Monks and rabbis have stood alongside Catholics and Anglicans in Canberra to show support for the federal government's plan to tackle climate change.

Leaders from the Australian Religious Response to Climate Change (ARRCC) met Prime Minister Julia Gillard in support of the carbon tax today.

Anglican representative George Browning said the group wanted to assist politicians to create good legislation and the message to Ms Gillard was that the issue was a moral one.

He said caring for the environment was at the core of all faiths and agreed with former prime minister Kevin Rudd that the issue was the greatest moral challenge of our time.

"It impacts on every aspect of life," Bishop Browning told reporters in Canberra, adding it was a threat to political and military security.

Asked why Opposition Leader Tony Abbott, a Catholic, lacked faith in the need for a carbon price, the Reverend Browning said: "If I knew the answer to that question I'd give it to you."

Several of Australia's top climate change scientists at the Australian National University have been subjected to a campaign of death threats, forcing the university to tighten security.

Several of the scientists in Canberra have been moved to a more secure location after receiving the threats over their research.

Vice-chancellor Professor Ian Young says the scientists have received large numbers of emails, including death threats and abusive phone calls, threatening to attack the academics in the street if they continue their research.

He says it has been happening for the past six months and the situation has worsened significantly in recent weeks.

"Obviously climate research is an emotive issue at the present time," he said.

"These are issues where we should have a logical public debate and it's completely intolerable that people be subjected to this sort of abuse and to threats like this.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/06/04/3235561.htm?section=justin

Gus: in the toon above I drew (well, plonked from one of my archive files) a tricycle with square wheels on the head of Jones and Abbott... It's a long long drawn out joke from when I was a young lad, at least 60 years ago... A bicycle in the head was a sign of loopitude and madness. As a tricycle, I thought it would adds an element of infantility. Square wheels relate to crappy ideas that do not work...

I though I should let you know...

Mind you... as mentioned on this site a few years ago, at a smarty-pant university, Engineers developed a sinusoidal corrugated surface when such tri-wheeled device would advance straight theoretically... totally screwed up and twisted...

...

However, as the latest talks begin, the world's leading climate change official has upset governments by insisting that the aim of the negotiations ought to be to hold warming to less than 1.5C. That would be a much tougher goal than that set by governments last year, which seeks to limit the temperature rise to no more than 2C – the safety threshold, scientists say, beyond which warming becomes catastrophic and irreversible.

"In my book, there is no way we can stick to the goal that we know is completely unacceptable to the most exposed [countries]," Figueres said.

The difference between the two goals may not seem great, but since it has taken more than 20 years of talks for countries to agree on the 2C limit, many are unwilling to reopen the debate. Delegates are conscious that wrangling over whether to stick to 1.5C or 2C was one of the main sources of conflict at the Copenhagen climate summit in 2009; the hope has been that talks can move on to other issues such as how to pay for emissions curbs in poorer countries.

The UK's Department of Energy and Climate Change said: "Countries agreed in Copenhagen they would revisit the adequacy of the 2C goal in 2015. With the climate change negotiations seemingly stagnant, the focus now needs to be on doing what has already been agreed."

Other parties agreed. "This is an extraordinary intervention," said one official, who could not be named.

Figueres said that she had the support of the world's least developed countries, most of Africa, and small island states.

Another factor casting a pall over this year's talks, which are intended to forge a new global treaty on climate change, is criticism of the South African government, which will host the Durban talks. No interim meetings have yet been set up, and countries have complained of disorganisation and a lack of enthusiasm. But Figueres said: "South Africa has been very carefully listening, trying to understand where there are commonalities and where the weaknesses are."

She also predicted the US would play a strong role in the talks, despite the Obama administration facing Republican opposition in Congress to action on emissions. "It's very evident that the legislative body in the US has disengaged, but … the administration continues to be engaged." she said.

But Todd Stern, chief negotiator for the US, called for participants in the talks to "roll up their sleeves and be constructive."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/jun/05/global-warming-suck-greenhouse-gases

-----------------------

That's the problem here... The US does little announcement in its reduction of CO2 emissions and expect everyone else to "be constructive". So tell us what you are going to do, big boy? Ah I see you waiting for China to announce its reduction targets before considering dipping a toe in the water... China knows too well the effect of global warming. At present China is in the grip of a super-severe drought. China has done quite a lot to reduce the growth of its emission and possibly the US has done so as well but no-one can see it, apart from windmills (some Chinese) in Texas. Meanwhile many countries in the EU have adopted carbon tax and emission trading schemes — ALL DESIGNED TO CURB HUNGER FOR "EXTRA" CARBON and develop alternative carbon-neutral energy sources. The US has no intention to do so, though a few states have individually considered the prospect of such. The US is still the largest "extra" carbon consumer on the planet and for once it should say: "Okay, let ME be constructive... and I will implement a proper POLITICAL MECHANISM to reduce MY carbon footprint..." Presently humanity's emissions of CO2 are still accelerating when they should have been on the decrease since 1996...

