Christopher Pearson (“Climate lunacy rules at Aunty”, The Australian, 22/12) ascribes three great historical evils to a lack of faith in God: Nazism, Soviet Communism and belief in global warming. Seriously.

Be that as it may, Pearson observes that “popular support for measures supposed to combat global warming has waned” but that “journalists and public intellectuals who embraced the cause…haven’t seen the need to express any reservation”. For this he offers two explanations: they fear “professional embarrassment”, or they have “surrendered themselves to a cult”.

But Pearson has overlooked a third possibility: perhaps they form their opinions on matters of science by listening to scientists rather than opinion polls.

By casting climate change deniers as Galileo (Editorial, 1/8), The Australian turns history on its head. Galileo followed the same scientific method as today’s scientists, and was similarly confronted by vested interests which would suppress the truth rather than face the changes it would bring. Then, it was the Church, today it is the fossil fuel industry. The editorial gives a sly wink to astroturf denial organisations like the so-called “Galileo Movement”, and does a grave injustice to the scientist whose name they have hijacked.

Don Stallman’s question, “Why tax an industry and give it back to us in subsidies?” (The Australian, Letters, 11/6), is understandable given that most of the media spreads fear of the carbon tax instead of explaining how it works. But the answer is simple: low-carbon products will be cheaper than high-carbon ones and will thus be chosen by consumers, giving producers an incentive to switch to low-carbon production. The compensation to consumers ensures that the only losers will be producers who are slower than their competitors to switch. The market will do its job and eventually carbon emissions, the tax and the compensation will all be minimised.

What baffles me is why such a textbook market mechanism is opposed by conservatives. Maybe they’re mad they didn’t think of it.

Janet Albrechtsen says carbon pricing will fail because “you have to fundamentally change human behaviour – not just from 500 companies” (“Please explain, Prime Minister”, The Australian, 13/7). She forgets the millions of consumers who will choose the cheaper, low-carbon products those companies will offer to avoid the tax.

She claims the ETS will fail, because the Hartwell Group says so. She forgets that the latter advocates instead the rapid deployment of renewable energy – pretty much the same policies as The Greens’, which Albrechtsen says “were expensive and achieved little”.

But such niceties would not faze her, as she argues that our small effect on global emissions means we should have done nothing anyway. In Albrechtsen’s world, everyone dumps their garbage in the street because each individual contribution is negligible, and no-one does the right thing until they are sure everyone else will. Fortunately, most Australians no longer live there.