JohnB

I've noticed similar things Amanda. Go to a lounge bar on a friday or saturday night and it isn't unusual to see groups sitting together but with everybody either talking to someone on mobile or constantly texting people. There seems to be no time or inclination to actually converse with the person seated next to them. So much time is spent being connected to dozens of people there isn't any time left to find a connection with one.

Is on TV down at the pub, let's go get a beer. (Sorry, couldn't resist. )

What do Australia and Mc Donalds have in common? They're both run by red headed clowns.

To a degree I think people have lost thier sense of Honour. I got married at 39. The reason is simple. When I make vow I stand by it, or as it is more quaintly put I believe that "my word is my bond". Consequently I take wedding vows very seriously indeed. I wasn't going to stand up in front of family, friends and possible supernatural beings and make vows I wasn't bloody sure I was going to keep. So I considered carefully, and we've been married nearly 12 years now and are still very happy about it.

jbor, aren't the stones from some distance away? Like about 80 miles? A project like that would require more than just nerds. I think I'm having trouble because I can't see the point. An observatory of the most basic type allows for predictions, eclipses and what not, into the future. This ability would enhance a Shamanistic religion. But just mirroring the movement of the sun each day? I've actually just had a nasty thought. In the vids the mirrors are used to light a ball. What if a cult of Sun worshippers used it to light a gibbet instead? Since it would be above the cicle, the watching crowd would get to see the heretic/criminal burned to death by the power of the holy Sun. A grusome form of public execution is just the sort of thing that a society would put effort into in favour of their God. Concerning early mirrors. Do you have some reference for the existence of mirrors in Britain back then? This isn't my usual period for reading about, so some more background info would be appreciated.

Hal, you're making good points. The thing not to forget is that "religions" of the era of Stonehenge are not like religions now. Religions then were naturistic or shamanistic. Consequently the alignment of structures will conform to actual events in the physical world for physical reasons, rather than for "religious" reasons. Shamanistic thought relies on the cycles of nature which for a primitive society are extremely important as they guide crop plantings, etc. Consequently you will find the orientations to be based on Solstices and Eqinoxes or stars, rather than a simple North, South, East, West configuration. A good example is the use of Sirius by the Egyptians. Sirius drops below the horizon for 70 days each year and the rising of Sirius heralds the flooding of the Nile. As the flood was vital for the agricultural survival of the society this rising was incredibly important. Started as a shamanistic observation of the real world it of course later became incorporated with the various Gods and Goddesses of Egypt and gained more "religious" overtones. Shamanistic thought is based on observation of the real world, if that is a religion, then as Hal said, "Physics is your religion". I think the theory expressed in the vids is interesting, but the obvious question is "Why?" What is the point of somehing that mimics the sun in the sky each day? It has no predictive power, it can't predict an eclipse for example. The concept seems a great waste of time and effort for little gain. Societies back then would build monuments for a long term purpose, even the mounds, but there had to be a reason. Tracking the sun doesn't seem to me to reason enough for all the work. A problem with the theory is the idea of "mirrors". AFAIK C14 puts the construction of Stonehenge at starting around 3,000 BCE. The earliest mirrors we know of are made of polished bronze and bronze wasn't in use until after 2,000 BCE. Seems odd to be building something that won't work for 1,000 years until mirrors are invented.

Hi iNow, good to see your name again. FWIW I always enjoyed reading your posts too. One thing that is missed in discussions about the "Politics" forum is the fact that "Politics is perception" and as such doesn't lend itself to the same rigour as a science. If it did, we would all be on the same side. To use the concept of "bail outs" and government spending as an example. The fact would be that the gov spent some (a lot) of money, this is verifiable. However a Keynesian economist will see this as a neccessary step to avoid economic collapse and vital to keep the economy turning while a follower of Hayek will see it a meddling with, and the obstruction of, natural market forces. Each is correct from their own POV. This is doubly true in the political arena. I've strenously supported the concept of UHC in the US and argued for it as best I can. From my POV it is nothing more than a basic benefit of living in an advanced society, like having honest cops and courts, and roads and schools, but to those opposed to the idea it is some form of socialism. It would be hard to find a cite to disprove the idea, but I also find it hard to think of Australia as a socialist country. Similarly (from what I've seen of American political debate) if the Republicans reduce spending on science then it is because they are "anti science" but when Democrats do it it's because of "economic neccessity". Proof and cites can be provided for actions, but politics is about perceptions and motivations, which don't lend themselves to self evident factual proof. Because we each view evidence through our own personal perceptive political lens, we can't see why another, when looking at exactly the same evidence doesn't see what we see. We assume that they are "ignoring the facts", or some such. The bottom line is that requiring cites or restricting access more won't improve a political forum. Political views follow on from personal political philosophy (hey, it's "Alliteration thursday") and if people want the level of discussion to rise above the "inane", then I suggest they start some deeper topics and be ready to defend their political philosophy with vigour and courtesy. All the while remembering that although we may see the same facts, our interpretations of those facts can differ and still be valid. My 2 cents, anyway.

