JohnB

While the "hang 'em" crowd are alive and well in the US, the "flog 'em" bunch don't get much of a try anywhere. Personally I have no problem with corporal punishment. I think it far better for the drunk driver to get 10 lashes and be sent home than to be incarcerated. I'm willing to bet that the pain will stay with him for a long, long time. I do find it odd that nations that are willing to kill their own citizens are amazingly unwilling to injure them. Anyway I'd be happy to see a sliding scale for repeat offenders. 10 lashes first offence, 20 for the second, 30 for the third etc. At some point the crim is going to wake up to the fact that it just hurts way too much and desist. While Michael Fay probably continued quite happily vandalising trains and anything else he could get his grubby little hands near in America, I sincerely doubt that he repeated his offence in Singapore. One of the points of prison is that it's not supposed to be a nice place. The idea is that people who have been incarcerated should not want to go back and should change their behaviour to avoid this happening. Not to be too blunt, the whole point of the criminal justice system is that the criminals should be afraid of it. The fact that they aren't is indicitive that we are doing something wrong in the West.

Again, some fair comments. Actually our dollar is worth slightly more than yours ATM. You say "Employee Insurance" which implies a company is paying some of the premium, how much is the company paying? And if you weren't part of a company fund, what would you be paying? Let's compare apples to apples here. This could just be a difference in how we view things. Healthcare is not viewed as a right or privilige, it's something basic in an advanced society. It's a service, nothing more. From our POV it is no more socialist than having a gov dept making rules about impurities in food. A service that government supplies to its people is a basic standard of food quality and food handling rules. To us, basic healthcare is the same it's just a service gov provides. I should add that Queensland was run by a bloke called Joh Bjelke-Petersen for some decades while our "free" hospitals were expanded. Indeed one of the arguments against the Australian system was that we already had a working system so why should we pay more for something we already get? To call anything associated with this man "socialist" is to make you look a fool in the eyes of every Australian. The idea is simply ludicrous, so I suggest the "socialist" doesn't mean what you seem to think it means. The laws that govern how a system is run are voted on by the elected representatives of the people. Do you think our system came about because some shiny bums in Canberra thought it would be a good idea for expanding their department? It was legislation, introduced and voted on in Parliment that brought it about. All major changes have been fought at the ballot box. If you have a problem with bloated beauracracies then I suggest that you put pressure on your elected representatives to actually do something about it. As a point, Federal Healthcare down here runs at about 3% administration costs for the country but this isn't an accident. We aren't as nice as you are to politicians that don't do their job. Have a look at the Queensland Election results from last month. Until the 24th the ALP held some 56 seats out of 89, they now hold 7. The ALP Federal Government is absolutely sh*tting itself about what is going to happen to them. Your politicians are not scared of their voters and they bloody well should be. Looking at the Texas Wiki page it looks like you're not too kind to the Dems, bu the electorate should now be saying to the GOP "Get your act in gear or next time your numbers will be so low as to make the Dems look like a major win." If the pressure was on and half the sitting members looking at losing the next election, you bet your arse they will do as they are told. It's not glorious, but it does work quite well. We have far fewer surgeons covering the State than you do. Queensland is roughly twice the size of Texas and has a population of about 3 million. The point is this, since all surgeons have to meet standards what does it really matter who does the cutting? Put it another way, since all paramedics are qualified paramedics does it really matter which one drives you to the hospital? My view is a continuation of the same principle. I've already mentioned optical and dental, so I have to wonder if you are actually reading my posts and comprehending them. The extra $54 gets you a private room (which I always found boring) and a variety of other things that can be found at the link I gave. Cosmetic surgery is a sticking point and one we are constantly considering. What we've done is split it into "Cosmetic" and "Reconstructive" for the start. Surgery to repair damage after an accident is deemed "Reconstructive" and is covered by the public system. Where we are getting problems is with the psychologists buying in now. They're arguing that a girl with a "B" cup might feel "inferior" to a girl with a larger bust and therefore breast augmentation surgery is not "Cosmetic" but has a therapeutic benefit. This argument is being expanded to cover just about any part of a persons anatomy that they might feel "bad" about being fixed as a theraputic situation. Eyebrow plucking, hair regrowth, gender changes, everything is up for grabs at the moment. But the point is that we do talk about things and decide what we will authorise our governments to pay for as a general thing. The Obama system wasn't put out there and publicly discussed anywhere near enough. What on Earth are you talking about? Why would you expect something called the "Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme" to have anything to do with the ambulance service? The PBS is about subsidised pharmaceuticals and nothing else. And as I've said before, we pay a levy on our power bills and get "free" ambulance access anyway. With the smoking drugs it's a case of "Sure, we'll help pay for the drugs to help you quit. But we'll only do it once per year". To keep paying for the things would be like allowing the person to continue to bum smokes. "Giving up smoking" is an intention, not a lifestyle and we support good intentions but not lifestyles. Your doctors and nurse aren't paid more than ours, so why does a hospital bed cost twice as much per day? Look up the payscales, your people aren't being paid more than everybody elses, so where is all the money goingto? As to "more amenities" you generally have less doctors, nurses and hospital beds per 10,000 people than the rest of the developed world. You also seem to be labouring under the miscomprehension that "Universal Health Care" is supposed to cover everything when it isn't. The point of the Australian system is to provide timely and affordable basic healthcare to all citizens. If you want more than the basics, then you can buy private insurance or not, your choice. I don't have private insurance but this doesn't mean I dip out. It means that when I do to the dentists I simply pay the bill out of my own pocket and I pay full price for my glasses. Neither of these is a financial burden to me. And to put a reality spin on things, 6 months ago when I had a tooth out, a molar, it cost me about $350 all up. What would your bill be? Because they have to treat everybody and private hospitals don't. Duh! But seriously the waiting times are more due to lack of qualified surgeons etc that anything else. It doesn't matter how many ORs a hospital has if it doesn't have the staff to operate them 24/7. How about some links to back these stories up? The thing I don't get is this, why you are arguing against. Your current system doesn't cover everybody for the basics and costs some $2 trillion per year and you have God knows how many people every year going bankrupt due to health costs. If you bit the bullet and forced the change to our system you would have one that costs $1 trillion, covers everybody and nobody would be going bankrupt. How is this not a good idea??? Edit to add. In general the "Freedom of Choice" under private insurance is a fantasy. We the general public don't know enough to make a true choice. If your kid is rushed to hospital with a burst appendix are you going to ask for the CVs of the various available surgeons and make a "choice"? Of course not, you'll be bloody thankful that there was a surgeon and OR available. The closest you'll come to a choice is picking which specialist from the three or four your GP advises and even then it will probably be your GPs preferred choice anyway. So what "Freedom of choice" is there really? Just the freedom to choose the view from the ward window and that's about it.

