"Australian farmers are chopping down thousands of trees every day in a dramatic protest against laws intended to curb the country’s fast-rising greenhouse gas emissions. "

Why are emissions "fast-rising?" Who is causing the increase? If it's not the farmers, why is it that they get these regs shoved down their throats?

My guess is that there are more citiots in Australia than farmers, so they use mob rule (democracy) to force the farmers to accept forest encroachment so THEY don't have to change THEIR ways.

Meanwhile, the Australian producer loses out, but the do nothings in Sidney and Melbourne still get to consume all the wool and lamb they want, as long as it comes from China.

Josh Swanson, Bisbee, Arizona, USA

The whole idea of a manmade global climate disaster is a politically motivated fraud. If enough people can be persuaded to believe it, it will greatly increase government power, by giving them more things to tax and regulate (destroying property rights in the process). The only people to benefit from this, other than the politicians, will be the brokers of pollution credits and the politically well connected, who are assigned an excess of credits that they can sell. We all will pay for this in higher taxes, higher prices for everything we buy and the loss of our freedom to manage our property as we see fit.

AnthonyTaglia, New Marshfield, Ohio, USA

As an environmental biologist visiting farms and wild places from Kangaroo Island to Alice Springs in May this year, it is hard for me to believe that the thoughtful and well-spoken Australians I encountered would shoot themselves in the foot by destroying their lifeline to the Earth. Must be a lunatic fringe.

Jackson Harper, Clifton, VA

It's amazing how often arrogance and ignorance go together and frequently in the same sentence. There is so little evidence for global warming apart from minor cyclic variation, that Al Gore has been forced to couch his campaign in religious terms. The science just isn't there - just a lot of anecdotal cherry picking. CO2 just doesn't have a significant greenhouse impact as water vapor is the dominant greenhouse gas by far so as to be the only one that matters. If you're going to do anything about reducing water vapor by any significant amount you'll have to cover much of the oceans with a vapor barrier since that's where 99% of evaporation takes place. So what'll it be - paper or plastic?

Charles Nixon, Gamerco, USA/New Mexico

"Food service jobs" for those farmers who cut down trees...hmm. And WHERE is the food going to come from? Being an island continent, surrounded by oceans, it is very expensive to have to import ALL the food. It makes sense for the government to work out a way for the farmers to be able to GROW the food without too much interference. Farmers are very interested in the health of the environment -- it's their livelyhood! The government has no right to take what doesn't belong to them. If they want the trees to stay, they should pay for them. They need to talk with the farmers and come to an agreement, not make sweeping laws that don't consider anything but international opinion.

Lara, New South Wales, Australia

It sounds like this this story is a massive beat up. Every farmer in Australia knows they need trees to stop erosion, soil loss and salinity, 3 massive problems for them right now. The archaic Euro Ideology of farming is almost dead in this country. Yes we have problems with water, and clearing etc. But this article, I'll wager, would not exist if there was a mechanism in place for publications to be made responsible for what they publish. I have many friends who are farmers, and they would laugh at this article. This next generation of farmers are becoming greener all the time.
Just so you know, I am A paid up member of my local wilderness society, and Greenpeace. I do what I can. I won't vilify farmers. They know their livelyhood relies on the land.

Steve, Adelaide, South Australia

My recollection is that well-maintained grasslands sequester way more carbon than shrub and tree encroachment into grasslands. Also, look at the water cycle - those trees and shrubs encroaching into grasslands take way more water and from deeper in the soil profile than grass does. Finally, to ban shrub and tree management in favor of taking away the productivity of the grasslands for low intensity uses like livestock grazing will encourage things like housing developments that permanently stop carbon sequestration. This of course assumes that carbon sequestration has any scientific validity at all.

Dan, Cheyenne, WY

"Farmers who fell trees ought lose their farms without compensation"

Are you kidding me? In the US, the government has to compensate for any "takings".

Bill Wilson, Georgiana, AL, USA

If Mr. Kenney of Redwood City (high rate of breast cancer from woodsmoke) declares environmentalism a disease, what is his idea of a cure for this malady? A strong dose of benzene, perhaps?

Mary Giacoletti, San Simeon, California

The new lexicon of the mental illness called environmentalism, if you hear these words you are dealing with a severely disturbed person: Global warming and climate change; biosphere; carbon dioxide; carbon emission; carbon footprint; Earth; endangered species; environment; greenhouse gas; healing; planet; save (followed by any number of things); sustainable; and many more. Just smile and take them with a grain of salt, their hysteria is borne of ignorance and socialist rabble rousing designed to destroy freedom and capitalism, while gaining power for politicians and governments. There is of course no problem except in their delusional minds.

John Kenney, Redwood City, California/USA

If I am ever invited to appear before the Gore Un-environmental Activities Committee (GUAC) and they ask me "Are you now or have you ever been a carbon criminal?" I will answer "No but I have a list of my neighbors. All of them are carbon criminals."
What I'm hoping is that they will ignore my obvious lies and go for a two-for-one deal. I would sacrifice everyone I know to stay out of jail and if Kyoto is ratified, I'll have to make up names because I don't have enough friends.
It's coming and you don't know how to stop it. Sniffle, snivel.

Colin Butts, Milton , Florida

Farmers who fell trees ought lose their farms without compensation. Perhaps there are food-service jobs for such soon-to-be former farmers in nearby cities. Healing the biosphere ought be our primary concern, even as lifeways must be altered from those induced and enforced by western civilization.

Teresa Binstock, Estes Park, Colorado usa