If it isn't clear, then you need to get some basic knowledge of human psychology. If the individual is the one assessing his own "ability" and "needs", then a human will want everything he can get for bugger all effort. If there is a free hand out, then people put their hands out, it's that simple. It's this hold over from earlier times that means communism will never work until humans evolve into something else. For most of the 6 million odd years since Lucy, humans have lived a hunter gatherer existence. This is the ultimate "throw away" society with zero forward planning. When you are hungry you hunt and gather, when you aren't, you don't. Kill a mamoth and the tribe eats well for 3 days and spends the time not eating lying around and scratching their nuts. This is how humans lived, if the needs of food, shelter and clothing were met, nobody did a bloody thing past that. It's only in the last 6 or 8 thousand years since we developed agriculture and a permanent residence in an area that we've started thinking about what will happen next year. Hunter gatherers don't think past where the next meal is coming from and only then once they start to feel hungry. Communism is up against 6 million years of evolution as to how humans think and behave. There is zero evidence that this nature has changed at all, people still want a free lunch. Until such time as humans evolve into something else, this will not change. Communism ignores this basic fact in favour of ideology. Any political system that ignores the basics of human psychology simply "won't work". It's like trying to build an aircaft and ignoring the laws of aerodynamics, the plane simply "won't work".

Welcome to SFN, Neph70. Where was that interviewer from? I mean asking about Nibiru? I'm certain Plimer was thinking "What is this idiot talking about?" Just by the by, we aren't too big on self promotion here and posting your own video in your first post looks a bit sussed. Cheers.

Human rights in the People's Republic of China. Yes things have improved, they might still execute more people each year than the rest of the world combined, but they no longer bill the surviving family members for the bullets. Or if you prefer Amnesty International. If this is "proper" communism, then no sane person could support it.

It's not just Americans. I'm an aussie and I hate the bastards too. Full of high sounding ideas, but if you want to know the truth, just read up on a bit of history. Life in the old Soviet Union, East Germany, Cambodia, pick one. Any reasonable person who values human beings has to be against a system so bad that they had to build a bloody wall around the place to stop people leaving. A wall complete with guard towers and "Shoot to kill" orders. Communism is possibly the only form of government that could manage to make the nazis look good.

Most european and possibly most western nations are below replacement levels and have been for some time. It can just as easily be concluded that without the wars, this point would have been reached sooner which would result in a slightly lower population than today. But the argument itself is illogical. Taken to extremes you could say that if tribe A hadn't wiped out tribe B 10,000 years ago then the earths population would now be vastly higher. Malthus was a moron, propounding his ideas at a time when we knew bugger all about history and archaeology. The simple fact is that populations do not continue to increase willy nilly. They tend to increase to a certain point and then stabilise. Every culture in the history of this planet has done so, why would you expect europe to be different?

Don't worry, they're all around you, in every industry. One venue where I used to build exhibitions brought in a couple of good rules, courtesy of the "Safety" officer. 1. All persons climbing a ladder 6 feet high or more must wear a safety harness. This seems reasonable until you realise that a. The only thing to hook it to is the ladder and b. You have to climb the ladder (without having the harness attached, which is a no-no) to attach the harness to the ladder. The final point is that a safety harness is designed to let you drop 2 metres before going tight. Which means that it will go tight just before you hit the ground and will probably pull the ladder over on top of you. 2. All forklifts carrying loads must a "spotter", someone who watches the load and makes sure it doesn't hit anything. Again fair enough, but they couldn't leave it at that. They further required that the spotter must watch the load at all times and be in a position where he has an unobstructed view of the load. The only way to fulfil the requirement is for the spotter to be in front of the forklift and looking up at the load while walking backwards. Most people agreed that walking backwards on a construction site while in front of a loaded, moving vehicle is not condusive to prolonged existence. While there are good ones out there, a number are padding their job. It looks good on the quarterly report to say that they have located and fixed 26 "potentially hazardous" situations in the workplace. They just hope to God that nobody actually asks what the situations were. Which is why the safety officer speaks last at the meetings. Since meetings generally run over time and everybody wants to leave, nobody asks any searching questions.

