Kenny - to suggest that global warming is in the same league as relativity and evolution is plainly ludicrous - its nothing of the sort. Both of those theories have a very considerable track records. There is nothing like that at all for global warming.

I have pointed out before in these posts, and will again, that all forecasts made using the global warming theory, such as it is, are either doubtful - at the most no better than a "status quo" forecasting system - or plainly wrong.

The weight of expert opinion, for or against a particular scientific proposition, as we all know, counts for absolutely nothing. What track record does the theory have?

JBowyer.
As you say it is all about the money. That is why putting a price on carbon is the right thing to do. It will make fossil fuel power generation more expensive and as soon as it becomes more expensive than renewable energy then even you and fellow deniers will stop buying it and power companies will provide what is cheapest.

Personal consumption profiles are not the main issue here - even though a few will change habits for the good of humanity or to satisfy their own conscience the majority will not. They need a price signal that only the government can force into being. Hence the importance of being politically active and not letting the nonsense that yourself and others sprout and spew into the air go unchallenged.

Rich2 - it is highly unlikely that a price on carbon would make alternative energy competitive, unless its jacked up very high from the start - a point almost entirely overlooked in the debate. There is now, plenty of evidence from overseas sources that energy from wind projects, for example, is three times more expensive than conventional power, and that's just wholesale. There's still the cost of extra transmission lines and of adapting the power network to use wind. $20 a tonne on carbon isn't going to change conventional power prices that much, although it may result in a switch from coal to gas.

What will do what you are hoping for is the existing requirement that 20 per cent of power is to be sourced from green power by 2020 - this has been changed since the legislation was brought in so that 10 per cent has to come from big sources (wind farms, maybe hydro although I'm not clear on that point), and the other 10 per cent from small sources (house solar hot water and PV arrays ect.)

For various reasons the actual savings will not add up to anything like 20 per cent - despite claims by activists - but none the less there will be a lot of nominally green electricity for you..

Rich I did give you the befit of the doubt but you just don't get it! The carbon tax will change to a bank trade for carbon which will mean we would pay higher energy costs and the banks would get richer on the trades.
Expensive energy will snuff out a lot of our jobs.

My challenge to you is over the coming years let us see what the climate does?

Obviously you are happy to impoverish your fellow Australians but not to the extent of doing what you regard as right and generating your own solar and wind power? All the heavy lifting you want put on to others by the government.
Personal consumption issues show who is honest here and you have shown your true colours!

kenny .. oh dear, "Amicus you have deliberately mis-represented what Tim said and you know it"

No kenny , here's a quote from the transcript

"If we cut emissions today, global temperatures are not likely to drop for about a thousand years" Tim Flannery

you are so fixated that you know the "truth" that you are prepared, on no evidence at all except your faith to accuse me of misrepresentation. Well?

So what do you do when the facts change kenny?

This is what skeptics have been saying all along .. a big new tax does bugger all except make believers feel self satisfied, nothing else. Well?

Here, go read the whole transcript, http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/mtr_today_march_25/

Tim Flannery, finally outs the truth, what's especially delicious is that is was Andrew Bolt, usually a barely controlled personality on radio, who was cool and collected, kept to the plot and Tim was gracious in his dealings as well and they had a reasonable discussion and this was the outcome.

So .. rich 2, I think it's "Your comment contains elementary logic flaws", not mine .. mine is the tax does nothing, reducing CO2, is useless - or if Tim is right, the atmosphere is saturated anyway, hence, no effect?

You guys tie yourselves in knots and then try to weasel out with squirriley words, and you wonder why climate credibility is lacking.

What is logical is we need to adapt .. since it ain't going to change for some time!

BTW - the F1 practice was simply awesome, then the big V8s came out, then another practice session, I just regret missing the GT3 Porsche Cup this morning. Not to worry, it's on again tomorrow.

I love advanced awesome machines, the pinnacle of engine technology!

Oh they had a hybrid race as well, everyone went and found something else to do while that was on.

Back in the 1950s & 60s, scientists predicted mass famine, war, and widespread poverty owing to the ‘population explosion’. Their projections were good science, based on research (headcounts) substantially more reliable than anything climate scientists can manage today. They were quite wrong, of course: in part, because research in agriculture greatly expanded food production, in part because increased prosperity worldwide led to unexpected, but very large, reductions in human reproduction. Population experts didn’t anticipate birth control. Even the best science can’t account what’s yet to be discovered.
There’s no downside to reducing CO2 emissions, and we’ve plenty of good reasons to develop power generation technologies to replace coal and oil. Still, stabilising population growth in China, India, Africa and South America will have a huge impact on emissions, and should be much the higher priority. If population ceases to grow, or even begins to shrink, the task of managing our environment becomes much easier. Cheap energy and food are prerequisites, though, and to the extent that CO2 mitigation schemes impact energy and food prices in developing countries, the result could be counterproductive. (Think biofuels, for instance).
Just as in the 1950s, scientists still love to predict the future. There are differences, though. Prior to the millennium, no scientist ever had the hubris to declare any corner of science ‘settled’. No proponents of any hypothesis had the hide to label scientists who disagreed ‘deniers’. Back then, no one would have considered projections of what life would be like in 50 years anything other than rank speculation — they expected their cherished certainties to be overturned, and for the most part honoured those who did the damage. Much more disturbing is the current corruption of peer review by ‘pal’ review. Worse yet is the refusal of some climate scientists to fully publish their data, calculations, and models, a sin which would have been absolutely mortal only decades ago.
Climate science has much to contribute to government policy. In that respect, however, it’s anything but pre-eminent. Doubt is what we use to test truth. If you can’t doubt, it’s not science: it’s religion.