To labour the analogy, if the goods were subject to the Trade Practices Act, the shopkeeper would likely be prosecuted We the public are being asked to pay for something for which we cannot have title or quiet possession (China will consume all our yearly emission savings within days), which is not fit for purpose (will not reduce national emissions since 2/3 of the "reduction" will come from international offsets with credibility problems yet to be discovered), and will not be supplied in accordance with sample (not all carbon storages will have value).

In short, considering the price, the goods are not of merchantable quality ; they may be defective or break (ie get rorted), and it is literally impossible to determine whether they can do what they are advertised to do (ie avoid 250-500ha of GBR loss, avoid increasing droughts in MDB etc etc). If (when) any of those failures-to-perform appear, can I get a refund from the shopkeeper or the manufacturer?

Michael, seems the tide is shifting, don't be surprised to find yourself standing high and dry.

Michael J I Brown: How about debating real Physics rather than your regular generalities. I could make generalities in my specialty in Natural Medicine too, I guess, but the Life Extension Foundation does a better job of showing up the medical profession for its inexplicable delays in accepting new proven discoveries at a cost of millions of lives - penicilin - the link between cholesterol and heart disease - the link between homocysteine and heart disease, birth defects and more - the link between vitamin D and diabetes and many other diseases not least of which TB.

You studied physics - you know that the Second Law of Thermodynamics does not apply in the atmosphere due to differences in pressure. You know that if photons cause warming in the upper atmosphere that "warm" air (actually well below freezing point) does not come down to Earth to warm it.

"Climate change is not going away" people say. Very true, but global warming is - at least at sea surface where we have the most accurate temperature records unaffected by urban crawl and measured to 0.01 degree from NASA satellites. Comparing the last 12 months with the year 2003, these figures shown that there has been NO accumulation of heat despite increasing levels of CO2. A visual check of these charts easily confirms what I am saying: http://earth-climate.com/2003-2011.jpg

Furthermore, NASA is predicting that the next sunspot maximum in June 2013 will be the lowest since 1907. There was very low sunspot activity in the 17th century "Little Ice Age" and now there is good reason to expect another such cold period within the next 500 years.

OK. So the Second Law of Thermodynamics doesn't work in the atmosphere because it doesn't produce uniform pressure as it would (approximately) in a true closed system. So that leaves only the mechanism of feedback IR radiation. BUT the IPC model does NOT show any warming in the Earth's crust as it shows ZERO net energy input http://earth-climate.com/IPCCdiag.jpg Nor does it show a realistic percentage feedback from the greenhouse gases, because slightly less than 50% of photons that are captured will be emitted back to Earth, and then with less energy. Then, when they warm the crust it will emit more photons back again than it would have if there had been no feedback. Also, adjacent air will be warmed by direct contact and thence convection. The photons that go back up will more often than not get to space, and the heat that drifts up in the warm air rising will do likewise. So the whole system cools down at night, being kept luke warm by the heat from the crust which is around 300 deg. C just 10,000 metres underground. (There are references on http://earth-climate.com )

So, all in all, there are sound reasons based on conventional Physics as to why the greenhouse warming is only very temporary for a few hours at most, and does not affect long-term mean temperatures, as we are seeing since the peak in 1998 which was caused by the same natural phenomena that also caused the lead up to El Nino. Once the aftermath of El Nino settled down by the end of 2002, temperatures have been very level, if not even slightly declining.

What the world should be preparing for is major cooling in about 400 to 500 years' time, maybe sooner as happened in a similar cycle 900 to 1000 years ago, and the one 900 to 1000 years before that etc. Climate change is not going away. We just need to understand the mechanism that clearly displays regular cycles closely correlated with the eccentricity of Jupiter and, to some extent, other planets.

In summary: we saw El Nino come and go - and its heat wafted off the space. We have not seen temperature gradients that continue to just happen to be similar to those of CO2 levels in the 1970-2000 period. Now the gradients of the two charts are VERY different - for one simple reason: there never was any cause and effect relationship in the first place.

So debate the Physics, Michael - I challenge you. You know where to find my argument at http://earth-climate.com - as over 11,000 have already in its first month and a bit.

Ian,

I take your point. I used the GBR example because 1. I have an estimate of what the benefit can be and 2. People will place some value in its health. But yes, you are right - information delivered at the personal level: "What does it mean for me?" is much more pertinent than general statements of risk. But a number of such factors are listed in the following para, suggesting I didn't miss the point, but lacked space and information; there really is a lack of research framed in this way.

I reckon it's research worth doing.