Hi Yuyutsu.

Did you read the explanation by Ms Gillard in February last year? She explained then how and why circumstances had changed, didn’t she? Why was that not fair enough?

There is no real rational basis for anyone to suggest the system Australia has now is “a terrible tax, it saves no good purpose, it harms Australia”, is there? So I hope you are just being mischievous there.

The policy now in place is certainly different from the one Ms Gillard promised that a majority Labor government would deliver. But it is the policy that seems to have the support of the overwhelming majority of climate professionals, and most members of the Parliament today, including Tony Abbott and the Liberals:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckcH0Wrmy74

Dear Alan,

I'm afraid I haven't seen Julia's explanation -has anything changed according to her in the real world (as opposed to the political field)?

Well I was a bit exaggerating using the word 'terrible' as I believe Julia would under the circumstances, but I happen to believe in essence that this is a bad tax - though not the worst we have. This is not a tax on carbon, but on savings, because it creates inflation. No wonder that the Labor socialists like it: take away from those who saved for a rainy day and hand it to those who spend like there's no tomorrow (a carbon trading-scheme wouldn't have this effect). This tax also creates many new government paper-shuffling jobs to administer.

It's untrue that Tony Abbott and the Liberals support this policy -in fact they promised to repeal the carbon tax if elected (subject to not having other countries do the same) -I listened to your clip and what Tony said at the very beginning was: "If you want to put a price on carbon"... the rest is conditional on that.

"The overwhelming majority of climate professionals" is not an indication: if you don't believe there is a problem to begin with, then you wouldn't become a climate professional, then once you do and are on the government's payroll, why would you want to become jobless? or if in the academy and already published papers, obviously you wouldn't be happy to find them falsified.

Initially they scared us that the sea will rise by 300 meters, then only by 60 meters (that's when my brother built a house 63 meters above sea level, so he can have a private beach), and their last version is only ONE meter in a century. So much fuss for a rise of just one meter? Had we been at least able to prevent it -but that would require such economic sacrifices that will send half the world starving. So much cheaper to just accept that the sea will rise by one centimeter a year and take the necessary measures to adapt!

More power to Andrew Wilkie and anyone who stands up for poker machine reform.

I think that the best reform for poker machines is to phase them out and not allow replacement machines.

Time for winding down and eventually dissolving a casino-like culture at the local level of our metropolitan, city and regional centres by phasing out poker machines.

Jobs- either imagined or real in gaming should be no justification for keeping gaming machines that has brought personal and household violence, desperation and human despair.

Real jobs should be about products and services that benefit people, not make work schemes or jobs that lead to an increase in social and financial problems for even one person,let alone a substantial number of people.

YuYu
Perhaps you should just listen to the vast majority of climate scientists - not pollies.

Hey, do you really understand what a 60 cm rise means, let alone one metre?

ps: if all the ice on the planet melted, it wouldn't increase SL by 300 metres. Where did you get that?

Dear Webby,

I am not a gambler, those poker machines disgust me and like you I am looking forward for that culture to dissolve, but by forcibly taking away the ability to use those machines, people also lose the opportunity to resist that temptation, to use their free choice and will-power to stay away from that evil, and that's what makes us grow.

I understand your concern for those who fail and use those machines, but think about all the others who do not. All those who may feel the tickle to gamble, but overcome it - why take away their merit? and why take away the power and opportunity of those who still gamble to one day grow out of it as well? It is only that which we freely choose that counts.

Regarding jobs, indeed Australian society is already too focused on them and the gaming industry is only the tip of the iceberg of jobs we could do away with and have more free time to fulfill what life is really about. Yet again, people ought to quit such degrading jobs by their own free conscience - otherwise they will simply create similar or equivalent jobs and fall again in the same trap.

Dear Bonmot,

300 meters is what I heard on the radio in the first days when they started talking about global-warming, must have been a calculation error. I understand now that this was impossible and indeed that was later revised, but at the time I believed the scientists and was quite scared.

If the sea was to rise by 60cm today it would be a tsunami, but with 60-years' notice, 1cm/year, there is so much you could do about it and anyway it's not realistically preventable. Some options are:

* Don't rebuild near the beach once buildings reach their natural end.
* Fortify existing buildings if they are so important.
* Build dams (as in Holland).
* Build floating cities.
* Landfill around shallow islands.
* Drown (this will help relieving the earth of human infestation).
* Reduce population by having no more children.

Yuyutsu
No, not a calculation error. If you really did hear that number, it was not said by a real scientist.

Adapting and mitigation is a must. It's unfortunate that there is a concerted effort to deny and delay.