True, but the CO2 levels, and climate changed over hundreds of thousands of years. The coming changes are putting millions of years if stored carbon back into the atmosphere in a few decades. How do you feel about mass extinctions, ocean acidification and mass dislocation of people escaping hot and arid conditions. If you can slow the change down so it happens over a few thousand years please let us know how. Otherwise your comment is pointless.

The whole warming theory rests on a specific amount of CO2 causing large upward temperature increases because of the positiive feedback theory, not how fast or slow CO2 changes. Ask yourself why it did not do that at 2000ppm? And ocean acidification - the density of CO2 in the oceans is 50 -80 times that in the atmosphere, ignoring the sequestation that goes on in the ocean even if CO2 reached Jurassic levels the relative change would hardly affect ocean CO2 levels at all.

Thats the point!

The point is the problem comes from billions of tiny actions. Each if them on there own makes negligible difference. Proponents of every single one of them can say that there is not enough gain to offset the pain, however if no one stands up and makes a change the pain will be considerable. ( well, has been already, and is worsening as we watch)

Jim, I am neither an Abbott stooge or illiterate. I am educated in the sciences and can see for myself the dishonesty of the warmist faith. The obvious fact is that water vapour makes up 95% of the greenhouse effect and CO2 is responsible for 80% of the last 5%. Man produces only 3% of the worlds production of CO2. Even if we reduce our output by 10% the net effect on the earths temperature will be negligible and not worth the economic effort to acheive.

Jim, so if I follow your line of thinking anyone that doesn't agree with you is an Abbot(t) stooge or illiterate. In addition you must think that if anyone that provides alternative facts to yours is wrong. Is that what democracy and free speech is all about or should I stop expressing my opinion? Have you ever thought that maybe you may have the incorrect facts drummed into you? That could possibly not happen can it???

Robbie, the other 97% of natural CO2 emissions are accounted for naturally, as can be seen if you look at the stable atmospheric CO2 levels from before the industrial revolution. The other 3% is largely compounding and the slight increase in temperature caused evaporates more water; and by using your ratio of 4:95 a little bit of CO2 will cause a lot of H2O vapour to form and will ultimately have a significant effect.

Daniel, if a positive feedback mechanism existed between CO2 and H2O, the planet would have burned to a cinder long ago. Past CO2 increases would have increased water vapour, warming the oceans and releasing more CO2, in turn raising water vapour levels and warming the planet more and so on and so on. At any rate, you seem to be doing what sceptics are always accused of doing: ignoring the science. Roger Jones has clearly stated what impact the tax will have and you appear to be saying he's wrong and there will actually be a significant effect.

'The obvious fact is that water vapour makes up 95% of the greenhouse effect' You claim to be 'educated in the sciences' yet you gave the wrong statistics. It has been suggested that water vapour is ~36-70%. Also the total temperature increase from th greenhouse effect is around 30 degrees so water vapour accounts for `12-21 degrees celsius. Much of the remainder of the greenhouse effect are carbon based or are from compounds such as sulfur hexafluoride (I hope you don't think that occurs naturally). Now, even if we end up as the only country pricing carbon and the effects end up negligible, surely a move to sustainable energy (maybe even being able to evade a peak oil crisis) makes it worthwhile.

'In addition you must think that if anyone that provides alternative facts to yours is wrong. Is that what democracy and free speech is all about or should I stop expressing my opinion?' Nobody is giving other facts though. Global warming and the greenhouse effect don't stop being true because free speech lets people say that they aren't.

I agree with Alex. The climate sceptics have to rely on faith and poor quality evidence to back up their claims. 97% of climate scientists are in agreement that a) the planet is warming (and is currently the warmest it has ever been), b) that the warming is due to increases in CO2 levels, and that c) the increases in CO2 levels are due to human activity. To deny this means listening to the 3% of scientists who disagree with the consensus - including geologists such as Ian Plimer. So quoting from these scientists essentially becomes an act of faith.

In fact the 97% you mention is a hoax. The survey consisted of two questions asked of 77 people. Science is about the data, and not consensus. However, if it were, the skeptical scientists actually outnumber the gullible fools by a ratio of 20 to one. A paper published this week indicates that we have been in a COOLING trend for the last two thousand years. There is absolutely no evidence to link CO2 concentrations to temperature WHATSOEVER.

Goob: Your claim about that survey is incorrect. 3146 people responded to the survey, and the 77 people you mention (97% of which responded Yes to: 'Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures?') were those who identified as being primarily involved in climate research and >50% of their publications were in this area. To use the conclusion of the author of the article: 'In general, as the level of active research and specialization in climate science increases, so does agreement with the two primary questions'. Overall, 82% of the 3128 respondents (which included non-climate-researchers and non-active researchers) answered 'yes' to the above question. See the original article at: http://tigger.uic.edu/%7Epdoran/012009_Doran_final.pdf

Maybe Sam and Alex should read this article http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/timblair/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/doctor_matt_prescribes_a_ban/. As the article suggests "find me one scientist who believes that climate change is going to destroy the planet.".

Won't happen I am afraid.

You seem to be implying that the aim of the carbon tax is to eliminate CO2 from the atmosphere. This is incorrect. The aim of the carbon tax is to reduce the amount of CO2 we contribute to the atmosphere, because increases of CO2 lead to increases of temperature. With TOO MUCH CO2, Earth would be a dead planet.

No, with more CO2 plants flourish and therefore absorb more CO2.

In theory, yes, but in reality most plants are quite vulnerable to the associated changing climatic conditions and would probably die before they have the opportunity to "flourish"

"In theory, yes, but in reality, here's my theory..."

Stock response to 'CO2 is plant food': http://www.skepticalscience.com/co2-plant-food-advanced.htm

You can only keep on trying.