Can the West really be ‘taxed’ on climate?

Eric says:

05:35am | 07/12/09

Climategate. Google it.

And get rid of your PC. It’s “stolen goods”.

Luke says:

07:40am | 07/12/09

Abbott did not say he doesn’t agree with climate change legislation he repeated over and over as you said and if you cared to listen, he DID NOT SUPPORT KEVIN RUDDS ETS. He does believe in climate change and believes we need to do something about it. He is now trying to get debate on alternative ways of cutting emissions rather than Rudds ETS. This debate should have happened 2 years ago but didn’t thanks to Rudd rail roading the issue and saying it’s my way or the highway.

Cameron Price-Austin says:

01:44pm | 07/12/09

I agree. While there’s been a lengthy debate about whether climate change is occurring, there has been very little debate about the best way to reduce our impact.

I’m still trying to make up my mind, but I strongly resent Rudd’s implication that those who disagree with his ETS are climate change deniers.

Super D says:

07:59am | 07/12/09

Actually in demanding we take unilateral action, which is waht the Rudd government and it’s patsy Malcolm Turnbull are doing is tantamount to taking a vow of poverty.  Rudd’s ETS will make us poorer for no environmental gain.

Peter says:

08:16am | 07/12/09

Don’t you just love the Wayne Hutchins of this world with their barely concealed rage bubbling below the surface? They are the ones who ostensibly advocate an open debate but with every word, including their ad hominem and quite aggressive attacks on those who disagree with them, betray their real refusal to address some totally apparent realities.

Mind you, the Labor ETS is deeply flawed and polluter friendly - where are the polluting behavioural changes encouraged?. Do we really think we can sustain a growth economy model forever while consuming a finite environment? It is not just CO2 but the myriad other environmental challenges that confront us.

Luke, you are easily pleased by Abbott’s pretty transparent approach. He is essentially a climate change denier with a few anodyne words to cover his flank. Energy savings etc. alone won’t even begin to mitigate emissions. A few seconds of maths will confirm that.  And the costs?

And Phil, the civilisation project started way before our “Grecian ancestors” and that includes democracy. Latest research seems to indicate there were democratic forms in the area now known as Iran and Iraq way before Athenian democracy emerged.

Now we have a form of democracy here in Australia where large powerful interest groups including the determined coal industry hold the rest of us hostage whether we want the grim future for our descendants or not.

Wayne Hutchins says:

09:20am | 07/12/09

My barely concealed rage as you put is is a consequence of an awakening.  It happened when I worked out that it was the politically correct minority that were a major hinderence to the prosperity of this country. Everybody else in the past has been too scared to speak out for fear of persecution! Do you dispute that the article was one sided and unbalanced load of rubbish! Politics is changing my friend!

Peter says:

08:18am | 07/12/09

Let’s use Mann’s trick to hide the decline.

Joel B1 says:

08:25am | 07/12/09

Here’s my idea. Even my AGW fearing wife (PhD) loved it. It’s about the green movement as typified by crystal-healing, chakra and dream-catchers, not any particular political party per se.

What if the green movement wanted to return us all to a pre-industrial village-based society? By saying AGW is true and it’s destroying the earth they make societies reduce, reuse and generally take a backwards step through ETS schemes. Just like is stated in the article.

But more interestingly, what if they wanted to destroy modern societies faith in science?

What better way than supporting and encouraging AGW supporting science?

AGW is to a large extent either true or not. If in fact AGW is true the greens win. But, if AGW turns out to be false, most people in society will never trust a scientist again (or the UN or national governments etc). In this way the green movement can turn most ordinary people into Luddites.

Either way the greens win…

Russell says:

08:46am | 07/12/09

The reason people like Paul have got so excited about climate change is that allows moral critique of capitalism (“we want too much”) without the burden of having to come up with an alternative model.
Come on Paul, Karl Marx did the hard yards. It didn’t work out too well, but at least it had enough legs to stick around for 100 years. And form the basis for the miracle that is modern China.

