More framing stuff... oh dear. From Dave Roberts. Found whilst trying to establish whether "world climate report" is notable by wiki standards (Got an opinion on that? Feel free to comment here or on wiki...). Anyway, DR says:
Consider RealClimate. Did the scientists involved in the site really start it purely to raise the level of public knowledge about climate change? I think not. They wanted to raise the public level of knowledge about climate change because they thought by doing so they would make it more likely that society would address the problem. In other words: they want society to act to fight climate change. They want action. That's their ultimate goal... They see a huge problem that's going to cause widespread suffering; they want us to do something about it. That makes them decent human beings, not impure scientists.
I'm not sure this is true (obvious disclaimer: I'm talking for me, not for RC). I'm quite agnostic about the damage that might be caused by global warming (speaking (perhaps) of which, I've finally found a good article about the Australian drough, in the Economist, that has finally convinced me it really is a big problem for them. The Economist does some things very well, and they have become saner on GW recently). I wish we could drop all the stupid arguments about is-warming-human-caused and will-it-get-hotter (yes, of course it will) and move on to the more relevant discussions of will-it-be-a-bad-thing. But in the meantime, we see septics put forward blatantly false arguments that the public fall for (step forward, The Great Global Warming Swindle, etc etc) and since we know the answers, its rather hard to avoid giving the answers. Hopefully this is useful or interesting to people. So, we (I) do it because we are interested in giving people the truth about this issue, or at least those bits of truth we know, or correcting misapprehensions (theres a distinction: at least for myself I think the need to correct wrongness is greater than the need to tell people new truths: perhaps because DR gets at least that much correct: there is enough info out there for the public already, what is needed is not more info but to know which is correct).
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William - so what was about the Economist article that convinced you that we have a few current issues with dryness in Australia ?
[Maybe just that it was laid out conveniently for me to read. They did have some nice graphs of the Murray-Darling flow, too -W]
And so on the "will-it-be-a-bad-thing" - Australian farmers and graziers are now having to consider their risk management, probabilities and likely cash flows.
To keep going, restructure their operations, invest in infrastructure, get out of farming, buy bigger farms, diversify, or move to the wetter areas of the Northern Territory or the Limberley in Western Australia.
Perhaps some corporates are looking at diversifying globally - Australia, USA, South America.
So yes real people in the real world are now making life altering decisions about their farming future. So they have to make assessments on climate variability versus AGW with the current state of the knowledge imperfect as it may be.
This is not a practice drill !
And so to an analogy with that great science fiction movie Alien (1979). Ship's mega-computer "Mother" being asked for advice. Ripley is angered by Ash's lack of solutions and inability to neutralize the Alien - Ash has conveniently remained quiet, out-of-focus, and in the background of the frame. He answers her with his back turned:
Ripley: Ash?! Any suggestions from you or Mother?
Ash: No, we're still collating.
Ripley: (laughing in disbelief) You what? You're still collating? I find that hard to believe.
Ash: What would you like me to do?
Ripley: Just what you've been doing, Ash, nothing! I've got access to Mother, now, and I'll get my own answers, thank you.
Ash: All right. (He turns and gives her a rushed, official salute.)
On the subject of the Aussie drought I'm happy to say we've finally had a bit of rain, though we'll need a fair bit more.
As for W's comments on severity (or not) of climate impacts.:
In Australia availability of water is the limiting factor for a lot of our agriculture, and quite a bit of the agriculture goes on in pretty marginal areas. It doesn't take a big change in average rainfall to make a big difference to agriculture here.
No-one is going to starve in Australia, but what about third world farmers in similarly marginal arid areas.
In marginal places small changes make a big difference - just ask the Greenland Vikings (or indeed todays Greenland farmers).