Hurricane expert Dr Chris Landsea recently withdrew from his position as lead author for the hurricane section of the next report of the United Nations' prestigious and influential Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
He cited misleading media statements from IPCC representatives that suggested global warming was affecting hurricane activity when "all previous and current research in the area of hurricane variability has shown no reliable, long-term trend in the frequency or intensity of tropical cyclones, either in the Atlantic or any other basin".
Landsea's assertions are at odds with the accepted wisdom. Indeed environmental campaigners have fought hard for more than eight years to make the Kyoto Protocol a reality on the basis that this will be an important step towards stabilising global carbon dioxide levels and thus reducing the incidence of extreme weather events including hurricanes and cyclones.
Kyoto becomes legally binding on most of the developed world today -- including the European Union, Canada and Japan. These nations will be obliged to reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases by an average of 5.2 per cent during the first implementation period -- between 2008 and 2012.
Australia and the US have not ratified the protocol and have been scorned by the environmental establishment.
The Australian Government's rationale for not signing up is that the Kyoto Protocol does not provide a comprehensive, environmentally effective long-term response to climate change.
The protocol will deliver about a 1 per cent reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions. Indeed the most optimistic forecasts, that include Australia and the US, suggest Kyoto can deliver at most a temperature cut of 0.15°C by 2100.
About 70 per cent of carbon dioxide emissions are from countries not subject to Kyoto restrictions. These countries are exempt because they are considered part of the developing world.
India and China are significant and growing users of energy and producers of greenhouse gases but are under no immediate pressure to cut emissions.
The US proposes that instead of Kyoto, with its focus on reducing energy use, the international community should focus on developing and promoting new energy-efficient technologies and the creation of low-cost methods for capturing and storing carbon dioxide.
Russia ratified Kyoto in October last year but made it clear it did so under pressure from the European Union and in exchange for admission to the World Trade Organisation.
Dr Andrei Illarionov, chief economic adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin, said at the time: "Nobody amongst Russian decision makers considers the Kyoto Protocol either scientifically proven or economically beneficial". Indeed Kyoto might be more about the power of consensus politics than stopping climate change.
Then again, there has never been a period in the history of the planet when climate was constant. Temperatures and carbon dioxide levels have always fluctuated.
During medieval times it was about three degrees warmer in Greenland than it is now.
Indeed signing Kyoto will not stop climate change.
Considering the sediment and ice-core data that provides a four million-year record of the Earth's climate, we are probably nearing the end of the current interglacial warm period that has lasted 10,000 years.
This is about as long as most interglacial warm periods last. The long-term record would suggest we are about due for another ice-age.
But have we been experiencing more extreme weather events? Information on the number and intensity of hurricanes hitting the US is available on the Internet from the US National Weather Service Tropical Predictor Center in Florida.
Interestingly, this information and other data (including CSIRO reports on the number and intensity of cyclones in the Australian region) accords with Landsea's assessment. Contrary to the popular consensus, there has been no increase in extreme weather events.
Landsea believes in evidence rather than the popular consensus.
His withdrawal from the IPCC process should have been more widely reported, and the IPCC leadership should have been asked to reconcile its misleading statements with the science. Instead Landsea and his resignation mostly have been ignored.
The Australian Government and Landsea represent minority views.
In the past they might have been burned at the stake.
I feel somewhat pleased, however, to know that there are both governments and researchers prepared to break ranks. History has often proved the consensus wrong.
This is not to suggest I advocate that nothing be done about the increase in global carbon dioxide levels from the burning of fossil fuels.
But if the international community is going to address this issue, let us be sure our efforts will deliver a reasonable reduction in carbon dioxide levels -- something Kyoto will not and can not deliver.
Let us also accept that we can not stop climate change.
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