dickie, you may think the world as we know it is going to be destroyed by us greedy nasty (Liberal voting?) human beings, such is your capacity for seeing the bad and ignoring the good, but it's not going to end. It's simply going to change and, in my view, mostly for the better.

Dickie, I do wish you would stop confusing us with facts refuting Bernies view of the world, which, even if it does seem to be viewed though rose tinted glasses, is so much more comforting than having to face reality.

You must learn to appreciate that some people contend that maintaining the economy and the well-being of business are issues of prime concern. We simply must not give credence to the proposition that if CO2 emissions and global warming continue on their present trajectories, the economy will be severely damaged as will many businesses and that for some species, the environment will be made unliveable.

Bernies views appear to be predicated on a belief that human activity can be tempered over time and there is plenty of time to prevent such outcomes. By all means let us have an ETS but let us not rush into precipitate action seems to be the message and, above all, let us not damage our industries.

Issue the worst CO2-emitters with free permits until we can legislate to ensure that they are unable to pass on their permit costs to end consumers. Only then will they act as good citizens. Well, we have 18 months before the ETS starts, more than enough time to legislate.

The views held by Bernie (and the Libs) appear to be based on under-estimation of the speed of recent and on-going technological innovation, particularly in the fields of renewable energy generation and the storage of electricity in super-conductor batteries. Both are destined to have a profound and beneficial effect on the broad economy and environment but not on the coal industry or major users of fossil fuels.

I am confident that a far more positive response to climate change will be possible than that proposed by Mr Masters - and I imagine that he too would wish his were so.

Agnostic of M, dickie, if you're looking for dirt, that's all you'll ever find

*as wealth and economic security rise, so a family chooses to have less children. *

Bernie, I think you will find that the availability of family planning
and the invention of modern contraception, have a great deal to do
with it.

In some third world countries, women simply don't have and can't
afford that option. So they remain as "breeding cows" want it or
not, dictated to by men, religious leaders, politicians etc.

Providing these women with family planning would be the least that
we could do, but as we have seen with the Bush regime, religion
dominated their thinking and so the rest of the world has put
it in the too hard basket, just like you have.

If you want to get serious about climate issues, start to address
the issue of an extra 3-4 billion people, or frankly you are doing
little but a feelgood exercise, peeing in the breeze.

Bernie, you don't have to reply to me specifically, however ... I, and perhaps some others, would appreciate your views on these two Lateline pieces.

The first includes three of Australia’s eminent scientists.

http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2008/s2399646.htm

The next is a round-up with Rajendra Pachauri

http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2008/s2399649.htm

Regardless of whether Bernie replies or not, does anyone else wish to comment?

Q&A

The world is warming and if we keep putting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere it will warm at an accelerating rate.

We are running out of cheap easily accessible fossil fuels.

Our civilisation is based on cheap energy.

Renewable energy is plentiful but it costs more per kw of output to build renewable plants than fossil fuel plants but it costs less to run because the running costs are lower - mainly because the cost of fuel is low or zero.

If however we build more renewable energy plants it can be shown that their capital cost will, after about six doublings of capacity, be about the same as fossil fuel plants. A few more doublings of capacity and the capital cost will be way below fossil fuel plants. The reason is simple. We have been building fossil fuel plants for over a century and we have learned how to do it. We are still learning to build renewables and we know that for every doubling of capacity the cost will drop by 15 to 25%.

It is obvious what we need to do. We just need to direct resources to building renewable energy plants. The reason we don't is that our financial costs are high. We can print money to build renewable plants and charge zero interest and NOT increase inflation because the money is spent building a productive resource.

We can do this tomorrow and we can have zero emissions within 10 or 20 years or whatever time frame we decide and all get richer. If only we can get our economists to think like investors instead of cost accountants the problem will be solved.