Dear Anna! your youth can be your only defence. Without any blush of embarrassment you said "Despite the “sky is falling in” claims of the polluter lobby," Wow you then followed it with all the rubbish given out by your global warming rentacrowd.
Anna the world started long before you were born and will exist long after you are gone. Check what has happened to the world climate first. 15,000 years ago most of Northern Europe was under 5 kilometres of ice (I kid you not, it was called The Ice Age)then it warmed up a bit then it cooled down a bit now it is warming up again. Look if the sea levels are going to rise why have'nt they risen? All the Artic ice is about gone apparently but no demonsterable rise in sea levels lately.
I keep asking what happened to the hole in the ozone layer problem. No reply, why not, because it is just another scam on how we are all going to die. I have listened to all this before when nuclear weapons were going to be our end in the 1950's. Anna - don't worry, be happy!

JBowyer, with all due respect. The hole in the ozone isn't the issue it could have been because of firm action. In fact there is a trained chemist who went into politics; she saw the data and knew action was needed. Margaret Thatcher take a bow!

Think of it this way.
Threat = rain
Solution = buy umbrella from supermarket for $10
Action = Use umbrella
Result = Dryness
Conclusion = Umbrella successful. Threat averted
Your conclusion = You stayed dry, therefore the umbrella wasn’t required, therefore the supermarket scammed me out of $10.

It's called The Umbrella argument. I'm sure you're better than that.

Garnaut addresses supply side, but what of demand side?

I find some problems in Garnaut’s report, at or news reporting of it, and comments by some experts:

1. That Australia’s response to climate change and reduction in green house gases will make a difference. In the bigger scheme of things it will not, because while we are a big contributor on a per capita basis, we have a small population. China and India have just rejected world targets, so our contribution will be small indeed.

2. Similarly, that Australia’s reducing “green house” gas emissions will help reduce the effects of climate change on Australia, itself. Australia does not live in isolation from the rest of the world’s climate.

3. The focus seems to be on producing cleaner energy (supply), with little attention to reducing energy consumption and/or using energy more efficiently (demand). With growing populations, both the demand and supply side need due attention.

The distinct risk is that, if the media and experts keep telling such stories, people will eventually become disillusioned, because no matter what we do in Australia, climate change effects will continue on.

Hence, it seems to me that we need to have both a global and local view.

As global citizens, Australia should be taking action on climate change, reducing green-house gas emissions and seek cleaner ways of producing energy, even if it has only a minor impact on things, if at all. Personally, I think that governments should already be preparing for the inevitable effects of climate change.

However, on a local basis, it seems to me more realistic to also look at ways of reducing energy consumption and/or using energy more efficiently (demand). I am thinking of a host of things like double-glazing, solar hot water systems, efficient light bulbs, low energy night lights, swimming pool covers, etc., which ordinary people can do.

People have already demonstrated a willingness to respond in the case of restrictions on water usage and encouragement to install rain-water tanks. And therefore, it makes sense to encourage people to respond in other areas as well.

JBoyer your reference to nuclear weapons going to be our end in the 1950's is a pertinent point. You could call it an NTS or a nuclear trading scheme where both sides invested billions in a scheme of mutually assured destruction that thankfully worked. But only just.

A lot of emotion here, but not much common sense.

“no compensation to industry, but assistance to low-income households to reduce energy” stands out as the most naïve on her checklist.

What better way to drive industry off shore or increase the costs of manufacturers who couldn’t go off shore? Either result would impact most severely on the “low-income households” - the only group this author would protect.

“We all know that the government’s promise to reduce Australia’s greenhouse pollution was one of the main reasons for its victory in the election” claims the author.

Was it? I don’t thing that is true but, even if voters did want more action on climate change because they were led to believe it was all down to human behaviour, they certainly were not expecting the boots and all headlong rush to chaos triggered by Professor Garnaut.

And what about these “… hundreds of thousands of new jobs in green industries”?

This one has been touted about for long enough now to have someone tells us what these jobs are; but, no. The claim that the premature actions demanded by zealots that the most vulnerable Australians will slip into new, you-beaut ‘green’ jobs is just another example of the climate change con job.

Having totally ignored the views of scientists who do not place as much, if any, importance on carbon emissions and their role in climate change, the incompetent politicians have now handed the future of Australia over to an economist!

Pig-headed as usual, they will blunder on, believing that little old Australia, with a mere 1.4% of global CO2 is some sort of world leader, while the big emitters will continue on their merry way, only too glad to take over what is left of Australia’s industry and prosperity.

Be afraid, Australians. Be very, very afraid.

The umbrella effect, T.Sett?

More like the Turramurra elephant effect.

Walking the leafy northern suburbs, I noticed a smartly-dressed gent just ahead of me. Every few steps he would tear a sheet of paper from a notebook, and throw it onto the footpath.

"Oi!" I said, "stop littering!"

"I'm not littering" he protested, "I'm keeping the elephants away"

"But there aren't any elephants in Turramurra" said I.

He smiled. "Effective, isn't it?"

You're on the right track with your nuclear analogy, thylacine, but I'm not sure it helps your cause a great deal.

>>...a nuclear trading scheme where both sides invested billions in a scheme of mutually assured destruction that thankfully worked<<

The proposals on the table appear to me to be closer to Unilateral Disarmament than to Mutually Assured Destruction. MAD only worked because both sides had the ability to wipe out the other. UD would have been a bold and noble gesture, but completely negate the balancing effect.

Much akin to our present course on GW, which can be summarised as: "We'll set an honourable example, lower our standard of living, castrate our industry and our economy, and watch the rest of the world grow rich at our expense."

A more intelligent course of action would be to use the wealth we are creating to find permanent, workable solutions, rather than impoverish ourselves to no concrete purpose.

It must be a hangover of the "it is only doing good if it hurts, and if it hurts real bad, it must be doing lots of good" approach to life that my grandmother's generation believed in so strongly.

Something to do with the inner comfort that comes from martyrdom, I suspect