Excellent article, Peter Ridd

To put some numbers on what the government is doing in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, have a look at the cover article by Fred Pearce in the Nov. 17, 2007 issue of New Scientist. Our new government intends to carry on with Malcolm Turnbull's idea of phasing out incandescent light-bulbs. According to Pearce, approximately a quarter ton of carbon dioxide emissions a year are saved if a household switches from tungsten filament light-bulbs to compact fluorescents. However, each Australian is responsible for the emission of about 19 tons of carbon dioxide every year, as opposed to about 12 tons in the UK. This means that one additional baby, conjured into being by the government's baby bonus, will wipe out the benefits of 75 households that switch over.

A migrant adds less to global emissions than a baby, since he would still be contributing if he stayed at home. However, migrants tend to adopt the consumption patterns of the host society, and their children certainly do. Approximately 2 European migrants would have the same effect as one additional Australian baby, with migrants from poor countries adding even more. The Immigration Minister, Chris Evans, accepts this, but said in a recent interview that this is no reason to leave a migrant from Africa to languish in poverty and despair at home. Does he perhaps take this view with all 5 billion people who live in countries poorer than Mexico?

We need to consider to what extent the politicians' conservation initiatives are simply window dressing to create the illusion that something is being done. They may also believe that Australia would be under less pressure from other countries if per capita emissions go down (even as total emissions go up).

We’ve got record high immigration. The utterly absurd baby bonus has significantly increasing our birthrate and is going to be boosted even further to $5000.

Could you ever have believed that Rudd could be significantly worse than Howard?

We now have a regime that is even more rapidly taking us away from sustainability.

Rudd is demonstrating duplicity in a most extreme manner, by advocating large-scale greenhouse gas emission reductions while boosting the rate of increase in the number of consumers!

The Australian public is silent. Environmental NGOs and academics are also predominantly silent. There is no outrage being expressed!!

How is it possible for any thinking person not be outraged by the stated goal of a huge reduction in GHG emissions, while the same crazy government is making every effort to increase the rate of consumers with no end in sight?? ?? ??

As Dr Ridd says, if the population doubles by 2050, which it is set to do, then the size of the per-capita reductions will have to be much greater in order to achieve the same goal.

If the population doubles, per-capita emissions will have to be reduced by 50% just to break even! And by a further 50% (75% of the original) in order to achieve a goal of a 50% reduction!

The baby bonus needs to be stopped forthwith and immigration needs to be quickly wound down to at least net zero.

Talk of nuclear power without the essential element of an end to expansionism is at best a distraction from what we should really be concentrating on and at worst a deliberate attempt to prop up the continuous growth (and antisustainability) paradigm.

This from the AEF website: "Mine Your Own Business" is a journey through the dark side of environmentalism. It demolishes the cosy consensus that environmentalists are well meaning agenda free activists and shows them to be anti-development ideologues who think the poor are happy being poor and don't want the development that we, in the west, take for granted".

This alone highlights the agenda of this group who while denigrating 'environmentalism' then go ahead and name themselves the Australian Environment Foundation.

Please provide evidence that substantiates your claim that environmentalists want everyone to be poor and define what you mean by poor. Reducing an overbloated lifestyle does not equate to advocating poverty. This is just pure sensationalism and I wonder about your own motives.

Environmentalists do talk of overpopulation (Tim Flannery for one) and the need for population policy coupled with a better use of resources (eg. addressing issues of overconsumption). I admit there could be more advocacy from the Greens Party and I am not sure why they don't have a clear policy on overpopulation. I would be disappointed if it was because of a fear of being seen as racist which only means they need to grow some bigger appendages on this issue.

The author said: "I can only conclude that those who oppose nuclear power do not really believe in anthropogenic global warming, but follow along with the mantra to prove their green credentials."

This kind of comment is a bit playground worthy and I think the author knows it. Nuclear power is not an environmental alternative and scientists give it only a 20 year lifespan - hardly a long-term viable alternative. You speak about the deaths (immediate and long term) from Chernobyl as significantly small - the deaths from Chernobyl have been grossly understated. This was just one reactor imaging the risk with a proliferation of global reactors. The difference it would appear between AEF and other environmentalists is the difference between a short-term fix and long term sustainability.

Well now, we haven't heard too much yet from the others about long term sustainability, so you had better give the AEF some credit for something.

Let us hear some suggestions, instead of just bagging the AEF. For instance, how are we going to address the very difficult problems of exponentially increasing world population, exhaustion of mineral and energy resources, just to name a couple.

David

How unusual for government to set highly dubious targets, most likely unattainable built on a foundation of contentious reasoning and argueable facts, which are more or less beyond emperical validation.

How unusual for them to rouse the masses behind something that cant be proved, beyond the force of majority. How unusual for them to rely on a consensus of opinion, instead of rigoursly proven fact.

How unusual for them to build a framework and peddle a consciousness based on uncertaintly, on the unproveable. On something that might or might not be true. How unusual for them to peddle such uncertainty in service of poking people with the sentiment and emotion stick. How unusual for them peddle fear and regret and that wounderfully useful device of human manipulation... fear of regret.

We just gotta, just in case, maybe, if, because... what if? Its too grave, blah, blah, blah. Unfortunately the majority of folks are proplelled by emotion and ego, not logic, reason nor facts. The latter takes foar too much work. Most everyone is conditioned to respond to the former, it makes us more maleable. And its the fudamental basis of all the worlds woes and all social ills.

And this is exactly how the political snakes want it, the masses mired in a consiousness of addiction, too oblivious to ever acknowledge or challenge.

Gotta hand it to the politicians, for their machiavelan master stroke of self validation and relevance. After the cold war ended, they were more or less in limbo. What, without a perceived threat to wack everyone about with the fear schtick. That lasted about a decade or two and low and behold, along come global warming. A fantastic threat that can be fought into perpetuity, with its attendant contoversy and uncertainty.

A master stroke really. Now WE are our own enemy and the govt will intermediate this self flagelating, guilt striken hot war, with ourselves.

Of course the target wont be reached. Of course they're unreasonable and contentious. Of course there is no light at the end of the political tunnel. Thats the whole point.

Whether or not you believe in human impact on climate change or even that there is climate change at all, this should be irrelevant.

It is basic common sense to move towards sustainable technology and living. Why continue to use up all our remaining non-renewable resources? There is no justification for it.

Be sceptical about the analysis, observation and research by the majority of the world's scientists if you wish, but please explain why we should not change our current practise of pollution, excess waste and use of non-renewable energy?