Good article Mike; sane summary of the the issue which the majority would agree with. Of course you are quite right; the work doesnt end and we dont plunge into deep recession as soon as we adopt a carbon price - dozens of countries in Europe can testify to this and many of these already have 30 - 50 % renewable energy due to the carbon price. Totally agree with your comment too Robborg.

The usual den of half a dozen or so climate denier vipers has predictably struck again, trying in vain to counter sane arguments for climate change action as they always do on these pages. To them I ask 'who pays you?". I am happy to start the ball rolling by saying who pays me. I fund myself on meagre earnings from consulting, odd jobs, a small term deposit and a rental property. I earn little more than the pension, but I do have some time to weigh into these debates

Here is an interesting snippet: "Nine out of ten of the main contributors to the Global Warming Foundation's list of '900 peer reviewed sceptical papers' are financially linked to Exxon Mobil and many others are linked to oil-industry funded think tanks………"
These facts and others about the climate denier campaign have been detailed in such books as 'Climate Cover Up' and 'Merchants of Doubt'. The corrupt 'smoking is not linked to cancer' campaign is now common knowledge as is the corrupt climate denial campaign. It is well known who funds them to propagate lies.

To my surprise I agree with about half of Mike Pope's article. However, he spoils it by his childish insistence, despite all that has happened, that really the sceptics have no evidence. This sort of sniping is getting old, and pointless.

As for the carbon tax, I agree that it will probably not have a noticeable effect. It may shave a few points of economic growth and hit the middle class consumers, who are unlikely to be compensated despite Pope's claim.

But will it save carbon? Switching power plants is not easy. Once a coal plant is up and firing away, it will most likely be used for its full 30-40 year life cycle. The carbon tax debate has delayed investment in new, more efficient plants that may well be gas rather than coal powered. There are indications that new capacity is in fast cycling open-cycle gas plants - less efficient than the big gas plants - to fill in the gaps between the dionsaur coal plants. However, when a carbon tax is announced, any changes will take decades.

Maybe you should ask Portuguese taxpayers about whether their businesses have 'come to an end' as a result of taxing carbon:

http://tinyurl.com/3lbo9e4

The carbon tax may not the sole reason why Portugal, Greece and Ireland are in deep financial trouble, but it sure ain't helping any.

As for... "the release of methane from the immense deposits in the Arctic...", this is exactly what we need: the deposits are so massive that they can stave off energy depletion and provide us with heat, light, computer power and food for many decades to come:

http://www.freshpatents.com/Methane-conversion-to-higher-hydrocarbons-dt20070816ptan20070191664.php

One person's apocalypse is another's opportunity. But of course, cheap and abundant energy is the last thing the dreary AGW death cult actually wants.

I agree that a small Carbon Tax may not be the end of the world, but is it the best policy.

Both Liberal and Labor have stated that they want to reduce CO2 emissions but the policies coming from both sides have been woeful.

Their initiatives so far have caused the price of RECs to crash causing the construction of new wind farms to be put on hold. Government policy encouraged rooftop solar at 50c/kWh to the detriment of wind at 11c/kWh. AGL Energy, Pacific Hydro, Accionna and Origin Energy have all deferred major wind farm projects because they are presently uneconomic.

Carbon Tax or no Carbon Tax? I don't know. I just want policy that works and doesn't destroy the economy.

And then Roses1 comes out with this equally tired nonsense.
"Nine out of ten of the main contributors to the Global Warming Foundation's list of '900 peer reviewed sceptical papers' are financially linked to Exxon Mobil and many others are linked to oil-industry funded think tanks."

That statistic and other rantings in the same post about funding for sceptical research do not make a lot of sense, but are almost certainly wrong.

The overwhelming bulk of all funds in this area have gone into the greenhouse side. It is possible to point to a million here or a million there that has gone to organisations that might be described as sceptical. But for every such million it is possible to point to a billion on the Greenhouse side. Greenpeace alone turns over 400 million euro worldwide, and that's just one of any number of strident pro-greenhouse organisations, all raising money.

As for funds that have gone into research, what research where? Sceptical scientists have told me that they cannot get funding for their proposals. Nor is there a scrap of evidence that the energy companies have been financing climate research on any scale. Naomi Oreskes has simply taken a line from the tobacco companies and assumed the energy companies are doing the same thing. They are not. Its a different market, different product and different circumstances. Oreskes should adjust her viewpoint to take in those circumstances, and find some evidence for her assertions beyond the occasional grant. So should Roses1.

"Really, the sceptics have no evidence." Curm objects to this sentence, which is no more than a statement of fact. The science supporting the theory of human-influenced climate change has not been refuted. The (very rare) science which occasionally surfaces and attempts to provide an alternative theory has not, so far, been able to survive close examination.

Most so-called sceptics are nothing of the sort, being out-and-out denialists and impervious to evidence. Very occasionally, a real sceptic appears, prepared to examine the evidence. Recently, Prof Richard A. Muller set up the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Project (funded in part by oil-billionaire Charles Koch) in the expectation that close analysis of the data would refute mainstream climate science. But in a surprising announcement to the US Congress (March 2011), Prof Muller said that the Berkeley data closely matches mainstream data, and the fact that some surface temeperature stations are "poor" (as claimed by Watts et al) makes no difference to the observed global warming trend.