Ah, but they’re the ones cooking the planet. With our resources, which we can’t dig out of the ground fast enough. And in return Paul gets his iPhone, plasma, bicycle, and nice shiny PC so he can share his insights with us lesser moral people, “who want so much!”

Saint says:

09:04am | 07/12/09

Paul, at least you are honest enough to declare your agenda. It seems, based on what you have written above, that for you this is an issue of bringing the spoiled consumers of the West into line and that AGW is very hand mechanism to do so.

Unfortunately, the IPCC ‘science’ has been completely discredited by the Climategate emails and, awkwardly, the actual evidence and REAL events are completely contrary to all the models.

At the most basic level, the AGW argument fails as carbon levels have continued to increase expontentially in recent years while the planet has, demonstrably, stopped warming. Now, it may begin to warm again, but carbon generated by us naughty consuming Westerners cannot be the cause.

The very sad thing is that the whole environmental debate and discussion has been hijacked by AGW and its proponents who all have an agenda of some kind, be that to make bazillions of dollars off the back of it or as a mechanism to impose their political beliefs on the rest of us who just want to live our lives without feeling guilty about it every second of the day. This means that real, useful and pragmatic discussion of the effects of the changing climate (which we cannot control) and how to best deal with them cannot be had. And spending billions of dollars on an ETS or similar taxes will make no difference at all to anyone and make many lawyers and the like very very rich. I think you will find those of us who “baulk at any cost associated with mitigating and repairing the destruction wrought by the economic system that has given us such privileges” are not baulking at the cost or the tax, we are baulking at the fact that there is not a shred of credible evidence to suggest human activity is responsible for climate change and even more so at the fact that the ETS and similar mechanisms will do absolutely nothing at all to mitigate or repair, they will simply cost people (many of whom who can actually not afford it) a lot of money and make prosperous nations poorer and less capable of genuinely dealing with a climate that will keep on changing as it has for millenia.

I was also wondering if you could provide some facts or evidence of “the millions of people around the world losing their lives, homes or livelihoods to climate change every single year”. Or did you just make this up for effect?

And then there is the standard problem with people who preach in the manner you are. I assume you don’t live up a tree or walk everywhere you go. I assume you used a computer to produce this article and enable it to be posted. I assume the computer is powered by electricity. If you really truly believed in what you have written above, you must really struggle to sleep at night.

And finally, with respect to fossil fuels. Yes, we are dependent on them. Yes, it would be great not to be. And wouldn’t it be brilliant if all the energy and money currently being wasted on the AGW scam were directed into finding REAL alternatives (that would actually work)?

Dave Sag says:

09:43am | 07/12/09

Well mate I gave my real name, which is more than you can say.  I’d say I’m quite qualified to talk on this issue having worked in the carbon industry for almost 10 years.  Shock horror I actually know what i am talking about.  I’ll save you the trouble of Googling me if you like as The Punch already has my bio on file.

http://www.thepunch.com.au/author-bios/dave-sag/

Michael says:

12:42pm | 07/12/09

Here’s a solution that everyone should agree with. If you believe in man-made climate change, you get taxed into lowering your “carbon footprint”, and if you don’t, you’re not taxed. Forget about the far Right wanting power, what about the nutso Lefties wanting to tax every one of us into deliberately lowering our standard of living over something that would make Scientology look like a sane religion?

And you with your “stolen goods” and “losing their lives to climate change” makes you just as crazy as the best of them. Name someone who has died because of the climate changing. Just one.

susanai says:

09:46am | 07/12/09

I’ll second that.

Dave says:

09:58am | 07/12/09

Mate, if you are a hunger striker, it’s likely Bob Brown appears right wing to you. Strive to get a little balance in life.

