Fortunately, you're only a student, James. You still have an opportunity to grow up, get over the use of cliches and come to grips with reality.

China's increase in emissions each year is greater than Australia's total emissions, just as the number of honours students in China exceeds Australia's total number of students. Nothing Australia does is of any consequence, especially when it comes to futile political gestures and the poltics of moral bankruptcy.

The carbon dioxide tax is not better than nothing. It's a catastrophic disaster. That will become obvious to people like you in due course, when you notice that having a science degree is rather pointless in the absence of science-based industry.

A simple challenge, James: tell us how food, water, groceries, pharmaceuticals and other essentials are to be distributed without the emission of carbon dioxide. And while you're at it, please do so without using a computer.

"Beyond Zero Emissions is designing a comprehensive plan for Australia to transition to a zero-carbon economy in ten years, debunking the argument that it cannot be done."

No, to debunk the argument that it cannot be done, you actually have to DO it. History is chock full of 'comprehensive' plans which came to grief on the rocks of reality. There's no reason to think that this one will be any different.

Who is paying for all this?

Do they get a voice in all the "you should do this, that and the other, that WE want"?

"Secondly, support the Clean Energy Finance Corporation and campaign for it to be ideally implemented. The Australian Youth Climate Coalition's current Repower Australia petition aims to do exactly this."

Oh right, it's a petition .. so I guess it's Joe average taxpayer footing the bills again, while all the Climate Activists, activise ad nauseum ...

Mate, most of us are pretty tired at all the green eco whackos, demanding we change our lifestyles into unsustainable dreary morbid shadows to prop up your egos, and at the very next chance, 2013 I believe, will wipe you off the planet's surface.

There is an up side to this for you too, you'll be able to go and get a real job .. as you clearly think you can feed a family and survive being an activist .. reality is quite the leveler.

Yes, it's nice to have dreams and all that, but do it for yourself and get out of my life with your regulations and laws.

We don't want your social engineering by activism and regulation .. we will reject your totalitarianism desires for the rest of us.

James,

Your piece seems to assume that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are the greatest threat facing mankind. I am very interested in just what evidence you are seeing that convinces you that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are causing dangerous global warming. On the evidence that I see, there is much we don't know about the system. At best, anthropogenic CO2 seems likely to play only a minor role, with natural factors and land-use factors (think 1930s US DustBowl) being more dominant.

You may have noticed that despite assertions of "years of debate" that actually the government has NEVER answered the questions about evidence for CO2 causing harm. Nor has it answered questions as to the actual reduction in emissions this punitive tax will have.

As well as that, I am interested that you think that we should destroy Australia's competitive position in the world economy, without actually having any positive impact on reducing CO2 emissions.

I assume that you don't pay much in the way of taxes yet. Its easy to argue to impose additional costs on others, Eh!

"Australia to transition to a zero-carbon economy in ten years, debunking the argument that it cannot be done."

I read the report, and the best I can say about it is that it is well intentioned. The rest is financially and technically incompetent.

James,

You forgot fission power, champ. If you're really so keen to see CO2 free power generation, supporting nuclear power would be the obvious choice in a country so well suited to generating most of its power from nuclear fission.

Such a glaring omission from your article suggest to me that there is more to your agenda than minimising CO2 emissions.

Technically incompetant, as of now it probably is, but isn't it the idea of finding the ways of making the technicality possable. It is a little early to debunk anything. A start has been made. Oil and coal has seen their day, and we must diversify. I don't see why alt; energy wont take the place of coal fired power. It is the will to make it work. Houses and small business can mostly be eliminated from grid power now. It will cost money to save money, never been any different. Some people go on as if Australia is alone in the world of alt energy, when we are miles behind. USA is the world leader in alt energy at the moment. Political atmosphere is what will drive or dampen investment, I say people will er on the side of caution, and think of the future, rather than penny pinch for today.

579, all the political will in the world won't overcome the problems in alt. power, unless we go nuclear.

Nuclear is the best form of power if you want to truly reduce CO2, if THAT is the goal, and having a big new tax to reduce Carbon .. it appears that way.

