Historian
you make some good points particularly "the whole of the environment".
There are two points that you should consider.

There is a difference between an open mind and one that is wantonly empty resisting all facts.

The other is is a little more esoteric.
Many people need the flagship mentality to see the point. i.e. save the Koalas ....functionally who cares about a marsupial that has little direct impact on people (except in extra ordinary circumstances)? In order to support the koala one needs a functioning environment...that I support.

Selling the sizzle(hyperbole) not the steak endemic in the media and campaigns in general i.e. "Obama has a wife two cute children and a dog" oh yeah! Is he all the answers in one persona... not bloody likely but he is demonstratively better than GWB or the alternative.

All this "let's do nothing until the evidence is unequivocal". Refer to my wantonly vacuous comment. There ain't much human life jobs or profit in a desert wasteland. Yeah for Mad Max.

As for AWG ?! who cares if we continue trash this planet on multiple levels the result is the same. There is more than enough good science to prove that! Does it matter that CO2 may not be the single cause?
Which scientist is saying fix CO2 on its own will solve all our ailments? they appear to be saying that it is a multi level problem.
If in fighting it slows or stops the other ailments then I'm in

rpg

China's construction of coal-fired power stations has raised concerns but many people are not aware that China is the world's leading builder of more efficient, less polluting ones. While the US and OZ are still debating whether to build them, China is.

What many people are also uninformed about is that, while Western countries continue to rely heavily on ‘old’ coal-fired power stations, China has begun requiring power companies to retire older, more polluting ones for each new one they build.

China's coal-fired power sector still has many problems, and GHG’s from the country will continue to rise. However, China is using the newest technologies to limit the rate of increase, including solar, wind and nuclear – they are (despite your pretestations) doing more than we are to tackle the global problems of climate change.

China has doubled its total wind energy capacity in each of the past four years; is now the world's largest market for wind power equipment and largest producer of solar technology and inovation. China is building considerably more nuclear power plants than the rest of the world combined.

China does have a huge population (not 1.1 billion btw, you must be thinking of India) and 800 million still live in poverty. What is helping them out of poverty is their manufacturing base that has grown exponentially since many Western companies have gone ‘off-shore’ – to build cheaper consumer products like your kitchen appliances, plasma TV, widgets you use and the clothes you wear (shareholders love their dividends).

Talking about ‘per-capita’ emissions is not a distortion. It is true that we are amongst the highest (if not highest) in the world ... China is not. However, it is pointless for Australia to embrace tough targets unless America and China (as the largest emitters) change their ways, and as I have tried to explain – China is.

Human rights issues have got nothing to do with what I have said and the rest of your post is challenging me (of which you wouldn’t have a clue), not the issues I raise.

James, you may feel my criticisms are harsh but this is a very serious issue, one that you've freely expressed your opinion about in a leading internet journal; no-one's stopped you or censored you! Nazi style suppression? Please!
In any case this is a Forum and I get to freely express my opinion back. I think your article is denialist drivel because: it suggests and implies that climate scientists are so dumb they haven't even thought about the role of the sun, suggests and implies volcanoes are where the extra CO2 is coming from, suggests and implies that climate science is in doubt but governments go along with it and is short on the kind of information that getting informed can provide.
You really need to get better informed - it's not the sun, the amount of CO2 from volcanoes is actually small in comparison to our emissions and it's not a conspiracy to raise taxes. Taxes are a tool and we had better use every tool we have, because warming hasn't stopped and scientists haven't made anything up or overlooked things.
This issue will not go away and failure to deal with it will have devastating consequences. I think that people who argue that we should believe it's not serious and support the continued growth in emissions are a serious danger to our future, so get used to a bit of vitriol.