So you are motivated by blind greed and this blinds you to the scientific proof. Or you prefer to lie to others about the reliability of the science for your own financial gain.

There is of course, historical precedent. You might think that when the time comes to admit you were wrong, you be able to say "aww shucks sorry about that" and all will be forgiven.

In reality, the delay in addressing climate change, which you helped cause, is costing us. There are a number people working diligently with spreadsheets to understand that cost. You owe us, and we'll collect.

Well, someone's lying. Them. You. Don't much care who.

You're only embarrassing yourself. The 'weapons' they found were manufactured during the Iran-Iraq war. They were found on a scrapheap behind an abandoned building. The Iraqis didn't even know they were there. The Rumsfeld/Cheney/Wolfowitz regime claimed that WMD were still being manufactured. Powell claimed there were facilities still producing weapons.

These 'weapons' were about as dangerous as a cup-a-soup. If aluminium tubes frighten you enough that you think it justifies killing 500 000 people, you need to see a psychiatrist.

It's pretty simple really. If models have no predictive ability, and you can't/won't describe another mechanism which HAS predictive ability, then your assertion that the rate of change in the climate will be "less" than the rate predicted by the models has no basis in fact.

Nobody owes you a burden of proof.

We know the likelihood of asteroid impacts to a reasonable degree of certainty. How? Using science. In fact, we use models.

So you tell us that the science is uncertain, but you yourself are certain of the likelihood of catastrophe. How did you reach that conclusion? did you point bones? chicken entrails?

Is there any plausible reason for us to accept your witchcraft?

Feel free to point us to a reputable journal is which you've published your analysis of the present situation, including. specifically how you extrapolated from current observations to a prediction of future events.

That's quite possible.

I've engaged in conversations where denialists make an assertion, and when rebutted, come back a few days later and make the same assertion again. It's impossible to exhibit those behavioural traits without deliberately concealing that you know you are wrong.

You're right : it's quite possible that no denialist actually believes the basic assertions of denialism.

Indeed.

We need to continue to invest (massively) in climate research. At the same time, because there is uncertainty about model predictions we have to assume that the outcome could be worse the predictions, and begin mitigating against those outcomes immediately.

It's a pity that model outcomes could not be more certain.

These ones: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/... Are you now going to claim that Powell acted alone?

You're embarrassing yourself.

Saddam gassed the Kurds with the gas that you gave him. And later Rumsfeld dropped by to shake his hand.

Don't expect to be given the moral high ground over Saddam. During their mercifully brief but incredibly bloody reign, Rumsfeld/Cheney killed more Iraqis than he did during any period of the same length.

That gas was expired long before the lying started: the best the Iraqi Air Force could have done with it would be to hurl it from the plane and hope to hit someone in the head with the canister.

Fascinating. So based on 4 examples of modelling based abstraction of trend lines, you feel confident to declare that all modelling is overrated. Even though your examples don't include the model from the article.

No it isn't.

Pretty show nobody is graphing a trend line to find the cause of ebola. We already knew what caused ebola before anybody drew a line.

I'm not convinced.

Can you provide an example of modelling based on abstraction of trend lines?

In my experience, this false assumption (that arbitrarily short trends, rather than the trends at the granularity of the model) seems to be the assumption made by people asserting that modelling is useless. Mind you, my experience mostly comes from dealing with morons.

Why?

Bush killed 500 000 people in Iraq alone, based on a false premise that he knew at the time to be false.

Not to suggest that the current surveillance is at all acceptable but it is not in the same league as the actions of the previous regime.

Saying "The model's are wrong, we don't know how fast the climate is changing" would naturally induce panic or worse (from the perspective of the denialist cause), massive investment in climate change mitigation. If the climate models are wrong, then there is a possibility that the situation is worse then predicted. Because denialists don't have models they can't tell us how likely that circumstance is, so naturally we must prepare for the worst.

Luckily for them, nobody believes their lies.

Without proof? Yes, this amounts to conspiracy theory.

Also climate deniers tend to make a very specific prediction with regard to climate: that the climate will remain pretty much the same regardless of the concentrations of greenhouse gas, or alternatively, that negative feedback will effectively overwhelm any positive feedback (leading to climate staying essentially the same). These assertions require proof, and this proof requires predictive modelling.

The OP didn't mention climate models nor provide any basis for doubting climate models.

Besides which most people who cast aspersions on the accuracy of climate models fail to recognise the consequences of that argument. If climate models are inaccurate than there can be no basis for the denialist claim that changing the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere won't impact the climate. Denialists need models, and they need those models to agree with them.

Maybe we should send a comatose guy and a woman in an iron lung up there. For the challenge.

And we could eat a bag of pine cones as well.

"Post Apollo"?

I'd rate landing on Mars and then driving about for 10 years to be a higher achievement than landing on the Moon and staying for a few hours.