James, studying climate science is a shrewd choice young man. I could not imagine a scientific field more likely to attract funding dollars.

I am not a scientist but I do attempt to read what I can about global warming, climate change, or whatever the term dejour is.

I've got to say I am pretty sceptical about the drive for a greener future as explained by Bob Brown and his acolytes. Anthropogenic CO2's causal link with "catastrophic" global warming is yet to be proven, as are the dire consequence of CO2 in the atmosphere in any case.

Putting Australian industry in an anti-competitive straight jacket seems pretty dumb to me.

Selling coal to China, India etc at the same time in order to guard us from the global dip in growth just seems extremely cynical when the same people facilitating that trade are telling us all how we need to be CO2 angels.

I am also quite concerned to hear that someone like Tony Windsor feels a study of CSG is sufficient to allay the real concerns of anyone who tries to eke out a living on farming land currently being "explored" for CSG opportunities - and there's a lot of land affected.

If he had any go in him he'd say, stop CSG til we can figure out if its extraction is going to poison key agricultural land and subterranean acquifers.

Lots of good advice from others above for you to ponder, I hope it helps you figure out your thoughts so you can post some sort of qualifying statement in due course.

One would hope that the author undertakes rigorous analysis of the anthropogenic global warming hypothesis as part of his Science course , and simply does not accept the propaganda that is disseminated by the IPCC and its hangers-on. Rather than engage in fashionable political correctness, if he were serious about scientific method, he would find that there is no compelling scientific evidence that proves the AGW hypothesis. One hopes that he has the diligence to recognise scientific evidence when he sees it.

In any case, his faith in renewables is misplaced. Despite extensive overseas research in the fields of wind and solar power , they are still about three times and ten times respectively more costly than coal-fired power when the necessary back-up power supply facilities are considered; and their substantial cost disadvantages appear unlikely to reduce significantly in the longterm. If only he were to apply some elementary economics, he should conclude that it is nonsensical to pursue either form of renewable energy

That senario is normal. Until alt energy is widespread it will cost more. No different to the latest model Tv. Cost is not everything; If no one ever started alt energy, it would be even worse now. Neuclear is one form of alt energy, if you can find a place to put it. Germany thinks they can go away from nuclear energy, in favor of other forms of alt power production. What ever the outcome, we cannot rely on the supply of oil and coal. You may find yourself walking to work.

Young people who have been literally brainwashed into the new Environmentalism.

There is no such thing as 'clean' or 'dirty' energy based on CO2 emissions. These are nonsensical brainwashing words making use of the natural human fear of 'dirty' things. CO2 is not a pollutant, nor is it 'Dirty'. Its a life giving colourless and odourless gas which some people believe contributes to increased global temperatures (the evidence is scant mind, you.)

Spain has almost gone bankrupt after changing to 'clean' energy because it has cost huge amounts of money and thousands of jobs.

Once upon a time, to get a Science degree, one had to examine the evidence for things and obtain correct answers, not simply repeat an ideological mantra.

just on the whole Green Business model, and this goes for Feed-in Tariffs as well ..

Any business that needs a subsidy, is not in business per se, they are employed by the government at a particular rate, and when that employment at that rate drops, or is reduced or ceases, then that part of the business dependent on that, ceases to exist.

Which is why all the Green jobs schemes, here, Spain the US, Germany all vanish the moment the subsidy disappears.

They are non jobs, welfare by another name.

Just as feed-in tariffs are welfare .. in the same way a levy is a tax.

This current blind chanting that green jobs are the future, and yet all the green jobs are really welfare - nothing more.

Careful of the info you get here. Spain has had an average of 14.2% unemployment since 1983. They have 9 neuclear power plants and 2 parabolic steam generators producing alt energy. Spain is a leading producer of alt energy, which is contracted all around the world. The latest being built in Dubai.

Gee James I hope that's not climate science you're studding, for your sake, that is going to have such a dirty name in a year or two, you'd be lucky to score a job as a street sweeper.

