Now let me see, Australia's carbon reduction scheme is to reduce the output of carbon back to the level it was around a decade ago.

So far so good, yet at the same time that carbon production is to be reduced, the level of australia's population, will increase. So in another 50 years Australia's population will have increased by more than 25% above the population level that it was at the turn of the century.

So in reality, if we just maintained our current output of carbon and increased the population size, we would automatically reduced the carbon emmission per head of population, without any need for expensive schemes.

Problem solved.

The cheapest form of reducing CO2 is to introduce a family planning program that encourages couples to have one child at best and two at the most.
Stopping the baby bonus also would help.
None of the other band aids will even keep up with the increase in CO2 due to the increase in population.

Sarnian, if couples want one child, and two at most, then good for them.

But,they already are: the bean-and-baby counters at Australian Bureau of Statistics tell us the assessed average is at about 1.8.
This is “less than replacement rate”, as the Housing Industry Association, Business Council of Australia note; insisting that is a worry for everyone rather than just their profit margin. However, the fertile 1.8 types are a large component of the population. As a result of this, Australian births will keep the nation’s numbers increasing until the next breeding generation takes over.

Also, deaths these days are not what they used to be - what with the beasties delivering diphtheria, smallpox, influenza, etc. being held in check.

No, the population problem - and population pressure and increase is the multiplier of pretty well all other problems – in Australia is not with the breeding habits of its women, but is developed by the insistence of “our” Governments of both persuasions that this continent’s population continuously increase without any magic number in mind for the future.

Currently the Rudd Government seems happy with a rate which will add another Adelaide every three years, ever-continuing. And while our own women don’t fulfil the politicians’ wishes, the help of overseas women is called upon via immigration.

As a result, we have buckley’s chance of getting where Rudd pretends to be heading. The actions of the (adequately informed) Rudd Government in relation to its stated concerns about climate change are not those of statesmen – rather, they are more akin to the Norwegian WWII Quisling government: national well-being is a pretence, not a primary concern

All this argy bargy over various finance oriented schemes to reduce pollution.What a waste of effort and the commentariat has fallen for the scam in a big way.This is actually what the the political and business oligarchy who run this country want - a lot of noise and commotion and nothing done to change business as usual.

It is well known what needs to be done to reduce our pollution.Lets just get on with it and do it,by regulation if necessary,regardless of what other nations are doing,instead of promoting mindless schemes.

Collinset, I am in agreement on some of your points but I am sure that we need to have a fertility rate of 1.8 or even lower, so that the population is going to be lower eventually. The Rudd government (and Howards before) is also is bringing in huge a amount of “skilled workers” which is also putting pressure on the environment. Bottom line is that the population is increasing by a approx one million every 3 to 4 years.

Posted by Manorina, Thursday, 17 September 2009 7:35:14 AM

I don't think they really care about whether a scheme works or not, what they really care about is how much money they can make from the schemes.

Take Malcolm Turnbull for instance, he wants to privatize water. The only real reason to privatize water, is to make a profit from it.

The NSW state Labor also has tried to privatize the snowy mountain scheme, which was built with taxpayer funds.

So taxpayers fund the developement of a scheme and private (pirate) operators skim the cream.