To build a geothermal or a solar thermal power plant costs $3,000 to generate over one year 8,300 kwhs. It costs $1,000 to build the same capacity coal fired plant. The running costs of renewables is 1 cent per kwh while the running costs of coal are 2 cents per kwh. At current costs it takes 24 years for renewables to save enough to pay the extra capital cost or renewables.

As the running costs of coal are likely to be higher in the future because coal will become more costly and there will be a carbon tax it makes economic sense to start to build renewable energy plants today and to ban the building of new coal, oil, and gas fired power stations immediately and to start to phase out existing fossil fuel burning power plants.

That is, we can reduce our greenhouses gas generation within a short time without dire economic consequences if we want to.

with a time frame as given here, it becomes obvious that no new technology will evolve to miraculously let us carry on in the way society is converting energy resources to CO2 at the moment.
Why is it that no investigation has been published into what Society consideres "Core Requirements" to maintain functional living standards for its members and what can be considered private and optional life-style improvements.
Tourism is the most obvious un-essential occupation, and should be assessed to the contribution it makes the global warming.
Professional Sport is another. I know it would be unthinkable with the present public mentality to do away with Cricket or Football or Golf, but if you have to give up some priviledges to the Social Subsistance what else would make such a huge difference and where would you start?

The acceleration factors already exist as do the decelation factors.

To ascribe apocalypse to a particular number which seems to have escaped most other climate change researchers is a little rich considering that world temperatures have exceeded this many times in the past.

We do not need a bogie man to see the need for change.

As farmers have to adapt, otherwise with no rain they are run off by the banks, so the city people also have to change.

The biggest problem now, however, with the cities, is the growing corporate culture now thriving mostly on the older colonial terminology of quarry economics or pitstock politics, Western Australia a typical or even grand example.

With such going on, even Howard was caught up in the phrase - we are having it so good, do not let Climate Change prevent us from having it?

Which could mean, we are so damned confident we can eventually fix it, that we don't need to be in a hurry to get going on it - bit like just moving the deck chairs on the Titanic.

As I am going on 87, with my wife now dead, why in hell should I worry, but I am concerned that my 14 great grandkids might not soon enough get the message?

Cheers - BB, WA.

The world has undergone devastating change many times in the past.

That doesn't mean yet another devastating change is nothing for the human race to worry about. Especially not if we have it in our power to avert it.

If there were a fat asteroid that appeared to be on a collision course, would we say, "oh, it might miss, and even if it doesn't, it's happened before"?

No. We would regard it with the same apprehension as we regard heavily-armed, sabre-rattling neigbours.

Eight years isn't a number that has been often bandied about before but the 2-degree-warming threshold has been for a long time. Past that point, and the warming becomes a "runaway" positive feedback, up to a limit that would see a large and permanent change to climate in every region of the world.

I would expect humanity to survive that. But many individual humans wouldn't, and many other species would cease to exist. It would be a disaster for the world and its population alike.

Why does it seem that all solutions are set against the parameter of maintaining our current standard of living? Isn't that the problem in the first place?

Global temperatures have not risen since 1998, but CO2 concentration has been steadily increasing (at about 2 ppm a year). Was this dealt with in the book?

bushbred "bit like just moving the deck chairs on the Titanic."

but the technocrats are collecting the rental fees from the rest of us.

from a situation which was pondered in abstract terms 10 years ago and was not considered at all prior to the 1970'w, this 8 years or damnation seems too hysterical for words.

Call me a skeptic. Call me a cynic. I still have the feeling that, like the experts view of margarine versus butter, someone is using this global warming dross to justify their existence and setting us up to pay more taxes and to justify meddlesome interference.

Somehow, sooner, hopefully rather than later, this bubble will burst and the fraud will be exposed.

I am not quite sure that I believe that all the science is in on global warming, the so called climate scientists can't even predict the weather accuratly in Melbourne, so why would I trust them with whats happening in the world.

But we need to be reducing our population and not bringing in so many migrants into the country, especially into our already over crowded cities. We also have to remove farmers and irrigators that are not productive and are laying waste to the land with their 18th centuary farming practices.

