I think the public is concerned about the possible effect of CO2 on climate it's just they don't want to pay for it. I agree that wind and solar should not get generous subsidies. They not only add to electricity costs but have so far failed to close a coal fired power station anywhere in the world. Ideally it should be possible to set an annual CO2 limit and let the market decide what percentages of coal, gas, nuclear, wind and solar it wants. That ideal is severely compromised by renewables subsidies, the prohibition on nuclear and huge copouts in CO2 reduction such as the use of questionable offsets.

Therefore if CO2 cuts are slow arriving it must be partly blamed on the government's weakness and blind spots as an umpire. Another huge blind spot is the export of coal and LNG meaning that Australia is complicit in more emissions that the large amount we already own up to. If genuine CO2 cuts will hurt the hip pocket then tax and welfare should be adjusted, so long as the money is not spent on more carbon intensive services. The public must be prepared to make some sacrifices without punishing any government that implements them.

The carbon trading is a scheme that takes the easy way out for governments by passing the problem on to others, so they do not have to raises issues them selves and be voted out.

There are other ways to reduce carbon/pollution that have to be done anyway (peak oil).

Ensuring that car manufactures make fuel efficient cars (not hybrids), take trucks of the road, but big business will not allow that.

Reducing population, but big business will not allow that.

We could all come up with a list of things that could be done but fighting big business is the issue.

"Why should people worry about a theoretical doomsday scenario in 100 years’ time...?" - Because it's based on sound science that after two decades of concerted and well funded efforts by the fossil fuel industry, has not to be shown to be wrong in any of it's fundamentals? Because it's going to change our world beyond recognition and be effectively irreversible? Because the costs and consequences will be enormous and all the bigger for failing to rein in emissions?

Schemes to reduce atmospheric CO2 have failed because of people like the author - who deliberately passes over the state of real understanding of climate - argue to prevent schemes that would work. In place of effective action we get compromised, ineffective and counterproductive policies that opponents such as the author promptly use as 'evidence' that that is what proponents wanted - and that costly, ineffective policies are the fault of those who take our understanding of climate seriously and want real effective action.

1. Would people pay for their rubbish to be collected if they could just chuck it in the street and let the wind blow it away? Would gargage collection services then go broke? Could we then eliminate the tax on garbage we now pay (through our rates)? We could spend the money we would save on other environmental problems! Which ones would you nominate?
2. How successful is the cap and trade system for SO2 in the US? Has acid rain been reduced? Has the system been economically efficient?
2. Why has the head of BHP called for a price on carbon?

PeterA, if you actually succeeded in taking the trucks off the road, how long do you think you would live?

With the horrible cities, where most of Oz people choose to live, it would take less than 5 days for the food riots to start. No city, & very rural centers, could survive without the trucks that take the food from farm to market, & redistribute it to the suburbs.

Give me 25 years lead time, & I could probably bread enough horses to pull the carts to deliver the milk. You wouldn't need vegetables, you could grow them in the manure in the gutters.

I do find it painful that there is so much rubbish put out by greenies.

Hasbeen.....said..."I do find it painful that there is so much rubbish put out by greenies. You really don't like greenies...do you:) What happened...did one verbally attack you for bad farming practices?

...and what rubbish is that?

That for land clearing by farmers that caused salt to rise, Murry/Darling water piggery, and what about the Franklin....I guess that was a bad idea as well.....what did you do before becoming such a bitter old man? I would say merry xmas to you, but Hum-bug is all I would get. Mate, humans are changing the world. I still stand by saying......Haft human causes and Haft natural cycles.......however the bottom line is .............. will still have a huge problem on our hands in so many directions......it would take me all night just explain the variables.

BLU

Hasbeen 'if you actually succeeded in taking the trucks off the road, how long do you think you would live?'

Not long as I live in town that is totally relying on trucks to bring everything in, but it did have a railway line.

It would also reduce deaths and injuries if all trucks were taken off major intercity highways - like the Hume when there is a railway line that could be used.

And with peak oil and increasing costs for transport then we should be looking at alternatives.

