I'll be voting Green for the first time in the next election, since I see both Labor and the conservatives as equally enslaved by the popular vote. The only reason the Greens have a semblance of independence is that they have no hope of winning an election. Strong support for the Greens is the only thing that will motivate the main parties to defy their constituencies, change their policies and risk electoral damage.
I suspect (like James Lovelock) it's already too late to adequately address AGW and avoid the devastating consequences that are in store. Which, however, leaves the ethical reasons to try. AGW has never just been about us. Nor has it merely been a question of whether human activity is causing climate change. Human activity is indisputably causing planetary devastation. We are decimating species diversity, polluting earth, air and water, destroying the planet's vital organs--forests, oceans, river systems--and monopolising and impoverishing food and all other resources. Even if it was true that withal this human devastation the climate could go blithely on, unaffected and impervious, what of these global obscenities that we commit against the blue planet and its miraculous, perhaps unique, living biosphere?
Of course only ignorant swine could conceive that they may make the entire planet their private sty to roll around in, with no material consequence--certainly with no comprehension of moral or ethical or humanitarian considerations!!
Unfortunately the pigs, so far, are running the farm.

Phoenix94, Leigh, Col Rouge, Raycom and others believe that climate change is not happening or, if it is, it is certainly not down to human activity. But rather than state and support their position, they resort to personal abuse. At least Bigmal offers some additional info – even if it is spurious.

David f is right in complaining that this is hardly debate or good argument.
Shadow Minister succinctly agues the stark choice “climate change or nukes?” But is that the only choice? Could we/should we convert existing coal fired power stations to gas, which has much lower greenhouse emissions, until we can produce our energy needs from clean sources such as geothermal and solar?

Squeers suggests that the only alternative to an inactive government and an impractical opposition is to vote green. If enough people take that advice, the Greens could win enough seats in the Senate to hold the balance of power which would make the Coalition irrelevant and hold the government to account where reducing greenhouse gas emissions is concerned.

Mike Popes article argues that neither government or opposition are willing to do enough to make a difference – but is that true? I think government is doing a lot more than is publicized and that its CPRS, while far from financially efficient, is at least guaranteed to bring down greenhouse gas emissions – or is it? Can the same be said for the opposition approach which is to rely on energy being used more efficiently so that less has to be used, which means burning less coal to produce it?

Copenhagen seems to have agreed that with present day technologies, economic growth can not be achieved without burning fossil fuels. Is that true in the case of Australia? And, as Shadow Minister says, what about Nuclear? Isn’t it only an outdated ALP hang-up and scare campaign that prevents us from generating electricity from nuclear? Ziggy Switkowski tells us that modern nuclear power stations are efficient, produce very little waste and can be built on any scale at almost any location. So why don’t we?

Yeah, me again

All very well for Pope to claim that Rudd has squibbed it at Copenhagen but what would he have done – what would you do – to make a better impression, let alone get a better result? Rudd didn’t falsify the level of our emissions, nor did John Howard. They both argued that we should not be penalized for emissions which are beyond our control such as those caused by bushfires. A perfectly reasonable position.

Sure, the government did itself no favours by making an “unconditional” offer to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by a meaningless 5% but it has since given an undertaking that it will do what is needed to keep global temperatures from rising more than 2C. Problem is that Wong is still telling us that we (which means the government, not us) are committed to doing “no more and no less than what the rest of the world does”. And in the current state of play that leaves most people totally confused. Seems to me that “we” are committed to doing sweet …….?

More rubbish from the alarmists.If Pope is fair dinkum he should back all these claims with a bet say $50,000.You watch them run since the longer history of climate change does not back them.They have to ,"Hide the decline" Those Islands in the Pacific were sinking due to plates moving and not sea level changes.More lies.

JonJay - could I humbly suggest an alternative to one of your statements "Greens could win enough seats in the Senate to hold the balance of power which would make the ALP irrelevant"

The way the ALP is behaving and shoveling spin and playing games, eventually the average Australian will have had a belly full of that crap and vote them out for being smart ass bullshyt artists. (Fair suck of the sauce bottle mate, cobber, me old china!)

Poor davidf, so thin skinned, he thought phoenix94 was poking fun at him and took his bat and ball and left in an awful huff, after announcing it of course. That's what I thought was so funny, the instant knotting of his knickers, and the quick prance off stage.

No davidf, it's not a discussion site, it's an opinion site, and here you need a thick skin, it tends to get a little "rough" at times, but we all expect that.

Well I'm sure the Greens are full of princesses anyway, so he'll fit in well. Don't worry about the economy, health, defence, infrastructure or education you green voters, just worry about plastic bags, coal fired power stations and whale botherers. It pretty well defines gullible fools doesn't it. All their votes end up with the ALP anyway, so they are really just a faction of the great Labor movement.

I'd thought it was obvious long before Copenhagen that Rudd and co weren't serious about climate change. They were willing - eager - to negotiate away any teeth their CPRS and ETS had and blame the Liberals for doing what Labor wanted all along (to stem loss of votes to the Greens?). No negotiating with Greens I note; that would mean changing policy to be more in line with what climate science is telling us is required.

Of course it's a step forward to even have the issue acknowledged but our Labor government is overseeing the biggest expansion of fossil fuel mining and export Australia has seen and uses nonexistent Carbon Capture and Storage as the excuse to do so. Much more worthy technologies like hot rock geothermal languish whilst R&D funding is channelled to the biggest greenwash scheme of all. I notice even the fossil fueled energy industry won't invest in CCS of it's own accord.

Meanwhile all the voices, loud and insistent as they are, saying science is wrong, it's a conspiracy, a hot spike in a warming trend proves it's cooling, someone said something inappropriate in a private email etc just aren't credible compared to the world's leading scientific institutions. Given the wealth and power of the interests that want AGW to be wrong and just go away the contrarian cause still can't get credible science published, or demonstrate the existence of any conspiracy but their own one of denial. They can't get published in peer reviewed science or get accepted by mainstream science because their arguments don't stand up to genuine sceptical (ie scientific) scrutiny. To dismiss mainstream science in favour of the tissue thin arguments of climate science denial is to bet everything on science's losers.