1) The most important greenhouse gas is water, yes. But we do not directly control it. The amount of water vapour in the air is an indirect effect of temperature. If other greenhouse gasses are increased then temperature will rise, which would also drive up the amount of water vapour in the air.

2) Yes, carbon dioxide is used by plants to breathe. Your point is?

3) You’re being silly! Climatologists do not agree that changes in the Earth’s climate are a result of changing solar output. Who told you that? And it isn’t as though astronomers aren’t watching for increases in solar output.

4) I haven’t looked at the problems with the Hockey Stick graph, so won’t comment on it.

5) You like the whole ‘the sun is changing the environment’ thing don’t you? And the evidence that the sun’s output is increasing and making the world hotter is where?

6) Yes (I haven’t checked your claim) maybe a one degree rise has been noted over the last year. You are wrong if you believe a temperature rise of a degree per century has no consequences.

7) Yes, we have had ice ages and global warming in the past. And they predate our population, urbanisation and economies – a climate change now is not in our interests. That does not mean that we are not also influencing the climate. There is no evidence of the orbital or solar effects that are thought to have influenced previous climate changes. The history of ice ages suggests that we should be entering an ice age on a geologically soon timescale. So there is little reason to expect natural global warming now.

8) You’re right, a carbon tax is just a tax. And like all taxes it encourages people to spend their money in ways that minimise paying tax. For this reason it will reduce the amount of carbon being pumped into the atmosphere.

It is not the only way – carbon trading is a possibility too. An auction worked wonderfully well to reduce sulphur dioxide generated in the US.

Therefore you don’t have to believe humans are causing global warming, you just have to believe that cleaner air is better. Not a hard sell I think.

Climatolgists (who understand the weather better than a biologist) agree that what is driving the current changes in the weather is the sun and not humans. If you remember 15 years ago it was global cooling now we have global warming. Since climatologists revealed the scam in the hockey stick program the call has been turned from global warming to climate change (which occurs naturally and is driven by the sun). Climatologists also note that the temperature of the earth has risen less than 1º C over the past hundred + years since records have been kept.

The earth has a history of ice ages and global warming to melt this ice. Humans do not cause these cycles.

A carbon tax is just that – another tax – which will not affect the weather by even 0.1%. Keeping abreast of the fads is a politician’s lifeline. If you tell a lie long enough then people will believe it to be true.