At the present rate we're on the path to an increase quite above 4 degrees C by 2100 (may be the US has not realised this figure is not in Fahrenheit). Global warming science is not as complex as say the theory of relativity. Global warming science is not so "precise" but it has enough knowledge to assure a specific range of variability that indicate temperature HAS TO GO UP not down with increase of CO2 in the atmosphere. Halving the CO2 in the atmosphere would cool the planet by 4 to 5 degrees (on 1900 figures). At present, due to human carbon related activity, we're on the way to DOUBLING the CO2 in the atmosphere. This could mean an increase of more than 6 degrees C. There are some tipping points at which the system becomes wonky and — with extreme weather events this year from floods in Queensland to tornadoes in the US and the extreme heat in New Orleans presently, to name but a few — we have to contemplate a few more problems coming our way, beyond just plain warming.

Dr Hewson said vested interests were buying influence in Canberra and leadership was needed to take them on.

"We [also] need leadership to challenge the scare campaign that's been led by one of my ex-staff members," he said, referring to Mr Abbott.

"This issue is going to affect generations through this century so how dare they play games with the livelihoods of our grandchildren and their grandchildren."

The former Liberal leader said he expected both major parties to continue playing "silly games" with the issue until the next election - which would probably be decided on climate change.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/06/06/3236095.htm?section=justin

Each generation of people has a job to do; a burden that falls to their time. Sometimes, it's a war or depression. Sometimes, it's the work of building the first railways and roads. Sometimes, it's a plague that wipes out half the population or a fire that destroys a whole city.

Looked at through this lens, our generation has it easy. Already wealthy and armed with new technology, we need to front up to the challenge of building a low-carbon economy.

The tool we'll use is a carbon tax that seeks to subtly redirect some of our choices. Cut your power bill by more than the compensation offered and you get to keep the change.

Is that really so onerous compared with a depression or war?

Our grandparents didn't fail us, even though the challenges they faced were so much greater. So why are we in the process of failing to live up to their example?

A federal Coalition frontbencher has rejected claims that Opposition Leader Tony Abbott advocated for a carbon tax in a two-year-old interview shown on ABC TV last night.

In the interview with Sky News, Mr Abbott said that there are some benefits to a carbon tax and said it was preferable to other ways of pricing carbon.

"If you want to put a price on carbon, why not just do it with a simple tax?" he asks in the 2009 interview.

"Why not ask electricity consumers to pay more, then at the end of the year you can take your invoices to the tax office and get a rebate?

"It would be burdensome, all taxes are burdensome, but it would certainly change the price of carbon, raise the price of carbon, without increasing in any way the overall tax burden."

The footage was uploaded to YouTube on Friday and shared on online social networks over the weekend, before being played on the ABC's Q&A program last night.

Liberal frontbencher Christopher Pyne told Q&A he had already seen the interview and said it does not mean Mr Abbott believed a carbon tax is necessary.

"Tony Abbott wasn't actually arguing in favour of a carbon tax. He was talking about all the different options available," Mr Pyne told Q&A.

"People are really feeling pressure, families are really struggling, and the last thing they need is a new tax.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/06/07/3237168.htm

-------------------

Yeah... between paying the mortgage for a huge McMansion, the loans for the cars including the third car given to the kids, the bloody mobile phone bills, the holidays, feeding kids who do not want to leave the nest till they reach 30... and paying power bills — families, especially on Sydney's north shore, are struggling... Pyne's a pain... Abbott is a pain. They are fully aware that "struggling families" won't pay a cent towards the new carbon tax, but they still push that deceitful line.

Despite the bad press, despite the awful antics of the opposition, Gillard is making tracks.

From Gerard Henderson, the SMH

Last Thursday, the former prime minister Bob Hawke stood outside Parliament House, next to Julia Gillard, and declared: "Now, I don't mind Tony [Abbott], he's not a bad bloke. But, as I said during the [2010] campaign, he's as mad as a cut snake."

Hawke likened the Opposition Leader to a wounded serpent during the 2010 campaign. The problem with Hawke's analysis is that the Coalition, led by Abbott, won 43 per cent of the primary vote and 49.9 per cent of the two-party preferred vote.

If his analysis is correct, what does this make of Gillard's Labor - which won 38 per cent of the primary vote and 50.1 per cent of the two-party preferred vote? Surely the former ALP leader does not believe that a Labor government at the end of its first term was almost defeated by a madman? Clearly Hawke is just one of the many who have underestimated Abbott.