[Shiraz (Ray)]

Robert, I think the reason that you have stirred people up is that you restated some of the old and discredited ideas that the sceptics continue to use:
- CO2 is not pollution. Semantics - if pollution is "something that we put into the environment at levels that will cause harm", then CO2 is right up there
- the data can be analysed to get any result. This was recently tested by a group with sceptics leanings. To their surprise and credit, their published analysis showed that the temperature data are very robust and that the atmosphere really has warmed by 1C, no matter how you analyse it.
- it could be the sun. the models include solar influx, but by far the most telling result is from satellites that measure the incoming and outgoing radiation from the earth - more radiation is currently going in than is going out. This result is independent of sunspots, historical proxies, modelling etc etc - it is a direct measurement that shows that the earth is currently a net absorber of energy (ie it is warming up), independent of variations in solar flux.
- it hasn't warmed since 2000. (Actually it has warmed a lot in that period - your start point needs to be moved to 1998...). Variability can be expected - the temperature will not be always upwards on all timescales - but the long term trend certainly is.

Rather than revisit these old controversies, could you accept what seems to be the overwhelming advice of the experts and go to the next question - what do we do about it? It would be great to have a discussion of what we could do to maximise current benefits and minimise the downside to future generations - provided that political sound-bite thinking could be kept out of it. For example, it would be great to have other opinions on the prisoner's dilemma, the economics concept of future discounting and strategies for adaptation. As your original post shows, we are currently doing nothing at all - I would like to understand why we have chosen that and also what action makes sense.