Gorofus: seriously now, who do you think is going to do a better job spending YOUR money to 'protect' YOU from 'global warming' -- a) you and your family; b) a government which depends on lies and propaganda to whip up hysteria about a non-problem?

Sea levels up by a metre in a century? Oo-er! For the innumerate, this requires about one layer of bricks added to the top of the seawall every decade. Not such a big ask, really -- even if we had any reason to think it was actually occurring.

Tom Tiddler
I guess economists and scientists look at graphs differently, and one of them is wrong. To start with, we scientists try really hard to compare like with like, not trends for the USA with trends for the globe. And if you insist that the UAH and RSS global temperatures (I'm looking at them right now) show no upward trend since 1979 then you are simply being mischievous. I have just printed off the UAH graph (and Roy Spencer at UAH is certainly no climate alarmist - quite the contrary) and put my trusty ruler on, which is the kind of thing I used to do for a living. Not quite linear, but a slope of +0.15C per decade characterises it pretty well.

As I said previously, there is plenty to criticise in the work of Garnaut, and there may also be plenty to be cautious about in the projections of climate models. But anyone who starts on the basis of spouting nonsense about simple facts is putting their credibility on the line for everything they say. It's simply not a smart tactic.

Tombee: well, UAH at 0.15 per decade projects only 1.5 oC to 2110, less than half the core IPCC projection. And the absence of trend in any series for the USA since 1979 certainly falsifies the claim that AW is "global" - USA is a big place.

You say you are a scientist. Do you know the formulae for combustion of a typical hydrocarbon and for photosynthesis? In case not, here they are:

C3H8 + 5O2 → Heat + 3CO2 + 4H2O …(1)
2CO2 + 2 H2O + photons → 2CH2O + 2O2 ...(2)
In words, (2) is carbon dioxide + water + light energy → carbohydrate + oxygen

Can you spot how the RHS of (1) matches the LHS of (2)?

Why do you want to reduce the growth of rain in (1) and food in (2)? The Garnaut tax is as much as tax on rain as it is on CO2. The quantities are not trivial: in (1) the outputs are 30.6 GtCO2 p.a. of which 56% contributes to additional photosynthesis , and 18 GtH2O p.a.
If the former is catastrophic so must be the latter, given water vapour's higher radiative forcing (according to Tyndall, Arrhenius, and the IPCC), while the water vapour emitted during the cooling of steam power generators is over 300 GtH20 p.a.

Wind and solar power contribute nothing to rainfall and crop production, but hydrocarbon combustion has the enormous benefits indicated by (1) and (2), which is why the IPCC never has nor ever will show (1) and (2). Tim Curtin's paper gives the sources for all those numbers (!).

"USA is a big place."

Yep, about 2% by area.

"Tim Curtin's paper gives the sources for all those numbers (!)"

Fess up, Tom Tiddler is your sock-puppet, Tim!

Tom Tiddler, this is just silly. I'm not going to discuss combustion, photosynthesis and the whole garbled nonsense about carbon dioxide, water, rain etc here (though of course combustion is broadly the reverse of photosynthesis, but not quite as you have written). In the present context you might as well tell me that hospitals insisting that flowers not be kept near the patients says something useful about global warming. But seeing as your posting seems more to be questioning my credentials, let me just mention for your other readers that I have a PhD in Agricultural Science, have had a long research career in minerals and energy, and am a Fellow of three professional bodies in science and technology fields. I don't for one moment say that this makes me right. It merely puts into perspective the kind of attack Tom Tiddler, who others say is economist Tim Curtin, needs to mount so as to divert attention from the issue being debated.

I think the IPCC and Al Gore, Michael Mann, James Hansen, Tim Flannery
should be made to return all the money they have received to prove
AGW. The climate commission report, that the PM stakes her science on
has a disclaimer on page 2. Garnaut wouldn't know a cow pat from a cloud. He has not dismissed agriculture from being taxed too. Oh,
methane emissions. He did say farmers should farm kangaroos instead of
beef and sheep. (There goes our dairy and wool industries). Have you ever tried to shear or milk a kangaroo Ross? Just Google him and see
what he has to say on methane emissions. EU carbon trading is failing
(See the World Bank they're in it too. They reckon if it fails (oh dear heaps of people will lose their pensions, etc), the world temps will go up 3 - 4 c. I have a report from the past NSW minister for climate and he sent me a report saying sea levels will rise 177mm by 2050. Thats 6.93 inches. Whose panicking. People are so naive and gullible. Don't they do their own research, easy now with the Internet. Obviously those in Government don't. Sorry folks, but Australia isn't here to bolster the EU carbon market or the UN Climate change fund. Wake up the planet's cooling. And carbon tax will do nothing to stop polluting it or cutting emissions.

This is the equivalent of a South Sea bubble in the 18th century, but
should be called the Carbon bubble. Sustainability and cleaning up our environment in the big cities, we are OK here in the country. Don't tax us any more, we pay more for fuel and electricity and goods
than city slickers, and where do all our resources come from, not
Pitt Street.