Just get rid of all the hand outs like the family allowance and supporting parent pensions and our population will get smaller, this will also reduce our impact on the enviroment

Seems to me that 'elephants will fly' to the comment that "Sixth, we will need to redistribute wealth internationally so as to bring in the poorer nations, and within nations so as to redirect resources. Taxation must shift up dramatically to pay for rebuilding infrastructure, training up the millions of technical experts we’ll need and preparing the health system for unavoidable costs of temperature rises already under way." We can't even get governments to pay for infrastructure for rail and buses in sydney, let alone doing something about all of this and getting the really really wealthy to pay tax rather than to allow them to minimise it to less than those on 40,000 pay.

Another doomsayer - making a lot of money from the AGW hype.

"Lynas is a science writer in the UK who trawled through numerous scientific papers that rarely get popular attention"

read that slowly - Lynus is a science WRITER, then, TRAWLED through numerous scientific papers, RARELY? GET POPULAR ATTENTION?

Not so, that's all we hear about - the catastrophic doomsaying - the sky is falling stuff.

Yes we need to look after our beautiful planet, our loved ones and our neighbours, but we also need to be practical.

We listen to all these doomsayers - who are doomsaying from their warmed houses in winter, cooled houses in summer, with their mobile phones, computers, ADSL,cars etc.

I LIVE in a very poor "third" world country, where most of the folk rise in the dark and slog 8-12hr days,hard manual labour and earn about $6US per day. Some have no electricity, keep goats and cows to keep warm in winter, put up with the heat in summer - live at a subsistance level!. Is that what you would wish for the rest of the developing world in order that we sustain our level of comfits? Interestingly enough, mostly the people here don't care about the environment, they are too busy trying to survive. There are more polluted rivers here than anywhere I saw in Oz, Europe, America

Don't get me wrong - I walk when I could drive, I pick up other peoples litter and return it to them - 'excuse me you've dropped something', or bin it if I don't see them doing it, low energy light bulbs etc, BUT ...

Some articles from "the other side" that might put things into perspective:

http://www.nzcpr.com/guest76.htm
http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=6710
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,313966,00.html
http://www.sepp.org/Archive/NewSEPP/Ecoterrorism.htm
Quote 1993: Carl Amery: Spokesman of the Greens in Germany said: "We in the Green movement aspire to a cultural model in which the killing of a forest will be considered more contemptible and more criminal than the sale of 6-year-old children to Asian brothels. "

How sad - Environment at all costs - these are the people they ask us to emulate?

I started to learn to ignore warming deniers months ago when they started coming out with absurd statements like "Global temperatures have not risen since 1998", which show a complete lack of understanding of annual variation vs decadal trends.
And note that 1998 was, along with 1934 (either fractionally warmer or cooler, depending on whose data you use), the warmest year for the continental U.S., not the globe (2005 is still the hottest year on record for the planet as a whole).
On that basis, you might as well argue that temperatures in the US haven't increased at all since 1934.

fiandra,

It's possible to care about people as well as the planet. Indeed, I care about the planet *because* I care about people. And people are inextricably part of their environment:

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-11/mu-erp112607.php

I'd like to know if, given a moment to think about it, the hard-working $6-a-day citizens of this developing country you LIVE in *really* "don't care about the environment". Have you ever actually asked?

Since you haven't identified the country I may fail to include it below, but rest assured that all people, however poorly remunerated and however poorly informed, have a direct interest in sustainable and clean development, globally and at home.

http://onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=6692
http://www.zeleza.com/blogging/global-affairs/environmental-movement-global-south-pivotal-agent-fight-against-global-warmi
http://www.eng.walhi.or.id/
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=9509
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/19/international/asia/19china.html?ex=1279425600&en=2319c5dae21c9ab8&ei=5090
http://www.alternatives.ca/article2420.html

The efforts of well-meaning ADSL-equipped environmentalists in developed countries are less directly relevant than local work, but be aware also that educated and talented individuals of every country follow the money, contribute to the wealth and intellectual health of their host countries, and often return to their homelands with world-class expertise and/or fistfuls of dough.

It is partly, and most profitably, through sustainable development of the world's poorer countries that the problems of greenhouse pollution and peak oil will be addressed.

http://biopact.com/2006/07/look-at-africas-biofuels-potential.html
http://biopact.com/2007/11/wealthy-commonwealth-countries-urged-to.html
http://biopact.com/2007/08/report-biofuels-key-to-achieving.html

FWIW I too find Amery's comment quoted above distasteful. He has a point though: the same thing that makes the sale of human beings disgusting, also makes environmental devastation disgusting.

