The public may think a little about biophysical limits but in practice breathes a sigh of relief when it's business as usual. A majority claim to want carbon penalties on producers but don't want their food and power bills to go up. My suspicion is that Peak Oil not weird weather will force the issue within a few short years. It seems likely that price of fuel and heavily fuel dependent goods will rise faster than incomes in the coming decade, say $3 a litre petrol and $5 a loaf of supermarket bread. Meanwhile pay packets for those who have jobs will have scarcely risen. That's when the public will demand action.

It seems likely to me a raft of currently unfashionable ideas will come to the fore. Outside the finance sector these include migration cuts, nuclear power, fuel rationing, food stamps, abandoning feed-in energy tariffs, carbon tariffs (customs duty) on imports from greenhouse rogue nations, urban farming using sewage and a return to public ownership of some utility firms. In short a return to war time mentality because the business-as-usual model has failed.

"My suspicion is that Peak Oil not weird weather will force the issue within a few short years."

I think you are right there Taswegian. We are just plain incapable of changing things of the magnitude necessary to achieve a sustainable world before it is forced upon us.

But by the time it is forced upon us, it will basically be a matter of survival of the fittest, a breakdown of law and order a massive fracture to social cohesion and the ability of governments to govern and police to police.

And that's about the size of it!

Boogedy, boogedy, another day, another OLO Jeremiah pointing the finger and screeching at us to mend our wicked ways.

THIS ARTICLE IS NOT BY ME. PLEASE REMOVE IT FROM YOUR WEBSITE.

WARWICK MCKIBBIN
ANU

Apologies! I attributed this to the incorrect author. It has now been corrected.
Susan - ed

Clownfish - Gold!

Ludwig and Taswegian. It is good to see that there are some people on OLO who have got a brain and can understand the problems that are facing the coming generation. One wonders about some of the others who seek to emulate the ostrich. Nor are they content to squander our limited resources, they also seem to have no compunction about polluting our environment as well. Unfortunately, there seems to be little that we can do to convince them of the error of their ways. Evidence and logical argument seem to be something they don't understand.

David

Bill McKibben - whose book 'The End of Nature' was a classic work of popular communication of essential scientific fact, and is still required reading for anyone seriously interested in all this, including Warwick McKibbin - is of course right. What Bill does not give us is ideas on how we generate urgently needed policy change at government level. For this, I suggest, interested OLO readers might look at my new book 'Crunch Time: using and abusing Keynes to fight the twin crises of our era'.[Scribe, September 2009].
[http://www.scribepublications.com.au/book/crunchtime]

'Yes, we can' - if we shed our minds of false myths and illusions about what democratic market-based societies like ours can deliver in cases of existential life-threatening emergency, once the threat is correctly seen. We were somewhere like this in Britain in 1938-39, and we changed the way we organised our society and industry, to prepare for unavoidable war. We survived the threat of Nazism. We can survive this threat too, once we recognize its true dimensions and respond accordingly.

I'm guessing Bill McKibben's just cheesed off because, for all his grandstanding, not only could he get not get himself arrested at his little anti-coal demo, Mother Gaia also had the gall to mock him by snowing out the whole thing.

"They chanted slogans like "Who is hot in here / There's too much carbon in the air" while huddling against the windchill" - Time magazine, "Despite Snow — and Irony — a Climate Protest Persists"

A wide range of policies to dramatically reign in carbon pollution are well known to our politicians. Only the Greens have advocated the rehabiltation and new lifestyle policies that our envirnomental science demands of human kind.

Sadly, the dangerously inadequate polices of Labor and the COAL-ition are similar to the actions of tobacco dealers, supplying their clients, gross carbon and methane polluters with their fix, under the mantra of delay, delay, delay, all will be okay.

We are witnessing the greatest failure of governance ever. Perhaps history will record one day that the elected 'representatives' of the nation with the highest per capita green house gas emmissions in the world, acted more than most to hasten the demise of the Holoscene period and ushered in a new, period of searing heat, bushfires, hurricanes, mass extinctions on land and sea, horrendous poverty, famine in a new period on Earth that could be aptly named the Searascene.

Billie boy this is why
a) you do not frighten me and
b) you have no credibility.
Scary pictures of a dust storm hitting Sydney? Well Bill you crawl under the table and have a sook there's a good academic.
Mate there was a similar occurrence in Melbourne over twenty years ago. There were similar dust storms in the "Dust bowl" in the USA in the 1930's. This is a natural phenomena and you are using it to try and frighten the gullible. I find this all very distasteful that someone who has never done a real days work in his life is not satisfied with bludging off the rest of us but then compounds the insult by trying to pick our pockets too.
The banks, power companies and the politicians are going to try and tax us with this and I believe they will pay a heavy price. This is duplicitous and dishonest behavior. The pay back will be in reverse order of these benefits.