Justin, some fair questions and others which just show the differences between our systems. That's why I said taxes were tricky, we cannot have State Income Taxes, but it appears that you can so this makes it messy. As to the second part here is a listing of private insurers in Australia. Obviously it is a competitive field and the various plans aren't too different, so here is what you get as "extras" for $57.40 per week from the Medibank Private company. Even with only 7 States things get messy. For example the first thing on the list is Ambulance but here in Queensland we pay a levy in our power bills that pays for the Ambulance. Each household chips in $75 per year and we all get free amulance travel whenever we need it. Here is a difference between our two political systems. Neither the Republicans nor the Democrats have any policies worth talking about. Aside from very general soporifics, what exactly will they do if elected? And how will they achieve these targets? Here are the "policy" pages concerning healthcare from both the GOP and the Dems. Seriously? A nation of 300 million people and the GOP healthcare policy page is a single paragraph? The Dems are better but only just, long on rhetoric and short on actual facts, targets and costings. Compare that to similar pages for our Labor, Liberal and Green parties. Like your Congress our Parliment is directly elected by the people to carry out the will of the people. However we elect parties and people based on the policies that they put before us and therefore elect people to put those policies into practice. The problem you have is that neither major party could find a coherent policy with a Ouija board and a star map. Without them putting forward exactly how a thing is going to work and exactly how it will be funded, the American electorate is constantly buying a pig in a poke. Disliking how a piece of legislation was passed and being against the concept behind the new law are two very different things. You can be in favour of universal healthcare and also against the way the current law was passed. When it first came up I thought it wasn't done well. A huge piece of legislation, some thousands of pages I understand, with very little explanation of how it will work. Very much a case of "This new law will do what we say it will. Trust me, I'm a politician." And nobody in their right mind trusts a politician. The Dems would have been far better off putting it out for public discussion years ago where each part could be discussed openly and the electorate convinced. Obviously I agree with the Dems sentiment, since I support UHC, but I think the way they did it was very poor politically speaking. Being hard headed due to pride or ideology is neither logical nor sensible. "Because I think so" is a childish and demeaning argument when coming from an adult. An adult should be able to reasonably express sensible reasons for their position on things. To take you points in order. Firstly socialistic? Are you serious? Are the Interstate highway systems socialistic? The Military? The Federal Police? Universal healthcare is just something that is part and parcel of being part of a developed culture, like honest cops and uncorrupt courts. Or using another scale. In the most primitive of societies no care is given to those who need it, the old and infirm are left to die along the wayside. The more developed a society becomes the more it looks after those who cannot look after themselves. Note that a person who gets ill and can no longer get insurance due to "prexisting conditions" is exactly the same as a person with a congenital defect. Unless you're going to argue that people can choose to get cancer or not. So drop the "Socialism" schtick, it just doesn't fly. UHC is about what sort of society you want to live in, one with developed values or one still stuck in the paleolithic. "Once government gets control of something you are left to their mercy." Bulldust. The government is paying a very large fortune for healthcare, are you saying that this spending should have no controls? Uncontrolled government spending is somehow a good idea? The thing here is that America is already spending far more per capita than anybody else, so how about some controls to make sure that you are getting value for money? Secondly I can only assume you either didn't read or didn't understand my post. I have complete choice in which GP I go to see. I have complete choice in what tests I get done. The Doctors and surgeons who work in the public system are the same ones who work in the private system. The surgeon who removed my Thyroid works three clinics, one at the Royal Brisbane public hospital and two at private hospitals. By going public he sliced me up in the RBH, by being private I would have had the choice of being sliced up in a different hospital. Big deal. We go for very high standards of care down here and that makes choice irrelevent most of the time. Whether public or private, you're going to get sliced by one of the top 10 cutters in the State, does it really matter which one it is? The true "choice" that private insurance gives you is that you don't have to talk to the surgeons with lousy bedside manner. As the nurses all do the same training at the same facilities (and in our system the public hospitals are the teaching hospitals) I have complete confidence in their abilities and will get the same high standard of care regardless of which hospital I'm in. Thirdly we don't control by rationing, but by the amount of the refund or subsidy. While it is true that parts are set by government body, this does not control the price at all. Taking a basic consult the "Prescribed Fee" is say $60 and the refund through Medicare is $45. The Doctor is free to charge whatever price he wants, he can charge $1,000 for a 15 minute consult if he wants, but the refund will still be only $45. Using the public system I have a choice, I can keep going to the wanker and get ripped off, or go to another Doctor. If I have private insurance it would pay for the "Gap" if I have that type of policy. If I choose to get ripped off and have the money to pay for it then I am free to so choose, otherwise I'm free to go somewhere else and get charged less. The government sets the refund, but the market sets the price of the service. I should add that many basic services are indexed and go up automatically with the CPI and all fees for services are constantly being reviewed. With the medicines you're still thinking about it the wrong way. To use another example from me I recently gave up smoking. There is a product called Champix which is a prescription medicine and is subsidised. I go to the Dr and he makes a phone call and I get the Champix of $30 per course rather than $260. However I can only do this once per year. You might think of this as "rationing", but we think of it as not supporting wannabes. Any smoker will tell you that the most irritating person on the planet is the one who is "Giving up" and is constantly bludging smokes from others. If sonebody wishes to make "Giving up smoking" their lifestyle then that is their choice, it is not up to the rest of us to provide smokes and drugs to support their choice. If we didn't do it this way we would be constantly paying for people to have the Champix and they would continue smoking anyway. We're happy to give a hand up, but we aren't so big on hand outs. This isn't to say that we don't have some silly things. We give heroin addicts free needles but not Diabetics. I've never been able to work that one out. Maybe if the Diabetics started leaving their used needles in playgrounds they would have some luck. I don't know. Fourthly. Which is better is painfully obvious. What you need to realise is that people aren't arguing that American Doctors or nurses are worse than their counterparts overseas, but that the system is crap. Plus or minus 10% America is in the ballpark but it's not outcomes that are the problem. Let's say you have 5 car factories all producing a four door sedan. the factories are all in first world nations so there isn't any "Asians work cheaply" argument. All the cars are similar in looks and performance and reliability, all those things. With me so far? Now let's look at the costs; The German factory car costs $3465 to make. The English factory car costs $2815 to make. The French factory car costs $3420 to make. The Canadian factory car costs $3673 to make. The American factory car costs $6719 to make. Now do you see the problem? The problem is not with the American car itself, but with how the factory that produces it is run. For the money spent the US should be delivering results far above what everybody else is but it is not. It isn't that your Drs and nurses are worse than everybody elses, it's that the system is sucking vast amounts of money away from the end user and you aren't getting value for money. You spend more than twice the per capita the English do and yet they have more hospital beds than you do. (39 per 10,000 population compared to 31.) Comparison Data. Fifthly, down here they don't. The Prince Charles is one of the best heart hospitals in the country and is public. The Royal Brisbane, Royal Childrens and Royal Mothers are all top hospitals. Just because you don't call your State governments to account for how they spend or mis-spend health money doesn't mean the rest of us don't. I will gladly put my life in the hands of the staff of any public hospital in this country without fear.

Correct Justin, it isn't "free" per se, but it does operate without out of pocket expenses in many cases. Taxation works very differently down here. As we are a Federation, there are strict limits on what taxes and levies a State may impose. But if we keep that out for the moment and just talk about income tax then the graduated scale is here. Nothing for the first $6k, then 15% for income from 6k to 37k, then 30% for the 37k to 80k bit and then 37% for the 80k to 180k part and finally 45% on anything over 180k. The Medicare levy is on top of that by 1.5% however if a person has an income under about 18.9k they don't pay the levy at all. Here is part of the problem. If you elect a President to do as he is told, then why bother at all? You haven't elected somebody to make any decisions or govern in any way so it's a wasted effort. Besides that, it is bull. America didn't decide on the 8th December 1941 that it was going to war with Japan, FDR told America that she was at war. Game over. But we're talking about money distribution here. It's not being dictatorial to say that if a State wants a share of the Federal money pie then that State has to follow the Federal rules. Right now the US Feds spend some $2 trillion on healthcarespread over the various States. Why is it considered dictatorial to say to the States that if they want a slice of the pie then they will have to make some changes? Along the lines of standardising the rules so that the insurance companies can't screw the people any more. There's an old saying that "He who pays the piper calls the tune", if the Feds are supplying the cash why can't they make the rules? Until such time as there is a single set of rules there can't be a universal system in America. Once you have a single set of rules, then you can have a decent healthcare system. You keep letting the companies play the States against each other and you have a hideously expensive system that provides substandard care. Part of the problem is "State Pride" which is understandable. (Many of the States are so small that pride is about all they can have.) It's not about spending money, you already spend more per capita than anybody else, it's about the system that controls how the money is spent and who is responsible. But seriously, aside from some vague hand waving objections, doesn't our system (as I've described it) seem to work better then yours?