Cite please. Your assertion doesn't make a fact. Western nations suffered the heaviest losses of population yet they have been at under replacement rates for quite some time anyway. African population was relatively uneffected by either war. China lost many people numerically but not as a percentage of population. If the wars hadn't happened I doubt that the global population would be much more, if any, than it is now.

Hal, you make a fair point here. I don't think that we would get to 300 million for much the same reasons as Canada, however their reason is cold and ours is lack of water. The centre of the country is dry. There is the possibility that due to need we could divert rivers into the inland and create large livable spaces. But without that sort of major engineering the population will be limited pretty much to the coastal strip, and the east coast at that. I think it would be an ugly situation. By the same token, in 400 years we might have Star Trek style replicators to supply food etc, and the central desert covered with solar panels to provide power. The problem with considering long term "What ifs" is that the technological advances can't be predicted. There are simply too many variables for a valid projection. The true future could lie anywhere from a technological nirvana to "Soylent Green". This distinction is one of the things we have to work out, the problem is that nobody wants to talk about it. Do we want one population or two? And where is the dividing line drawn? For a simple example, my family arrived with the First Fleet so we've been here for 200 odd years. In 400 years time the family will have been here for 600 years. When do they become "indigenous"? The dictionary definition is; Like the later Europeans, the aboriginals didn't evolve here, they arrived. When was the change from "imported" to "innate"? It's a philosophical point, but it does underly peoples thinking. While ever we artificially divide the population along lines of ethnicity, it is a barrier to to beneficial growth for all. Do we want a future where the population is divided into "Indigenous" and "the rest"? Won't this encourage those in "the rest" to further subdivide themselves? Or do we want a future for "Australians" instead. Let's put it another way. The conditions in some of the outback communities are truly appalling. I do not care that indigenous people are living in third world conditions. I do care very much that Australians are living in third world conditions. It is unconscionable and cannot be allowed to continue. My personal view is that the term "indigenous" is going to become irrelevent in the future. Going a long way down the track, by keeping the distinction we will have the silly situation that people who have been here for 50,000 years are indigenous and people who have been here for 10,000 years aren't. This makes no sense to me. I believe we need to work towards a future where there is one population group called "Australians", but with differing heritages. By then though, except for those racists who don't believe in mixed marraiges, I would think that just about everybody would be mixed blood anyway. For me, indigenous isn't about skin colour or race or heritage, it's a state of mind, a state of being. The waters of this land flow in my veins, the land nourishes me and the wind provides me life. At the end I will return to the land and become part of it. I go to the Dreaming Places and listen to her. The sooner all Australians think this way, the sooner we will all be "indigenous" and the sooner we can work together for a better and brighter future for all.

I haven't been there so I can only comment from the Germans I've met. I've employed and worked with quite a number over the years, backpackers mostly. They seem to be very nice people, great for a joke and a laugh and good to work with. If the young ones who come down under are indicitive of the German people and nation, then they are a pretty decent bunch. But please, get over the "shame" thing, it was 70 years ago. I do wonder if germans worry more about what others might think if they asserted themselves, rather than what others would really think. If you get my meaning.

Hal, when you first posted the pic I didn't have the foggiest who you were, so I checked your profile. I realised, upon seeing that you had managed to rack up an impressive -29 rep points in the short time you have been here that I wasn't dealing with a normal intellect. Unlike others might have, I didn't conclude that I was dealing with a micro-cephalic fool for whom remembering whether "10 thick" was their IQ or shoe size caused some mental confusion. I gave you the benefit of the doubt and assumed that you were merely uninformed or that english wasn't your first language and you had perhaps had trouble expressing yourself in the language. Your further posts have unfortunately shown that my assumption was incorrect. Hal, I didn't call you a bullsh*tter, as that would have been against the forum rules. Similarly I didn't call you a gormless little worm so bereft of the general or specialised knowledge, coupled with a lack of the basic language skills neccessary to adequately express a coherent comment that would add any value to a discussion. Nor did I suggest that you were a gutless wonder who lacks the basic courage of his convictions even when hiding behind the anonymity of the internet and is reduced to crying "Who? Me? What did I do?" in tones of injured innocence. (While understanding the fear that these people must have of making statements in person, living in abject terror that they may say the wrong thing and be eating their next meals through a straw, one can only feel great pity for those lacking the intestinal fortitude to even argue their beliefs anonymously.) While it can be generally correctly assumed that a "bullsh*tter" can count amoung his marital aids a magniying glass and a pair of tweezers, I didn't call you a bullsh*tter. I called the comment bullsh*t. There is, in fact, a distinct difference. However, if you wish to extrapolate a response to a comment as a comment on you personally, then that is a matter best kept between yourself and your personal mental health clinician. Sorry, but it's not my problem. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Arete. I had a great post lined up to scare the daylights out of people about our "dangerous" wildlife and you go and get all factual. Where's the fun in that? chaseman, the rules are pretty simple. Do wear good boots when hiking. Don't stick your hand into a hollow log to "see if there's something inside". Don't lift up old timber to "see what's underneath". Do only swim on patrolled beaches and "swim between the flags". Don't assume that the sign saying "No swimming, crocodiles" is a joke. Rules are basic common sense on a par with teaching children "Look both ways before crossing the road". If the place was really as dangerous as we like to imply it is, it would be a wonder that our kids survive at all. There are dangerous creatures, but common sense and a bit of forethought avoids the vast majority of them. I can't really comment on the quality of our Universities, but I've always thought they are pretty good. (I was quite proud that QUT tested their Scramjet some 6 months before NASA tested theirs.) We must be doing something right.

