Ted. It would seem that you have clear evidence that anthropogenic CO2 emissions pose a terribly serious threat to mankind. Otherwise, I can't believe that you would advocate a $200 per tonne CO2 tax.

You must think that anthropogenic CO2 is pretty much the only factor in observed climate change. You must see proof/evidence that natural cycles are not a factor. You must be able to provide proof/evidence that land-use factors are not a factor.

Surely, before we impose such an incredible burden on the population of Australia, we should at least explain why.

So. I am asking you. Can you show me the proof that anthropogenic CO2 is a major problem, and that natural cycles and land-use factors are insignificant.

Funny. Have asked this question before. Never any answers. About time, isn't it?

I'm with Herbert, and would add that the passage of time, and the behaviour of other governments around the world, suggest that the carbon tax was the wrong way to go. I know that it was part of the Gillard/Brown deal, but that just makes it worse.

The cooling phase that we seem to be in is very plain to me in Canberra this morning, with the coldest February morning for a long time. Yes, I know that it's just weather, not climate, but the world just isn't warming the way Hansen, IPCC et al said it was going to. Canada's pulled out of Kyoto, Obama isn't talking climate change any more, Europe is getting out of renewable subsidies...

When will you start to re-assess your conviction about AGW?

Herbert, the evidence is out there for climate change and its effects - you just have to read the literature. What is very evident is that we are heading for 4 degrees of warming which will be devastating for the planet. It means the end of Australian agriculture for starters. So clearly, $21 a tonne is not enough. The question is: is $200 even feasible without crashing the economy? I don't think it is, so in the short term we should aim for somewhere in between. I once heard that $76 a tonne was the minimum for wind energy to be taken up on a level playing field with coal. So that seems like a good figure to me. But given the irrational reaction by the Australian public to $23 a tonne, what hope is there for even $76 to be adopted, let alone $200?

Recently, Phil Jones of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, the organisation that provided and analysed the data for the International Panel on Climate Change, conceded that there has been no warming for the last 15 years. This suggests that 4 degrees of warming is at best an extremely remote possibility.

So what's the correct price for carbon dioxide? $0.00.

popnperish
Yes, lets look at the figures.. Go back and look at how much temperatures have increased over, say, the past 40 years or so in Australia (its available on the BoM website). Then try projecting that into the future, while allowing for an acceleration of the increase global warmers insist is there..

You won't be able to even get to 2 degrees by tne end of this century, let alone this 4 degrees you are talking about..

To get to 4 degrees you clearly need a major accleration on what we have seen to date.. not just a mild change but a major break.

You may still believe the models, but then you should ask youself what other countries are instituting the full-on carbon tax Australia intends to impose. Answer: virtually no-one. Activists keep on insisting that country or this country has a carbon tax, but if you check what they say, you'll find the tax doesn't exist or is nominal and incomplete..

Then you will begin to comprehend that Australia's carbon tax is a monumental policy blunder. Even if you really believe the 4 degree business it won't do anything..

We could have started at $10 so $23 is reasonable. I expect there will be minor belt tightening but not much else and even that will be dwarfed by the giveaways. Note that Garnaut, the Productivity Commission and the ACCC pointed that RECs currently worth about 4c per kwh are double dipping since coal and gas are handicapped by carbon tax. Perhaps the tax should be around $40 to get rid of renewables subsidies, which incidentally Spain now realises are unaffordable and Germany is beginning to grasp. I expect there will be more giveaways later in the year so even $23 is a façade.

Other distortions include the ban on nuclear power which could become economic all by itself as the gas price increases and China sucks up global coal supplies. A big unknown is the use of carbon offsets which will become a feature of the ETS. In theory Australia will spend billions on offsets if emissions are not on track by then. Trouble is they are not globally new carbon sinks so Mother Nature won’t care, if for example we pay the PNGians not to raze their forests. Maybe one day PNG will become a grown up country and will protect its own forests without needing bribes.

However I do favour a traded CO2 price as that price could reduce in tough times while at the same time guaranteeing emissions cuts. A far better regime I think would be an ETS with say 2% annual CO2 cuts, offsets disallowed, no renewables targets or feed-in tariffs/RECs and if somebody wants to build a nuclear power station let them.

What makes people think co2 in the atmosphere is going to miraculously disappear. It is currently at the highest level since 1950.
The rise in ocean temperature is undercutting the antarctic ice shelf.
Another year of floods in qld nsw, should be enough for you, with-out looking at the rest of the world.

