Good article Peter,

My 2cents worth:

- GW is a secondary / tilting factor that can be attributed (or not to many natural disasters).
- Like everything with risks comes opportunities. GW in essence means there is more room for us to plant more trees and fight desertation. GW is actually the lowest cost problem to solve per country per person.
- Prosperity does not mean the abuse of natural resources. I was in the US last month on holidays and to many being prosperous means 2 x 5.7 Liter SVUs in the garage. There is a room for education on the correct defintion of prosperity as to being smart about how you consume what you need and not as much as you can.

Food for thoughts,

This whole gloom and doom thing will run out of steam like the start of a new Ice Age prediction that came out in the 1970's. Have a read of Andrew Bolt's article in the Herald on May 10th.

Sniggid, your "whole gloom and doom thing" will never "run out of steam" (did you mean "run out of fuel"?) when people make hilarious suggestions like, "Have a read of Andrew Bolt's article in the Herald on May 10th".

Global Warming is neither real nor a massive conspiracy, it is a coalition of self interests that feed on each other's biases for their own ends in much the same way that the IT industry gave us Y2K.

Y2K was not a conspiracy but it was most certainly backed by a strong majority consensus of experts. Skeptics were regarded with derision right up to about 15 minutes past midnight on the 31st December 1999. Of course, only two days later polite people didn't mention out of caution that the person they were talking to may have contributed to the mass delusion. Not a single senior executive appears to have been sacked for wasting millions of dollars.

The author claims that ocean acidity is a topic that Global Warming Skeptics never mention. Well, this particular Skeptic certainly will for the author said;

"The other parameter that affects the health of the oceans is acidity. Ocean acidity gives an objective measurement that is directly related to atmospheric carbon dioxide levels and thus human activity, which is why people who argue that global warming is a scam never mention acidity. Atmospheric carbon dioxide combines with water to give carbonic acid, a “weak” acid that in turn initiates further acidification pathways. We are familiar with this from acid-rain scenarios".

For the record, the UK Royal Society's paper on ocean acidity assumes that CO2 only mixes in the top 100 metres (2.5%) of the average ocean depth of 4,000 metres. And they then tally up all the CO2 for a number of centuries to get some numbers that will really scare the kids. It is pure bunkum.

For a start, the mighty Gulf Stream in the North Atlantic is 500 metres deep and it routinely forms eddies that are over 1.2km deep. Furthermore, moving bodies of water tend to twist due to the rotation of the earth, producing meanders in rivers and currents.
Cont’d ---

Cont’d ---
More importantly, the assumption ignores thermohaline circulation, the massive vertical circulation of ocean volumes. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermohaline_circulation And this, for a nation like Australia who's climate is so dependent on fluctuations in El Nino is no minor omission. For the Southern Oscillation is derived from variations in the temperatures of ocean currents off the Pacific Coast of South America.

The research on "thermohaline circulation" is Atlanticentric, with Europeans and North Americans viewing their local systems as driving most of the world’s ocean currents. But the by far the greatest volumes are driven by Antarctic ice and the Southern Ocean. Less is known about exactly where most of the upwelling takes place but there is general agreement that huge volumes of dense, saline and CO2 laden water sink at the poles.

And given the volumes involved, it simply beggars belief that this massive circulation will not, over the decades and centuries in the acidity model, make a mockery of the 100 metre CO2 circulation assumption.

The same applies in the Northern Hemisphere. The Atlantic Conveyor would have to stop, completely, before any serious acidification of the upper 100 metres could begin. But of course, it has not. The European Ice-Age doom story is still just that. So the Royal Society has been modeling a phenomena that has not even begun but which has been presented as something that is already in train.

Some will recall the Oslo Statement of 7 Decenber 2001 (after 9/11) signed by 108 Nobel Laureates (Chairman Arafat didn't sign). This said that "global warming, not of their making but originating with the wealthy few" was causing the "poor and disenfranchised", the majority of whom live a marginal existence in equatorial climates, to become the most profound danger to world peace in the coming years. The Laureates didn't tell us that global climate has fluctuated about a 300-year warming trend since the "Quiet Sun" of the Maunder Minimum (1645-1715). They didn't tell us that Earth does not journey in an empty Universe, but is a prisoner of solar, planetary and galactic influences. Ours is not a self-contained climate; and its primary driver is via the variable Sun-Earth connection. Doing the right thing about fossil-fuel use, cannot stabilise our ever-changing climate - unless we first stabilise the Sun. Variable solar activity can be predicted. Looking after the future needs to include predicting climatic events (next Little Ice Age cold period, next Indian Monsoon failure, for instance) and planning so that death and misery can be prevented and mitigated. So far, the words of Laureates are lacking in this crucial area.