Hal. Bullsh*t. A Tripolation. Most of our "Highways" are single lane each way, not like US highways. We don't have a high speed rail network, we can't afford one. It's size and population. Imagine the population of London trying to pay for all highways and high speed rail networks in Europe. The money simply isn't there.

I long ago came to realise that the traditional Left/Right political spectum is wrong. The true political spectrum has Statism (Gov controls everything) at one end and Anerchy (Gov controls nothing) at the other. From this POV political parties in Democracies generally fall in the centre of spectrum with the "Traditional Left" being slightly more "Statist" than the "Traditional Right". This also puts both the "extreme" left and right exactly where they belong, side by side and well up the road to "Statism". When viewed from this POV a lot of the seeming contradictions disappear and the similarities between the two major sides becomes apparent. They are similar because they are fighting for the support of the same people, that band in the middle who want some, but not total, government control.

Hal, if you don't know or understand the situation, then it strikes me as particularly dumb to offer a comment. There are no facilities or sevices that are available to non aborigines that are not available to aborigines. There are also many services and facilities available only to aborigines and Torres Strait islanders. However having medical facilities and getting people to actually use them are two different things. The tyranny of distance is also a problem. Getting services to isolated communities 600 miles from nowhere is hard, regardless of the populations skin colour. In a way it's a bit of a "Catch 22", we can't build a hospital for a community of 30 people, we simply don't have the money. So the only way to deliver especially medical services is by someone like the RFDS. The only other option is for the people to leave their native lands and move to the cities, which is not viewed as a great option at all. (Mainly because we tried that and the cultural disconnect has become problematical) Unlike people who are certain that they know all the answers, we don't. So we're trying different things in collaboration with the indiginous people to arrive at a better future for all Australians. I don't know where you get your information from but I'll point this out. The people who go to Indiginous conferences, etc around the world are generally pulling down 6 figure salaries paid for by my taxes so that they can fly First Class around the world and stay in 5 star hotels to tell you how much I oppress them. If you have some specific allegations to make, then make them. Or are you just trying to smear a nation for the sake of it?

John, we can fit the entire UK in between Brisbane and Sydney, it's a 13 hour drive. Two days to drive to Melbourne and three to Adelaide, that's highway driving and 100 kph speed limits. It's a bloody big country. Flying simply makes sense. Hal, since those tribal markings haven't been used since the 19th century I would think that those two gentlemen would have about as much to say on any topic as say, George Washington would. There are problems yes, but the next Aboriginal I meet that wants to give up medicine, mobile phones, cars, booze, supermarkets and the rest and go back to spearing 'roos and living in a gunya will be the first. We're working on it.