Balanced says:

10:36am | 07/12/09

I got a Bachelors degree in Chemistry, including Nuclear and Radiation Chemistry, in 1980. At the time, Sydney belched coal smoke from residential fireplaces and we dumped toxic waste into rivers and Sydney Harbour. I learned to scuba dive before it was a popular sport. The Harbour water was too polluted to see anything and North Head was a dumping outlet for untreated sewerage. As a conservative kid from a farming background I used to ponder, in the Chemistry Labs overlooking Randwick Racecourse, if all this waste being dumped into oceans and the air would one day lead to a chemical reaction, like the ones I observed in a test tube where one last drop instantly turns two liquids into a solid. I thought, what if we eventually destabilise the atmosphere so much that it just disappears, as it seems the Martian atmosphere may have once existed and disappeared. At that time, plans for a Nuclear Power Station at Jervis Bay had earlier been scrapped by the Whitlam Government and Chernobyl and Three Mile Island were in the future. Like the writer, I have no doubt that the human race is living beyond its means environmentally; as the dominant species on the planet, that is our nature. We are going to have to deal with it for risk mitigation because, for all the new technology and knowledge we have, scientists are still learning about the atmosphere and measurement is improving, not perfect. I predict it will take another century for us to learn how to have a serious impact on managing our planet, but I worry that if we don’t get on with it, we may replace a serious problem with a catastrophe. Of course, there is a very small possibility of Earth one day being hit again by a giant asteroid in which it will be either a case of it all having been a waste of effort, or a case of a learning exercise for the real thing. It’s a good article Paul, and you’ll be ridiculed by some and figuratively burnt at the stake by others. It’s the nature of the beast.

AJ says:

10:58am | 07/12/09

Dear climate sceptics, please read the following piece of rather handy explanation of the myths perpetuated by the denialist establishment:

http://www-personal.buseco.monash.edu.au/~BParris/BPClimateChangeQ&As;.html

Brace yourself, it has some big words in it, you may not be able to understand them.

But until you can rebut the arguments put forward by people who actually know things, your opinion is entirely irrelevant to me.

D'oh says:

11:10am | 07/12/09

Well, after reading all that, I barely know where to start.  You would not happen to be the president of your student Union would you Paul?

Ignoring the first part of the diatribe, I mean propaganda, I mean opinion column, the elephant in the room remains the leaked emails from UEA.  This is yet another article all about global warming, I mean climate change that seems all to happy to proclaim the impending doom sprouted from the errors of our ways by a biased author that cannot bring himself to acknowledge the existence of these emails.  It has come to the point that any rational reader expects journalists/columnists/political staffers to at least acknowledge the leaked emails or lose all reporting credibility.

As for the rest of the article, you are right and wrong.  Right in that there is nothing wrong with improving the efficiency of our lifestyle and wrong that somehow by increasing our cost of living we can somehow save the planet.  And all this when the very foundation of the policy has been called into question!

Paul Connor – EPIC FAIL

N says:

11:34am | 07/12/09

Kevin Rudds (and Malcolm Turnbulls) ETS is nothing short of alchemy. You take a worthless substance like carbon and make it a commodity (like gold) and everyone agrees to it? That’s David Copperfield stuff.

If you want to curb climate change you need a unilateral agreement from all nations, not a p*ss in the ocean approach that we are currently seeing. Lets get serious on nuclear options, lift the Snowy Hydro output above its current and pitiful 12% and start leveraging our massive gas deposits in the Cooper and Carnarvon basins in lieu of burning coal.

Just because I don’t believe in the Rudd governments ETS, doesn’t automatically make me a climate change sceptic / denialist or whatever name is being thrown around this week. Lets work on a viable solution for both the environment and the economy, not just one or the other.

Paul, I would suggest you do something a little more constructive in the political sphere than starve yourself. Your hardly Ghandi, just another hungry university student….

stephen says:

11:49am | 07/12/09

150 years of pollution, smog, filth, dirty waterways, billions farting in mid-air ; I’d like to ask why WOULDN’T man-made global warming be an issue ?

