Squeers
The point is: the science is the science - science really isn't the issue - despite the shouts to the contrary.
What is at issue is politics, or economics, or religion, or culture - take your pick and you're on the button.
That is why the IPCC summary reports for policy makers can't change what the scientists have said, let alone their findings (how can they, they're not scientists).
That is also why the UNFCCC is a difficult negotiation process, because all of the above (except the science) is negotiable.
Sure, look at the economics, look at policy, look at each others' arm-pits - they all do. But that does not change the science.
Yes, radical change (a paradigm shift) is needed - but it ain't going to happen anytime soon.
In Oz, if some of the tax will go to investigating and implementing an alternative energy future to fossil fuel burning, I'm all for it. However, it seems too many caveats have been negotiated to get people/businesses on side - difficult for a minority government.
Abbott and Co would be in the same position but couldn't negotiate out of a wet paper bag, as we have seen - NO, NO, NO and NO!
The real failure (as I see it) is in getting the message out there.
Despite the recalcitrance by the naysayers, what we have is far better than the alternative, in my opinion.

bonmot,
I have no argument with the science, and the equivocation I alluded to is in the nature of the complexity of the beast--that the denialists exploit and the populists lap up. But I differ with you that we should accept whatever action we can get. Action has just been postponed, again! this time till 2020, and guess why? Because we have to get the global economy in better shape first--that is growing again, uniformly--with the US on top.
This has got nothing to do with sniffing armpits. I'd welcome the the carbon tax if I thought it was even a long-shot at addressing AGW, but it's not. It's an all or nothing gamble, wishful thinking. It's betting the farm that new technologies (driven by greed) will somehow transcend the simple equation that economic growth means material growth means carbon emissions.
It is irresponsible to knowingly accept pissling pretentiousness as action on climate change, and naive to see it as ingenuous.
Certainly some action would seem, surely, to be better than no action, but a solution that reinforces the cause--as the solution!--is worse than leaving the sore to fester and appal the common gaze. The carbon tax only buys the present malfeasance more time, whilew filling its coffers.
It should be the job of economists to inform scientists of this fact, that carbon emissions are the entropic effect of economic growth, but economists are the most biased, myopic and unreflective professionals of all.
The paradigm shift you're so eager to dismiss is what you should be promoting.

Would you agree that an essential part of the paradigm shift needs to reverse the "one for mum, one for dad and one for the country" that Costello introduced, but which the Labor party seems to be following with all their baby incentives.

David

It's a dilemma that society (in general) and their respective leaders (in particular) can't seem to come to terms with.

No more so than in the so called "developed" world, and those who aspire to 'what we got'.

Yes, we should have that shift, but it ain't going to happen anytime soon because 'we' are too warm and cozy with what we got and 'they' want.

Perhaps 50 - 100 yrs down the track (as projected) when those projections come home to roost we will make that shift - but it will cost more.

What is needed is a convergence of thought. What we have is a divergence. Example: hard right vs hard left.

The best way of moving forward is a meeting in the middle - with respect for all views, centrist if you like.

It definetley won't happen with Abbott or Milne (Brown's successor?) - diametrically opposed, for opposition sake.

It may happen with a progressive Liberal (e.g. Turnbull) or the current mob - time will tell.

I don't have much empathy for economists, but they have more sway than scientists, as you suggest and is as has been played out. We can't change that.

It's late, I'm going to bed.