A good website to query Australia's greenhouse gas emissions is the Australian Greenhouse Office website

http://www.ageis.greenhouse.gov.au/GGIDMUserFunc/indexUser.asp

It breaks down all our emissions by sector, fuels and greenhouse gas emissions. It also charts data back to 1990 (Kyoto base year). Very useful.

Don't you just love pollies that telling you how you should change your life "for the good of the planet". Please have a look at Bartlett's efforts on his web diaries, http://andrewbartlett.com/blog/?p=1380

He is spewing out more CO2 than most Australian's, but hey don't worry he has "offset" the whole lot for $60. Now magically he has become carbon neutral thanks to http://www.climatefriendly.com/. How easy is that, we don't have to change our lifestyles at all....just pay a few extra bucks.
Some other high profile clients include: Tim Flummery, John Butler Trio, Missy Higgins and I love this one "Melissa Hirsch - climate neutral artist".

Of course Bartlett just can't resist having a dig at everyone who eats meat. Being a vegesaur, this is the one point he can take the moral high ground on and does so with relish. On ya Barto!

Mr Costello's economic vision reminds me of a blind express train driver (apologies to the sight-impaired, if you can see this at all).

We're rushing like mad to where? - somewhere. Anywhere but here it seems. Anywhere but where we've been. Keep the pedal to the metal. The schedule is all that matters. Timetable rules - ok?

The fool listens too much to the well dressed blokes who have taken over the dining car. They keep him stoked with pie and chips and hearty compliments. What blind express driver could fail to be impressed, if he has no other sensory input? Just pie and chips and a heavy Right foot. That's the ticket, pal! Vrooooom!

Will no-one tell him that we are cresting the peak? Will no-one tell him that the gradient down the other side only gets steeper?

No need for economic drivers then. No need for engine or throttle either. We're going to accellerate into a valley where pies and chips will be in very short supply. The well dressed blokes think that monopolisation of the dining car will be their salvation, but the pantry is far smaller than they think.

I blame their mothers frankly. The driver and the well dressed blokes were never made to eat their upper-crusts, and it shows.

Whether via a fossil fuel burning connection or pure coincidence I think most of Australia is soon going to be hit with higher food and electricity prices. Under Costello-think we should dig bigger holes in the ground to pay for it. Or fiddle the inflation figures so it doesn't look so bad. The Chinese have stated that Australia's per capita emissions figures should entitle them to catch up. Because of the political disconnect between the mineral boom and climate woes it looks like we'll keep going this way until Asian demand collapses or the resources run out. Australia and Asia can then walk over a cliff hand in hand.

Our per capita emissions are high, but some of this is due to how greenhouse emissions are allocated to different countries when international trade is involved. If Australians cut down trees and export the resulting woodchips, the greenhouse emissions are counted against us and not the people who end up consuming the paper. Still, there are real inefficiencies that need to be addressed.

Senator Bartlett, however, is ignoring the issue of total numbers. According to ABS figures, Australia's total household energy consumption increased by 46% between 1975 and 1995. Only 24% of the increase was due to higher per capita consumption, with 76% being due to a bigger population. The environment only cares about the total impact. China is now emitting more greenhouse gases than the US because there are a lot of Chinese.

The Senator is a big fan of mass migration. This might not matter. except to the local environment, if all migrants came from rich developed countries, but a migrant from the Third World means almost as great an increase in emissions as an extra Australian baby. If an Indian on an average income moves to Mexico and adopts the standard of living there, his greenhouse gas emissions will go up by 5 times, and by 20 times if he goes to the US. It would no doubt be the same for Australia. I really wish that growthist politicians would stop crying crocodile tears over the environment.

All your comments about lifestyle changes to reduce greenhouse emissions are empty blather, Mr. Bartlett, as long as you continue to promote increasing Australia’s population. All the changes you are asking ordinary Australians to make, including more expensive electricity, petrol, airline tickets and asking me to stop eating meat (no thanks) will be rendered useless as more people continue to consume.

Australia needs to do both. Stabilise population and make lifestyle changes, to be a global leader in tackling climate change. The whole world needs to do both.

And how ‘bout this for a crazy idea. Stabilising our population makes solving our water shortage problems easier. It makes planning our cities easier. It means we won’t run out of our natural resources as fast.

