Who is denying what?

What they are really telling us about climate change, 'green friendly' mansions and carbon taxes

I believe in climate change. I have no doubt at all. It's inevitable. That's why they call me a denier.

You are called a denier if you don't accept uncritically the total package demanded by the climate gurus, who say that climate change is not inevitable. In their opinion it's anthropogenic and we can reverse it.

In the mid 90s I moved to the bush and built a house I designed to minimize my impact on the environment. I collect my own water, and I have a composting toilet, so nearly everything gets recycled. I have a 20,000 year plan to restore my small acreage to what it might have been before the miners and then the greenies reduced it to a rather infertile block of rock. I installed solar panels, with no government subsidy, and I'm not connected to the grid, so I get no government guaranteed return on my investment.

My green neighbour Bob (not his real name) reckons I'm an environmental rapist, because I actively manage my little block. In his opinion I should just let nature take its course, and thereby allow the land to revert to its natural state – a rainforest. It won't. From time to time I light a fire to reduce the fire hazard, although most of the time I clear by hand to emulate what the Aboriginal people used to achieve by fire. I thin out diseased trees and rough scrub, and the land is responding well, as I envisaged it. No longer does my soil wash down into the valley below with that of my green neighbours.

Still the greens like to tell me that what I'm doing wrong, even the girl with the 14 cats, which she has trained not to eat the local wildlife.

Bob, who is connected to the grid, took full advantage of the solar subsidies offered by the government. He reckons it's a terrific investment that will pay for itself in as little as two years. When I expressed my doubt that it will contribute in any way to reducing carbon 'pollution', he agreed. "But I'll feel a lot better about keeping my air-conditioning going all day in summer," he said.

I'm annoyed with his attitude, along with Al Gore and Cate Blanchett. Al can probably claim a lot of the credit for starting the whole thing, and he seems to use as much energy as a small country. But he pays money to a company I think he owns to plant a few trees to make up for it, and I'm sure he's got a few solar panels on some of his mansions.

Cate, the media tell us, lives in a 'green-friendly' mansion. I'm not sure how she salves her conscience over the amount of energy her lifestyle and mansion consume, but I'll bet she has a good story to tell.

But the message they are communicating is that it's OK to use as much energy as you like, as long as you pay for it, and it's even better if you can get someone else to pay. In so doing they are encouraging people like my neighbour. Not one word about actually significantly reducing the amount of energy we each use.

They say a carbon tax is needed. Perhaps such a tax might be justifiable if it would have a positive effect on reducing 'global warming', but it won't. In fact the reverse is probably true.

Here's the elephant in the room that Al, Cate and Bob are trying to ignore: millions of people in the Third World want some of the creature comforts now enjoyed by the "do as we say, not what we do" brigade, and their governments are going to try to satisfy their wishes. People in more fortunate parts of the world are not going to willingly give up any significant part of their comforts. There will be a massive increase in carbon emissions in the next few decades, and there is no way we are going to stop it.

Al, Cate and Bob are telling us that it's OK to use as much energy as you like, as long as somebody, preferably someone else, pays for it.

Nothing Australia can do will have any appreciable positive effect. The world will not be inspired by our efforts. Falling on our swords will not be admired, it will not even be noticed by most of the world's population.

It is very likely that our efforts will exacerbate the problem.

Talk about shutting down our coal mines is dangerous nonsense. About 75% of our coal production is exported – about 105 million tonnes of steaming coal and 110 million tonnes of coking coal annually. It is exported to more than 35 countries – mainly Asia, but also to Europe, India, North Africa, the Middle East and South America.

Our coals have a high energy content and are low in non-combustible impurities, and are thus less polluting than coal from most other sources. They are particularly low in sulphur. If we were to close down the Australian coal mining industry partially or completely, the coal would be mined elsewhere, and would almost certainly be more polluting than Australian coal.

The net result would be an increase in global emissions at the cost of more than 21,000 jobs.

Our aluminium industry is already suffering through uncertainty about electricity cost, and jobs have been lost. A carbon tax will reduce Australia's international competitiveness.

The Australian industry is built on world demand for alumina and aluminium - over 80 per cent of Australian production is exported.

In 2008 Paul Howes of the AWU told a climate change conference in Sydney that 20,000 jobs were at risk. "Every tonne of alumina made in Western Australia uses half the energy and produces less than half the greenhouse emissions than if it was made in China. This is a critical point missed by those calling for industry to be shut down and Australian jobs offered offshore." I don't know what he's saying now.

China's aluminium sector has doubled its output in the past few years to 13 million tonnes from 80 smelters compared with six operating in Australia. Aluminium is Australia's third-biggest commodity export behind coal and steel. Sacrificing it will increase global emissions and cost jobs.

What can Australia do? Concentrate on doing what we do well – providing clean coal and encouraging a highly efficient alumina industry for example.

Recognising, as most of the world does, that coal will be the major source of energy for the foreseeable future, and researching technologies that make it safer and cleaner. Encouraging research into renewable or sustainable generation of power and the technology to store it.

We could believe what 'the science' is telling us, and act appropriately, based on the certainty that a major increase in carbon emissions is inevitable. This will almost certainly affect the climate. The effects will be somewhere between mildly beneficial and major catastrophe.

The sea might rise 5 metres or not at all. Temperatures may increase by a lot or a little or not at all. Storms and other natural disasters may or may not increase in frequency and severity.

A carbon tax – or any of the other bright ideas being promoted by our betters - will not save the Great Barrier Reef. Bondi Beach will disappear – sell now! Australia will be subject to droughts, flood and bushfires.

Scheme after scheme to control the climate is failing around the world. No need for us to try to create a new way of tilting at windmills, but we should probably be prepared to follow any international consensus that emerges, even if only to protect our trade.

The world might end up in a lot of trouble – but it already is.

In 2000, all 192 member states of the United Nations agreed to eight development goals that they agreed to achieve by 2015. They are to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, achieve universal primary education, promote gender equality and empower women, reduce child mortality rates, improve maternal health, combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases, ensure environmental sustainability and develop a global partnership for development.

The need for all goals to be achieved is quite independent of climate change, although they may become even more urgent if the calamities predicted eventuate.

To concentrate, as we are, on one factor of one of these goals, as politically attractive as it may be, is a diversion from the realities of this world.

It sure makes me wonder who is denying what.