my contention is that democracy fails us in situations like climate change (indeed, look at human history and ecology). Advanced western democracies are more or less at a state of glut; notwithstanding drastic disparities, cultures like Australia are bourgeois heaven. Living standards (consumption) are decadent--based on considerations like equality and sustainability. This is a comfortable place indeed, and people are loath to give it up. It's all very well celebrating government by the people, but the fact is that people are not driven by altruism, or even their own good; they are driven by ambition for wealth and influence, in default of which they will cling tenaciously to what they've got!
Over this basic self-serving drive, that ultimately governs, there is a civilised pretence of altruism that is forfeit when holdings are threatened. Most miraculous of all, any actions deemed necessary to preserve wealth and power are alchemically rationalised as all to the good.
This is not to assign the whole human race base motives; there is a broad spectrum between selfish and unselfish, but to assert that the affluent voting majority are influenced more or less by these drives. Many will congratulate themselves on "being" altruistic, but they will vote conservative--that is to preserve their investment in the status quo when it comes to the crunch. That is why both major parties are conservative, and why action on climate change is grudging, slow and slight. Government and Opposition "are" the people, wrought by polls and ultimately the vote. it is electoral suicide to threaten the stash of the ruling middle classes--who have also ideologically enslaved a great many of the not-so-well-off.
Democracy is a great idea if it is somehow constrained to operate within ethical, equable, and sustainable limits, but it is predicated on the exact opposite! Moreover, those human drives are actually "cultivated" by an economic system that thrives on them.
Democracy cannot be left to decide the fate of the planet; the voting majority lives for the moment and will punish any government that reduces their holdings.

Squeers, I could not have put it better.

It is no good expecting the present developed world to do anything constructive about reigning in our profligate use of energy. Neither is it realistic to expect emerging economies like China and India to slow down their efforts to improve the standards of living of their citizens. It just isn't going to happen. If those presently on the planet continue to reproduce at the current rate we will eventually run into a brick wall when we run out of fuel, clean water and clean air and life will be far from the present Utopia in which we currently find ourselves. By the time the masses do anything about it, it will be far too late. We will then see what Clownfish et al have to say.

David

As I assert, democracy is only the optimal system in a panglossian world, where people "are" governed by moral compasses, and the biosphere dwarfs human detriment in its ability to adapt and regenerate; such a world is demonstrably absurd. Such an optimistic frontier is no doubt what the founding fathers of the United States thought they'd lighted upon in the access of their enthusiasm (their colonial atrocities rationalised as per the human facility sketched above). But they were naive, and the utopia they envisaged has succumbed both to human corruption and the weight of its insatiable appetite. In light of this new (old) wisdom into the human condition (which ought to be acknowledged rather than rationalised)---the reality of human depredation and self-deception---it is anachronistic and foolhardy to continue as if the dreams of the forefathers had been realised. Democracy has become the tyranny of the masses.
I suggest a novel recourse. With problems like climate change (and other issues, Like nuclear disarmament, inequality etc.), countries have to be signatories to an international convention that overrides parochial politics, whose governments, of whatever persuasion, are thus protected from electoral backlash. Rogue nations would suffer sanctions.
But the problem (climate change etc.) is then addressed methodically and analytically, using expert human and computing power to thoroughly identify both the problem and the solution in detail. "This is what's wrong, and this is how to fix it/deal with it (ethically);" then do it!
The reign of unconscionable and untrammelled avarice must end.
Perhaps the human being can even be reformed!

"I suggest a novel recourse. With problems like climate change (and other issues, Like nuclear disarmament, inequality etc.), countries have to be signatories to an international convention that overrides parochial politics, whose governments, of whatever persuasion, are thus protected from electoral backlash. Rogue nations would suffer sanctions."

What a wonderfully clear statement of the ultimate green goal: the dismantling of democracy in the name of 'saving the planet'. People are just too committed to independent thought: making up their own minds and looking after their own interests. Religion has lost its power to sway them: what shall we do? Tyranny is the only answer! Who will be appointed the first Green Supremo, I wonder? Jetsetting Al Gore, or the reconstructed Malcolm Turnbull?

Luckily there are some of us who realise how hard democracy had to be fought for, and aren't about to give up those privileges in a hurry. Man the barricades, chaps: the enemies of freedom are on the march!

Articles like this inevitably remind me of the Great Horse Manure Panic of 1898.

http://www.uctc.net/access/30/Access%2030%20-%2002%20-%20Horse%20Power.pdf

"In 1898 delegates from across the globe gathered in New York City for the world’s first international urban planning conference. One topic dominated the discussion. It was not housing, land use, economic development, or infrastructure. The delegates were driven to desperation by horse manure.

The horse was no newcomer on the urban scene. But by the late 1800s, the problem of horse pollution had reached unprecedented heights. The growth in the horse population was outstripping even the rapid rise in the number of human city dwellers. American cities were drowning in horse manure as well as other unpleasant byproducts of the era’s predominant mode of transportation: urine, flies, congestion, carcasses, and traffic accidents. Widespread cruelty to horses was a form of environmental degradation as well.

