Bob Carter: Planet not too hot to handle

Bob Carter: Planet not too hot to handle
"The debate on climate change is over, says Ian Campbell. Claiming to be speaking on behalf of the federal Government, and expressly John Howard, the Environment Minister, according to the front page of this newspaper yesterday, said "he agreed broadly with the contention promoted recently in ... Tim Flannery's book The Weather Makers".
"The minister may be right to assert that the debate on climate change is over. But only in two ways: that contemporary climate change is proceeding in the same manner as known earlier episodes of natural climate change; and that any human-caused global climate signature is buried in the noise of the climate system."
Bob Carter, a former director of the Australian Ocean Drilling Office, is professor of paleoclimatology at James Cook University in Townsville.