What is the right price?

I would suggest a price that the WHOLE world agrees to would be a good start.

While the key comment in this piece – "government (should) ensure that medium- and long-term decision-making on action for climate change facilitates public trust and confidence ...... People should have an opportunity to effectively participate in the decision-making process, secure in the knowledge that their needs and concerns will be properly taken into account" – does seem like motherhood, it contains much truth. The problem is, how can government possibly achieve this aim in the face of so much public disagreement (the preceding comments here provide a good sample) on every aspect of climate change?

We would need to be told: the real long term physical impacts (currently expressed within a wide band of possibilities); their costs (and I am fully informed on the huge range of estimates of the economic costs of potential climate impacts); the outcome of the current uncertainty about the last 12 years or so of global temperature data (which is a genuine matter of scientific debate, though brushed aside by many protagonists); the real role of a carbon price in reducing emissions (misunderstood by the author of this piece and almost everyone else); the real prospects of the many technologies proposed for reducing carbon emissions (I am betting that my grandchildren will see most as being fanciful); the global politics of inhibiting the economic aspirations of developing nations by limiting their cheap energy sources; and so on. Yes, that's an overlong sentence but it's a massive and unprecedented problem. Simplistic answers hung onto a carbon price just don't cut the mustard.

Tombee - actually you make an excellent point about people being told the costs of doing soemthign about climate change, as oppossed to the costs of ignoring it.

The problem is that even if you assume full climate change the costs don't add up. Almost the only economist who found anything different was Nicholas Stern, who had to make a major assumption about the time value of money to make for limiting emissions. He assumed that that the value of a dollar today is almost the same as a dollar several decades hence.

That assumption has been kicked around quite a bit by economists since but the result is clear.. with anything like normal economic analysis there is no economic case for controlling emissions. For Australia, in particular, no economic analysis of any sort would justify going it alone in trying to control carbon - essentially what the Gillard Government is doing.

The carbon tax is there for political reasons, not to solve a problem.

Curmudgeon is correct to say that there is no economic analysis specifically to justify Australia’s carbon tax plans. They are indeed political, in the sense that they are intended to promote the political cause of a global approach to reducing emissions, or some such vague reasoning. But no-one, or at least no-one who can claim to be informed, has seriously suggested that Australia’s actions alone can affect climate here or anywhere else, so Curmudgeon’s point unfortunately is not very relevant.

More problematic is his claim that there is no economic case at all for controlling emissions globally (assuming of course that emissions do affect climate). The economic argument has been about modelling the real costs of the large number of possible climate impacts and about factoring in the prospect that those impacts and their damage costs will happen over a long time scale. I think it’s the latter that Curmudgeon is referring to. The time scale requires the setting of a discount rate to allow costs and benefits to be compared at the same point in time. Economists concede that setting the right discount rate is a philosophical problem, not strictly an economic one. That’s where the crux of the argument about Stern’s results lies.

The most extensive research into climate damage costs, the European ExternE Project, adopted a figure of 19 Euros per tonne of CO2 emitted (2005 base). But others have argued for figures ranging from less than 2 to over 100 Euros per tonne CO2. So obviously the ‘real’ number, if there is any such thing for what is a very intangible concept, is quite uncertain. The point is that, in concept at least, there is a cost attributable to the damage and there is a cost of avoiding that damage by reducing emissions. Only by looking at both costs can rational decisions be made as to what actions to take. The ‘economic case’ cannot therefore just be dismissed. But it’s heavy going.

Gee Ted, it must be tough, having planned your whole future at big earnings in cases involving global warming to find that the whole thing is either dead or dying.

Suggest you try a new line of work mate. Divorce sounds good, but with declining number of marriages today, it could dry up, just like global warming.

Get onto Jones mate, he is supposed to have a crystal ball.

Popnperish: You say "Herbert, the evidence is out there for climate change and its effects - you just have to read the literature. What is very evident is that we are heading for 4 degrees of warming which will be devastating for the planet."

Actually Popnperish, the problem is that I HAVE read the literature. But across the board. I have read the sceptical literature attacking the propaganda of the IPCC, Tim Flannery, Will Steffen, CSIRO, David Karoly and all the rest. If you actually read the literature, you find that there is a great deal that we don't know about climate.

