It appears that "deniers" are intent on taking desperate measures to marginalise any opposition by accusing me of not "being part of a viable discussion" therefore, I again submit an exerpt from the experts - experts and excerpts which continue not to be acknowledged or debated by the God botherers, the Howard and Bush blood-hounds, the "Me" generation or the Advocates for Avarice:

(1) "The new study by Prof Michael Lockwood of the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, near Oxfordshire, and Claus Fröhlich of the World Radiation Center in Davos, Switzerland, overturns claims by climate sceptics who say that the planet's climate has long fluctuated and that current warming is just part of that natural cycle - the result of variation in the sun's output and not greenhouse gas emissions.

"This paper is the final nail in the coffin for people who would like to make the sun responsible for present global warming," Stefan Rahmstorf, a climate scientist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, told the journal Nature.

'A spokesman for the Royal Society said: "This is an important contribution to the scientific debate on climate change. At present there is a small minority which is seeking to deliberately confuse the public on the causes of climate change.

"They are often misrepresenting the science, when the reality is that the evidence is getting stronger every day. We have reached a point where a failure to take action to reduce carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions would be irresponsible and dangerous."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2007/07/11/scisun111.xml

And so finally I bid you "adios" my deluded fossil fuel devotees. You remain not left, not right but backward.

And this debate too, remains backward and futile.

Slander, sneer and shoot the messengers in your naivety, for you, my friends, know not what you do.

Dickie “You remain not left, not right but backward. And this debate too, remains backward and futile.”

It is my democratic right to remain “backward”.

Especially when dickies supposed "forward looking" alternative to be subjegated to the dictates of scientific pseudo-experts and wannabe despots.

Actually I think a lot of folk must be somewhat retarded for placing their faith in any government at all; I prefer to make my own mistakes rather than being taxed so government can make them for me.

Bye bye dickie, you are lost and rest assured, will soon be forgotten.

On a more constructive note, I am personally sure the influence of mans existence on the planet is real and irrefutable.

However, I believe the solution is not to be found in the sideshow greenhouse gases or "socialism by stealth" in the form of carbon taxes.

If the world wants to “get real” about the underlying issue to sustainability and quality of life, across all the dimensions of the human experience which that embraces, it will resolve to work on reducing the number of humans populating the planet. That will produce the most significant contributory benefits to deforestation, carbon emissions, climate change, over fishing and a hundred other blights which are the result of the human "footprint".

To my “unscientific” (but I think, rational) mind, the issue is an absolute no-brainer.

Fix human population numbers and the rest of the environmental duckies fall into line.

It would be better to be dead than have some trumped up bureaucracy of the brotherhood,manipulating every detail in our lives.
The NSW RTA is a case in point.

TICK: “I can assure you that an authoritaian government would most assuredly put a halt to this kind of discussion.”

Barking dog doesn’t bite.

I agree with Winston Churchill and with miner (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=6878#103643).

Dictatorships can often get things right and very often democracy gets it disastrously wrong, however the reverse is far more often the case as dictatorships most often rule in the interests of a small selfish privileged minority against the best interests of the majority of society. This is certainly true of the Chinese government, notwithstanding some of that government's policies I find myself strongly in agreement with such as its decision to ban shopping bags refered to in the article and its 'one child' policy.

I believe we came very close to becoming an outright dictatorship in the Howard years with that Government's corrupt abuse of its incumbency and a lying news-media to cover up much of its disgraceful conduct for more than 11 long years (axing of the Commonwealth dental program, the Iraq war, AWB, sell-off of assets, "Work Choices", record high immigration, the 1998 maritime dispute, mismanagement of defence equipment procurement contracts etc, etc). The vote by as few as 1 in 30 Australians (i.e. just over 3%) at the last election made the difference between some meaningful democratic content having been put back into our political system, as is now the case, and our becoming, to all intents and purposes, a dictatorship.

If as few as only 3% had voted the other way, Howard would today be on the verge of completing his project to render ineffective our most important institutions of democracy as has been described in "Silencing Dissent" (2007) by Clive Hamilton and Sarah Maddison (RRP AU$24.95). With a bit more tampering with the electoral roles, and the odd engineered Tampa incident or terrorist scare, it is frightening to contemplate how much longer they could have held on to power and the consequent further harm they could have inflicted upon our society and our environment.

I believe our best chance of pulling through the looming environmental crisis still lies with democracy and an electorate engaged in the decision-making processes through such means as citizens initiated referenda.

James Sinnamon
Independent candidate for Lord Mayor of Brisbane
http://canodobetter.org/SweepOutCityHall