What absolute rubbish. If Obama is not careful the US will waste the leadership given by George Bush and once again be attacked by terrorists. As for climate change in 5 years or so we will be wondering how once again we have been duped by people such as Al Gore who is making a killing out of this latest farce.

No argument Sniggid, but is someone ever going to tell me how it is that carbon dioxide has become a pollutant?
If there is some factor controlling climate change THAT CAN BE MANAGED BY US PUNY MEN & WOMEN we are wasting our time concentrating on carbon dioxide.
I don't care if Al McGartland and his American EPA Clean Air Act has decreed it is a pollutant. What they are doing is ensuring that Al Gore and all the "Green Chip Review" customers keep on making excessive profits at our expense.
Yes, I am a Climate Change Sceptic member.

"Of all of the pressing international issues on Obama’s plate, global warming, unless halted, is likely to have the biggest negative impact on the quality of life on our planet."

Evidence, please? How much 'negative impact' has the rise in global temperatures from 1970 to 1998 had, for instance? And what reason is there to believe that after eleven years of stability global temperatures will rise again -- and not, say, fall sharply?

"However, to present this debate as two-sided is nonsense."

I agree with you. One side is relying on evidence and logic, the other on ad hominem attacks and meaningless appeals to 'consensus', as if 'consensus' in science ever proved anything. But now even the 'consensus' is breaking up; what's left? Oh, yes...

"While most would agree the Iraq war was a grievous error, its consequences are likely to have much less impact than the failure to address climate change."

...spreading panic and despondency, let's not forget that.

The globe isn't warming, fool, it's cooling.

All the models touted by the UN got it wrong. If the science was settled, there would be only *one* model, and it would have got it right.

The entire hoo-haa over global warming is the product of government funding of science. Having no other way to know whether they are serving the common good, and no measure of their own interests than government grants, they fall a natural prey to any political fashion.

"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."
H. L. Mencken

This latest political fad just happens to aim at a new tax, surprise surprise, and government control of any and every aspect of human life that uses carbon, in other words, everything.

Obviously no "treaty" is going to be negotiated by the 20,000 people who are about to descend on Copenhagen. Either Rudd and Turnbull do not know what is in the drafts, or they are concealing it from the Australian people.

The current draft gives complete power over the Australian economy to a committee of unelected UN carbon regulators controlled by those claiming “climate compensation” from us.

This group will export our wealth (at $7 billion per year), our jobs and our industries until Australia’s emissions per capita are equal to those in places like India, China and Brazil. There will be no reduction in global emissions or pollution, and no climate benefits.

One can only wonder whether the author's neo-religious state-worship should be attributed to invincible ignorance or deliberate dishonesty.

Obama doesn't have to do a damn thing.

He has got his nobel peace prize, and is not obliged to do anything else.

We hope he does, but as president of the USA, the needs of the USA are his top priority, not the world environmental movement.

Now this article is rubbish because ... the consensus among the posters responding to it here is that it is.

Gotta laugh at the warming idiots, their lack of logic and science and obvious irrational religious fever.

Brendon, I think OLO'ers have been rather kind to you considering. I for one get tired of articles trying to score points by stealth.

Where would you like us to focus our attention Brendon, Obama? Noble Prize? or perhaps Global Warming?

You should get one, they are really very good. A life of your own that is.

Obama's snubb of Copenhagen is to be applauded. There are plenty of useful things for a US President to do. Playing silly little games re climate change is not one of them. Leave that to those looking for seats on International Committees. This is Obamas first tick as US President. He is finally facing up to reality rather than spin.

The Earth has had mass extinctions in the past due to natural disasters such as massive metior hits. But never before, on a global scale at our own hands. To most OLO'ers who have posted here, they seem to share the scpeticism of the hard core global warming deniers in the Coal-ition.

The fact that most eminent climate scientists have sophisticated models that are being fine tuned as more data comes in and they are warning of 6 degrees warming in 90 years if we continue as we are, such scenarios should make science literate and science believing people everywhere be alert to the clear and present danger we are facing.

We have a diabolical conflict between wasting no more time in making fundamental changes now to the forms of energy we use for power generation and transport or face the consequences of flouting the scientific warnings as nature responds in its own savage way.

Obama seems to be working on re-newable energy bi-lateral arrangements with China that must be strategic, fast and massive, to make a difference in the years to come.

This problem getting an effective agreement in Copenhagen has exposed the need for a powerful world government that is driven by science and ethics to sort out the global mess on so many fronts. Our weak, bickering national governments with foolhardy politicians have ensured there will be no chance of reaching agreement on anything of substance.

Look no further than our own pathetic CPRS contribution to a global solution from the highest per capita CO2 gas emmiting nation in the world at 22tones per capita per annum.