A carbon tax, yes, but not to reduce taxes. This is state nannyism with the state deciding where the money should go. Adopt Jim Hansen's solution and send every cent of the Carbon tax to every citizen (or possibly every registered tax payer in the USA. They decide where to use it. This has a number of effects. (see link)

What everyone must keep firmly in mind is that this storm has nothing to do with climate change. Despite the ridiculous claims by scientists who have been studying this all of their lives, the climate is not shifting 4km north each year (see link below) and when the Arctic ice is all gone in a few years, the climate is not going to stop it's slow creep northward and take a giant step (remember the kids game??). Furthermore, Greenland is not going to start melting at a greatly ... More »

Blind religious fanaticism and a belief that you are right regardless of any evidence to the contrary brought us the Crusades in which the west invaded another country with no justification. It brought us the Inquisition in which anyone disagreeing with the bosses was tortured and put out of his misery by being burnt at the stake. It brought us innumerable wars in which both sides prayed to the same god, both sides being convinced that they were on the right side of god and on and ... More »

I think finally someone (Prof Wadhams) has finally come up with a realistic prediction. The really big elephant in the room is the warm (1-2.5 degrees above the melting point of ice) salty deep water filling the Arctic Ocean. All we need is a mechanism to bring this water to the surface and there is enough heat to melt the Arctic ice many times over. Storms such as we had on Aug6 are such a mechanism. The counter clockwise surface currents they induce coupled with Coriolis will ... More »

America must vote for Romney. Obama succeeded in reversing the steep decline of the American economy and it is now on the way up again. If you vote for Obama, the American economy will recover and with it the economy of China which depends on the American consumerism. All this will lead to a vast increase in our use of energy and even a recovery of coal use which is under huge pressure from a temporary (decade or two) glut of natural gas. Natural gas produces far less carbon per ... More »

It is shocking enough that such a high proportion of the citizens of the country with an army equal to the next 10 countries put together believe in the creation myth of a group of bronze age desert dwellers who induced halucinations in themselves through voluntary starvation. What is even more shocking is that these believers ignore the message of their own creed. God gave them dominion over the beasts in the field and the fish in the sea but I doubt he meant that we should take ... More »

The use of fossil fuel: *puts you at the mercy of the fuel producing countries *necessitates running a huge army making the arms producers rich to protect overseas oil *results in the death of lots of your own citizens and far more people, mostly civilians in oil producing countries *feeds the mafias in these countries that keep their own people enslaved *Allows oil producing countries to buy up your wall street, main street, airports, sea ports etc. making you tennants in your own ... More »

Dr Hansen is clearly correct at the 99% confidence level but he is dreaming. What government would put in his system of tax and dividends. Governments are all about power, influence and control. They could,for instance, have fed the bail out money to the banks via the public. In other words, used this money to reduce the debt of ordinary Americans. The banks would have got exactly the same amount of money but would then have had to start to lend this money out. If they didn't, ... More »

We already have carbon capture factories. They are called trees. Plant them in plantations, harvet the wood for long term high quality housing, commercial building and furniture and use the waste wood to produce green urea instead of fossil fuel. In the mean time look up Amory Lovins in one of the recent TED talks. He describes how profitable it would be for companies to wean themselves off fossil fuels. He hasn't even factored in externalities in his calculations.

Why is it so hard for politicians to adopt Jim Hansen's Tax and Dividend. It is highly likely to be effective, and will protect the public from the inevitable price hikes during the switch to renewable energy. Of most importance from a politician's point of view, it is a real vote winner. I don't understand their reluctance. What's that you say?? They have shares in Big Coal and oil. OK, I guess that would do it.

This is one of the signs that has been waited for that the tipping point has been reached. We are talking geological time so the tip could take a year or two but it now seems inevitable. At the peak of this or the next solar cycle in an el Nino year, we may see an ice free Arctic and the process will accelerate.

It is sad if Mitt's comments are based on political expediency. Perhaps they are based on conviction. Good to see he doesn't think that cap and trade is of much use. Perhaps someone should explain to him Tax and Dividend by Jim Hansen. Besides being very likely to be effective, it would be a real vote winner. That would really put the cat amongst the pigeons. Best , too, if he realizes that you don't have to invoke climate change to justify getting off fossil fuels

Every measure that you really want has to be supported. Not just this one.

