There's a couple of ways to make the Chinese take notice
1) not sell them any coal
2) put a 'carbon' tariff on what we import from them.
Let them get coal from the Indonesians or whomever because some (eg Richard Heinberg) are now saying world coal output will peak within 15 years. That's a side benefit of cutting back now because we will conserve the resource and find alternatives. Even if glaciers start forming in the Dandenongs while we shiver in the dark at least we are preparing for the long haul.

I'd hesitate to dismiss the IPCC report because if the dams don't fill before summer it will become the new Bible.

People are missing one point. The Chinese are already going more an Australia. Solar, energy efficent cities and reaforestation programs.
I don't like the Chinese Government because of the genocide in Tibet but credit where credit is due. They have a huge mass with a billion people wanting some of the things we have, there is corruption but they are starting to count the cost of pollution and make changes, which is better then our lot.

Just the usual rabid right wing ratbag rabble ranting again, have a look at history pal, most of the innovative social and political changes in the world were spearheaded by small countries, big ones are weighed down by bureaucrats and inertia.The bit you don't get is we/they might not have any choice, with neatherandls like yourself runnimg the show we are headed for huge famine's where about half the world population are likely to starve to death, then we won't need all that elecricity. You lot are like little kids johnny is going to jump off the cliff so I will follow him.

y, alanpoi, maybe 1/2 the world will die sooner. but this disaster will happen anyway if a fixed amount of land is infested by an ever growing population of humans. so relax, have a bex and a biscuit with your tea.

The arrogance of humanity is alive and well and as misplaced as ever. The earth has been evolving - undergoing a constant process of change for four to five billion years and is still doing so. All we are doing is dirtying our own nest, and suffering the direct consequences of our own actions. It matters little which occurs first - a Malthusian stalemate, or we all choke on our own waste - the earth doesn't care. The only possible way to hang on as a discrete species is to halt population growth, and allow the biosphere to regenerate. It is up to us - the biosphere is only a 'biosphere' to the current crop of living organisms which exist within the current life parameters. There have been many life forms before, and will be many again until the sun eventually becomes a red giant and the earth is no more.

Two sensible climate change articles in one day, I'm impressed. Both well written and thought out.

"There's a couple of ways to make the Chinese take notice
1) not sell them any coal
2) put a 'carbon' tariff on what we import from them."

1) will only hurt Australia as plenty of other countries will sell to them.
2) might work but only if the big countries do it. Australia's buying power is effectively squat

"I'd hesitate to dismiss the IPCC report because if the dams don't fill before summer it will become the new Bible"

Thats exactly why I'd dismiss it, as it is accepted with a religious unquestioning fervour.

"we are headed for huge famine's where about half the world population are likely to starve to death"

maybe you could help out by sacrificing yourself if you are so sure..

"a fixed amount of land is infested by an ever growing population of humans"

doom doom doom...

"The arrogance of humanity is alive and well and as misplaced as ever"

you got that right, most of them reckon they can predict the future...

I couldn't have said it better myself GYM-FISH. I thought the original opinion flippant to say the least. If everyone had that attitude there would be absolutely no leadership in this world of ours. So many people say "what difference can Australia make" I have a friend in England that says exactly the same thing about the UK. Doing the right thing, at least gives a moral imperative. Doing nothing encourages the opposite and then nothing will get done. The United Nations might be somewhat ineffective, but it does give us a forum for debate and world opinion will eventually create change if enough countries stand up to be counted. No one wants sactions placed on them.

This article is a waste of space and an insult to OLO publishers and readers and simply not worth further comment

Thank you Mark.

It's so unusual to see some commonsense and an ability to critically examine the IPCC's claims. Most people simply repeat the opinions of others regardless of how unsubstantiated they might be.

Are you aware of the research into solar activity that appears to be finding quite good correlations with the earth's temperature? The IPCC's latest report couldn't even manage a page of comment about it.

Are you also aware that tropospheric temperature is showing a quite different trend after the influences of volcanic activity and El Nino (and La Nina) events are removed? The IPCC ignored the qualification made by Gray in a paper last year in "Energy & Environment" and claimed that research showed similar trends.

The IPCC reports are biased and the summaries are political documents with the nuances of uncertainties played down or removed. Even the panel's name is a distortion - it should be Intergovernmental Panel on man-made Climate Change because its charter requires that it unvestigate any human influence on climate and the risk that such influence imposes.

I'm pleased to see that someone has the testicular apparatus to critically review the situation.

Well done Mark and Snowman.

Its about time people paid more attention to what the IPCC documents are portraying. How anyone can take it seriously when the IPCC authers themselves publish a graph with such large elements of the climate science being described by them, as having such a low rate of LOSU just beggars belief.

But to use this lack of knowledge to try and credibly say what the predicted temperatures are likely to be in 100 years time, based upon computer based models is fairy land stuff.

To try and stiffen it up with a whole pile of instances where they can observe the effects of warming ( caused by whatever) and not include all the other data where there is contrary evidence is fraud.

