I’m normally a “trust but verify” sort of guy. But there are some strong reasons why I will never, ever fully be good at arguing about climate change. For that matter, neither will the media.

This extraordinary diagram which appears to prove that the earth is plummetting rapidly into an ice age:

(Available in a powerpoint presentation here - ignore the Russian and scroll down to the text “The Kyoto Protocol: an Assault on Economic Growth, Environment, Public Safety, Science and Human Civilization”. Or just click on the PPT. 3+ megs)

The diagram comes from slide 58. So I go to try to verify this diagram by pulling up the orginal article. Unfortunately, not even my University subscription will let me access the full text, but check out the damn abstract -

An interpretation of the deuterium profile measured along the Vostok (East Antarctica) ice core down to 2755 m has been attempted on the basis of the borehole temperature analysis. An inverse problem is solved to infer a local “geophysical metronome,” the orbital signal in the surface temperature oscillations expressed as a sum of harmonics of Milankovich periods. By correlating the smoothed isotopic temperature record to the metronome, a chronostratigraphy of the Vostok ice core is derived with an accuracy of +/-3.0-4.5 kyr. The developed timescale predicts an age of 241 kyr at a depth of 2760 m. The ratio δD/δTi between deuterium content and cloud temperature fluctuations (at the top of the inversion layer) is examined by fitting simulated and measured borehole temperature profiles.

It keeps going. There is no way a layman could get a handle on this debate. Constitutional law and economics, my two current targets for learnin’ are so much easier to survey, if not master.

In summary - I am not a scientist. I made this quite clear to my science teachers in year 10, and I am making it quite clear to the internet right now.