Here’s a heads up for the National Party, certain Liberal members and you too Marn Ferson.

The coalition party room may um and ah, Wilson Tuckey might shoot from the lip and Barnaby Joyce might vent his sneering spleen, but in the aggregated mind of the Australian public, there is no such division. According to polling conducted last week by the Roy Morgan organisation “A majority (55%) of Australians approve of the proposed carbon emissions trading scheme (ETS) legislation set to be introduced to the Senate for debate tomorrow before a vote is held this Thursday.”

And despite the constant, unnervingly determined, attempts by key members of the vocal conservative commentariat to suggest uncertainty over the issues at the core of this discussion, the polling reveals that when asked “Do you believe carbon emissions are a contributor to global warming?”, 83% of all Australian aged over 14 say “yes”.

Here are the full figures:

Analysis by Sex and Age (Aug 5 & 6, 2009)
Total all people
aged 14+ 		Men Women 14-17 18-24 25-34 35-49 50+
(%) (%) (%) (%) (%) (%) (%) (%)
Yes 83 79 86 90 93 89 86 73
No 10 13 6 5 6 6 8 15
Can’t say 7 8 8 5 1 5 6 12
Total 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100

The yes response jumps, staggeringly, into the 90s for respondents between the ages of 14 and 24, and it is for their sakes and the sakes of future respondent groups aged 14 to 24 that this generation needs to act to halt the degradation of our climate.

Out there in broader Australia, as distinct from the coalition party room, this is no longer a point of debate. This is a matter of overwhelming consensus, so much so that the issue of resolving climate change seems truly to be something that is post-political.

It’s a pity that our representatives in government can’t approach it with the same sense of united purpose as do all Australians aged 14+.