“Those advocating climate change mitigation policy have hitherto wagered everything on the success of renewable energy technologies. The steadily accumulating data on energy and emissions over the period of intense policy commitment suggests that this gamble has not been successful.” (Dr John Constable, 'The Global Warming Policy Forum')

The net result of several decades of such measures has been negligible. Yet, the rent-seekers, liars and hysterics still stick to their guns in the face of the bleeding obvious. In the same spirit as these scammers suggested 'deniers' should be punished, will they, instead, be punished when their tricks are obvious even to the fools who still believe them? Nah. The flat earthers and the witch-burners of Salem got away with it when their hysterical superstitions were finally revealed.

o sung wu,
>Heavy Industry would need to find better and more efficient ways to obtain power other than relying on electricity.
I'm thinking almost the exact opposite! Heavy industry would have plenty of cheap electricity to take advantage of most of the time, but would shut down or scale back production on days when electricity's expensive.

>By employing the older diesel-electric locomotives to generate power in times of heavy usage
> - wouldn't these diesel loco's emit unacceptable levels of pollution?
They'd be used so rarely (only in peak hours, on <1% of days) that it wouldn't be a big problem, and there are things that could be done to mitigate the problem (such as using sulfur free fuel).

I don't know how viable it really is, but it's certainly something worth investigating. And I'm sure plenty of rail enthusiasts would like to see (and hear) the locos running their engines at full blast again!

Nuclear power is a good option for some countries, but I don't see it as economically viable in Australia now. If we'd started building it to replace coal power twenty or thirty years ago it would be different, But meanwhile renewables technology has moved on a lot further than you realise.

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individual,
Yes the burning of gas leaves an environmental footprint. But it's usually a much smaller environmental footprint than the burning of coal. Obviously we have to learn from the exceptions to ensure they're never repeated.

Ultimately we should phase out the use of gas from fossil sources (except where it would escape into the atmosphere if we didn't use it) but that's a very long term objective of little relevance to present day activity.

That 2012 study about electric cars has been well reported, but many regard its assumptions as flawed, and there have been other studies since then that have reached different conclusions.
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ttbn,
Mining is not intrinsically bad, and even the Australian Greens support it. But it does have a large environmental impact which needs to be managed.

There is one simple fact that the ratbag greens refuse to admit.

We the peasants lead much longer, more healthy, happier lives since we started using fossil fuels, than did the kings & courtiers in the pristine environment of the middle ages.

If the emissions & residues of modern power generation, industrial processes, & transportation systems are so bad, why has our life expectancy doubled, & our health improved so much?

This is merely the dislike of academia, & the elites seeing the mere trady, truck driver or clerk living a life today, better than any of them lived immediately post war. They never intended the living standards of the peasant to rise to any where near this standard. They are horrified to see us with nice homes, cars & even flying around the planet for gods sake.

They want us back to the days of the feudal estate, where peasants lived in huts, & walked everywhere. All this luxury was never meant for the likes of us.

They tried to use this scam, & the useful idiots among us to get us back in our box. They made the mistake of using us to fight their wars, where we discovered we are every bit as capable as them, & usually better.

The sun spots, or the lack of is going to kill this attempt for them, but they will try again. We need to be ever vigilant, & we need to get on top of the dumbing down of the education system, so we are ready to defend ourselves next time.

'We the peasants lead much longer, more healthy, happier lives since we started using fossil fuels, than did the kings & courtiers in the pristine environment of the middle ages.'

so true Hasbeen but then again think of the paradise the Indigeneous lived in before the 'evil' British came. Unless of course you were a woman or disabled.

Wow, Hasbeen, it looks like you've been busy building strawmen!

Whether the Middle Ages really were pristine is debatable, but nobody wants us to return to those conditions. Our living standards improved because of improving science and technology: our understanding has improved and we've taken advantage of that to improve our lives.

Previously, improving our standard of living required large amounts of fossil fuel. It no longer does, because our understanding has improved sufficiently to achieve the benefits in other ways. Yet our consumption of fossil fuels is much higher than when our standard of living did rely on it.

I'm not aware of any elites trying to hold back technological process. If any exist, they're clearly not very powerful, so I wonder: on what basis do you assign them elite status?

However, in the area of macroeconomics, the elites are firmly in control and we've been damaging our standard of living by running needlessly tight fiscal policy for years. When will you stop falling for their propaganda?

Some of the income that the Greens and climate hysterics/liars/crooks want Australia to forego:

Coal exports last year - $66.2 billion.

Gas exports - $63 billion