Oh, & I wouldn't suggest environmental science either. In case you didn't know, that's the one where they put the math challenged ones, those who need their shoes off to count past ten. They have filled the one per department establishment for those in most councils now, so not good prospects there either.

If it is some brand of science that includes some math, go find your tutor, you must have misunderstood some lectures. No one with much more than junior high math could fall for this climate scam.

You may have plans for a bureaucratic career, & hope this rip off tax will keep the government coffers full. I hope not, for your sake, that might be a bad bet too mate.

Lets just stick to facts shall we?

Spains Green Job Disaster. University study.
http://www.juandemariana.org/pdf/090327-employment-public-aid-renewable.pdf

Spain's Unemployment rate : 8% in 2007, 21.6 % now.
http://www.google.com.au/publicdata/explore?ds=z8o7pt6rd5uqa6_&met_y=unemployment_rate&idim=country:es&fdim_y=seasonality:sa&dl=en&hl=en&q=spain%27s+unemployment+rate#ctype=l&strail=false&bcs=d&nselm=h&met_y=unemployment_rate&fdim_y=seasonality:sa&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=country_group&idim=country:es&ifdim=country_group&hl=en&dl=en

Attman nice one .. what Amicus said 579!

The government churns out a constant drone of propaganda on this stuff, and wonders why it has a trust problem with the community.(some people believe it and regurgitate the lies, some go and look it up for themselves)

579, where do you get this 14.2% average unemployment since 1982? More eco BS, and why 1982? This is typical of the cherry picked statistical analysis of the warming belief.

Right now it is 22.6% and that is really a disaster.

Spain is a basket case, the installations they get overseas, are yet more welfare jobs from people like our government who listen to scientific advisers with something to gain by promoting such. They probably get some kind of UN special Elephant stamp, or a job on the IPCC or something.

I struggle to trust anyone or anything in the warmist camp any more. I read some things that are interesting, then find things are cherry picked, skewed, have carefully chosen scales, dodgy timeframes, colluding to suppress papers that question other work, bullying in the scientific workplace, if the evidence is so clear, why so much trickery?

Surely by now, with all the countless billions spent, it would be beyond question.

Unless of course, the climate scientists are just not very knowledgeable about climate, which is really the only valid answer, as much as they claim to be all over it, they clearly are not and climate is way more complex than they can imagine - we're intellectual climate science pygmies and have no idea what is going on.

Endless stupid guesses followed up by backfilling is not science.

I do not think your "the myth that renewable energy cannot provide continuous power" link means what you think it means, unless you believe no electricity in winter is acceptable.

Green power generation does not have to be uneconomical, and it is capable of generating baseload power. Just look at France, who have quite cheap electricity and generate so much that they are the world's largest exporter of electricity. And they achieve this with very low CO2 emissions, by generating about 80% of their power through nuclear fission.

"Enough is enough! Why are Insurance rates increasing? Electricity prices in Ontario have soared. Please follow, http://seemyopinion.blogspot.com/2011/11/enough-is-enough-why-are-insurance.html, to find out more.

Consider the following;
Peak crude oil 2006 (IEA)
Peak crude oil plus all liquids 2008 (IEA & others)
Australia produces 45% of our oil usage.
Two refineries recently closed.
All petrol now imported, presume refineries producing diesel, bunker fuel etc.
Peak worldwide coal 2025.
Lifetime of existing car fleet 10 plus years.
Transition to electric cars & public transport 20 plus years.
Biofuels need lots of land, fuel and fertilisers.

The big worry is that there might not be the finance to do all the
following programs due to the world economy entering the zero growth era.
If you don't believe that just watch the European growth figures.

The authors ten year transition to zero carbon is just plain nonsense.
However if the following steps were taken we might just save our
economy from collapse.

Crash program for hot rocks power generation.
Ban export of natural gas. Less coal seam wells needed & transition fuel available.
Examine partial export ban of coal. Needed if transition extended.
Initial subsidy of electric cars to speed transition.
Nuclear a good solution, but very long term solution for time we don't have.

Geology does not negotiate.