Leigh is right, they are all nutters here and the USA.
I am all for reducing waste of energy or of consumption of materials but I am not keen on nutters telling me what I should do while they live in harbourside apartments. The nutters also seem to make a lovely living out of telling me what I should do!

Unfortunately, the climate extremists have alienated a lot of support the movement might have otherwise had. People are learning to dismiss climate doomsayers as nutters because extremism does not appeal to the mainstream. It is likely to lead to less rather than more respect. A balanced, reasoned approach is much more effective, even if the situation is dire.

Looks like the author is attempting to extract sympathy for himself and his cause by this self-flagellatory effort however, it is hardly likely to gain any more support for the cause, nor will it have any discernable effect on the climate, so getting arrested and telling the world beforehand is a peculiar bit of self indulgent martyrdom we could well do without.

Bill McKibben (for any who have not read the article, the author):

"More importantly, we need a powerful and active movement not to force the administration and the Democrats in Congress to do something they don’t want to, but to give them the political space they need to act on their convictions. Barack Obama was a community organiser - he understands that major change only comes when it’s demanded, when there’s some force noisy enough to drown out the eternal hum of business as usual, of vested interest, of inertia."

Sound familiar? How about the following:

"Germany needs a powerful and active movement not to force the patriotic Germans in the Reichstag to do something they don't want to do, but to give them the political space they need to act on their convictions. Adolf Hitler is a peoples' leader - he understands that major change only comes when it is demanded, when there is a force noisy enough to drown out the eternal hum of business as usual, of vested interest, of inertia." - attributed to Josef Goebbels.

Brownshirts.

A 'kristallnacht'.

And a fire in the Reichstag.

So there! I've fulfilled the letter of Godwin's Law.

Yanks, if you cop this, you'll show the world you have come a long way since the 1930s.

Read 'em all the Riot Act. Arrest the lot of 'em if they do it. The really concerned people of the world will be in need of lots of 'indentured labour' for the real work of looking after the planet. Start 'recruiting' with this lot: you'll be getting some of the worst trouble-makers off the streets. They propose to dishonour what is shaping up to be a good presidency, under which things proven to be necessary for the future of civilization can be set in train under the rule of law, and in accord with equity.

You don't need a rabble-rouser setting the agenda. Such demagogues need a powerful and active movement to fulfill their ambitions and delusions of grandeur, nothing else.

Zero tolerance.

Pseudo science is almost as bad as no science. We are all carbon units, supported by carbon, made of carbon, nourished by carbohydrates, and CO2 is the fertilizer that laid down the coal deposits in the first place. Instead of marching to close down the fertilizer factories giving life giving carbon a chance to have its day in the sun, this tunnel visioned protester should be devoting his energy to finding ways to encourage plants and oceans to take up the carbon produced.

I was once involved in an experiment that supplied trace elements to a grossly deficient ecosystem which was producing about 200 kg a hectare of measurable carbon sequestration in the form of grass, above ground, and the same below annually. By the addition of all of the twenty six elements necessary for optimal plant growth, this two hundred kilograms, was increased to 2000 kg per hectare. There are millions of hectares of land in the world, where this same science would recycle carbon, to end starvation everywhere. Instead of paying forty dollars a tonne to end carbon emissions, that forty dollars a tonne spent on essential plant foods in places where it rains, would be a positive step.

I am not an oceanographer, but I have been told that fertilizing the ocean with algae encouraging trace elements, would have the effect of sequestering enormous amounts of carbon, and cycling it into food. I am a landlubber, and I do know how to make plants grow. Here in Australia we have the equivalent of the Mississippi flowing under the middle of this continent and I am told it is fresh water suitable for irrigation. Give us water, sun and fertilizer, and all the carbon delivered out of our coal plants could be made into food.

Instead of being a Luddite, this misguided individual should be joining the Freedom from Hunger campaign. We have scientists who can teach us how to use carbon wisely, instead of trying to use it to push an idiologicaly bankrupt wheelbarrow of starvation and frigid politics. Carbon is a blessing, lets enjoy

Leigh and others,

We need and have a police force to prevent nutters from causing others harm. Crimes such as steeling and assaulting others are not acceptable and we endeavor to prevent them or punish the perpetrators.

There is no police force in this country empowered to prevent the harm the nutters who run or support coal-fired power stations are inflicting on humanity. So Bill McKibben and others have to do the job.

They have my wholehearted support.

Kulu, you used coal-fired electricity to make that post, didn't you?