The situation seemed dire. In 1894, the Times of London estimated that by 1950 every street in the city would be buried nine feet deep in horse manure. One New York prognosticator of the 1890s concluded that by 1930 the horse droppings would rise to Manhattan’s third-story windows. A public health and sanitation crisis of almost unimaginable dimensions loomed.

And no possible solution could be devised. After all, the horse had been the dominant mode of transportation for thousands of years. Horses were absolutely essential for the functioning of the nineteenth-century city – for personal transportation, freight haulage, and even mechanical power. Without horses, cities would quite literally starve.

All efforts to mitigate the problem were proving woefully inadequate. Stumped by the crisis, the urban planning conference declared its work fruitless and broke up in three days instead of the scheduled ten."

I know, I know, it's not true, it's just a story.

But the message - the pointlessness of unrestrained extrapolation - should be heeded.

Taswegian- excellent points.
I also suggest a need to form contracts and trade deals with companies abroad that use 'green'- or at least fuel-efficient vehicles and machinery and energy saving devices (like in most of northern Europe), or alternatively, public-owned companies that specialize in the manufacture of these devices.

Another is to allow better local veto rights (eg CIR) against developers and industrialists that want to use their area. I'd also advocate the ability to use referendums to demand the above policies.

Squeers- that's strange, as the more democratic countries- where the public ACTUALLY have some kind of say in the running of the country (like Switzerland and Sweden)- are taking the environment very seriously. Sweden in particularly is radically altering their entire infrastructure around green policy.
I'm not aware of any other such country to which you are basing your assumption of democracy on- as they're among the few democracies that allow any extensive public input.
I would easily guess that the majority of Australians would, if they had any say in policies, gladly adopt many green practices if they could (especially as most of them are highly economical)- but as they can't say boo, save for indirectly affecting the absolute mandate of a political party every few years (warts and all), who may have other priorities, naturally nothing gets done.

"We were somewhere like this in Britain in 1938-39, and we changed the way we organised our society and industry, to prepare for unavoidable war. We survived the threat of Nazism. We can survive this threat too, once we recognize its true dimensions and respond accordingly."

Yes Tony Kevin. But what will it take for the populace to accept the enormous changes that their governments need to implement? What sort of a shock will trigger a 'war-footing' of the magnitude necessary to effect the conversion to a genuine sustainability paradigm?

It seems to me that such an event will be the crash itself. That is; the one that will be caused by our rampantly continuous-expansionist antisustainability paradigm. By then it will be too late... or it will take a long time and a hell of a lot of pain to rebuild our society and economy.

---
"We are witnessing the greatest failure of governance ever."

We sure as hell are, Quick Response.

---
"my contention is that democracy fails us in situations like climate change"

It sure does Squeers. Democracy is not only a failure when it comes to climate change or sustainability, it is a HUGE stumbling block! The hard decisions that must be made just cannot be made by democratic governments. They'll just get turfed out at the next election!! It is basically as simple as that! So governments promise to do things that will take us in the right direction, but end up implementing policies that are just piss-weak watered-down version of what we need.

"I suggest a novel recourse...countries have to be signatories to an international convention that overrides parochial politics..."

Yes but, governments will still only agree to piss-weak agreements or else they'll suffer a huge backlash at home. If a government is nearing the end of a political term and its re-election is looking hopeless, then there might be chance of them signing something of the necessary veracity. But of course you'd have to have other countries willing to sign the same thing for it to count for anything!

Thank you herr Squeers our new Fuehrer!
The United Nations is only eclipsed in the corruption stakes by the International Olympic Committee.
Your idea is to let these sort of people have more sway? Really are you sure you are "all there"? I think not buddy.
Look you have a big sook and a bigger cry and realise we all have a vote, you are not smarter than everyone else and anyway we will not let you, OK? Dream your dreams Squeers and the rest of us will get on with life.

I often read commentss on OLO and shake my head with wonder at the overbearing arrogance and self inflated worth of the supposed big brains who lurk there.

There is an undertone that appears now to be surfacing, that everyone who disagrees with those that consider themselves superior, and there are many, should not be heard from ever again.

Indeed, no more voting, dismiss this toy device, democracy, it is not serving the intelligensia (as they imagine themselves) well.

Note to all the big brains, dream on, this is a democracy, it will not be taken a way from us. The majority will not stand for it, yes they are generally quiet and tend to vote like sheep, but disturb their lifestyles, the future of their children and you will see a response.

The term eco-fascism or eco-tyranny would apply to many of the ideas expressed here would it not, don't be shy, just 'fess up, you're incognito.

Would you like the really "dumb" folks culled? That would save more fuel and oil, maybe then cull the ones who "deny" whatever is your favorite cause this week/month whatever?