We are of course left with the data from places like the River Tornio in Finland, and not to mention how the Modtrans 3 model behaves at the top of the atmosphere when increasing levels of CO2 are injected

I have been very concerned about Global Warming for a while now.
But here's the thing. Global warming might be one reason to invest in renewables... but the other reason might be far, far more sinister and urgent.

We are running out of everything!
Not just "peak oil" which is basically the last oil crisis, which the ABC is basically announcing in 3 weeks (Thursday 25 May, 8:30... "Crude").

Not just "peak gas" which is running out of the world's cheap, easy to get to gas and starting to draw down on the harder to get to gas... a few years after peak oil. (Makes sense, kind of the similar fields and processes and reserves.)

But more evidence is coming out of the scandalous misrepresentation of the state of King Coal. We are running out of the cheap coal!

2 reports have just in the last month highlighted some VERY nasty reporting errors on coal. People keep quoting 600 years of coal, without counting how old those studies were and what exponential growth has done to coal consumption in the meantime. Peak coal could be here in about 20 years, and we are not ready.

http://globalpublicmedia.com/heinberg_coals_future_in_doubt

Solar thermal power offers the prospect of continuous electricity at a competitive cost with coal, as well as fresh water as a byproduct. Biomass which is currently discarded could meet much of our needs were technology developed to convert it to a usable form. Numerous pyrolytic and enzymatic processes are being investigated currently.

Were Australia to make technological progress in these areas the impact would be world wide. Mark Lawson chooses to see action on climate change as a pointless economic impediment. The reality is that climate change presents technical challenges which hold the prospect for considerably advancing humanity.

"and if your head explodes with dark forebodings to,
I'll see you on the dark side of the moon".

Pink Floyd could well have been predicting the state of angst induced by the climate Scarenarios. There seems no limit to the media's thirst for more and more apocalyptic climate bumf and no shortage of gullible plodders to wallow in it.

"The paper folds their faded faces to the floor,
and every day, the paper boy brings more".

Following is Mr Lawsons email providing 'list of prominent scientists', if OLO doesn't delete my post again i'll post links so readers can check Lawsons list credibility themselves. //Edited adulatory hype to fit 350word limit, added #'s for ease of dissection.

"Culled from media and net searches. Its incomplete and I haven't looked properly at the Leizig declaration (see note at end), but here 'tis. The first three in particular are hard for the greenhousers to explain away.
1. Robert Balling, director of the Office of Climatology at Arizona State University
2. Carl Wunsch, a professor of physical oceanography, Massachusetts
Institute of Technology.
3. William M. Gray, Emeritus Professor of Atmospheric Science at Colorado State University, and head of the Tropical Meteorology Project at CSU's Department of Atmospheric Sciences.
4. Prof Patrick Michaels, Department of Environmental Studies, University of Virginia.
5. Prof Ian Clark, Department of Earth Science, University of Ottowa.
William Kininmonth, former head of Australia's National Climate Centre
and former Australian delegate to the WMO Commission for Climatology.
6. Professor Robert M. Carter, James Cook University, Townsville. A former Head of School of Earth Sciences at the University.
Associate Professor Stewart Franks, a hydro climatologist at the
University of Newcastle in NSW.
7. Richard Lindzen, Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
8. Hendrik Tennekes, former director of research at the Royal Dutch
Meteorological Institute and now a professor of aeronautical engineering at Pennsylvania State University.
9. Tim Ball, former Professor of Climatology at the University of Winnipeg

THE FOLLOWING SCIENTISTS HAVE EXPRESSED MILDER DOUBTS THAN THOSE ABOVE, BUT HAVE CRITICISED THE IPCC'S FINDINGS
10. John Christy, Professor and Director of the Earth System Science Centre, University of Alabama, Huntsville.
11. Don Easterbrook, emeritus professor of geology at Western Washington University
12. Roy Spencer, a climatologist at the University of Alabama, Huntsville.

A more comprehensive list of unbeliever/doubter scientists can be found as signatures to the Leipzig declaration. Originally formulated in 1997 in response to the original Kyoto Conference and revised in 2005, the list is endless.
http://www.sepp.org/policy%20declarations/LDrevised.html
Mark Lawson"

On Mark Lawsons list..

1. Robert Balling - Balling acknowledged that he had received $408,000 in research funding from the fossil fuel industry over the last decade. Contributors include ExxonMobil, the British Coal Corporation, Cyprus Minerals and OPEC. .. http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Robert_Balling

2. Carl Wunsch – “I believe that climate change is real, a major threat, and almost surely has a major human-induced component.” 11 Mar 07 http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/03/swindled-carl-wunsch-responds/
Sceptics think he’s one of them cos appeared in Great Global Warming Swindle film, but Wunsch is publicly considering suing director Martin Durkin for misrepresentation. Wunsch shoulda known better, Durkin has a record of misrepresenting and demonising inconvenient scientists.