Great article and right on the money. The sooner this Carbon Dioxide scare is put to bed the better.

Bluey, just what does the Franklin have to do with some hair brained idea of removing trucks from the road, in an urbanised society, where food has to travel often hundreds of Km to the shop.

But while you mention it, how stupid the greenie, who wants to stop generating power with coal, but also wants to stop dams for hydro power. Schizophrenia prevails.

But it gets worse doesn't it. You want to use mass cement to build almost useless wind mills, then dig huge holes to get the copper, to run your Micky Mouse power hundreds of Km to those awful cities you want to live in.

Then you want people to ride a bike to work, despite mum working 15Km north, dad 15 south, & the kids going 5 Km each, east & west to school, or child care. God help us.

Hang about, you want tax payer funded public transport to do it, don't you, despite the fact that it uses more fuel per passenger mile than the private car. No mate, I don't dislike greenies, just their stupidity.

I also get frustrated when they add 2+2 together, & get 15, not because it makes any kind of sense, but because that's the answer they wanted to get, & nothing sensible, like the rules of arithmetic, is going to get in the way of them getting that answer.

Great stuff Peter, I'll get the lady at centrelink to put you down for a job pushing the handcart from the railway to the supermarket. Just remember it might be 10Km in many places. Oh, & don't forget, peak oil, no trains, unless we go back to coal. I always did like steam. & will it still be OK to use a truck from the farm to the railway, & then there's the tractor, it all gets too hard.

Bluey, bad farming practices, how unkind. What do you take me for, an idiot or something?

I was never stupid enough to farm. Doing something useful, like producing food is a recipe for bankruptcy. Those greenies want their public transport for nothing, & expect their food for the same damn price.

No mate, I decided to go with them, & exploit their tree hugging practices. I grew advanced shrubs & trees, so they could have nice instant leafy green suburbs, in their new subdivisions.

Nothing like exploiting someones weakness, to make you a good quid.

I also bread a few horses, just so we would have something to pull the cart, when they came & took our truck. Of course around here the kids went show jumping, so the horses rode in the truck, not pulled it.

I'm afraid I was a bit hopeful there. The stallion is 20 years old now, so peak oil will have to hurry, or I will miss the boat.

We have build a world that depends on the mobility of the average citizen. Our cities can only function if we have that mobility. If the checkout chick can't get to work, the whole edifice comes tumbling down.

Be careful what you wish for, the collapse may be closer than you think, & may be much worse than you anticipate.

Carbon markets or trading, will work like this.

Most of us will be paying through the nose for carbon, a few will get extremely rich, so basically it is taxation that goes straight into the pockets of a privileged few.

Some Spanish entrepreneurs had the right idea: buy some huge floodlights and run them on normal-priced electricity. Shine them on subsidised solar panels and generate super-duper 'green' electricity that they could then sell back to the grid for several times what it cost them to run the lights. That's initiative for you! What a nation-building exercise!

Pity they got caught. I guess they shouldn't have tried to do it at night...

Hasbeen..."Be careful what you wish for, the collapse may be closer than you think, & may be much worse than you anticipate." Not all that's green is crazy....and once fossil fuels become priced out of the consumer market...the old horse a cart just might not be that far off. MADMAX:)

But I wouldn't worry yourself too much..... the capitalists are starting seeing the light and believe it or not.....this century will have more turning points than a compass.

http://tinyurl.com/27mzn96

Bluey, bad farming practices, how unkind. What do you take me for, an idiot or something? Not at all hasbeen...but you said...

"Bluey, just what does the Franklin have to do with some hair brained idea of removing trucks from the road, in an urbanised society, where food has to travel often hundreds of Km to the shop.

Nothing I guess:)

"But while you mention it, how stupid are the greenies, who wants to stop generating power with coal, but also wants to stop dams for hydro power. Schizophrenia prevails.

Yes hasbeen...all environmentalist are in need of immediate medical attention:)

"But it gets worse doesn't it. You want to use mass cement to build almost useless wind mills, then dig huge holes to get the copper, to run your Micky Mouse power hundreds of Km to those awful cities you want to live in."

