ETS and Government Backdown

So is anyone out there in Australia surprised by the Federal Government backdown on the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS)?? After sending it to the Senate and having the Liberal Opposition Party Leadership revolt on the issue, it was obvious that nothing would happen. I'm not surprised, only sorry that nothing is going to happen on the issue of climate change at a country level. Looks like the State Governments and private initiatives are all that can be counted on. I wonder what effect this will have on fledgling solar, wind, biomass and geothermal power industries - not good I would imagine.
Having experienced several increases in costs of household electricity and water over the last few years, I am skeptical that not having an ETS will save me any money.

Having just read Clive Hamilton's book "Requiem for a species" I am inclined to agree with him that the population will find this issue too hard to deal with. His website says "It is a book about the frailties of the human species: our strange obsessions, our hubris, and our penchant for avoiding the facts. t is the story of a battle within us between the forces that should have caused us to protect the earth, like our capacity to reason and our connection to nature, and our greed, materialism and alienation from nature, which, in the end, have won out."
Greed and alienation from nature are things I also have observed, as well as the rise of the consumer society. After all my household now has 3 laptops, 1 desktop computer and I have discarded several older ones over the last 15 years. And the teenagers hardly ever visit the real wilderness of nature.
Lets hope the debate doesn't go away in light of further European economic problems. Perhaps a carbon tax will be simpler to implement as mentioned in the link to the ACF.  I'm sure we'll find out at the end of the year in the coming election.

Climate science - vicious attacks and deniers

 I have just finished reading an interesting article by Clive Hamilton on "Bullying , lies and the rise of right wing climate denial" I find it quite interesting when journalists start writing a series of moderately in depth stories such as this. I too have noticed a considerable increase in the stridency and aggressiveness of tactics from climate change deniers. Having attended lectures with David Karoly and other climate change activists I'm not surprised they are receiving vicious emails etc. I too feel that the debate has degenerated into attacking the person and climate change scientists are also able on this regard. However, so far as I have heard, their attacks have been in the nature of semi-humourous pokes at the deniers and often include rebuttal to the science of the anti-climate change deniers.
I will be reading Clive Hamilton's next piece on who is behind the attacks with interest. As a librarian I know that even public places such as library computers are monitored by a variety of mechanisms. So although these vicious, swearing and orchestrated attacks will be difficult to trace, I hope the culprits are caught and prosecuted. Such type of debate is not needed in our society.
Overwhelming internet facilities with avalanches of attacks is not new in Cyberspace as Google recently found out in China. Even innocuous sites such as libraries can succumb to such disgusting tactics. 
I wonder whether politicians will have to develop stronger measures to fight mass email and other lobbying tactics (vicious or not) to find the true feelings and values of a population.