Joel B1 says:

11:56am | 07/12/09

Come on you AGW believers, how about calling people who might have a different opinion “dinosaurs”. Because then I can ask you if you mean the scientific consensus “cold-blooded” reptiles or the “ooops-we-may-have-got-it-wrong” “warm-blooded” ones.

Scientific consensus is a joke. It doesn’t exist except in the minds of some self-serving bureaucrats who really don’t get it. And the “I want to believe” lot.

Science is based on scepticism, not a show of hands.

~Thermosceptic~ says:

12:04pm | 07/12/09

Seems that Wudd is saving his arrival in Copenhagen to co- inside with Obama. His new best friend. They are going to ride in on their big white stallions, yee haa!!! at the end of the thermo-crap-fest and make the final deals.
Are they fully aware that the temp of Mars has increased over the last few decades, probably caused by a cow farting somewhere.? Very serious.?
What a year, the global financial melt down and now this. These decisions and actions never touch these sort of people, the ones who live in their rarefied atmospheres, only us, again!!
My darling parents would turn over in their graves!

Randal says:

12:19pm | 07/12/09

And to think that some people out there suggest that the environmental movement has been taken over by communists and socialists, I mean come on, when you read’s Paul’s balanced piece how can you even think that… hang on… take from those with and give to those without… by force if you have to… Wait I have read this before, in the Communist Manifesto and Mao’s Little Red Book… Paul where you reading your two favourite pieces of literature before you wrote this… plagiarism is a crime you know!

RFS Q says:

12:24pm | 07/12/09

Can someone explain this to me please? I’ve been in the NSW RFS for over 15 years, now if I light a back burn who has to pay for that? I know it sounds like a tongue in cheek question, but seriously; you have 100’s of thousands of hectares on fire, pushing more nasty carbon into the atmosphere, isn’t this what the ETS is trying to curb?
The greens have already put stops on back burns or “fuel reduction burns” prior to summer, and you wonder why we are now faced with fire tragedies like those in Victoria and Canberra. I think an ETS is only going to exacerbate this issue further.

Joel B1 says:

12:43pm | 07/12/09

What!? You’re not a “disinterested” person! You make your living from trading in Carbon Credits or working in the “industry”.

Why should anyone believe you?

(I don’t have anything to gain by my stance here unlike you)

Shame, shame, shame.

RT says:

12:51pm | 07/12/09

So, Joel, what’s your take on the science behind the link between smoking and cancer? Not absolutely proven, that link, but a consensus built among medical scientists until governments felt they had to act to bring down smoking rates. Did those governments think scientific consensus was ‘a joke’?

For that matter, Einsteins theory of relativity and Darwin’s theory on the origin of species are both just that: theories, accepted by a majority of scientists based upon available evidence and accepted as the most likely explanations for the phenomena until something better comes along.

Joel B1 says:

01:14pm | 07/12/09

RT, thanks for your enquiry.
“consensus built among medical scientists until governments felt they had to act to bring down smoking rates”

See, that’s your mistake. Governments cynically encouraged smoking in WW2 to reduce stress in the population and service personnel. After that, the associated costs of disease caused by smoking started eating into their budgets. So now it’s all “Don’t Smoke, you won’t die quickly and inexpensively but will hang around costing us money”.

Basically, go back to uni, do a sociology degree and it’ll learn ya how this all works. (watch out for those feminism units though, the buggers segregated us blokes doing it from the gyrls, which is a shame ‘cause that’s the only reason I did it…)

D'oh says:

01:26pm | 07/12/09

Nice diversionary tactic there RT.  You almost pulled it off too.

You are right, evolution and relativity are both theories, just like AGW, sorry ACC is a theory.  Only thing is, AGW, sorry ACC has been given a sound kick in the head by the same people who have been supporting the theory.

RT says:

01:45pm | 07/12/09

Poor attempt at glib dismissal, Joel. Is there or is there not a consensus on the dangers of smoking? You clearly have no coherent response to my challenge. Here’s a tip: when someone asks you a question that undermines you whole point and you can’t answer it, don’t try.  Oh wait, you didn’t.

