You don't have to agree with me Bazz, it is a tested fact. A number of studies, have been disappeared very quickly due to finding that public transport uses more fuel per passenger mile than the private car.

It is no point arguing with me about it, argue with the lefty universities who could not get a different result to their studies, no matter how hard they tried.

I personally prefer the train, to all other form of commute travel. I used to leave my car at work [in Sydney city], & catch the train to & from work to home in Cronulla. Not too sure if I would have felt the same, if had not been able to get a seat. I only drove in Monday morning, & home Friday arvo.

This does not work for a vast number of parents who have to take kids to child care or school, as part of their commute. Public transport is absolutely useless for this type of travel.

As I have often promoted, I'd shut down the CBD in cities, & move the office towers out to medium to fringe suburbs, to eliminate the peak hour crush.

Hasbeen, don't remember commenting on your statement about public transport.
Looked back but could not find it.
A 1/4 full bus might be marginal, but then bus companies around here
use those small about 20 seater buses for short local runs to/from the
railway station.
Preschool & schools are usually near home so many mums drop the kids
off and park at the station. Thats what my daughter in law did until
she changed to a school in a remoter area. She is a teacher.

A near empty train would not be efficient either, although they do use
shorter trains out of peak time, in some but not all cases.

As far as multistorey office buildings are concerned, eventually they
will become untenable anyway. Their maintenance will become impossible
and the masses of cubicle screen jockies will be a thing of our past times.
The long commutes by car will be unaffordable. I calculated some while
back that someone living at Seven Hills and working at Mascot would
be paying about $130 per week for tolls and petrol, and that is after tax money.
I can't imagine what it is now.
No, as I have said before everything will become local.

I'm so late getting on this thread no-one will be interested, but a few observed misconceptions, if I may.

Hasbeen, just because our current public transport system is inefficient is no reason to trash it in favour of more cars - no matter how efficient you make those cars. Where would Tokyo be without an efficient rail service? No, the answer is to make our public transport more efficient - more and better rail services and fewer buses, less frequent services and pack them in, instead of leaving them half or three-parts empty; we need to stop spoiling people, and stop wasting resources on inefficient services.
Rail freight would also be more efficient than road, if we only had the foresight to make the necessary infrastructure facilities available at both transit ends.

(And Bazz, high speed rail can make sense if it can be efficient and cost-effective - ie with full capacity - by reducing airline services between major centres, which would have to be much less efficient, wouldn't you say?)

Also, re agricultural or forestry absorption of increased CO2 output, this equation can only balance if we could increase these absorptive capacities in unison with increased emissions (which will increase with population increase forecasts - unless we make people eat less, do less, consume less totally, and stay at home) UNLESS industry, power generation and domestic consumption could all become very much more efficient - as arable land is finite, is already over-exploited, soil fertility (and output) is declining and fertiliser cost rising and availability declining. Forests are declining, and being replaced by marginal agriculture. Sure, we need more productive, more efficient plant species, but where from? GM? Or should we envisage a 'green' planet arising from massive permanent algal bloom - which would certainly absorb CO2, but also end all viable fisheries?

Whatsit2ya has a point - millions of years of fossil fuel generation being 'burned' in a few hundred years? Do the math. (All those believing in a 6,000 year old Earth, please leave the room.)

Saltpetre,

"....million of years of fossil fuel generation has been "burned" in a few hundred years..."

Well yes....

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2013/03/hockey-stick-graph-now-even-more-stickish

As for the Carbon Tax: The ringaroundrosie of pinch peter to pay paul is really a joke, a smoke and mirrors game. Our emissions may have reduced because some industry has become more efficient (or less wasteful, or shut down altogether) and domestic consumers may have tightened their belts (less aircon and heating, solar power and solar hot water, fewer and shorter showers - anything to save a buck) but it's small change. And, the ETS is a sham, with the shysters rubbing their hands and saying 'bring it on'!

No, the only incentive for industry to become more efficient is to remain cost-effective in international markets. If our domestic production is more expensive than an import, then our industry is dead. Hence, productive efficiency has certainly to be improved, but our electricity dependent industries desperately need power generation to be more efficient and less expensive, or end of story.

Hence, merely charging electricity producers for emissions, but allowing them to fully pass on that impost, achieves nothing. Whereas, charging them for not reducing emissions (to a cap), while at the same time forbidding them to pass that cost on to consumers would get them hot and bothered but also working seriously on emissions-reduction technological development (and emissions capture and conversion).

Similarly, propping up high energy consumption industry (with 'subsidies' from C tax revenue) is only delaying the inevitable - unless power cost is actually reduced by the provider, AND the industry becomes more energy-efficient itself.

As for why bother: So many nations are taking Climate Change seriously, it may only be a matter of move voluntarily now, or face sanctions (or a huge get up to speed) later. No longer a 'choice'. (TBC>)

(Cont'd>)
Alternative efficient energy strategies are a development opportunity, but only industry can move on this, of its own accord, and will only do so if the incentives and the certainties are in place. What incentives and certainties? 'Geared' introduction of permanent emissions 'Caps' tied to productive outputs, with heavy (and scaling) penalties attached, and fixed electricity pricing. 'Prizes' for innovation may also enervate, and some R&D Grant 'seeding'. With no 'buck' to be made or saved over the long haul, there is no incentive.

It's either that, or big subsidies for domestic and even industrial scale solar or wind installations and set, and substantial, grid input guarantees from the relevant mains energy providers direct to the consumer, and with a small corresponding reimbursement tariff to the government. Push-me, pull-you.

I think Tony Abbott has some such 'direct action' strategy in mind, and, if so, is bang on the money, IMHO. (Fixed electricity pricing, plus emissions caps, penalties and incentives = no need for subsidies to consumers = no need for the C tax or for an ETS.)

In the longer term, we had better get used to the idea of a nuclear power plant in a paddock near any of us, unless our government gets off its butt and invests in an industrial scale pilot solar thermal array in the outer precincts of one of our capital cities, or gets possibly working on a remote fully self-contained satellite city in the back-blocks, to which major industrial production may be relocated. We await with baited breath.