So the inhabitants of Antarctica should receive even more 'carbon absorbtion bouquets' than we Aussies because they happen to live in an even more sparsely populated country?

What a nonsensical arguement Alex.

JSB
In fact what you really mean is that you don't like the article, hate the conclusions, but for the life of you can't think of a response, so you just label it crazy.

In fact, although I have not run the numbers myself there is at the least a kernel of truth in Stuart's piece. Australia may have high per-capita emissions, but it also has very low population densities. Even in the well settled South East corner and South West fringe its still well below European, US or Chinese population density levels. And even the Nullabor would absorb CO2.

The man has a point, and it would be crazy to dismiss it

Curmudgeon,

you're right I don't like it, yes I hate the conclusions (some of them), and no I didn't bother to explain myself.

I don't doubt that the author's calculations of total CO2 impact including the influence of our territory is reasonable. But it is largely irrelevant in terms of understanding our impact and determining what we should do.

What is relevant is the emissions that we are responsible for. We are not responsible for the fact that we have a huge territory with few people, except perhaps to say that we have an inequitably low proportion of the world's population basking in the comforts of our natural resources... that's a whole separate argument though.

So suggesting that we should be tempering our actions because, actually, we're the planets saviours already, is misleading. And it does not contribute to the debate because it's merely providing misleading support for the perspective that we shouldn't be acting.

The only real relevance of the author's argument is that, if we want to act to improve our emissions, ignoring territorial contribution ignores potential opportunities for leveraging a large influence on net CO2. If the author was discussing what we could do to leverage that, which could (though I have a feeling it wouldn't) dwarf everything else, then that would be an article worth publishing. (The result of that would probably look a lot like the Coalition policy, funnily enough - and fair enough if the figures add up, though from my understanding they wouldn't.)

I'll admit to being partisan and I wouldn't likely object so strongly to something which had a misleading influence in the other direction, but that doesn't mean the article isn't skewed to the point of being against the public interest. (Especially in a context where comments can't be viewed in line with the post so the opportunity for debate around the position raised is diminished.... buth that's another argument as well.)

JSB, I would reject any criticism of this article as crazy or unworthy of On Line Opinion. If population density is irrelevant, how is it that Julia Gillard's plan actually hinges on Australia buying carbon credits to use other people's forests overseas to offset our emissions, as well as using our own forests and farmlands to do the same thing.

If Alex's figures are correct, and they are backed-up by the Global Footprint Network, http://footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/GFN/ then Australia is short-changing itself on its carbon offsets, on the government's own logic.

Happy to admit to wrong calls, but this isn't one of them.

JSB

so, okay, what we've come down to is that the article is right - or at least the argument is defensible, rather than crazy - the crazy part is that you don't want arguments like that to absolve us from further reducing carbon.

But as GrahamY points out what, then is the point of us buying carbon credits from overseas? They should buy from us. Or is it you just don't like the thought of any backward step on carbon, and never mind all the incorect nonsense that went before about us being a big per-capital emitter?

Any propoganda is good propoganda if its for the cause. Is that the reasoning?

Alex Stuart may not need to halve his estimate of Australia's CO2 absorption figures to achieve his conclusion because of our large percentage of arid land. On the contrary, there is research from both the deserts of western China and the Mohave desert in the US suggesting that alkaline desert soils absorb large amounts of CO2 -"possibly as much as a temperate forest" http://www.ecostudies.org/press/Schlesinger_Science_13_June_2008.pdf