The least polluted countries are the wealthiest countries, and the wealthiest countries are those that have managed to exploit fossil fuels -- and other resources -- most effectively to improve the health, welfare and happiness of their citizens. All that curtailing carbon dioxide can possibly do is to return us to medieval technology, medieval health care, medieval death rates and medieval population levels.

"I can't come in to the tannery today, boss, I'm off to the barber for a bloodletting. You'll have to get someone else to collect dogshit for you."

I agree that explicit CO2 pricing, either carbon tax or ETS spot price, is the best approach. The EU is showing us how not to run an ETS with a plethora of free permits and questionable cheap offsets. Direct Action creates an implicit CO2 price that is obscured. However as the true cost is revealed the temptation is to back off. That is what I predict will happen within a year of the Abbott landslide election. Meanwhile evidence of climate change mounts, for example hereabouts autumn was 1.5C warmer than average.

This article is a cachophony of errors. The author says:

"I decided that the issue deserved some serious thought."

None is evident in the article.

Gore's 2006 film was judged to be "partisan political views" by the English High Court:

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/2007/2288.html

The author is enamoured of an ETS; he should study what has happening to carbon trading in the rest of the world since an ETS is a carbon trading scheme:

http://joannenova.com.au/2012/05/eu-carbon-trading-crashes-german-bourse-closes-and-irish-end-carbon-rort/

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/08/09/death-of-a-carbon-salesman-chicago-climate-exchange/

Carbon trading and ETS's have been unmitigated failures, riddled with rorts and scams which is not suprising since they are basically trading hot air That hasn't stopped this criminally incompetent government alligning the Australian price of carbon with Europe in the expectation it would be $30 in 2 years time when today it is as low as $3 with no hope of rising.

The author says he is sick of nastiness and then says this:

"Only three per cent of scientists claim that climate change forecasts are a fraud" this is drivel as 2 minutes googling would get you these repudiations of the 97% consensus lie:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/05/14/fuzzy-math-in-a-new-soon-to-be-published-paper-john-cook-claims-consensus-on-32-6-of-scientific-papers-that-endorse-agw/#more-86303

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/06/02/the-madness-of-97-98-consensus-herds/

And see this about the original 97% claim:

http://opinion.financialpost.com/2011/01/03/lawrence-solomon-97-cooked-stats/

When one side deliberately distorts the facts and lies [has the author even read the climategate emials?] nastiness is inevitable.

The author's argument degenerates into a contradictory concern about the world's billions and a desire to 'clean up' energy.

Since 'clean' green energy doesn't work any move to replace those energies with it will condemn the world's billions to a worse fate.

A sad mish-mash from the nominally conservative side.

"only three per cent of scientists claim that climate change forecasts are a fraud, "
Where precisely does this figure come from? This statement unfortunately ruins the credibility of the whole article I'm afraid.

Oh Wow, cohenite!

(She says as she snow ploughs her way through the plethora of links form WUWT and Nova)

Aren't you forgetting this?

http://watchingthedeniers.wordpress.com/2013/04/25/how-tony-abbott-killed-the-australian-climate-sceptic-movement-and-schooled-them-in-realpolitik/

If a small number of people did not stand to make billion of dollars (Al Gore & Co) and Governments did not use it as an excuse to implement new taxes I may have believed it.

Global warming scam.

Carbon con.

"Meanwhile evidence of climate change mounts, for example hereabouts autumn was 1.5C warmer than average."

Link please Taswegian.

Meanwhile:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/06/02/coldest-spring-in-england-since-1891/

In fact no evidence for AGW at all, and considerable evidence against according to my friend David Archibald:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/06/03/cet-cooling-in-line-with-solar-model-prediction/

cohenite,

This is for your own good.

What'swiththewattsupwiththatlinks?

It's a veritable blizzard.

No wonder you think it's getting colder.....

the Australian public is showing by voting intentions what they think of the total foolishness and deceit of the warmist. Imagine all the wasted billions pocketed by the warmist fraudsters was spent on cleaning up our environment and feeding the poor. Instead those involved in the fraud fly around the world with abandonment to love feasts, indoctrinate the young and dream up names for those exposing their fraud. And to think this is all done in the name of science. Talk about blind foolish faith which still some gullible hang on to.

You have to realise that cohenite is paid to say what he does and you can see that from his reference to the same old discredited web site that is also paid for by the fossil fuel industries.

You will never see him post on a credible climate change web site as he will be put in his place quick smart

That web site he keeps referring to is a site of deniers with their anti-science, misinformation and cherry picking, and blocking anyone that questions what is written. The moderators even post under pseudonyms to bolster the site.

This is nonsense.
Only those interested in reaping in the unearned billions, a projected 140 billions as carbon brokerage fees for basically shuffling paper, are still trying to flog highly flawed ETS's.
Tony Abbott once remarked, if we need to put a price on carbon, then it should be a tax.
By the time we pay the brokerage fees and for the brand new army of overpaid bureaucrats to police it, we will have to collect around $63.00 a ton just to price carbon at around $20.00 a ton!
What would work far better, would be a cap and tax system.
First you establish and apply a cap.
Today's emission levels, then you apply a sliding scale that progressively lowers that cap over time.
Then only ever tax that emission actually exceeding the imposed upper limit, with a similar sliding scale tax, that becomes more and more punitive over time.
Many industries are already discovering, it just makes good commercial sense to reduce their carbon footprint, and indeed, convert some of that emission to power part or all their enterprises.
Things that would assist include, thorium cheaper than coal; and locally invented ceramic fuel cells; that convert NG to electrical energy and pristine water.
The energy coefficient of the solid state ceramic fuel cell, is around 72%, making it far and away the very cheapest source of carbon free energy!
Which is arguably portable enough to power trucks, trams, trains and family wagons, for a fraction of the price we currently shell out for our independent or public transport options.
There's no need to return to medieval options, when tomorrow's beckon!
Rhrosty

PeterA you're liar; noone pays me.