Joel B1 says:

01:55pm | 07/12/09

Sorry RT, I’ll say it again “associated costs of disease caused by smoking started eating into their budgets”

Is that clear and coherent enough? Honestly, if you can’t be bothered reading my response why bother asking?

My analysis of your example of “smoking” shows clearly that science doesn’t drive the agenda, governments do.

COF says:

01:59pm | 07/12/09

A slightly self interested standpoint here (as a business manager): I have nothing wrong with the ETS, which is a positive incentive based government revenue scheme like alcohol or cigarette tax, as long as they get rid of Payroll Tax to offset it, which is a government revenue scheme that punishes businesses for employing people.

Both political parties would agree to it - you could ensure that ETS makes its way to the states as well. Business wins, the environment wins.

BULMKT says:

02:56pm | 07/12/09

I can’t believe the PUNCH actually gives you any blog time. WTF would you know

Randal says:

03:01pm | 07/12/09

“N” you too are a political genius and I did not see the true scope of this idea we could cure all social ills, absolutley brilliant.

“Joel B1”,  whilst I am concerned with your eyesight under a PTS we can always have you buy vison credits under a “VTS” so no problem there!!

“Joe Stephens” don’t worry, this is the best part, all the old taxes stay so we only WIN…WIN…WIN and never have to give anything back.

Genius I tell you… Pure Genius!

All governments will be onto this soon!

davido says:

03:10pm | 07/12/09

‘It means restructuring the global economy to force a price on carbon pollution and other externalities.’

Yet at the same time, by implication,  you argue that the third world should be given a free ride.

What in absolute terms is the level of pollution by a third world country such as India versus Australia? Oh my…  guess what! If you do the sums it turns out India pollutes more than Australia!

Balanced says:

03:49pm | 07/12/09

A good article today with a balanced anaylsis…

http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/climate-change-what-the-scientists-say-20091207-kdol.html

Joel B1 says:

05:21pm | 07/12/09

Claims and counter-claims. Yet we all know the truth.

By way of example, I’m cooking dinner as I type this (obviously I washed my hands before typing this). On the free range chicken packaging it says “Free from Growth Hormones”. I’m left wondering how the bugger got out of the shell if it doesn’t have any growth hormones.
Green doesn’t mean smart.

RT says:

06:01pm | 07/12/09

Are you being disingenuous or thick? It took medical science years to convince governments of the damage smoking does, against a chorus of tobacco industry backed ‘sceptics’ and their lobbying. The scientific consensus won, but the penny didn’t drop for the governments without a big campaign from the medical profession. Stop making it up as you go, Joel, and learn your history properly.

full as says:

03:42am | 08/12/09

How’s the hunger strike going Paul?

I just finished a bowl of pumpkin soup and a toasted ham, cheese and tomato sandwich, with a slice of carrot cake for deseart (with that thick white icing and almonds on top).

I couldn’t fit another thing in.

fedup says:

10:59am | 08/12/09

Global warming?  Don’t let it worry you, nuclear winter will cancel it out!

Nathan H says:

03:44pm | 08/12/09

Paul is the auto-immune disease of western civilisation. He is but an immune cell, operating under false assumptions; trying to destroy that which has kept him safe, well and nourished all these years. It’s such a shame his mind has been poisoned by the marxists.

Here are some links that will show falling child mortality, falling death rates from severe weather and falling death rates from water born diseases; all of which were made possibly by burning coal.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/10/world/10child.html
http://www.csccc.info/reports/report_23.pdf
http://www.euro.who.int/watsan/Issues/20050218_1

Tally the lives saved and be silent. If not, please nominate who’s lives are ‘stolen goods’. There are billions alive today, directly as a result of our evil, electricity loving, medicine developing, strip mining, diesel buring, coal burning ways. Names and addresses will be fine.