There will always be a new prophet of doom, there are always predictions of the world ending, there always will be - I'm surprised the big brains are now signing up for one in particular in droves, mass hysteria, the end of technology. There are substitutes for pretty well all the oil products, like grassoline to run your car, nuclear power to run cities - just because you don't like them doesn't mean we will ignore them or our children's future.

Get off the doom train, and try looking at what you can do to adapt, as I suspect at the end of the day you are the "dinosaurs" who will be culled.

The snide comments about having our heads in the sand, pretty much normal for OLO when dealing with people you disagree with. If that's the best argument you can raise, please go and stand with the other dinosaurs.

Odo,

Quick working definitions for you.
- opinion...a point of view that is the result of reasoned facts to a conclusion.

- Prejudice/bias ...a conclusion base on none of the above.

- my view of OLO... an exchange of opinions and a preparedness to read without prejudice, perchance to improve one's opinions (that's why it's a discussion site not a confirmation of prejudice site).

- mob rule...national decisions based on prejudice/bias.

- real democracy ..group decisions based on opinions for the good of all. The difference? facts and reasoning!

Guess where your comment on this topic lay?...... hint, not in opinion...

"We are witnessing the greatest failure of governance ever."

I seem to recall such things being muttered before ... when was it? Oh yes, the 1920s, when it was widely argued that democracy had "failed" when it came to tackling things like the Great Depression. "The hard decisions that must be made just cannot be made by democratic governments", it was said. What was needed was a "strong" form of government, able to make the necessary decisions without having to appease the selfish "voting majority".

What was that government? "Fascism," declared Australian politician Wilfred Kent-Hughes, was "the spirit of the age".

90 years later, couple the capital E - Environmentalists' more and more frequently stated desire to suspend democratic government in favour of their own dictatorship, with their also stated desire to reduce the human population by up to 70% (that's around 5 billion people) in the next 50 years, and I get very, very worried.

Those who forget the lessons of the past, it is truly said, are condemned to repeat them. The Green Left's foolish nattering about "the weakness of democracy" and the overriding urgency of "making hard decisions" needs to be stopped in its tracks, or must we wait until the Green Shirts are parading in the streets? Are the green hard hats of the Environmental movement a worrying sign already?

"Ur-Fascism is still around us, sometimes in plainclothes ... Ur-Fascism can come back under the most innocent of disguises. Our duty is to uncover it and to point our finger at any of its new instances — every day, in every part of the world" - Umberto Eco, "14 ways of looking at a Blackshirt".

Wow- the condescending anthropologists here would make Socrates drop his pants.
The (ghoulish) ghost of Plato still haunts this world, alright.

So I'll try to speak using words even YOU will understand.

Which first-world countries are making the BIGGEST effort to change their practices to becoming more environmentally friendly?
Hint- they're all democracies.

How about giving us a bit of a hint.

It isn't the US of A, and it certainly won't be the countries involved in the so called summit. All they are worried about is who is going to be commercially disadvantaged and it certainly isn't going to be us.

Growth, growth, growth is all that they are concerned about.

David

The usual knee-jerk reactionary nonsense, with a few worthy exceptions. To be fair to OLO I find intelligent contributions do outnumber inane ones ... usually.
Nothing cogent to respond to--indeed, the dessenters bare me out admirably--so I'll make do with some twitter. I'm not suggesting we dismantle democracy--though I am implying we need reform--the fact that it protects human rights, to the extent that it does, is worth preserving. I'm saying that in the real world---ie not the indestructible, inexhaustible cornucopia the denialists believe in, but the vulnerable planet we are in the process of devastating---democratic capitalism (oxymoron) is proving a signal failure at addressing ethical and survival issues. Our treatment of the biosphere is an ethical issue too; it's not just about us. Democracy is rule by the people, who en masse are as responsible and considerate as feral pigs. Lowering western living standards is analogous to denying these spoiled pigs their truffles, hence all the squeeling. The pigs will not vote for pain, even if it is for their own good, certainly not for goodness's sake; they are too pig-ignorant--"they" being the voting entity that holds sway. The real "pigs" are probably a minority, but their effective vote is tripled by the spook that they send through the herd when their truffles are threatened. Incoherent swine though they are, their indignant uproar has a hyperbolical effect on reason overall. Thus the majority vote to keep the truffles and be comforted by the suilline snorting of the bold ones among them.
When it comes to a global emergency, we can't be prevented from acting by a sounder of ignorant pigs! All nations should be signatory to global action that overrides domestic politics. This is not socialism or fascism, it's ethical self-preservation. Just because the pig ignorant say FTW, that doesn't make it ok! Do we get to vote on euthanasia, drugs or paedaphilia? No. And we shouldn't get to vote on whether or not we rape and pillage!
King Hazza. Interesting that you cite Sweden, noted for its socialist policies, as most ready to stand up.

