Greenhouse gas, skepticism and the common good?

Earlier this week I watched an interesting and completely surprising debate in one of my new subjects. In a typical introductory workshop, we were given the PLEA 2009 Quebec Manifesto and a number of questions were posed to generate discussion.

One of those questions, paraphased, was is there a relationship between climate change and carbon emissions?
The group assigned to comment on that question simply stated "no". The lecturer teased out their reasoning which included the fact that they believed that the effect of man-made carbon emissions were insignificant compared to the natural climate cycles and contributions of natural disasters such as volcanoes and bush fires. The reasoning also included that while there appeared to be facts about carbon dioxide generation, they were not convinced they were linked to climate change. For them, the scientific link was not compelling enough.

Given that the next 12 weeks would be based on methods used to measure and reduce the production of greenhouse gas production in commercial buildings, it made sense that the lecturer then turned to the room and simply asked, "how many people here believe there is a link between greenhouse gas emissions and climate change?" I was surprised as I counted less than 50% of the room in agreement.

This was a room of future decision makers, still in their early twenties, who are tertiary educated and who do not believe the science is compelling enough. There is no doubt in my mind why the Australian Government is struggling to sell their carbon price and eventual emissions-trading scheme. Have we taught our society to be so skeptical that we do not even consider the precautionary principle?

The science of the debate has become extremely political and divisive in Australia and I wonder whether the discussion our group had is symptomatic of that and the growing weariness of a federal government which as a minority government has opened our eyes to how difficult it is to govern when every decision is the culmination of much compromise.

In many ways I felt like an outside in my class earlier this week - nearly a generation older, with a firm conviction that even if the science is not rock-solid we are still compelled to act and despairing at the vehemence with which the majority of my fellow countrymen and women rail against change for the sake of the common good. It was with interest I read Richard Lambert's piece Unravelling a few of Australia's Climate Myths written from the view of an outside looking into this country's current debate.

It would be interesting to know what other people think of us in the global community.