This has been a con along!

The way forward is actually very clear, ms Ridout, admit that in light of all the exposed shonky dealing, pseudo science and outright lies on behalf of the crooks peddling the whole thing, the a.i.g, declares it a dead issue, move on. krudd and his blind followers will have to take a pay cut to fund any further lunacy inspired spending sprees.

The AIG got what it wanted - the right to keep on polluting. The public owns tha atmosphere and if indusry wants to use it as a dumping ground then they should pay.

the lorax. The public has realised that anything that industry is forced to pay will be passed back to them. This is not a someone else plays thing, like the vegetation management legislation. It has dawned on the public, that it is them who will end up paying, and they don't want a bar of it.

I find myself in rare agreement with the words of the lorax's post, if not his misguided intent. Real Polluters should indeed pay, and the inference that pollution damages the commons and should not be allowed is sound. Unfortunately the link between human-caused CO2 and global warming is extremely tenuous, and CO2 is not appropriately defined as "pollution". The environmental movement has shot itself in the foot, expending all this energy on CO2 and global warming - the loss of credibility as the narrative unravels will lead to lack of support for true environmental concerns; land use and degradation, toxic chemical pollution, watercourse mismanagement, extinctions etc. That's a shame. AIG's change of tack here is expected, given the shifting ground - they are government sycophants but they are not stupid. The ETS is dead in the water.

If the AIG had bothered to take a close look at the SRES A1F1 "worst case" emissions scenario they would have junked climate jihad long ago. There is absolutely no credible economic analysis to suggest that Africa, Latin America, the Middle East and lagging Asia will get within cooee of the US$68,000 GDP per capita that the IPCC nutters claim will be the case by 2100. This means there is also no credible analysis suggesting that CO2 will get within cooee of 550ppm by 2100. And woops, there goes any credible argument for urgent action on emissions.

yes qlander, but in most circumstances you will have a choice ion how much and who you pay, you can chose less pollution intensive products and services, be more efficient with your power.

In The Australian, 24/2/2010 the headline over the Luke Slatterly report read: “Climate wars give science bad name.” It is scientists that have given science a bad name by dabbling in scary enviro-science fiction to accommodate the revenue raising wish lists of economic rationalists seeking to double/treble the cost of consumption taxed goods & services in the name of global warming. Would it not have been wiser of the rationalists & their political cohorts to speak the truth by declaring: We have to increase consumption tax a 100% in order to fund the salaries & superannuation of those given PhD’s as an alternative to dole money in order to keep the unemployment rate down in a mechanised world.

For all those who doubt there may be a significant anthropogenic influence on climate it's worth looking at this website: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change you have to scroll a long way down the page to find any reputable scientific organisation that doesn't affirm the view that there is human influence on recent climate change and there are none at all that dissent from this view.