As a (self-confessed!) evolutionary biologist the author must be well aware of the limits to computer simulation. Surely deep suspicion should be cast on any simulation that fails to give accurate results when run on historial data, especially when future projections are based on changes barely discernible from noise. However, this would appear to be precisely the scenario in current climate change literature.

I do not dispute climate variability, but as the article mentions behavioural change is going to be expensive and we need to be sure the right changes are enforced. Which human activities are having a negative impact on the environment out of proportion to the cost of rectification? Are the observed changes REALLY the result of the modelled factors?

Personally I believe that habitat destruction and species (diversity) loss are the most pressing environmental problems - dependence on oil is an economic issue. If the developed world were to switch to mass production of a carbon-neutral fuel source such as bio-diesel the impact on other plant species could be catastrophic.

regards
dave rawlinson

Intellectual,academics,professors,scientists,know alls and others can debate global warming all they like ,but the fossil fuel thing is all lies. For the past 200 years all of the world burnt fossil fuels to no detriment to our planet.
The heating up is not from outer but inner heating of earth,going by studies by F.Riley on Missouri USA e-mail fmrglorybound@aol.com who has been taking note of this for many years I received his 12 page newsletter for March-April 2006 yesteday. You can too.
Plant X is the culprit ,discoverd in 1981 ,a black planet fully magnetic getting closer to Earth daily .Causing weather chaos,earthquakes ,tsunamis,global flooding, all can be checked out on the net. Tornadoes by the hundreds ,huge hailstones and more.
Planet X + Sun + superior electro magnetic fields that are causing chaos to all planets in space .
The heating is coming from within the earth's magnetic core and is melting the icecaps in both poles from beneath the seabeds.
Huge ammounts of water are gathering to eventually flood the earth .
Anyway ,it is too long a story just ask F.Riley at e-mail 6ktz2eq4@centurytel.net

This is all biblical and in scriptural as well as Pastor Benny Hinn was told by God last year (August 2004) that the Earth is going to have the worst weather ever seen in the history of the world from then on? And it has . And to get ready for Christ's return soon after. So all you need to do is repent of sin.

Thanks Dobbadan for that enlightening post. I'll make sure I take my umbrella in case of rains of toads, or televangelists falling from the sky.

Having read Andrew Bolt's column, at Sniggid's suggestion, I wonder why I bothered. For those who reckon Bolt has any idea about climate change look here http://timlambert.org/2005/11/bolt-4/ Perhaps someone could post a link to ANY climate scientist who believes global warming is not happening. Please note, that does not include retired engineers, people funded by the coal industry or "independent researchers and inventors".

Otherwise I will continue to use http://www.realclimate.org .

Dobbadan, “For the past 200 years all of the world burnt fossil fuels to no detriment to our planet.”

We understand how little believers in god can see beyond their delusions, it would be nice if you stop reminding us. Until the last 50- 75 years, fossils fuels were only used by a few hundred million people. Now they are being used by a few billion, theres a slight difference. As to planet x or Nibiru as some call it, if it exists then it will prove god is a fallacy.

GW, could be a conspiracy as was Y2K, to enable more profits for the elite. When Australi sells its crude oil overseas for between $6 and $10 a barrel, then we are forced to buy oil from the oil companies for $72 per barrel, its not in our best interests. If you consider that the cost of recovering oil has diminished as infrastructure has been paid off, OPEC gets it out of the ground for less than a dollar a barrel. Makes you wonder as to the on going veracity of what we are told by our leaders, who always appear to get directorships of these large companies when they retire, doesn't it.

I think its ridiculous to be quarreling about the effects and whats causing them. We should be preparing ourselves for the changes that are occurring, as it may be quite a while before the climate settles down.

We have seen Australian TV respond to the 'fat epidemic' by hosting weighloss shows like The Biggest Loser. This drew huge audiences and created a greater awareness of this problem.

What I am proposing is a similar response by Australian TV to the environmental "epidemic."
Why not create a scene ( a house or another suitable context) where specifially selected, volunteers would start in an unsustainable environment. The challenge would be to make good environmental choices. They could be voted off at the end of the week if their house / context doesn't improve according to the model / task set for the week. The prize ? Money I presume would be best. Throughout the competition, there could be additional prizes which are environmentally friendly. For example, solar panel fitted in your home.

