Curmudgeon,

my basic point is that the growth paradigm is incongruous with any agenda for reducing emissions, therefore the problem can only be dealt with via radical economic reform. This is far more unlikely than an international agreement being set up, nevertheless I don't believe reducing emissions, concomitant with economic growth, is possible, or even tenable. I'd be delighted to see what Mr Eslake or other economists have to say about that.

My other point apropos growth was that even if we adopt an adaptation policy to the AGW already in the pipeline, treating the process underway as already impossible to counteract on a humanly meaningful time-scale, that doesn't address the fact the the problem is dynamic and exponential. So do we adapt to the unavoidable damage done so far, or to the catastrophic damage that will accrue from doing nothing? Adaptation means taking no action relative to an "accumulating" problem, not to a steady state scenario. Adaptation in that case means positive feedback, and not agility. Such a policy is unhinged and can only be rationalised by subjective and irrational denialism of best-practice scientific analyses.

I'm not confusing anything; it's academic to my perspective, but an international accord will probably, and belatedly, be arrived at, using trade embargos etc. to pressure recalcitrant states.
What I "think should happen"--economic reform that inaugurated economic contraction--is what nobody is talking about.
Your adaptation idea looks delusionary to me in the circumstances, while taking the sort of market oriented approach the major powers look bent on can only be rationalised as incorporating an overall collapse scenario and a technological "Ark".

Squeers
Nope - again your approach is to require the entire system to be overthrown, which simply isn't going to happen, and then you accuse others of being denialist. Although I think global warming theory (its not really science, its forecasting) is a load of nonsense, adaption is no sense a denial of that theory. It is a recognition that nothing can really be done about emissions, therefore we have to make the best of it. In fact, it is the only way to reduce any of this supposed future damage.

To pursue emissions reduction at this point is irrational.

Mark, I don't think the world (read politicians) is just so far short of concerted action. They just see different ways to approach the problem. They all agree that something needs to be done; how and when seems to be the sticking point.

When there is distinct divergence to a common problem, it is much better to work together to overcome it - I don't see this from 'business as usual' or neo-cons, or the "hard-left deep green activists" as you say.

Adaptation to a changing environment is important, but some (species, cultures, whatever) can't, or they will need help in doing so - far more than others. This is what the UN is worried about.

Of course, adaptation to a changing climate/environment doesn't happen over night - it will take time. We should start now.

Whether you believe in human induced global warming or not, there will come a time when we have to wean (slowly) ourselves off fossil fuels. This too will take time, and like adaptation to a changing environment/climate, we should also start now.

At the end of the day, and with an increasing world population that is expected to peak at 10 billion by 2050, our use and abuse of our energy resources is becoming critical. We have to have a mix of energy supply and while coal will be around a while yet, it would be prudent to not only look at the alternatives, but to actively pursue them - don't you think?

Mark (I'm Mark also),
it may transpire that global warming was poorly or incompletely understood, but I'm confident it will never be shown to be "a load of nonsense". In any case, as I've pointed out before, global warming is only one facet of anthropogenic biospheric degradation. The broad-scale assault by humanity on the present world's life support systems is irrefutable. Global warming is the product of that "concerted" assault, hence the endless variables that prevent it from being an exact science. Quite enough is understood, however, to predict the trend and assign its causes. Even should AGW prove to be substantially incorrect or overstated, the measures needed to address it could only be beneficial in addressing the discrete aspects of the concerted phenomena.
Your position as you state it, "nothing can really be done about emissions, therefore we have to make the best of it", is vacuous: business as usual, based on denialism coupled with political defeatism (it's actually banal conservatism, and nothing so plausible as the cynicism you affect).

You dismiss me as "requiring the entire system to be overthrown", and thus deflect the vital point I've put forward with an innuendo; the point being that economic growth "cannot" be maintained in tandem with cuts in emissions. Is anyone prepared to tell me that this isn't so? This is the only reason I'm against a carbon tax, because it will not and cannot be effective in a growth paradigm (unless it were substantial enough to close down polluting industries--effectively, economic contraction); indeed a carbon tax is itself dependent on growth; it's a self-defeating contradiction.
I don't require that the entire system be overthrown, only that economies contract; emissions cannot contract otherwise. This is CDF but no one wants to face it. so I'll leave the scientists, the economists and the minimifidianists to persue their respective hoby horses and agendas.

Oh dear Saul,

you've let slip you left leaning bias slip.

You've only asked two questions of your ‘market-based solutions’ economists?

1. Do you support a tax to reduce carbon dioxide emissions?
2. Do you support direct action to reduce carbon dioxide emissions?
.

Ask them the obviously ignored by the greens and other lefties and the natural question for those who actually favour 'market-based solutions',

Do you think it should be left up to the market to decide whether carbon dioxide emissions reduction needs to be undertaken?

I think you know, as well as I, how your 'market-based solutions' economists will respond.

Given your limited questioning and extensive critic of Abbott on that basis I think Abbott's question about the quality of Australian economists had a very real basis, merit and justification.

cheers brother

Saul is all about the general perception that there are too many people on the planet and the way forward is tax on CO2 to impoverish the masses into submission and poverty to save his planet.

The meek shall not inherit the earth,the elites shall inherit the earth in the Gospel according to the New World Order.