I suggest that climate change policy should basically be a spinoff of policies directed in a couple of other all-important areas. It shouldn’t be something that is policified as a primary objective.

We desperately need to concentrate on adjusting to a scenario where the price oil is considerably higher than at present, which is something that could happen very quickly. This could devastate our economy, on all levels from personal to big business and government and could trigger massive unemployment and social unrest.

It is extraordinarily important that we quickly gear our society towards a regime of vastly less oil dependency. If we did this, we’d be reducing greenhouse gas emissions enormously more so than if we tried to address climate change in isolation.

The other all-important policy area is the development of a sustainable society, which necessitates a move right away from the continuous growth paradigm. This is intimately related to and overlapping with the move away from oil.

Again, if this was the primary focus, gains in terms of climate change would be much more effective than if we addressed climate change as a primary objective.

Your thoughts?

Ludwig has lifted the veil on the fraud. AGW may, or may not, be occurring, but the world sure as hell seems to be running out of recoverable crude oil! There seems to be a great gulf as to comprehension as to what this may mean, one starting to become clear in the Gulf of Mexico, however.



Australian liquid fuel supply security!



Priority one! This election strikes me as being very reminiscent of that period in history, late 1939-early 1940, known as the Phoney War. 'Gap Oil' is coming and I don't see any Churchill in the offing amongst the present offering (except maybe a certain 20-year-old just starting out on the public stage in Queensland) nor much will to fight! Can I say it again for those who haven't got it yet? National public policy Priority One needs to be:



AUSTRALIAN LIQUID FUEL SUPPLY SECURITY!



Ludwig rightly foreshadows that Australia, the very fabric of its society, will shortly be looking down the barrel, a barrel that doesn't have much oil in it but a bloody big bullet just waiting to cook off. Do we wait for 'Big Oil' to solve this problem for us? Do that and they'll send us all insolvent! Yet that is what it seems, nationally, we are doing.

Australia, in possession of world-class coal resources, under-employed human resources and talent, and a presently stable society, is confronted with the opportunity of supplying CTL products to a world facing a gap in liquid fuel supply adequacy, and what is being done about it? Australia should own this huge opportunity lock, stock, and barrel!

Isn't it interesting, though, how apparent problems often contain within their own description the seeds of their own solution. The problem recently presented by the revealing of a defective alteration to the Constitution contains within that defect itself the words:

".. civil conscription".

Time to reset the electoral clock and conscript some candidates that might offer the people a greater choice as to representatives capable of addressing this national problem/opportunity, perhaps, Your Exellency?

Forrest

We << …will shortly be looking down the barrel, a barrel that doesn't have much oil in it but a bloody big bullet just waiting to cook off. >>

A horrible scenario beautifully expressed.

Brought a sting to my eyes.

Ludwig,

IMO your post offers wise words. At last a discussion that isn't predicated on ego and blatant self interest.

I have always said, that there are many ways of 'skinning the cat' and that the diametrically opposed combative approach is worse than pointless. I have never believed in a case of a wall switch (one day carbon is free the next day it is oppressively expensive) strategy for anything complex. Simply put there are no magic bullets.

It is like a population policy, it was never going to work by futile issues like stopping illegal boat people(sic) stopping Asian migration etc. while ignoring the greater sources of immigration and that we are connected to the world.

Both issues require a more integrated policy suite. Much of this will be through indirect actions.

Of course some businesses are going to lose with a change of methodology/technology that is the risk of business(buggy whips and wig powder are two examples).

The utterly absurd notion that this change in the way we live will (unequivocally)destroy our economy is simply rooted in self interest and terminal myopic thinking.

Clearly there are a multitude of options, with sensible thinking the transition would be relatively seamless.i.e.there will be jobs, business opportunities as yet unknown.

One needs to consider the 'spinning Jenny', computers, internet all of which 'were going to cause collapse'...they didn't and frankly neither will CO2, fossil fuel, pollution reduction. One could even go so far to suggest that if handled intelligently we as a species might even be better off.

Even if Gillard said ANYTHING about securing Australia's liquid fuel supply I'd be less anxious, but neither she nor that other bloke seems to want to go there. Too alarmist, too this, too that.

What the hell are they waiting for? Diesel at $3.50/litre and rising? Or get right behind our promising methods of generating liquid fuels? We have just about the perfect country to make BIO-diesel from a range of sources, none of which are proved up to large pilot scale yet. The block is investment. AKA the the government.

We do actually need our agriculture to survive or don't they know that?

A problem has been identified (carbon dioxide emissions) and there are several ways of trying to deal with it. Unfortunately, people prefer to segment things to suit an agenda. Clearly, such an issue involves politics and economics as well as representing public sentiment of the times.
People get very polarised in their opinions about these big ticket issues, and often their technical knowledge is based upon a few episodes of Catalyst or similar.
Saying no new coal fired power stations will be built and stuff, (probably because they are already built anyway) is absolutely nothing versus shutting down the extremely pollutive Latrobe Valley brown coal operations. Look at the chemistry of burning brown coal, particularly how all that water is converted into carbon dioxide, and tell me building no new coal fired power stations (which werent going to be built anyway) but keeping Latrobe going is going to make one iota of difference.

Put simply, it isnt.