Well, once again I will speak in favour of the Oz system and maybe dispell some false ideas about UHC systems. Firstly choice. There seems to be the view amoung Americans that there are only two possible states public insurance or private. The fact is that both can work very happily side by side. Government healthcare does not remove any choice at all, if anything it frees up choice. We have both public and private hospitals, most of our Doctors are private practice, as are the surgeons and specialists. Radiology is a mix of government (Dept at the Hospital) or a private radiology lab that leases space in hospital premises. The government system only applies to strict Western medicine, I get this free because it is paid from my taxes. In the event of hospitalisation the hospital will assign me to whichever Dr they think best in the nearest or most suitable hospital. I'm not covered for dental, physio, optometry and I don't get to choose which Dr looks after me or what hospital this happens in. If I choose to add private insurance to my folder then I would be able to choose Drs and hospitals, get a refund on massage and physiotherapies and a variety of other things. So there is plenty of choice in this. Similarly I can go to any Dr I want for a general consult and I can present to any hospital I want to in an emergency. A problem mentioned with the Tiawanese system was overuse and this can be a problem if the whole thing is free. We get around this by actually having a small copay. It works this way. If the standard fee for a consult is $60 then the gov will refund to me $50 when I present the bill at the Medicare office. The important thing to understand is that the Dr is not limited to charging only $60 for a consult, he or she can charge whatever they want in a true free market fashion, the only thing that remains stable is that the refund will always be $50. Now if I wished to visit Drs who charged $200 for a basic consult, then I would get some private insurance as a top up. This means that after visiting the DR I would get a refund from both the government and the private insurer. Again, plenty of choice. How this works in practice is like this. On Tuesday I decided to see the Dr so I dropped in to the local clinic and asked for an appointment. My preferred Dr was working Wednesday and had a space at 11.45 am so I took it. The consult on Wed took a bit longer than usual and so as I left I paid $80 and got the receipt. It is possible at this point to get the refund placed directly into your bank account, but I haven't filled out the forms for that so I'm still doing it the hard way. So today I drove to the Medicare office in the next suburb, took my little number and sat down to wait. After about 10 mins I was called, went to the counter and presented my Medicare card and the receipt and was given the $59 refund in cash. So the consult cost me $21. It is this small copay that stops people from burdening the system with fairy stories and avoids the Taiwanese problem. We expect to expand our system to cover dental and optical soon but there's going to be a lot of paperwork done before that happens. What makes the Oz system good is that it controls the government costs not by rationing, but by limiting what the gov will pay for a particular service. Perhaps the easiest way to understand this is to use how we expect glasses to work. England had those horrible NHS glasses because the gov stipulated which glasses people could have, the idea being to limit costs. Our system works on a different philosophy. The gov limits the costs by limiting the refund, not the choice. Let's say the refund on frames is $100 and on lenses $80. (Pulling figures from the air here, just as an illustration.) Now I can choose any sort of frame or lenses want to have and can afford. If I choose glasses that cost $180 then I'll get the lot back as a refund, if I choose designer frames for $500 and $300 lenses then I'll just get the $180 back and the glasses will cost me $620 out of pocket. And by then there will be "Gap" insurance offered by the private companies anyway. Another strength of the system is that it divides responsibilties reasonably well. The Federal office looks after the refund side of things, we could have combined Medicare offices with other ones like unemployment, but we haven't. Medical funding comes again from the Feds, just as it does in the US. This money is given to each State to use as the State sees fit. (A number of things are used to decide the split because a straight per capita just doesn't work.) After this it is the responsibility of each State to administer the public and private hospitals within its borders. Each individual State will always complain to the voters that it isn't getting its "fair share" or suchlike and this may be true, but the figures are all out in the open for anyone to see. And not getting all the money you wanted out of the Feds doesn't absolve a State gov from having to explain to its voters how it effectively managed the money it was given. "We know you didn't get the $55 Billion you asked for, but what did you do with the $50 Billion that you did get for Healthcare?" I predict it would be electoral suicide for any group to take Federal Healthcare funds and spend them on any form of porkbarrelling. The big thing that gets in the way of effective delivery of services in the US is that your pissant little State Governments can't bring themselves to simply allow for an overarching set of Federal rules on this. Frankly I think Obama should grow a pair and tell all States that "These are the new rules, and anybody who doesn't want to play along gets no Federal healthcare money." Right now the various States are suckling at the healthcare teat to the tune of $2 trillion per year (or whatever obscene amount it is) and are doing jack to deserve it. Federal money comes with the responsibility to follow Federal rules. Deal with that reality. Anyways, that's my 5 cents.

Gee, even Eugenics gets a revival in the race for demented ideas to "save the planet". Anvar seems to want to create some sort of super race, an "Ubermenschen" perhaps? Same old psychotic dreams just given a new name and a coat of green paint. The answer is the same now as it was in the 1940s. "Lock and Load".

Bullshit. I'm quoting the actual report and you are quoting newspaper reporters. That's point 1. Two of the four reference links are by the same reporter, a Seth Borenstein, who I suggested you google before relying on him too much. That's point 2. You quotes are referring to what models predict for the future and what "may" happen in the future. The section of the report I'm quoting is what has been observed in reality and therefore refers to the period up to now and not the future. That's point 3. Model projections for the future do not negate observations from the past, or does separating past and future confuse warmistas? Going back to basics, the past is what has already happened, the future is what has yet to happen. Your argument is that since the models predict something for the future, this somehow negates the fact that there is no trend in the statistics for the past and that people who point out that there is no trend in the past are somehow liars and wrong. The logic of this form of argument eludes me, probably due to its non existence. However the observed facts do give you a problem concerning the predicted outcomes. The same climate models that are predicting all these horrible things in the future also predict an observable trend right now. With the .7 degrees of warming that we've had there should be observable trends in climate extremes, but there aren't. This begs the question that if the predicted behaviour isn't seen now, on what reasonable basis can we expect to see it in the future? Forget the old and silly argument that if a model can't it right for 1 month out, why should we believe 100 year predictions. The simple fact here is that the models aren't getting the predictions for yesterday or last year correct. It is accepted in the modelling world that an ability to hindcast is actually no proof an accurate ability to forecast, but seriously, when even the hindcasts are wrong? One of the major insanities of the climate debate is that I get called "denier" not because I deny any facts or observations from the past, but because I don't believe the unverified and unvalidated 100 year future prognostications of the climate model oracles. But I suppose the definition of deluded is that there is difficulty in telling the difference between predictions and reality. PS. Would you care to comment on the fact that the person you decribed as a "perrenial climate denier" and a "liar" wrote much of the literature that Section 4 of the report is based on? Why do you put newspaper reports about future trends as more reliable than the peer reviewed literature about past trends? Actually I'm still wading through the report but much of it asn't above about a 15 year old level of predictive ability. The average high school student would figure it out. Coastal areas will be more susecptible to tidal surges and sea level rise. "Who'da thunk that?" Riverine areas will be more prone to flooding than non riverine areas. If there is more development in extreme weather areas then more buildings will get damaged. That this sort of thing even requires a computer model boggles the mind. Do we really need a model to tell us that if we build cities where hurricanes cross the coast the damage bill will go up? The report also uses the word "likely" a lot. This word in IPCC speak means about 50%. So in reference to actual climate change it is likely that some areas will get more rain and some areas less. "No sh*t, Sherlock". It is likely that a poor nation with crap infrastructure will suffer more from an extreme event that a richer nation with better infrastructure would. Like I said, the average 15 year old could work out most of it.

Well, I guess this must happen when name calling and ad homs are more important to your arguments than actual facts. According to Essay, climate scientist Dr Roger Pielke Jr "agrees with the rest of his field on the need to stop emitting carbon dioxide and to stabilize its concentration in the atmosphere" yet according to iNow the same person is a "perennial climate change denier". So a person who thinks that CO2 is a cause of climate change and that the amount of CO2 emmissions should be cut is a "climate denier". But I suppose that when reality is constantly diverging from its properly ordained path and ignoring the modelled projected paths, then name calling is all you have left. How about you pair work out between you exactly what a "denier" is and get back to the rest of us? Essay, I'm really not too sure what the point of your post was. The point of Dr Pielkes post was that the actual report as written was very, very different from what the press releases about the report were. The bottom line of the Munich Re report was that there was no evidence of an increase in extreme events after normalising for population density and movements. So the Munich Re report showed that for flash floods, hail storms, tempest storms, tornadoes, lightning, storm events, tropical cyclones and precipitation events there is no significant trend. iNow, as for your "other view" you might want to google the author of that particular piece for a bit of background on how he appears to slant his columns. The very real problem that you have is that Dr Pielke is rather more modest than you give him credit for. The full quotes from Section 4.5.3.3 of the new report are as follows; (note the bolding) So in dollar terms the losses have increased. Nobody is saying anything otherwise BTW. But now for the fun. Yes that's right, Dr Pielke, iNows "perennial climate change denier" and apparently also "clearly" a liar actually wrote much of the literature that this section of the IPCC report is based on. We now have two questions. Who is more likely to have the story straight, an AP reporter or the scientist whose peer reviewed work is being referenced by the IPCC in their current report? And how does iNow like his crow, roasted or stewed?