Economic life *depends* on unaccounted-for environmental services that are collectively worth tens or hundreds of times the value of anyone's money economy.

It's not "environment at all costs", it's environment or nothing.

I am so continually amazed at the failure of allegedly educated people to understand simple arithmetic, that I am compelled to repeat a post I made some weeks ago:

Any discussion on the third world and global warming needs to address these points:

1. The third world will never be developed. Peak Oil will see to that.

2. This is just as well, as if it were developed the resulting pollution would make the world inhabitable.

3. Even if we could discover a cheap source of energy to replace oil, the population explosion in the third world will prevent any improvement in living conditions. With the expected doubling of population there in the next 30 years, twice as many resources will have to be consumed just to maintain current abysmal standards.

4. The fundamental key to the rise of China was their one child policy.

5. The only issue that unites George W Bush, the Pope, the third world and the muslim world is that NOTHING must be done to limit population. As a result, the issue is rarely discussed, and when discussed is denounced as racism or genocide.

6. Any effort to ameliorate things without taking into account the previous points is doomed to failure, and amounts to urinating into the breeze.

7. This is not our fault.

8. There is nothing we can do about it.

8. "There is nothing we can do about it."

Yes there is Plerdus.

"Think globally, act locally."

There is now an urgency to lobby our governments (state and federal) to commence reducing CO2 NOW. Enough of the rhetoric. What is required in a very short period is:

1. A strategy to mitigate the massive emissions from the motor vehicle industry and a large increase in an efficient public transport system is essential. 2 billion, 2 million kgs of CO came from motor vehicles last year. This is the highest amount of CO of any source in the country.

2. A strategy to address the massive emissions from the iron and steel industry.

3. A strategy to address the eco-destructive farming of cloven hoofed livestock and feed crops which now occupy 58% of Australia's arid land mass.

4. A cautious approach towards a sustainable immigration programme.

5. A global, bi-partisan strategy (Kyoto?) and incentives for population control. Enough of the diplomacy!

6. A "command and control" system to regulate pollutant industries. All industrial stacks should implement scrubbers and pollutant control technologies already available. The voluntary, persuasive approach has not worked and our CO2 emissions are increasing every year.

We have all become intent on debating nuclear vs renewables when emissions from energy sources total around one third of our emissions.

Strategies 1 - 6 are more easily achievable and should be implemented ASAP. Why are we not addressing these?

There is absolutely no excuse in remaining indifferent to domestic pollution simply because the developing countries are pumping it out. After all, we, from the West, are the ones who have contaminated this planet.

And why do our regulators continue to give the nod for new coal fired plants when conversion to gas-fired, at least for an interim period, would reduce emissions by up to 50%.

And a bit of "trivia." I read tonight that Holden are about to import Cadillac cars to Australia. Are these the petrol guzzlers of old? If so, all I can say is shame, shame!

According to the World Bank the total energy consumption of each Australian is about 90,000 kwh per year. This is ALL energy consumption of which my domestic energy consumption I calculate at about 20%. Using Geothermal Hot Rock technology $30,000 builds enough capacity to supply 90,000 kwh per year at a cost of 1 cent per kwh. My personal super fund has invested in Geodynamics http://www.geodynamics.com.au and I have invested in other companies which are working to reduce the need to burn fossil fuels. These are likely to be profitable investments and in my mind I have reduced my and my immediate family's carbon footprint to zero for the foreseeable future as well help ensure our future income. If I can do it so can you.

If you are interested in the money these "Gods" want from us to perform their nature-changing miracles, have a look at my post in Ben's "A Spotlight on the Climate Crusaders".

The answer is about $71,400 per head annually, plus our own costs.

Leigh not quite sure if you are saying that to generate energy with renewable sources is going to cost us $70K per year each. If so that is wrong.

The numbers from geodynamics show that even without a carbon tax and with current low prices of coal the cost of electricity from hot rocks is competitive with coal. The main cost of renewables whether from hot rocks or from thermal solar is the cost of capital which is an opportunity cost or rent of money. The running costs of renewables is much lower than the running cost of fossil fuel systems and it can be argued that we already will create more long term wealth if we use renewables.

Australia should move immediately and quickly to replace all fossil fuel electricity generation with electricity from hot rocks or solar thermal.

