It seems some people think the atmosphere or troposphere is bounded by borders – yeah, with that kind of evaluation maybe Australia was the joke under the now defunct Howard years.

Global problems require global solutions, but hey - plerdsus can shut himself away in his own little corner, or bury his head in the sand – not much difference really.

He's right about one thing, the planet hasn’t got the resources to live the lifestyle of the “developed” world – we would need five Earths.

The consumerism driven greed society that plerdsus emulates is typical of unsustainable development – a view that Australia doesn’t matter is, well – crap. Australia can pull its head out of the sand and start to live in a more sustainable way - with or without plerdsus.

Been under fire from fanatical pro-progressives in another thread, thought I'd have a lash at this one.

Probably not so precious to some who never take time away from the city, but one who has cleared wheatbelt land to see wild turkeys and mallee hens, fluttering over strange mini-kangaroos, to finish the last of their lives around saltlakes ever growing wider and whiter.

Out there we find we have not overcome the above problems, only fenced them off and passed them by in a land of so-called plenty.

Here in Mandurah now as well as low-lying canal houses due to be swamped by rising tides, we have now seen the last of the unique tuart forests, the few trees left looking not so strong and stately, but ever so lonely.

Yep, reckon some city dwellers have got a lot to learn, especially when we have some saying man has not done harm to this planet, and in any case is quite capable of surviving on technology alone if the worst comes to the worst.

Under accusations that Australia has now become a country mostly relying on pitstock politics and quarry economics, the answer is that modern technology is capable of going miles down, but please to remember that most of our precious ores and feedstocks are not far down anyway because like coal and oil, iron ore and bauxite aluminium are produced originally by surface exposure to forms of solar heat on surface rock.

So as in other more settled Western-type countries, most precious feedstocks under the greedy grasp of modern business and technology will not last long.

But it seems under tne spell of this new/old corporate culture we have educated persons who do know better, but as Adam Smith father of Laissez-faire warned so long ago, human greed under competition may even overpower sanity

col rouge, (by name but definitely not by nature, I guess),
"banal jingoism of the ignorant". What a wonderful phrase. Pity there's been no mention of patriotism, of any kind.
"Idealogicol posturing". Did I tell you the one about the Polish dog, Col?
Alternatives to the internal combustion engine? electric cars are already being produced, and we can reasonably expect to see more of them. An even more exciting development is the compressed air car
http://www.theaircar.com/howitworks.html; I may just take your advice on that one, Col.
As to the inflation thing (I'll try to keep it simple).
Let's say the widget factory employs 7 people at $10. They ask for a $2 pay rise. This puts pressure on prices.
Management decides to employ a management consultant, instead. At $14. an hour.
Exactly the same pressure on prices.
Interestingly, only a few years ago, the highest paid worker at CSIRO was a scientist. Now the top five highest paid are all business management types.
Incidentally, I'm in basic agreement with you about the carbon trading thing. I just like the idea that if we are going to fall for this crap, we should at least fall for it equally.

Nicholas I find it interesting that you have needed to write this article. In my naive way I had assumed that all the negotiators had the same objective of equal emissions for all as the underlying assumption. I would have thought that the issue of negotiations was how best to get there and what the amount per person was going to be.

Instead of people spending too much time on emissions why not concentrate on ways to generate energy without emissions. Sooner rather than later we have to have a negative emissions world economy.

Fortunately we can do it with existing technology and it can happen quickly and rather than cause an economic meltdown actually increase our wealth. The rough numbers to show that this is possible are shown in figures from the solar thermal and the geothermal technologies. Remember these technologies are the same as fossil fuel burning technologies except we have a different heat source so it is a well known way of producing usable energy.

Depending on the discount rate you apply to the investments these renewables are currently competitive with building fossil fuel plants because while the capital costs are 2 to 3 times the cost of building fossil fuel burning plants the running costs are about half. Today the breakeven point with a discount rate of 5% is about 20 years.

It will cost about 600 billion to build enough solar thermal or geothermal generating capacity to supply enough energy for all the energy needs of Australians. Spread over 10 years this is $3,000 per head per year which is achievable considering that at the end of 10 years we produce energy at half its current price. If it was all solar thermal it would cover a land area of about 1/10th the size of Tasmania and if geothermal a whole lot less. Of course we will still build wind stations and still put photo voltaics on our roof tops, still create synthetic biofuels and still reduce our energy consumption.

We should simply do it because in the long term we are better off.

Grim “Pity there's been no mention of patriotism, of any kind.”

Of course not, I would leave matters of patriotism to folk like you.

Afterall, "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel."

“electric cars are already being produced”

so too the hybrids.

I hold high hopes for hydrogen fuel cells one day.

The point I would make, all development is funded by existing production and entreprenurial risk funds. The developed result only funds future development and dividends to risk takers.

Give an entrepreneur an opportunity and he will find the funds to provide the product.

Governments fiddling with grants and tax breaks for “alternatives” are merely pretending to do the entrepreneurs job and lets face it, government have been notoriously incompetent when it comes to funding grandiose projects with tax payers funds (although not an Australian example, I would suggest the Anglo/French Concorde was a classic of governmental incompetence and waste, well, almost as bad as institutionalized public transport).

Good projects will always find funds, wannabe spoofs and bodgy schemes are what unscrupulous carpet baggers put up to government bureaucrats to throw your and my taxes at.

As for “the highest paid worker at CSIRO was a scientist. Now the top five highest paid are all business management types.”

Doubtless if the “scientists” were worth more they would earn more and if they could actually run organizations, they would be heading them.

As one of those “business management types”, I would observe scientists are "specialist technicians".

I can think of millions of reasons why CSIRO needs more than a “technician” at its head. The benefit of “business management types” is they appreciate the management imperatives required of organisations and not just the “technical nicities”.

As for “I just like the idea that if we are going to fall for this crap, we should at least fall for it equally.”

Because you admit foreseeing yourself being up to your neck in crap is insufficient an argument to compel me to follow.

Further, it would be inequitable of you to deny my sovereign choice not to follow you in your foolishness.

Government regulation can bring about the rapid deployment of clean energy in every country. Such regulation needs to be bold and focussed at actually achieving or exceeding ambitious gas reduction targets.

Ideally, regulation should be based on world treaties on climate change. The treaties require some effective international standards that deliver powerful economic incentives and disincentives, favouring clean energy technology whilst rapidly phasing out carbon emmitting technologies. The standards should also cover economic incentives for achievements in meeting population control milestones.