Hmmm, we seem to have got our wires crossed a bit, so perhaps I can clarify what I meant by certain things. I normally don't consider the 11 year solar cycle for the simple reason that the climate can't adjust fast enough to warrant concern. I generally think about it as a wiggle about .7 W either side of a long term solar forcing curve. For the same reason I disregard the change in solar forcing due to earths eccentricity in its orbit, this annual change is too fast for the climate to keep up with. When I talk about a change in forcing, I don't mean a blip, I mean a change in the baseline, say from 1364 - 1366 W/M-2, something that endures for decades and not just a year or two. You still have the 11 year wiggle and reactions to volcanics etc, but it's the baseline that's important. This is where my assumptions come from. A small change in the baseline rate will cause a small change in climate whereas a large change in baseline rate will cause a large change in climate. So a change in TSI from 1350-1360 W/m-2 will cause a much larger change in the climate than a change from 1350-1352 W/M-2. The assumption is simply that the change in climate is proportional to the change in forcing. I think it is also a reasonable assumption that the rate of change of the climate is proportional to the rate of change of the forcing. (Up to a cerain point, there must be a limit. However the ice cores show us that temp changes can be measured in degrees per decade, so the limit is very fast.) From this we can conclude that if temps changed only a little and the rate of change was low then the change in forcing was small and the rate of change was small. For example if TSI went from 1362 - 1362.5 W/M-2 and took 100 years to do it, then we would expect the change in climate to be small and the rate of change of the climate to be slow. If however the TSI changed from 1362 - 1368 W/M-2 and did so over only a ten year period, then we would expect the climate to change a lot more and a lot faster. (A supervolcano works just as well, but the forcing is in the opposite direction. Gigantic dust cloud in the atmosphere for 50 years dropping the SI baseline, the climate would react very quickly.) Now to the reconstructions. I pointed out that Bauer et all shows changes in solar forcings of 2.5, 3 and 4 W/m-2 on short time scales which you said are typical of changes in the solar cycle, by which I presumed you meant the 11 year sunspot cycle. Since the solar cycle is a .7 W/M-2 wiggle either side of the baseline solar constant, this cannot be responsible for a 4 W/M-2 change over 50 years unless the baseline constant changes dramatically. (Try it with a piece of graph paper. Draw a line as the baseline that slowly changes by .5 of a box and superimpose on that line a wiggle that moves .7 of a box above and below that line. There is no way you can get that line to move 4 boxes. The numbers don't add up.) However, the IPCC graph contends that the baseline only changes by .6 W/M-2 over 100 years or so. This leads to only one of two possibilities being true; 1. The IPCC graph is correct and the baseline changes by .6 W/M-2 over centuries. or 2. The reconstructions are correct and the baseline changes by 6 - 10 W/M-2 (and can do so in decades) and the IPCC figures are wrong. An important distinction needs to be made here. The graph is not a graph of reconstructed forcings, it is a graph of the inputs used by the models. These are two totally different things. The values were not independently derived but resulted from a series of "curve fitting" exercise. There is nothing wrong with this per se, but to continue. The grey area in the lower part of the IPCC graph shows the overlap of uncertainties of the paleo reconstructions. this is shown in the bottom part of Figure 6.1 below; So the brown bit in this graph became the grey bit in yours. From there the question is simple. "What forcings do we have to feed the models to simulate temps that fall generally within the grey bit?". The result is a,b and c in your graph with the simulated temps being d. Some people rail against curve fitting but I think it's quite useful in this context, but remember we are working backwards here, we are deriving the changes in the solar constant forcing by curve fitting the reconstructed temperatures. But the derived solar forcings don't match the reconstructions, so there must be a problem somewhere. The thing is that I take the concept of "Nullus in Verbia" as a cornerstone of the scientific method. We have three things here, the reconstructed forcings, the models and the reconstructed temperatures. I'll be happy when we can feed the reconstructed forcings into the models and get the reconstructed temps as an output. Then we will know that we are doing it right. So why did the IPCC agree with the lower figure? Where did the .5 W/M-2 long term change some from? I'm glad you asked. Section 2.7 states; This is explained in Section 2.1.7.1 as being due to a new reconstruction by Y. Wang et al. Looking at the Co-authors we find J.L. Lean. J.L. Lean is also one of the lead authors for WG1, Chapter 2, and the only solar physicist on the lead author team. The "revised downwards" values from Chapter 2 are the values used by chapter 6. Now maybe Dr. Lean is correct and all the previous reconstructions are wrong. However asking me to agree to that on the basis of a report that she wrote and only providing as proof a paper that she also cowrote is asking a bit much. I'm not accusing Dr Lean of any sort of impropriety, but out in the big, bad outside world, this is called "Conflict of Interest". Big time. More later but it's 2 AM and I'm buggered. To answer your final question, I guess you are about right although I would have some reservations about the confidence with which predictions are offered. Put another way. If the temps in the MWP were roughly the same as today and the temps in the LIA were about a degree cooler and if the change between these two states was caused by a change in natural forcings of only .6 W/M-2, then I would expect the rise of 2.4 W/M-2 since the LIA to cause problems. If you get 1/2 an hour, this is an interesting talk by Bob Carter showing the context of modern warming. BTW, how much Anthropology have you read? There's an idea that's been buzzing around and I need an anthropologist to kick it to pieces. (Or to tell me it's been thought of, whatever. )

Loved it.