Have a look at the Daly interview of Bill Clinton a little further down the page. Take into account the real expense of coal (health effects, for instance) and renewable energy is competitive with coal. Better still the price of renewably generated electricity is decreasing day by day and all the indications are that it will continue to do so. We still have waste from the Manhattan project sitting above ground and haven't found a way to dispose of it. Take the true cost of ... More »

An interesting corollary to this is that when the Arctic ocean becomes ice free, it becomes a giant solar collector. If warm rising air over the ocean couples with katibatic winds down the flanks of Greenland, we get highly accelerated melting of the ice sheet. By by New York.

The Libyan conflict may be the first example of liberal interventionism in recent history. All the other 'interventions' by the west in the business of other states have been for some gain for the interfering state, often to steal their resources. Read Hoodwinked by John Perkins. This no-boots-on-the-ground conflict has left the ownership of the success in the hands of the Libyan people. Whatever happens over the coming years, they now have the pride and the example of what they ... More »

Rupert had the same relationship to politicians of the world that J Edgar Hoover had to American politicians. Now that they have the goods on him, they will be doing everything they can to get him off their necks (standing on). Couldn't happen to a more deserving fellow.

It is pretty well certain that global warming will cause extinctions but it must be very hard to separate the extinctions from global warming from extinctions from other causes. Whales which once pumped nutrients (Whale Poo) from the depths to power a whole ecology is almost gone. Over-fishing has reduced key species with hard-to-evaluate downstream effects Nutrient excess has turned large areas of the ocean anaerobic. Silt run off has trashed oyster beds and corals. And this is ... More »

I would have thought that the revelations about Murdoch and his paper(s) would have guaranteed that there would be no approval for the BSkyB deal. Am I missing something. Are we trying to spread this sickness to all branches of the Media.

In a country that elected Bush Junior for a second term and in which 40% of the adult population believes in the literal word of a book written by an obscure sect of desert living extremists some 2000 years ago, Bachmann is no joke. If she is even the candidate for the GOP it's time to look for another planet.

Forget climate change

As long as the American banks are making big money from laundering the drug money (recent article in News Trust), from Mexico, this very sensible policy will never be enacted. Some time ago I read a study that it is 30 times more cost effective to treat addicts than to try to stop drugs coming into the country in order to decrease the drug trade. Sorry I can't remember where I read this.

With the decrease in snowpack and increased variability in precipitation, it becomes doubly important to increase the spread of beavers throughout the catchments of the west. They greatly increase the amount of usable water from a given quantity of precipitation.

Freedoms denied to others eventually seep into your own living space. The corporatocracy has been trashing the environment and civil liberties in any country around the world that has resources that America wants. She has supported mafias of the worst kind. Now they are using the same systems against the citizens of America. Surprise surprise. Read John Perkin's "Hoodwinked" Obama is the first president that is supporting a liberation movement (in Libia) This is ... More »

Same old same old. Read John Perkin's books "Confessions of an Economic Hitman" and/or "Hoodwinked". Nothing new under the Sin (sorry, Sun)

What? The rapture didn't happen. OK folks. See you all same time same place next Thursday.

The same problem exists all over the western world. On one hand you want a good work environment and don't want to facilitate dangerous work environments or sweat shops. On the other hand you want to encourage businesses to start up in your area. In my own part of New Zealand we have officials who are incredibly helpful in steering you through the pitfalls of getting things done and that goes a long way toward easing the pain of complying with what sometimes seems to be ... More »

Clearly, Sarah Palin would be the perfect running mate for Donald Trump. Both have the same in-depth sophisticated political savy with a wide ranging knowledge of the world outside America. Together they would lead America into a prosperous future with their far sighted vision of the future. I especially admire Ms Palin's deep ecological knowledge as expressed by her plan to kill off all the wolves of Alaska to improve Moose hunting. A wider application of this type of thinking ... More »

And we want another food production miracle, completely ignoring Parkinson's umpteenth law that population increases to use up any increases in food production. The 60's agricultural revolution is arguably responsible for an extra billion of us on the earth pushing Giai further into a corner. The only exception is when affordable contraception is put into the hands of women. Look at Iran. Present birth rate 1.71 per woman of child bearing age down from just under 10 and prior ... More »