"I live in an 'enlightenend' well educated town where everyone well knows the perils of Global Warming and its causes.'

I don't believe somebody actually wrote that line. Must be nice to have it ALL figured out.

Yes Degas I puzzled over that as well and I finally accepted it as PQ using Verbal Irony.
Obviously he doesn't live in such a town and obviously they aren't enlightened.

Sue_xx_yy, I don't discount the value of individual contributions, but when we face a challenge on this scale they're simply not enough. I expect governments to lead the way and where necessary to change people's behaviour using whatever reasonable means are available to them, taxes included. Surveys clearly indicate that most of my compatriots agree. Would they have economic impacts? Well, of ocurse - that would be the whole point. But the costs of doing nothing except to wait and hope will be I think very much greater.

The Mexico City example is interesting. I live in Canberra, the national capital of Australia, which like the rest of the south-east of the country is suffering an unprecedented drought which most people associate with global warming, so maybe we're a little more sensitive to the issue than most.

We now live with mandatory water use restrictions. We can only water our gardens every second day, by hand, and we can't wash our cars. From July, we won't be able to water our gardens at all. These conditions are roughly mirrored in other, larger cities such as Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, between them housing half the country's population. These measures hurt, but they have overwhelmng public support, and only a small minority is selfish and/or stupid enough to break them.

So, in practice people ARE behaving responsibly. I'd like to think that the antisocial behaviour displayed in Mexico City would not be a given everywhere.

wombat, the arithmetic isn't "difficult" - it's 4th-grade multiplication.

What it lacks in difficulty it more than makes up for in tediousness and irrelevance.

<<So, in practice people ARE behaving responsibly. I'd like to think that the antisocial behaviour displayed in Mexico City would not be a given everywhere.>>

Neil - those are very lovely (though slightly judgmental) thoughts, but Australia has the highest per capita greenhouse gas emissions in the world.
Under Jeff Kennett's government freeway building and major cuts and privitization of public transport has been the order of the day.
Grennhouse gas emissions are 23% above your 1990 levels.
The energy production of choice is coal which produces twice as much carbon dioxide per unit of energy as natural gas, the major fuel of Europe and North America.
Australia spends more subsidizing coal and aluminum than researching renewable energy. As wello its aluminum smelting is the most greenhouse intensive in the world.

<< I expect governments to lead the way and where necessary to change people's behaviour using whatever reasonable means are available to them,>>

It's a long way down from atop that horse and he is very, very tall.