You say you want Australia to be a global leader, not a spoiler in tackling climate change, Mr. Bartlett. You don’t want Australia to be a global leader in stabilising population, though. That is something that other nations need to do. You are effectively saying, “All you other nations decrease your population, but we need to increase ours, because we are special.”

I applaud your courage in making a public statement regarding greenhouse emissions, in opposition to the fossil fuel industry and the government. Please take the next step and advocate net zero immigration and dumping the Baby Bonus, so that there is a chance real progress can be made on living sustainably in Australia.

Andrew, you obviously expected the population stabilisation advocates to jump in quickly and give you a piece of their mind, as they have done on your threads before. I’m pleased to see that Divergence and ericc haven’t let you down.

Of course I agree with them that the great flaw in your reasoning is the complete lack of attention on population growth and the continuous growth paradigm overall.

Everything you have said in your article would be fine, if it sat within an overall sustainability framework. But it still sits within an unquestioned antisustainability continuous-growth-with-no-end-in-site paradigm, and therefore it really is just blather.

It is just so extraordinarily nonsensical to be espousing the need for Australia to implement rapid reductions in fossil fuel use and greenhouse gas emissions, while having nothing to say about the rapidly increasing number of consumers and polluters.

I love it Chris Shaw. Well said

Well if we take a closer look at the "Tragedy of the Commons",
an economic theory, only nature can sort it all out in the end.
People around the world will act in their own self interest
first and foremost.

I certainly don't agree with Andrew, that Aussies should go
on any kind of feelgood guilt trips. If we look at the figures
a bit closer, we'll see that for instance, aluminium smelters
consume huge amounts of power. Our figures would look much
better if we moved them to India or China, but would it really
change anything? Nope. The list goes on.

Whilst the world keeps increasing by 80 million people a year,
I see no need to feel guilty about anything. If they were serious,
world leaders would at least make good family planning available
to all women, especially those in the third world. But thats not
the case, a global human population of 9 billion is accepted as
a given. Hey, I am not an Afghan or African with 11 children,
all chopping down trees for firewood etc. I'm not a multimillionare
flying my private Learjet around the world. I'm not the American
army, burning up 53 million litres of petrol a day, now you want
me to feel guilty? Think again!

BTW, please animals that fart alone, its quite natural. Perhaps
those pollies in Canberra should stop flying around the place
on junkets, expelling hot air, before they try to preach to the
rest of us.

Please do your homework before this costs you your economies. So many have been duped by a fraud.

My point in all of this is that CO2 does NOT cause climate change; I am not arguing that a change in the climate might be occurring. The climate on earth changes all the time and that global change is caused by the Sun (a new NASA finding). All life on the planet is carbon based, CO2 is part of our food chain, and it is not a pollutant. The biggest “green house gas” is water vapor. If climate change is caused by human activity then we would need to start eliminating life on the planet, yes this is absurd, so is the assertion that humans are causing climate change. It just is NOT the truth.

Science fact 2+2=4 a scientific fact is a truth that never changes can be reproduced by anyone every time.

Additional information http://www.InteliOrg.com/co2_climate_change.html

2+2=4 is not a scientific fact. It is a mathematical statement.

Nor does Dr Coles understand the meaning of the word "pollutant". Ozone is a pollutant, even though it is also natural and beneficial in the upper atmosphere.

NASA goes against the grain of the Bush Administration by providing evidence and education on the problem of global warming. Check this list of major research topics: http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/

The bit about a "need to start eliminating life on the planet" is an example of typical sceptic thinking, but in the raw. So nonsensical, what more do I need to say?

Part 1

You don't have to be an Oxford Scholar. Try this little thought experiment.

1. The diameter of the Earth is 12,700 km.

2. 75% of the mass of the atmosphere is squeezed into a skin of gas only 11 km thick.

3. Stop and digest that for a minute.

4. Think of all the dense carbonaceous material we have gasified (fluffed up volumetrically) over the last 150 years.

5. Imagine all the forests, coal and oil burnt in the service of industry, economics and population increase over that time.

6. We have used our tiny gassy skin as a rubbish tip for 150 years. We "externalised" the costs (or so we thought, until now).

7. Because we couldn't see gas, we thought it didn't matter. Because we dumped our rubbish in the name of a false god (profit), we thought we were being awfully modern and clever.