Well, I live in Brisbane in Queensland. I have rain forest about 15 mins drive to the west. I have the Sunshine Coast and the Gold Coast about an hours drive north and south. (Both of these have amazing hinterlands.) The Great Barrier Reef is about 5 hours drive north. Yes, we do have some problems but these aren't great and don't effect most people. Simple rule, be polite and we'll generally be polite back. Act like a twit and we don't want to know you. Our politicians are basically honest, mainly because none of them have IQs over about 35 and are too dumb to cheat properly. (I'm not certain, but I think those from our "Green" party actually have negative IQs.) The cops are honest and polite, often with a sense of humour. They can be tough as needed but try to avoid things getting that out of hand. Personally I love the way this Queensland copper defused what could have been a "situation". Basically we're a pretty laid back mob. We have a beautiful and wonderful country and life is too short not to enjoy all the amazing things it has to offer. There are few things to beat lazing on a beach watching the girls bikinis world go by. (Did I mention Brisbane has a beach in the centre of the city?) chaseman, there are really only three things that visitors have to get used to; 1. We aren't joking about deadly snakes and spiders, crocodiles, sharks, blue rings, box jellies and the rest. They are out there and they will kill you. (Common sense is your friend here.) 2. Our sense of humour. 3. Drop bears. Distances are large, Melbourne is about 1,000 miles away. But you fly down Friday night, go to a party Saturday and fly home Sunday, it's no big deal. You'd get used to it.

