Ben, agreed - I think Labor and their media arm the ABC (ALPBC) have misread the situation completely and possibly do not realise they are insulting and p*ssing off half the country with their alarmist antics and continued denigrating of anyone who disagrees.

It might be all believers in the ABC and some of the media organizations, but you come across very few people out in everyday life who believe a word of the AGW spin.

Hey, I don't mind them playing it this way, suits me.

I am very amused at the arrogance of various ministers, ABC comperes and some of the science community at their hurt disbelief that they have told the people what to think, and the people have the temerity to continue to question the faith!

The Climate Circus going around the country are only preaching to the converted, no one is going along to be converted, Big Tim has given us a range of predictions over the years, none of which have eventuated .. hey, we know when we're being sold BS, as we're paying for it.

And the government has the hide to say the CC is independent!

Seriously do they really think we're that stupid.. oh, they do don't they.

It's not a good look for the government to be insulting taxpayers calling them extremists and deniers amongst other things - that's fine when they are bagging out the opposition, but they have gone too far and lost sight of what's going on in their panic to "do something"

The writer appears to be proud of his critical thinking prowess “people on my side are more willing to serve our PM critical-thinking questions”, yet writes an article devoid of any evidence of such thinking. The killer question posed is only stunning in its obvious shortcomings. It is not enough to ask “By how much will your carbon dioxide tax reduce Australia's temperature”. You also need to ask “If we carry on carbon dioxide emissions under a business as usual scenario how much will temperatures rise?”. The stated objective at Copenhagen was about taking action to limit future temperature increases not securing an immediate reduction.
Then the writer states “As we know, there is no global warming”. A bold statement for which no evidence is offered and which is contrary to the overwhelming majority of scientific opinion. If you disagree with this statement then provide details of just one reputable body of scientists who support your contention and while you are at it list all those reputable scientific bodies that disagree with you.
Come on – the level of debate needs to be raised above having emotional rants.

Although it is difficult to judge popular feelings from demonstrations, there is little doubt that the carbon tax has aroused voters - and traditional labor voters at that.

This opposition has been given further imputus by most voters suspecting, with good reason, that this tax will simply have no effect. Without an stringent, enforceable international agreement on limiting emissions - which is never going to happen - the most it would do is export Australia's emissions to other countries.

These points are obvious to the bulk of voters, it seems, but not to activists and the labor government. Activists, however, have proved particularly inventive with excuses/reasons for this tax, claiming that we need to show leadership (who would follow us on such an idiotic policy?) and that emission intensive industries can be compensated (this violates various international trade treaty obligations).

It is difficult to believe the Federal Govenrment is serious with this policy, but then stupider things have been done in the name of ideology - I think.

Terpstra protests against a carbon tax apparently because he doesn't 'believe' in global warming. As Rich2 points out, Terpstra offers no evidence for this 'belief'. I, as a scientist, am always astounded that anyone can profess 'beliefs' in relation to such complex scientific matters. I do of course understand the main reasons - they cannot see the evidence of climate change for themselves and they can see that there are many other sceptics who use arguments of a scientific nature. But neither reason ought to be adequate to pit oneself against what must surely be recognisable as the bulk of scientific wisdom. Just pick any representative body that looks like it has some air of scientific authority about it and see what it has to say. As for personally being able to feel the evidence for climate change, no-one can. A small trend of a fraction of a degree per annum superimposed on the usual wild fluctuations of the weather is simply not discernible to the individual observer. Finally, I challenge any sceptic to raise a credible argument against the theory, based on 140 year old physics, that an increasing level of any greenhouse gas in the atmosphere would influence climate.

Having said that, I will perhaps surprise Terpstra by agreeing that there should not be a carbon tax. The reason is simple. Without global agreement, Australia's actions are totally irrelevant as we produce only about 2% of global emissions. And I do not 'believe' (here it is legitimate to hold a belief) that there will global agreement for a very long time, so long as China, India and the like are catching up to our living standards.

So there is no need whatsoever to be a climate sceptic in order to oppose a carbon tax. There is another perfectly logical reason that does not require silly science to back it up.

Anthropogenic global warming (AGW) is an hypothesis put forward by the warmists.

It is up to the warmists to prove that the hypothesis holds in the real world.

No scientific paper has yet been published that unambiguously invalidates the null hypothesis of a natural origin for observed modern climate change, despite about US$100 billion (US$79 billion in the US alone) having been spent since 1990 and the intense efforts of many scientists to find evidence that favours dangerous AGW.

Tombee.
You state that people "cannot see the evidence of climate change for themselves". I suggest that a lot of people can see evidence of climate change whether it be a nagging feeling that there are a lot of extreme weather events happening or a sense that seasons are changing.
Your other comments about why you dont support a carbon tax are also problematic. Apart from a certain moral bankruptcy to suggest that other countries should do something about carbon dioxide but not Australia because we are small there are other problems with this thinking. The main one would be to question how it can be in Australia's self interest to ignore a major trend in power generation that is still in its infancy and will sweep the world at some point. Generally this is not an approach that makes sense in business. There is also an implication that other countries are doing less than Australia - something that it is easy to prove is not the case for most countries and especially not true for China. A couple of other thoughts. Firstly how can a country or a person seek to persuade others to do something they are not prepared to do. And secondly what is it that is so wonderful about coal and oil that we cant bear to give up? Various reports point out that the economic impact of transitioning to renewable energy is dwarfed by the economic impacts of dealing with the consequences of climate change.