I have written a large number of essays on ‘Anthropogenic Global Warming’ (AGW) and its later sister ‘climate change’, a term which came into use in about 2004, when dedicated Climate Botherers could see that warming was refusing to rise as it had done, while carbon dioxide accumulations in the atmosphere were indeed rising as they had done. I use inverted commas around ‘climate change’ to indicate that what is referred to here is not changes in climate, but ‘changes in climate caused by human activities’, which is what the United Nations Framework Convention of Climate Change (UNFCCC) thinks is the world’s great problem. One consequence of this mangled definition is that little work is funded on what might be called ‘natural variability’, to everyone’s cost.

After the 2015 Paris Conference of the Parties (CoP21), which agreed unanimously to a set of propositions that commit no one to anything other than to more conferences, I decided that I was in danger of writing the same stuff again and again: nothing had changed since I had written my first major piece on the subject in 2008, other than that the science of climate was less settled than it had been proclaimed to be, and that my sense that AGW was much more about politics than it was science was even more strongly held.

So I decided to summarise what I had learned, and provide it to interested readers. The essays are numbered, and pursue a sequence that I at least think is sensible. I will add to the set over the next little while. I am perfectly happy to respond to questions, once readers have done some reading.

The current list is as follows.

My perspective on ‘climate change’ and global warming. 1: History

My perspective on ‘climate change’ and global warming. 2. A chronology of the scare

My perspective on ‘climate change’ and global warming. 3. The core argument behind the AGW scare

Is the planet warming? My perspective on global warming # 4

Are human beings causing the warming? My perspective on ‘climate change’ #5

Are the seas rising? My perspective on ‘climate change’ #6

How useful are climate models? My perspective on climate change #7

Why do so many people believe in all this? My perspective on ‘climate change’ #8

‘But wouldn’t it be useful to move to alternative energy anyway?’ #9 My perspective on climate change

‘But aren’t 97 per cent of climate scientists sure that humans are causing global warming?’ #10 My perspective on Climate Change

‘Well, why do all the scientific academies support the AGW issue as something that governments and the world must deal with?’ #11 My perspective on ‘climate change’

‘When is it ‘weather’ and when is it ‘climate’?’ #12 My perspective on climate change

How not to argue #13 My perspective on climate change

The battlelines #14 My perspective on Climate Change

My perspective on Climate change #15 ‘But what about the precautionary principle?’

A Summary #16 My perspective on global warming and ‘climate change’