This will not be the first time we have suffered from global warming. The end of the last ice was one such event, abiet not as warm but enough to traumatise human kind. There were massive rises in sea level many coastal towns perhaps even protocities would have been swamped. The battle between the survivors for arable land would have been desperate and brutal. Indeed there appears to be some relationship between sea level rise and the end of most matriarchies. Perhaps warrior cults arose in the chaos. Unfortunatly all this lies just before literacy or in some cases literacy may have died out. Stories of floods and the wrath of gods lie as myth on the edge of human memory.
If the Iceland ice cap and the Western Antartic Ice shelf melt the seas levels will dramatically rise and it will be our doing. In the chaos and suffering that will follow it may be that the living will envy the dead

"If climate change is human-induced, then the solutions can and must be found within our collective resources and wisdom." "--this is an issue that transcends the environment --."
Solutions can be found? There are damn few certainties in life, and this is not one of them. We should at least try to work within those that do exist.
Near-enough to certainty is the role of energy-consumption in maintenance of current society under its present economic system.
Absolute certainty exists for the mathematics which show the impossibility of ever-continuing growth in energy use, whatever the rate of increase: whether it is to cover the annual 1.3% rate of world population increase (doubling time every 54 years), or the 4% (preferred)rate of economic growth (doubling time every 17 years).
There is little indication that we have the wisdom to work within those established certainties. The article attempts to induce a warm fuzzy glow in readers by skirting around the necissity of addressing those essentials.
Another certainty is that the issue does not transcend the environment. The cold hard fact is that we are but passengers, part of the changing environment - which is being so thoroughly abused. Why such a fetish for this self-abuse, rather than productive interface with reality?

Excellent article and very sobering thoughts on the security aspect; “Unless carefully handled, tensions between the developed and developing worlds over responsibility for a deteriorating climate, already in evidence, may escalate” is a key statement.

I would have thought that the rise in world population would be the main cause of megadeath. The continuing disregard by the so-called environment community of the population issue makes me think that when they talk about climate change they are simply urinating into the breeze.

By crikey Wispering Ted you are a frightening soothsayer .

We should be evaluating what we have and seeking solutions to sustain it .

Australia has always been a drought racked country .

It would be fair to say we have done nothing towards water generation .

Given our continent is surrounded by water we have been pretty slack .

We could have a forrest industry from the Kimberleys to Adelaide .
The rest of the world could be paying us for Carbon Credits and Timber products if only we had persued Sea water de-salination .

Here is how we could do that :

http://bgonews.com/forum/index.php?topic=94.0

Cheers ideekay

I'm not so sure why anyone thinks that that is amazing. The human
species, with its slightly larger brain then other primates, is
smart enough to invent interesting new things, not smart enough
to use them wisely and sustainably.

If you read the "tragedy of the commons", which is an economic
theory, it gets it about right. People will act in their short
term self interest, before worrying about the common long term
good.

When societies have lived unsustainably and ignored the laws of
nature, the importance of biodiversity within ecosystems etc,
invariably they ended up crashing. No doubt the same thing will
happen again, only this time globally. Dear old mother nature
will have to sort it all out, as our species are not yet smart
enough to do so.

The pollution of the planet has gained Mother Earth much ground in her fight with man where she has now become the aggressor. We are beginning to feel her wrath.

Despite the glaring biospheric evidence of man-made degradation of the planet, governments and major trade and commerce centres will continue to ignore the warnings in their worship of power and profits. They have already commenced with a scaremongering programme by threatening loss of jobs and lifestyles if we are forced to reduce pollution.

One positive aspect in the near future, I imagine, is that all nations will be so busy attempting to survive the magnitudes of global warming, they will have no desire for wars.

The recommendation of a carbon trading scheme gives me little hope for a reduction in carbon based emissions and is simply pandering to pollutant industries where they will have an opportunity to continue polluting. If we're serious about anthropogenic emissions, then a carbon tax would be more effective where the polluter pays.

The very conservative National Pollutant Inventory advises in 2005-06 Australia discharged to the environment 5,500,000,000 kgs of carbon monoxide; 3,100,000,000 kgs of volatile organic compounds; 1,100,000,000 kgs of particulate matter, 1,400,000,000 kgs of SO2 and 240,000,000 kgs of nitrogen.

All carbon based chemicals, when burnt, convert to CO2.

There are many more pollutants, however, I believe the above figures greatly under-represent the actual amount of these chemicals discharged to the environment.

Despite the concerns over man-made atmospheric CO2, the 2005-2006 emissions reports were as high as the 2004-2005 figures.

Is anyone really serious about this dilemma?

