re: Ann: Tenerife Magnetotelluric (MT) Survey... Watso - you are...

re: Ann: Tenerife Magnetotelluric (MT) Survey... Watso - you are way too busy pontificating in the third person about yourself to realise that gas is not the answer. The GHG emissions might be only half that of coal, but even that is too much. Not to mention the fugitive emissions and the extra energy required for the exploitation of unconventional gas.

In my opinion public policy has to be based on reason. Reason in this case includes the advice of the scientific community. The advice from the scientific community, given to governments worldwide, through the albeit flawed process of the IPCC, is to reduce greenhouse gases faster than we are now. (Some of you might latch on to the word "flawed", but for the wrong reasons. The main flaw of the IPCC process is that that the recommendations are watered down for political reasons. For example, Saudi Arabia might want to protect their interests by asking for certain aspects of the wording to be less alarming. What we end up with is a very conservative document that does not convey the correct level of urgency.)

There was an excellent episode of a documentary on SBS tonight (Niall Ferguson, "Civilisation") that compared the Ottoman empire to the West, in particular the Prussian empire. The Ottoman's were Islamic and of course were at the forefront of science in the early days and their empire flourished. But as the Sultans became more decadent and the empire more fundamentally religious, they discouraged the printing of books and their pursuit of science suffered. Their empire went into decline. The Prussians encouraged order and reason and their empire flourished politically and militarily, because of their leadership in scientific endeavour.

The Ottomans started losing battles to the Prussians and their empire rapidly declined, in part due to their loss of technological prowess. They eventually tried to turn things around with Ataturk in Turkey in the early 20th century. But the damage had been done. The dedication to science and reason in the West had made western Christian (yet secular) democracies the most powerful on the planet and the Ottoman/Arabic world was left behind - we all know where they are now. Without oil they would be a bunch of even more undemocratic back-waters than they already are.

My point is, people like you who are effectively rejecting the science (whether you say you are or not, that is basically what you are doing) are playing a dangerous game.

I am originally from country WA. It was a nice place to grow up, but I don't live there any more. If you think that there is a long term, sustainable future in digging stuff out of the ground and selling it to the Chinese then you would have rocks in your head.

Do you read anything other than total rag The West Australian? Solar panels have been taken up in many states by lower socio-economic suburbs, because they are the people most affected by power price rises and they get the most benefit. People like you who live in leafy, riverside suburbs can afford higher power prices and hence aren't too interested in solar panels messing up their nice looking roofs.

As for your comment about preaching restraint - preaching restraint is not the answer - I believe in putting a price on restraint. If the government had to ask people to be nice and pay their taxes, would they pay their taxes? Of course they would not! We need laws and regulations. That is why we need a price on carbon. That way Watso can ride his bike or he can drive his car, and when he drives his car (if fuel was subject to the carbon price, which it is not) he wouldn't even need to think too hard about restraint because the restraint would be built into the price he pays, as well as everyone else, for his petrol.

I take it you have not even read the recent report that Warren Buffett, through his company Mid American, is expecting a 16% return from the Topaz solar PV project? You cannot get EPA approval for a new coal-fired power station in the USA now because of new EPA carbon emission caps. The world is changing and people like Watso are going to be left behind.

But why do you even bother? You think Al Gore is a fraud. What do you care about coal, oil or gas, or what is cleaner and what is not? I fundamentally disagree with everything you have said. We cannot even communicate or debate on an even level because we have no common ground whatsoever, apart from the fact that we both think religion is rubbish.