this troubles me ..., page-2

Dex, the Industrial Revolution was born in 1709, at Coaldale in Shropshire, when Abraham Darby first smelted iron using coke. It took a while to gain momentum, but was certainly moving nicely in the early 1800s - as you say, two hundred years ago. The only problem with the AGW crowd's hypothesis is that CO2 levels then were in the 420 - 480 range; above what they are now, when they were still holding ice parties on the Thames. That is a very inconvenient truth for them.

I don't think that environmentalism is inextricably linked to AGW. You are right though, in saying that the perception of environmentalism will receive a set back when people realise they have been duped on such an expensive exercise, but I think that the issues of rain forest destruction, species extinction and pollution should be enough to keep the majority of valid environmental efforts on track. And increasing prices of oil and gas enough to continue research into alternatives - to say nothing of Fukushima.

Although it is politically incorrect, let us focus and publicise the damage that the first humans did on arrival in Australia, which was completely forested until they started burns to make wildlife easier to catch. Not, in ANY sense, a blame game, just a factual "We had an ecosystem where a whole continent was forested, which by its existence created sufficient rainfall even in the interior for its survival, and that of the fauna that lived in it. And these deserts are what we have now" approach. You, too, can achieve the magnificence of the Simpson's sand dunes, the arid beauty of the Great Western desert by following those simple guidelines.

It is also quite probable that the ME deserts were created by the copper industry, who would have used vast quantities of timber for their smelting activities.