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The explanations given for the melting of the Arctic ice due to the presence of CO2 are at least plausible and so are its consequences upon the Atlantic and the Gulf Stream and thus immediately upon the lives of all the communities of the Northern Hemisphere.
Evans' case about the state of the atmosphere needs to be addressed by people of a contrary view to the alarmists and competent in the relevant science.
I am a skeptic about the changes spoken of on both sides and about the causes and effects spoken of. I know that in many cases good measurements are the basis of good science.
In my previous blog on Open Forum I have written that I do not know what is happening, for good or bad. But I do know for certain that we are pumping and have been pumping for centuries a new component into the atmosphere in vast tonnages, and big as the planet is, I entertain the deduction that we may induce thereby a tipping point which takes us into an irreversible change. It is reasonable, I would have thought, that we should beware.
Whatever course we adopt, it will cost.
I make the following proposals for laws and expenditure to meet the menace of global warming brought on by the burning of coal and oil:
1. Postpone the introduction of carbon trading until after the next Federal election. We need more time for the formation of a public consensus and sound community support for meaningful action, for something more than mere soft support for laws that will keep the government in office. The political imperative may well lie elsewhere.
2. Side by side with a licensing and carbon trading regime, we need taxes of the nature of ground rent of mine sites and of an excise on coal produced for use, or for domestic and export markets.
3. The government proposes to reduce the excise now levied on some petroleum based fuel consumption. This is not enough. We should impose an equal excise on all fuel used in all categories of consumption, and not least on those now exempt as well as add in a tax on coal. All excise rates should be set upon a basis of thermal or carbon equivalents.