Those who claim we do nothing while China and India resist, present an illogical argument and are frankly, morally bankrupt which places Australia in the same shameful light as the US.

We need to remind ourselves that it was first world countries who instigated the industrial revolution and the resultant, unmitigated pollution of this planet.

In the meantime, the pollutant industries in Australia remain self-regulated and self-monitored whilst polluting with gusto, while their buddies, the sceptics, continue to indoctrinate and exploit the ill-informed masses.

So a few Pacific Islands whose inhabitants have already left will sink, so what. The odd species of butterfly, blah blah blah. That personally doesn't mean much to me, or the security of the globe.

Beyond the hyperbole of Climate Change the terror that will change our planet is banal: Farming will have to change in many areas and infrastructure with it. Food production will be even further from population centers, and, routinely on the other side of disputed borders.

The globe has warmed and cooled in the past, but never to the extent we face now. Most importantly climate change has never occurred with agrarian based economies sliced between arbitrary national borders.

What do the people of Bangladesh do as their incredibly low-lying country sinks beneath the waves? They'll be moving in numbers greater than at the time of Partition.

Regardless of the outbreak of traditional border conflict the displacement of people and upheaval will resemble civil war in many parts of the world.

China is crying out for their fair chance to produce the gasses that power the economic miracle, but if global warming displaces millions in cities like Shanghai pollution will be the least of their concerns.

This call to understand the broader policy consequences of warming is timely, and it would seem inevitable that John Howard will formulate a complete response in the next few weeks. It would be reckless to ignore.

Good posts here. What is fightening is climate warnings were made in 1970s, presumably based Al Gore style data from earlier decades. Nothing happened. The Polician Caste just didn't listen. Catch is, Politicians are still at the helm. Unwise monkeys. See no warnings Hear no warnings. Speak no warnings.

If McDonalds were to stop advertising, today. There would be a carry-over effect from past campaigns. It might take a few years, before, people don't think about Makkers, say, once a week. Likewise, the process of rapid Asian development in the post-colonial period, after Vietnam, might still not have been fully felt. Likewise,the East China pollution belts, from the past decade, could have set in motion events, we are "yet" to experience.

The economic transformation of high population, developing countries is problematic. If, we in First World were to plateau emissions,the contributions to global warming by the newly developing economies, would be additive on the foundation we have stabalised. Chasing economic advantage now, in global terms, could be like sending iron ore to Japan, before WWII. Ulimately, we could be feeding a process to our own detriment

Standard operating procedure for articles of that ilk.

It really is becoming quite tedious, such patronising condascension. It invites same. That you insist on blatant appeals to emotion with extrapolated doomsday scenarios,driving the whole thing with a theory. A grand theory it is, no doubt.

You guys always go for the classic logical fallacies that udermine your credibility. The most popular ones in this discussion are personal attacks like ridiculing opposing views (my favourite route too) and the patently illogical premise that a view gains credibility by the weight of experts whom agree with it. 2+2=5 is not a better arguement, than 'maybe it equals 4', because 1 billion are saying the former and a few are saying the latter. Columbus, was a minority view afterall.

People know when they're being spun and WE DONT LIKE IT. It invites contrarianism.

Do yourselves, us and the world a favour by dropping the pretext (prolly a ruse for left wing proponents to asssert control over devices of capital... politics, whatever).

Try appealing to the obviously GOOD sense of pollution reduction. Afterall who wants to breathe black air, drink black water, let the gardens and the forests die and picnic on concrete slabs painted green. ITS INHUMAN.

Try painting a POSITIVE picture... for a change. That would be refreshing. There are many things being done and that we can all do to quitelt bring about our own green revolution without the vested interests having a bunch of laws and measures to beat another bunch of vested interests with.

Some (many?) of us can see you PLAYING POLITICS. It looks very bad, that you should reduce something so important to the cynical world of politics. It be a CONTRADICTION and you shoot yourselves in the foot.

Of course, do not dare to take it one step back and deconstruct the vapid, banal, materialist, consumer driven existence, devoid of any real meaning that is driving pollution in the FIRST place.

That would be too inconvenient. Maybe Al can help ya there.

“terror as the most likely cause of mega-death.”

Terror actions have never generated significant death tolls. Sure a few hundred here and there, things like the French Revolution or acts of deliberate genocide produced reasonably high death rates, where the state becomes subordinate to a vicious and ruthless regime, Hitler’s Nazis, Stalin’s Communism, Pol Pots Communism or what has happened in Botswana and other parts of Africa from time to time.
But “Terror” in the context of terrorists, who tend to be isolated and without the authority of government office, rarely accounts for more than a few hundred, 9/11 possibly representing one of the largest headcounts for a “terrorist” outrage.