Leigh

I too am concerned with the latest Kyoto commitment but probably not for the same reasons.

Committing to assisting other countries with their GHG emissions is not so bad, however, I am opposed to Australia receiving carbon credits without a firm commitment to reducing its own emissions.

The latest aid commitment to developing nations will see the polluters at the big end of town in Australia continuing to emit excessive amounts of pollutants including the incessant discharge of extreme amounts of particulate matter which is hovering over our region. Scientists hold PM's responsible for a good deal of the drought conditions and they are also held responsible for some 73% of acid rain (the devastating impacts of PMs on human health have already been scientifically established.)

And remember, regulation of the environment (including atmospheric CO2) in Australia is controlled by state governments. Hazardous, industrial emissions in my state are soaring - big time. Enforcements to adhere to conditions set down by the EPA legislation are minimal or non-existent. Breaches are committed 24/7, rendering the Act, null and void.

Carbon credits, supposedly to offset CO2 emissions are my greatest concern. I believe the edict is ambiguous and a ploy to assist in eliminating any obstacles towards excessive resource and economic growth for Australia.

Fickle Pickle,

I'm not sure whose post you read insted of mine, but I said absolutley nothing about the cost of generating any energy. I know nothing about it.

What I DID say was that the cost of helping out backward countries with climate change at $1.5 billion per annum was over $70,000 per year per head, which is clearly RIGHT.

I am also "continually amazed at the failure of allegedly educated people to understand simple arithmetic".

Take Leigh for example: 1,500,000,000/21,000,000 = 71.43. However, according to Leigh's calculations

"...the cost of helping out backward countries with climate change at $1.5 billion per annum was over $70,000 per year per head, which is clearly RIGHT".

Er, no old chap - you're clearly WRONG. I guess the missus does the books at your place, eh?

to dnicholson:

I simply asked a question. As it happens I think I know what is meant by annual and decadal variations, but they do not assist in answering my question.

It would help us all if those raising questions were not treated as idiots or 'deniers' — a Holocaust smear. The science surrounding AGW is ambiguous in its findings and their implications. It is certainly not 'settled'. Science is never 'settled'; it involves the continual testing of hypotheses, and one successful test will overturn any settled assumption.

adventures007 “we will need to redistribute wealth internationally so as to bring in the poorer nations, and within nations so as to redirect resources.”

I knew I missed a line in my post, which adventures007 has reminded me of..

"(International) Socialism by Stealth"

Tax the comparatively rich to subsidise the comparatively poor.

Having failed in the “cold” war, the notion of the opposite, a “warming” war is a deflection and the ideal vehicle for the meddlers and fumblers to pursue.

Ultimately, the outcome will be another recession, exasperated by a coalition of socialist minded federal and state governments.

I see Krudd has already genuflected by signing off on the Kyoto charade, assuring himself a sainthood (side joke for anyone who happened to see the bald-archys).

The problems of the developing world are largely attributable to the attitudes of the developing world. Imposing artificial constraints by way of unmeasurable carbon emissions onto Australians will not improve, one iota , the domestic circumstances of a Bangladeshi or African.

Unless someone wants to recolonise Africa and Bangladesh and a few other places, nothing will ever be achieved, except the aspirations and potential of individual Australians and others in the developed world will be “leveled”, as dictated by the socialist’s creed.

This is nothing new, Oliver Cromwell had his levelers and so too the citizenry of France, following the French revolution. Both those events were brought about by civil war, I find it sad that we should sign up for more of the same when the cold war was a resounding success of libertarianism over socialism..

Well Don, I'll grant you the benefit of the doubt.
As I said, 1998 (or 1934) is the hottest year on record for the continental United States. However, a 5-year running average from 1900 to 2007 shows a reasonably consistent trend upward (with a flat or slighty declining period from about 1940-1970, due to high aerosol pollution). Indeed, if you measure from the end of 1998 onward, it's a very dramatic trend.
1998 was a big El Nino year, hence the especially high temperatures in much of the Northern Hemisphere that year.

Globally, however, the hottest year on record is 2005. Again, a 5-year running average from 1900 to 2007 shows a consistent upward trend, allowing for the 1940-1970 hiatus.

I don't believe there are any serious deniers left that actually question whether warming is happening. In fact there are very few questioning whether it is man-made; we're now pretty much into the "well it's only a few degrees, we can adapt" phase.