It is clear that natural cycles are important (Medieval warming, LIA), but also land-use factors are important too (think Californian dustbowl, deforestation). We don't know much about the role of the oceans.

Most skeptics accept that the physics show that doubling of CO2 could lead to around 1 deg C warming. However, the real issue lies with feedbacks. My challenge to you is to show the evidence that there are positive feedbacks that would deliver 3.5 deg C warming as IPCC says. The fact is that these are ASSUMPTIONS put in place to push an agenda. The analysis of reality (just look at CO2 v temperature over the past 15 years) shows feedbacks are neutral or maybe negative.

So. Help me out. Specific chapter and verse please as to where I am wrong. Maybe you can provide the answers that the "Independent" Climate Commission doesn't bother to. You've notice that Tim and Will have been very quiet lately, haven't you?

Tombee

Had a look at the European ExternE Project stuff you're talking about.. you've got quite the wrong end of the stick on that one. They're talking about envionment and health costs not CO2 and global warming, and it seems to be the wildest nonsense which is probably why no one seems to have taken them seriously, not even Stern, whether its under the EU banner or not. In any case the figure of 19 Euros, taking the 2005 values, which you mention is so so low that they are effectively saying there is no problem. Great! But I think you've messed something up there.

The arguements about global warming and emissions are quite different. Search on the time value of money and Stern if you want a taste of the discussions they've been having in this area. Also check out statements by very distinquished economists William Nordhaus (Nobel Prize winner) and Robert Mendelsohn (professor at Yale)

None of the analyses work at all for Austealia if we go alone.

Sorry Curmudgeon, but it is you who have the wrong end of the stick. ExternE most certainly did examine the costs of climate change, as well as a host of other environmental and health costs associated with energy production, conversion and use. I have written a report for one of the learned academies on the relevance of the European work to Australia so I think I should be given some credence in the matter. It might, as you say, all be the ‘wildest nonsense’, and I have no doubt that there were politicised agendas at work in such a project. But if you seriously wish to throw out the whole of ExternE then you need to do a lot more work. Nordhaus did indeed critique Stern and his wise words regarding Stern are worth remembering: “The (Stern) Review’s radical revision of the economics of climate change does not arise from any new economics, science, or modelling. Rather, it depends decisively on the assumption of a near-zero time discount rate combined with a specific utility function. The Review’s unambiguous conclusions about the need for extreme immediate action will not survive the substitution of assumptions that are more consistent with today’s marketplace real interest rates and savings rates. Hence, the central questions about global-warming policy – how much, how fast, and how costly – remain open.” Pretty much what I said earlier, really.

Squawk! Squawk! The sky is falling.

You need to worry more about being dead from World War 3 because it could start much sooner and kill you much faster than global warming.

Australia is only responsible for a small percentage of global warming anyway, I thought I read 1.5% somewhere recently. Until some of the big polluters, which are usually the countries with mega populations come to the party on global warming you might as well not get your knickers in a knot over it, because what Australia does won't make a whole lot of difference

Go and smoke a pipe with John Pilger he's got just about as much grasp on reality as the global warming deaths are imminent, mob.

"You need to worry more about being dead from World War 3 because it could start much sooner and kill you much faster than global warming."

Absolutely! Thats why most (if not all) of the world's military has put climate change on their agenda.

That's why the United Nations Security Council has also put climate change on their agenda.

Why?

Because of the direct threats to food, water and energy security as a consequence of a warmer and wetter world, and the very real risks that imposes, Cherful ... you knew that, eh Cherful, your a realist after all.

Btw, the troposphere has no borders ... but you knew that too, right?

Monckton has a new post on WUWT comparing the costs of carbon 'mitigation' with the costs of doing nothing, even assuming AGW is occurring. The bottom line is that 'carbon mitigation' policies cost between 7 and 22 times as much as allowing growth and development to continue as normal.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/03/huhne-is-no-loss/

(The title derives from the fact that Chris Huhne, UK Minister for Climate Change and a rabid warmist, has now resigned after an attempt to mislead the police on a driving charge. If only we could get rid of Greg Combet the same way!)

But since AGW isn't occurring anyway, and hasn't been for fifteen years, these vast sums of money are being spent on nothing whatsoever.

Food for thought:

http://theconversation.edu.au/heatwaves-mozzies-dengue-and-droughts-how-climate-change-threatens-our-health-13

For Jon J

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/NPP/news/npp-ceres-firstlight.html

As usual, facts get in the way of your favourite blogger.