"rats … have followed men like parasites from the very beginning … They are cunning, cowardly and fierce, and usually appear in large packs. In the animal world they represent the element of subterranean destruction ... (their place is) not dissimilar to the place that Jews have among men" - Joseph Goebbels, 1940

"We must kill the Tutsi cockroaches" - Hutu Power Radio, Rwanda 1994.

"The pigs will not vote for pain, even if it is for their own good, certainly not for goodness's sake; they are too pig-ignorant--"they" being the voting entity that holds sway. The real "pigs" are probably a minority, but their effective vote is tripled by the spook that they send through the herd when their truffles are threatened. Incoherent swine though they are ... we can't be prevented from acting by a sounder of ignorant pigs!" - Squeers, 2009

Isn't it remarkable that those who have no logical argument to rebut what can only be described as "reasoned argument", have nothing but recourse to ridicule and offensive language, imputing imagined motives and so the list goes on.

Clownfish et al, this will be my last post on this topic. I am done. Others may wish to pursue what seems to me to be a futile exercise in pursuading you of the error of your ways. More power to their elbows.

Have a good day.

David

Gosh, he's right ya know! I nominate Squeers el Presidente.

(I find it safest to humour these people.)

Squeers- apparently Sweden, classified year after year as being among the "Most Democratic Nations in the World" by the Economist and numerous other studies measuring Democracy, is in fact, NOT a democracy because it's "Socialist".
Apparently Germany- leading country in Solar Panel production and research, the Netherlands, which is introducing vertical urban wind turbines, aren't democracies either.

Oh, and furthermore: The World's Greenest Countries (based on Yale University's grouping to an environmental performance index- and (surprise!)

1- Switzerland (one of the only countries with CIR)
2- Sweden (which, democracy established, has now incorporated electric car recharge infrastructure for the convenience of the public
3- Norway
4- Finland
5- Costa Rica
6- Austria
7- New Zealand
etc

More here;
http://www.newsweek.com/id/98010
And many more for anyone who wants to google for it.

Now comparing this to any list of countries based on a degree of democracy (and admittedly none are quite accurate or base 'democracy' on other criterias than public input- which, anyone who actually bothers to research will quickly find to be VERY LOW in most countries- including officially 'democratic' ones), but you will find the more democratic countries tend to also be greener.

It seems quite a few people get very confused about what 'democracy' actually is (which is pretty pathetic as the other half of the people here explicitly outline it on a regular basis). They either think it only means a system where you vote some guy to rule over you- or more correctly as a system based on public input- but then lazily and falsely associate this with countries that clearly DON'T accomodate much public input at all. Some even go so far as to assume it's related to Capitalism- which is quite frankly so stupid I'm worrying I might get a stroke merely from reading it.

Goodnight everyone!

VK3AUU,I can only assume you took issue with Squeer's ranting diatribe against "pigs"?

Otherwise, what was it about reflecting on 20th Century history and how it relates to the posts on this forum that could have caused you to take your bat and ball and sook off home?

Clearly there will not be a "one size fits all" solution.
The clownfish team: (nothing to worry about, lets get richer) will resent and fight any attempts from the green-team to change, sorry "impose" any sensible evidence based action.
Alas, climate change is going to happen and the dangerous thresholds are going to be crossed. Too many tipping points have been crossed already and the momentum of society is unstoppable. (Fly over Asia some time and check out the sheer scale of human impacts!)
This is OK really; We would have got a Dino-killer impact or big volcano sooner or later anyway. Now, as ever, the mission is to save and support as much of nature as we can and survive the inevitable. The only difference CO2 induced CC has made is we now have a self-imposed time-line, which is probably necessary to get some serious action.
Those who believe in a rational, science based society need to remove themselves somehow from the rest and do it their way.
New technology has made the self sufficient community a reality, and the internet has made knowledge global. Without the profit drag of corporations, the wealth drag of the big hereditary families, the historical political and religious drag... new communities can now operate and thrive.
The tricky bit is start-up wealth and to avoid spoilers (Big Oil still pays imposters to mis-represent the green movement) and to survive the barbarians (Hi Clownfish!) when the proverbial does hit the fan. Communities also have to be ruthless with dreamers and ideologues and ensure they are are actually viable.
Tricky stuff, but historically it is as good a time as ever.

Squeers

In acknowledgement to King Hazza:

Sweden is, unequivocally, a democracy:


http://www.sweden.se/eng/Home/Work-live/Government-politics/Facts/The-Swedish-System-of-Government/
"Swedish System of Government
Sweden is a parliamentary democracy. The Constitution declares that all public power in Sweden proceeds from the people and that the Riksdag – the Swedish Parliament – is the foremost representative of the people. The country is ruled by the Government, which is accountable to the Riksdag.
Foundations of Swedish democracy

In Sweden, democracy and parliamentarism emerged during the earliest decades of the 20th century. Often 1917 is regarded as the year when parliamentarism was definitely introduced. Since then, the king has not exercised any personal power in connection with changes of Government. Formally, however, parliamentarism was not established until the new Instrument of Government in 1974."