Has anyone heard of anything done like this before ?

Thank you, Peter Doherty, for these most pertinent (from my reading) words ever to appear on OLO:
"I would like to persuade you that one of the best things you can do is to spend at least a little of your time learning biology and some of the chemistry and physics that affect the environment".
Whether it is in relation to acceleration of Climate Change, or its probable cause - excessive waste production, and consumption of finite resources by humanity - the need for such persuasion is imperative.
Faith may be fine - whether it is in human resourcefulness, or in the God of your choice; but it must be tempered. "God helps those who helps themselves" is more relevant than "God will provide". We must not abrogate responsibility for our situation.
The wellbeing of future human generations depends upon our recognition, without delay, of our place in this planet's biosphere - our role as an ecological component.
That recognition requires acknowledgment of the finite nature of the environmental resources upon which we depend.
In turn, this imposes a responsibility upon our economists to develop systems not dependent upon ever-increasing economic activity fuelled by resource consumption. The lifestyles currently adopted by the more developed nations cannot be sustained indefinitely for their current numbers. May young upcoming economists please take note!
The earth's environmental resources are incapable of providing for the upgrading of less-developed nations' lifestyles to that of the developed. Six and a half billion people are too many to be sustained equitably. And without prospect of such equity, social conflict is inevitable. Will the incoming generation of social scientists please accept this fundamental reality!
Will humanity be able to arrest its cancerous growth of both consumption and numbers in a humane and equitable manner before the fundamentals of biology take over and mercilessly bring this un-natural expansion - and assault against the basic principles of science - to a halt? Can society progress beyond greed?

The Earth is not a perfect black body.
There is thus no such thing as global warming in our Biosphere. The Biosphere is a quasi closed thermodynamic system that is continually pumped away from any possibility of a global warming thermal equilibrium with solar, geothermal and cosmological energy. Our biosphere is COMPLEX enough to reradiate excess heat to space and into biomass in a variety of ways that scientists have yet to fully understand. Greenhouse gases are incidental to these processes.

Climate change is real and is a direct result of global sea change tendencies of human populations along with supporting agriculture, industry and mining operations. 25% of the Australian population is slated to be in the small coastal strip from Brisbane to Coffs Harbour by 2020 for example. The attendant wastewater interference in excess global energy fluxes on their way to polar regions is the major cause of increased storms and droughts that we know as climate change. When that excess energy reaches the poles, it is reradiated to space via super cooled macromolecular energy transformations that are totally oblivious to any greenhouse gas interception. The ice caps will always be in darkness for most of the year, will always produce ice by supercooled macromolecular transformations and will thus necessarily radiate heat to space no matter how much greenhouse gas is in the atmosphere. Heat trapped in circumpolar air and ocean currents will modify polar ice distributions ONLY at a REGIONAL level around the poles. The time dependent profile of these modifications will be COMPLEX but only a fool would mistake it for a true GLOBAL scale phenomena with the weak data sets available today. Only cosmological events that might cause a reorientaion of EARTH's axis are capable of melting ice caps. Even then, the addition of cosmic energy will only pump the biosphere to higher levels of order over a sufficient time period.

If PD really wishes to globally warm our biosphere. If he MUST. Then all he would have to do is bunk planet Earth out to the vicinity of Mars orbit.

That would do nicely.

And BTW,

even if H5N1 mutates to a human infectious format, it will not cause a pandemic. Global thermodynamics are wrong for this. After WWI it was a cinch for spanish-flu, but not now. Maybe if Peak oil wars in 20 years time wipe out a few billion people, the world will be thermodynamically susceptible.

And speaking of learning science I wonder if PD wants us to know the complex regimens required to keep viruses alive in the lab. These regimens actually mimic the thermodynamic disorder that would be caused by wars and overcrowding in human societies.
Without a proper level of disorder, primitive lifeforms like viruses do no function well at all.

"Y2K was not a conspiracy but it was most certainly backed by a strong majority consensus of experts."

This is a totally falacious analogy. It assumes that no action was taken over Y2K, and that it was never a real problem. It might have been overhyped in the media (like everything), but a combination of active steps in the computer industry and a very high rate of turn-over of new techhnology in the late 1990s meant that the crisis didn't eventuate. But if no-one had done anything, then it would have been a problem. The lesson with Y2K is that sensible, measured action is both necessary and possible over Global Warming.

Another comparison is ozone depletion, which has been halted, if not yet reversed, by a combination of technology, legislation and international agreements. Why is this so hard to accept among GW deniers?

