The first graph shows how the price of Rio Tinto shares varied over a 30 year period up until Feb 2009.

Note that the price ALWAYS goes up.

Note that the long term linear average rise is close to $1 per year over 30 years.

The second graph tells us that over the past year the rate of increase is now about thirty times the long term average.

On this basis Mr Mann, the stockbroker, advises all his clients to sell everthing, borrow as much money as possible and buy Rio because:

Rio shares NEVER go down AND they are now going up 30 times faster than ever before.

The values used to plot the graphs are genuine.

***********

If a broker in Australia actually did this the would probably end up in jail for misleading and deceptive conduct, even though the points used to construct the graphs are all genuine.

In Australia, we will lose the Barrier Reef and the Kakadu wetlands, the Murray River will dry up completely and snow vanish from our Alpine regions.  Sea level could rise precipitously as the great ice sheets of Greenland and the Antarctic melt.

On the economic front, things have actually gone from bad to worse.  The sub-prime crisis has morphed into fears of a global recession, perhaps even a depression.  Bastions of United States capitalism such as General Motors now teeter on the brink of bankruptcy. Here in Australia, companies that run child-care centres and shopping malls are collapsing.  Even our iron ore shipments are now being cancelled by China. The world price of oil has plummeted 60 percent in just a few months – the reason is an anticipated reduction in global demand.

So, why isn’t all the bad economic news  openly embraced as positive news by those that advocate we urgently cut carbon dioxide emissions.  Surely, if solutions to global warming are so pressing, the best thing that could possibly happen is a recession if not a depression?

It is very confusing to me that the Federal government is so determined to maintain domestic growth above 2 percent, on the one hand, while at the same time telling us we are ruining the planet with our emissions.   The reality is that you cannot have it both ways. Economic activity and emissions are related. 

John Abbot lives in Noosa, Australia.

[Photograph taken at dusk on November 1, 2008, by Jennifer Marohasy from the Mantra Hotel, Southbank, Melbourne, Australia. ]