This section contains the 4 significant references to build an understanding of the world of Climate Change.

THE SCIENTISTS.

The Goddard Institute. As a pure research institute, its reputation for getting the science right is second to none and becomes an important contributor of the science to the debate.

THE ECONOMISTS.

When THE STERN REPORT was released, it signalled that even conservative economists now understood the significance of acting quickly to limit the potential impact on the economies of the world as result of climate change.

THE IPCC.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is supposed to be an objective source of information about climate change. It relies on input of scientists, including the Goddard Institute to provide the decision-makers and others interested in climate change with an objective source of information.

THE POLITICIANS.

THE KYOTO PROTOCOL stands as testament to politicians seeking to do something. "We can agree to do something together in the future".

How do we repay the environmant for the water we take? Do we want the mighty Snowy and the Murray to run? Should the debate be about how to put back into the system what we have taken out, or is it about carving up a scarce resource.

We all understand the need to conserve water, but how should the water we have be distributed amongst the various end users? Should the farmer pay the same for a litre of water as we do in the city? Should water cost the same in a drought year as it does in a year of abundance?

Are we being taken up the creek without a paddle with the water debate? Will we end up with a real market or is the debate a smokescreen to unleash yet another privatisation of a resource.

Do we want Tim Flannery as an honest broker, or do we prefer the outcome delivered by politicians?

The glaciers recede in New Zealand in absolute harmony with the industrial revolution. We have been searching for the science to explain the impacts on climate and debate the increments and debate whether mother nature has the capacity to eventually correct the imbalances.

In the last thirty years the debate has now moved from deriding those who understood the impacts of the Greenhouse effect and of pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. At least now the debate is about the rate of the approaching crisis and its impact.

The Stern report seems to mark a watershed in the thinking of the broader communities. Climate Change has moved from the University to the Board Room and now has a place at the Dining Room table.