Or maybe they think the target audience is particularly gullible.

Suppose you manage to carve a nice big chunk of ore from an asteroid, how do you safely land it on earth ?

The GISTEMP graph has an upward trend in your graph.

The HADCRUT data doesn't cover the Arctic, which is the area of the earth that has shown the most warming in recent years. Arguably, the HADCRUT data underestimates the global temperature.

Without the raw numbers, and precise details on how they were reconciled, this isn't science - it's just politics.

Science is built around dealing with incomplete data. Anyway, you can fairly easily verify the numbers in a little while by comparing them to the latest CO2 measurements in the atmosphere.

So, why isn't there a decent trend line drawn into the graph ?

Here's the same data, with trend lines, and some discussion about the error bars and statistical significance:

http://tamino.wordpress.com/2011/10/30/judith-curry-opens-mouth-inserts-foot/

If you notice the graph, it has some very low outliers near the end. These are based on preliminary data, and have huge error bars. It's best to remove those.

On the site below, you can select your own graphs, and post-processing. I've selected the BEST data from 1950 to 2010, plus trend lines from 1950 to 2001, and a trend line from 2001 to 2010. I've omitted 2011 because of the 2 outliers in the last two months.

http://woodfortrees.org/plot/best/from:1950/to:2010/plot/best/from:2001/to:2010/trend/plot/best/from:1950/to:2001/trend

As you can see, there's not much difference in trend lines. If you include 2011 as well, the trend changes to mostly flat, but that's because of the still bad quality preliminary data for the last couple of months.

Of course, trends over 10 year are not really meaningful, let alone trends over even shorter period. Really, you should be looking at trends over 20+ years instead.

Exactly. We only discovered crude oil in the first place, because it was seeping out of the ground. All those places are gone.

If the next civilization comes along 10,000 years from now, they're not going to drill 3 miles deep, 200 miles off-shore, to pump out some of the remaining oil.

Depends on when the model run started. If you take a model, and start it at 1900, while providing it with all the external influences until now, it may certainly disagree with today's temperature.

Of course, any errors in the model could used to figure out what parts of the model could be improved. Together with faster computers and better data, it's reasonable to assume the next generation model will have smaller errors.

CO2 has been higher before.

Correct. But the sun was also weaker before, and continents in different places. It also has been hotter, and sea levels have been higher.

Of course, that's all very interesting, but that doesn't take away from the fact that humans are profoundly changing the planet's climate on a large scale.

running out of fossil fuel will be much more efficient

Agreed. It will be very efficient, and I have no doubt that's exactly what we'll do.

there will still always be petrol for your Ferrari for those who can afford it.

No, because when there's not enough oil, civilization as we know it will collapse, including all the infrastructure needed to get the oil from the ground into your Ferrari.

then perhaps what we are seeing now are CO2 levels increasing due to what temperatures were doing 800 years ago

Several more reasons why this couldn't be true:

a) Ocean acidity is increasing, which indicated CO2 is absorbed, rather than released.

b) Carbon isotopes of atmospheric CO2 indicate that there has been in increase in very old carbon, which matches the signature of carbon stored in fossil fuels.

c) Oxygen levels in the atmosphere have decreased slightly in the last century, consistent with increase CO2 from burning.

d) If you add up all the carbon from all the fossil fuel we've burned, the number is about twice as big as the increase of carbon in the atmosphere. So, if the atmospheric CO2 is coming from some "natural" source like the oceans, where did all the CO2 from burning fossil fuels go ?

global temperatures are NOT increasing by huge amounts in an extremely short time, DESPITE CO2 levels increasing in an extremely short time

Global temperatures are increasing by fairly big amounts in a short time.

perhaps what we are seeing now are CO2 levels increasing due to what temperatures were doing 800 years ago - a period, if I'm not very much mistaken, which we call the Medieval Warm period

No, apparently you have never looked closely at CO2 concentration in the atmosphere. Here is a picture of the last half million years:

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/File:Carbon_Dioxide_400kyr.png

Note how the recent increase is much higher than before, and also goes almost vertical. Increases due to glacial cycles were much slower.

Also, even if there was an 800 year lag, it doesn't work that way. You cannot warm up the earth, cool it down again, and then see nothing happen until exactly 800 years later. And, of course, the MWP was nothing spectacular anyway. Compared to the glacial cycles, the MWP temperature swings were tiny, so the CO2 response should be tiny too.

And "normal" is just the long term average. Say between 200-300 ppm. You can see from the graph that's about the range that the earth has moved between in the last half million years. Based on the sharp increase in the graph, it is obvious were dealing with something unique here.

Not only should they have access to the raw data, they must also have access to the way this raw data was collected.

In fact, that's not even enough. Anybody wishing to discuss this issue must personally collect all raw data themselves, using instruments they personally created. This is too important to rely on 3rd party data.

In the mean time, we must choose to err on the side of caution, and keep the party going.

The US graph is the one that's highest until a couple of years ago, when it got overtaken by China.

The colors are not the same, by the way. China is blue and the US is purple.

Here's the graph of the Berkeley data you're talking about:

https://tamino.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/berk4.jpg

Blue line is a linear interpolation of pre-1998 data.
Green line is an extrapolation of that same line.
Red line is interpolation of post-1998 data.

I don't see any evidence the trend has stopped. Do you ?