Sadly the loopy left is now in control of Australian politics.
They are seemingly incompetent in many areas but unfortuneately they may well succeed in destroying the native forest timber industry; in so doing producing lttle or no carbon abatement locally but with devasting effects on third world forests which will be exploited in an uncontrolled (illegal) manner in order to supply our own needs.

These perverse outcomes make the Climate Change Commission's stance seem, at best ill-considered, at worst immoral NIMBYism.

An excellent analysis Mark!

A co2 man made global warming tax just to fill the coffers where green labor can dole out giveaways at the next election, yes Nimbyism, at its uncompetitive and repetitively lazy best, Where green labor local and state governments still contain this climate policy within their funding portfolios, What a bunch of miscreants.

Good article, Mark -- although it's a bit too easy finding inconsistencies and logical fallacies in the government's current position on environmental issues. Finding some environmental policies that actually achieve their stated goal -- now, THAT would be a challenge!

Global warming is a load of crap.

Until someone can reconcile 2011: the coldest winter in the northern hemisphere in 100 years and the coldest in the UK since the Met Office records began and how this can be caused by the alarmist global warming the 'settled science' claims are completely undermined.

It's no wonder the media and the alarmists are saying nothing about this 'extreme event'.

All those pushing the warming creed should be asked to explain the current coldest temperatures in 100 years.

Why is this cold event going unnoticed and ignored.

Who's the denier now?

"Global warming is a load of crap."

A demonstration that in 'the world of stupid' the inhabitants can't comprehend the distinction between signal and noise.

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/#temp

Dear Mark,

I don’t think there is much choice other then to rely on NGO’s for advice. The house of carbon has been constructed on non empirical scientific advocacy. The more it is challenged scientifically the more it has to respond with spin.

It is probably the spin more than anything else that is causing the severe decline in support for the alarm phenomena worldwide and the even more severe decline in support for action. Our government is responsible for more damage to the cause than anything else in the last three years.

It seems that once the electorate becomes sensitized to spin, the reaction appears to become inversely proportional and enters a self destructive phase. The more spin, the more sensitivity, the greater the disbelief, the more spin is needed, the less the credibility.

There is a further problem that relates to historical spin. Once sensitivity to current spin increases, questions of credibility of previous spin are raised. Thus the fundamental premise of alarmism is now being questioned.

If this alarmist phenomenon is to be validated, it will be validated by less science and more spin, which is precisely where it is headed.

In the meantime, we will have to tolerate an increase in the number of increasingly outrageous claims, urgency, ideology and total disregard of contrary public opinion.

The case for action on AGW is now based upon “the right thing to do”, “It’s what the people of Australia voted for”, “the advice we have” and the emerging contradictions being ignored or “brassed out”.

R.I.P.

Mark thanks for exposing the influence of the Wild country Hub of the Australian National University on this report to the Climate Change committee.
It is extremely disappointing that the Government’s advice is being restricted to the view of Professor Mackey and his fellow wild country activist academics. This is a mistake that has already been done in the final report of the Garnaut Climate Change Review that states on page 165 “Mackey et al. estimate that the eucalypt forests of south-eastern Australian could remove about 136 M t CO2-e per year (on average) for the next 100 years. This estimate is premised on several key assumptions, including cessation of logging and controlled burning over the 14.5 million hectare study area.”

This estimate is based on Greens senator Christine Milne’s philosophy that our forests are a carbon bank, and totally ignores wild fire. Such a fallacy is shown in the subsequent article published by the PNAS that claimed the carbon findings were based on E. regnans forest in the O’Shannassy catchment of Victoria’s Central Highlands, 53 sites within a 13,000-ha catchment.

But the PNAS publication also states “In February 2009, extensive areas of the O’Shannassy Catchment and elsewhere in the Central Highlands of Victoria were burned in a major conflagration”. An event most of us know as the tragic Black Saturday bushfires that not only destroyed the forests but many human lives and families.

Surely it is time that experts not associated with the Greens or their splinter groups be invited to brief the ALP and the non green members of the minority government.

Perhaps it is also time that the ANU academics get a lesson in the difference between deforestation and forestry as the PNAS paper starts with “Deforestation currently accounts for _18% of global carbon emissions ... Reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD) is now recognized as a critical component of climate change mitigation.

Forestry (harvesting and regeneration) is a long term carbon sink, with timber products able to both store carbon and substitute for other material with a larger carbon footprint.

Bonmott

What can I say? You must despair at the latest opinion poling. It seems 65% of us have consensus that global warming is no longer an urgent issue.

Does that make most of us stupid or a rump of 35% of you people who are ignoring the current extreme cooling event more stupid.

You used to claim a consensus of scientists reckoned the world was warming because of risoing average warming temperatures and that we should join you lot because of a consensus of opinion of those few scientists and that was in the days when 65% believed in global warming as an urgent issue.

I wonder how many of those consensually enlightened scientists still cling to the consensual dogma in view of the hard evidence of the current climate temperatures and their effect on average temperatures? Oh and I think they will all understand mathematic's and averages. Watch the stats on falling average temperatures ... a cornerstone of the claims of global warming!

And you dare to call me a denier and stupid.

Yep that's consistant with you deniers of reality.

Oh I've seen the argument about melting ice and moving of the gulf and other currents causing cooling.

That is perfectly correct but the problem you face with that quaint claim is to explain why that situation has occurred before, many times... particularly before the current rise in emissions of CO2.

Cheers Bonmott

Oh and Bonmott

Please tell me that lighting a fire lowers temperatures...

hahahahah