David, I think that the stated consequences of not greatly reducing carbon emissions need to be entirely repackaged from how they are presented in this article.

The problem is that the consequences are too big, too distant and too uncertain for most people to properly grasp. And with China and India going full steam ahead, most ordinary people who give this issue any thought see futility for climate change and strong negativity for the economy in heavy impositions being imposed on emitters in Australia, when we are responsible for only some 2% of world emissions.

We need to concentrate on peak oil, or ever-rising oil-fuel prices and the effects that this is likely to have on our everyday lives, in the very near future. The issue needs to be brought down to the grassroots level.

“In the end, climate is not an economic question”

Yes it is. Carbon emissions need to be seen in an economic, social and personal context. The best way in Australia to deal with it is to emphasise the effects that a continued reliance on oil will have on us all at the personal economic level in the immediate future, if we don’t act decisively now.

In other words; put climate change in the background and concentrate on peak oil / the energy crunch / the effects of rising fuel prices….and overall sustainability.

continued

Make it about the maintenance of our society, which is under great threat of suffering a massive upheaval long before any significant effects of climate change kick in, about rising prices of food and just about all other goods and services that are accompanying rising fuel prices, about unemployment and rising interest rates, about renewable energy sources on every scale from personal to national, about self-sufficiency and about the necessity of bringing the continuous human expansion paradigm to an end with immigration being brought down to net zero and the baby bonus being abolished.

This is the sort of approach that we need, to engage the community, so that the actions of politicians get fully supported….and we don’t run into great upheaval with a change of government at the next election due to lack of community support, or a constant niggling opposition from the community and/or business sector.

Let’s concentrate on peak oil and sustainability, not climate change.

Thanks David for your clear articulation of the situation. It all makes such common sense and yet common sense is unfortunately not so common!

We seem to be so rusted on to the ideals of maintaining status quo in it's specific current forms (coal plant jobs, petrol-driven cars, etc). The question for me is: How do we sell the idea of 'apparently' LETTING GO of the things that no longer serve us in order to RE-CREATE an even better world that as you indicate, does not need to be without the mod cons?

It's a tough message to sell to individuals unless they have personally undergone such transformation in their own lives.

'It is not a question of how much more we can “safely” emit, but whether we can rapidly stop emissions and produce a cooling ...'

Apparently temperatures have been falling since 1998 ... while emmissions have been increasing.

So why do we need to decrease emissions to produce a cooling. It's already occuring?

Ah yes...look at this graph
http://tomnelson.blogspot.com/2008/04/350-most-brain-dead-campaign-of-your.html

and then tell me why we should cause untold suffering and starvation (which has already started thanks to the stupid biofuels push), to deal with a non-existent problem?

CO2 has never driven our temperature. Massive uncertainties in the forcing effects of natural causes mean that computer models are useless, as any statistician should know. Bad science makes for bad policy.

Of course, even assuming the climate change scaremongers are correct, it is pointless for Australia to spend huge amounts of money, throwing even more people into poverty, whilst China and India continue to drastically ramp up their CO2 production. Even if Australia cut every last iota of CO2 production (and impossibility with living creatures), China's increases would completely replace that reduction in a couple of months. Pointless, absolutely pointless.

as ludwig says, it is an economic question. everything is, really: this society is driven by money.

i believe that effective policies can not be imposed on oz, simply because the political system doesn't allow it. parliamentary societies were developed by the aristocracy to ensure they remained on top. there was not much need for change in their view, as right people were already in charge. the notion of allowing the unwashed to direct society for the benefit of ordinary people never crossed their minds.

the aristocracy has been supplanted by the plutocracy, and their hired hands, the politician's guild. but change remains anathema: "we got rich under the present conditions, what could possibly need to be changed?"

oz will not respond effectively to changing environmental challenges, for the ordinary people who would benefit have no power to change things, the rich are protecting their status, and politicians can not see beyond the next election. too bad for oz, and ozzians. you're toast, guys.