Durban:

Tamas Calderwood writes: Re. Yesterday’s editorial. So in the climate caper an agreement to enter negotiations to reach an agreement by mid decade is considered a profound outcome. Why not, I suppose? Even though global warming stopped 14 years ago and shows no sign of returning (despite our record emissions) global warming obviously remains the greatest crisis we have ever faced.

But Giles Parkinson (yesterday, item 2) seems to salivate at the economic dislocation that may result from this historic agreement to enter negotiations to reach an agreement by mid decade when he says “The carbon crunch will last a lot longer and have a far greater impact that the credit crunch”. Awesome! Can’t wait for that.

But then I don’t have to because Richard Farmer (yesterday, item 11) tells us Europe’s crisis will lead to world recession and this will “compensate for the failure of the climate talks in Durban to do anything meaningful”. Phew! Although it’s curious that Richard dismisses the historic agreement to enter negotiations to reach an agreement by mid decade as not “meaningful”.

Perhaps it’s because he read Amber Jamieson’s informative clarifier (yesterday, item 8). When she asked Andrew Macintosh how legally binding this new agreement will be, he replied “right now it’s nothing but a mandate to reach agreement”.

Ah well. Still, what if our government could unilaterally pass some kind of historic tax that would cure the climate and give them more control over our wayward carbon based lives…  alas, they promised never to do such a thing. Oh, wait…

Gerard Henderson:

Keith Thomas writes: Re. Gerard Henderson (yesterday, comments). Crikey, you deserved that one — not for failing to check the information in the tip, but for thinking that Gerard Henderson is newsworthy. All we need now is a 1500 word response from Robert Manne — surely he can find something in this that is deeply offensive to him.