8. It turns out that we were monkeys in suits all along (apologies if there are any actual monkeys reading this).

No-one is denying that the pulse beat of the Sun and Earth brings about inexorable change. We can measure some of it's history in the rocks, ice and tree-rings. It is the SPEED of the present change which is alarming. It is the speed of the present change which is defeating the biosphere's ability to adapt in time.

Part 2

The other thing to consider is the span of temperatures that range across the globe and encompass all living things. The difference between the cold of the poles and the heat of the Sahara seems extreme to us. Yet in fact, this is a very narrow band of temperatures indeed.

The North Pole is an extremely warm place in the solar system. The Sahara is an extremely cool place in the solar system. We and our fellow life-forms live in a razor thin band of temperatures. We, together with our little blue planet, have enjoyed an almost impossibly improbable existence. What will it take to steer us off this narrow track? Just some jumped-up monkeys in suits? A dessicated coconut? A bat-eared galoot for a Treasurer? Is that all?

Oh by the way Dr Coles, I've had a bit of a twinge in my left foot for a couple of days now. Would it be asking too much if you could, er -

*

Dr Coles asks others to do their homework. Does he assume superiority in the homework stakes, and is he entitled to such assumption?

Last year in Canberra a mentally impaired young man with a compulsion to ingest water was left unsupervised for long enough for him to abscond to a bathroom. There, he proceeded to drink enough water to kill himself.

With the learning associated with his title, we might expect Dr Coles would have done enough homework to know that the difference between a poison and a medicine might be the dose rate.

Our planet carries a fixed amount of carbon, and continuously transfers it between multitudes of differing combinations. All living matter has it as its basic structure, and more than twenty per cent of this biomass is represented as fungi – which might be a blow to human self-importance.

All living matter is dependent upon the interplay between carbon in the atmosphere, as CO2, and plants and similar entities. Four hundred million years ago, coral reefs entrapped CO2 , combining it with calcium. A hundred million years later, vegetation got into the act, and much of the captured CO2 was entrapped in vast coal seams – a process continuing on during the course of another 350 million years. The interplay continues – capture and release of atmospheric CO2 , largely in parallel with cooling and warming phases of this restless planet’s climate.

Homo sapiens is injecting the atmosphere with CO2 . The dose rate is millions of years of sequestration compressed into an almost instantaneous release over one century.

“CO2 is part of our food chain and not a pollutant”. How parallel with the sad situation of the lad who drank until he died. And that was written by one professing the title of Dr.

Ah, Andrew Bartlett, someone who has found the benefit of knowing they will always be in a position of political opposition.
He reminds me of UK’s Michael Foot, the darling of the left who, when he became leader of the UK Labour Party, behaved like a complete buffoon and confirmed his incompetence.

Here Andrew luxuriates and wraps himself in the moral high ground hypothesis “I am not advocating a withdrawal from the export market, but if we continue to go down that path, then we must take some moral responsibility for it and be a global leader, not a spoiler, in tackling climate change.”

Good one Andrew, I assume you have calculated the consequences of Australia’s withdraw from its export markets? The result is not a favourable outcome, back to a recession worse than the one which Keating’s incompetence vomited up on the Australian electorate.

I heard politics described as the art of the possible. Andrew, you are in the wrong house.
Instead of the senate, Andrew should be sat in the outhouse, for all the crap he is coming forth with.

Being an Australian Democrat, Andrew has decided his position on the field of politics and here illustrates that simply whining from the sidelines does nothing to improve the capacity of the winning team.

So, Australians produce 4.5 times our globally proportionate share of CO2 and this needs to change, does it? Well it will change, and soon, if the Bartletts of this world succeed in giving our economy a massive moggodon in the name of climate cretinism.

You see, China, India and South America are all boosting their output big time and before long our share of CO2 will be entirely proportionate because everyone else's will have risen after key industries move off shore. The only problem is that by then our dollar will be worth 12c US and half a Renminbi. And it won't be our country any more because the median income chinese family, all 300 million of them, will be in the market for a cheap weekender in Australia. You guys better hope they need a gardener.

I agree with Bob Brown that we should plan to massively reduce the scale of coal exports. Whatever prosperity we gain from exporting non-renewable coal and other mineral resources will be paid for by future generations and obviously by harm to the global environment through pollution and global warming.

Of course it goes without saying that all attempts to reduce our footprint will come to nothing if we keep inceasing our numbers as Divergence, ericc and others have pointed out.

