I couldn’t agree more, Lyn.

But it’s just not gonna happen! We’re not going to pull back on our exploitation of fossil fuels.

So we are just going to have to face the consequences when they come.

And that’s the end of it.

To his credit Abbott did point out the inconsistency between carbon tax and the effusive praise for coal exports by Combet and Gillard. I understand the Climate Commission faces the chop if/when Abbott is elected. In any case the CC are going beyond their mission statement saying wind and solar will seriously replace coal, a dubious claim much discussed on other forums.

The government excuses coal exports to places like India on the grounds it helps their poor. I suggest either
Option A give them the coal for free
Option B send the Aussie experts in.
The experts will show them how replace coal with wind and solar. We're reduced emissions 1% since 2000 so that must be the reason. A better idea I think is to carbon tax goods and services (travel, call centres etc) provided by India and China in case they turn to Africa for coal. China's new ETS is half hearted and weak in coverage, perhaps a pre-emptive tactic.

Now Qld Premier Newman tells us how great coal is. You'd think the state's recurring coastal floods and inland drought would be regarded as an own goal. I think we're in for at least another decade of unfriendly weather before the public is concerned enough to forgo the easy dollars associated with coal.

Coal is chocolate sunshine; the drones and parasites who support AGW would still be physically in their caves without it. Mentally, of course, they are still in their caves and they want the rest of us to join them.

¨Coal is chocolate sunshine; the drones and parasites who support AGW would still be physically in their caves without it.¨

Don´t worry we will soon return to the caves if we keep ignoring climate science.

Yeah, where humans are concerned, greed conquers reason every time!

As others have pointed out, there is no hope of any kind of green energy replacing conventional fuels within the foreseeable future.. In fact, there is no indication that this obsession over carbon and enthusiasm for green energy has had any effect of any kind on the market.

What has happened is that demand has gone off in Europe because of the GFC plus continuing economic uncertainty. However, demand in china more than offset that decline to produce the mother of all booms in fossil fuels. That boom is only now abating, and the market will probably fall for some time, again for reasons that have nothing to do with calls by green activists.

Basically these pleas are having no effect of any kind, and with the climate commission likely to be tossed out (good riddance!) we will hear less about them.

...The nonsense sprouted in this article, has the effect of hastening the demise of the poor, and relegating them to a future in the dark: And from a past manager of lifeline…inexcusable.

"Yeah, where humans are concerned, greed conquers reason every time!"

Yeah, how greedy are people for wanting to be warm and to have the lights on.

If there was any justice in the world, and Gillard government and trade union leaders prove there is not, people who support AGW and renewables and oppose reliable power sources would be made to live only on renewable energy.

Climate commission... 50-50 chance there will be no humans left on the planet in 87 years time. Yep, gotta take those clowns seriously.

With “coenhite” I concur:

...It is very obvious who pays the “Real Price” in the “idle” games of the rich: Not those with a roof on which to install a Government subsidised Power-Bill reducer, (solar), that’s for sure

I'd take this seriously if the author was advocating nuclear power. It's the only renewable, non-polluting option to coal that makes sense.

But no, like most of her greenie mates, she'd prefer we sat in the dark when the wind didn't blow and the sun didn't shine. Not that we could afford to do anything else anyway.

The hydrocarbons contained in coal were once part of a much warmer atmosphere.
A time where sea levels were at least 70 metres higher than today.
A time where Great Britain was little more than a salt laden wind swept desert, regularly whipped by furious hurricane force winds and mountainous, 30 metre plus waves!
We can recreate these very conditions, simply by burning fossil fuels and adding their carbon content back into the atmosphere.
We can accelerate that return by continuing to clear fell native forests.
That is not to say, we can't use some fossil fuel.
Methane can be used in ceramic fuel cells.
The methane, (NG, Biogas) is not burned, but consumed in a chemical process which produces mostly water vapour.
A ceramic fuel cell around the size of a microwave, could conceivably provide enough power to run an electric car. The 72% energy coefficient, would make it the world's most economical.
The solid state nature of the cell, means virtually no moving parts; no gearbox, no transmission to wear out or be maintained.
The addition of regenerative braking, a solar cell paint job and capacitors, would allow this vehicle to limp home, even when the CNG tank was completely empty.
A carbon fibre body, would make its astronomical economy even more so; and indeed, improve an already impressive power to weight ratio that would leave a great big thundering V8, quaking in your wake.
A larger ceramic cell, something around the size of a stove, would produce enough power for most households, and free hot water.
If we are to continue to rely of fossil fuels, then it should be NG. Always providing we export ceramic fuel cells with it.
Clean coal? Well yes, that's also possible, with the companion production of oil rich algae.
Algae absorb 2.5 times their bodyweight in Co2 emission; some are up to 60% oil, and under optimised closed cycle conditions, virtually double that absorption capacity and oil production, every 24 hours! Alga don't need arable land and can even grow out in sea water!
Rhrosty.