I must have missed something, bonmot. What does your NASA site statement (which I've read) have to do with JonJ's reference to the costs of mitigation?

The proce should be $zero per tonne because this is a pheony goody goddies tax that is ridiculous.

We only need the mining rent resoruces tax to be beefed up to 40% and have a tax on share and derivative etc trading made by wealthy individuals and companies of 1% or something to support the working class materially, socially and culturally.

Climate change will not be improved by carbon tax or emmissions trading schemes. In fact we cannot even proove that variations in cliamte is due to carbon.

We should move to geo-thermal, solar , LNG etc and give tax breaks until these industries gain a decent market share over coal and then revert them to the full company tax rate after that.

No amount of media/government spin from goody goody middle classers will change my mind. In fact the relentless urging from them I view as an insultto me and to working class labor voters who have more mainstream industrial and union concerns.

The currant coal burning power providers are moving to solar and wind to divest their power generation. The carbon price will keep their mind on the job, without it nothing would happen.

Ted, I just want to correct an error in your article. You state that “The Federal Government also has a new long-term target: to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 80 per cent below 2000 levels by 2050. However, no details for the projected carbon price for each tonne of carbon dioxide for achieving this target have been given.”

Can I direct you to page 76 of the Treasury modelling (http://www.treasury.gov.au/carbonpricemodelling/content/report.asp) where chart 5.1 clearly sets out Treasury’s estimates of the carbon price out to 2050. The range in 2050 is from $130 to $275 per tonne of CO2 depending on the scenario considered.

It should also be pointed out that Treasury (realistically in my opinion if we insist on not using nuclear power) assumes that only just over half of the abatement will be domestically derived. The balance will come from international sources so this is not just a domestic issue as perhaps suggested by some of the comments here.

Well Ted Christie is an environmental lawyer.He should never let the truth get is the way of a good profit.

If you want to know real grinding poverty like that in Africa,just keep believing the nonsense that people like Ted espouse.

The CO2 tax is supported by the likes of the NAB and the Rothschilds.They know how to screw us.

BTW we in Sydney has just had the coolest summer in 52 yrs with enormous increases in CO2 from China/India.

And WA is having its hottest in 35 years.

Ah, it's straightforward then. WA's heat is caused by global warming, while Sydney's coolth is the result of natural variability.

Don't be so naive Don, condescension doesn't become your stature.

I'm on a public computer in transit, will reply next week.

joke, Joyce

Since CO2 is an essential component of life rather than put a price on it I think people should be paid to produce it; just think, instead of a price on breathing, you get paid for breathing.

Of course there is not a scintilla of evidence for AGW but since there are so many snouts in the trough of AGW 'save the world' financing I would expect that a few more bad consequences of a carbon tax will be felt.

For instance it is almost certain that electricity shortages and rationing will occur after this witless puppet of the greens' government introduces its carbon tax.

Stock up on candles folks!

Man made global warming is a religion that has been exposed by any one who can think at all. Dogma still has many on the left totally blinded. Only the most gullible still believe in this myth. The only winners have been the high priests and Government employees who have made a mozza from the faiytale.

You're not flying, are you Bonmot?

"You're not flying, are you Bonmot?"

Of course; by broomstick, which, in the new, magical, carbon-free future, will be the mode of transport du jour.

So $23 per ton does nothing for the environment except make Australian jobs at risk.

Negativity reins. By the time carbon tax gets here the rises will all ready be in place.

runner,100% correct.

<< Negativity reins. By the time carbon tax gets here the rises will all ready be in place.>>

Yep! it's called budgeting & planning, 579.
And strangely enough most businesses tend to do it --leastways, those that want to stay in business.

No joke, this:

http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/graham-readfearn-39692.html

http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/3807130.html

in case there are difficulties (video clip has been "removed".

Graham Readfern is your authoritative source?!! As one of the commentators at the link to Graham's latest effort says:

John Coochey :

03 Feb 2012 8:15:12am

Look Graham, you had your chance in Brisbane when you went head to head with Monckton and your own newspaper ran the headline "Monckton takes Brisbane". Now he never talked over you or was rude. You had every chance to present all the evidence you wished and you failed. So suck it in and cease the attempts at character assassination. If you had a case you have had adequate opportunities to make it and you have not done so. Simply present the facts including no warming for the past seventeen years, the end of the drought against alarmist predictions. Tell us what the solutions are and who we are going to implement them without going to thermonuclear war with India and China who are not going to seriously restrict their carbon emmissions, token lip service, but no cuts. So why bother?