Andrew, last time we discussed population levels, you countenanced immigration of around 110,000 (see http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=4099#29482).
had you noticed that annual immigration might be as high as 300,000? (See Ross Gittins "Back Scratching at a National Level", 12 June 07 at http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/backscratching-at-a-national-level/2007/06/12/1181414298095.html) of which only 13,000 are classified as humanitarian immigrants?

“I agree with Bob Brown that we should plan to massively reduce the scale of coal exports. Whatever prosperity we gain from exporting non-renewable coal and other mineral resources will be paid for by future generations and obviously by harm to the global environment through pollution and global warming.”

As Perseus correctly wrote “And it won't be our country any more because the median income Chinese family, all 300 million of them, will be in the market for a cheap weekender in Australia”

Bob Brown is like Andrew Bartlett (author of another recent thread), another one who luxuriates himself in high-brow values, protected by the certain knowledge that they have no hope of ever being acted upon.

I find that sort of cynicism quite contemptible.

When jobs fold and the pits close I only hope it is the likes of Bob Brown, Andrew Bartlett and daggett who are stuck in the unemployment lines. I hope it is they who are first to have their houses sold out from under them and to be first to wear the sackcloth of economic stagnation.

Certainly, selling coal is not an infinite pursuit (nothing ever is) but just as the deployment of coal and UK invention of coking coal was a result of limited wood resources and competition for those resources by different users, so too when the economics of alternative energy sources become competitive, so the demand and use for coal will decline.

In the mean time, the likes of Bob Brown and Andrew Bartlett will whine on like Grecian Sirens, wooing the politically and economically inept to their doom.

It's intersting that one minute the media duopoly complains hysterically that there are not enough workers to meet the needs of the Australian industry as we have become accustomed to from the Courier Mail in Brisbane, and yet the minute anyone suggests winding back our more environmentally destructive industries as Bob Brown did a few months back, the are condemned even more hysterically fro threatening to destroy jobs.

Col Rouge, do you truly expect anyone to believe that you care in the least about other people's livelihoods?

When it suits corporations, they defend the destruction of our environment on the grounds that it is necessary to maintain livelihoods as is happneing now with Tasmania's old growth forests. Then, in almost the same breath they will defend the destruction of jobs in order to raise their own bottom line as has happend recently when Telstra announce the closure of the Launceston call centre.

Anyhow, if a job is not sustaninable it should be eliminated and replaced with another which is. Australia's mining industry, most of all it's coal mining industry is helping to contribute to global calamity. Our life support system is extremely tenous and fragile as
shown by Chris Shaw (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=6002#84712). Digging up and putting back into our atmosphere nearly half the carbon that it tooks many tens of milions of years of geological and biological process to get out of the atmosphere in little more than a hundred years is really pushing our luck a little far, wouldn't you think?

Daggett “Col Rouge, do you truly expect anyone to believe that you care in the least about other people's livelihoods?”

This is simple, when the economy is buoyant other people, as well as me, have livelihoods and when they don’t, nor do I.

You bet I am interested in “other peoples livelihoods”. Whilst I believe we are all responsible for ourselves, I still recognise the nature of market forces and how we all suffer when economies grind to a halt (recalling 1990/91). That is the reason I vote Liberal. Voting for misguided loons like Brown and Bartlett is like greasing oneself up and jumping on the runway to economic oblivion. It does no one any good at all, except appease the tree huggers and they soon start to whine when they realise their dole cheques are buying less and less (reduced production and fixed costs of government = hyper inflation).

So daggett, since you are so gung-ho about it all, I assume you are claiming to be “Carbon-positive” in all your lifestyle choices? In the mean time, I am still out with the skeptics regarding all the bulldust which shysters of the green and left are vomiting up and polluting the atmosphere with.

I wonder who will decide that your job is “sustainable” or not ? I know I could produce an argument for my job in either direction, it all depends on what spin we care to put on things and most folk are, like sheep, happy to follow anyone who can pretend to know what they are talking about (lets face it that’s how politicians get elected in the first place).

As for “Our life support system is extremely tenous and fragile”

The world has been around for a few years and outlived the dinosaurs. I am quite sure it will survive you and me and our great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandchildren too.

Col Rouge wrote:

"The world has been around for a few years and outlived the dinosaurs. ..."