Australia could do better than aping the American version of democracy and follow the Swedish example instead.

On sustainable clean technology:

http://www.sweden.se/eng/Home/Work-live/Sustainability/22952/Energy-brGenerating-power-for-a-sustainable-future/

"The International Energy Agency (IEA) ranks Sweden highly on most counts in its report from 2008: low carbon dioxide emissions, a high proportion of renewable fuels and an efficient electrical power market (“Sweden is one of the true pioneers in liberalized electricity sectors”). Ever since the oil crisis in the early 1970s, Sweden has invested heavily in the search for alternative energy sources. Its phase out of oil has proceeded smoothly. In 1970, oil accounted for over 75 percent of Swedish energy supply; by 2006, the figure was just 32 percent, chiefly due to the declining use of residential heating oil.

In Sweden, 43 percent of the energy supply comes from renewable energy."

Thanks Fractelle.
I'm more than happy to demure when I get things wrong, but in this instance it is King Pizza and the other clowns who seem incapable of comprehending plain english. First of all, as I've repeatedly made clear, I didn't suggest overturning democracy. I tried to identify a weakness in the democratic system when confronted by an emergency. Like the Titanic heading for the iceberg, democracy cannot steer worth a damn; it is held on course partly by momentum and partly by its utter lack of agility. Most of our western democracies have exactly that problem; look at all the fuss over a feeble 5% in Australia!
Sweden and the Scandenavion countries are indeed responding to the emergency with far greater alacrity than us, the US and co. Pizzaman was making the point that Western democracies "were" addressing the problem (what a joke), headed by Sweden and Switzerland, and that the rest of the world was not---he obviously thinks this is unfair, notwithstanding that we created the problem and continue to make the major contribution to it!
But to cut to the chase.

I said: "Interesting that you cite Sweden, noted for its socialist "policies", as most ready to stand up (my emphasis)." To
which Hazzar Hazzarded the interpretation that I meant Sweden was "NOT a democracy because it's "Socialist".
Of course I don't, and didn't, say it's socialist! I was plainly alluding to Sweden's and Scandevaia's celebrated (in enlightened quarters) socialist culture, indeed its "democratic socialism".
Orwell once said that "democracy" was the hardest word in the english language to define. Raymond Williams said the hardest word was "culture". Both these authors might be a bit hard on the attention spans of my opponents, though, so perhaps they should try Wiki, or this one: http://www.essortment.com/all/governmentswede_rbfh.htm

I accept your apology, Hazza!

Ozandy - Wow buddy welcome to the 1970's. I clearly remember a nutbar American in Aus then who, like you, was going to join up with the elite and watch the rest of us go over the cliff.
What a joke, the silly sod was always spouting that we were all going to die, and soon! Could not keep him off the telly, most decorated Vietnam vet all the usual rubbish. Whatever happened to him?
Mate you are playing with yourself, still no harm in that, keeps you off the streets etc.
Say after me Ozandy "Ooooooooooooooooooooooh help me" lol, keep up the medication too.

Squeers

You are very welcome - I should've made closer perusal of your and K H's posts - it is good to know we are sympatico on sustainable energy.

Australia has tended to ignore any progress made by the Scandinavian countries at its own peril, it is disheartening to think that only a 5% reduction in carbon emission is being proposed. Another issue is that Australia has enormous amounts of brown coal and uranium, which means that the big end of town cannot see further than their already engorged wallets.

When they are not engaged in undermining efforts to create and install clean alternatives such as thermal, wind or solar (Fred Singer or Ian Plimer anyone?), contrarily, they are trying to persuade the consumer coal can be 'clean' (despite sequestration of carbon being even more of a fledgling technology than the afore mentioned) and that nuclear power is safe - ignoring the environmental consequences of mining, shipping and processing the uranium to plants that have yet to be built. Of course they could be using their corporate might to transition to sustainable industries, but apparently that's just too long term for the intrinsic greed of the business-as-usual crowd.

There have even been claims that CO2 is really, really safe - interesting considering in a very dark part of my life I tried to top myself using exhaust fumes from my car. I didn't survive because Co2 is harmless, my neighbour saved me. And now I know why, so I can speak out against those who would kid you that the planet is an infinite cornucopia which can sustain a continually burgeoning population. That the poisoning of our skies, waterways and oceans have no detrimental effect at all.

No Squeers- I never DID say you wanted to overturn democracy- I was just throwing a spanner into your complaints about democracy by pointing out that more democratic countries (more democratic than WE are) tend to be handling the global crisis much better.
More public input = more democratic- that's all there is to it.
Just because a country is called a democracy, doesn't mean public opinion actually gets very far in politics.
And strangely, the few countries where the public actually has an exceptional degree of input are doing the BEST.

