imajulianutter,

it's not really worth the bother, but to require global warming to follow a constant trend pattern is naive in the extreme, but great ammo for the inveterate minimididianist. Climate is a complex system and no one pretends to understand its myriad complexity utterly. The accumulation of carbon, however, released by humans from the Earth's ancient chthonion vaults, is an easy phenomenon to measure. And whatever equivocations are indulged about the growing concentrations in the atmosphere--it's "plant food" and all that--the effects in the world's natural carbon sinks, the oceans, are unequivocal.
However, you and your brethren are not interested in reality, are you? and wilful ignorance is a far more potent weapon than consideration.
Don't consider, just deny.

imajulianutter - I'm happy to address your comments about 'the coldest northern hemisphere winter for 100 years'. This is quite consistent with global warming models - the increasing amount of fresh meltwater water from the polar icecap and Greenland slows and/or pushes south the gulf stream, so its warming influence over western Europe is diminished. Heaps about via Google if you want to see it explained in detail.

Chris your article makes me wonder if any carbon price should be on embedded carbon rather than carbon emissions. Everything we buy has a quantifiable amount of carbon arising from its production, transport etc. Goods produced with high carbon energy sources (such as coal fired power stations) have higher embedded carbon than the same goods produced with, say, hydroelectricity. Goods shipped round the world have higher embedded carbon that the same good made locally. If we taxed embedded carbon, a clear price signal would be included in all goods from everywhere, with local production given an advantage, and local producers and consumers given an incentive to demand lower carbon energy supplies. It would discourage us from exporting our emissions, as we do now, and pave the way for a return to local manufacturing and food production, which will become more necessary as oil prices rise through the century. It seems a much better way to actually do something meaningful about carbon emissions.

The discussion about whether global warming is happening is over.
It is time to talk about what you can do about reducing your effect on the planet. Don't worry about China, they are more advanced in this than most know about.
Get off oil, generate your own power, solar hot water, big rewards for fuel solutions. [maybe steam power ]
To be negative is to be a loser.

'it's not really worth the bother, but to require global warming to follow a constant trend pattern is naive in the extreme'

But isn't this exactly what your settled science requires?

'the inveterate minimididianist'

let's see 'invetertate' = firmly established by long continuance, as a disease, habit, practice, feeling, etc.; chronic.

That describes you much rather than me.

I've an open mind and look at weather and climate as always changing, possibly both warming and cooling. You don't! You look as climate as only possibly warming.

What the hell is a 'minimididianist' is this just another fiction made up to support global warming in the midst of freezing temperatures?

You should leave the word invention to the experts ... like Shakespeare..

You really do need to read Diogenes.

My favourite quote from him is when he spent a short time walking backwards and people were derogratory towards him .

"You are laughing at me walking just a little distance backwards while you all lead your entire lives arse-about."

"And what's more," he asked, "can you change your way of living as easily as this?"

He then turned and walked off in normal fashion.

And please do tell me that lighting a fire cools things. hahahahah

"China emits 50 per cent more carbon to produce similar products to the West" should actually read "China emits 50 per cent more carbon to produce similar products ON BEHALF OF the West".

China is a vast factory pumping out goods on our behalf and wearing the carbon cost that we would be producing if manufacturing was done on-shore.

If we were really sincere about reducing China's carbon output we should bring all our manufacturing back into Australia and produce the same goods but using a lower carbon output.

Anybody willing to put their money where their mouth is and pay extra for the same goods?

I suspect not.

I'd pay more for goods that would last longer. In fact I already do, with clothes, easily done if you put quality over fashion. Its in my genes - my father died last year at 96, still wearing shoes made for him in the 1930s and a suit from the 1950s. Anyway, my point about taxing embedded carbon was that it would give an edge to locally produced goods which could partially offset the added cost of paying people a decent wage to make them. Don't some people call our passion for cheap stuff produced in sweatshops a form of outsourced slavery?