Well the new special report is out today from the IPCC. The full report is available here but is a slow d/load and a 44 meg file. I'm still reading it so the thread title may finish up to be more accurate as "Not sure about increase". Roger Pielke covers the high points. The most quotable quotes are these; So, no increase in tropical or extra tropical storms or hurricanes. No increaseing trend in losses. No increase in rains and floods. This means that anybody who is advocating action wrt climate change on the basis of "extreme weather events" is now truly in "denial" about the facts.

If it wasn't killing and bankrupting so many people threads like this would be funny. Justin, you don't understand freedom at all. I'd love to be an employer in the US. So long as there was a good health plan I could treat my workers like the slaves they are. Nobody would leave as they are trapped by healthcare costs. In contrast in Australia I have to be polite and work with my employees, by having access to universal healthcare my people can tell me where to go and when without fear. Australians are free to choose who to work for, Americans are not. Any way you slice it we have freedoms that you don't. As has been shown repeatedly in these health threads the US is paying at least twice as much per capita for healthcare and getting pretty ordinary results for the money. Your system doesn't need fixing, it needs changing. Honestly it's like watching someone arguing against buying a new car. The old one just needs a bit of fixing, and "Once we've replaced the engine, gearbox, differential, brakes, steering, interior and glasswork it'll be a great car". At some point you have to accept reality and buy a completely new car. The healthcare system you have id dying, put a bullet into it and put it out of your misery and go shopping for a new one. As to the whole "individual responsibility" argument, what a joke. Civilised nations view Universal Healthcare as a given. Just like a fire brigade, ambulances, honest cops and an uncorrupted judiciary, these are the benefits of living in a civilised nation. We all pay a little bit in our taxes for the Firies, but very few of us will need them to put out a house fire. Why shouldn't avoiding house fires be "individual responsibility" as well? Anybody arguing that a developed nation should not have some form of universal coverage should also be arguing against police, highways, firies and ambos on the same basis. And that is the final point. To argue against these things isn't to argue from a basis in fact or data but wholely and solely from an ideological perspective. As such this form of opinion is immune to all facts and data that conflict with its preformed view of the Universe and is roughly akin to a religious viewpoint. Religion we discuss a few forums up, around here facts and data win.

Okay, this isn't big on the grand scale of International politics, but my home State Queensland had an election last weekend. For roughly the last 20 years we have had government from the Labor Party, who are from out "left" with all the union affilliations and green tendencies that this implies. We have 89 seats in the State House (The Upper House was abolished by the ALP back in 1922) of which, until Saturday the ALP held 51. 51 out of 89 being a reasonable and comfortable majority. As of Sunday morning, they hold 7 after losing a stunning 44 seats, the largest loss ever in any Australian election. The incoming conservative government holds 78 out of 89 seats. What was interesting was that while the average swing was about 15%, it varied from seat to seat. In each lost seat the swing was 3-4% above what was needed for the seat to change so seats held by 4% had 7% swings while seats held by 17% had 20% swings. This is something that nobody has seen before. For a timeline of how quickly the disaster became obvious try the Courier Mail. With polls closing at 6.00 pm the result was clear by 7.20. Four things led to this devastating defeat and there are lessons for our politicians to learn; 1. The ALP campaign of mercilessly smearing Mr Newman failed dismally when the Premier was forced to admit that they actually had nothing more than smears and inuendo. (Especially since she had been attacking Mr Newmans wife and father after swearing a year ago to "keep family out of this".) We are sick of personal and dirty campaigns. If you play this way we will assume that you have neither policies nor achievements to point to and will punish you accordingly. 2. Prior to the last election Mrs. Bligh (Yes, the "Captain" of our State was a "Bligh", some things are too funny not to vote for) promised she would not sell public assets to balance the books, shortly after winning she did so. Do not lie to us. We are not stupid and we will remember and punish you for it. (I point here to our Prime Minister saying before the last election "There will be no Carbon Tax under a government I lead". She lied and there will be a reckoning.) 3. "The People" are just that and are represented by persons from all walks of life. They are neither represented by nor have any interest in the opinions of the self styles intellectuals or university trained pseudo intelligentsia who believe in their own moral and intellectual superiority. These fools are a mob of wankers who circle jerk over their lattes and do not hold opinions with any relevence to the actual needs of the people of the State or Nation. "We the People" seriously outnumber these dweebs and will demonstrate this come election time. 4. Specifically for the Left here. Projection is a serious illness, just because you use a crapload of astroturfing doesn't mean the other side do. In my very hotly contested seat of Ashgrove the count was at least 4 astroturfing outfits for the left and none for the right. Stop listening to the people in section 3 above, these fools believe that the majority of the population are idiots who will vote as they are told to by some talking head on TV. This justifies the use of astroturfing because then your side can be the last thing the foolish proles hear and so they will do as you tell them. The simple fact is that people can recognise astroturfing when they see it and they can also think for themselves. Assuming their stupidity will cost you votes. Aside from that, what a breath of fresh air. A State led by an ex military officer with a civil engineering background and a lot of new talent in Parliment from so many different walks of life. Ex journos, Doctors and Tradesmen replace 20 years of party hacks, incompetents and ideologues. This will be a wild ride back to the top, but worth every minute of it.