...Great Idea Rhosty...but Tax the rich to develop the dream, don't plunder the poor, who now display changed lifestyles which exclude heating in winter and cooling in summer, as a consequence to fulfilling the dreams of dreamers with influence!

Ms Bender,

You really do need to calm down a bit.

You write, "Humans are amazing creatures. We are capable of staggering brilliance, as well as dumbfounding stupidity, and able to act in total contradiction of all known facts."

I respectfully suggest to you that it is you who is demonstrating dumbfounding stupidity and acting in contradiction of known facts.

Here are known facts for you evaluate:

Carbon is not a pollutant - Carbon is the 15th most abundant natural element in the Earth's crust, and the fourth most abundant element in the universe by mass after hydrogen, helium, and oxygen. It is present in all known life forms, and in the human body carbon is the second most abundant element by mass (about 18.5%) after oxygen. Not pollutant!

We do not "pump 90 million tons of carbon into the atmosphere on a daily basis" - It is alleged that this figure relates to carbon dioxide (CO2). CO2 is a naturally occurring chemical compound. It is a gas at standard temperature and pressure and exists in Earth's atmosphere naturally, as a trace gas at a concentration of 0.04% by volume. Human contribution to this concentration over the last 150 years is conjectured to be about 0.012%. Not something to get hysterical about.

"World wide the military is gearing up for the ongoing aftermath..." - not! Military does what they're told to do. Governments with vested interests in power and control have directed military advisers to draw up plans for such contingencies. The military is not gearing up. Military only do what they're told to do and nothing else. Anything else is called mutiny or treason.

There is no extant evidence to support conjectures that "we are doomed to have a very changed planet", or that "droughts, floods, extreme weather events, food and water shortages, insect born illness will be the legacy that we bequeath to our children and grandchildren" No extant evidence whatsoever!

I would like to go on, but I'm out of word count.

Stick to writing your novels. You seem to have a penchant for science fiction.

Cheers.

People who have studied humanities, & psychologist in particular should be prevented from raving on about things they know nothing.

Yes I know it would be a little cruel to make these people never speak again, but nowhere near as it is to let the fools convince others to follow the same know nothing ideas. The cost to so many is a reasonable life, of moderate comfort, while the fools preen themselves in front of other fools.

@Prompete

"Climate commission... 50-50 chance there will be no humans left on the planet in 87 years time. Yep, gotta take those clowns seriously."

There is 100% chance there will be no Climate Commission left in 6 months time.

Hear! Hear! No more climate commission and so less of this total nonsense about no humans being left or that we might get back to conditions where waters are 80 meters higher than now.. (the IPCC's maximum forecast is for an additional 0.8 meters by the end of the century)..

that is the motto of global warmers.. when in need of a good scare story make one up..

Develop new technologies by all means, but fossil fuels are not ifs-and-maybes, they are available right here and now. Get real.

The fact there are polar ice caps clearly indicates the Earth has been much hotter in the past and their melting would cool things down.
The Earth can regulate its own temperature.

Yes, that would create problems for silly walking apes who build cities right on the beachfront, but it wouldn't make the *planet* "unfit for human habitation"!

And underneath that ice is a tiny little island known as Antartica, which would finally be of use to somebody.

Aw, don't stop there, Shocka.

Tell us more about the "tiny little island known as Antartica" - and all the things that humans will be able to do with it should it ever melt while we're plodding the earth?

I agree with Lyn Bender keeping coal in the ground is the way and the Chinese are cracking that problem. In the long run we do not need to burn coal to generate electricity to keep us warm active and passive solar solutions can crack can reduce demand. We need electricity to power road transport.

The big trends shaping transport in the next 50 years will be be electric powered and they will come from Asia. Electric bicycles, cars, buses, trams and and trucks which are essential for sustainable transport globally. China is now mass producing electric bicycles and scooters which has already changed the way Chinese people commute and are sell to over 100 countries. China and has initiated the process of mass producing, cars, buses, commercial vehicles to reduce the poisonous air pollution in their cities and to adjacent countries. Japan has been and still is this E-vehicle revolution . Perhaps Australia sleeps.

