Carbon Tax Day

We are now taxing Australia's most prolific polluters and the sky has not fallen. It is time for thinking people to move on. The question now ought to be: what action needs to be taken to reduce the impact of climate change? Are we on the right path with the Carbon Tax? Or are there better ways to deal with it?

Yet I still hear people complaining that they have no belief in global warming. Belief? It's not a religion, where you can choose your own personal version of unreality! It's science, where you deal with facts.  People may choose to have no belief in the facts - but that does not make them non-facts!

The science on global warming has already been settled. Climate scientists are telling us this, by a huge majority. Not just in Australia but world-wide.

One of the biggest problems in this long "debate" is that a mere 3% of climate scientists dissent from the mainstream view that climate change is of human origin. Why is that a problem? Because most media debates represent the issue on a "50-50" basis and gives a "balanced" view of both arguments. That is not balanced debating, that is grossly skewing it in favour of the conspiracy theorists. That is why the solid conclusions of informed professional scientists, based on decades of collected data, are disbelieved by a large proportion of the public. The crackpot alternative was given equal time and gained support because of it. 

As a non-scientist, I cannot base my belief on direct personal examination of the data, so I do what I do in other branches of science. I accept the mainstream argument as being the best current explanation. I accept the science but I will adjust my view on climate change if the current 97% support of climate scientists drops to 49%.

It astonishes me that people will go along to listen to astronomers talk and accept every word without question, yet many of them refuse to believe a single word a climate scientist says! Yet they both use the scientific method. They both gather data and analyse it. They both then produce a model based on the analysis and if it compares favourably with the evidence then that becomes the accepted model. Yet an astronomer is believed whilst a climate scientist is branded a liar. It's a contradictory position which makes no sense. When belief in science depends on whether Alan Jones pronounces if he agrees with it or not, then we are heading back to the stone age.

The public should make up their minds whether to accept the mainstream scientific method or go follow the Alan Jones "Hillbilly" method, which is to loudly shoot down honest scientists on talk-back radio because he doesn't like what they say; and convince his audience it is a scientific conspiracy.

If you don't like Labor's Carbon Tax, then come up with a better solution to climate change and I'll listen. However, not liking a tax is no reason to disbelieve the science behind it.

As a Liberal supporter, I have been waiting for Opposition Leader Tony Abbott to come up with a coherent climate change policy. Embarrassingly, he hasn't, because he just sees this issue as his passport to The Lodge. 

People also deny climate science because they are not attracted to the cost of the solution. They don't want to pay for it. As I have continually said, we ignore scientists at our peril and anyone who believes we can solve climate change at no cost is kidding themselves.