I agree with Neutral - after an earnest start with OLO a couple of months ago I lost interest with the constant statement of extreme views on this topic masquerading as discussion.

Here’s another perspective – maybe 280 ppm CO2 is a dangerously low level and we almost got to a point where large-scale loss of vegetation plunged the population into a famine unseen in human history?

Maybe the burning of fossil fuels is an action that will return the atmospheric CO2 level back to a level that will promote life and provide temperatures conducive to plant growth rates required to sustain our population?

All that CO2 has been locked up in fossil fuels since the Devonian to Permian eras – maybe it’s time to set it free and get things back to where they should be?

Often the solution to a problem is not the absolute truth that both the AGW supporters and opponents claim here as their own. Often it is a just matter of having the correct frame of reference.

With the risk of enflaming the left and small “l” liberals (a group to which I probably belong), I will para-quote Ayn Rand - "A contradiction cannot exist - if faced with a contradiction, check your premises because one of them will be wrong.”

*And contrary to what you say, this makes us one of worst mobs on the planet, not one of the best.*

Rstuart, perhaps you are just on an unneeded typical Western guilt
trip. IMHO its pointless working anything out, unless you establish
some kind of breeding value. In other words, the person who pops
out
10 kids will long term have a far larger effect on the planet,
then the person who limits themselves to 0-2. Quite frankly, whilst
the planet keeps increasing at 250'000 extra people per day, I see
absolutaly no reason to join you on that guilt trip.

But Australia could easily improve its CO2 figures, if it really
needed to. Stop all aluminium smelting here, it creates huge amounts
of CO2, even though its others who will use and benefit from that
aluminium. Install a couple of nuclear power plants, bingo our
figures will improve dramatically and all you worrywarts can pat
yourselves on the back and feel better.

So we could easily feel better, but in real terms, its not going to
make a scrap of difference. Whilst Arab sheiks are flying around in
their personal jumbos as private planes and are building snowfields
in the desert, all powered by cheap energy, I see no reason at
all to go on your guilt trips.

Irrespective of the many detractors, Alex Stuart has a valid point in taking account of the natural absorption of emissions in consideration of this complex issue, and his affiliations should not detract from due consideration of the facts addressed. We are talking balance, after all, and the existing and potential absorption capacity of our natural landscape is a fundamental component in addressing that balance.

On the home front, carbon credits/offsets should, at the foremost, include improvements to the absorption capacity of our landscape by reforestation, including increases to plantation forestry, and through improvements in agricultural techniques and soil sequestration - given the great potential these offer, compared to the immediate potentials and time-frame (plus cost) limitations of current alternative energy production options for reducing/offsetting emissions. On world scale, our agricultural techniques are also cost and energy efficient, and highly productive. Contrary to detractors, our retention of forests, reserves and national parks, including the curtailment of widespread clearing in Queensland by the Howard government, are substantial positives in our contribution to the global ecological balance.

Alex Stuart's comparison of our emission to absorption footprint ratio to that of other developed nations is also compelling in bringing the overall emissions question into proper focus. Whereas we have a great many options available to us, many emitters do not - Bahrain for example. This ratio also brings China's development into proper focus - at 10 times our emission to absorption footprint, and with fewer options for at-home offsets, including potentially massive nuclear energy expansion.

Overall atmospheric CO2 increase is the problem, and our net contribution remains minuscule compared to other developed and developing nations - and net contribution IS the issue. (Also, we have no active or dormant volcanoes I am aware of. Our desert areas may not however be alkaline, so relative absorption may be in question.)

Finally, blaming us for emissions produced from our exported coal is blatantly counter-intuitive. It is up to them to offset, or don't buy it.

@Peter Mac: maybe 280 ppm CO2 is a dangerously low level and we almost got to a point where large-scale loss of vegetation plunged the population into a famine unseen in human history?

Maybe we could look it up. If we google "carbon dioxide levels" and click on the first hit, we get the wikipedia article showing historical CO2 levels. We note two things: is has been below 200 ppm while man kind has been on the planet, and all that time it has been growing - the industrial revolution just kicked it along.

@Peter Mac: All that CO2 has been locked up in fossil fuels since the Devonian to Permian eras – maybe it’s time to set it free and get things back to where they should be?

Maybe when you enter Devonian Permian, google's suggestion of "Devonian Permian extinction" might provide a hint that isn't where things should be? It ended with the greatest extinction event the planet has seen.

@Yabby: Rstuart, perhaps you are just on an unneeded typical Western guilt trip.

It had nothing to do with feeling guilty. It was effectively a lead up to the final line, which recall was "if you torture the data sufficiently, it will confess to almost anything". That is what Alex did, and it is what I did. As csteele pointed out, the premise they are founded on is flawed, so they are just meaningless efforts at massaging the figures to make them say what you want. I spent a few years doing the books for my businesses, and one thing I learnt from that is I could swing the bottom line by several times earnings without too much effort.

With respect to population I suspect we always have been in agreement. The entire exercise is a complete and utter waste of time while it keeps growing. The audacity of our political leads claiming they are serious about CO2 while growing while actively promoting policies that grow the population at 1.6% pa is breathtaking.

Yabby and Saltpetre make good points.Even if you believe in AGW and I don't ,it is totally illogical.Why are we going it alone when it will make no difference at all in the acceleration of CO2 emitions,destroy our economy just to make an ideological point.We make up 0.003% of the Worlds' population.We don't count.No one will notice! The applause will be in a vacuum.

Do you think that in your wildest dreams that anyone will notice our example as our living standards sink like a stone? $ billions have already been wiped off our share market due to this Gillard announcement.More industry will move off shore.

It's like a competition of who's best at slashing their wrists.Like all suicides,the world moves on and no one will give a damn.They will just move in and buy up our assets again for next to nothing and change the rules.

Hi rstuart and Peter Mac ,

I think you might find the graph in this blog post useful in discussing the level of CO2 in the atmosphere http://www.ambitgambit.com/2011/05/30/so-you-think-carbon-pollution-is-bad-now/.

It also provides a cross-reference against world temperature at the time too.