Firstly, it's a shame to argue when people are dead and dying,...

Firstly, it's a shame to argue when people are dead and dying, but I'm hearing all the time that it's because of "man made global warming". I heard the other day that "man made global warming" must be real because 97% of scientists say so. Using that logic back in the 16th century, the universe circled earth because all scientists but Capernicus said so. What caused this to change? Why isn't earth the centre of the universe any more?

But there is one other point. If earth was gradually warming, wouldn't these cyclones/typhoons become slowly stronger. "Haiyan" is considered the 4th strongest on record. The 3 previous were more than 50 yrs ago. With gradual global warming causing more extreme storms, I would expect a stronger storm say every two or three years. Not a one off after 50y.

Recently parts of Aust had it's hottest Sept for 84yrs and some blamed that on global warming. Again why the delay? Why a sudden outburst and not a gradually consistent rise in temp. every couple of yrs or so.

A couple of scientists recently went to the low lying atolls of Kirabati to see for themselves how much the islands had sunk. They were surprised that whilst two of the islands had lost area due to erosion, 27 had an increase in area, the rest constant. So the went next door to the Marshalls and found similar growth.

The ice in Antartica is showing evidence of being significantly larger this year than recent yrs. About 5 yrs ago they said the NW passage was nearly navigable and would be so in a couple of years. Oops it closed again.

Man made global warming may indeed be real but there are still far too many unknowns, at this stage, to state anything catagorically IMO. We should concentrate on what we know, whilst related it's not the same thing, ie. how do we reduce pollution and acid rain. These, we are man made.