silly on his part). The message Plimer makes is that the early 20th century warming was greater than that, which began in 1975 (a recorded fact, according to the Hadley record). The curve is slightly distorted, however, showing a 29% higher early 20th century warming, when it was actually only 23% greater than the most recent warming. You ask, "Surely if Professor Plimer was right, he wouldn't need to resort to such tactics?" The facts show that Plimer was right (a) in showing that warming stopped in 2001 and that it has cooled sharply since around 2005 (Fig. 1) and (b) in stating that early 20th century warming was greater than the late 20th century warming (Fig. 3). Why he used unreferenced graphs that have some relatively minor inaccuracies is anyone's guess, but I would hardly call it a "tactic". I would call it a "cockup" that worked against him in opening his book up for unnecessary criticism. Max manacker Tempterrain You raised an interesting question. Is there a link between the "left" (socialism and communism) and the AGW movement? Let's see if we can look at that question objectively, without taking sides. There have been several reports on this, pointing out the anti-capitalist sentiment of the global warming movement, i.e. the rich and industrially developed nations and societies are at fault for the impending disaster and must, therefore, be made to pay. The conjured global threat and the resulting urgent need for collective action is a perfect tool to