"the reality is we have exceeded the biocapacity of the Earth and we have to reduce our consumption, stabilise population"

The reality is you are somehow of the opinion we have exceeded the etc etc .. of the etc etc .. why do you think that?

people have thought that for hundreds of years, and still we go on and on .. and will continue to .. berating people here in Australia will not stop all the developing countries having as many kids as they can, and reaching for as much progress as they can get their hands on .. and they will not stop because of some hand-wringing Australians who live a good life tell them they cannot have the same.

"you are making the world for my children and grandchildren unliveable"

don't have children .. end of problem for you popnperish

the media in Australia has done no favors for the AGW cause by being so outrageously biased, nor do the various lobby groups, climate clubs, activist movements do more than prove they are alarmist and anti progress.

I love Getups attempt now to silence Alan Jones, this is excellent as it will focus everyone on the petty minded little Hitlers that most activist really are .. just in kniptions that no one is doing what they are told!

honestly some of you are so far up the activist tree you can't see the ground or the fact that the average Australian, taxpayer, does not agree .. and the tax and compensate sounds a lot like, bait and switch .. from the ALP, famous for waste is going to come temperature reduction .. no, just more waste

"We know the probable consequence of worldwide climate change."

Yes? Go ahead, tell us what they are and how you know.

Peter Hume:
<You seem to be missing the point that the purpose of human action in general, and economic activity in particular, is to satisfy human wants. If people *wanted* to restrict their consumption, it would be no objection that such was bad for economic growth>

It would be so nice if for once you addressed something I actually said, rather than something you "inferred".

But look, I agree with you in part, I know I sound like a puritan, but I'm not; I love my creature comforts but I'm a realist.

I disagree with you in the strongest possible terms, that "the purpose of human action in general, and economic activity in particular, is to satisfy human wants".
You "infer" this degraded idea of humanity from observing this catered reality that encourages it. But capitalism is hardly calculated to cast humanity in its most favourable light. Not only are "we" omnivores in terms of our palates, we are endlessly adaptable overall, and this has proved to be our evolutionary strength (and the planet's undoing)
Human beings are actually idealistic in the extreme; conspicuous consumption is born of torpor, "boredom is the want of self-reliance".

And then you drift off into your tawdry refrain, which you impute to me; your logical "inference" that collectivist that I am, I favour big government, the primal enemy!
Just as you deny the evidence of your own senses--that a degraded environment is unsustaining regardless of innovation--you also deny your own protection, the succour of society, which has protected "us" from the brutalities of nature since time immemorial. We are social beasts! we prosper by working together and adapting to the exigencies of happenstance, or at least that's what we ought to do, if only we weren't addicted to hierarchies.
You haven't even thought your utopia sufficiently through to see that genuine free markets lead to concentrations of wealth and power and exploitation and mercenary armies etc. etc.. Or perhaps you see yourself as a fat chieftain presiding over so much human chaos..

Hmm. You disagree that the purpose of human action is to satisfy human wants. So what they really want is not to satisfy their wants, but something else? Then aren't they just purposing to satisfy that other want?

Just because people are idealistic, or omnivores, doesn't mean they don't want to satisfy their wants. Actually the distinction between material and ideal wants is really moot, because ultimately it's a subjective satisfaction that material goods give us.

You've obviously formed the view that something dire is about to happen to the planet. We are going to hell in a handcart. However people have been thinking that way for millenia. Every now and then it breaks out in an epidemic of mass hysteria. The Christians in particular took up this belief with relish. During the middle ages, great crowds would turn out for public self-flagellation parades, flogging themselves til they were bleeding. But the predicted cataclysms never came.

"But" you might say "This time we really are going to hell in a handcart."

I don't think there's any more basis to the modern environmental movement's fears that our lives are unsustainable, than to the mediaeval anchorite's. If the Aborigines of 6,000 years ago had adopted the same Malthusian theory - simple, persuasive, and wrong - they would have come to the same conclusions. "Australia could never support a population of 22,000,000. There's only a finite number of caves! What deluded fanatic could deny that? Our population growth is unsustainable!"

Peter Hume.
“Go ahead, tell us what they are and how you know.”

“Warmer temperatures are causing changes in the hydrological cycle at regional and global scales, including decreases in the amount of water stored as ice in most of the world’s glaciers, ice sheets and sea ice; decreasing snow cover and earlier snow melt; and changes in rainfall patterns. These changes affect the incidence and severity of drought and floods and the availability of water, which in turn present challenges for many aspects of human society and industry (e.g. agriculture, rural economies, insurance, water security and food security). Sea level rise due to losses from ice stores and thermal expansion is another consequence of climate change that will have an increasing impact on human settlements and infrastructure.

Increasing temperatures also affect biological systems. There is evidence of shifts in the range of plant and animal species to higher latitudes and altitudes, changes in species composition and abundance, and changes in the timing of many life-cycle events such as flowering and migration. Changes such as these will affect many of our managed ecosystems (particularly agriculture and forestry) and biodiversity.

Many of these impacts, especially when combined, are likely to cause increasing pressure on our resources and industries, and possibly on our social systems and health.”

http://www.aph.gov.au/library/pubs/climatechange/effects/effects.htm

I would take out words such as “are”, and replace them with words such as “could”

All the volcanoes in the world could blow up at once, and the consequences would be catastrophic.

But what is the likelihood of this occurring?

Similarly, the consequences of climate change would be moderate to catastrophic.

That is known, but it is not clear what is the likelihood of climate change occurring.

It is hypocritical of Jonathan Holmes to accuse commercial radio shock jocks of being biased against anthropogenic global warming, when the ABC routinely censors out anti-AGW stories from its news and current affairs programs.

For example, has anyone ever heard Deborah Cameron or Robyn Williams interview scientists who do not believe in AGW?

The number of anti-AGW scientists appearing on Tony Jones' Lateline program or Kerry O'Brien's 7.30 Report were few and far between.

Who can recall a more vicious interview than that conducted by Tony Jones when he interviewed Martin Durkin, producer of the film, The Great Global Warming Swindle?