Okay, cut the sanctimonious attitude. I'll put this as politely as I can. If I want to know the difference between Solar forcing in the 1600s and the 2000s, please elucidate oh wise one how this is done without comparing the firures from time periods some centuries apart? I mean, if I want to know the difference in population for a region between 1600 and 2000 then I would use the population figures for the years in question and subtract one from the other. So far you've been arguing that this method is invalid. So I really, really want to know what the valid methodology is. Short term weather effects? The Maunder was 100 years long. I think that you are missing the main point here. I'm simply comparing what is actually written in the published papers with what the IPCC says is written in them. What do the papers say the change in solar forcing was between 1700 and 2000? I'm demonstrating a discrepancy that requires a much better explanation than "smoothing". The various papers use sunspots as a proxy indicator for TSI. During a prolonged minima like the Maunder the number of sunspots dropped to zero thus giving a flatline effect to the reconstructions as it is impossible to model negative sunspot numbers. This flatline is clearly shown in Lean et al that I referenced before, in Figure 2. Personally I would think that the figure would go lower rather than flatlining but let's keep to what the published papers say. So Lean et al shows the TSI with a value of 1364 W/M-2 in around 1700 and a value of 1367-1368 for the year 2000. Your argument is that this 3 W/M-2 is really only .5 W/M-2 once you "smooth" it. Just out of curiousity, are you using a 500 year running average to do so? To get rid of those pesky "short term" weather effects? Similarly Hoyt and Schattern show the TSI value changing from 1367 W/M-2 in 1700 to 1373 for the year 2000. Figure 9 as referenced before. So a 6 W/M-2 difference becomes .5 W/M-2 with "smoothing"? I knew an accountant once who thought that way. His income was $600,000 PA but after "smoothing" it was only $50,000. I think he gets released in three years or so. But why is all this important? Very simple. We know that since 1850 or so the average temps of the planet have gone up. It has risen in a way as to suggest most strongly a change in forcings to the climate system of around 2.4 W/M-2. If we think of climate as a long equation to which we know the answer is 2.4 you'll see what I mean. All forcings and feedbacks must total up to 2.4 W/M-2 to describe the current climate system. If the Sun has only contributed .5 W/M-2 then there must be other large forcings and positive feedbacks to bring the total up to 2.4 W/M-2. However, if the reconstructions are correct and the change in TSI is more than 3 W/M-2 then it follows that even though the increase in CO2 must be also a warming forcing, since the nett change is 2.4 W/M-2 then there must be strong negative feedbacks in the climate system. And a final point on this "smoothing". Exactly how does smoothing a tree ring based temperature series give you a Total Solar Irradiance figure? Does it work with other things? If I smooth the figures for the average height of an American can I work out how many cars he owns? I'm not overturning a basic scientific method, I'm simply using it. The same method as is used in the various papers I've been quoting. Maybe I haven't been clear so I'll try again. TSI varies within a solar cycle. Yes? This variance is about 1.4 W/M-2 from cycle maximum to cycle minimum. Yes? Therefore it varies about .7 W/M-2 each side of the average. Yes? So using rough figures of 20, 80 and 150 sunspots for a cycle, when the number of spots drops from 80 to 20 then the TSI drops by about .7 W/M-2. Yes? Conversely when the number of spots increases from 20 (minima) to 80 (average) then the TSI will rise by about .7W/M-2. Yes? The above 5 points must be true if we are able to say that a typical sunspot cycle has a variance of 1.4 W/M-2 over the 11 year period. Now let's consider the averages. Up to about 1720 or so was the Maunder where there were no sunspots for about 100 years. Yes? Therefore the average number of spots in a cycle was zero. Yes? 250 years later in the 20th C the average number of sunspots in a cycle was 80. Yes? According to the IPCC the change in TSI for this period was .5 W/M-2. Yes? Therefore increasing the average number of sunspots in a cycle from zero to 80 results in an increase in TSI of .5 W/M-2. Yes? Now do you see the problem? Increase the number of spots in a cycle from 20 to 80 gives a TSI increase of .7 W/M-2 but increasing the average from zero to 80 only gives an increase of .5 W/M-2. As the change in spot numbers is 1/3 larger for the average than for movement within a cycle it stands to reason that the change in TSI should also be larger. The only assumption that I'm making is that TSI is related to sunspot numbers, which is exactly what the TSI reconstructions are saying, every single one of them. I'm not doubting the methodology or the "science", I'm using it. All it demonstrates though is that the figure of .5 W/M-2 is really rather untenable and should be revised upwards. I think that a fair approximation would be based on the average cycle and so a new figure of about .8 W/M-2 would be better.

Essay. Okay, and using your words, not mine. This comment concerns the change in baseline solar forcing going from the Grand Minima of the Maunder to the Grand Maxima of the 20th Century and is in line with the IPCC diagram 6.13. A change in the baseline Solar forcing of about a half a Watt. Yet in an earlier thread you quote your professor as saying; So the change over a standard cycle is about 1.4 W/m-2. Both of these statements cannot be true. Consider a standard cycle the number of sunspots will vary from around 150 at maximum down to about 20 at minimum, with a median figure of around 80. So it follows that when the sunspot numbers go from 20 to 80 there will be an increase of roughly .7 W/m-2 in TSI. Half the 1.4 W/M-2 of a full cycle change. With me? Now the Maunder had no sunspots at all for quite some time so the median figure for an 11 year cycle was actually zero. We left the Maunder and came into the 20th Century and the median for a cycle went from 0 to 80 sunspots. Still with me? Yet the argument is being made that this will result in an increase of only .5 W/M-2. One statement is that a change from 20 to 80 spots over 5 years will give an increase of .7 W/M-2 while the other is saying that an increase from zero to 80 spots over 100 years will give a 30% smaller increase in TSI of .5 W/M-2. Now do you see the problem? When we are considering the difference in solar forcings between then and now we need to compare the baseline solar forcing which is the median figure of the cycle. If I want to know the difference in TSI between 300 years ago and now, then I would have to compare cycles that are "centuries apart", would I not? I don't understand your objection. Belief or disbelief is not required. If you think I'm wrong then show where the flaw in the maths or the logic is. Disagreeing because you find something "hard to believe" is religion. Smoothing is a valid mathematical process for removing short term inconsistancies. However to reduce values of from between 3 to 10 W/M-2 to .5 W/M-2 with "smoothing" requires the use of one of these; And I would think that Dr Hansen has his figures wrong. The IPCC says the increase is 2.4 W/M-2 since 1850 or so gave rise to the .8 degree temp increase and Dr Hansen is claiming a rise of 1/4 that size (.58 W/M-2) in 5 years that has had no temp increase at all? Something here does not add up.

There are a few reasons for the quick dismissal of the UFO phenomenon. (At least for an ET explanation.) First and foremost, the ET explanation is deeply insulting to the human psyche, for many it is too humiliating to even consider. This comes about from 2,000 years of being told that we were created in Gods image or however you want to phrase it. Bottom line is that we are supposed to be the peak of creation. Now if somebody else can come here but we have no way of getting there, then we are no longer "Lords of Creation", but are so far down the totem pole as to barely qualify as "intelligent". Note that even in our Sci Fi literature which deals with the various "What if" scenarios, it is rare to find a story where mankind is completely overwhelmed by what he finds "out there". Arthur C Clarkes classic "The City and the Stars" is a great example of mankind failing to deal with being a minor player. Simaks "Cosmic Engineers" shows just how long it might take before mankind is mature enough to take a place amoung the stars. Our popular TV shows have had no problems showing their people meeting either Gods or entities with godlike abilities and outsmarting them before the final credits roll. This is unlikely to be the case in reality. We will be faced with technologies that we not only won't know why they work, but we won't know what they do. Consider as a hypothetical an alien ship that used in some ways forms of energy that we call "Dark energy". So we walk through the ship between all the happily humming machinery and every detector we have is saying that all the machines are doing nothing at all, they are not recieving, using or producing any energy. So, in general it fits the belief of many that we are alone and they are quite happy to denigrate anybody and anything that challenges this mindset. The military response is also psychologically based and quite normal considering the times. The US military led the way and everybody else followed because it was the easiest thing to do. The reasoning behind the military cover ups is simple and probably the most sensible thing they could have done at the time. By even the early 1950s the Cold War was well under way and the various peoples of the West were looking to our militaries, and the US military in particular, to protect us. We were relying on the military and along comes the UFO problem. Now the various militaries could have issued statements and told the truth and that would have gone down a treat. "We don't know who they are. We don't know where they're from. We don't know what they want. We don't know if they are hostile or not. And if they are it doesn't matter because we can't catch them or shoot them down anyway." I'm certain that a statement along those lines would have assured the American people of the US militaries ability to protect them and their airspace. Since the "Unmitigated Flippin' Orrors", as the RAF came to know them, didn't seem to be widely hostile, they weren't sinking ships, shooting down large numbers of aircraft or wiping out the occasional town, the easiest answer o the problem was to make it go away. A "rational" answer would be found to each sighting, even if you had to break known laws of physics to find it. Misinformation and disinformation became the tools whereby the people were calmed. "Don't worry, there is nothing there. Your military can protect you. You are safe." But here we are some 50 years on and the military is now in a bind. They simply can't admit that they've been lieing for the last 50 odd years. Assuming there has been no actual "contact" the wording of the admission would be a beaut, something like; "People of the World. Some 70 years ago we became aware of visitors to our planet. We didn't know who they were. We didn't know where they were from. We didn't know what they wanted. And we had no idea if they were hostile or not. Due to the Cold War it was decided to lie to you and claim UFOs didn't exist. We have kept up this lie for 70 years but now it is time for the people of Earth to know the truth. And the truth is. We don't know who they are. We don't know where they're from. We don't know what they want. We don't think they're hostile because they haven't invaded after 70 years of overflights. You now know as much as we do." That would go down a treat too. Of course, after having admitted to lieing for 70 years, then everybody would believe that the authorities had in fact come clean and weren't hiding anything more and that all future statements would be the total truth. If you believe that I've got a great bridge for sale, going cheap. Denial of these craft was the only way to stop panic and prevent a global nuclear conflict. (I'll come to this in a minute.) Whoever is flying these things, they are not locals. If a branch of the Western military had been flying these things for the last few decades would we really be developing the F-22 and F-35? The USAF has a small fleet of saucers but NASA is using fireworks to get people to and from the ISS? Come on, think! We might have a couple cobbled together from a crash site here and there but most of them ain't ours. As to lieing to prevent nuclear war it's quite simple. If such craft existed they made (make) the militaries of the world rather obsolete, you can't fight what you can't catch. This was especially true in the 1950s and if a craft crashed in say, the USA, then if the USAF could reverse engineer the craft they would have the Soviet Empire by the balls. The longer the soviets left it, the further behind they would get. Their only option for survival would have been an all out nuclear strike to topple the West before it got too big to topple. The reverse is also true. If a craft went down in Soviet space and they were able to reverse engineer it, then they would have complete military domination of the planet. The West would be forced to strike before the reverse engineering could be completed. The "big lie" may have prevented a war. A final point for consideration, the famous "Roswell" incident. The airbase housed the 509th Bomb Group, the only bomb group armed with nuclear weapons at that time. It was possibly one of the highest security places in the West. The announcement of the "saucer" came from Maj. Jesse Marcel, head of Intelligence at the base and a presumably reasonably important position. If you believe the "Official" story (and I think we're up to about Ver 4.0 of the realio, trulio, this is what happened, cross my heart, official version) then you are admitting that you believe that the head of intelligence for the 509th, after examining the wreckage and the crash site itself cannot tell the difference between a balloon with some aluminium foil and balsa wood glued to it and a crashed craft roughly the size of a DC-3. To believe the official story is to believe Maj Jesse Marcel to be so amazingly incompetent and mindbogglingly stupid as to be unable to tell the difference between aluminium foil and aluminium plate. Any more answers from me will have to wait. I'm off to the New South Wales gem fields for a few days.