Really, Mhar. If the Y2K problem was mostly fixed before the event then, surely, somewhere in an isolated nook there would have been someone still making do with his original IBM PC circa 1991. And if Y2K was a real problem then this would have failed. Can anyone out there advise of any instance where a system failed on 1/1/2000? I doubt it. Nice try though. Repeat it often enough and someone will believe you.

60 Canadian scientists recently wrote to their PM highlighting their concerns about the policy process taking greenhouse assumptions as fact. Our own Prof. Ian Castles has quite a bit to say about the flawed modelling of the IPCC and their reluctance to deliver full transparency and substantiation to their deliberations. Just google him.

I will give you one word that will almost fix global warming,
TREES! How many trees has the human race cleared? billions and billions. Why do they call it rain forest? because it creates rain.
When will mankind realize we have been given everthing but we look after nothing. Now we also have Howards IR laws to worry about.
This Liberal PM is a serial lyer but 60% of you people voted for him what were you thinking?

Democracy is the first issue. Without it we can't even have a discussion of any real consequence. The Labor Party is the only Party in a position to effectively address holistic issues of democracy, sustainability and hope. As we all know, the ALP is floundering, betwixt an inaccessible past and a much wider future. If you're serious about making a difference, join the Labor Party. Fix the process so we can then collectively fix the world. C U there ... Q

Johnny
The Labor party is ... holistic ? sheesh mate. My observation is that both/all parties seem to be there for the vested interests of those who support them, which is one fundamental problem of democracy, in that it panders to sectional interests rather than the interests of all.

I do like some of Labor's approaches, such as the Dental initiative which my own family benefited from, and which the Libs scrapped.. BADDDDD LIBERALS ! But then again, we struggled terribly with 17% interest rates at the time we were trying to buy a home.

I think we have more disposable income now, with 7% interest rates than we gained by free dental.

I'd rather see the budget surplus allocated to Health and education that tax cuts giving me a bigger wide screen Tv (If I had one)

I would MUCH rather be able to get the elective surgery or be treated in the emergency room within an hour instead of 4 than have a bit more disposable income.

So, on the issue of global warming. Labor is most likely to pay attention to those segments of the community which a) Support them and b) make a lot of noise. i.e. if they can see political milage out of it, they will go for it. Then what ? aaah.. then the real agenda kicks in.. Labor flavored consultants will be given huge contracts, Labor flavored this mob and that mob will benefit from other contracts.. of course the Libs are no better, not the greens or dems. They all have their weaknesses as far as I'm concerned.

Family First is yet to be tested, but while their main focus seems healthy, I can imagine that even this well intended goal could become politicized in due course. *sigh*

I think this is one reason I love Christian fellowship so much. Sure we have the occasional spat and political blue within groups, strong personalities etc...goes with the territory whereever humans are, but overall, the love and joy I feel in that context is quite something to be felt.

Bd, except for your last paragraph I agree. I believe, when John Howard was treasurer, we had 21% interest rates.

Political parties are from the same mold, family first is showing where its priorities lay already. Not with the people or families, but with its vested interests.

Add up the members of political parties throughout Australia, you'd be lucky to have more than 2-300000. Most labor members are unionists. Without the support of unions, labor would be extinct. If you removed corporate support from all parties, they'd disappear.

What we have to work out is why at voting time, people like slaves just go and vote for the status quo. Its either the people lack intelligence, are so heavily indoctrinated to not be able to think for themselves. Or are to lazy, greedy and self interested to do anything but expect others to do what they refuse to do.

As our politicians are from the upper elites of society and have no experience in life other than from a school or university. Is it any wonder our society is in such turmoil and the priorities of our leaders are firmly focused on themselves and the corporations that support them. Nothing will change until w can get a party thats actually for the real future we want, and no the future that will give politicians what they want.

The budget should've been orientated to our future in the form of real infrastructures and direction, to cope with our changing environment and galloping consumption. More hospitals and services are useless until the causes are attended to, otherwise the results will be more of what we have now.

What amazes me, is in life, if we lie about things we are ostracised. In politics, they lie every day. Just about every sentence is a lie, yet the populance puts politicians above all others.

People are so gullible, they accept corrupt liars as their leaders. Make people in public office fully accountable for what they say in sufferance of jail and loss of all entitlements. Then we'll see changes that'll help us

The solution to 'global warming'?: stop breeding.

