Alan B,

Perhaps a not so drastic (or precipitous) alternative to reach our goal.

Firstly, we know Aus is nowhere near one of the main contributors to global emissions, but it may be possible for us to partially compensate for the 'recalcitrant ones' (US, China, etc).
However, it would be costly, at least initially, and now is not a good time to be talking added expenditure. Though jobs would be created, and the project could potentially offset most of our carbon (coal export) footprint.

So, Aus has much semi-arid little-used semi-central land, and wastes the potential of huge volumes of continental northern rain-season runoff to the sea - but the topography makes it a problem to send the water south. Not an insurmountable problem, just a lot of drilling and channeling.

Vegetation converts CO2 to food, fodder, timber, and some can produce oils which may be converted to fuel to run tractors, etc.

The Bradley Scheme proposed to channel northern Queensland waters south, to provide potential to not only massively increase the productive capacity of land to the south, but also to overcome the scourges of drought and flood in this southern area - and could put an end to virtually all Murray Darling Basin problems.

Convert near-desert to productive agriculture, solar-power enhanced, feed millions, fuel a few thousand trucks and tractors, and wipe Australia's emissions slate clean a hundred times over.

Duplicate the scheme down the west coast, where land use below the Ord river is marginal, and the sky's the limit - with potential, eventually, to maybe convert the Sturt Stoney Desert to a forest or a Garden of Eden Mk2?

We Aussies can find more than one way to skin a cat.

As for Human Nature - its still 'an evolving feast' (Or, beast) - a work in progress.

Saltpetre,

That Bradley Scheme - pumping much of the waters that now flow north into the Gulf of Carpentaria, over those central ranges, into rivers that flow south from central Queensland and eventually into the Darling:

Is it possible to at least envisage nuclear power playing a huge role - first, in powering tunnelling machines; then in powering a broad system of pumping stations ?

Once the infrastructure was in place, the cheap power produced by nuclear power stations could irrigate vast areas of central and southern Queensland (and perhaps south-eastern NT), and of course the Darling-Murray Basin.

That way, South Australia could at last get back much of the water to which it is entitled, but which is currently stolen by greedy cotton-producers in up-stream states.

Joe

Sorry Joe, a better idea would be to close the bludging state of South Australia down, & let the people who's water it demands be left where it fell, for the use of those people. A much better idea than filling a huge artificial lake from which it evaporates uselessly.

If South Australians want other peoples rain water, perhaps they should buy it on the open market. If they had to pay for it, they would most certainly not waste so much.

We could then not have to pump perfectly good coal fired electricity down the interconnecter to fix a problem of too much or no wind developed by the fools who live there.

Some of us would also like the huge pipe flowing GST payments of Queenslanders to southern bludgers, left where it was collected, to do something for those who pay their own way, & South Australias as well.

A worthwhile discussion, but the author's question is faulty:
"Are we humans good or evil?" makes the false assumption as if we are human.
How we came to be associated with humans is a fascinating topic, still we are not these humans with which we temporarily associate.

When discussing human nature on its own, all we can say is that it is inert.
While relatively more sophisticated, human nature is still like animal nature, plant nature and the mineral nature from which humans are made - inert!

We enliven with consciousness the humans with which we associate, that are otherwise as good or as evil as their surrounding rocks.

Hinduism has vast and profound teachings about the relationships between spirit, matter and the mind that is sandwiched between them, but should we attempt to simplify and reduce this knowledge to the Judeo-Christian model, we end up with: "Human body - bad, Human spirit - good".

how are Sydney's dam levels? Another dud prediction by our scientific experts. You really have to be ignorant to accept evolution as a fact. Of course it was largely responsible for our first people to be considered less evolved. That is an inconvenient fact for those who think we came from apes. Yep unfortunately true science (something tested, proven and reproduced) has a very bad name due to pseudo science. Any fool can see how fanciful so called gw science is which really is an offspring of the idiotic evolution fantasy. Evolution itself proves how desperate and evil the heart of man is. They would not have to make up such idiotic stories to deny the obvious (Creator) if man was not evil.