The experiment with electric bicycles has been so successful that the Chinese government hopes to do the same with e-motor cycles, e-cars, e-buses and e-trucks .The production of electric bicycles in China stood at 27 million units in 2010, is predicted to rise to 40 million by 2015 and could rise to 160 million in 2020. In China this explosive development has created new planning opportunities, both in terms of traffic regulation, pollution control, reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and the use of solar cell charging of all electric or hybrid vehicles vehicle. With the efficient production of electric 2, 3, 4 and 6 wheelers, that is linked with the more innovative use of sustainable solar and wind energy energy sources, this is already creating a fourth industrial revolution in China. , Taiwan and South Korea, and hopefully in time India.

Japan was the innovator that invented, in 1989, the first automatic electric bicycle (Pedelec) and exported the production knowhow into China. Japan has also pioneered the development of electric cars and hybrid cars and inseminated that technology into the rest of Asia

Now there is a great idea from PEST. You wouldn't be another humanities type would you PEST, with no math.

Here it is, we will cut down our electricity use by, wait for it, driving electric bikes cars busses & trucks.

It gets better, we'll charge them with solar cells, which produce much more pollution & CO2 in manufacture than they save in their useful life time.

You've got to give it to those fairies down the bottom of the garden, they sure know how to write fantasy.

Shockadelic,

Here's a pic of that tiny little island, Antarctica:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Antarctica_%28orthographic_projection%29.svg

Here's one of Greenland too:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Greenland_%28orthographic_projection%29.svg

Maybe we can melt them both!

If we try.......

I agree that we should be keeping coal from being burnt. We should also be sequestering CO2 in geological storage. We should be looking at establishing a nuclear industry to power the conversion of atmospheric carbon to liquid hydrocarbons. We should be building proper digesters for biological waste (including dead people) to generate methane which can be burnt. We should be looking at ways to capture NOx and store it.

In my view we need to do these things not because we are worried about the heat, but because we are worried about the cold. IF gtreenhouse is real and it seems to be well-founded, then we should be storing as much as we can get hold of for the coming very long, cold spell to be released as needed to maintain temperature in the sweet spot for as long as possible.

Any projected temperature rise would be uncomfortable, but an 8degree global drop would be catastrophic for more than half of humanity.

All of human expansion from the Neolithic on occurred during the current extended warm anomaly that has lasted for around 11000 years. In that time our population has expanded from around a few million globally to its present enormous number. Most of that number will not be ancestors of whatever remains of the human race in 10000 more years. The current population is a spike, not an approach to a new steady state. It will fall dramatically, either through natural causes or a global conflict and I suspect that will happen before an ice age proper, as climate becomes drier and water becomes scarce.

Imagine the 200 million people in Bangladesh if the Himalayas don't melt on time. Ditto for the Indians and Pakistanis. Imagine China with no flow down the Yangtze and the Gobi Desert advancing. Think of South America with no spring melt from the Andes. The US if the Great Lakes froze and stayed that way. Europe with the Alps and Pennines ice-locked. Britain with no rain, just snow and sleet.

Does anybody think the people in these regions would calmly accept their fate?

Poirot, I am well aware Antartica isn't "tiny". I was being sarcastic.
It is a continent almost twice the size of Australia.

What will we do with it?
What do we usually do with *land*, Poirot?

And yes, Greenland is another currently underpopulated landmass that would pose the same development possibilities.

Ditto Siberia, Alaska, northern Canada, northern Scandanavia.

These are lands already subjected to "extreme weather conditions", which is why virtually nobody lives there.

The idea that rising sea levels would make the *planet* uninhabitable is ridiculous. We would simply relocate.

It might be a "tragedy" for those human communities sunken (although that hasn't hurt Venice much), but not a tragedy for the "planet" or a threat to our species survival.

It rolls off the tongue so easily, doesn't it - "keep Coal in the Ground !" Nice alliteration.

Yeah, that should do it.

Anyway, we can make solar panels and wind towers, using - not electricity derived from burning cheap coal - but from electricity derived from solar panels and wind towers which, in turn, have been made using such renewable energy. It may be all at a horrendous cost, and we may have to pay five or ten times as much for our renewable energy, but surely that it something we should all put up with, in order to ensure the globe doesn't warm up and the sea-level doesn't swamp Fiji's mountains ?

Or maybe somebody will have the sense to ask, what is an acceptable - i.e. an environmentally acceptable - level of CO2 production, the sustainable balance between production and absorption of CO2 ? Will switching to natural gas mean far less CO2 in the atmosphere, i.e. closer to a sustainable level ? Or should we keep natural gas in the ground too ? Hmmmmm, not so alliterative. Well, sort of.

Or will we have to watch yet more disaster movies about a two-inch sea-level rise over the next century, swamping all before it (i.e. all under two inches tall) ?

I hope that NZ's South Island can recover from this AGW anomaly of being covered in snow and that normal internet services can be restored ASAP.

Joe