This all true, assuming we have great-great...great-grandchildren, but completely misses my point. I think you should demonstrate some comprehension of the facts included in Chris Shaw's post (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=6002#84713).
"We and our fellow life-forms live in a razor thin band of temperatures. We ... have enjoyed an almost impossibly improbable existence."

Many regions of the world that are now desert were once lush fertile regions covered with trees. This includes much of the Middle east and north Africa and regions of the United States. The countries of the northern shores of the Mediterranean, whilst they don't qualify as deserts, are nevertheless, barren and infertile compared to what they once were. However, the supposedly intelligent elites in control of the civilisations that once thrived in those regions also failed to understand how tenuous and fragile the ecology from which their wealth was derived was. As a consequence, the ecologies collapsed and their civilisations did also. (For some further information, read "Collapse" (2005) by Jared Diamond, and "Ecocide" (2002) by Franz Broswimmer).

The only fundamental difference between today's globalised civilisation and all those previous failed civilisations is that we have discovered fossil fuel. This has created the illusion that this civilisation is fundamentally more intelligent. However, the elites in control today are showing themselves to be every bit as selfish, greedy and shortsighted as those that were in control back then, and, if the course of events is allowed to continue, a similar collapse, but this time at a global level, and on a far more far catastrophic scale, is inevitable.

I doubt if your claims about being interested in other peoples' livelihoods are any more genuine than similar claims of those who drove peasants off the land in pre-industrial Britain in order to force them to work in the satanic mills and coal mines for hours much longer than their parents and grandparents had to.

And that is where we are destined to return if John Howard is not booted out later this year.

Daggett “However, the elites in control today are showing themselves to be every bit as selfish, greedy and shortsighted as those that were in control back then,”

Ah blame the other fellow. I guess democratic standards and adoption of universal suffrage were the same in the last ice age as they are today.

Somehow you assume that as well as fossil fuels small discoveries like electricity and the invention of sewer systems and computers have done nothing to advance humanity's plight.

When anyone makes grandiose pronouncements like “The only fundamental difference between today's globalised civilisation and all those previous failed civilisations is that we have discovered fossil fuel.”

You can almost see the foaming lather fly from their lips.

As for “I doubt if your claims about being interested in other peoples' livelihoods are any more genuine than similar claims of those who drove peasants off the land in pre-industrial Britain in order to force them to work in the satanic mills and coal mines for hours much longer than their parents and grandparents had to.”

HA HA – more lather. More irrelevant hyperbole and no substitute for reason.

When you descend to such “righteous indignation” you read as the simpleton of old, who because of his own limits presumes the rest of the world is likewise afflicted.

The best thing that has happened in Australian politics in the past 23 years was the switch from the rabble and mealy mouthed puppets of the union bullies to the Liberal/ National coalition, which has managed to turn around the economy for everyone and generated more hope and opportunity for those with the courage to grasp it. Thus those with the courage will generate employment for those who lack it, rather than the socialists who would rather reside over an equality of misery produced from recession.

Col Rouge wrote: "Somehow you assume that as well as fossil fuels small discoveries like electricity and the invention of sewer systems and computers have done nothing to advance humanity's plight."

Yes, if only the Greeks had dicovered electricity! They would have had no need for fossil fuels in order to be able to build computers, sewerage systems and to have matched all of the other achievements of modern civilisation.

Thanks for this illustration of how, unlike most of the rest of us, you aren't 'limited' by common sense, logic and a regard for facts.

daggett "Thanks for this illustration of how, unlike most of the rest of us, you aren't 'limited' by common sense, logic and a regard for facts. "

Maybe you could elaborate on your rambling. The lather you foam is turning quite bileous, I would suggest either some ant-acid tablets or maybe mummy put you down for some "quiet time"

"Many regions of the world that are now desert were once lush fertile regions covered with trees."
And...many regions of the world that were once desert are now lush and fertile. Things change, adapt or die.

"Digging up and putting back into our atmosphere nearly half the carbon that it tooks many tens of milions of years of geological and biological process to get out of the atmosphere"
Given that CO2 levels were over 2000ppm in the Jurassic you can hardly say that it is "half the carbon".

"Our life support system is extremely tenous and fragile as shown by Chris Shaw"
Who the fark is Chris Shaw to show us anything. Captain Underpants says otherwise.

"I agree with Bob Brown"
I knew someone had to...feel lonely?