Sorry guys but a reply will have to wait. I'm spending the next 4 days in the New South Wales gem fields. A lovely town called "Glen Innes" in the Celtic Country. I've driven through many a time but this is the first chance to stay for their "Minerama" festival. Some of the finest blue sapphires come out of this region and I hope to get me some.

swansont, a bit more on that graph. It looks to me like the various projections are initialised at a level slightly above the .4 degree anomaly level. In the pdf below the updated paper is the original "In Press" version. Scrolling down to Figure 5 we see a grey band running through the graph, this is the 4 year running smoothing. It appears to me that the top of this grey band is at the .4 degree mark and this means that there is indeed an offset. It's quite small, something less than .05 degrees but it is there. It strikes me that good practice would have been for all the temperature projections to align with the median of the grey band in 2000 and start on a level playing field. The problem here is that the thick black line is actually a projection the begins prior to 2000. Either way, the IPCC model runs should be initialised on the average smoothed temp of slightly below a .4 degree anomaly in 2000. (At least to my way of thinking.) I have emailed Dr Scafetta detailing this offset and seeking clarification. I'll let you know what happens. Essay, that "actuals" graph from post 250? It only compares up to the year 2005, how does it look when we add in temps up to 2011? We aren't even at the "Commitment" temps, so unless everybody stopped CO2 emissions in 2006 and I've missed it, it doesn't look good for the models, does it?

Essay, I have to also ask a logical question. You are quite happy with the idea that TSI changes by about 1.4 W/m-2 during the 11 year cycle. You've used that figure in previous posts and I don't have a problem with it. However, if we look at the actual cycles; We can reasonably say that 3 of the last 5 cycles peaked out at 150. This gives a median figure of 75 for the cycles and a logical problem with the whole .5W/m-2 from the LIA to now. If the TSI varies by 1.4 W/m-2 over a cycle then it can be fairly said to vary by .7W/m-2 either side of the median. So the drop from median to minima in a given cycle, a drop from 75 spots to zero gives a reduction of .7W/m-2. If this is true, then how can the claim be made that to drop the median from 75 to zero, as we see in a prolonged minima, only result in a .5W/m-2 drop in forcing? 75 to zero in 5.5 years, a half cycle, results in a .7W/m-2 drop in TSI but a 75 to zero drop and staying at zero for 100 years only gives a .5W/m-2 drop in TSI? You are arguing that a short drop to a lower level of sunspot activity gives a greater reduction in TSI than a prolonged drop to the same level. This makes no sense.

Well you have a problem with it for a start. I did last time but they obviously weren't read. That's why I pointed to the previous thread, to try and save myself from doing the same work over again. I'll take these and the graph in the one hit. And for the record, yes the graph does indeed show about a .5W/m-2 change in solar insolation between the LIA and now. That is exactly why I say it misrepresents the papers. I said it last time and linked directly to the damn papers so that anybody could actually go and look for themselves. But here it all is again. The papers used to create the IPCC graph linked to as Figure 6.13 can be found as a list in Table 6.2. González-Rouco et al., 2003 http://w3k.gkss.de/staff/storch/pdf/gonzalez.et.al.2003.soil.pdf Osborn et al., 2006 http://coast.gkss.de/G/Mitarbeiter/storch/pdf/osborn.magicc-echog.2006.pdf Tett et al., 2007 http://www.springerlink.com/content/xg6116h0t30g26g2/ Mann et al., 2005b http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/full/10.1175/JCLI3564.1 Bertrand et al., 2002b http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1034/j.1600-0870.2002.00287.x/pdf Crowley et al., 2003 http://www.sages.ac.uk/home/homes/ghegerl/Crowley.2003GL017801.pdf Goosse et al., 2005b http://coast.hzg.de/staff/zorita/ABSTRACTS/GoosseXetalGRL2005.pdf Gerber et al., 2003 http://www.meteo.psu.edu/~mann/shared/articles/GerberClimDyn03.pdf Bauer et al., 2003 http://www.mpimet.mpg.de/fileadmin/staff/claussenmartin/publications/bauer_al_1000_grl_03.pdf González-Rouco et al., 2006 http://esrc.stfx.ca/pdf/2005GL024693.pdf Stendel et al., 2006 http://www.gps.caltech.edu/~vijay/EGU%20Presentations/Climate%20Change/Stendel-etal-06.pdf 11 papers. González-Rouco et al., 2003 is a temp reconstruction using borehole data. No great help regarding TSI. Osbourne et al 2006 is a comparison of model runs and inspects why Erik in the ECHO-G models is an outlier. Tett et al 2007 is another climate model run and is behind a paywall, making it hard to check the values. Mann et al 2005b is on the reliability of dendrothermometry in paleoclimate reconstructions. Nothing there on TSI. Bertrand et al 2002b Finally something on TSI. Bertrand is a series of model rund using a variety of forcings. I direct you to Figure 1. While the Be10 series from Crowley is quite stable and closely matches the IPCC preferred .5W/m-2, the Reid reconstruction shows a variance of nearly 20 W/m-2 between 1450 and today. Of the three values used in Bertrand, only the one that bolsters the IPCC opinion is used in their graph. I believe this is called "Cherry picking". Crowley et al 2003 is concerned with modelling ocean heat content over the last 1,000 years. Goosse et al 2005b looks at the differences between accepted forcings used in climate model that have hindcast the last 1,000 years or so. Please note Figure 1a "Time variations of solar irradiance at the top of the atmosphere" from a series of reconstructions. While not closely agreeing all the reconstructions place the TSI change between circa 1500 and 2000 in a range from 2W/m-2 to 6W/m-2. Maybe if you squint really hard you can squash it down to .5W/m-2. Gerber et al 2003. Sorry, but this is just a piss poor paper. Reids 20 W/m-2 has been "smoothed" to a 1 W/m-2 change, but there is a story to tell I suppose. I especially like this part; Ramaswamy et al 2001 is IPCC TAR WG1. How pathetically sloppy, it's like listing "Encyclopedia Brittanica Volume 6" as a reference. Bauer et al 2003 Two TSI reconstructions are shown in figure 1. One is for a change of around 4W/m-2 and the other is a change of about 6W/m-2. González-Rouco et al., 2006 is another bore hole temperature series. Stendel et al., 2006 A more interesting paper with Figure 1 putting the change at around 4W/m-2 between 1500 and 2000. Gee, are you starting to see where I got the 2W/m-2 guesstimate from yet? But I'm not finished. Hoyt and Schattern 1993 http://www.leif.org/EOS/93JA01944.pdf Figure 9 is the one you want here. A composite of model simulations showing the TSI going from 1367W/m-2 in 1700 to about 1372 today, a change of 5 W/m-2. Lean et al 1995 http://www.geo.umass.edu/faculty/bradley/lean1995.pdf Unfortunately the correlation technique bottoms out when sunspots reduce to zero and so this reconstruction only shows a change of 3-4 W/m-2 from the LIA to today. However it is far more likely that the TSI dropped below the 1364 W/m-2 figure during the hundred year minima. Bard et al 2000 ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/climate_forcing/solar_variability/bard_irradiance.txt Just scroll down the figures and you'll see variations of more than 4 W/m-2. The paper used by the IPCC to decide that the change was only .5W/m-2 and not the higher figures was this one, M. Wang et al., 2005. I'm sure that the fact that the only qualified solar person doing this bit of AR4 just happened to be a coauthor of the paper had nothing to do with it. The thing is of course that Wang could be right and the others wrong, but it takes more ethical behaviour than "Trust me, I'm a scientist" to prove it. The selection process for the choosing the paper stinks of "Conflict of Interest". The bottom line here is that .5W/m-2 fits the narrative and higher values don't. If you want people to buy your story then you have to make sure they only hear some of the facts. Remember that the IPCC is an Intergovernmental panel and not a scientific one. Its purpose is to provide reports consistent with desired policy outcomes and not reality. This is not to disparage the many fine people who are involved, byt they can write whatever they want, the summaries are written by the political animals and they are the bits that count. A quick proceedural question. Do you write a summary to reflect the facts of a report or do you write the summary and then edit the main report to match the summary? Which does the IPCC do?