Okay, taking it from the top. About amplitudes and change. You said that; I'm pointing out that the numbers don't add up. If you're right about the slow, long term .5W/M-2 change, then we can visualise a combination of this with a solar cycle. What you would have is a 1.4W/M-2 cycle superimposed over the top of the slow .5W/M-2 change. This means that if we compare the bottom of a solar cycle while in the low part of the long cycle with the top of a solar cycle in the high part of the long cycle, the difference cannot exceed 2.4W/M-2. The change in solar cycle is 1.4W/M-2 increase superimposed on the 1W/M-2 change in the baseline forcing. 1+1.4=2.4. Note that since the baseline change is assumed to be long, then this maximum difference can only happen over a century or two. Consequently you can't claim a 3 or 4W/M-2 change is due to solar cycle change unless you think the solar cycle changes by far more than 1.4W/M-2. The only way that you can get 4W/M-2 over a 50 or 60 year period is if the baseline solar forcing changes at a much faster rate than you are assuming. You can't have a 1W/M-2 change over centuries coupled with a 1.4WM-2 solar cycle and also have a 4W/M-2 change over 60 years. There can be one or the other, but not both. Does that clear up what I meant? Concerning the graph, it is what it is. It is a graph of the climate forcings used as inputs to the climate models. This immediately begs the question "Are those values correct?". What do the reconstructions say about the changes in SI over the last 1,000 years? I posted links to 4 different papers that were all SI reconstructions and all show that the long term solar forcing changed much more and much faster than the values used by the models. I have no idea why the IPCC chose to use the values they did, ask them if you want. I'm simply pointing out that the assumption of a long, slow .5W/M-2 change is in direct contradiction to what the reconstructions say happened. I invite you to reread the Bauer paper and tell me if you can find anything in it that even implies that the long term forcing was .5W/M-2. Figure 1a clearly shows the solar forcing going from a high of 1368 W/M-2 around 1250 AD to a low of 1362 W/M-2 in 1700 and back up to 1367/1368 today. I, personally would really love to know how these figures can be squashed into a .5W/M-2 figure. If you can point me to some physical reconstructions that show the long term change is in fact .5W/M-2 I'll happily read them. Until then you are in the unhappy situation of claiming the .5 value is right because the models use that value and that the models wouldn't use that value if it wasn't right right. This is circular reasoning, great for theological discussions but very poor science. I'm not too sure exactly what you thought was a "lot of supposition on my part". The point I was trying to make is that the climate reponse is proportional to size and rate of change of the forcing. For example, if the TSI went up by 5W/M-2 tomorrow the climate would change rapidly, if it went up the same amount over 300 years the climate would change much slower. The final result would be the same, but the rate of climate change would be different. This is tied in with what I was getting at re temperature reconstructions. If you think that the hockey stick is an accurate representation, ie, a long, slow gentle decline over centuries, then this neccessarily precludes any large changes in SI forcings. You can't have the TSI swinging up down by 6-10W/M-2 while the temps gently decline. You would have to postulate incredibly long lag times. If, OTOH you think as I do that the temps go up and down quite a bit and quite quickly, then rapid and large changes in TSI don't worry you because you pretty much expect them. For the climate to change a lot, rapidly, requires forcings to do so as well. I add that even a cursory look at Greenland or Antarctic cores show that the climate does indeed change a lot, and very rapidly when it wants to. I don't see what was funny in my comment about Lean et al. While using C14 and Be10 their reconstruction was based primarily on sunspot numbers. During the Maunder Minimum the number of sunspots fell to zero. To attempt to reconstruct SI of lower than 1364 W/M-2 would have required them to postulate negative sunspot numbers, something that would be amusing. It was a limitation to the methodology used in that paper. Other reconstructions, Zhang, Bard and the others are not reliant on sunspot numbers and could therefore reconstruct lower values. Second post. I doubt that there are many papers about climate change by historians. This is what I meant earlier when I said history provides qualitive but not quantitive data. In truth I don't think climate change was thought to be a factor until recently in many cases, it was simply assumed that some societies were "wiped out" by their neighbours, or disease, or they just "died out", or it was assumed that land practices were bad and reduced crop yields were from that cause rather than climate change. With better techniques and data we now know that climate change was a deciding factor in many cases. Some simple examples. The settling of Pharonic Egypt. These people were originally oasis dwellers in the Sahara. Oases in 3,600 BC weren't like they are now and many of them supported populations in the tens of thousands. Somewhere around 3,100 BC something changed. Water tables dropped or rainfall changed somewhere, but the oases started drying up forcing the people to move. They migrated east and settled in the Nile valley to become the Egyptians. So climate change is now known to be directly responsible for the founding of Pharonic Egypt. Anybody with knowledge of high school history knows that this civilisation revolved around the annual flooding of the Nile. (It was part of the Pharoahs job as the "Living God" to keep the floods happening on time.) Egyptian history tells us of "Intermediate" periods that separated the Old, Middle and New Kingdoms. These periods were times of unrest and loss of central control by Pharoah. The interesting thing is that these times were also marked by a strange change, the Nile stopped flooding or floods were very poor. This reduced Pharoahs power and influence. However the only thing that cause the Nile flood to fail for extended periods is a massive change in rainfall patterns, ie climate change. The first Intermediate period lasted for 140 years, the second for 190 years and the third for nearly 400 years. Not all of the time spent in the intermediate periods can be ascribed to climate, there were many other factors as well, but the records do tell of decades when the Nile simply didn't flood. The records also tell us that this wasn't a slow process with gradually degreasing floods, the change was quite rapid, a decade or two at most. (And they came back as quickly) The only possible explanation is rapid changes to the local climate effecting the raifall in the Nile catchment. Rome. At roughly the time of Julius Ceasar we know from the records that crop yields declined rapidly in Italy and Egypt was required by the Empire as a tributary nation simply so that Rome could feed itself. It was Romes reliance on Egyptian grain that gave Anthony and Cleopatra the chance they needed to try for Empire. The Indus. The Harappan civilisation of the Indus Sarasvati region was superior in many ways to its African and European contemporaries. Uniform weights and measures, large scale farming and building abilities, covered drains, proper sewerage, these guys were bright. So far over 1,000 cities and settlements have been found for this culture. They had trade with Mesopotamia, huge granaries and yet their survival, like the Egyptians was dependent on the rivers they lived along. At their height in 2600-1900 BC, signs of problems by 1800 BC and the cities deserted by 1700Bc. No wars, no destruction no signs a plague wiped