Paul Connor says:

07:27pm | 08/12/09

Hi all.

First off- a couple of misunderstandings- I like the ETS even less than Tony Abbott. It would be ineffective, costly, and completely scientifically inadequate. But this piece wasn’t about Labour Vs Liberal- it was about Chifley’s ‘hip-pocket reflex’, and the urgent need for us in the West to overcome it, lest we see the tragedy of the commons play itself out over climate change.

And I actually didn’t suggest throwing away PCs, if you actually read the article

Nathan H, your point is pretty interesting. However, I never said that the Industrialized world had not produced advances. What I was saying is that alongside its beneficiaries, it has produced (and will produce many more) victims- and that this gives those who benefit so much from the system, i.e. us, a moral responsibility to care for said victims.

Let’s do some moral philosophy here -as useless to society as it may be . Say you have built a private hospital that has saved thousands of lives, and has also made you extremely wealthy. However, in its building, you were negligent on safety codes, and so eventually the hospital collapses, killing hundreds. Does the fact that the hospital saved lives exonerate you from any responsibility for compensating the victims and their families?

No, that would be callous.

Likewise, the industrialized world has saved lives, certainly. But that does not exonerate it from a responsibility to compensate its victims.

And thanks, full as, the hunger strike is going well. Day 32 today. Pumpkin soup? Psshht! Surely you could have tempted me with something a little more appetising!

Thanks to all for reading and commenting,

Yours for climate justice,

Paul

Patrick says:

10:50pm | 08/12/09

Well said Paul. Pity all these paid trolls have attacked as usual. I can’t be bothered reading through the endless ranting from climate change deniers, so I’ll counter the couple of flawed points I saw in the first few posts.
(a) Climategate does not in any way diminish the science of climate change. Scientists were getting fed up with unscientific denialists trying to peddle their rubbish, so they countered instead of letting themselves be rolled over. The basic science of climate change is the same - ever since it was discovered then proven by a Scotsman named Tyndall 150 years ago, we’ve known that greenhouse gases trap radiation and warm the atmosphere.
(b) someone mentioned nuclear. Nuclear is non-renewable, expensive, will very quickly deplete remaining high-grade uranium reserves and still imposes a burden on future generations. We can go 100% renewable with wind plus commercially available solar thermal with storage (solar baseload)

I liked the moral philosphy about the hospital. You’re a great thinker Paul

Chandra Vikash says:

03:53am | 09/12/09

Paul you are both wonderfully articulate and soulful. I can share more evidence from my part of the world, from the land of the Buddha that incredibly smarter and progressive civilizations lived without fossil fuels and dangerous carbon emissions for much longer than the hardly 50 years of this fossil-fueled western civilization. It’s true that my fellow Indians with vested interests, have betrayed this rich heritage and poisoned the minds of lots of aspiring youth, for their meat.
Where these treasures are still preserved, are in the so called backward regions of an underdeveloped India - in the state of Bihar - (and scattered in many other parts of India) and their per capita emissions are not more than half a ton. True, that because of the systemic exploitation of resources, their habitats have been encroached causing large-scale deprivation and suffering, with the recent madness to beat “GDP Growth” numbers. So, the West’s redemption would not go in vain, if it stops this encroachment and pays up, as many of your readers seem to fear. It will make the world a better place for all. I wrote an article on these thoughts here - http://journals.copperstrings.com/UserConsole/ViewJournal.aspx?Title=The_Derailment_of_Western_Civilization_-_Does_it_need_a_bail-out?&ArticleID=1304 .

Nick says:

12:15pm | 09/12/09

It seems Paul that the one thing you don’t ever say to a spoiled brat is that he/she is a spoiled brat. I agree wholeheartedly with your summation - our comfortable lifestyles in the West have been paid for on credit, in terms of the cost to the environment. That debt is coming due, and the vehemence of some of the responses to your piece show that for some, having this pointed out is more than they can bear. What I find really interesting is that, when questioned, people will admit that consumerism doesn’t lead to increased happiness, and this is verified by a large body of research.Yet when it is suggested then that we try to find a different path to happiness, and maybe consider reduceing our ability to buy more useless junk, it is met with the kind of dismally abusive responses, typified by some of those above.

