To All,
The answer Is SOOOOOOOOOO simple. Put God First and love one another then we will tend Gods great garden and stop abusing it and one another, For Jesus is the reason for the season. There is ALL WAYS a BETTER WAY. But when we put self, money and greed first there can be no unity. Imposible for man but possible with God. LOVE covers a multitude of sins,

Foxy,
Did you know that Obama invited Tom Friedman to a five hour game of golf at Andrews Air Force Base on 20 Sept 2009?
I'm guessing it was to thank Friedman for all the NYT support during Obama's presidential election campaign.
Friedman probably used the opportunity to pitch for a bailout of the troubled Grey Lady.
A reasonable quid pro quo, I'm sure you will agree.
Some would argue that a government media bailout would cast doubt on the integrity of news reporting,
but in the case of the NYT I doubt it would be noticeable.
I've commented before on this web-site about how slanted the NYT is.
I believe you've even suggested that they can be bought (by Duke University).
I'm surprised you would even read, let alone recommend, a book by Thomas Friedman.
There's got to be something fishy about someone that pally with Obama.

Now now Foxy, your smoking reminder was a particularly poor
example :)

It would be more like, the doctor claiming, that if people in
India and China keep increasing their amount of smoking, it
might be possible that somebody's children one day might
die of cancer.

I remind you, you are free to stop producing green house
gases. No more car, no more electricity, no more OLO :)
it won't make a scrap of difference.

Banjo, thanks for your question, it highlights just why I started this thread.
See I have questions, honest ones, I have none about Global warming, I believe in it.
I look for evidence mankind is responsible for it, but think he is.
I wounder if man can do anything about it, doubt we can unite to undertake that task but await answers.
In retrospect, even with oppositions yes/no answers, I still think we should have got an ETS across the line.
But Banjo, in your posts I see definates, you definitely believe not in science that opposes your ideas, in truth my school pass in waste management, burning rubbish in the school incinerator, is no less value than any ones on this subject.
CJ Morgan, your mob are from my side of center, to some extent refugees from my team.
I may be wrong, but with every bit of my instinct think they have set too radical a target.
And know it, dreaming of refugees continuing to come but by being as bad as conservatives may yet send some back to Labor.
Politics is about compromises.

Belly,

I suspect you are being a little negative. Copenhagen is struggling with one of the many legacies left by George Bush. Look at this graph:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kyoto_Protocol_participation_map_2009.png

See that red bit in the graph? Well that red bit emits about 40% of the worlds total GHG's. Here on OLO posts repeatedly say "there is no point in Australia implementing an ETS if the rest of the world doesn't". There is some sense in that. We all have to do this or it won't work. Everybody Copenhagen knows it. And despite all the political bluster here and elsewhere about how it "must happen" you can bet your sweet booties no one is going to sign on the dotted line to commit themselves to a whole pile of pain when the elephant in the room is just thumbing their at the entire process. Fix that red bit in the graph, and I guarantee you things will move quickly.

And you know what? Despite claims like "what about China, or how about Russia", that graph shows that isn't where the divide lies. This isn't west versus east, democracy versus socialism, or white versus yellow. This is the USA versus the rest of the planet. It doesn't matter whether the country was communist, democratic or tin pot dictatorship, they all signed on. The only country of any consequence that didn't is George Bush's fiefdom, the USA.

The great white hope we all have in all of this is it ain't George Bush's USA any more. The times, they are a changing.

CJ Morgan: "the Greens rightly opposed the final form of the ETS is that it had been compromised to the point of being worse than useless."

Yes, it was compromised. But the Greens were wrong to refuse to sign it.

An ETS has no chance of getting up is if it isn't a net gain for business. If it isn't, they bash the political will to implement it to death with money. This by definition means it will be worse than useless when passed. That is exactly has it started in Europe, and it remained that way for 7 years. I guess the 7 years seemed so far away business didn't care. Care or not, it can't be rolled back and is now beginning to bite. Unlike the rest of the world emissions in Europe are dropping, even though the credits were handed out free. In 2013 if the polluters haven't cleaned up their act, it is going to cost them real money. Up till now they just made money by selling over-abundant credits.

Our proposed ETS is exactly the same. The sooner we pass it, the sooner we get through this seemingly mandatory "worse than useless" phase, the sooner we start to get our emissions down. You would think the Greens would realise that - but no, rather than being part of the solution they choose to be part of the problem.

And the thing that really gets me is the Greens could have done what the opposition did. They could of sided with the government got the thing passed, but instead of insisting on amendments that watered the thing down as the Libs did, they could have strengthened it and made the real cuts come in faster. But instead apparently they thought a bit of noisy grandstanding would yield far better results for Green party. I don't know - maybe it did. And maybe I am just being downright unrealistic to think they shouldn't set aside their founding principles for a bit of cheap political opportunism. Maybe that is why I will never be a politician.