I tend to agree with Ludwig when he writes "So I’m inclined to think that the best outcome from Copenhagen would be for the whole thing to collapse and produce absolutely no agreement". However, there will be some mealy mouthed statement of the sort we are used to from Kevin Rudd and heaps of Dollars for poorer countries to waste or cream off to leaders bank accounts.

But, in reality, a little further down the track we will eventually come to the belief that Carbon Dioxide is not the polutant that is being claimed but a most helpful gas for us and the climate will change as it has done for all the time that the Earth has been in existence. In a way, a lot of people have not progressed much from the "Tower of Babel" days

As several writers have pointed out, there never was any historical 'tragedy of the commons', because the people who held the land in common worked out formal and informal agreements to prevent its being overexploited. The whole concept is based on an implausible myth.

Likewise, if and when it is genuinely necessary to curtail unrestricted access to resources, we are quite capable of doing so -- witness the slow but sure rise of government control over Australian water supplies, for instance.

If a 'tragedy' begins then we will deal with it. Till then, as with so many other apocalyptic 'tragedies' that never actually happened, we can simply get on with our lives.

The real tragedy here is how little common sense is being applied.

First, as the CRU e:mail/code/data revelations are showing, the IPCC scientists have gamed the system in order to enhance concerns about global warming. Al Gore is proven to have not been factual. Rajendra Pachauri arguable has serious conflicts of interest, as for that matter does Al Gore. It may NOT be true that global warming is occurring. On the other hand, there are many examples of disturbing climate related changes at a local and regional level. Most of these are due to land-use factors, such as deforestation, disturbance of natural hydrological systems and the like.

Second. It is NOT proven that rising CO2 levels will lead to global warming. It is not contested that there is an effect - doubling of CO2 levels could lead to an increase in Global Mean Temperature of around 1 deg C - but the system becomes saturated with the effect that additional CO2 has an ever-reducing impact.

Third. It is impossible for the world to reduce CO2 emissions. And if we did it very likely would have no impact on climate. Certainly the projections are not encouraging, even if we were able to reduce CO2 emissions.

Fourth. We are not being told the cost of all this to Australia's families. Solar, wind, geothermal are all undeveloped systems with massive problems. Rising demand, plus no more coal fired power stations is bound to lead to electricity prices doubling or more. For what?

I am afraid that the Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming caused by CO2 hypothesis is unfounded and unproven. It will, in time, become a chapter in "Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds".

The good news is that you can relax about the consequences of failure in Copenhagen.

It does look like Mitchen was right in saying Australia should first wait to see what happens in Copenhagen first before passing into law an irreversible and costly ETS.

*If a 'tragedy' begins then we will deal with *

So you claim Jon J, but the reality is quite different and
the fishing industry is an example.

There are all sorts of agreements in place, but of course
people cheat, so we wander off and plunder another species,
when one species is basically buggered.

Look what happened with bluefin tuna recently. Stocks are
down to critical levels, for despite all those agreements,
the Japanese, hardly a poor or stupid nation, were cheating
for years.

One of the jobs of the Ocean Viking, before she got caught
up with refugees, was discovering 150km of trawl nets in
our Southern Ocean, seemingly set by a couple of Spanish
boats. There are good reasons why the Spanish sail all
the way here for fish. They have basically stuffed their
on fishing grounds with overfishing.

So the tragedy of the commons is alive and well for all to
see.

The tragedy is that subject of climate change has been taken and twisted into propaganda for an emissions trading scheme to take hard earned money from people who earned it. Scheme is the key word, that's for sure.

There is already a shortage of money at the bottom of the economy where ordinary generally people can no longer live from available wild game or low cost fish. Under-developed countries without social security are hit hardest.

Stimulating the lenders and big business is not the sole solution. Consumers/customers/buyers should get stimulus through adequate income and less taxes. Less company tax would allow increased wages.

Government should get on with developing new productive industry to generate revenue. More reafforestation and new whole of ocean ecosystem and fishery regeneration industry to sustain water and climate quality and world protein food supply, would be a beginning.

One day there will be a wake up how sewage nutrient-fed algae in the ocean is impacting climate, dead algae producing methane that on contact with oxygen forms increased C02. If COP 15 had been about genuine solutions to climate change there would have been success.

There is too much politics and gagging of science and innovation.