And the pause in temperature increases over the last seven years is true, and worth noting. I think it is most likely explained by natural variation over a continuing soft upward trend… but that doesn’t mean we should pretend it doesn’t exist.

His claim is that we need a “debate”. Where has he been?

How many times must these falsifications be refuted? The denialists know that these issues have been addressed a thousand times and yet continue to argue the points without reference to the extensive literature rejecting them.

Of course, the alarmists get so much air time that people sometimes mistake them for the mainstream scientists… but they are just as deluded as the deniers. I would suggest that the alarmist delusionists are more dangerous than the denialist delusionists, as they seem to have fooled more people and suffer from little media scrutiny. And their conclusions are more damaging.

And while I don’t deny AGW, I think it is fair to keep an open mind about the relative influences of different forcings. It makes sense that our carbon emissions would be important, but nobody (serious) claims it is 100% responsible for our climate change and nobody (serious) says they know exactly the contribution of all the forcings. The work of Lindzen, Soon (Wille the scientist, not Jason the economist), Shaviv and others is still of interest.

It is a shame that some climate change activists feel the need to so quickly resort to smear.

In the former, a theory is something well-supported by evidence and with good explanatory qualities, whereas a hypothesis is something with some, perhaps still fighting with competing hypotheses. An idea is just that. Hence we have the theory of relativity, theory of quantum mechanics, theory of natural selection, theory of cigarette-cancer linkage, and theory of anthropogenic global warming.
In colloquial terms saying something is “just a theory” is in science like saying it’s just an idea. There’s no end of confusion caused by the different onterpretations of the term “theory”.

That’s one of the reasons why the IPCC has a carefully detailed set if terms regarding confidence levels.

See how to learn…, especially section 1.2 on ideas, hypotheses, theories.

I’d claim that AGW is *way* beyond hypothesis into strong theory.

Irrespective of the truth of the AGW hypothesis the overwhelming majority of scientists and governments around the world endorse the AGW hypothesis.

Does this sentence need to be rephrased?

For example Harper et al in Australian Meteorological Magazine 2008 concluded that “There is no prima facie evidence of a potential climate-change induced trend in tropical cyclone intensity in north western Australia over the past 30 years.”

A recent paper in the Medical Journal of Australia on Dengue fever refuted everything Garnaut had to say on that topic, as has Paul Reiter on malaria and other infectious diseases.

So there may be an issue, but the full implications are far from clear, and there is no doubt that Garnaut’s report is seriously flawed in some of its inputs.