Just sour grapes on Graham's part. Here is the link to Graham's debate with LM:

http://media01.couriermail.com.au/multimedia/mediaplayer/main/index.html?id=1418

Didn't Graham do well!

Cohenite
Rather than attack the messenger (a typical 'defence mechanism') why can't you just respond coherently to the message?

Were you able to find a link to your Lord's video remarks to his fellow travellers, the subject of the message?

On phone so can't engage too much :(

I don't think Readfearn has a point. He is asserting that Rinehart, or indeed any rich person who runs media will 'taint' that media by imposing their own views on the editorial position. A number of things.

Firstly, even allowing for that to be true, how is it any different from a corporate mentality such as the ABC's 'tainting' their presentation of the news; the ABC has been completely one-eyed about AGW and content to parrot the IPCC and the other 'official' outlets without even considering the manifest corruption and vested interests of those outlets; a great irony since the ABC invariably associates sceptics with big business, which is patently untrue.

Secondly, it is not true; the Australian, for instance has such columnists as Steketee, Van Onselen, Lloyd, Beattie etc, all of whom slavishly follow the AGW mantra. The AGE has no such sceptical equivalent. Any bias in the MSM is therefore pro-AGW. And will increase now that Graeme Wood has got his vanity project up and running:

http://www.theglobalmail.org/welcome/

At the end of the day, like all lefties and alarmists, you only scream bias when it doesn't agree with you.

It's ridiculous complaining about the level of carbon tax as if it was pegged to the severity of the problem. The carbon tax is a nominal response to the science that says we have a dire problem, but it's pegged to political and economic considerations rather than the science. The international community is engaged in a protracted game of diplomatic brinkmanship over climate change and its fallout, on the one had. On the other hand countries like Australia are trying to to reconcile the need for cuts to carbon emissions with an addiction to economic growth--a union that will never work.
The author is absolutely correct that the carbon tax needs to be much higher to be effective, but that means both political and economic suicide and the remedy (depression) is deemed worse than the terminal disease.
The carbon tax is a crock at any price because it's predicated on economic growth, and proposed cuts in both emissions and growth are non sequitur.
It crosses the border of idiocy therefore to lobby for a high carbon tax as if there were no other factors to the equation and no good reason not to swallow the pill.
For once we can't buy ourselves out of difficulty, or profit by it, which is the extent of the current "thinking" on the matter. But however admirable, swallowing a cup of economic hemlock won't do anything either, except kill inspirational naivity.

The carbon tax is a necessity so people will bye renewable power. The price is right , and will increase as time passes. Change is inevitable, and without penalties it will not happen. A carbon price is the only option we have. This will turn investment into renewable power.

579,
I support the urgent need for action on climate change, but this means cutting consumption and economic growth, not increasing and taxing it (and we can only tax growth).
It's not only about so-called renewable power--which still takes enormous and polluting infrastructure to put in place, as well as being comparatively inefficient--but also about reducing demand to a point that is truly renewable and sustainable. Do the math; we can't solve the problem of emissions and continue business as usual. Economic growth and its material by-production is the problem, and it cannot be harnessed to compensate for the fact that economic growth entails material growth, which entails polluting emissions. We can only tax growth, and not recession; but we can't grow without exacerbating the problem we're looking to address by taxing growth.
I can't put it any more laboriously. If I'm wrong, tell me how we can grow economically, and tax it, without growing materially? Or how we can grow materially without the twin evils of entropy and carbon as by-product?
We need renewable energy "and" drastic cuts in consumption, and the prevailing economic system, reliant on growth and profit, cannot pull off that kind of alchemy.
"Change is inevitable, and without penalties it will not happen. A carbon price is the only option we have. This will turn investment into renewable power".
You're not talking about "change", which I'm all for; you're talking about a business as usual approach that can't work because it's the very problem it's supposed to address.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2093264/Forget-global-warming--Cycle-25-need-worry-NASA-scientists-right-Thames-freezing-again.html

"The supposed ‘consensus’ on man-made global warming is facing an inconvenient challenge after the release of new temperature data showing the planet has not warmed for the past 15 years.

