam the worst coastal danger-points around the world.

Gillian Green, Varen, France

I've heard the assertions: Show me the data.

ScottQ, Boise, ID, USA

I won't dispute current climate observations, but how do we know that today's climate is the "correct" one? The climate has changed before (i.e., the ice age). What makes us so sure that things must stay as they are now (or 100 years ago)? Surely for every species or region that suffers, there is another that thrives because of that change. To decide which situation is best seems impossible.

Tim Lindsay, Halifax, Canada

What a remarkably partial article, as usual cherry picking 'facts' to suit an argument. As I recall it was recently announced that hurricane activity has nothing to do with global warming. I also seem to recall that we were warned about a drought afflicting Britain this summer. I think the warnings about Australia can also be taken with a large pinch of salt. I hereby confidently predict that their 'weather' rather than 'climate' will prove to be as unpredictable as our own has been. I also confidently predict that when they are afflicted by floods or cold or wind it will similarly be attributed to climate change and CO2.

There is nothing so ridiculous as a journalist in search of an alarmist headline and nothing so cynical as an environmentalist happy to provide one.

And before allegations fly I am not in the pay of the oil industry. I wish I were. I'm currently skint.

Paul Owen, Birmingham , UK

Fantastic feature and ideally timed as the country has the worst floods in recent memory and the wettest June in history after the hottest April on record after the warmest winter on record after the warmest year on record.

Sir David King the Chief Scientific Advisor to the UK govt said on June 12 this year that the UK will imminently face severe flooding and severe droughts. His prediction just came true. Nasa's James Hansen just last week said The Earth is in imminent peril from cataclysmic climate change.
When will we wake up?

Martin, London,

I think I'll kill myself now - Most of this "earth-spoiling effect" is due to the human population growing at an exponential rate, so the only real thing I can do is remove my demand on the living earth!!

Mann, Cheshunt, UK