I've just got back from my tour of southern WA.

The first of my lectures was in Dunsborough. Despite my aprehension that complacency and other priorities would result in me talking to myself, about 25 people turned up for this event. We even had a good smattering of people who asked intelligent questions about the science behind climate change which gave me the opportunity to fine tune my skills at winning over an audience.

The area of greatest scepticism was reserved for the question of the degree to which human activity was contributing to climate change.

I must admit that I was tipped off that this would come up, so I had prepared a couple of new slides for this occurence.

I've taken the liberty to show these below for those interested. I think that the data is pretty compelling.

On Wednesday night we held a similar session in Albany and were thrilled with the turnout of more than 50 people. When you consider that we were up against Spicks and Specks and the Chasers, we thought that the result was very respectable.

We even had a visit from the Greens Upper House MP for the Southwest, Paul Llewellyn, who contributed to a lively discussion. 

Based on the success of these two meetings, I've now scheduled sessions throughout the metropolitan area over the next two weeks. Please check out the schedule - I'd love to see you at one of the sessions.

Let me say a BIG THANK YOU to those who helped make these talks a success. To Bob Hadlow who provided moral support and drove me around so that I could do e-mails and phone calls. To Nathan, Celie, Tim and Georgia Hadlow who provided great support in Albany. And to Dick and Val Schonnel, John and Eleanor Slee and Leslie and Chris Fulston who provided my "rent-a-crowd" in Dunsborough and helped out with the delivery of refreshements and subsequent clean up. THANKS!!

Many people are asking me about the recent ruling by a High Court Judge in the United Kingdom in relation to the screening of An Inconvenient Truth in all UK Schools. The Judge’s ruling was in response to a challenge brought by a Kent school governor to block the UK government’s plan to screen the documentary in more than 3,500 schools in England and Wales.

The Judge declined to ban the film, agreeing that Mr Gore’s film was “broadly accurate” in its presentation of the causes and likely effects of climate change. However the Judge did identify nine errors (dubbed the “Nine Inconvenient Untruths”) that were made in the film. These included:

• Claim that sea levels could rise by up to 20ft in the “near future”;
• Claim that the gulf stream would shut down;
• Claim that the drying of Lake Chad was due to climate change;
• Claim that Polar Bears are drowning due to reduced arctic ice;
• Claim that Pacific Atolls had been evacuated due to rising sea levels;

Despite finding these errors the judge said many of the claims made by the film were fully backed up by the weight of science. He identified “four main scientific hypotheses, each of which is very well supported by research published in respected, peer-reviewed journals and accords with the latest conclusions of the IPCC”.

In particular, he agreed with the main thrust of Mr Gore’s arguments: “That climate change is mainly attributable to man-made emissions of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide (‘greenhouse gases’).”

The other three main points accepted by the judge were that global temperatures are rising and are likely to continue to rise, that climate change will cause serious damage if left unchecked, and that it is entirely possible for governments and individuals to reduce its impacts.

Al Gore in Palo Alto, Calif. talking about the Nobel Peace Prize he was awarded in conjunction with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Photo by Peter DaSilva for The New York Times