them out. The most probable cause was climate change from 1800BC onwards, the rivers no longer provided enough water for the civilisation to survive. The Anasazi. Recent research shows the "Peublo People" had quite sophisticated farming techniques, but they were destroyed by the "Great Drought" from 1150 to 1450 AD. No matter how good your techniques, you can't water plants if the rain doesn't fall. Tiahuanaco on the shores of Lake Titicaca. Same deal. Very advanced farming techniques but the climate changed and the rain stopped falling. The city died. they went from bountiful food to nothing in the period 950-1,000 AD, fifty years to destroy an entire culture. And these guys were really good at crop raising. To quote Wiki; 1,000 years ago they were getting yields 50% higher than modern methods, yet climate change wiped them out in under a century. There are plenty more examples but they all tell the same story. We know the climate changed, sometimes very rapidly, but we don't know which way or how much. The Harappans died out because the rain stopped, but is rain reduction in the Indian Subcontinent a result of warming or cooling? And which ever it is, how big was the change? History can tell us where there were rapid and large changes, but it can't tell us the sign or magnitude of the change. There are exceptions, like the Romans and parts of Egyptian history where we find that thaws and snow falls come earlier or later to give us the sign of the change, but they still don't give us the magnitude. I thought the same and so I asked about it. It turns out that the Holocene is not unusual at all, you just have to go far enough back to when the Milankovitch cycles roughly line up the same way. This is called "Stage 11" in the literature and is the reason that nobody is expecting an Ice Age anytime soon. The last time the cycles were like this the Interglacial lasted for between 20,000 and 40,000 years, just like we expect this one to. I actually used the words "unusually stable" in my question and the response was "Actually it isn't" and I was pointed in the direction of further reading on the subject. Tell you what. I've produced 4 different peer reviewed reconstructions that show the solar forcing to be much greater than .6 W/M-2. How about you produce one to show the value is correct? Yes, the same emotive words. That was the point. Hysteria often uses the same cliches. Funny as it might seem, but after having Hansen refer to coal trains as "Death trains" with the obvious Holocaust reference, plus the unseemly word "denier", add to that calls by David Suzuki that sceptics be prosecuted for "Crimes against future Humanity" or some such. We had Joe Romm wondering when it would be okay to "strangle deniers in their beds" and Greenpeace last year saying "We need people willing to break the laws" and reminding sceptics that "We know who you are and we know where you live" culminating with the 10:10 splatter fest with sceptical people being blown up. My personal favourite is from fellow Aussie Jill singer; Although Richard Glovers; was good too. Some of us are pretty sure that some of the other side aren't playing with a full deck. I suppose that this is more about how the debate has been phrased than the science involved. There are idiots on both sides. Your side has people like 10:10 who fantasise about killing their opponents and we have the non scientific idiots who don't even think the world has warmed. But I suppose every family needs a crazy relative. BTW, I thank you for the tone of your responses. I much prefer an honest and civil exchange of ideas and arguments to a slug fest of name calling. As I said above and considering the Milankovitch cycles, about 100%. The Holocene is not unusual in any way. And yes I did hear the news about Willie Soon, what a pity it wasn't "news". Greenpeace should have simply read his papers instead of launching FOI applications because Dr. Soon puts the funding bodies in his acknowledgements. IOW, if you read the papers you know who he was funded by. There was nothing secret or hidden, it was quite up front. Are you making an accusation of scientific fraud on the part of Dr. Soon, or are you simply joining Greenpeaces whispering campaign? If there is an accusation to make, then I suggest somebody make it. This is the most disgraceful part of the climate debate IMO. Does 2+2 somehow not equal 4 if the claimant gets some oil funding? So we should only trust scientists funded by Greenpeace? Or only those funded by the renewables industry? Or government? If Dr Soons research is wrong then that can be demonstrated for the world to see. (Remember we are talking about peer reviewed papers here, so I can only presume that the reviewers and Journal editors were also somehow paid off by "Big Oil" to allow the paper to be published.) It's that simple. Show that he is wrong, demonstrate it, prove it, that is how science works. (Or at least that is how it's supposed to work.) There is only one reason to descend to grubby character assassination. Greenpeace and others can't find anything wrong with his science, so the only tactic left is to smear the Drs name and hope that nobody will listen to him. An unusual tactic indeed if the science is "settled", strong and well proven wouldn't you say? "Science" doesn't care where the funding comes from. Science cares about what is provable. Whether from Greenpeace, or from oil funding or from the Heartland Institute, if the assumptions can be shown to be correct and the maths is right, then the science is probably right. The funding is irrelevent to the science, it's only relevent if you want to run a smear campaign and have no science left to prove your case. Good science is open and transparent, putting up ideas and daring others to poke holes in them. The more an idea is attacked and the attacks are answered the better and stronger the science gets. Relativity isn't a strong theory because it was never attacked, it is a strong theory because it has beaten everybody who tried to prove it wrong. In contrast anybody who doubts "climate science" is supposed to be some sort of creationist or flat earther. Good science doesn't deny data access and hide behind IPR, it's out there and takes on all comers. The only reason I can think of to hide things and refuse to respond to criticism is because you have no ability to prove your idea in the light of day. That can be called many things, but "science" isn't one of them. A final thought. There is an interesting psychological phenomena called "Projection" where we project onto others our own behaviour. A congenital liar simply assumes that their opponent is one too. I wonder why Greenpeace et al think that sceptics are biased, lying, fudging the data and producing junk science? PS. The megafauna started dying out some 2 million years ago. The most probable cause that I can think of is the changes to the climate from the land bridge forming between North and South America. This of course blocked the equatorial current that used to flow from the Atlantic into the Pacific and resulted in major climate changes. I'm aware that many believe man to be responsible and for some this may be correct. However the fact cannot be ignored that the megafauna died out everywhere, including places that man had never been. Many (maybe most) were gone long before H. Sapiens had even evolved, so it's a bit of a stretch to blame humans for the extinction of the megafauna. The great Sabre tooth died out because the climate changed and the forests it hunted in became grasslands, populated by fast running deer. It simply couldn't keep up to their speed. That amazing Elk in N America with the 10 foot wide antlers would have been fine in tundra or grasslands, but if they give way to forests due to climate change that those antlers become a hinderance trapping the animal and preventing it from escaping things like wolves.