As for science being "settled", while you are correct that all scientific knowledge is open to new findings, plenty of things are certain enough that we can base significant decisions upon them.
Indeed, Newtonian physics, even though technically proven incorrect by Einstein, is still more than adequate for landing spacecraft on the moon. I think it's not unreasonable to suggest that scientists are collectively as certain that currently observed warming is primarily man-made as they are that, say, plate tectonics is a valid theory, or that HIV causes AIDS. Indeed, there are almost certainly far more deniers of those two theories than there are of anthropogenic global warming - they just don't receive funding from industry think tanks.

Don,

As a first stop, you could try the following link; it contains a brief review of the book.

http://jebin08.blogspot.com/2007/03/six-caveats-about-six-degrees.html

This next link discusses the book from various perspectives and has the added facility for you to ask specific questions on issues that concern you.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/11/six-degrees/

At the end of the day, OLO is an opinion forum and while posters may mean well, they may also be wrong, particularly where complex science is involved.

I find it more beneficial to go to primary or recognised secondary sources for technical or scientific information.

I'm normally one of the more enthusiastic global-warming alarmists here, but I'll briefly pause to point out this sweetly optimistic article in the UK's Independent (thanks Crikey for the link):

http://news.independent.co.uk/sci_tech/article3223603.ece

Global warming is an excess of solar energy. Earth receives an enormous flow of solar energy, and radiates the same amount to space, either reflected or as thermal re-radiation. Raised greenhouse gas levels temporarily trap some thermal energy, sufficiently to raise surface temperatures until equilibrium is restored by increased surface-level thermal radiation.

Previous historical warm periods like the Medieval Warm Period and the 1930s were driven not by greenhouse gases but by marginally higher solar radiation. Likewise the Little Ice Age was caused by decreased solar radiation (the relative absence of sunspots is known astronomically as the Maunder Minimum).

Solar observations show an 11-year cycle of sunspot activity, but no-one has really explained a mechanism driving the cycle, nor have satisfactory theories been developed to explain longer-term variations where sunspots simply don't appear for a while. Solar radiation and sunspot activity last peaked around 2000 and has been on its cyclical decline since then; it was expected to pick up again this year but so far, it has not.

If it doesn't, a new solar quiet period might last some decades, effectively saving us from ourselves and giving us a grace period for harmlessly weaning ourselves off fossil fuels as supplies decline.

If solar activity does pick up as expected, just a few months behind schedule, and we don't deal with emissions soon enough to forestall a 2-degree warming, we're toast.

In the interests of further playing devil's advocate, I'll give Baron Lawson a nod and admit that the economic costs of adaptation to a gradual warming may be modest given the inherent adaptability of humankind.

However (batting for my own side again), other species may not be quite so nimble, and I would not be prepared to bet on a gradual and orderly warming against the looming threat of large-scale positive-feedback tipping points and a thorough disruption to rainfall patterns and agriculture.

I thank those who have pointed out sites that might be useful to me. I will read them and add them to the fifty or so I already have in my system. I am not a 'denier'; I repeat that I find the use of that term a Holocaust-type smear, and add that its use I see as patronising. I am, nonetheless at least an agnostic. Xoddam's post above indicates the kind of uncertainty that there is about AGW. I find it odd that people are so sure that AGW is true, and that we must do X or Y in order to be 'saved'. The tenor of a lot of this stuff is religious, not scientific. The IPCC's own estimate of global warming over the 20th century is 0.6ºC plus or minus 0.2º. On the evidence, that is well within known variation over the last 10,000 years, the period in which human beings have lived in settlements. The IPCC's estimate for global warming over this century is not a great deal higher. The global climate models on which the scary predictions appear not to be based on evidence of AGW, but on the conviction that it is true. Finally, no one has come up with a satisfying account of why carbon dioxide causes global warming, and the long-term links (over 1m years) see the rise in carbon dioxide concentrations occurring after the warming, not before it (perhaps because warmer oceans will release CO2, while colder oceans absorb it).
Altogether, my present position is that it is possible that the earth is warming, but if it is the rise is not unprecedented in human terms, and is unlikely to have been caused by the burning of fossil fuels, and will not lead to the flooding of Florida or anywhere else. But I'm not sure, and if powerful evidence comes to the fore that suggests otherwise, I will take it seriously. Until it does, I would regard carbon taxes and caps as bad public policy.
.

