Sophie - if Gillard does not give you want you want, what you insist is your entitlement - what are you going to do?

There seems to be a succession of these little pieces coming out of the Canberra Climate Club, all pleading for Julia to give them what they want.

Will you really decide how to vote, at this election, on a single issue?

How incredibly immature. How incredibly fortunate for the ALP!

If The ALP don't come to the party, you have only the green faction of the ALP to go to don't you? The Greens?

Have you spoken to or considered the other arm of Australian politics? I doubt it.

The ALP don't need to do a thing do they, either they get your vote directly, or indirectly through the Greens, since you have all decided you give up your democratic rights to focus on one minor aspect of our countries future. It's a minor aspect since the rest of the world is not bringing in carbon taxes.

The author seems surprised that on this issue Labor is all talk and no action. Looking at their track record, why should climate change be any different?

Action on climate change requires courage, in which Labor has a huge deficit.

Here we have little Sophie, & nice, & sincere young lady, I'm sure. She's studding one of those meaningless courses, designed to be good on a resume, when applying for a public service job, but of little use to anyone.

Has she been conned by the academics, or is she trying so set herself up for a leading roll in some government climate change sheltered workshop? it's hard to tell.

Interestingly she is doing the same course that our Julia must have done. A bit of a worry, all these people studding non subjects, then being considered "educated".

Let us assume for a moment that the many climate forecasts bear some relation to actual reality. That is, there is a warming of the earth. Further let us assume that warming cause some demonstrable damage.
Question: would the younger generation for which the writer claims to speak be materially better off if we spend money to cut emissions now, or perhaps put a fraction of the money to be spent on cutting emissions into a fund to help with later adaption to climate?
Answer: the fund wins by several kilometres.
The one and only report to say otherwise was compiled by economist Nicholas Stern for the UK government some years back, and only managed to reach its conclusions by making extreme assumptions, including assuming an unreasonably low discount rate.
What is a discount rate? Well, Sophie, perhaps in a later article you can tell us why the Stern rerport set it at around 1 per cent, and not 4 per cent like everyone else, and why the differnce is so important. Then you can lecture us.
In any case, from a strictly economic point of view the climate change case was lost long ago.

Dear Sophie, because you want immediate action on climate change I assume you believe action is actually needed. It follows that you have either been convinced or wish to convince your self that AGW is real. This is very sad because you are young and you are studying.

You have clearly never been anywhere near the research from the hundreds of scientists that make the case that the AGW orthodoxy is wrong. This does not do you much credit because your studies will require you to do your own research if you are to be successful.

So why on the one hand do you fail to do your research and on the other hand support an unsubstantiated solution?

I think if you were to visit some of the contrary scientific cases available you would be very angry with those who have deceived you, and rightly so.

If you don’t wish to look at the other side of the scientific debate that’s fine, that’s your decision. May I suggest then, that you look at AGW as a phenomenon?

Green/Armstrong audited the IPCC’s forecasting procedures (December 7, 2009) against the evidence based forecasting principles. They also compared the AGW alarmism to 26 other analogous alarms since 1798 none of which eventuated. Of the 89 applicable principles, the IPCC violated 72. They concluded that:

“Our analysis of the 26 analogies leads us to the following forecasts about the global warming movement:

1. The predicted disasters will not occur.
2. Costly government policies will continue to be implemented in response to the alarm.
3. The manmade global warming political movement will dissipate over the years.
4. Many government programs will remain in place.”

If they are right, and they remain unchallenged at this point, then your claim that “young people have the most to lose” will also be correct. Because you will pay dearly for the current and future costs imposed on your society.

As a student you cannot afford to be this lazy, do your own research. It will make you feel better, angry but better

This is appalling.

Every time a younger person posts an article on this website, they are greeted with the most horrendous condescension. Sophie's views need to be given as much respect as anyone's, which is not saying a lot given the general tenor of what passes for informed debate on OLO - something that could be better described as sniping from entrenched positions.

For those whose ire is building at Sophie's article and my comments, just remember that age and wisdom do not necessarily go together and for every wizened sage, there is at least one "stupid old bugger" to quote Bob Hawke.