@ C 2

*sigh*

Don't you see? With all respect, this was an article written in an objective style about a meeting between two groups with opposing views, for once getting together to have a sensible and open debate in good order and with polite conduct.

Your comment starts with FAIL etc, please, leave it at the door.

I'll respond to your comments, and ask you to listen, really really listen, and hopefully you'll consider what I've got to say without bluster or hubris.

The climate has ALWAYS changed. No one is debating that. You only need to look at the geographic record to understand how extreme this has been - the world has been ice-free before, and in my humble opinion it is inevitable that it will be again. It's been tropical, it's been locked in ice. These things happen because the climate is a chaotic system and is in a state of flux, constantly.

Here is the point: You say the artic ice has been melting and there are trade routes opening for the first time ever - with respect I suggest you look up "The Northwest Passage" and realise that vikings sailed much of it, and it was open in the early 1900s.... not to open again until 1990s. But that aside, my point is that the argument is not about whether the climate is changing, but what level of influence man has had over this.

Legend has it that there was a king who decided he was so powerful, he could command the tide to stop. Not much to add, other than he drowned.

The idea that a man could command the tide is utterly hubristic, and laughable, even I am sure to you. The idea that man could stop or reverse climate change seems almost as laughable - IF climate change is not man made. Further, why is it up to man to decide that the conditions in 1980 or whatever when this all kicked off are "optimal" and should continue forever after?

From my point of view, the money squandered on climate change is borderline criminal negligence. The good that could be done to reduce preventable disease, provide clean drinking water and medication, improve education and generally make the prospects for millions of people locked in poverty, with even a fraction of the money Europe is prepared to spend on an unproven issue just shows how absurd the whole situation is.

But sadly, I know you won't read this. I know you'll have posted your little rant in the comments, and you'll now go off, confident that you've Won The Internet, with such cutting and informed Last Words on the Matter. If, by some miracle of tolerance or ritalin, whichever gets you through the day, you get to this point, I hope that you'll at least consider the folly of trying to control a system infinitely more powerful that anything you could hope to do short of an atomic bomb, and get on with adapting to survive in a changing and interesting world. It might just be exciting.