I need to add a further comment. It seems to me that AGW is becoming the Great Distractor. We need to deal with water, energy and population limits for obvious and good reasons, not because they will lead to a reduction of greenhouse gases and thus save us from becoming toast. The scary stuff can be so powerful that people feel that there is nothing they can do, whereas there is a lot we can do to manage our water, think more creatively about energy (for the long haul, especially), and recognise that many of our problems come from an over-abundant human population.

AGW seems to me to get in the way of our doing so.

Don, there are some that think climate change or global warming is a kerfuffle … akin to a conspiracy theory concocted by,

• all the countries of the world from differing ideologies and now meeting in Indonesia,
• big business, including energy suppliers and insurance companies,
• religious bodies with differing philosophies, including Islam and the Catholic Church,
• international academies of science, economics and research institutions
• military generals of the "super-powers", including the USA
• 1000’s of scientists world-wide from varying disciplines and areas of expertise.

Personally, I don’t think that all the above are a bunch of loonies hoodwinked by and of themselves or conspiring together to play a big con on us plebs for their own ends. However, some people obviously do (or bury their heads in the sand).

I think all of the above they take their respective roles and vocations in life seriously. If they are worried about the causes and consequences of global warming, so am I.

I therefore expect our leaders (church, state, business and science) to take the necessary steps to adapt and to mitigate – to lead in the face of the “scary stuff”. Otherwise, we will have anarchy.

We are told it can be done, and we have a certain amount of time to do it – so why not?

And you are right, we do need to address water, energy and population concerns – it really is about sustainable development of the environment, the planet – whether you believe in human caused global warming or not.

Sorry Don but there are grave errors in your post.

> The IPCC's estimate for global warming over this century is not
> a great deal higher [than the 20th century's 0.6 +/- 0.2 degrees].

This year's IPCC report originally carried warnings of long-term positive feedback mechanisms. Only short-term temperature feedbacks such as water vapour were included in the final version.

> The global climate models on which the scary predictions appear not to be
> based on evidence of AGW, but on the conviction that it is true.

That's mildly slanderous. Climate models are based on physics, not on conviction.

> Finally, no one has come up with a satisfying account of why
> carbon dioxide causes global warming,

Don, this is bullsh-t.

Greenhouse gases have been studied for 150 years and are *perfectly* understood. Atmospheric CO2 and other greenhouse gases cause the earth to retain energy that would otherwise escape to space. More greenhouse gases, more energy retained. All else being equal, this *is* global warming.

Uncertainties in climate science exist (eg. we don't know for sure what the sun will do, or how rainfall will change, and it's hard to predict how much CO2 the ocean can absorb), but the role of atmospheric carbon dioxide is solid, incontrovertible physics that you can test in the lab.

> and the long-term links (over 1m years) see the rise in carbon
> dioxide concentrations occurring after the warming, not before it

Correction: carbon dioxide concentrations *began* to rise after temperatures did. The temperature rises were triggered by marginally-increased solar radiation according to Milankovitch cycles (regular perturbations in Earth's orbit), but temperature increases were far greater and persisted longer than the additional solar radiation can account for. Greenhouse gases do.

> (perhaps because warmer oceans will release CO2, while colder oceans absorb it).

Along with changes in biospheric consumption and emissions, and other greenhouse gases, yes.

This is solid evidence for long-term positive temperature feedbacks -- as avoided in IPCC reports so far.

Industrial consumption of fossil fuels wasn't part of the picture before.

It is now.

I hesitated to venture into this thread because the subject is so complex, and passions so high. Xoddam's last post made me nod my head at the correctness of that view, and this is my last contribution.

In my view there is much greater debate about the science than the general reader would believe, because the media, governments and NGOs have universally accepted AGW and what is said to follow from it. My quick responses to Xoddam are (1) that warnings of long-term positive feedback are not supported by good experimental evidence, and there seems no geological record of any tipping point in the past, which is improbable if the theory is true. (2) Perhaps my wording about the models should have been that 'GCMs seem to assume the existence of AGW; they don't support it (and of course can't)'. (3) I don't think that what I said about carbon dioxide was rubbish. It is posited that CO2 concentration has increased from about 280 to 380 ppm. There is no good account that I can find in the literature of how an increase of 100 ppm could trigger such an increase in air temperature. If you know of one I would be glad of the reference. I do know about the greenhouse effect. The correlation between the 20th century increase in air temperature and the increase in CO2 concentration is at best a weak one. There are much stronger correlations with solar energy variation and with ocean movements like NAO and ENSO. (I would agree that there are no satisfactory accounts of why those correlations are so strong.)