swansont. The temperature data is the HADCRUT3 dataset and is a global average. http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/hadcrut3gl.txt I went for 5 year, but that is why the temps don't appear to line up with the .4 degree mark. The raw don't, but the average does. I agree about Figure 7 but think it's a pretty crappy figure from the IPCC, not very detailed at all. Consider Figure 6 which is IPCC’s figures 9.5a and 9.5b that show the global anomaly in 2000 to be around .4 degrees. In figure 2 we see exactly the same thing with the HADCRUT data showing the anomaly in 2000 to be .4 degrees. So there is no "offset". The temperature series show the anomaly in 2000 to be .4 degrees. The starting point for all the model runs is .4 degrees in 2000. All the models and temperature series are normalised to the same point, a .4 degree anomaly in the year 2000. Right now the model projections aren't doing very well and it's going to take about a .4 degree increase in average temps between now and 2020 to match the projections and that is looking less and less likely every day. Essay, Gee, I don't know, maybe all the papers that put the difference between the Maunder Minimum and now at between 3 and 10 W/m-2. Yes, on only one paper. The paper being WAng et al 2005 coauthored by Judith Lean, who also just happened to be the only Solar person in the IPCC author group who was conversant on solar forcings. People choosing their own papers to quote is why out in the real world we have things called "Conflict of Interest" policies. The IPCC has them, they are just ignored as being too hard. Tough. If you go down the page to the thread "Who here is a Global Warming Sceptic" http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/57883-who-here-is-a-global-warming-skeptic/page__st__40 Go to page 3 and you'll find where I dug out all the papers referenced by the IPCC for solar forcings and showed that the majority put the change in TSI between the Maunder Minimum and the late 20th Century at between 3 and 10 W/M-2. Only one paper put the figure at .5 W/m-2 and that was the one chosen as representative. On page 2 of that thread you can see the values for these papers as quoted by the IPCC in the graph you supplied. Take some time and compare what the IPCC says the values were in the referenced papers and what the values really were. One thing I do find interesting is that most people don't have a real problem with the "Faint Sun Paradox" and are quite happy to accept that the Suns output long ago was possibly 200W/m-2 less than it is today but at the same time find it impossible to think that the Sun could vary by 3 W/m-2 between a Grand Minima and a Grand Maxima.

I was equating the mindsets involved. Totalitarianism starts when you decide your opponent has no right to an opinion. Once you have defined your opponents as untermenschen who have no right to be heard, then you have decreed they have no rights at all. I'll call out totalitarianism anytime I see it

Sorry for the delay, but RL got in the way. First up. swansont you had questions about the provenence of this graph. The graph is drawn from Dr Scafettas paper "Testing an astronomically based decadal-scale empirical harmonic climate model versus the IPCC (2007) general circulation climate models" the original of which can be found here. The full paper is behind a paywall but if you scroll down, the figure is "Figure 5a" in the paper. A more accessable version is in the SPPI pdf. The SPPI is an updated version of the paper to add in the more recent temperature readings. I have to admit to some concerns here as I have no way to verify that the "update" is the same as the original peer reviewed version. The original peer reviewed article is behind the paywall and the "update" is freely available but not peer reviewed. I can only assume that if Dr Scafetta tried to pull some sort of a swifty "bait and switch" it would be jumped on rather quickly. But anyway, that is where the graph draws its data from. Once you had pointed out the .2 degree offset and questioned it, I was concerned. I hadn't noticed the point and agree it was odd. The answer is in the SPPI document in Figure 9. The graph above stats at 2000, whereas Figure 9 goes back to 1995. A common practice in climate science when using temperatures is to use a 5 year running mean. Given the 1998 El Nino and the large drop from that in 1999, I'm willing to bet that the 5 year mean runs through the .4 mark and aligns with the projection stating points. This isn't explicitly stated in the paper (which I think is a small flaw, I like to see everything laid out including the "obvious") but I think is a reasonable assumption. If the intent of a paper is to compare projections with reality then it makes no sense not to have things starting at the same point. Also using a 60 month running mean gets away from the "Starting year" problem. Now I'm getting confused. Looking at the IPCC AR4 WG1 Figure 3.1 (It is a bloody big report, isn't it? ) the temp anomalies are definitely in the .4 range and not the .2 around the year 2000. Where is the problem? Using the running mean there is no "offset" of .2 degrees and the IPCC report itself shows that a starting point of a .4 degree anomaly is quite reasonable. Now as to A1B scenarios. The A1B scenario was originally defined in the TAR and can be found here. It's the BAU scenario that assumes an increasing world population up to about 2050 and then a slow decline as birthrates drop in developing nations that become developed. It also assumes a "balanced" mix of power sources with a gradual move over to wind, solar etc. If you were a betting man, then this would be called the "most likely" scenario. No magical changes in human behaviour and economics and no new magical energy devices. What a lot of people don't realise is that the inputs for the climate models are actually outputs from economic models. The economic models model the world economiy for the next 100 years and from this is derived the CO2 output etc and these values are the ones the climate modellers have to use as inputs. I can't speak for others, but using the output of economic models as the input for the climate ones does not give me "high confidence" in the result. While I have some doubts about climate models 100 years out, I have very grave doubts about economic ones 100 years out. So there is nothing "agressive" in the A1B scenario, it's just the BAU with humans pretty much being humans. The other thing is that the A1B is the one that people have been quoting as "what will happen" so that's the one that needs to be examined against reality. Both inputs and outputs. Put bluntly, if reality is pretty much matching the inputs, but the outputs aren't matching reality, then we should be able to agree that there is something wrong with the model and how it is handling the inputs. There is no point looking at the B2 curves and saying "Oh looky, the temps match quite well!" because the input factors don't. (Unless there has been a very large scale change to renewables and I missed it) This is why the A1B scenario is the correct one to compare to reality to see if the models are getting it right. As the data shows, they aren't. If anything they are running closest to the "Commitment" curve Essay gave in post #150, but we can't compare to that curve because it assumes no increase in CO2 since 2000. Also that diagram in Dr Dennings presentation needs revision. The comparison of projections to actual temps is only for 2000-2005, it's 2012 now and another 6 years of data are available. Essay. We did discuss this before. The IPCC assumes a change of only .5W/m-2 between a "Maunder Minimum" and the "Solar Maximum" of the 20th century. I have previously pointed out that this conclusion is based on one paper and is in opposition to all previous papers and works on this. I have also pointed out that the person responsible for choosing the paper which the IPCC relies on for its values is a co-author of the paper. (I know, that means nothing because climate scientists are of a higher moral standard than everybody else and things like "Conflict of Interest" don't apply to them) However if the worst predictions for the next cycle are bourne out and it turns into a full blown "Minima" we will be able to see which proxy values were correct. If the TSI drops by .5W/m-2 then the IPCC values are correct, if it drops by 2 w/m-2 then the IPCC values are crap and their attribution values similarly useless and the entire Northern Hemisphere is in for a shedload of trouble. It won't bother us much Downunder, but you blokes will be back to 20 foot snowfalls and "Ice Fairs" on the Thames, long winters and crop failures. Edtharan; If the Earth retains energy in the form of infra-red radiation, then this will act as a warming effect (among other things). Even if we granted that all warming since 1850 was due to CO2, how can you not call it benign? The Little Ice Age was a more "benign" climate than todays? Really? Actually we expected it. We "deniers" have very funny ideas like "If the planet warms, ice will melt". And don't go the "lowest prediction" path. It was your side that was predicting an "ice free" north pole next year. It hasn't gone as fast as the predictions said it would. The biggest problem with using Arctic ice is the lack of long term data. The best we have are the satellites and they only go back to 1979 or so. Not a really good baseline for extrapolation. We don't know with any accuracy how fast the floating ice has melted in previous warmings. Heck, all you have to do is keep a close eye on ice extent and watch hundreds of thousands of square kilometres of ice appear and disappear overnight. It's a warming world. Ice melts. Glaciers recede. These things happen in a warming world regardless of the cause. Glaciers have been receding since the 1700s in the Alps. Archaeology shows us that they have done so at least 7 times in the last 2,500 years. The real difference is that we deniers don't start our temperature graph at the coldest point in 8,000 years and go screaming "Oh God! It's warming! We're all going to die!" Are people expected to panic every year when winter turns into spring?

