Arjay: "I'm still waiting for the the AGW Cultists to explain why the new ice core data of 2003 reveals that CO2 follows GW by 800 yrs."

I'm still waiting to know why you can't use Google. I'm still waiting to know why you need to use weasel words like "cultists" to try to get your argument across.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=13
(a commentary by by Prof. Jeff Severinghaus, Professor of Geosciences, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California)

Summary version: different regimes of of climate change have different initial causes.

Ours is the first one that is caused by humans and so we should not be surprised to see different behaviour. It is occurring on a much faster time scale, which is already an obvious different. It correlates very tightly with the growth of CO2-producing human industry over the last couple of hundred years. The others proceeded over time spans of several thousand years apiece.

There is also a more detailed letter form the Professor towards the bottom of this discussion page:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/04/the-lag-between-temp-and-co2/

keith: << Oh dear CJ I thought better of you ... once. >>

At least I'm in good company. Don't worry keith, I'd written you off as a climate change denialist quite some time ago. Ditto with Arjay, except I'd extend that to most topics.

We have another thread running here “countering a climate of skepticism” by Roger Jones.

His final line

“Those who wish to discount this scientific effort are driven by their own ideologically dominated models, which are unreviewed, unaccountable and unverifiable. They should be disregarded.”

Suggesting only scientists should be allowed to comment on science.

David Flints article is about, fundamentally a tax system.

A tax system which could come in any form, maybe an extra 10% on GST or extra oil tariffs.

Being a tax system, should all debate be limited only to accountants, who are, to tax what scientist are to climate change (per Roger Jones at least)

I am an accountant – should we consider my view above and before everyone elses or should mine be an equal voice among many?

(I believe the latter but don’t let my prejudices sway you)

I see a lot more personal attacks on David Flint than I do the content of his article.

So will all those who have attacked or dismissed David Flints article kindly agree to pay my levy (in whatever form it takes) for the Emission Taxes which they are so eager to sign up for?

David Flints five questions (page one) are absolutely correct

David Flints summation (page three) is correct.

And what is in between is correct.

The purpose of tax is to finance the necessary work of government.

The necessary work of government does not include reducing the discretionary choices of the electorate through aggressive taxation. Government is there to serve the electorate, not to direct it.

I did some comparisons of national “life satisfactions” to “levels of taxation” from data available from www.nationmaster.com .

I have no reason to disbelieve the veracity of that data.

The result, on a nation by nation basis, a negative correlation between levels of tax and life satisfaction.

All that an ETS is going to do is make life less satisfying for Australians overall.

Like David Flint observes

“Governments typically are wastrels”

“Governments need discipline, and reducing taxes would bring them into the real world in which ordinary Australians live”

Dickie,Prof Jeff Severinghaus does not know.He only raises possibilities.Quote Jeff,"Warming takes 5000 yrs to complete.CO2 acts like and amplifer,it does not initiate warming."Jeff admits that the oceans store CO2 and upon heating it gets released into the atmosphere.Is it Chicken and egg syndrome?

If warming takes 5000 yrs to initiate and CO2 is only an amplifier, why do the AGW cult insist that GW is happening now and that it is caused by CO2?We have a serious anomoly here Dickie.At best it is all conjecture and nobody really knows.

Dickie,rather than making references to your higher authority,why not assimilate the knowlege yourself and then argue the reality here between you and I? You cannot continue to Google your way through life.Just because someone has a title like Professor,does not mean that they don't have a bias motivated by money or fear a loss of prestige because of a failed hypothesis.

Unfortunately, Professor Flint fails to offer any alternative to the ETS. One must presume then that the Professor is advocating a “do nothing” approach? If I’m correct, his “do nothing” stance is in stark defiance to the mountains of evidence that, even on the domestic front, carbon emissions need to be reduced very quickly.

Oddly enough, I'm not impressed with an ETS but for different reasons. To date, regulating toxic air emissions has been administered by fudging and obfuscation.

Large polluting corporations in Australia, with the aid of their lap dog regulators, have always put their financial interests before the ecological survival of this nation and the documented evidence is overwhelming.

As Sir Nicholas Stern advised, the biggest market failure of all is the global warming threat itself.

Therefore, what proposals does Rudd have for these corporations (which have reaped mega-profits for decades)apart from rewarding them, to share the burden of this tax and start paying for polluting the environment?

Should you and I prop up these corporations which have trashed these arid lands and the lands of others? And why should tax-payers’ funds contribute to the coffers of say, the “Big Australian” who, last year made a profit of some $17 billion?

What about another polluter who, last year, emitted 170,000,000 kilograms of SO2 and 6 tonnes of mercury? Or another who emitted 570,000,000 kgs carbon monoxide. Why? Because they can!

Why is trust being placed in this market to solve environmental problems?

Can we assume that increasing the cost of fossil fuel emissions will reduce their use rather than just increase our cost of living?

Is the ETS a system that aims to keep costs to Australian industries to a minimum rather than achieve the rapid and significant changes necessary to prevent ecological destruction and global warming?

And what place do renewable energies have in the ETS proposal?

The solution is environmental regulation. The legislation is in place. We must insist that it is enforced.

A slap on the wrist for the big polluters was never environmentally or ethically acceptable and self-regulation has been an environmental disaster.

Dickie ,you are arguing from the general to the specific.The real issue is CO2 and a tax on our fuels which determine our living standards.Yes there are many other pollutants like SO2 ie sulphur dioxide and mercury Hg,but they can be far more easily addressed than taxing CO2 the life blood of our living standards.

This is where the socialist so called environmentalists muddy the waters to push their own political barrows.You will not address the issues which I now pose and try to deflect the argument to another arena.

I'm ready to debate Dickie,but you hide behind a subterfuge of mis-information and slight of hand.