To build large social and economic policies that affect everyone on the basis of unclear and ambiguous science seems to me almost a betrayal of rationality. There are many things that are related to the environment that we should do, and I've mentioned them. But carbon taxing and all the rest seem to me simply unjustified on the evidence. I am prepared to change my view if the evidence grows stronger.

Don I would agree with your caution if it was going to be a burden on society but the fact is that it will be of economic benefit to move to green energy even if we ignore greenhouse gas costs. The facts are that the capital costs with present technology are about $30,000 to give each Australian 100% green house free energy for ALL our energy needs for 50+ plus years with a running cost of half the current running costs of burning fuel. We have the technology today with hot rock thermal and solar thermal to build green base load power plants. It is not complicated.

It is to our economic advantage to move to green energy as fast as possible. That is what is so frustrating about the whole debate. Simple arithmetic shows clean energy will make us all wealthier with or without climate change. What confuses the matter are "economic models" that worry about the opportunity cost of money which varies according to events like a war in Iraq and sub prime crisis in the USA. We then get carbon trading and emissions targets as ways for existing power plant operators to squeeze the last dollar of profit from their old investments

IF we have no time to waste, why is eveyone ignoring "Terra preta" and Pyrolysis Technology?
TERRA PRETA:-
http://forums.hypography.com/terra-preta.html

BEST Energies at Somersby on the Central Coast of NSW has been trying to get Governments interested in pyrolysis treatment of waste and the use of charcoal as a soil amendment for years with little interest.
In my view it is the best chance of slowing global warming that we have.

Not only that, it could be a real life-line to our embattled farmers.
Why do you think so many multi-nationals are buying up rural land?
Because it can be used to grow bio-fuels and sequester carbon.
So when a carbon-trading-system comes in, farmers will be sitting pretty with not a lot of need to plant anything (except carbon).

It’s a matter of survival, therefore, its up to those who say that the situation is in the normal range and would require only minimal attention to keep the market economy growing; to show that by doing that that there wouldn’t be any severe consequences. So far, the “sceptics” have tried to place the onus of proof beyond reasonable doubt on all those who are warning of the possible human annihilation by emitting so much CO2 and raising world’s temperature. It’s up to the sceptics to prove that we will be OK.
Tena

"No time to waste" and the position is much worse than government sources suggest. It seems to me that the ordinary citizen readily understands the urgency but that politicians are afraid to move because of the commercial consequences, What is needed is a campaign to help the average citizen make known his concerns to his representative. (or her)
I have written a short campaign which includes overpopulation and Peak Oil and financial problems as well as global warming using simple language,
Now I am an ancient amateur so no doubt you can find an improved version, if so please advise. Otherwise can you spread my page far and wide. The URL is http://www.users.on.net/rmc/sustainablefutures.htm
Dick Clifford

Very sensible Dick Clifford

But what would you suggest to mitigate the following dilemma and our insatiable lust for meat?

http://www.vivausa.org/activistresources/guides/planetonaplate1.htm

Thank you Dickie, the article you quote, "Planet on a Plate" is the most comprehensive I've seen and it shows up the huge problems the world is rushing into. At the back of it all is the insistence of economists that we should go for maximum growth, which as we know is unsustainable.

You ask what can we do about it. 1st step would be to put a cap on the number of cattle that can be run on the land. This would eventually mean that there would be less meat per person as the population went up.

While my suggestions would eventually reduce population this may not take effect until too late. We have to learn to live within the means of the planet and present population levels are too high and we will not be amenable to a reduced standard of living.

This goes for all the other troubles, take oil for example, while it is there young bucks will insist on pressing the metal to the floor and the rubber on the road. The price will eventually force the adoption of a more sedate electric car, but to make it acceptable we will have to take a more active role in publicity. As it says in the Viva article "raise your voice in protest, join with others such as Viva! and actively fight against the ruthless corporations who will allow greed to destroy the globe. D.C.