Dickie, I don't doubt that I may come over as some type of blowhard but I'm just NOBODY. If NOBODY is perfect, then that really makes me perfect. Fine and you keep up your efforts with further wide critical readings.

I find this a very funny statement, Dickie. "Probably, if it were not for plants, we all would have suffocated in our own CO2 a long time ago." Not only illogical but just so disconnected. e.g. Consider that 4 billion or so years ago the atmosphere had something like 20% CO2 and trace amounts of oxygen, but when life discovered the trick of turning water, energy and CO2 in it’s environment, (together with a few trace elements), into complex carbohydates with a spare bit of oxygen, the ratios were pretty quickly reversed to the 20% oxygen and trace amounts of CO2 we see today. Obnoxious little weeds are full of these neat little tricks, Dickie. We are so blessed.

Consider also that in your typical greenhouse, plant growth ceases by mid-morning as the CO2 content of the air has fallen to 150ppm/v or so. Commercial growers combat this by pumping up the level to 1200ppm, not to increase the greenhouse effect but to feed the plants. As long as the plants have those three basic things, water, energy and CO2, and enough of the nutrients they need they will keep growing, and pumping out oxygen.

Everyone knows that when plants decay, or the wind blows, etc or we burn something it will disaggregate all manner of gasses, chemicals and particulates .... some very nasty or unpleasant irritants or even beneficial ones. How we shield, filter, collect, disperse, etc these natural, environmental and human driven disaggregates is important and basically a fact of life itself.

I think everyone is missing the real point here. CO2 is here to stay so let's learn to manage it rather than focussing on un-achievable targets of reduction.

The reality is that as long as we continue to expand and prosper, both as a nation and globally, then we will continue to increase CO2 emissions on a global scale.

Don't get me wrong, I am not throwing in the towl, however I for one enjoy my standard of living and intend to continue do so for quite a while yet. On the other hand I am aware of the situation and I do my bit to try to reduce CO2 wherever possible. BUT- if you think a reduction of 60 to 90% is achievable, while at the same time feeding the needs and wants of China and India then you have rocks in your head.

Ah Dickie, your last post says it all...

You did mention that the buzzards are circling as you get older,
and of course thats when the mind starts to go.

Its ok, we'll excuse that last post as a "Dickie losing her
marbles sometimes" moment :)

Time for your lie down and a nice cup of tea.

Back to the topic. People are living longer then ever, despite
all those evil toxins, so clearly things are not as bad as some
would want us to believe.

Yabby,

I am enjoying the tête-à-tête you are having with Dickie – but don’t be too critical of his rambunctiousness, this article has just landed in my in-box from Geophysical Research Letters of the AGU.

“On the causal link between carbon dioxide and air pollution mortality.”

Mark Z. Jacobson, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA

Abstract

“Greenhouse gases and particle soot have been linked to enhanced sea-level, snowmelt, disease, heat stress, severe weather, and ocean acidification, but the effect of carbon dioxide (CO2) on air pollution mortality has not been examined or quantified. Here, it is shown that increased water vapour and temperatures from higher CO2 separately increase ozone more with higher ozone; thus, global warming may exacerbate ozone the most in already-polluted areas. A high-resolution global-regional model then found that CO2 may increase U.S. annual air pollution deaths by about 1000 (350–1800) and cancers by 20–30 per 1 K rise in CO2-induced temperature. About 40% of the additional deaths may be due to ozone and the rest, to particles, which increase due to CO2-enhanced stability, humidity, and biogenic particle mass. An extrapolation by population could render 21,600 (7400–39,000) excess CO2-caused annual pollution deaths worldwide, more than those from CO2-enhanced storminess.”
Received 22 June 2007; accepted 3 January 2007; published 12 February 2008.

Here is a media blurb about it,

http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2008/229/2?etoc

Don’t write Dickie off just yet … has a lot to contribute methinks.

Unfortunately for posters, Q&A, Yabby, our forum hillbilly and live sheep exporter, relishes high jacking my posts on OLO. Since I’m just a mere slip of girl, he foolishly believes he can “whup” me proper like, with his constant "storking."

This is the hill-da-beast who is out to get me, seeking revenge because I’m sufficiently impertinent to draw attention to the millions of livestock grown for live export and the correlation to rising levels of CO2. Oh boy and that’s when his mood grows uglier than a mud fence – (“speshlly” when he’s been celebrating Groundhog Day!)

Regrettably, head hillbilly Yabba, remains an “ignert” mountain goat who steals paper from public restrooms, sprays weed killer on his lawn to save mowing and believes Dom Perignon is the head of the Mafia.

http://www.fao.org/newsroom/en/news/2006/1000448/index.html

Gawd……hey…is that Yabby burnin’ down ere in his pick up truck gittin ‘is overalls in a bunch? “Ouch........help......help..... somebody help….......…aaagh!”

Oh yes…..the topic at hand. I’ve only managed a cursory glance at Garnaut's paper, and remain rather pessimistic about proposed actions to mitigate CO2 occurring in the short term. I am yet to be convinced that the Rudd government will be any different to previous ones (state and federal) whose main intent was and is to suppress the release of important health and environmental information to the public:

http://africa.reuters.com/world/news/usnSYD230970.html

http://www.huliq.com/44227/government-found-interfere-public-health-research

In addition, Professor Ray Kearney’s OLO article (“Fossil Fuels – the new asbestos”) appears to have received scant attention regarding the motor vehicle industry which emits more carbon monoxide p/a than any industry in Australia. This is an area where reform could be implemented in the near future, but will it?:

“The major political parties at federal and state levels, the oil companies and car manufacturers have known that while "leaded" petrol is a health hazard, “unleaded” petrol has even greater toxic properties. The decision was made, it seems, to cut lead so it did not poison the "catalytic converter" and knowingly introduce substances that would increase cancer rates.” (Prof. Kearney)

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=3861

The history of the knowledge on A/CO2, revealing a century of inaction!

http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm#L_M019

"I am well aware of the 2007 – 2008 temperature anomalies"
I am glad you are so aware oh great omnipresent one. Does it make you uncomfortable that ALL measured global warming can be shed in a very short space of time (just months)? That the ever thickening blanket of CO2 wrapped around the planet seems to have little or no effect on holding in the heat gained over the previous 100 years. Makes the whole notion more than a little absurd, weather or not.

"Climate “change” is statistically measured over longer time frames (I said decades, you ‘conveniently’ miss that) than weather."
Hmmm satellite measurements are from 1979 - 2008....not enough decades for you? Satellite measurements are a little more trustworthy than the ground based variety
http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/02/17/how-not-to-measure-temperature-part-52-another-ufa-sighted-in-arizona/

"La Nina and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) appear to be driving the cooling from 2007 into 2008."
Just like the large El Nino which appeared to be driving the warming around 1998. The warming claimed by the hysterical warmers to be due to CO2.

"I am not so averse to climate scientists like you."
Hehe you mean Playstation climate scientists. Living in their virtual world.

"Probably, if it were not for plants, we all would have suffocated in our own CO2 a long time ago."
Ahhh if it wasn't for plants we would never have been here.

"Don’t write Dickie off just yet … has a lot to contribute methinks."
You think wrong. Ask her about the damaged mesophere? Shes out there.
Poor old girl also seems to think industrial CO2 differs in some way to "natural" CO2. Somehow she disregards her own fetid CO2 she expels with every breath as being bad ie. Ind. CO2 = pollution. Dickie's breath = rancid but ok.