But there’s the rub, isn’t it? What this amounts to is an argument for keeping most of the world poor as a response to climate change. That is not acceptable. Solutions must improve (or at least not reduce) ALL people’s well being as well as reducing their emissions, and that is what per capita as a basis for comparison and negotiation facilitates. If Hamilton has been ‘advocating this (per capita) approach since 1997’, this is a very strange way of going about it.

It is outrageous tabloid journalism to characterise the debate as being about science vs anti-science. For a searching scientific critique of the global warming hypothesis, see Bob Carter’s paper ‘Knock, knock: Where is the evidence for dangerous human-caused global warming”, in Economic Analysis & Policy, Vol. 38 No 2, September 2008. Available now from: http://www.eap-journal.com/

Go read the science, Clive - all of it, not just the bits you agree with!

Energy Efficiency is the number one first thing that should be done, and isn’t being done, to reduce emissions. EE strategies have been around for years but are not implemented. Sad.

An analysis by a totally unbalanced commentator who will villify anyone whose position is different from his. How dare he use terms like “anti-science” “discredited” etc to describe any line that does not fit with Dr Hamilton’s jaudiced view.

Go take a shower in recycled water Clive!!

Public environmental conscience as well as cost-consciousness in countries such as Germany and Denmark has led to them pursuing efficiency alongside renewable energy. Effective insulation in typical German houses, for instance, means they leak a tiny fraction of the heat that otherwise-comparable British houses do. German factories also have been quick to adopt energy-efficient technologies such as industrial cogeneration (combined heat and power), and high levels of recycling mean German manufacturers consume less energy processing raw materials than factories elsewhere. Government has supported these initiatives all the way for decades.

Mark, Clive Hamilton does not advocate continued poverty for citizens of developing countries while we prosperous Westerners pollute. Like any sane environmentalist, he favours expensive pollution-reduction measures in developed countries like Australia, at the same time as advocating aid to poorer countries for clean development.

In a sense, material wealth *is* energy consumption. Convergence of emissions necessarily implies convergence towards similar consumption and income levels. In this context, immigration only speeds up the process, it doesn’t alter the outcome.

30% is alot. And Australia for quite a few decades has been something of an honest broker example to the other 193 countries … at least up to the Iraq war. If they see well to do Australia abrogate it’s historic challenge they will all nod their head and say it’s a fizzer. But if we help set the standard in retooling our energy sector, they might just give us the respect we want and used to have.

And we might just get some self respect back too. I agree the GFC is actually an opportunity because we have alot less distractions from boom windfall resource profits and will be coming at this from a comparatively lower base than a few months ago. If as a country we are going into some grovel lets make it wholesome honest grovel cleaning up our energy sector. That’s economics we can believe in.

If for a decade Australia has done less than everyone else”

Could you please give some examples of other countries that have been doing substantially more in the efficiency realm?

Because the planet doesn’t care if the CO2 is emitted in Adelaide or Addis Ababa. Unless you’re saying that living in the former rather than the latter emits more CO2? But to say that, you’d have to calculate per capita emissions in each place…which is precisely what Kelly is calling for.

Overall you’re on the money, but on this particular issue you’re way off beam, and Kelly has a good point.

The Oz CMS didn’t let me write a letter response, so here’s my second try:

How hilarious to read Paul Kelly lecturing the media for revealing an agenda and then throwing around terms like “myth” and “narrative” to describe the green debate!

And then today’s front page says Al Gore is a “self-proclaimed climate guru”. What about his Nobel Prize?

Meanwhile, Germany’s Deutsche Bank just issued a new report stating that a massive stimulus package investing in renewable energy will help bring economies out of recession…massive new wind farms announced in China.. Etc. Etc.