Alzo,

I don't know much about Chris Shaw, or you for that matter, but he wrote a very good post above (see http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=6002#84707). The essence of his post is that the circumstance which allow for advanced life forms such as our own are very rare in the Universe. Scientists are a long way from understanding completely what allows the very thin crust of the earth, which comprises the biosphere, to be capable of supporting humankind and other high order mammals, rather than, instead, being the toxic inferno that exists on Venus on the one hand, or the frozen barren surface of Mars on the other, and even those two apparent extremes, from humankind's point of view, lie in a very narrow band of possible states when the Universe as a whole is considered.

So, I hardly think it is prudent, given the self-evident fragility, and extreme unlikelihood of the existence of advanced life forms, to go tampering with the biosphere that allows it to exist. Whatever is the significance of that statistic about the statistic of the Jurassic era that you threw at me, the point remains that digging up such vast quantities of carbon that have been lying underground for tens of millions of years and putting them all back into the atmosphere in little more than a hundred years is obviously asking for trouble.

Even if we can avoid the fate of Venus for our own planet, the historical, archaeological and geological record shows that extinction of vast ranges of species, far less, the catastrophic collapse of human society, is far from being just a theoretical possibility. If we allow our endowment of fossil fuels to run out and fail to act against global warming and other environmental perils, then I don't see how our globalised civilisation can do any better than past failed civilisations.

(to be continued)

(continued from above)

Also, much of the extra knowledge that we have today depends upon complex technologies themselves dependent upon supplies of fossil energy and non-renewable mineral resources (copper in particular). After those run out, it is not clear if we will still be able to have computers and the Internet and all that extra knowledge we have gained in the past few decades could just s easily be lost.

Col Rouge: I was simply pointing out the illogicality of your case. As I pointed out above, the other scientfic advances which have made modern human civilisation appear to be more advanced than past failed civilisations have only been possible because of fossil fuels. I see no possible way that micrprocessors would have ever been built without abundant supplies of fossil fuels in the first place.

Can you envision micro-processors being manufactured on the scale that they are today, if at all, with only the relatively diffuse trickle of solar radiation as the primary source of energy, rather than tens of millions of years worth of captured concentrated solar energy that we find in fossil fuels? I can't.

"the toxic inferno that exists on Venus on the one hand, or the frozen barren surface of Mars on the other"
Could have a lot to do with the 3 planets' respective distances from the sun.

"to go tampering with the biosphere that allows it to exist."
The biosphere has been tampered with before and not by humans. CO2 has been much higher in the geologic past, at the same time temperature has been both higher and lower. Higher order mammals also existed and flourished during these high CO2 periods.

"archaeological and geological record shows that extinction of vast ranges of species"
These extinction events were most likely caused by asteroids or massive volcanic events. Both of which dwarf any possible human effort. In fact it was one of these extiction events that allowed mammals to gain a foothold on the evolutionary ladder. Which ultimately lead to the rise of the most loathed mammal of all...man.

"Can you envision micro-processors being manufactured on the scale that they are today, if at all, with only the relatively diffuse trickle of solar radiation as the primary source of energy, rather than tens of millions of years worth of captured concentrated solar energy that we find in fossil fuels? I can't."
How about with nuclear power? I can. Fission reactors should tide us over until fusion reactors become a reality. There are lots of possible energy sources.

Alzo, today we seem no closer to realising the dream of unlimited supplies of energy from nuclear fusion than we were thirty years ago. According to one scientist, who has worked on nuclear fusion, the nail in the coffin of nuclear fusion will prove to be the lack of sufficient supplies of the necessary hydrogen isotope tritium. For further information, see the forthcoming second edition of "The Final Energy Crisis" edited by Sheila Newman (http://candobetter.org/sheila).

