*Since 2021, Big Oil Has Spent Over $200 Million to Sabotage Climate Action: Analysis.*

Australia's new government has undermined its climate defense plans by encouraging new natural gas extraction projects and describing natural gas as an "ally" of decarbonization.

A precipitous gas shortage and price spike would cause a crisis; that is not desirable. What Australia needs (like the rest of the world) is a planned, steady and predictable rise in the price of gas. That's easy to do with a tax, scheduling tax increases annually until decades from now.

About 5% of the people who catch Covid-19 have problems with taste and smell for at least 6 months afterwards — bad enough to make life horrible.

Waiting 6 months for my enjoyment of food to recover, I could live with. Waiting years would be a fate worse than death. I wonder what fraction suffer loss of taste and smell for years?

There are limits on the amount of fossil fuel energy that we can effectively extract and usefully combust.

If we decarbonize rapidly, those limits may not matter. Otherwise, we may actually hit peak oil.

*Yellen directs IRS not to use new funding to increase chances of audits of Americans making less than $400,000.*