The figures suggest that we could even be heading for a mini ice age to rival the 70-year temperature drop that saw frost fairs held on the Thames in the 17th Century.

Based on readings from more than 30,000 measuring stations, the data was issued last week without fanfare by the Met Office and the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit. It confirms that the rising trend in world temperatures ended in 1997."

(I've not been able to find the mentioned reports but did find a number of references to them in different locations

and

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204301404577171531838421366.html?mod=WSJ_WSJ_News_BlogsModule

I'm quite confident that portions of the warming case are creations of an anti-progress extremist element (as are parts of the anti-warming case are tied to extremists in other directions).

It's clear that the evidence for dangerous AGW is not as certain as many claim.

In one direction we gamble with rising temperatures (and flow on impacts), on the other hand if attempts to address the risk send the world into economic stagnation we may blow our best opportunity to use our current wealth to set up for the future.

R0bert

579

'The carbon tax is a necessity so people will bye renewable power.'

Renewable energy won't help the 200 plus who have died in Europe over the last couple of weeks because of freezing conditions. gw is a huge scam.

For those that don't follow links an except from the second link

"Speaking for many scientists and engineers who have looked carefully and independently at the science of climate, we have a message to any candidate for public office: There is no compelling scientific argument for drastic action to "decarbonize" the world's economy. Even if one accepts the inflated climate forecasts of the IPCC, aggressive greenhouse-gas control policies are not justified economically.

A recent study of a wide variety of policy options by Yale economist William Nordhaus showed that nearly the highest benefit-to-cost ratio is achieved for a policy that allows 50 more years of economic growth unimpeded by greenhouse gas controls. This would be especially beneficial to the less-developed parts of the world that would like to share some of the same advantages of material well-being, health and life expectancy that the fully developed parts of the world enjoy now. Many other policy responses would have a negative return on investment. And it is likely that more CO2 and the modest warming that may come with it will be an overall benefit to the planet."

16 concerned scientists and engineers may not be a big list numerically but those on the list are worth paying attention to even if after consideration you choose to disagree.

R0bert

Tombee - look, go back and look at your earlier post with both eyes, then you'll realise why I dismiss what you said. The price you've give for carbon is very low. Go and look at it. You also can't praise Nordhause and then push the lunatics behind the ExternE Project, as they seem to be saying different things. Unless of course, ExternE also found that they couldn't make out a case for emissions control on climate change alone, so they added in assumed costs for pollution. Hence the low figure.

Sorry but you do have the wrong end of the stick - either that or you simply do not want to admit that there's no case for emissions control, at least not based on climate.

RObert,
hopefully the boffins will show up and contradict your "Mail" article. I don't set-up to be a scientist but found this retort: http://tinyurl.com/88f43hl

Apropos your comment, "I'm quite confident that portions of the warming case are creations of an anti-progress extremist element (as are parts of the anti-warming case are tied to extremists in other directions)".
I can provide a link for the latter kind of extremist: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aX2kMAfJggU but can you provide evidence for the former kind of "extremist element"?

I'm not advocating extremism, unless it's thought extremist and anti-progressive to want to address the real disease (Monckton's free market ideology and "economy-based-solutions" generally) rather than the symptoms. The symptoms are more than just AGW btw, and it would make no difference to me if the greenhouse gases we cause to be released were shown to be geologically benign, since we have a range of symptomatic evidence that is unequivocal: pollution of land and sea as well as air, habitat destruction, species extinction, resource depletion etc. etc. And this is all driven by economic growth.
I'm not "anti-progress", just anti the notion that so-called "progress" (an ever more commodified life) can be sustainably extended ad infinitum.

"Even if one accepts the inflated [sic] climate forecasts of the IPCC, aggressive greenhouse-gas control policies are not justified economically".

I actually agree with this; a carbon tax is delusional and cannot be levied successfully without simultaneously increasing emissions. The economics of creative destruction is the problem and cannot be the cure.
All I'm essentially saying is that cutting consumption is the best and most immediate and effective way to address our environmental problems. But governments can't advocate that because economic prosperity (and maintaining wealthy elites) depends on ever-increasing consumption (including entropic loss and pollution) within a closed and fragile system.
Since our means are not infinite, we need an economic system based on husbandry, not excess.
It's the very "progressive" model you're defending that is the villain. Since when is a desire for thrift and moderation extremist?

