Bob has a good argument with regard to only taxing the heavy carbon polluters but to say that we, the human race, are not contributing to elevate carbon/carbon dioxide emissions situation is questionable. The natural occurrance of volcanos has not increased though the continuous burning off of our bushland is certainly adding to the problem. Human interference again. Did we burn off quite so much land 50 years ago? This argument could go on forever without anything being done.
Yes, I would love to watch a panel of our esteemed scientists debate about global warming. Even bring in people who have an on the ground knowledge of what is or is not happening around us. Show me proof. But would anything change? Or would it all end in a stalemate?
Perhaps we should all not worry about anything. I mean to say we wont be around for it to be a problem to us anyway. Palm it off to the kids to worry about. There will be a quite a few more people with maybe a few more brains than us by then, given evolution and change.

Hey rexw

for a moment then I thought you were describing Ross but realised you weren't when you omitted the description dottery old fool...

Tombee
very well, fair enough. You most certainly have an arguable case that the feedbacks and such should be left to the climate modellers and such. The trouble is that by almost all indications available to those outside that closed group is that they have collectively stuffed it up. They are all working from the same, guess-work assumptions, using models that have no track record of any kind, and which are far too complicated to make any useful forecasts

The study of forecasting is a business subject - its in marketing - its not in science at all, but its also partly a religion in that it has gods. Those gods are related to murphy of murphy's law (anything that can go wrong..)and are vindictive.

The keepers of the climate models have broken all the rules of forecasting on complex systems - the simplier the model and the shorter the time frame the better, among others. Another rule, directly related to the religious part, is never declare yourself certain about a forecast, even one with wide parameters.

The gods of forecasting will have their revenge. We can only hope to pluck a few bodies out of the debris.

As Bob Carter points out, promoters of the carbon tax use convenient untruths ( or to be more frank, straight-out deceit) , e.g.:
. use of the emotive term, 'carbon pollution', whereas they mean carbon dioxide which is a non-polluting colourless gas that is necessary for plant life and hence all life;
. use of the general term 'climate change' for the more specific term 'global warming';
. TV pictures portraying power stations emitting 'pollution' when it is in fact steam rising from the plant;
. the power station shown in the Cate Blanchett scene is an ex-London station closed down some 28 years ago;
. the science is settled;
. AGW is real, else why would learned societies promote it;

. they omit to state:
. . that the carbon tax is intended to drive the replacement of efficient coal-fired power generation with unreliable inefficient renewable energy sources such as wind power which is three times as expensive as , and solar power which is at least ten times as costly, as coal power;
. . that power prices will rise significantly and cause economy-wide price rises;
. . that the resulting reductions in carbon dioxide emissions will have no impact on stemming global warming (or climate change).

For more informative detail of the science and the politics of climate change, reference should be made to Professor Robert Carter's book, "Climate: The Counter Consensus", published in 2010 by Stacey International -- a very good read.

Raycom,
I totally agree!

Further to Raycom's comments (with which I also agree):

If I was an AGW proponent, I would be unhappy with the proposed carbon tax, just as the Greens voted against the CPRS. It is an exercise in circulating money - by taxing the CO2 "polluters" and using the majority of the funds to compensate households for the necessary price rise in goods and services, how does this encourage lower emissions?

The rest of the money will evaporate in the process (eg. RG's three levels of overview) or get diverted to general revenue rather than being used to fund and promote alternative energy development.

Because fossil fuel will become more scarce and therefore more expensive, I honestly believe we must invest heaviliy in developing alternative energy systems (both stationary & mobile) for the very reasons stated by Raycom - the current technology is clunky & inefficient. But we need not engage in self-flagellation over our use of carbon-based fuels in the meantime.

The concept of "stopping climate change" belongs with the story of King Canute in the annuls of human arrogance. As stated in the article, we would be better off directing our efforts into dealing with the effects of the changing climate. However, this needs to be assessed in a more rational way than some of the hysterical predictions of Biblical plagues found in the IPCC publications.