In regard to nuclear fission, it is obviously a more viable source of energy that just may, if we are extremely careful, provide a bridge towards a more sustainable future whilst stocks of Uranium and Thorium last, however it has a very considerable environmental cost. If we increase the scale of nuclear power generation to the extent necessary to fill the gap power the environmental risks we currently face will be multiplied many times. The Chernobyl disaster. which could have been far worst if not for the quick thinking of those courageous workers on the spot is one illustration. On top of the hazards of electricity power generation, even more environmental threats are posed by mining of Uranium, enrichment, reprocessing and disposal of nuclear wastes. A likely consequence of the expansion of uranium mining in Central Australia is that the Eastern seaboard stands to be exposed to clouds bearing poisonous radioactive uranium and other toxic metals blown from the mine tailings dumps (see David Bradbury's film "Blowin' in the wind" for a graphic illustration of this threat). In the past, the long-term containment of tailings from mining operation has been problematic and, more often than not, fails in the longer term (as Jared Diamond has illustrated in describing past mining operations in Montana in Chapter 2 of "Collapse" pp35-41). I don't hold out any greater hope that the mining companies will do any better a job containing the mountains of tailings from the planned expanded Uranium mines.

Another problem with nuclear fission is that it can only be used to generate electricity. ... (ToBeContinued)

(ContinuedFromAbove) ... In order to operate transport or run factory machinery or mine milling equipment, the electricity has to be either somehow stored chemically, or transported directly as electricity using power lines, transformers and other expensive infrastructure. In the former case, energy is lost, in creating, for example, hydrogen from water, and the containment of hydrogen necessitates the fabrication of particularly strong and well-sealed containers. In the latter case, large quantities of non-renewable resources, particularly copper, are required, and it is expected that the world's production of copper will begin to decline next year (http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa003&articleID=000CEA15-3272-13C8-9BFE83414B7FFE87).

The other "lots of possible energy sources" are essentially derived from solar energy or geothermal energy. All require the use of equipment, the manufacture of which now requires non-renewable rare metals, petroleum-derived plastics and fossil fuel energy. The problems in building renewable energy generators, on a scale necessary to indefinitely meet global society's demands, as well as to provide the necessary additional energy to build replacement generators and infrastructure, without reliance upon fossil-fuel energy, appear to be overwhelming. It seems unlikely that this can be done on a scale anywhere near the scale we have been able to do thus far relying on our finite endowment of fossil fuels.

So, I would suggest that it would be extremely imprudent to continue to consume natural resources at our current rate, let alone to increase our rate of consumption, and to go on trashing the world's ecology as we are doing now on the assumption that we can find an easy replacement to so much of that conveniently packaged solar energy captured over tens of millions of years that we have found buried under the ground. It would be far more prudent to assume that our current practices are unsustainable, and to begin now to reduce those levels of consumption.

Those who are consuming the most whilst contributing the least to society, such as property speculators and financial advisers should be amongst the first to be made to do so.

Daggett “other scientfic advances which have made modern human civilisation appear to be more advanced than past failed civilisations have only been possible because of fossil fuels.”

I thought a lot was due to democratic values and human individuality, rather than the feudal structures of the past.

“I see no possible way that microprocessors would have ever been built without abundant supplies of fossil fuels in the first place.”

The production process for the manufacture of microchips does not rely on massive amounts of electrical energy for manufacture and the operation of same does not rely on AC power, as produced in power stations, to run them. It started with an individuals idea and search for navigation system for cruise missiles!

“Electronics” is all about DC current. The first thing which happens in a modern computer is the AC power is converted to DC, which could be supplied by battery, which can produce electrical energy through chemical reaction.

“Can you envision micro-processors being manufactured on the scale that they are today, if at all, with only the relatively diffuse trickle of solar radiation as the primary source of energy,”

As stated above, vast amount of energy are not required for their manufacture, (most is probably used to run the air filtering / cleaning fans)

One of the greatest developments of modern electronics is that with increased application of micro electronics, processing speed increases but energy needed to “run” the processors has reduced.

“Those who are consuming the most whilst contributing the least to society, such as property speculators and financial advisers should be amongst the first to be made to do so.”

Property speculators and financial advisers exist only to meet a market need (unlike public servants who seem to exist despite themselves). They do not receive public funds to support their income producing activities.

Do you claim to know better than the market that the worth of what “property speculators” or “financial advisers” contribute is less than clog makers, pig breeders, lawyers, politicians, trade union presidents, traffic wardens, police officers, social workers, drug dealers or prostitutes?

"According to one scientist, who has worked on nuclear fusion"
Well everyone put down your tools! One unnamed scientist speaks!

"the nail in the coffin of nuclear fusion will prove to be the lack of sufficient supplies of the necessary hydrogen isotope tritium."
Tritium is manufactured inside nuclear reactors or particle accelerators, so more can be made. The deuterium-tritium fusion process is just one of a number of possibilities. The great hope is the deuterium-deuterium fusion process ie. seawater.

