PS I don't really think the Robert LePage is a real name, in an age when one can so easily change a name by deed poll, why on Earth would anyone persist with a name that means Robert the little servant --unless, he was a masochist!
Posted by SPQR,

Well SPQR, I can assure I have a birth cert that says that is my real name and I am not ashamed to use it unlike the people here who ARE ashamed to use their real names.
So I will show you mine if you will show me yours.

* what do we then do with all this who are all of a sudden out of work, because our energy sector is a huge employer, both directly and indirectly.*

Well a good start would be to throw out any so called level playing field trade agreements. Restart our own manufacturing and retrain coal miners to produce instead of dig and burn.

What ever happened to climate change in Australia?

People wised up.

They realised that the greatest infestation of con men, & elitism is in our academia, & just stopped listening to the bull.

I've lost count of how many times we've been told there is no need for a hell, we are all going to fry on earth. It must be thousands, all told by people with their hand out.

It is a bit like those from the 3 marine research groups in Townsville. Combined they have come up with well over a hundred ways the Reef is dying, & asking for more money.

You know, I reckon if we closed one of those research groups, we'd find the reef is 33.3% less likely to die. Strange isn't it?

Abbott really is running scared if he has to employ people to fight his battles. You still haven't answered the real point of this argument (with the exception of a few stupid comments like 'nobody cares') Climate change really is not being discussed politically, is it!

Robert, removing trade agreements won't allow us to compete with the two dollar per hour being paid in the likes of China, so how do you propose we reboot our manufacturing.

You must remember we did have quite a healthy man industry, but continued pushing from unions and the like, ever increasing life style demands saw us become simply out of the game and for anyone to think we can regain that type of industry, in a way that would provide the jobs required, is simply dreaming.

Yes Hasbeen, as they say if you keep funding researchers to research, they will keep researching.

Sad part is, all too often their research over turns previously funded research.

David Leigh, climate change is not being discussed much at present, but then again, when it was, we saw the likes of the waste of both time and resources, not to mention money, when the Rudd government whet to Copenhargen in search of a trophy, which turned out to be a tax payer funded holiday achieving what most of us expected
! - ALL.

The amount of billions wasted on climate change could have been better spent on researching and trialimg ways to deal with carbon, rather than hide our heads in the sand thinking we can reduce it without economic ramifications.

More timber for building is one such way. By no means the answer, but certainly a step in the right direction as hardwood, usually weighing about 1300 kilos per cubic meter, stores about 50% of it's weight in carbon for as long as the building stands.

Hasbeen mentioned the Great Barrier Reef

Remember when we were told it was a sure goner--well, I Just noticed this in NewScientist [4 January 2014 -p14]

"[previously it had been theorized that] Corals [would be] unable to grow and survive [in acidic waters --which might result from increased CO2-- however researchers] were surprised to find coral reefs around the Palau archipelago ...were dense and diverse even though the PH of the water and the amount of carbonates were usually low"

Looks like another one bites the dust!

*so how do you propose we reboot our manufacturing*.

Simple. Put a tariff on imported goods, especially ones from Australian companies that have moved offshore.
And before you say it:
Yes our mining and agriculture will be targeted but that can only be good because there is going to be a shortage of food world wide as well as here so they will not be able to be too picky.
As for our mines, we will benefit in the long run. Most of the profits from them go overseas and we are denuding the country to acquire a few digital dollars in exchange.
Our gas will be worth a thousand times more for us in later years when there is a shortage of oil the price is out of our reach.
Labour from these industries can be retrained to run out resuscitated manufacturing industry.