Taz – regardless of the “environmental sciences” by their very nature, people should not live in river deltas or sand islands. New Orleans has proved it several times. As King Canute discovered, the action of the tides and waves care little for the actions of man.

Yabby - transfer of manufacturing capacity to China and India is happening and you are correct, such transfer will facilitate apparent compliance by “developed” nations from ridding themselves of their high-energy manufacturing bases.
Thus, your assertion regarding the effectiveness of Kyoto is also correct.

The real issue with Kyoto is the completely artificial and politically contrived carbon credits exchange system put up to tax developed country consumers (the ultimate funding source of all government largesse) and hoodwink us into subsidising competitors in underdeveloped countries for our own domestic market needs.

Carbon Credits is a myth. The Sydney Stock Exchange might have a futures market for them but every market (including futures) relies on one thing - the ability to effect exchange – now since the method of counting carbon emissions is flawed and inaccurate, whatever follows is flawed and inaccurate. Inaccuracy (and Carbon Accounting is as scientific and accurate as the magic of Merlin or the alchemists “science” for making gold), is no basis for exchange when dealing in any service or commodity.

I recall other artificial market devises used in the EEC produced, as well as butter mountains, olive oil lakes. These lakes were successfully harvested by the Italian mafia in one of the EEC’s biggest scams.

Carbon credit, the instrument of delivery and supposed practical implementation of Kyoto, will end up a SCAM, only world wide instead of just European. That is not only a possibility – it is an absolute certainty and the ones who will be “scammed” – you and me through artificially increased commodity, product and utility prices.

Noting the United Nations involvement in This whole scheme is no reassurance. If you thought Iraqs Oil for Food program was an absolute cesspool of UN corruption, then think how bad Carbon Credit trading is going to end up.

In a climate of adversity we should remain hopeful; in fact we have a few things going for us, like a decent democracy, these forums on the internet and a long history of enterprise. For some time I have been considering how we can be positive around these new issues of living in a more complex world as the human population explodes.

Col; millions of people do live and depend on their deltas and sand islands. Perhaps you can prepare your castle on that rock where you live and extend your hospitality to some of them soon. Perhaps a few people in Canberra can leave their back doors open too in the traditional Aussie outback way.

Ludwig: Yabby; “The quicker we exhaust this amazing fossil fuel resource, the better” is the same kind of argument my partner uses and I guess likewise many others around us.

She on leave from the day job works in support of the whole concrete industry in our region. Where would we be without our concrete? I know she is very concerned about the disappearing species world wide when I try to hide those pleading letters from all the wildlife funds in our mailbox.

But we are all conservationists if pricked deep enough, however I believe the answers lie in improving our technology not in the final round up of lost causes. Concrete secures the base of mud brick houses for a time.

This forum is microcosm of what happens in higher places and is in itself a good sign. But please be practical in your expectations.

Well my prediction is that the so called "tragedy of the commons" will apply in the end.

Humanity has shown that we cannot even stabilise world population at 6 billion and now accept 10 billion as a given. Religious nuts carry a large responsiblity for that.

I kind of feel sorry for other species. Here is this creature with a slightly larger brain then other species, intelligent enough to invent all sorts of new interesting things, too stupid to use them wisely to create sustainability on the one planet that we have. I'm fairly convinced that we'll fairly wreck it and then mother nature will just have to sort it out the hard and painfull way. All very sad really.

Taz, you wrote: “But please be practical in your expectations”.

Yes. And this means realising when things are unachievable. So let’s not waste energy on impracticalities such as reducing overall greenhouse gas emissions and population. These things are beyond our grasp.

No one wants to hear this. Indeed, it has taken me years of soul-searching to come to this ugly conclusion. I was in denial mode for a long time. “It just cannot be so”, I kept telling myself. “There must be answers”. Only now, for the first time, am I able to come out and say it.

I am a past president of the North Queensland Conservation Council and Sustainable Population Australia - North Queensland branch (for 12 years). I have put many years into fighting the good fight over continuous population growth, resource consumption and sustainability. So it is a bitter pill indeed.

Preparation for life after cheap liquid fossil fuels is not impractical, and is of the highest priority. Preparation in the slightly longer term for climate change is also eminently practical. Similarly, prep for an inevitable pandemic. Let’s concentrate on these things.

Ericc (29/12), I don’t think we should be in any way congratulating ourselves in Australia for “having a low population”.

Our population is a product of our resource base, first and foremost soils and rainfall. Our small total, compared to the USA which has a similar land area, simply reflects the enormous difference between geologically old and arid Australia and recently glaciated and uplifted wet North America. Our relatively small population certainly isn’t a product of government policy. We have been boosting it with reckless abandon since WWII and indeed since 1788.

Yes we have a very high per-capita greenhouse gas production rate. We ought to be thoroughly ashamed of it. But of course reducing this as far as we reasonably can would be nothing short of meaningless in terms of total global greenhouse gas emissions and climate change. Neither would there be any point setting a good example, which the US and other countries may in part emulate, because China and India won’t pay any credence to it and they are the countries that really matter in terms of greenhouse gas emissions. Even with the best example we could hope to set, our average per-capita consumption/emission would still be much higher than that of China and India.

However, we should do our utmost to reduce fossil fuel consumption and hence emissions, in preparation for peak oil, for the good of Australian society and environment. Implementing alternative sources of energy will only go so far. We will have to quite severely reduce average per-person consumption rates as well if we to get through peak oil with an intact society.

We should forget what the rest of the world is doing about climate change and concentrate on changing our approach, environmentally and economically. If this country prepared now for change, no matter what the rest did, in the end we would capture the world market with our innovatinve and environmentally sustainable economy and products

Currently growth is determined by the amount of stuff you can sell. Whilst it should be about growing our ability to improve our lifestyles and maintain our society in a sustainable way.

Forget giving the rest of the world an example, we should be preparing to survive the climate and fossil fuel collapse by implementing alternative fuel concepts now and get our growth from that future. It would create a huge amount of jobs around the country, revitalise farming in a sustainable way and give our society a security that the rest of the world won't have.

That's what matters, not the world, nor economic rationalism. Supply and demand should be according to our ability to sustain, rather than produce more of the same useless rubbish.