Shock! Horror!

People and politicians vote and make decisions based on self interest.

The cost of cutting emissions in any one country are enourmous and will have a mass impact on the economy. Also the effect on the environment of only one country cutting emissions is nearly zero.

Every country is posturing to get the least committment for itself whilst getting the greatest global committment. At this point the science is almost irrelevant.

With Australia's emmissions at about 80% above 1990 levels what can Rudd commit to without ruining the economy or moving the base level to 2009.

It is depressing that our politicians, notably those presently in opposition, think that their job is to aggressively champion the most retrograde and ignorant stance taken by the most ill-informed sector of the voting public.

We need political leaders that know how to lead. That are prepared to view all the available information, at least in summary form, as supplied by independant experts (YES we KNOW they are not scientists, duh!) They should be willing to consult, have enough brain power to assess, and the cojones to take the right stand, for the good of our country and the benefit of future generations.

And that would mean saying no to all these mendicant industries that are demanding that we pay them to do the right thing and clean up their act.

It's scary, but T(ony)Rex Abbott might end up making even Little Johnny look like an advanced thinker

No point worrying about it.
They have gone mad over there in Copenhagen.
It appears most countries are insisting Australia must count
the CO2 from bushfires !
No suggestion as to how you do that, just do it.

The whole ETS thing is a totally corrupted system in Europe because
there are ways yo verify who produces what, except from electricity bills. So guess who will get that tax.

In any case it won't matter, long before it gets too much hotter
we will be in big oil & coal decline and the climate model program
will try to divide by zero.

So much for politicians and scientists.

ps the reason the children were thrown overboard was because they
had scuttled the boat.

The basics of climate change are so simple that anyone who says they cant understand it is obviously mentally defective and should be pensioned off and looked after. Either that or they are greedy, evil, selfish bastards who dont give a f#%$ about anything but their own greed and money and power and their cowardly fear that they might lose some of it.
The scientists are now giving us plenty of evidence of actual changes that are happening and some of that and future predictions are incorrect/incomplete and some is up for debate. But the basic science of CO2 and other gasses and their interaction with energy from the sun and the earth are long settled and agreed upon. Without CO2 their would be nothing but ice on earth. The more of it there is in the atmosphere the more of an effect it will have. There is much much more CO2 in the atmosphere than before the industrial revolution. Most of the extra is a result of humans burning huge amounts of hydrocarbons. One day that carbon will be incorporated into plants and removed from the atmosphere. This is the carbon cycle. It has been accepted science for many many years. The question is will there be any humans around to see it continue?

Bazz: "ps the reason the children were thrown overboard was because they had scuttled the boat."

No Bazz. The children simply were not thrown overboard. There was a senate enquiry into it, held while the Howard government ran the show. The enquiry concluded it didn't happen. The evidence they based that conclusion on is public, and in particular the signals sent Navy vessel are publicly available. At no stage did those remarkably detailed signals say kids were thrown overboard. The crew from the vessel also had to testify to the senate enquire, and they said it didn't happen.

With evidence like that you would have to be die hard right wing conspiracy theorist to insist are all liars and the kids really were thrown overboard.

is there anyone objective enough to consider how many scientists support the global warming theory and how many don't?