Comments on: We are not climate change leaders, we are its first victims

By: Rachel

Rachel — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

Kevin Charles Herbert, I hope you are the Aust Rep of Daily Planet Media, not The Daily Planet, which is an adult site…I just visited it!

By: soil carbon

soil carbon — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

I have just finished attending the Carbon Market Expo on the Gold Coast - and it represented the coming of age of biosequestration in the Australian climate change debate. Australia has HUGE potential to provide the necessary biological solution to climate change - Tim Flannery has identified grassland carbon sequestration as one of his top 3 measures we need to adopt - and it helps deal with the real cause of the Murray Darling Basin situation which is bare soil and degrading eco-systems.
See http://www.soilcarbon.com.au for more information.

By: Kevin Charles Herbert

Kevin Charles Herbert — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

Vai Tibi: all things considered, it's in your interests never to know who Andrew Bolt is. Rest assured, you definitely won't be missing anything

FYI, Andrew himself is no closer to answering the question after many years spent in contrarian limbo.

By: Venise Alstergren

Venise Alstergren — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

Bernard Keane: Yes, it’s an excellent article; only thing is how do you reconcile this article with your previous article ringing the joys of an expanded immigration policy? How can more people equal a better environment?
In this most fragile, etc, etc.

Please Victor Kevin Charles Herbert; don’t answer this question. I know what the policy of the Catholic Church is. “Breed like flies and God will help you.”

By: Bruce Hogben

Bruce Hogben — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

Good article, Bernard, but please stop repeating the constantly heard argument that our emissions are minuscule. They are not. We are, per person, one of the biggest emitters in the world, and we can do a lot about that. But importantly, we are arguably the biggest coal exporter in the world. We cannot blame other countries for burning the coal when we have revelled in the income that comes from being the source of it. Unfortunately, it appears the Rudd Government is just as much captive of the coal industry as was the Howard government. Until we can face that, and do something about it, we deserve all the scorn the world wants to direct at us.

By: Graeme Lewis

Graeme Lewis — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

Such scare-mongering!
As Andrew Bolt often takes unsustainable positions, so do you Bernard Keane. Vai Tibi says it all when she refers to so many misleading statements coming from such otherwise credible organistaions as the UN. The waters are muddy no doubt, but hype from Journos on missions does nothing for sensible discussion and debate.

By: Darren

Darren — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

Do nothing. If you don’t yet have grandchildren, it is likely they would be alive to see and suffer for our folly. Can we look them in the eye?

By: Venise Alstergren

Venise Alstergren — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

Rachel: I practically fell off my chair with laughter when I read your comment. I had failed to notice it. Poor old Kevin Charles Herbert; it will take him days to get over it.

Cheers

V.

By: Ian McFadyen

Ian McFadyen — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

The Treasury? The Treasury is making predictions about climatic conditions in 2100? Exactly when did a department full of accountants develop meteorological prognostic skills? What are these absurd predictions based on? And where do bald statements like “Greenhouse gas levels don’t naturally level off, by the way — they go on building, as does the temperature, after a lag of some years ” come from. Previous experience? How many times have we been in this situation? This is junk science at its best. And you have the nerve to call the skeptics an “idiot fringe.” At least skeptics don’t claim hypotheses are confirmed before they’ve even been tested.

By: Mark

Mark — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

Apologies for disrupting the debate. But is Kevin Charles Herbert the guy who had a Mitsubishi Scorpion?

By: Ev

Ev — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

Graeme, which statements in this article are scaremongering? You can’t sit on your hands and do nothing because you don’t trust the predictions because they’re ‘too scarey’. The nuke industry went on and on about how safe their technology was, and how the left were scaremongering about the possibility of a reactor letting go. Then Chernobyl blew up and the Left were right, and yet no one was happy…

The waters are muddy because those with a vested interest in doing nothing are intentionally muddying them. If I was in power all the denialists would get a yellow star on their clothing and get shipped to the first island that gets inundated when the Greenland icesheet collapses.

By: Vai Tibi

Vai Tibi — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

Exchuge me, global warming ( now called climate change because the world is actually getting colder ) is not globally accepted; there are thousand of reputable scientists out there who beg to differ. We are not moving slowly towards catastrophic reality. The clincher for me? the United Nations lied in their fear mongering statements when they casually took the 'medaeval warm period' out of their modelling and scientists who pointed this out were threatened with loss of tenure. When the United Nations lies I want to know what their agenda is.

Yes the world has a real problem with pollution and nobody should object to that being dealt with but that is a separate issue and should be dealt with as such. Don't muddy the waters with your faux religion.

And who is Andrew Bolt?

By: phillip

phillip — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

Good article … great final observation.

(would be great if this article were to be visible, unchanged, in say the oz)

By: Lucy

Lucy — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

Right, it’s all the dengue fever and increased probability of weather-related catastrophe that gets me, not the loss of crappy skifields. Although losing all the coral is a bit sad. I wonder what all these do-nothing types will be saying when half the population of the Pacific Islands is seeking refuge in Australia because of climate-change induced uninhabitability? Doesn’t SEEM like the kind of scenario the right is likely to welcome…

Vai, the climate change denialist argument du jour is denying its anthropogenic nature, not denying the warming altogether. You might need an updated version of the climate change denial talking points. A copy can be procured via the editorial department of the Australian.

By: Kevin Charles Herbert#2

Kevin Charles Herbert#2 — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

Bruce Hogben: your point re comparative per person output is very well made, and is not as widely understood in Oz as it needs to be.

For more on what individual Aussies can do to lessen their carbon footprint, may suggest they visit The Daily Planet Media website, and go from there ot the Earthwatch site. I'm Daily Planet's Australian rep.