Fractelle
Cheers for the details!
And I agree, Australia SHOULD be getting more inspiration from Sweden (as well as Switzerland) for a system of government than from the USA and Westminster system- the results speak for themselves- in both social, economical, governance, integrity and environmental aspects.

Speaking of inspiration from Europe- another MAJOR difference between Europe and Australia is that European populations are dispersed across the countries in small towns, villages and cities, with extremely high-speed country roads linking them all up- which meant negligable traffic jams, cities so small you could WALK to the other side in an hour (hence the abundance of bicycles), and you could cross half of Germany in the same time it would take to get from Hornsby to Camden (ploughing through endless urban roads).

It very much showed me that a tiny village connected to the Autobahn could get you where you wanted to go WAY faster than going between A to B in a massive super-city because of the complete lack of conflicting traffic between the places (and because the cities ended up being so small, physically, you could park OUTSIDE and just walk- meaning traffic jams are non-existent).

Establishing this as a planning mechanism is easy- trying to convert Australia's sprawling cityscape into this model is a different story.

"I didn't suggest overturning democracy"

No, Squeers, but you did say that democracy - which you asserted is rule by "feral pigs" - "fails us", and that it should be "constrained". You then suggested the "novel recourse" that in certain instances (generally the ones that are of most concern to Squeers, it appears) it should be "over-ridden" in favour of an "ethical" (whose or what ethics is not stated, although one could safely take it to mean "anyone whose ethics agree with those of Squeers") dictatorship of experts and computers. Ludwig then enthusiastically agreed with you that democracy "is a HUGE stumbling block".

So, it *might* not be a duck, but it certainly waddles and quacks.

All of which is not to say that I disagree with you about the gravity of some circumstances, but I am most adamantly opposed to any notions of over-riding democracy in favour of a dictatorship of an unelected, unaccountable elite.

The ghosts of our fathers, who so valiantly fought fascism the first time around, demand nothing less. How appalled they would be, to hear their children aping the very evil they gave their lives to defeat.

Oxandy, if you think that opposing fascism ipso facto means approving unfettered, neo-liberal capitalism, you're an idiot. If you must know, I would class my political-economic views as democratic/soft-left and Keynesian.

Fractelle, not to belittle your pain, but what would have killed you was Carbon *Mon*oxide, CO, not Carbon *Di*oxide, CO2. CO is poisonous, CO2 is not. CO2 in sufficient amounts *may* suffocate someone by blanketing out Oxygen, but not even the most wild-eyed alarmist is claiming that CO2 levels will rise to even a fraction of that level.

Fractelle,

I do not wish to make light of your dark time, and am glad you have pulled through. However, I believe you are thinking of carbon monoxide. All the best.

Article is rubbish.

In a true democracy, representatives should have no opinions whatsoever. Their role is purely to act as mouthpieces to the clearly defined majority of their constituents.
In republican democracy, on the other hand, representatives are very opinionated. Reps are elected to make decisions on behalf of their constituents, according to their personal beliefs. Constituents (supposedly) elect representatives whose opinions most closely parallel their own.
What sort of democracy do we have, and what is the most common complaint about parliamentary representatives?
Yes, I think we could learn a lot from Sweden and Switzerland.

Whitmus

You are correct Carbon Monoxide is the evil twin of Carbon Dioxide, and that is the gas which I attempted to utilise to end my pain way back then. I apologise for lack of precision.

Both Carbon Monoxide and Carbon Dioxide are belched out of engines every second of every day. We humans breathe out the relatively benign carbon dioxide as a result of breathing in oxygen. However, like many 'good' things too much can cause problems, which is what we are experiencing now that carbon dioxide (CO2) has reached 350 PPM. Perhaps you would care to check on some Skeptical Science, where the effects of excess (for our planet at present) is explained and the contribution we humans have made towards the increase, as follows:

"Are humans too insignificant to affect global climate? After all, our planet is a big place. Isn't it arrogant to claim puny little humans could make a dent in such a huge climate? However, whether human activity might affect climate is not a question of arrogance. It's merely a question of numbers. In particular, there are two numbers to consider.
Atmospheric CO2 is rising by 15 Gigatonnes per year

The first on-site continuous measurements of atmospheric CO2 were implemented by Charles Keeling in 1958 at Mauna Loa, Hawaii. This station provides the longest continuous record of atmospheric CO2. Currently, atmospheric CO2 levels are being measured at hundreds of monitoring stations across the globe. For periods before 1958, levels of atmospheric CO2 are determined from analyses of air bubbles trapped in polar ice cores.