Co2 in the atmosphere is at an all time high. Correct.
Renewable energy is a one off carbon making venture.
The worlds oceans are warming, and releasing co2 and methane.
Weather patterns like never before.
Extreme heat, extreme cold.
Man made omissions are to blame.
we must get off oil and coal.
We must do something to start the process.
Hence the carbon price.
We can not talk about it for the next 20 years without any implication.

http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/carbon-tax-only-a-good-start-report-20120205-1qzw1.html

What is clear is that the strategy of the government cannot achieve the objectives of a stable power supply with 80% reduction in emissions by 2050 using renewables. This target can only be achieved by enabling base load carbon capture, or base load nuclear.

Bonmot
<"You need to worry more about being dead from World War 3 because it could start much sooner and kill you much faster than global warming."

Because of the direct threats to food, water and energy security as a consequence of a warmer and wetter world, and the very real risks that imposes, Cherful ... you knew that, eh Cherful, your a realist after all.>

Indeed I did know that all wars are between two tribes or multiple allied tribes over territory or (control of countries and resouces). I have posted many times on that subject.

The mega populations and the unsolveable territorial dog fight between the Jews and the Arabs could set off world war 3 tomorrow no global warming needed.

World War 2 started because of the economic collapse in Germany in the Great depression

It was the Great Depression in 1931 that bankrupted Germany and threw 6million Germans out of work. Suddenly no money to buy resources like food, shelter and all the rest. That's when the Germans began to throw all the Jews out of jobs and stand outside their shops so that people could only enter German Shops.
A couple of years later they voted for military rule in the form of Hitler who enshrined all the actions against the Jews into law. So WW2 started over territory and resources.
So did WW1 but I don't want to write a book about it here at the moment.

You don't need Global Warming to kick off WW3. The mega populations who don't have enough resources for their families already are capable of kicking off a war at any time. The big territorial dog fight between Israel and the Arabs backed up by various allies could plunge the World into War tomorrow. As could the bankrupting of countries in Europe because that's what sent Germany to war in World War 2.

The United Nations has put Global warming on their list to try and get money off rich countries to supposedly pay for it. Let them implement moves to bring down their populations instead.

Cheer up a little, who is going to fight this world war 3. Not China, they just built the place and don't want it destroyed. Not russia, they know they are far outgunned by America. India won't be going to a war anytime soon. If Pakistan caused any trouble, India would love to quieten them down. Which leaves the world fearing Iran, and its battleships full of rhetoric.

579

Wars don't always come from the outside. They can start from within as they did in Germany.
Don't forget the IRA. They fought a bloody 30year terrorist war against Britain who marched into Ireland in the 1600's and all the British settlers poured in and built houses and towns there.

It was never a religious war the IRA always stated their aims clearly and that was for control of Ireland. In other words an Irish republic not under the control of Britain.
Rwanda-internal war
Sri Lanka, - internal war.
Solomons-internal war
Fiji- internal military take over by the original Fijians against the
huge number of Indian immigrants.

Its happening all over the world and don't think it can't happen here.
The internal riots in France where 20,000 cars were torched.
The French had enough forces to take back control, next time they may not be able to take back control.

We've seen riots in England and the Cronulla thing here too.
Small examples of bigger things to come.
It can erupt at any time anywhere and as was the case in Rwanda and Bosnia there can be thousands dead before anyone can do anything about it. So don’t count on Law and order.

I still say the biggest threat to peace and the planet is overpopulation and the throwing together of big tribes into one territory or country. Global warming is the new Greenie religion they always have to have one.
Overpopulation is ominously real, Global Warming is still not 100% certain.

So when the first (I believe) exchange to trade Carbon Credits goes belly up, this doesn't mean anything? The Australian Govt still goes ahead and introduces this farcical legislation? $23 - $200? You have to be joking - you can't even get 5 cents in the USA!

From Wikipedia (not my favourite - but still useful occasionally);

"
The now defunct Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) was North America’s only voluntary, legally binding greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction and trading system for emission sources and offset projects in North America and Brazil.
"

"
Final Trading Position

The effective final CFI position was reached in November 2010 when the carbon credit price per metric ton of CO2 was between 10 and 5 US Cents, down from its highest value of 750 US Cents in May 2008. Trading reached zero monthly volume in February 2010 and remained at zero for the next 9 months when the decision to close the exchange was announced.

"