BD,
I recall that in "the bad old days" when interest rates were 17% (about 13% for mortgages), interest rates were high all over the world.
Nonetheless, I was able to service my mortgage on one wage while my wife stayed at home and raised 2 children.

If I were to buy the same house today, with the same relative wages, both of us would need to work and we would probably be childless.

We get the governments we deserve. All are as self-seeking and morally bankrupt as the voters who elect them.
The only difference between Labor and Liberal is marketing.

The people who are in denial over global warming sound similar to those who were backing the pro-tobacco lobby some years ago and telling us that the all test results are "inconclusive". Meanwhile money changes hands in both directions from both sides of the "debate" and Nero keeps on fiddling while Rome burns.

The next big debate will be over the link between mobile phones and cancer - that one's not over by any means.

Admiral von Schneider,
Could I suggest you stop breathing as you are putting carbon into the atmosphere. The children not yet born have not affected the present condition.

Assuming 'global warming','climate change' or whatever you like to call it is an impending disaster,a catastrophe of apocalyptic proportions as the likes of Tim Flannery claims,then surely population policy is the' elephant in the room'.
The reluctance of campaigners to seriously discuss it is aptly illustrated by the irrational response of Philo above.

Michael Crichton's piece http://www.crichton-official.com/speeches/speeches_quote04.html of some years ago is worth a read if you don't know it. He draws attention to the similarities between the debates around global warming and the prediction of other global catastrophes. His analysis has much in common with Julian Cribb's piece on the Muzzling of Science: http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=4264

It seems that some of the posters do not yet realize that the population explosion is aready over. The population of the world will peak around the middle of this century and then decline.
The populations of developed countries are mostly already in decline – especially those of Europe.

Owen could be partly right,although the "population explosion" could hardly be said to be over - when predictions are for another 3 billion by 2050.
It is hard to be sure what the figures will be by mid-century. Human numbers currently are increasing steadily at over one per cent per year, increasing the planetary load with more than 70 million with each passing year. That is in spite of 2 billion humans still being below breeding age, unable yet to make their own contribution to the increase.
Any civilised person would hope for a decline: there is already so much human distress caused by our presently excessive numbers.
The great pity is that such decline will probably be due to nature's dealing with plague species in the usual harsh way.
The possibility of the necessary decline being in an orderly, civilised, and comapssionate manner is being bitterly opposed by religious fundamentalism. The fundamentalism which controls George W. Bush's administration in its attitude to human fertility; that fundamentalism which is similarly in charge in the Vatican; and that which pervades all too much of the Muslim world. Under the pressure of these, the projected 9 billion peak for humanity could fall short with a clunk from environmental factors - regardless of what good work Peter Doherty and his colleagues can achieve in the medical field.
There is indeed too much greed embodied in selfish faith.

How many trees have been cut down in the last 1000 years?
there is the answer to global warming.

Sorry, can't quite catch on, when going by Adam Smith, natural greed is needed to fire up competition. Indeed, anything that inspires us to win a race, climb a mountain, going by Smith's formula is the same as making a kill in marketing, as was Smith's main line.

So we might say that greed fits well in with Herbert Spencer's survival of the fittest concept, when as a businessman and friend of Darwin, he changed the name from survival of the animal species to survival of the fittest, which had the aging Darwin frothing at the mouth when Spencer and his crew made it socially and politically legit by changing it to Social Darwinism, along with Hegelianism not only justifying colonialism, and the much later Nazism, but also Theodore Roosevelt's excuse to grab all the Spanish colonies surrounding the USA bar Cuba, and also the Phillipines later as well as Hawai.

My goodness this greed can go on, especially when we can give it different names rather than imperialism or colonialism, now George W Bush is calling it freedom and liberty for the Iraqis, and indeed the whole Middle East But surely greed must come in somwhere, especially with Dick Cheney and his corporate oil buddies hanging around.

No way greed can be discarded, it is a major part of human nature.

