Hope you realize Bob that our present bunch of merry ( I'll be censored for saying "sad") politicians is that if you don't think exactly as they do, you haven't the right to think let alone some audacios right to inform anyone of such scurrilous garbage!

Freedom of speech only occurs when you agree with the current political "correctness"!

Shame you can't be branded a heretic, communist or plain stupid anymore.

Mick

Climate change is the greatest threat facing humanity today is apparently the actual quote from the ad. I don't know anything about laws down there, but in the U.S., I could see two problems with this ad:

1. Free speech. The classic example always given about a situation not governed by free speech is yelling "fire" in a crowded room. There is a certain alarmist element to the statement in this ad that definitely would appear to be aimed at inciting something akin to panic. Granted, the consequences would not be as immediate as the stampede that follows the cry of "fire," but a population panicked into demanding the wrong solution to this problem could cause untold harm to humanity, perhaps outweighing the harm of global warming itself.

2. Scientific proof of claim. In the U.S., companies are allowed a certain amount of what is know in the advertising trade as "puffery," where you can state that your product is "amazing" or "wonderful," etc. However, when a specific claim is made, it must be backed by solid scientific evidence. There are dozens and dozens of cases each year of ads pulled from magazines, radio, and TV that fail to back up their claims with scientific evidence. This is actually quite a common occurrence, and seldom makes front-page news.

The problem in this instance isn't lack of evidence of global warming -- most scientific studies document a gradual warming over the past several decades -- but rather demonstrating what component of that warming is due to man-made influences (thought to be the consequence of burning of fossil fuels), and what part is "normal," similar to the short-term El Niño effects, normal variations in the gulf stream, changes due to sunspots, etc.

It has sure become a touchy subject because an awful lot of people seem to have invested themselves in a conclusion, in order to motivate action that is more attuned to a political agenda, rather than a solution that will actually fix the problem.

If that last sentence seems provocative, let me state my reasons for making it.

If we all agree, just for argument's sake, that 100% of global warming is due to man-made influences, then if it is to be reversed, Kyoto (the political conclusion) isn't even a plausible first step: it is strictly symbolic. Kyoto requires a 5.2% reduction below 1990 emissions, and that only by 2012, and only by 38 currently industrialized nations. If anyone thinks that is going to do ANYTHING to fix or reduce the problem, then they're smoking some really strong stuff. If global warming is largely manmade, it sure didn't start in 1990.

Yet an awful lot of people seem to think implementation of this treaty will work some sort of magic. (A good, quick read on what's really going on can be found in this Washington Post op-ed Kyoto Ratification.)

If we all really and truly want to stop the manmade contribution to global warming, and that's all we're interested in, then fossil fuel burning has to be cut by 80-95%. We need to virtually eliminate it.

The ONLY solution that is here today, that can achieve this goal, and that allows every country to function -- and to grow as they are today -- is nuclear energy. Alternative non-hydrocarbon forms of energy, including those mentioned by every U.S. president in almost every state of the union since Jimmy Carter (solar, geothermal) just can't produce enough energy to reduce fossil fuel burning by any significant amount. Alternative fuels like ethanol do nothing to reduce CO2.

Thus, to restate, if this problem is real, and if world governments are serious about solving it, we need to cut fossil fuel usage quickly, within a few decades, and by 80-95%, not 5.2%. There is absolutely no other option other than nuclear. There is lots of wishful thinking and lots of silly conspiracy theories about how some secret form of energy has been kept under wraps because all the people in power get their money from the oil business (even if that were true, those same people will figure out how to get rich from the nuclear business as the switchover happens).

I referenced this link in a thread (since locked, which perhaps will be the fate of this one as well):

Global Warming FAQ

It is written by a retired Stanford professor who, like any good man of science and someone who has been an educator all his life, simply tried to look at every aspect of the problem and try to find some truth.

When the issue is global warming, always make sure to keep your eye out for the truth. It can be elusive at times.

So, back to the main issue of pulling the ad. I don't know what the laws in Oz are like, but a bold statement like the one made, when put in the form of a paid ad, definitely has to be provable. It's a tough call. My guess is, that with a little rewording to eliminate the "greatest" superlative, and with some wordsmithing to eliminate the rather panicky tone, the ad can probably run. My guess is that this is exactly what will probably happen.

Australia tends to follow the European lines of thought on free speech.

Generally, one of the differences between Europe and the US is that in the US, political speech is considered sacrosanct. Restrictions of any kind on political speech are scrutinized to the highest degree, and it's very hard to do. But other things, like nudity, profanity, etc., are far easier to regulate, prohbit, etc..

In Europe, the opposite tends to be true. Things like nudity, sex, etc., are far less regulated, but political speech is MORE regulated. Political parties and symbols are banned. Certain modes of political thought are outlawed or severly restricted.

You can argue the good and bad of both, but it tends to be the way it is.

John,

I agree that nuclear power plants can be made safe, and that they are a very attractive solution for many environmental problems.

Now we just have to find some U.S. state or safe outside country that is willing to accept the radioactive waste under a long term contract. So far it's been all NIMBY.

(Btw, when I talked to senior nuclear engineers in Europe, they said that the only times they were fearing for their lives was when they were visiting U.S. nuclear power plants. They thought the U.S plants had totally unacceptable, abysmal safety standards compare to those anywhere else in the world, and this was said by the most boring geeks you could imagine, with no political agenda of any kind. Safety may have been improved here lately, but it wouldn't hurt to check this a bit more carefully.)

I don't think the core issue is how we solve the problem or why it's happening, that's another issue. The central issue is if global warming is the greatest threat and on the balance of the scale of impact it probably is. Having a large object crash into our planet is probably an even greater threat, bird flu poses a fairly immediate and worryingly high level of probability but might do humanity a favour by decreasing our population.

I can see a good point though, if you're using an 'expert' making a statement in an ad then yes there should be a burden of proof, it is different to a used car salesman saying "the greatest deals in town".

Of course there probably is a political agenda to this, our government wants to keep the population focussed on terrorism because it's dramatic and they can easily be seen to be doing something about it whereas all the other threats actually need careful thought and bold plans of action that'll only bring fruition long after the current crop of leaders are laid to rest and even then there's no guarantee of success.

Just as an aside, I used to work in the power generation business, corporate policy was we'd never touch nuclear power plants, that is until us brave (or was it dumb) Aussies won a contract for the worlds first E2 shutdown system based on computers instead of relay logic, glad I live a LONG way away from that reactor, hopefully it'll never go into a level 2 emergency shutdown.

Bob.

> " long after the current crop of leaders are laid to rest ..."

Yes Bob - the same mentality that has lead to the current alarm that there will soon be too many post-war baby-boomers retired for the rest of the population to support.

Now how could that have happened? Obviously when they were born 60 odd years ago the baby-boomers forgot to tell the government that they were going to retire when they reached 65, otherwise surely there would have been plans to put some funds away whilst the same baby-boomers were working and paying taxes.