I read up on glodal warming quite some time ago and was convinced that there is nothing alarming about today's climate. I have spent many hours in the last two weeks catching up and looking into Climategate. I have a copy of the Climategate files and have verified (in context) what I have been told. I have been called (as a climate sceptic) a "flat earther" by Ed Miliband, a "climate saboteur" by Gordon Brown and a "climate terrorist" by Kevin Rudd. Many others have called me a "climate denier". My conclusions are that scientists at the heart of global warming research have manipulated data, perverted the peer-review process, withheld data and computer code required for independent verification, committed fraud and deleted information subject to freedom of information act requests. The temperature reconstructions, used by the IPCC to claim that today's temperatures are unprecedented, are fraudulent and untrue. At the heart of the Copenhagen Treaty is a proposal to set up an unelected world government to tax countries for the purposes of paying back our 'carbon debt'.

As ClimateGate is showing us all, the 'science' used by the IPCC issues forth from an academic echo chamber. Peer review has totally failed, because it is drawn from the same tight circle of 'friends'. Listen to Aynsley Kellow - an IPCC expoert reviewer, on precisely this failure (google "ABC audio Aynsley Kellow" for the link).

Whatever else all this can be compared to, it certainly is not science. The ClimateGate impact is that little of the methodology is now plausible. So, neither can be the conclusions.

Because the bottom line is that trillions of dollars are riding on the word of a handfull of researchers.

Who have just been outed, in the words of one of their own (Judith Curry):

"In my opinion, there are two broader issues raised by these emails that are impeding the public credibility of climate research: lack of transparency in climate data, and “tribalism” in some segments of the climate research community that is impeding peer review and the assessment process."

I fully support John Key to go to Copenhagen. Many New Zealanders who would love him to go are sharing their views on this website: http://www.dearjohn.org.nz

@Frank (#45)... You ask some very pertinent questions, Frank. A discussion of them is beyond the scope of this forum - there are so many facets: scientific, political, historical, psychological, sociological, and economic. If you are seriously interested in the answers, there are huge amounts of online information available, and I wish you well in your enquiry. I think the #1 key is: "follow the money".

I have an idea about bush fires. Is there anybody can tell me how can i present the idea and to where, please? thanx regards

Yes, like a lot of other comments on here, I find it hard to fathom that so many people believe that humankind is causing climate change. Climate change is happening - it is always happening, but we can't do anything about it. Blame the Earth itself and the Sun! As for wondering how so many scientists, politicians etc, who believe in man-made climate change, could be wrong? Remember Y2K? We were all told airplanes could fall out of the sky, there would be nationwide power cuts, blah, blah...People seem to love getting on board a good old fashioned "End of the World" bandwagon!

The irony of sceptics calling others gullible is nauseating. Let me get this straight. Thousands of scientists, from different countries and ends of the political spectrum arrive at a conclusion that man made climate change is extremely likely. A majority of the worlds politicians, although divided on what should be done, agree that the science is correct. What possible reason could these diverse countries, institutions and people have to lie about something like this? They are often in total disagreement on every other national/international policy, yet they come together on this one issue, a giant international conspiracy to rip you off? It's crazy that people can talk themselves into believing the spin of a few special interest groups over the clear and reasoned science presented in the IPCC reports. My only guess is they haven't even bothered to read any part of it and instead take their lead from the mouthpieces of those who stand to lose from a curbing of greenhouse gas emissions.

So why are there huge chunks of ice breaking off the Ross Ice shelf in the Antartica and catastrophic bushfires sweeping through South Australia like in California and Greece?

Should we ignore this?

@Mitch (#38)...

I know what you mean about ignorance. For example, there is widespread ignorance about how science is supposed to work. It is supposed to be based on evidence.

So, Mitch, now's your big chance to contribute to ignorance reduction. You see, so far an estimated $70 billion (that's a very large number of dollars) has been spent in the last 10 years, looking for evidence that increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide is causing, or could cause, dangerous global warming. So far, nobody (that's a very small number of people) has produced any such evidence.

So how about it? If you have the knowledge, let's have it.

(Hint: 'Evidence' does not mean 'Al Gore said so', or 'I saw it on the TV', or any such.)

jake the snakle #41 Barack Obama does not really exist. He is just a hollogram. Look at his name. His middle name is Hussein - the same as that fellow from Iraq. And his first name is the same as bin laden - except that the s was swapped for a b, as in 'sob'. After discovering that people are on to their 'man on the moon' fraud, the USA had to invent a saviour. And climate change is their tool for getting our money.