What we observe is that in pre-industrial times over the last 10,000 years, CO2 was relatively stable at around 275 to 285 ppm. Over the last 250 years, atmospheric CO2 levels have increased by about 100ppm. Currently, the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is increasing by 15 gigatonnes every year."

http://www.skepticalscience.com/Are-humans-too-insignificant-to-affect-global-climate.html

However, I will reiterate what I say on every climate debate, whether we are impacting the climate or not can we afford to continue to pollute our environment and deplete our natural resources any more than we have?

I would just add, Fractelle, a crucial rider. The skeptics always hide behind the admitted complexity of climate models, clinging to shreds of doubt as to the damage we are doing. So let's forget for a moment that we could be and almost certainly are precipitating our own demise; let's suppose that it all blows over, that thanks to Man's ingenuity we survive more or less in tact. Apart from your rhetorical question, "can we afford to continue to pollute our environment and deplete our natural resources any more than we have?", there is, again, the question of ethics; do we have the right to be indifferent to the Earth's other species and natural wonders? The hard heads out there, the "real men" will of course scorn this kind of talk as effeminate Greeny nonsense, or socialism, fascism etc.
It is possible for us to mend our ways, and perhaps turn things around, but we're all going to have to lead drastically more modest lives than we do now.
Who knows, we might actually be happier with less!

Squeers said we must moderate our demands individually and I agree with him. However some poor person in the third world just wants what we are having too, remember that!
Squeers can you convince that shining knight of the AGW, sorry climate change lobby Al Gore to moderate his demands? That fat oaf consumes more than an African village all on his own.
However big Al has lots of dopey minions like you to adore him, pour scorn on people like me who think you are both wrong and who cares about the third world?
The last bit was rhetorical as we all could not give an Australian stuff!

Nice attempt at dodging your own words, Squeers, but I never said anything about "the right to be indifferent to the Earth's other species and natural wonders".

What I did say was that people who rail against democracy as rule by "feral pigs", and advocate overturning it in favour of a dictatorship of elites, are skating perilously close to fascism.

The old smug 'moderate our lifestyle' argument;
Obviously ignoring;
-Electric cars, with electric infrastructure appearing in Sweden
-Miniature Vertical Wind Turbines powering apartments in Amsterdam
-Solar panels, rainwater tanks, individual filtering systems and some simple plumbing arrangements can render a house fully self-sufficient
-Major polluting industries lobbying governments when in power
-Highly polluting industries currently not regulated on their practices concerning the environment, are granted (by the government) easy access to natural resources to harvest, have so far only been asked to pay extra (through their ratepayers).
-Developers given green lights (again, by government, against visible public protest) to override any environmental regulators to make their money-spinners.
ALL of which the 'feral pigs' would demand more access to if they were ever given a say- as it means free energy and water, cleaner air and less corruption, along with environmental improvements (which you assume NOBODY but yourself care about).

But no- the only way to save the world is to cut the above proposals as lost causes and instead demand the hoi poli to cycle around Sydney's 12144.6 km2 area, (over 50 times larger than any European city), go to sleep at 6.00pm (no power = happy environment), and pay extra taxes to hopefully encourage someone else NOT to pollute, and THAT should make a bigger outcome, because it's all really their fault for tolerating it.

Quite frankly if I were a member of an environmentally-UNfriendly industry, THIS is the kind of "environmentalist" I would employ to shift attention from myself.

King Hazza

I despair, truly.

When we can't even reach a consensus whether we should actually take action towards clean sustainable living, let alone the type of infrastructure that would enable a balance between pragmatism and the modern comfort to which we have become accustomed.

I agree, cycling around Sydney would be a nightmare - those steep gradients and of course the expanse of the city itself. Like most solutions, there is not a single magic bullet, but rather a combination. Cycling has its place, as does effective public transport, electric cars and a multiplicity of energy sources from geothermal, wind, solar to hydro.

Ironically, the vast strata of brown coal in Victoria insulate geothermal energy which could provide unlimited heating by leaving the coal in the ground and drilling below. At present the feasibility of drilling beneath the coal strata is very expensive and would require cooperation between the coal industry and government.

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/nationalinterest/stories/2009/2722723.htm

I live in hope.

I think we have a reasonably optimistic situation at present Fractelle- at least with these to begin with a substantial change in environmental circumstances would occur.

The only problem is a high initial cost of implementing these things directly, or a lower cost of subsidies and assistance of easier market access to these things- and I'm pretty sure that they'd all be popular proposals to the public- being that it also means having free, independent energy and water generation and usage, better living conditions (lack of air and noise pollution from regular cars replaced by cars that may well be attached to an electricity grid (cheaper also- especially if its attached to a non-private renewable source)- leaving again the only cost being the gradual implementation of car recharge services, as opposed to the continuous re-purchase of petrol) and industry that's not beyond control environmentally.

The only problem is the lack of enthusiasm from the industries to make/import electric and hybrid vehicles to any particular degree, and the absolutely zero enthusiasm from the government to take measures to accomodate these technologies, but rather help the existing industries.