“If climate change is human-induced, then the solutions can and must be found within our collective resources and wisdom.”

Even if climate change is not “human-induced”, there may still be human solutions. Interestingly, I caught a snippet on TV today about a Mega volcano under Yellowstone National Park in USA which, if it were to erupt as it did previously, is likely to cover half USA / Canada with Ash and produce a catastrophe sufficient to alter the entire weather pattern of the earth for centuries and possibly destroying mankind in the process. The interesting bit of the commentary was, the eruption is 20,000 years Overdue. Seems to me we are living on borrowed time and whatever humankind can or cannot do is going to be pretty pointless eitherway.

Plerdsus, well said,
If we address / remove the burden of human population, the “human-induced“ environmental issues disappear.

I think most of the pissing in the wind which is going on these days comes from different scientists trying to see who can write their name in largest letters on the wall of fame, which possibly explains why some many of them are male scientists, the females being anatomically challenged, when it comes to wall writing.

Oh and “carbon credits”, if the world is to go along a path of “carbon trading” and all the other “pseudo-economic bulldust” I want to see how the process can pass any test of “mathematical integrity”.

So we get another bozo trying to link Hurricane Katrina to "Gullible Warming". And lets all trot out the usual devices of the inveterate sleaze. Wars will not be fought over climate change, they will be fought over climate ideology. Just as every other mass murdering psychopath has done his hideous work for ideology.

The chances are that the next Stalin, destined to massacre 40 million eco-kulacs, or destined to take us all back to environmental year zero, is out there right now, googling his prejudices, fine tuning his hatred of sceptics, building his anger at their supposed sabotage, and quietly developing his thoughts on a final solution.

PERSEUS.. mate..I cannot resist this :)

Check the seating allocation in the European parliament.. the seat numbers and see which one does 'not' have a name for it out of the 679 available seats :) !

663 Souchet
664 Thomas-Mauro
665 Zissener
666 -
667 Cappato
668 Turco
669 Bonino
670 Pannella
671 Dupuis

I don't know how current this is, but it was up to when this list was made.

yep..Eurostalin is out there... googling away 0_-

Now..another leap into the wild blue world of prophecy which kind of loosely fits the 'megadeath' scenario.

Revelation 6
7When the Lamb opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature say, "Come!" I looked, and there before me was a pale horse! Its rider was named Death, and Hades was following close behind him. They were given power over a fourth of the earth to kill by sword, famine and plague, and by the wild beasts of the earth.

COMMENT
The bottom line of course, is that all this is brought upon mankind by ourselves. By our abuse of the planet, resources and selfish greed.
But most of all, by a stubborn resistance to God, and ill will to His grace. The AntiChrist will epitomize all that, and when he takes his seat..he will be regarded like one divine by the world, such will his personality be.

No point in speculating on all this, its just another view and perspective into the mix.

"But most of all, by a stubborn resistance to God, and ill will to His grace."

Frankly BD, I think thats a load of bollocks! World population
has gone from 1.5 billion to 6.5 billion in the last hundred
years. Various religions carry their large share of the blame
for all that, as they race to outbreed each other. Clearly
its not sustainable and in the natural world, if its not
sustainable, eventually the wheels fall off and the system
crashes. Nothing magic, thats how nature works.

"Ahh, there is judgement day," say the religious. Nope,
they just don't understand basic biology etc. Darwin
was right. But of course religious fervour will sweep
any kind of reason under the carpet

Isn't it a pity we didn't have the IPCC, & all these clever people to help when India drifted into Asia.
I may not have the job description, "expert", but even I'm smart enough to know, that the Himalayas, popping up there, had a bit more effect, on the climate of the planet, than a bit of CO2 up in the clouds.

I wonder what the IPCC would have done, to save us.

Make us use public transport?
Stop us using coal?
Make us all eat Lentils?

Of course not. They would have had hundreds of natty little academics write thousands of papers, & fly all round the world, reading them to each other.
That would have fixed it

The real solution has to be solar.This is where John Howard has missed the point.He talks about using nuclear energy,however our largest nuclear power station is our own sun.David Mills has just moved to the US with his innovation of a solar power station that has real potential,but we are too consumed with selling coal and uranium.

Solar is the way to go,however the oil companies will no longer hold the monopoly on energy since we as individuals will be able to supply ourselves as the technology gets better.

We will happily waste billions on usless helicopters and submarines,yet don't have the wisdom to back our own inventions.$80 billion is sitting in a Commonwealth future fund for pollies and PS superannuation.What about a future for the rest of Australia?

We now need a leader with some courage and vision but I have yet to see it coming from the Labor Party.