Oh I agree.....with all the insanity that goes on in the world, its any wonder why people like the greenies should be allowed to exists at all:) I don't have time to humour you today....hasbeen....however a world with trucks........interesting:)

BLUE

Alex, you criticise attempts at solutions but offer none. It's clear to me that you see no problem that requires solutions except the 'problem' of people demanding that emissions be curtailed. This is entirely contrary to findings of every serious scientific institution on the planet that studies climate and of every official report commissioned on the matter. Is there any reason to believe that you are engaged in anything other than a misguided attempt to prevent serious action on emissions reduction or to believe that you are anything besides a denier of science?

You are a member of an anti-environmental PR 'think tank' that brazenly declares itself to be a "membership-based environmental organisation having no political affiliation" that "take an evidence-based, solution focused approach to environmental issues". And argues against every bit of evidence based science that exposes damaging environmental practices. And denies the existence of the biggest of environmental problems - anthropogenic climate change . And engages in continuing efforts to undermine public confidence in our top scientific institutions and their findings.

The (deliberately) misleadingly named Australian Environment Foundation is an organisation that actively misrepresents science, misleads the public and distorts the truth. After reading your article it's clear that it holds completely to that unstated mission statement.

Alex, your dangerously irresponsible opinions are worth less than a plug nickel and would, if widely held, condemn us and our descendents to the most serious and dangerous change to our planet's climate possible - the maximum climate impacts with zero efforts to prevent them.

Q1 How come that in the Medieval Warming Period 1000 years ago, when agriculture thrived in Greenland, atmospheric carbon dioxide levels were lower than at present ?
Q2 How come that peak temperatures which occurred at the end of past interglacial periods preceded peak atmospheric carbon dioxide levels by 800 to1000 years?

A It is cyclical variation in radiant energy received from the Sun that drives climate change on Earth. Elevated carbon dioxide levels are a consequence not a cause of global warming. As the planet warms, the oceans disgorge into the atmosphere some of the vast amount of carbon dioxide held in solution. (try heating a bottle of soda water and see what happens). The oceans warm more slowly than the land hence the lag effect.

On the proposed carbon tax:- “ Never before in the history of science have so many been conned so much by so few” Apologies to Winston Churchill but not the IPCC.

I wish people would do some elementary sums. An investment in renewables (wind, tide, solar thermal, geothermal) will return more profit over the lifetime of the plant than building and running the cheapest coal fired power station.

The reason why renewables are said to be more expensive is because of the way we do our calculations. We use discounted cash flow analyses and take into account the so-called time value of money. This means that a coal fired power stations will return more present value money than a renewable plant. Get rid of the time value of money and the sums show renewables are more profitable.

There is a very strong case for using total return over the life of the project as the measure for long term investment decisions. The time value of money is only relevant if we assume that we will invest all the profits to get the same rate of return. This as anyone knows is nonsense because that is not what happens. Profits are "consumed" and rarely reinvested.

If we use simpler methods for the calculation of cost/benefits then in the long term we will end up with cheaper energy and much much less pollution and much much more energy.

Super funds, in particular, who need income well in the future would do well to invest in renewables that will give a guaranteed return in kwhs when the fund requires money to pay pensions. We know that the price of energy is not going to go down and we know that the demand for energy will continue to go up so it is as low a risk investment as you can get.

Mistaya: so many conned by so few? The Australian Academy of Sciences represents the most senior of Australia's scientists, as does the Royal Society in the UK. Both have recently issued reports which strongly back the understanding of climate change summarised by the IPCC. I offer you a challenge. Find one national peak scientific body anywhere in the world that does not. I think you will find the few are many indeed.

