(...Continued)

We don't need to consume energy and other resources at unsustainable levels. When you and I were born, we did so into a comfortable society with a standard of living higher than most of the world, even now. How much would we suffer if we didn't build McMansions that require air conditioners to be livable? Just how many TVs and other appliances do you need for a family? Do you really need that second car? Is everybody entitled to a holiday house and boat? Can't you have a holiday somewhere where it isn't necessary to fly?

The fact is that the best evidence tells that AGW is happening, with very negative results for our descendants unless we bite the bullet and start to do something about it. We need to wean ourselves off coal, which puts us in the position of a junkie who has to sell dope to fund their own habit.

Yes, there will be pain. But there will be a whole lot more if we do nothing. I support an eventual ETS and reduction in consumption, precisely because I want my kids and grandkids to inherit a planet that will sustain them into the future. It is you who is showing selfish disregard for future generations, not those of us who want real action on AGW.

@ Hasbeen:

You've answered your own question - we need to shift our economy from its current 'banana republic' structure, where we act as the world's quarry and destroy our scarce forests, to a first world economy that creates new green industries that are able to be sustained into the future. As I said, there'll be pain, but there is absolutely no alternative in the long run. All that 'business as usual' will achieve is delaying the inevitable, when the effects will undoubtedly be worse. But of course, you won't be around then, will you?

Please tell us Morgan what clean green industries are you talking about? I have yet to have any one tell me what they are, or better still where they are working.

If you find out, you had best go tell Spain, & California. They both based their futures on this pie in the sky, & both are bankrupt.

Other US states that signed up are now running as fast as possible to try to get back to a workable economy.

I await your answer.

@ Hasbeen:

Instead of playing the old game of you trolling and demanding answers to questions from me, I've got a more productive suggestion - let's turn the tables and play hypotheticals!

You present yourself as one of those practical, down to earth types who knows everything. As such, you currently deny that Anthropogenic Global Warming is happening, so you haven't turned your creative mind to working on strategies to adapt to it as yet - otherwise we'd obviously have those elusive solutions. Let's pretend for the sake of the execise that the boffins aren't in it for the fame, status and wealth, and that they're correct about AGW, and ultimately its effects will wreak havoc on our society. Let's also assume that, for various equally good reasons, nuclear energy is not an option.

As the 'can-do' man that you are above all others, what would you suggest if the AGW hypothesis is true? Do we keep on digging up coal and selling it cheaply to the big emitters until it's all gone? Do we keep on subsidising coal-fired power stations that belch out greenhouse gases, literally like there's no tomorrow? Do we continue to allow public transport services to decline while building ever more elaborate freeways? Do we continue to bribe people to reproduce? What sort of indutries would you recommend that don't add to our greenhouse emissions?

At the moment you're in denial about AGW, so you haven't had to consider seriously these kinds of questions. You remind me of the last generation of Nauruans, who squandered the non-renewable resource that had made them rich, while rendering their land virtually useless for any other purpose, which is why gthe poor bastards now want to host detention centres. Hey, why don't we adopt your approach, since that option is open to us - we could turn Australia into one bid refugee camp for people displaced by climate change!

I await your hypothetical answers.

moregainzola..quote..""what would you suggest
if the AGW hypothesis is true?""

i would let industry
go into the resssion it has to have
[ie let the cost send some broke;thats capitalism

i would stop trying to pick winners
and giving non market values for solar cells
we heavelly subsised...then pay extra top-up..for their day time power

[i would charge them double for their nighttime use
ie for the extra coal..firing up coal for night time really costs]

i would make them build their own lines to solar/wind farms]

and charge those who are hoked to coal power at night pay fair share..at true value[and not make a new deerivitive for the elites to trade in/on

that will se the price of carbon permits go to as much as the market can bear

'"Do we keep on digging up coal""

define copal..[are you talking to that 'special coal'
NEEDED to make steel..or that brown mud coal from a swamp]

are you suggesting that all coal is just coal
that only carbon polution from coal is the real problem
WHAT ABOUT FUeL c02?..that c02 is kosha?

""Do we continue to allow public transport services
to decline while building ever more elaborate freeways?""

no
but mate when was the last time you took a bus?
their fares have gone insane..way beyond inflation..
[state dent..odious debt iof the states [alp states proffiteering]

qld debt alone will be 75 billion in 2015

""Do we continue to bribe people to reproduce?""

do we continue to bribe people to get solar?

do we keep subsidizing big users...
who arnt..one of the 500?

What sort of indutries
would you recommend to get your tax
do you trust govt to 'pick' winners?

why still subsidize farmers polution...
of nitrous oxide..100 times worse than c02
or methane from home composting..

the 'cleaner fluid..used on solar cells
is 140 times as bad a 'greenhouse'gas
producer*

140...times worse than c02
[read rupert murdock]

At the moment you're in denial about the solution
doing the wrong thing..is worse than doing nothing

Morgan, you are the one wanting to disrupt every one's life, with the bee in your bonnet, not me.

If you want to be taken seriously, give us the reasons why we should listen to you. Then tell us how we could survive, if we did as you demand.

You lefties are all the same. Pontificate continually, but have no answer when the acid is on you.

Just to help out. Public transport has greater cost & emission per passenger mile than the private. Save yourself making the mistake of recommending it as an answer to your desire.

Come on Hasbeen - surely an action man of the world like you is up to the challenge?

Imagine that AGW is happening and will have dire effects on society and environment unless checked, and that nuclear energy is not an option.

What would a brilliant engineer like you suggest?