There are a number of arguments against reducing CO2 emissions still floating around. They are all based on some kind of misunderstanding. A focus on scientific uncertainty ignores the economic reality and the principles of risk management which are fundamental to sound economic management. A focus on China and other poor countries ignores the reality that they will never match our level of per capita CO2 emissions and that they are already investing more in renewable energy than we are. Criticisms of Kyoto ignore the fact that it is merely a first step, not a final solution and that attempting to create our own version is a step backwards.

http://www.ozpolitic.com/green-tax-shift/climate-change-for-the-sceptics.html

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I'm afraid that the opinion presented is flawed on two main points:

1) the economic cost of substantially reducing emmissions will be large. In fact, many have estimated the costs of prevention to be much higher than the costs of global warming.

2) If China and India are not asked to reduce their emmissions, and it's only the developped nations that are asked to cut down, the reductaions madce will be minimal, if even existent. What is proposed is simply a formula for exporting jobs, not for cutting greenhouse gasses. Again this undermined your entire 'insurance argument'.

A good source of information about global warming can be fgound at www.timblair.net

"A good source of information about global warming can be fgound (sic) at www.timblair.net"

Yeah right.

There goes any credibility AJFA may have had about the subject of climate change.

Not all the answers are technological. Maybe not even most of them.
Many of the paths to stabilization run straight through our daily lives, and in every case they will demand difficult changes.

We drive alone, because it's more convenient than adjusting our schedules for public transit. We build even bigger homes even as our family sizes shrink, and we watch ever bigger TVs, and - well, enough said. We need to figure out how to change those habits.

Air travel is one of the fastest growing sources of carbon emissions around the world, for instance, but even many of us who are noble about changing lightbulbs and happy to drive hybrid cars chafe at the thought of not jetting around the country or the world.

Are we ready to change, in dramatic and prolonged ways, in order to offer a workable future to subsequent generations and diverse forms of life? If we are, new technologies and new habits offer some promise. But only if we move quickly and decisively - and with a maturity we've rarily shown as a society or a species.

Dear AJFA,

I am heavily involved in the issues you opine, please temper your well meaning but obvious (mis)understanding of them.

These sites may help you (and others).

http://www.ipcc.ch/

http://www.unep.org/geo/geo4/media/

http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/dn11462

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Library/GlobalWarmingUpdate/

http://www.un.org/esa/sustdev/csd/policy.htm

http://www.desmogblog.com/slamming-the-climate-skeptic-scam

http://www.realclimate.org/

http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/independent_reviews/stern_review_economics_climate_change/sternreview_index.cfm

I would like to read your comments, along with others, following our meeting in Bali next month.

All the best for the upcoming election.

Best wishes

Enjoy the mass junket davsab. I hope the 10000+ attendees are offsetting their travel emissions with a few trees.

Lowering Australia's "per capita CO2 emissions" unfortunately will not make a scrap of difference to atmospheric CO2 levels and have even less of an effect on global climate. Good luck in the election, you're going to need it.