We'll Be Going To Copenhagen With A Phoney ETS

"With the release on Sunday of the Coalition's proposed amendments to the emissions trading scheme, the dysfunctional nature of Australia's decades-long debate on the climate crisis has become starkly obvious.

"At one level, Australia's climate scientists — ranking among the world's best — pursue sombre research-based discussion with overseas counterparts, leading to the latest consensus that the two degree celsius guardrail for relatively "safe" increases in global average temperature will certainly be exceeded this century — that three or four degrees is now the expected outcome — and that homo sapiens will probably not survive the resulting climate-caused stresses except in broken remnant populations."

http://newmatilda.com/2009/10/20/copenhagen-phoney-ets


It's that last clause that's really the nub of the whole debate - what do these clever-clever politicians and
industrial chiefs think about the fact that their grandchildren will inherit a planet that will no longer support
humankind? Or don't even their own families mean more to these people than the next election or the next annual
report?

I'm bitterly disappointed in Kevin Rudd - yes, he's better than the alternative, but what a great opportunity he had
to do something meaningful. Of course, he'd have had to go head to head with the coal and mining industies, but he
had a huge fund of goodwill in 2007 that would have carried him through.

As for Peter Garrett - I loathe the sight of him now. Had he joined the Greens instead of selling his soul, he
could have been a charismatic and credible leader for real action. I will never, ever forgive him for what he did.