I think that the AAofS are full of bull. They jumped on the climate
gate gravy train, that is about to be derailed. Coming out of a mini
ice age that ended in or around the mid 1850s the Northern Hemisphere
has warmed up but has not warmed up as much as that experienced during
the Medieval Warm Period. So now we are cooling again. And hopefully
won't cool too much that will effect our capacity to grow food and precipitation levels. The IPCC, Michael Mann, Jones, Al Gore should be
brought to justice on charges of crimes against humanity or fraud. Sustainability yes - I'm all for this. CO2 is 95% naturally produced and accounts for only 4% of Greenhouse gases. 95% is water vapour. Yeah, and cloud cover keeps the ground cooler or warmer depending on what season it is. And whether it is day or night.
That's why deserts who have no cloud or ground cover, go 50C during the day and minus at night. No clouds to trap the warmth or cool it. And why frost forms when there is no cloud cover but doesn't when there is cloud cover. You are being conned folks by people wanting to have a carbon tax to make money. And distribute wealth from developed countries to poor countries by charging us monies for destroying their environment. Bulldust. Atolls sink and disappear. Bangledesh
naturally floods, and they depend on it. (Don't we send enough aid already?)

Blue, a lot of Greens (not all) want a better egalitarian, social and environmental world. That's a fine philosophy. But as many before them
have found out, turning a philosophy into political actions, doesn't work. Placing a carbon price will make everyone pay more for living
in an advanced society. Be one city or a rural dweller. The most rIdiculous TV ads on SBS are ' If we cut Carbon emissions to nil today, there are so many cattle and sheep (ruminants) that will continue global warming for the next 100 year when we will die... eat Veg. GO GREEN and save the planet. And believe it or not, people believe this crap and misinformation.

Methane with nitrous oxide makes up 1% of GHG. Most comes from the oceans. And if we humans eat more veg and fruit, we will be increasing our methane production. Every burp and fart you make contains methane. So while the Greens are saying this, they also say
let's depopulate the world too. Now how are we going to do this? Either become gay or non breeders, or kill off a few billion people by
an epidemic or global COOLING! GLOBAL COOLING WILL KILL OFF MORE ANIMALS AND PEOPLE THAN GLOBAL WARMING. AND ONCE AN ICE AGE SETS IN
THERE'S NO TURNING BACK FOR THOUSANDS OF YEARS. AND WE CAN'T DO ANYTHING TO STOP IT, BUT WE CAN LEARN TO ADAPT TO IT.

Michael Rowan, the few I alluded to are the 52 individuals who wrote the final “Summary for Policy Makers” issued by the IPCC. This document then had to be signed off by bureaucrats of the United Nations, which is a political, not a scientific body, pursuing a political agenda.

The stated positions of many scientific organizations are put forward by governing committees without reference to the membership at large. I will give you an example. Last year the executive committee (6 individuals) of the Geological Society of Australia, of which I am a member, enunciated a position statement on climate change generally endorsing the hypothesis of anthropogenic global warming (AGW). This was done without any reference to the 2,500 strong membership and prompted expressions of outrage among many members. An informal poll was conducted with a majority expressing disapproval of the statement and the manner it was presented It was subsequently withdrawn.

You have to be aware that many of those in control of scientific organizations world wide are directly or indirectly dependent on government funding and will follow the government line. Many scientists have built lucrative careers by jumping on the global warming gravy train and are hardly likely to bite the hand that feeds them. There are many sceptics of AGW out there. Check out the US Senate Minority Report in which over 700 distinguished scientists from many countries and many disciplines outline their reasons for their opposition to the concept of AGW. (http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.SenateReport) (Click on the link to the December 11, 2008 Update).

Having said all this, in science it is evidence and facts, not majority opinion, which count. This was demonstrated 400 years ago when the majority opinion was that the Sun orbited Earth. Poor old Galileo copped quite a bit of stick for saying the reverse was the case. He was right of course

Anyone who, knowing that temperature rise leads to CO2 level rise, thinks this is cause to believe CO2 rise is not cause for alarm is seriously deluded. It is not proof or even evidence that CO2 isn't a greenhouse gas. On the contrary, past historical instances of this phenomena show that even greater warming is set in train by the additional CO2. This phenomena is reason for serious concern because it means CO2 emissions from natural sources will grow in response to rising temperatures, and in combination with human emissions, will more quickly overwhelm natural carbon sinks and increase the amount of warming due to the greenhouse effect. As well as more rapidly change ocean pH.