So-called 'climate change' is not a matter of settled science. Many hundreds of eminent scientists throughout the world dispute the IPCC's findings. In the last few days, the Indian Government has decided that it will continue to increase greenhouse gas emissions. Why? because it wants its citizens to benefit from economic growth. The push for carbon taxes, restrictions of emissions and so on in Australia is being led by a minority of Australians who hate the West, hate the good things economic growth can bring the world and want us to go into reverse. In the early 1970s we heard the same mantra from the 'Club of Rome': events proved them incorrect. Ross Garnaut and Kevin Rudd will do immense damage to not just Ballarat but the whole of Australia if this nonsense is allowed to proceed. Let's embrace economic growth just like India and China are doing, further improve our living standards and help to pull millions of people around the world out of the poverty trap, out of the despair of lacking potable water or proper sanitation! There is a huge divide in Australia between what the Labor and Green elites want and what everyda Australians want. Look at the Gippsland by-election result to see workers' disenchantment with Mr Rudd and his planned carbon taxes.

Tim Flannery is absolutely right - leadership is what is needed. But big business and right-wing governments (this includes Labor governments these days) will never show any of that, there are just too many vested interests. Their absolute belief that market forces being able to solve all the worlds problems is crtically flawed. Just look at what the water market and State Labor governments have done to the Murray/Darling - over allocation on a massive scale. Cotton growers have recorded record profits in the worst drought ever, yet State governments say there is no water available to save the southern lakes? Big business and Labor governments (especially in NSW at the moment)have absoluetly no morals, ethics, scruples or environmental conscience. The notion that the market economy can or will ever do anything to protect water quality or the environment or nature is nonsense. Conservation depends on governments recognising that our water supplies and natural ecosystems are priceless, and must be defended as such with the strongest possible regulatory framework possible. No exemptions, no free permits, no absolutely no free ride for importers from countries who won't play by the new rules.

Funny that, Flannery isn't a Climate Scientist. Screw the Carbon Tax. The IPCC said in 1998 temperatures stopped rising.

"In his report he has mastered the science behind climate change" - I believe that to be a lie. Garnaut himself said that he didn't understand the science but would simply assume that it was correct.

Thanks for this article. This issue is the most critical one we will address in our lifetimes. We have been living a falsely inflated lifestyle which has been bleeding our children's future dry: literally. We must pay the true price for the energy and resources we have in the past taken for granted. It means engaging with the issue, coming to terms with the urgency and massive change for all. There is no room for self and sectional interests. Bathurst needs to get on board with the shift to low carbon economy if it is to keep pace with the rapid economic changes confronting us now.

Someone is using the screen name "observer" for malicious purposes. I would like the moderator to re-visit the posting and verify the e-mail address link. This is not a posting from the original "Observer", and is opposite to my views. I have changed it (the screen name) to "The real observer" with this posting.

Moderator (ref. my comment today) I refer to an earlier posting using the screen name "Observer" for your reference and proof that I have posted using "Observer" as below; Why single out Rudd? The school of politics has only one item on it's curriculum; obfuscation. When a politician says "Let me make it clear...", it means muddy the waters. When they don't want to answer a question they'll resort to, "I've already "answered" that question in my previous answers", instead of using the word "avoided". As for communication skills, don't expect improvement anytime soon, from both sides of politics. Above all, in order to communicate, there must be a willing listener. Posted by Observer on 31/05/2008 12:05:45 PM

To "Observer" and Matt, Dont you find it astounding that our whole species and planet is faced with destruction and all that people can think about is money? Humans.. how funny, we keep repeating history but we can't recycle paper. I hope that when your reach your lives end and see the shit planet we left our kids you'll think more than "well, at least I made alot of cash!" "Only when the last tree is dead and the last river has dried up will man realise you can't eat money." Also, Scientists noted temps stopped rising the in YEAR 1998, but resumed the climb afterwards...

Far too many people simply accept what's being told to them by the same group of people with significant vested interests. All significant climate change on record is inextricably linked with solar activity, yes that great big ball of energy in the sky burning at around 5000 deg kelvin. Over the past two decades this solar activity has been at a peak, slowly declining in the last 5 - 8 years. (The following is from an article by Phil Chapman, Phil Chapman is a geophysicist and astronautical engineer who lives in San Francisco.) THE scariest photo I have seen on the internet is www.spaceweather.com, where you will find a real-time image of the sun from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, located in deep space at the equilibrium point between solar and terrestrial gravity. What is scary about the picture is that there is only one tiny sunspot. Disconcerting as it may be to true believers in global warming, the average temperature on Earth has remained steady or slowly declined during the past decade, despite the continued increase in the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide, and now the global temperature is falling precipitously. All four agencies that track Earth's temperature (the Hadley Climate Research Unit in Britain, the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, the Christy group at the University of Alabama, and Remote Sensing Systems Inc in California) report that it cooled by about 0.7C in 2007. This is the fastest temperature change in the instrumental record and it puts us back where we were in 1930. If the temperature does not soon recover, we will have to conclude that global warming is over. I don't want you to believe me or Phil Chapman... I want you to do your own research on sunspots, solar activity and it's effect on the earth. To say that our climate is not effected by the dun is arrant stupidity. Personally I prefer a world that's a few degrees warmer, I mean if we slip into a "maunder minimum" scenario it would spell greater disaster for an even greater number of people. To slip into an ice age the earth only need cool by 10-12c.... Do your own research, check it out, educate yourself, don't just listen to those being paid to tell you bad news because if you've notice, they haven't said anything about the drop in solar activity and more importantly the unprecedented sudden drop in global temperature, 0.7 C in 12 months. Google the following subjects. Dalton and Maunder Minimum. Artic Ice increasing Have a look at sunweather.com, make up your own bright, logical mind.

Why dig up and burn coal when you have cleaner options.Coal pollutes the air water and our one and only environment.Coal extraction not only produces wealth to some people it also produces 21 poisonous chemicals 9 of them are government known causes of cancer.Then it gets burnt and produces our so called greenhouse gases it then goes from the coal fire to the ash dumps where it pollutes the underground water table with a carcinogenic cocktail of chemicals that are detrimental to human health.The only reason that coal has gotten out of hand is because of the people that have brainwashed themselves with money that coal is good for our power needs these same people are also trying to tell us that Uranium is good for us another radioactive cancer causer. It is the choice of the people what energy that we use not the government.I can comment on this issue because i live in between two existing coalmines and i see the pollution every day i also see the environmental destruction every day.If our fathers and grandfathers trashed the earth like it is being trashed today we would have a very different lifestyle.Climate change has been only talk so far the reason is money plain and simple.But dont these morons realize that the longer they talk the more expensive it will be to fix the problem.Why power a country on dirty cheap energy when it can be powered cleanly. I Wonder.