meanwhile at the greenery:

The unpublished report on green growth by the OECD, obtained by Fairfax Media, mirrors Professor Garnaut's call for a carbon price to be accompanied by sweeping tax reform.

The OECD draft report, written in January, backs the introduction of a carbon price - pushed by Labor and the Greens - as a cheaper and more business-friendly way to cut emissions than governments choosing and paying for reduction projects, the model the Coalition proposes.

''A tax on pollution works more with the logic of business: it gives a cost-advantage for businesses that bring down their pollution,'' the report says.

The report says environmental taxes could open the potential for cuts in corporate and income taxes that limit spending on jobs and innovation. It says the current use of natural resources threatens to put higher living standards and traditional economic growth, as measured by gross domestic product, at risk.

http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/no-need-for-tax-cuts-once-we-axe-carbon-price-hockey-20110321-1c3wm.html

from Crickey...

It unfolded in the manner of a Blackadder scene. “Denier,” said Julia Gillard, referring not to hosiery but to Tony Abbott’s stance on climate science. Christopher Pyne rose, almost speechless with indignation, to deny the denial. “It’s unparliamentary and offensive,” Pyne insisted, on the basis that whatever anyone else thought, he made the connection between any use of the word “denier” and the Holocaust. As attracted as he must have been to the prospect of running parliament based on what goes on inside Pyne’s head, Speaker Harry Jenkins was having none of it — he denied Pyne’s “denier” denial.

If only we were in Egypt.

Pyne — such a dogged advocate for a traditional curriculum — alas might need to brush up on his history. The Holocaust is not the only genocide linked to denialism, sadly. Denialism of the Armenian genocide still plagues Turkey’s relations with the West. Indeed, there’s a specific EU law that bans both denial of the Holocaust and of the Armenian atrocity.

In fact many scholars argue denial is the key, final stage of genocide. George Orwell was amongst the earliest to spot this, noting how socialists and fascists were able to ignore Nazi and Soviet mass murder camps:

“The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.”

And the suggestion that “denier” or “denialist” is a word now reserved exclusively for references to genocides presumably comes as a shock to AIDS specialists and activists, who for decades have been battling AIDS denialism, a quite specific and long-standing mindset that rejects, in the face of all evidence, the link between HIV and AIDS, at a potentially terrible cost to human life.

Further, alas, the word has spread to other usages as well. Pyne might want to upbraid his fellow conservative, UK chancellor George Osborne, who last year attacked UK Labour’s “deficit deniers”.

The problem is that those who reject climate science can’t, as much as most of them would protest, be accurately labeled as sceptics. Scepticism connotes a healthy willingness to be convinced if the evidence is sufficient, whereas of course no amount of evidence will ever convince critics of climate science, even as the evidence mounts and the numbers remorselessly add up to a warming planet. They’ll explain them away, make up their own data, reformat their graphs and cherrypick whatever data or explanations they can find — exactly as AIDS denialists and genocide denialists do.

read more at crickey.com and if you exist (unlike me) and have a bit of dosh send them some money...

"There's no evidence at all of CO2 contributing to global warming," protestor Charles, a 53-year-old lab analyst who travelled to Canberra on one of the Revolt buses, told me.

"It's one twenty seventh of one per cent of the atmosphere, and of that humans only contribute three per cent. Of that, Australia represents only one to three per cent."

"Forty five thousand jobs in the energy intensive sector!" boomed Tony Abbott.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/03/24/3172094.htm

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In the rage of battle, I say something like "nitrogen is not a greenhouse gas"... In fact like most gases in the atmosphere, nitrogen acts as a shield against heat and cold of the greater space. But nitrogen's proportionate fluctuation in the atmosphere is quite minimal at this point in time and could be considered "base load". This gas that makes up nearly 80 per cent of the atmosphere does not influence climatic conditions with the same vigour as, say, a TINY FART loaded with methane/sulphur dioxide stinks up a room.

For example if you have a glass of pure water — water has no taste. Water is water... Add a "negigeable" amount of chlorine (1 ppm — one part per million such as in tap water) and one can pick the taste. Triple the amount (3 ppm) of chlorine and the taste is strong like the water in a swimming pool.

But if your water has a tiny bit of "impuries" in it, there is a chance that the chlorine will combine with some of the elements and create toxins called trihalomethanes (THMs).

More complexity follows... Ah chemistry...

Add 2 ppm of extra carbon dioxide per annum into the atmosphere and it's changing the behaviour of climatic conditions, like a tiny fart changes the smell in the room. This is a proven...

http://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/11849#comment-15154