Ah, "die-offs" is it now? Paul Ehrlich called them "die-backs", and they were supposed to have happened by 1985. Thankfully, many developing countries have been spared this rubbish and experienced large scale "lives-back".

This is the biggest issue of our times. AND SO IT SHOULD BE! We are talking about our planet here, giver of life, our home - our only one. And not just ours, over 1000 species of fauna and flora become extinct every year. This is not 'our' planet afterall, it is every being's, every form of life and it is not our right to destroy it. "Climate Change" is not an impending disaster -it is an unravelling one and it is occuring now. And it needs to be stopped.
Capitalism IS the cause of massive environmental destruction and by its very nature - it is incapable of fixing the problem. You can allready see what happens to companies that start to become 'eco-friendly', they plummet on the stock market. So long as this dog-eat-dog power hungry system is controlling the planet it will head towards destruction. Carbon trading, energy saving lightbulbs . . . companies that call themselves 'carbon neutral' because they plant a few trees for the tons of emmisions they emit . . . none of this will cut it. Yes, we do need a radical restructuring of society. And its not just on an individual level (although this too is important) can this be achieved. So long as oil companies supress new technologies, so long as people complain about the 'unsightliness' of wind power, and so long as the 'best solution' Howard can come up with is Nuclear power (never mind the terrible environmental costs of extracting uranium), this problem will not be solved, will infact worsen. this is the call for people to WAKE UP. Capitalism and globalisation has allready destroyed millions of lives of those living in third world countries, and culturally perverting those in the first. Now it is our planet that is at stake. As unpopular as this sentiment may be in the twentyfirst century - it couldn't be more true than it is today-
"Socialism or Barbarism" - Karl Marx

Whether people believe we are on a knife edge in relation to monumental environmental isues or not; there is little doubt that we live in a time of great environmental change. Resources are finite; oil reserves will run out, fish stocks are being depleted, desertification is ocuring, and forests are being mined. The're background environmental issues that are occuring as a back drop to climatic change.

It is not partiularly helpful to suggest that it's the fault of capitalism; Russia and China have huge environmental issues. China is said to be one of the greatest contributors to green house gases after the USA.
Political processes probably have more bearing on poor decision making, rather than political ideologies as suggested by ana H.

An example of poor political decision making is Macquarie Island; because of an invasion of rabbits and rats the eco structure is about to collapse. There is much bitter debate between the Federal Government and Tasmanian State government about responsibilities and who will pay for what; while the environment is deteriorating at an alarming rate. Clearly, it is much easier to resolve environmental issues within a nation; than to try and resolve environmental isues that transcend national boundaries.

Mr. Howard says in relation to climatic change that it must not have an economic impact. The view that the way we use the environment has a financial cost has been around for a number of years; but it has not been factured in to traditional economic theory. However, many authoritive figures (eg Stern Report)are saying that the sooner real action takes place to try and remediate the flow of green house gases the cheaper the process will be in the long run.

Mr.Howard has landed us in a war in Iraq with arguably less evidence for the need; than the evidence acrued to become involved in a war on green house gases.
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Those who state that climatic change is not really happening potentially put future generations at huge risk; the viability of the planet to hold a population of any organism is a scenario argued by some. At least, if those promoting tackling climate change full steam ahead have got it wrong there is not a dire consequence, as is the case with the climatic change skeptics.

"Kumbaya keyboard chorus strikes again."

I love that. It's so true!

It feels like A cappella singing to me. What a fine thread this is.

- and to meet so many kindred spirits, is surely Online Opinion working to it's full potential. Cheers all, and congratulations on a fine article Ted.

Depleted fisheries, desertification, global warming, pollution, biodiversity loss (extinctions), deforestation, resource depletion, topsoil loss (at the area of Germany per year), freshwater, etc are ALL made worse by population increasing.

Even if we made massive 20% cuts to consumption and net pollution, a 30% rise in population would undo any good we had achieved in "lifestyle".

On the other hand, if Sydney stopped growing so fast (half a million people in the last 10 years) maybe our traffic would not be so bad, and our own water system might not be in such crisis? Which leads me to ask, do we have a water crisis, or do we have a people crisis?

How many people can this tired old sunburned, phosphorus depleted country support post-industrial agriculture anyway?

Don't forget, record SBS 8:30 Tuesday night. "Crude Impact" continues after the news intermission, and the oil expose continues into the next feature, "20:10 oil no more".