For those seriously following the discussion and not trying to kill it, I have been trying to find some information on Venus after DutchRoll mentioned the greenhouse effect there causing high temperatures on an earlier post. I can remember reading about a different line of reasoning presented by physicists and not climatologists, but didn't have the time to follow it up until recently. In short, the heat on Venus (atmosphere of 96% CO2 and then some sulphuric acid and other gases) can be readily explained and mathematically calculated based on the energy from the sun and the density of the atmosphere (roughly 90-92 times that of the earth at the surface) using the Stefan-Boltzmann law. Nothing to do with CO2 and proposed greenhouse gas properties. (You might also be interested to know that a certain James Hansen had a lot to do with the initial proposal of the greenhouse effect on Venus.) The atmosphere on Venus has the same or similar temperature lapse rate as earth, which also bolsters an argument against greenhouse effect.
Further reading here: ://theendofthemystery.b.logspot.com/2010/11/venus-no-greenhouse-effect.html
Copy and paste the link, add "http" to the front and remove the period between the "b" and the "l". (Pprune won't acknowledge the unedited link.)
The Greenhouse Effect is really just a carry-over theory from Prevost from 220 years ago and put into development by Arrhenius. For some time, many physicists have disputed the "Greenhouse Effect", saying that it cannot apply to the earth's atmosphere (or Venus' for that matter) because it conflicts with the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics.
(Time for an annoying Factoid.
By way of background, heat is transferred by 3 methods: convection, conduction and radiation. A garden greenhouse heats up by trapping
convective heat. The Greenhouse Effect as it applies to the atmosphere is theorised to work by trapping outgoing
radiative heat.)
From this
link:
Second Law of Thermodynamics: It is not possible for heat to flow from a colder body to a warmer body without any work having been done to accomplish this flow. Energy will not flow spontaneously from a low temperature object to a higher temperature object.
The pro-AGWers would have you believe that the lower atmosphere heats up with back radiation from CO2 molecules in the upper atmosphere. Big problem with this theory is that (and pilots will have first hand experience of atmospheric temperatures) the pro-AGWers are asking you to believe that heat somehow travels from the colder sections of the upper atmosphere to warmer sections of the lower atmosphere. This is in conflict with the 2nd law. I'm always willing to accept that a science law can be broken and I'm looking forward to the day it might happen, even if incredibly unlikely. (Witness the excitement from the science world when CERN revealed after some 3000 experiments that they might have found neutrinos travelling faster than light. They couldn't seem to explain any other possibility. It took only one scientist to factor in the Law of Relativity applied to the positioning of GPS satellites relative to the neutrino trajectories and position of the measuring stations to destroy that nice thought.) However, I don't think the pro-AGWers have been able to crack that 2nd thermodynamic law just yet.
At this rate, Australian businesses will be trading carbon credits between themselves with Goldman Sachs lightly touching every transaction. At the end of the year, another large outflow of cash to the IPCC will occur courtesy of the Aussie taxpayer and I'm sure this also will be lightly touched by GS and other fine banking institutions. And as the Europeans are starting to find out, the heavy industries...or what's left of them...will be packing their bags for sunnier destinations. Qantas might become Australia's Financial Employees', Public Servants' and Politician's airline. No one else will be able to afford it.