Originally posted by budski
There is a reason the name has changed from "global warming" to "climate change"
It always has been climate change (hence it's IPCC and not IPGW - though I think the latter would have been more appropriate).
Global warming is one aspect of climate change - the aspect the media and politicians picked on to highlight because it seemed the easiest to
understand (and perhaps also the easiest to use as an excuse to raise taxes). And it has a better ring to than Multiple Regional Anthropogenically
Enhanced Climate Change. or even Global Precipitation Pattern Change.
(plus the fact that a lot of stupid people still assume global warming means everywhere on the planet gets warmer year on year and thus if it's not
warmer somewhere this year than last it porves there cannot be global warming. After trying to explain this 10,675,451 times we finally gave up
)
BTW isn't "climate change" also known as "weather"?
No climate is an average of expected weather over a given period - usually not less than 30 years. Climate change means that the average weather
over such period has changed - warmer, colder, wetter, drier etc This may be for a variety of reasons.
ALL of the models which predict warming are only as good as the data input - of course this applies equally to opposite models.
Which is where us sceptics come in, accepting the science but disputed the predictions
Everybody who publishes has an agenda. i.e. they are on one side of the fence or the other and in many instances have a personal interest in
"proving" thatt their theory is right, whether that interest is monetary or not.
Largely true. But that applies in all science and indeed all walks of life. Everyone want to prove their own theory or opinion is correct. In most
cases the truth is a bit of one and a bit of another and over time we put all these together and get an accepted scientific theory.
The analogy I always use is "what killed the dinosaurs" - which heated debate continuing over Chicxulub v Deccan Traps v Something Else and, IMHO,
the truth being all of them to varying extents. I don't "one size fits all" theories.
Until we can have real debate, with no special interest groups involved this will not be resolved - we will just continue to have the same back
and forth that we do now.
The good thing is, unlike with "what killed the dinosaurs?", over the next few decades we will be able to see what happens and have better
indications of who is right.
My guess: not the cooling the solar guys expect nor the warming the CO2 guys predict.
I actually think the majority involved in climate science are sceptics to some degree - it's just those who appear on TV and right books who strongly
beleive in one side or the other. Despite what some would have you believe, most scientists do not produce results to match a theory, they devise a
theory based on results. And amend that theory constantly as new results or data emerge. As happened, and continues to happen, with astrophysics or
plate tectonics.
This whole thing detracts from real environmental issues - pollution, deforestation and poisoning the earth are all on the back burner and out
of sight as this argument rages on.
Yes
Though I do think part of it is that CO2 reduction is something we in the west can instigate ourselves, whereas much of the other big issues
- such as deforestation and pollution - mean telling developing nations what to do. And that's not politically correct, even if what those
developing nations is doing is committing environmental suicide.
And none of which has anything to do with glaciers doing what they always do - advance and retreat.
As an aside, the Kilimanjaro Glaciers did not exist during the last Ice Age. Because it was too dry. Precipitation is as, if not more, important
than temperature. But the AGW/anti-AGW guys don't like you to know that
) 
