I disagree that Australia is powerless. We are the world's largest exporter of coal and have the largest uranium reserves. Presumably the use of those weapons constitute 'radical activism'. However first of all there is the psychological weapon of moral leadership. If we try hard to cut our emissions it makes others look like slackers. We won't need to preach, just raise our eyebrows and let others feel guilty.

If that fails then cut their coal imports. If they get their coal from somewhere else (which is getting harder) then put a carbon tariff on their manufactured goods. Give them yellowcake if A) they've signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and B) they can prove they have cut carbon emissions by a corresponding amount, not just added to their total energy.

To those who say we are powerless let me ask what use you are in an emergency. Go join the problem deniers. Sssh..I hear them coming.

The last paragragh of this article says it all. The nonsense of little old Austalia showing the lead to the main culprits in the emissions business by merely reducing our own piddling little bit is laughable.

The tone of the article sounds a bit too negative to me. I agree with Taswegian. If we do nothing, we stand little chance of convincing anyone else to do anything. The final result is equal to the sum of the parts, so that if all the small contributors are added up, quite a significant result will be obtained. A head in the sand outlook will result in pain for us all.

David

Just boring little me here again, to point out again that unless something is done to contain the population explosion in the third world any action on global warming is just urinating into the breeze.

Absolutely.

David

It seems Arthur Thomas worships the monumental foolishness of giving jokers like Garnaut a platform as if there is automatically, out of the blue a degree of credibility, wisdom and intelligence to be inferred. Frankly, this Garnaut is either a complete stoooopid or as I believe a nasty piece of work. There is no moral purpose here because all we see is this particular individual, Garnaut, who is filled with the self-righteousness that facts can be bent or ignored to fit an hypothesis and who has a mission to pronounce guilt on everyone in order to extract money from their supposed carbon sinfulness. i.e. a new swindle to make money out of thin air.

Now that Labour has formed government then we need to vigorously take it up to Rudd with his dishonest belief in junk climate science and that this is where we start making changes to build a knowledge economy.

If Kevvy honestly believes in education and seeks to be known as the education prime minister then he needs to fully explain how he approaches this desire for the true achievement of human potential when he obviously promotes more a belief in climate superstition that effectively thwarts the normal scientific method. His education revolution in Australia should start by depoliticising science and opening it up to greater scrutiny and debate.