Bob says:

07:47am | 10/12/09

Aw, how noble you Indians are, Chandra. I refer you to Davido at 05:45pm | 07/12/09 - ‘the stats from third world countries are very misleading. Again, take India. They claim a per capita co2 of 1.7 tonnes. Yet they have 1.2 billion people so the absolute level of pollution is way higher than countries like Australia. And guess what? Absolute figures are the only ones that count, there is only one planet. Another misleading factor is that the figures fail to measure most of the pollution. For example, in India, some 700 million fires are lit TWICE a day for cooking. They use coal, wood and rubbish as fuel. That is just for cooking! In winter an estimated 500 million fires are lit to keep people warm. In summer some 300 million fires are lit each evening to smoke out bugs etc. ” and ’ A headline of yesterdays Deccan Herald Bangalore ‘The West can’t say if the West can’t pay’I live in India and I can tell you they are trying to extort as much money out of the West as possible.’  Clean up your own country before you tell us what to do.

Nathan H says:

03:31pm | 10/12/09

Chandra Vikash, logic would dictate that you’re either mis-informed or disingenuous if you think Bishar is all beer ‘n’ skittles.

“In a caste-ridden society fogged by illiteracy, superstition, dogmas, progress and development is elusive. As its cure, education specially female one has to be given priority.” “If people’s mental horizon is developed and endowed with a scientific temper, many of the ills besetting Bihar like over population, poor health, illiteracy and above all poverty are bound to be cured.”
http://www.bihartimes.com/poverty/S_N_Sinha.html
http://www.whatisindia.com/stories/2006/10/wis_ds_20061027_high_infant_mortality_in_bihar___unicef_survey.html

Show me a society driven by science, and I’ll show you prosperity. Show me a land ruled by superstition, and I’ll show you suffering. Man’s salvation comes from science, logic & reason; not bourgeoise sentimentality & hippie group-think. Galileo is proof that there never was such a thing as ‘scientific concensus’, nor should there ever be. Kevin doesn’t represent my views on climate change and has no right signing away my money in Copenhagen. Decision of this magnitude MUST go to a referendum.

Chandra Vikash says:

11:33pm | 10/12/09

Bob/ Nathan, are you sure, you responded to my mail? I never said present day India is any better than Australia. What I did suggest Like Paul and like you, I was born on a whole earth. Why would you shrink it to “your australia” and “my india”?

1. Incidentally, if you extend the same logic to “my car” and “my house” and “my freedom” right up to individual level, you get the pollution of Indian cities and paradoxically, even the over-population and other ills that you point out.  Isn’t it logical that no one pollutes their own house, and no one over-populates for themselves, it is only when the noose comes around to hang on their own necks, is when the problem starts? Since, some of these problems transcend “national boundaries”, logically, that’s why we have state and national governments, and that’s where we need an Earth government now. That’s where Paul suggests moral responsibility and voluntary action, but I understand is “too taxing” for present times.

2. What i did draw attention to is how certain civilizations fluorished for much longer (and which historians describe as “golden periods” in history) than the fossil-fueled civilization - well-exemplefied by Tiger Woods’ pornographic pleasure and is largely genocidal and pre-maturely self-destructive. One of these civilizations worth exploring in the Land of Buddha, a region called as Magadha - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magadha . This is presently occupied by the state of India and the state of Bihar - which are all western caricatures , in a deeper search - http://cpasindia.org/reports/02-Economic-Strangulation-Bihar.pdf . You may not see the undercurrents of its heritage on a superficial internet search, that is still live and thriving, you may have to learn it first hand, like I did, or someone who has been there.

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Jennah says:

11:57am | 21/11/11

I just hope whoever writes these keeps wtriing more!