3. William M. Gray – meteorologist (not climatologist), most famous for sorry record predicting hurricanes, also known for peddling “scientists predicted global cooling in the 1970s” myth
http://www.logicalscience.com/skeptics/Gray.html
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/01/the-global-cooling-myth/
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/04/gray-on-agw/

4. Patrick Michaels - According to a January, 2007 report by the Union of Concerned Scientists called Smoke, Mirrors and Hot Air: how Exxonmobil uses big tobacco to manufacture uncertainty on climate science, Michaels is connected to no less than 11 think tanks and associations that have received money from oil-giant ExxonMobil to sow doubt about the realities of human-induced global warming. ..
http://www.desmogblog.com/node/1567

…I wish I had time to go thru the list but anyone with google can do same, curious that Mark Lawson & his editor at the AFR are not acquainted with that technology. Have to get a word in tho on Lawsons pushing the 1995 “Leipzig Declaration”, was debunked years ago http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Leipzig_Declaration_on_Global_Climate_Change
“When journalist David Olinger of the St. Petersburg Times investigated the Leipzig Declaration, however, he discovered that most of its signers have not dealt with climate issues at all and none of them is an acknowledged leading expert. Twenty-five of the signers were TV weathermen - a profession that requires no in-depth knowledge of climate research. Some did not even have a college degree, such as Dick Groeber of Dick's Weather Service in Springfield, Ohio. .. “ (worth following link, its hilarious who sceptics will call a scientist).

And Financial Review readers pay money for Mr Lawsons ignorance!!

Liam is showing ignorance or extreme bias (or both).

Perhaps he would like to list which scientists and organisations have received part of the billions of taxpayers' dollars spent by governments on various "climate change" research or projects over the last 10 years. (Yes, that's billions. Far more than anyone has given to those sceptical of man-made GW claims.)

Once he has done that he can tell us how mant million dollars Greenpeace has received (as a non-profit organisation!) and list the organisations that it has funded into climate change research.

The vested interests in perpetuating the MMGW argument are far greater than any vested interest in disproving it.

So its ignorance and bias to check Mr Lawsons evidence? RightThink rules again.

Well done Snowman (a.k.a snowjob) for demonstrating the 'depth' of climate denial knowledge, you made me laugh & Mr Lawson look scholarly, no mean feat on either count.

Unlike Mark Lawson I think the IPCC got it broadly right. Yes there are uncertainties. Tomorrow new discoveries about the role of sunspots or cosmic rays or even perturbations of the Earth's orbit due to the gravitational tug of Jupiter in changing the Earth's climate could force a rethink.

But for now the BEST AVAILABLE INFORMATION is unambiguous. The RISK of business as usual is too high. The scientists who compiled the IPCC report are not charlatans in the pay of some sinister conspiracy. They are reflecting the honest consensus of the scientific community.

Yes, there are dissenting scientists and the fact that some of them received funding from ExxonMobil does not make them dishonest. But looking at THE PREPONDERANCE OF EVIDENCE, they are probably wrong.

But having said all that we need a reality check. Other than being generally supportive of SENISBLE international initiatives to limit greenhouse gas emissions there is little Australia can do. Let's look at some proposals.

SET A MORAL EXAMPLE:

Who are we kidding? We are too insignificant. I doubt most people would even notice.

Is there anyone so seriously reality challenged as to think our "moral example" could influence policy in China, India, the EU or the US?

STOP SELLING COAL TO CHINA

China has large coal resources of its own. Imports account for a small proportion of total Chinese consumption. Furthermore there are many countries that would step into the gap and make good our market share. The net effect would be a loss of Australian jobs and ZERO effect on CO2 emissions.

A CARBON TAX ON CHINESE IMPORTS

Definitely – provided the US and EU do it. Otherwise it's a waste of time.

REDUCE OUR OWN EMISSIONS

Definitely. We can and should.

But let's not kid ourselves that even the most heroic efforts on our part are going to have a noticeable effect on climate change.

THE HARSH REALITY

There is very little we can do.

IT MAY BE UNPLEASANT TO CONTEMPLATE OUR OWN HELPLESSNESS BUT THAT IS THE REALITY.

In the first two paragraphs of this article, Mark Lawson says:
- "whole world has been screaming"
- "despite all the screaming "
- "sheer volume of screaming"

I stopped there of course, because who wants to read nonsense like this. The last OLO article from Mark Lawson was also a rant about scientists "screaming" and so on. (article 5559)

Well done Liam for obtaining the list of "prominent scientists." You are right to go looking into the backgrounds. Notice the number of "former directors" and "emeritus [retired] professors". We can add Robert Balling as a former director.(http://www.public.asu.edu/~aunjs/azscpeople.html). The list includes Tim Ball, who's academic credentials are a matter for the courts in Canada (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_F._Ball).

Of course, listed is John Christy who is a genuine scientist who accepts the obvious premise that recent global-warming is largely caused by human activity, but has been sceptical of some predictions. Scientific scepticism is an essential element of scientific inquiry.

Science is looking into every aspect of global warming. Our capacity to comprehend it and provide solutions improves continously. The IPCC summarises the science, and there is no evidence that any relevant scientific evidence is ignored.