Santalum, No interpretation is needed. If people disagree with you they are obviously wrong and have no right to opinion or choice. People can bleat about Godwin if they wish but the simple fact is that those who believe that people who disagree do not have the right to an opinion are in the mould of Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot. Only the psychotic feel that those opposed to them should "do as they are told". Some 70 years ago there was a bit of a problem with people who thought that way and I hoped that we were rid of them. It would appear not and they will, eventually, have to be dealt with as their predecessors were. I think a big problem is that the definition of "good" and "bad" food moves a bit with time. To a degree we can all agree that most fast food is junk and isn't all that healthy, but once past that point of agreement, then what? A vegetarian would say that meats should be taxed more. Are meats good or bad? Is free range meat better than grain fed and should it therefore get a tax reduction? If yiou are going to use a tax regime to attempt to change peoples eating habits are you going to encourage high carb or low carb diets? The idea is great in theory but I think fundamentally unworkable in practice.

Thank you for illustrating my point. "Warmer than normal" what? How about some form of definition of "normal" before declaring anything to be "warmer than normal". See my point? What is normal? Reverse the .8 degrees of warming that we have had and we are back in the LIA. What a wonderful time, ice fairs on the Thames, all the partying you could wish for, except for the tens of thousands that would freeze to death every winter. Was that "normal"? I happen to think it was, just as I think .8 degrees of temp rise after leaving a period defined as a "Little Ice Age" is also perfectly "normal". It's late and I've had a long day, so I'll be happy with the answer to that one question. What exactly is the "normal" temperature for the planet?

All the time, every day. The warmers are the ones who are certain, all day every day. They are so certain that they are right that they believe those who question are akin to holocaust deniers, people so loathsome that they not only should not speak, but should not have a right to speak. They are so certain of their righteusness that they have variously pondered the deep questions, like "When will it be okay to strangle deniers in their beds?", to consider the bernefits to society of the tatooing of the word "Denier" on the bodies of their opponents so that they may be summarrily punished later. Wondering whether "deniers" should be tried for "Crimes against Humanity" for doubting the consensus. There have been suggestions that deniers be placed in rooms that fill with carbon monoxide to demonstrate to them the dangers of the gas. Most recently they have linked "deniers" to being the equivalent of the Taliban. The warmers are so certain that they are right that they believe that any who disagree fall into one or more of the following groupings: a/ Mentally ill and requiring psychiatric treatment or b/ Mentally deficient and cannot comprehend the issues involved or c/ Morally deficient and only act for a fast buck or d/ Are just plain evil people who want to destroy the world. All data that contradicts the accepted viewpoint is either a/ wrong or b/ forged. They are certain that unless the "deniers" are defeated and crushed then civilisation as we know it and quite possible life itself will be removed from the face of our fair planet. And put bluntly, all this is based on a .8 degree of warming in the last 150 years and some computer models that can't even manage to get last years climate right but can magically get it right for 100 years out. I really thought the graphic on page 11 was self explanatory but I'll try again; The green area is the spread and uncertainty in the model projections used in the IPCC AR4 report. The wiggly black line in side the green is the model avarage. As can be seen the start time is 2000, this is because the models used in the AR4 report were initialised in 2000 to be run out to 2100. Let's be very clear about this, when the AR4 was written there were already 6 years worth of data to compare to the model runs. The blue area is Dr Scafettas planetary model predictions and the big, fat red line is the real world data from the Hadley Centre. The only thing that really counts. So here is the question. Is the big, fat red line showing behaviour even remotely like the predictions of the green area? No, it is not. The models predicted certain behaviour in the climate system, the climate system has not exhibited the predicted behaviour. Either reality is wrong or the models aren't as good as we thought. But I'm a denier and so am therefore a liar and a cheat and must have rigged the data. So let's add another graph to the mix. Let's compare the A1b models as initialised in 1990 to all the major temperature series, as I did back in post #156 Note how closely the actual reality matches the predicted outcome. See how far the reality is within the 2 sigma lines. Oh, wait. Not a match at all. Reality must have it wrong again. Absolute bloody bullshit. The temps haven't risen as predicted. The Sea level hasn't risen as predicted. The Arctic isn't ice free in summer as predicted. The melting of the Himalayan glaciers isn't as predicted. Go on, put up or STFU. Exactly what predictions have been made that reality has shown to be worse than anticipated? You made the statement, back it up or retract it. I presume your evidence for these claims is on the same shelf as the "assload" of other evidence you can't produce. You know, when I first came here the thing that probably impressed me most was that a process known as "The Scientific Method" was strongly championed. The ideas of Popper and Feynman were king. "No matter how elegant your theory, no matter how smart you are, if experiment proves you wrong then you need another theory." Only in the field of climate science has this been turned around and when theory and reality have diverged it is reality that is assumed to be at fault. I find this very saddening. BTW iNow. That "leak" you were crowing about from the Heartland Institute? You do know the major damning document is a forgery don't you? And to take the same line as the warmers have been for some time now. By referring to it I can only assume that you condone "Identity Theft", "Fraud" and "Forgery". Without the forgery the HI papers show what? HI pays people to develop educational packages! HI pays it's staff and advisors! The Sun rises in the East! Video at 5! Jesus wept. Funny how some people will believe anything put in front of them if it matches their preconceptions. Some of us prefer some actual proof before making a fool of ourselves. What I cannot understand is how intelligent people can stand side by side with those who advocate pogroms and extermination of opposition and claim they are standing up for "science" and "rationality". Sceptics want to talk and check data, warmers want to strangle, gas or blow up the sceptics, but you guys are the "rational" ones. Riiiiiiiight. The bottom line here, and the thing that should be the only thing that matters. The climate theory and therefore the climate models predict a buildup of heat in the system. To the best of our measurement ability there i9s no such buildup to be found. (Unless you believe in magic) For those who back the theory there is just one question you need to answer. "Where is your missing heat?"

To a great degree semantics. Another thing to discuss while holding onto the floor.