Rudd's climate policy at the last election was premised on one thing: getting green votes.

He promised to ratify Kyoto (no cost) and put off setting emissions targets (potentially costly) based on need to wait for the Garnaut report. When the Garnaut report appeared, he ignored its recommendations on emissions targets. At least the Howard government was honest in its rejection of the science. Rudd claims to accept it, but fails to act on its consequences. Garnaut said a target below a 25% cut would doom the Great Barrier Reef, which obviously that implies we should be pushing the rest of the world for such a target. If the government has other information that shows Garnaut is wrong, they should say so. Failing which, we can only conclude that they consider the Reef fair collateral damage for giving coal a few more years of rapid growth.

Mosey over to political web sites in Queensland, and you'll find the big parties are talking green in the lead-up to the 2009 state election. As soon as the votes are counted, the thin layer of green paint will start flaking off. Why am I not surprised?

The craziest thing of all here seems to be that Rudd HAS apparently committed us to a 25% per-capita reduction by 2020 in order to achieve a 5% national reduction while maintaining very high immigration!

So if he was to quickly wind immigration right back (and abolish the absurd baby bonus bullsh!t), we could actually come close to achieving a 25% reduction, even with his very strong pandering-to-big-business attitude!

Why is Rudd soooo intent on maintaining an absurdly high immigration rate…..for which he has absolutely no mandate? Would he really offside his big-business buddies if he cut it right back? There has been some discussion of cuts to immigration in light of the economic downturn. But any such cut would be nothing more than tokenistic.

Isn’t it possible for Rudd to appease the all-powerful business sector while at the same time weaning us off of this extraordinary future-destroying rapid and endless continuous growth crap?

I had an idea I considered completely silly, an unbaby bonus.

Abolish the baby bonus and pay people for every year they don't have a baby. I thought this would be seen for what it was when I told people about it in jest, a parody of a silly policy, but I had people very keen to vote for me if I ran on that policy.

Sometimes it's instructive to come up with parody to illustrate how ridiculous the real thing is, but in some cases it's hard to actually come up with something more ridiculous.

Everybody: Thank you for your comments. All are informative. I offer a few short responses.

Daviy: It is true that an AS could prompt R&D into ways of producing competitive clean energy but, unlike an ETS, it would not generate money to help pay for it or provide subsidies to prevent companies leaving Australia rather than have to comply with reduced CO2 emissions required by an AS. The other important difference is that an ETS sends a price signal to energy users encouraging them to use less energy produced from fossil fuels, thereby reducing CO2 emissions. In your second posting you not that there is money to be made out of clean energy and going green. Indeed there is. Lots of it!

Raredog: The view that increased anthropogenic CO2 emissions make no difference to temperature are not supported by science nor evidence of their effects – some of which have serious implications for the human environment. Mike Raupach of CSIRO provides some interesting material on emissions at
http://www.csiro.au/GlobalCarbonProject-PNAS.html which you may care to look at. Where did you get 90 billion tonnes/annum for natural CO2 emissions?

Faustino: You agree with Barnaby!? My understanding of his position is that he agrees with the Opposition on the need for action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions but is opposed to that action being applied to food production.

Dickie: I think you might be a bit harsh on EPA’s but I agree that you make some good points

Ludwig, Leigh and others: Thanks for comments on population and its effects on the environment. I agree that this is another area where the government needs to seriously rethink it position.

J.Bowyer: The tourist industry worries about the Great Barrier Reef. As for buying waterfront land. Definitely a no-no, unless it is at least 50m. above the present king-tide watermark.

Hello Mike Pope

Thank you for your response.

I regret that you view my opinion as "harsh." However, this is a result of obtaining information from official emissions' reports and viewing the many "Conditions of Licences" for pollutant industries. These are public documents of which few citizens are interested. I rarely allow myself the luxury of providing information, borne from "assumptions" or "wild guesses."

Rather than boring you with these technical documents permit me to quote from the most current report released by the Department of Environment in WA on the lead poisoning of Esperance:

“The marine samples collected showed lead readings between 3600mg/kg and 29,000mg/kg, which are well above environmental levels,” Mr Atkins.

“The environmental levels for lead under Australian guidelines are set between 50mg/kg and 220mg/kg.

“The samples also returned elevated nickel levels, with samples showing readings between 3300mg/kg to 6600mg/kg.

"Mr Atkins said environmental levels for nickel were between 21mg/kg and 52mg/kg. The environmental levels are taken from the Australian and New Zealand Guidelines for Fresh and Marine Water Quality (2000)."

http://209.85.173.132/search?q=cache:xqGlKSEM4ikJ:https://www.dec.wa.gov.au/news/department-of-environment-and-conservation/esperance-initial-results.html+department+of+fisheries+WA+esperance+lead+contamination&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=5&gl=au

In addition, when some 300 Australian citizens have resorted to litigation and have had to resort to employing Erin Brockovich because the EPA and the DEC have permitted a large pollutant company to desecrate the environment and poison the people in the town of Yarloop WA, then it's fairly evident that the environment and the people in that state are being used as cannon fodder. Guidelines have been completely ignored and companies are breaching their conditions of licence (if any) with impunity.

http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0,21598,24594868-5017007,00.html

One must ask, "who is regulating the regulator?"

WA is now officially recognised as one of the most ecologically threatened on the planet and it has been reported that this country has the highest rates of extinction in the world - not surprising.

The myriad of documents on "global warming," I have concluded are mere red herrings, persistently raised by eco-vandals, who wish only to detract from the real situation and who wish only to maintain the status quo.

Cheers

Mike Pope
The Tourist Industry worries about Global warming? What? This is nonsense they are just saying that to pick the taxpayer's pocket like you and your scientific mates.
As for waterfront land being a No No, well the chief scientific scaremonger in Melbourne was proudly filmed with his wife by the ABC standing in front of their Yarra side apartment block. I think that speaks enough about any rises in sea levels.
Hey water seeks its own level and yet with all the melting ice I have not seen any rises in sea levels?
No like all the other "scares" I have successfully faced it will come to nothing.
If we had a decent journalist in the world there would be a story on all the reports about us running out of oil but that was said in the 1970's. I was confidentially told it would all be gone by the end of the 20th century? Well?
Oh Dickie, check some other posters spelling and punctuation rather than victimise me! Help! help! I am being repressed (With apologies to the pythons).