Pollution reigns and will continue to while skeptics deny the damage done by pollutant industries. The "Precautionary Principle" is being ignored as industry continues to pump excessive pollution over communities, the oceans and into the environment. Until Australian regulators include limits on chemicals within a "Condition of Licence" the status quo will remain. How often have the discerning heard a regulator say when failing to prosecute: "There has not been a breach of Licence" being fully aware that they have omitted these conditions for reduced emissions from a licence, thereby rendering the Act, unenforceable. Governments are encouraging industries to pollute in their quest for profits and the EPA Act cannot be enforced until legislated regulations are part of a licence to operate! I have been examining various licences for several years now and I have also spent the good part of that time attempting to better understand the measurements of chemical emissions to air. These emissions are not for the faint-hearted! For those who claim that Climate Change is part of a conspiracy - they're dead right! Unfortunately, they have failed to identify the real culprits and are obviously blind to the "legalised" contamination and destruction of our health, land, sea and air. The occasional comments on pollution by our leaders is simply a ploy to distract from the real issues of uncontrolled releases of hazardous emissions in this country, encouraged by regulators' due to their failure to act in the best interests of the environment and public health. Citizens should be doing their own homework on pollution by requesting documented technical and emissions reports, and demanding a reduction of HAPS and an upgrade on pollution prevention control. They should be submitting formal complaints to their local Department of Environment when they witness pollution. They should not be put off by officers' innane gobbledegook, otherwise known as "bureaucratic speak" but demand answers in plain English. Community complacency has also contributed to the situation we are now in! It is time our "masters" ceased to regard the environment as an obstacle to economic success!

The Howard government do not care about the environment. I will never vote for this government and i urge you all to atleast vote independent.

Yes Dickie I wholeheartedly support all that you say.
Erin Brokovich is over here at this moment helping our local campaigners against big business that do not give a damn for ordinary people. The Howard government are of course puppets of big business and it will be not until all people see the current Liberals for what they are will our Country change for the best. When my wife and I were living in Applecross in the late eighties we were searching around where to live we drove around Rockingham, Safety Bay, Leda and when we saw the plant life dying due to the fall out from that alimiuin plant our mind was made up it woill certainly be the Northern suburbs for us. This will always be for us if Australia decicedes to go nuclear then for us it will be goodbye John Howard we value our safety.

Greed is rife it is the Howard Syndrome today bash workers for the benefit of profits. Pollute our heavens let industry do it and go unchecked. We only have to see that ever consistent cloud that hangs over Rockinham it never ever goes away. What fool government allowed tha Company to be set up on such a picturesquue setting. This is all criminal destroying our marine life every day acceptable standards so they tell us. Why are whales and Dolphins always beaching themselves. These highly intelligent creatures are being sent mad due to sonar sound exploring for mineral wealth. This all has to stop but we need a government who is strong enough to take big business on. Not to say we have to give in to them otherwise they will go to China.

Bronco, Feel better now you have had a rant? Your opinions are based in sensationalism rather than fact. Tell us how you would provide food, energy and employment for a nation. It sound like you are an uncommitted person to national problems by your constant itenerant movements when things arise you do not like. I suggest you do a better job rather than criticise and flee.

Johnny Q you have hit the nail on the head.
The Labor Party is controlled by conservatives issues where the Labor Party is linked. Tasmanian Pulp Mill. Tasmanian logging of old growth forests. American bases on our soil. Government funded Private Education and Health. Privatisation of Commonwealth Bank, Qantas, SGIO. Government Print, West Ed Media, R&I Bank, Privatisation of Direct Labour Jobs, the list goes on and on while profits are made for shareholders. This is why all Democratic Socialists should join the Labor Party. The socialist Alliance and Greens are great but are outnumbered if they joined the Labor Party they will no longer be outnumbered. The Broad Left is the largest faction but is outnumbered by the Catholic Right, Centre, and the New Right. The Labor are not representing the working people of Australia. Right of Entry for advocates of working people must be part of the Industrial process. Uranium Mining has to cease and must only be used for medical and pharmceutical needs. Peter Garret is great but he is captured by the New South Wales Right he has to abide with the consecus view that is democracy. Democratic Socialism has to be a gradual process through reform and Education. A lot has been achieved but unfortunately the Howard Government has destroyed a lot that has been fought for. We need a Radical Labor Party led by Peter Garret.

Philo

I'd hazard a guess that you do not reside in WA. Bronco Lane is correct with his assertions.

You need to refrain from criticism unless you have a good knowledge of what the pollutant industries around Kwinana/Rockingham are emitting to atmosphere.

Some of us do go to the trouble of accessing publicly available emission reports pertaining to these industries. Some of us also go to great lengths to better understand the chemical emissions and their scientific impacts on the eco-systems and human health.

I don't believe you have an understanding of the culture within the environmental "regulatory" agencies, where their only concern is for profits.

The current WA Parliamentary Enquiry into Lead Pollution in Esperance will reveal to you, the incompetence of these agencies where they are mere sycophants to the corporate environmental vandals who have been permitted to pollute without any effective emission limits imposed or regulatory enforcement of the EPA Act.