Who pays you?

The disproportion between the money the pro-AGW liars get and the sceptics receive is obscene:

http://joannenova.com.au/2012/05/does-climate-money-matter-is-a-monopoly-good-for-a-market/#comments

The fact about Anthony Watts, who is a very decent person, is that he doesn't write most of his posts; he will link to the latest data or a paper and then invite comments. He is not to blame for the fact that the AGW science is shot to bits and the best of AGW scientists are either fools like Flannery or behave like fools like Karoly:

http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/did_warmist_david_karoly_actually_read_the_paper_he_told_the_abc_was_wrong/

Of course there was no retraction from the abc after giving Karoly prime exposure to speak his rubbish.

Perhaps PeterA would like to comment on that.

Still they keep coming.....Jo Nova and Andrew Bolt.

Re: Mr Nice Guy Watts - "...he will link to the latest data or paper..."

Usually not peer-reviewed, just stuff his cohorts dream up.

Thanks, cohenite.

Thanks for your question cohenite. We all need to look at facts not beliefs. The regional temperatures for Tasmania can be found here
http://www.weatherzone.com.au/region.jsp?lt=wzstate&lc=tas&list=ms
Under monthly summaries try the stats for May and April. So far June is just 4C warmer than the long term average. You'd almost think it's part of a warming trend.

Tasmania as a whole shows about a 0.9C increase in annual maximum temperature since 1910:

http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/change/hqsites/

Some sites show less:

http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/climate/hqsites/site_data.cgi?variable=maxT&area=aus&station=091311&dtype=raw&period=annual&ave_yr=T

Others more:

http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/climate/hqsites/site_data.cgi?variable=maxT&area=aus&station=091293&dtype=raw&period=annual&ave_yr=T

Hot place, Tasmania.

I think that limiting carbon emissions in the clear absence of a way to use them to do something useful other than make plants grow faster is a good idea and getting them out of the atmosphere and into a long-term geological store would be too.

Setting up a stupidly complex tax or trade structure is a non-response. Industry is already looking to the future low-carbon economy for competitive reasons. Encourage that by tightening standards progressively in line with technological advances with strong penalties for non-compliance.

If we happen to need a few extra watts/sq meter in a few thousand years it would be handy to know where to find it.

The author is an AGW believer, pure and simple. He even fails to distinguish between carbon and carbon dioxide.

In the past 50 years has any one seen this in May in Perisher Valley:

https://fbcdn-sphotos-f-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-frc3/977622_10151354896100653_810746678_o.jpg

Good idea, Raycom.

In the past 6,000 years, has anybody seen this in the Peruvian Andes?

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/05/world/americas/1600-years-of-ice-in-perus-andes-melted-in-25-years-scientists-say.html?_r=0

Cohenite

It would appear that have been indulging in a bit of fruit picking here.

Your link:-
http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/climate/hqsites/site_data.cgi?variable=maxT&area=aus&station=091311&dtype=raw&period=annual&ave_yr=T

But how about this:

http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/climate/hqsites/site_data.cgi?variable=minT&area=aus&station=091311&dtype=raw&period=annual&ave_yr=T

I leave it to the intelligent reader to figure out the difference.
Actually it is a very nice example of how GHGs affect the climate.

Our glittering age of technologism is also a glittering age of scientism. Scientism is not the same thing as science. Science is a blessing, but scientism is a curse.

Science, I mean what practicing scientists actually do, is acutely and admirably aware of its limits, and humbly admits to the provisional character of its conclusions; but scientism is dogmatic, and peddles certainties.

It is always at the ready with the solution to every problem, because it believes that the solution to every problem is a scientific one, and so it gives scientific answers to non-scientific questions.

Owing to its preference for totalistic explanation, scientism transforms science into an ideology, which is of course a betrayal of the experimental and empirical spirit. We are becoming ignorant of ignorance. -- Leon Wieseltier, 19 May 2013

warmair and Taswegian; in May 2013 4 Tasmanian BOM temperature sites had a positive anomaly, while 5 were negative for tmin, and tmax was overall above normal. This means there was a high DTR [Diurnal Temperature Range]. It’s supposed to be the opposite-a low DTR and a warmer minima, according to AGW theory.

It's true some sites are showing a declining DTR over the full range due to increasing tmin, but recently , Australia wide, since 1950, the period of alleged strongest AGW, DTR has been increasing:

http://kenskingdom.wordpress.com/2013/04/12/australia-the-missing-fingerprints-of-greenhouse-warming/

How do you explain that?

Globally mean temperatures are flat:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/06/04/open-letter-to-the-royal-meteorological-society-regarding-dr-trenberths-article-has-global-warming-stalled/

Your theory needs work.

Quote Spindoc
Scientism is not the same thing as science. Science is a blessing, but scientism is a curse.
End Quote

Could not agree more see link below for typical example.

http://watchingthedeniers.wordpress.com/2010/03/14/diy-climate-science-how-the-little-guy-takes-on-establishment-science/