A thought provoking thread on climate change and maybe a good time for a lot of people to stop and think about their actions and reactions.

This author is obviously a nut please file under "N".

Two simple points that need to be kept in mind when talking about climate change:

1. The first and most important point is POPULATION. If nothing is done to rein in world population, no other measures will work. The population of the first world has stabilised, but that of the third world is set to double in the next 25 years. This increase of 4 billion people is unsupportable if sustainability is to be achieved.

2. What we do in Australia DOES NOT MATTER. Our contribution of global warming gases per cubic kilometre of atmosphere is trivial, and our contribution rate per person is of academic interest only. Moralists will talk about moral pressure, but in the big bad world outside that is of little importance.

The other thing that amazes me is that for some reason the global warming debate has been connected with third world poverty. There is no connection. Unless the population of the third world is stabilised, there will be no improvement in their condition, and the stabilisation must happen first. How many people realise that the foundation of the improvement in China's position is their one child policy? I am sure that a lot of this sort of propaganda serves simply to create moral guilt in the first world, to no real benefit to anyone.

Unfortunately, as one who is very cynical about human affairs, I believe that many countries, particularly China, will do nothing to limit gas emissions, and that the problem of world overpoulation will be solved by the four horsemen of the apocalypse. Hang on for a rocky ride.

Stern's report has been shown to be a complete bucket of rubbish. Anyone taking it seriously has to be a bit short of a quid.

This bloke is so far short, he should be on a disability pension.

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plerdsus, you've bought the Greenhouse Mafia story lock stock and barrel. This pack of lies has only hurt Australia and most sectors of the Australian economy.

Australian inaction matters very much indeed. Our government negotiated concessions at Kyoto in 1997 which stripped that treaty of much of its potential effectiveness by first insisting on "differentiated" emissions targets (Europe wanted a uniform target for all developed nations), obtaining large concessions for Australia on the grounds of land use and our trade relationship with the developing world.

Multilateral action is required for effective global emissions control, but Australia has made itself something of a "pariah nation" by undermining multilateralism at Kyoto, first by demanding greater rights to pollute than any other developed nation and then by refusing to ratify the treaty with a hypocritical attack on "intrasigent" developing nations when they have so far contributed only a tiny fraction of the excess CO2 in the atmosphere. Having benefited from high-carbon technology, is is only logical that rich countries should lead development and adoption of low-carbon alternatives.

Captains of Australian industry believe that refusing to reduce emissions in Australia is to the advantage of the Australian economy. It is not.

Our position as the country with the highest per-capita CO2 emissions in the world and very inefficient energy use means we can reduce our emissions faster and more cheaply than anyone else, just by adopting the efficient technology the rest of the developed world already uses. If we were party to an international emissions trading scheme, we could then sell excess emission permits to other countries whose reductions must otherwise come from more expensive techniques.

The truth of the matter is that action to reduce emissions *elsewhere* hurts Australian coal exports, while our own refusal to join Kyoto and reduce domestic emissions means we are excluded from the potentially very lucrative emissions trading market. It also prevents Australian investors from taking full advantage of "clean developent mechanism" projects which allow developing countries to adopt low-emissions technology without a long and dirty detour through fossil fuels.

What a pointless argument this all is. Junkscience.com has $100,000 (U.S.) on offer to anyone able to prove that ACC (if it exists) is caused by human activity. So far not a taker for thia easiest of "money for jam". That ends the hopes of the believers right there.
Pity they aren't offerring a similar prize to prove that Santa or the Tooth Fairy or The Easter bunny exist, eh Xoddam? You'd have about 350,000 Aussie Dollars by now! Cheers.