This is argumentum ad ignorantiam — essentially they say: we don’t know what else could have caused that warming, so it must be carbon. It’s a flawed assumption.

It’s easy to create impressive graphs, especially if you actively ignore other possible causes, like for example, changes in cloud cover and solar magnetic effects.

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(Addendum: Since the Skeptics Handbook came out we now know that actually they did care about that warm blip in the 1940′s that the models can’t explain. But instead of changing the models, they changed the data. Thanks to ClimateGate for that insight.)

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Error bars make the graph look more official. (On a graph based entirely on a logical [...]

This is a story finally that the media just cannot ignore.

Nick Minchin is also elevated to unofficial chief climate change sceptic of Australia, a post that didn’t exist yesterday. Suddenly unconvinced people have credibility.

“Minchin says the apparent fraud signifies a “rather disturbing culture, at least in the East Anglia CRU, which is one of most significant in the world in terms of determining outcomes of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change”.

“For those who don’t think the IPCC should be taken as gospel, this does confirm that we shouldn’t be unquestioning of the opinions of the UN committee.”

Brendan O’Keefe also collects comments together from Ian Plimer, Phil Jones, Minister Penny Wong, Kevin Trenberth (“I feel violated”), as well as Tom Nelson,  Tim Ball, Greg Hunt (opposition climate change spokesman) et moi. Yes, a whole paragraph.

Finally, a major paper is investigating, and it’s just in time. Today is D-Day for Turnbull. A big day in Australian politics. The Rudd government hands down a new [...]

Professor Matthew England’s research teams have received nearly $2.5 million in funding from the Australian government, much of it for studying oceans and climate change. So when we need good answers on the topic, he would be the man. If a school student asked for help, we might expect only a two line reply passing on a link. But when the question comes from one of the most informed climate scientists in the country, with 12 years as head of Australia’s National Climate Centre, and it’s about a graph at the centre of legislative negotiations, it’s inexcusable that the reply was vague, poorly reasoned and didn’t answer the question. All this, in a conversation that England himself started.

If indeed “a Nobel Prize is there for many of the ideas the skeptics champion if only they were true” as England claims, then opportunity is knocking, and England is [...]

Senator Fielding holds a crucial vote on the proposed Emissions Trading Legislation.  Fielding and four independent scientists faced the Minister for the Climate Change and Water, Penny Wong, The Chief Scientist, Penny Sackett, and Professor Will Steffen, director of the Climate Change Institute at the Australian National University. Read what happened from someone who was there.  Joanne Nova

Guest Post by Dr David Evans 17 June 2009

Australia’s Parliament House

Australian Senator Steve Fielding met with the Australian Minister of Climate Change, Senator Penny Wong, on 15 June 2009. Senator Fielding was seeking evidence that human emissions of carbon dioxide were the main cause of global warming; Senator Wong presumably wanted Senator Fielding’s vote for the upcoming Emission Trading Scheme legislation.

I was at that meeting, one of four independent scientists invited by Senator Fielding. Many people have asked me what happened, so I am replying to everyone at once like this. These are my impressions of the meeting, with special attention to the way the meeting was conducted and to the [...]