"and it is expected that the world's production of copper will begin to decline next year"
Really? The article you cite says:
"over the course of the 20th century North America alone mined 164 million metric tons of the reddish-brown metal."
"based on current discovery rates and existing geologic surveys, the researchers estimated that 1.6 billion metric tons of copper exist that could potentially be brought into use."
I think we'll be right for a while yet...

"It would be far more prudent to assume that our current practices are unsustainable, and to begin now to reduce those levels of consumption."
Agreed. What have you personally done so far?

"Those who are consuming the most whilst contributing the least to society, such as property speculators and financial advisers should be amongst the first to be made to do so."
It would have to be one in, all in I'm afraid. The property speculators and financial advisers have just found a niche in today's society like I am sure you have as a government handout taker.

It's easy to see why the Democrats are nearing extinction as a political party: all talk and no action. Bartlett failed to tell us how Australia should reduce its GHG emissions. Instead, he tried to make us feel guilty about what are, in reality, our small levels of emissions. He also failed to mention that, if Australia stopped producing aluminium metal (for example), that it would instead be produced in places like India or China using much dirtier electricity that ours, thereby adding even more GHG to the atmosphere.
To date, all political parties including the Greens are playing politics on the GHG/climate change issue. Pity there's no genuine solutions contained in any of their policies.

Bernie,

Your post reads like a rationale for doing nothing.

Of course, half measures like cutting back Australian aluminum production will achieve little if it is to be done in China instead, but even such half measures are at least a start.

However, rather than doing nothing or only doing half the job we need to approach the problem from as many directions as possible.

The Chinese people, as well as ourselves, must come to understand that maintaining the current rate of non-renewable resource extraction is threatening their future as well as our own.

<Alzo, I suggest you read read the articles on the impending decline in the production of the world's preciouls metals more closely. For a start, of the 1.6 million figure you cite, the abovementioned Scientific American article states:

"In contrast, the U.S. Geological Survey predicts there is only 950 million metric tons of the metal that could be recovered."

Note the use of the words "could be recovered" and recovering that total amount of copper, even if those somewhat more realistic estimates are wholly accepted, will still incur a massive cost in non-renewable energy, other natural resources including water and the overall degradation that mining causes to the envirnment as I explained above.

The production of Copper in Chile (perhaps not the world, sorry) will peak next year. (see http://www.321energy.com/editorials/watson/watson121605.html) As Chile is the world's largest copper producer, informed experts expect that the overal decline in world Copper production will follow that of Chile's.

It is upon copper and other precious metals that many of the high--tech 'renewable' alternatives to fossil fuels as well as nuclear power will depend. Without them we may face no alternative but to go back to pre-fossil fuel forms of energy, i.e. human labour, horses, bullocks, etc

BTW, alzo, I would be fascinated to learn how you discovered that I was a 'government handout taker'. However, even though you have now revealed my secret to the world, I somehow think if those now struggling to pay for the unearned windfall profits of property speculators, by working late into the nights with their mortgage repayment terms now extended to 30, 40 or more years, instead of 20 years as was the maximum a generation ago, were to consider the issue objectively, they would be less unsympathetic to the likes of 'outed' dole bludgers like myself than they would be to the property speculators.

Anyone who believes that the world is not in grave trouble and that Australia's exports of coal, iron ore and steel are not contributig to the problem, should read the article in the Guradian "Dust, waste and dirty water: the deadly price of China's miracle" at http://www.guardian.co.uk/china/story/0,,2128826,00.html

"Hundreds of millions of people are being made ill every year or dying prematurely from pollution caused by China's breakneck economic growth, a leading economic thinktank has concluded following an 18-month investigation.

"The OECD study, prepared at China's request, draws on work by the government, World Bank and Chinese Academy of Sciences to spell out the scale of the ecological crisis now engulfing the country, poisoning its people and holding it back economically.

"It says up to 300 million people are drinking contaminated water every day, and 190 million are suffering from water related illnesses each year. If air pollution is not controlled, it says, there will be 600,000 premature deaths in urban areas and 20m cases of respiratory illness a year within 15 years. ..."

Yes, if Australia's coal is helping to contribute to that environmental holocaust, then of course our exports must be cut back for the sake of the planet. We will simply have to find other less environmentally harmful ways to earn our livng.