A couple of comments.
1. The major reason that the Frost Festival in London came to an end was the demolition of the old London Bridge in about 1807. This resulted in more movement of the water in the Thames upstream of London Bridge (the old bridge has been described as more a dam than a bridge!) and preventing it from freezing. But the advent of the almost annual freezing came about as a result of the mini-ice age starting about 1600. I have seen the suggestion that this cooling resulted from a massive reduction in agriculture in North America as a result of the introduction of smallpox by Europeans in the previous century. This same theory places the start of human effects on climate with the start of large scale agriculture about 5,000 years ago.
2. While it is almost certain that increased levels of carbon dioxide will lead to increased temperatures compared to what they would have been, the amount of these increases is much less certain, and the temperatures to be reached even less certain - as the underlying influences on temperature are not well understood. And the computer models used to predict future temperatures do not inspire me with great confidence - similar types of models are unable to reliably predict weather three days ahead, or climate a few months ahead.
3. One thing that is absolutely certain, is that nothing that Australians do will have a significant effect on human induced climate change. If Australia ceased all carbon dioxide emissions completely, the difference in world levels would not be measurable. To pretend otherwise is to be completely deceitful. The only way that emissions will be reduced in a meaningful way is if it major reductions are made by the major emitters - China, US, India and Europe, roughly in that order. And furthermore, the atmosphere knows nothing of per capita emissions - these are meaningless.
4. This leads to the next point - The root of this problem, as with most of the world's problems, is population growth. And here, unlike, for example, many European countries, Australia does not look good!
5. The corollary is that for Australia to reduce emissions unilaterally, without the major emitters also joining, will simply export the emissions and jobs and profits, without any effect on climate. Unfortunately, this applies to most countries, and in my view makes it unlikely that anything substantive is likely to happen until most of the damage (assuming the worst predictions are true) has been done - and this is regardless of anything Australia does. For example, if Australia stopped all coal mining, which is probably the most effective step we could take, apart from having to pay a lot more for power, many people would be out of work, most manufactured goods would get a lot more expensive as the dollar fell dramatically (although this would slowly result in increased local manufacture, with jobs going from high paying mining jobs in rural areas to low paying assembly line jobs in the major cities, offset by the loss of heavy industry along with coal mining.
Just my views - it does not matter whether you are a climate sceptic or a believer - Australia is not in a position to make any difference, and to believe otherwise is to delude yourself.
John
