The list of points in the last post has appeared elsewhere on the net: all the points have been addressed already at a scientific level. Here's a quick run through.

1) The sun is getting warmer over a period of 100s of millions of years, too slowly to be noticeable to us. It also fluctuates on periods of 100,000 (and other) years coinciding with the start and finish of ice ages. Sunspot cycles over decades have produced a small warming over the 20th century (about 1/5th of effect of GHG warming (from Weather, Climate and Climate change O'Hare et al 2005)).

2) Mars is subject to the same solar influences that we are but doesn't have human industry and agriculture pumping out 25 billion tonnes/year of greenhouse gases, so will not warm as fast as Earth.

3) 11 of the last 12 years are in the 12 hottest years since global records began in 1850 (IPCC AR4 WG1). Where does the 1930s come into that?

4) 'these very same scientists' - what, all 2500 of them in a group report signed off by most of the member nations of the UN? We live in an interglacial and previous interglacials have been about 10-20,000 years long so some scientists forecasted an ice age. However, 30 years later, computers, satellites, earth science and most importantly industrial emissions have moved on dramatically.

5) 5degC separates us from the last ice age and industrial emissions are still on a rapid upward trend, implying faster and faster change to the atmosphere and potential temp increase of 5degC or more by 2100. The problem is not what we have already experienced but what we are committed to in the future.

6) The significance of the hockey stick graph is the recent run of record temperatures. The US National Academy of Sciences issued a report backing up this finding. The Medieval Warm Period might not appear in global temperature measurements if it was a regional effect - see Michael Mann (one of the authors)'s comments at Realclimate.org.

7) Indian Gross National Income/head is $600, Chinese GNI is $1200, British GNI is $33,000, US GNI is $43,000. Developing countries will adopt green technologies but can't afford to develop them: we need to do that. China already has higher public awareness and car pollution standards than the US.

8) Actually, successfully destroying a widely accepted falsehood would be an excellent way to go down in scientific history. A recent paper (Parmesan 2006) surveyed studies of changes in plant and animal distributions in different continents as evidence of climate change: let's be specific - do you have any evidence of any sort that the data in this study were falsified, exaggerated, distorted, alarmist or anything else? You think we should ignore evidence of ecosystem changes because according to you, all the researchers are simply chasing headlines and money? Perhaps the birds are changing their migrations so they can qualify for 'distressed bird' grants?

And on and on .. some of the points (eg solar influence, ice age) are repeated. It's also true that not all parts on the earth are getting warmer - warming is concentrated in the arctic e.g. Canada, Russia. But one point which illustrates the non-science on which these arguments lie: 'There are about 160,000 glaciers around the world. Most have never been visited or measured by man. The great majority of these glaciers are growing, not melting.' When the glaciers that are being studied are all shrinking, how can you possibly assert that all the ones which 'have never been visited' are growing? How do you know? Where are your measurements for all these glaciers that 'have never been .... measured by man'?

Luckily humanity has a sufficiently functioning political system despite all the lobbying that our energy and environment policy is not based on this sort of bar room logic. Download the IPCC report and have a read of that if you want an up-to-date view of what is really happening to the Earth.