yes let's ignore all the actual scientist and listen the telly weather guy. Hell we should aks him when he is going to start work on a cure for cancer?

"We need a strong economy to adapt to climate change so we need to keep burning coal."

This is the thinking of many people, perhaps most. They are in denial.

You cannot put out a fire by throwing petrol on it! We should be marching on coal mines and closing them down.

Problem is that our political leaders, who only think about their re-election, are controlled by corporations who only think about their profits. And most of our citizens put their own convenience first!

Human, like mammoths, will become extinct because they couldn't, sorry, WOULDN'T adapt to a reality that they created.

Irony indeed.

The people who need a serious reality check, are the recalcitrant greens!
You know, those eco-fascists who refuse to look at carbon free nuclear, and or, dams/carbon free hydro electric power.
Bob Brown is in the public record as declaring, that he'd sooner accept a brand new coal fired power station in Tassie, than allow a hydro electric dam be built on the Franklin. Quote unquote.
They also lock up our own naturally occurring, much lower carbon alternatives. Possibly massive alternative reserves, in common and or pragmatic usage, that could create four times less carbon than current imports; and, compel Canadian tar sands to be mothballed if exported on an international scale.
Ditto shale oil and gas!
Large scale companion algae farming, would allow coal-fired power to continue without any harm to the climate.
The emerging economies need a solution that prospers them, not one which costs impossible trillions!
The real culprits, who bury their heads and refuse to confront the urgent climate reality, are in fact, recalcitrant greens.
You know, those power hungry, tail-wagging the dog activists, who not only buried an ETS, but Mr Rudd as well!
Almost anyone else, would be finished for all time, or become like Lasurus on a triple bypass.
These oblivious and comfortably warm, self serving, obstructionist, divisive, power hungry, riding on the coat tails of others, patently, extreme political activists, with their own irrational hidden agenda? I believe, are the ones, who more than anybody, need to wake up and smell the atmospheric carbon!
Rhrosty.

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

Pity the person who gave this author the knowledge of the printed word, did not teach her how to think logically.

Another smart, clever, but unintelligent article from this recidivist author.
If she really does want CO2 free energy production then she has to realise that the only possible large reliable sources are (a)nuclear, using Uranium at first and then probably Thorium later, or (b)magic.
I really am trying to help her by advising her to spend some serious scientific time learning about the very low risks posed by ionising radiation and, linked to that, the unarguable scientific fact that nuclear power is the safest method of mass energy production. I'm sure she could handle it if she tried really hard.

Yes, maybe we should listen to the weather people. 2012 was the 9th warmest year on record globally, and in Australia average max temps were 0.51 degrees above expected. See link to Bureau of Meterology here. Given we are currently in a La Nina (after 2010), (therefore expecting cooler, wetter conditions, and given that it reached 43 degrees one day in January 2013 in Sydney I am not looking forward to the next El Nino.

We should definitely be leaving the coal in the ground