Dengl 41 Decarboning Scotland?

I went (26 Sept 2011) to a meeting at the Royal Society of Edinburgh, addressed by a very clear and skilful speaker - Lord Adair Turner - whose report has just been published, on how to achieve a carbon minimised Scotland.

The study shows a very impressive chart consisting of three graphs, one labelled CO2 going zig zag - over 500,000 YEARS, next one, shows Methane zig zags - exactly parallel over the same time span; and the third one shows temperatures (as best estimated - thereby hangs a tale, surely, in this day of hyperactive neutrons - but I was a good boy and didnt ask a question about that) with zig zags exactly parallel. With due deference to the correlation-is-not-causation (BUT...) proviso, the rest of the talk went on about how to cut CO2 emissions.
In question time I asked - what about methane - might a campaign against that prove equally effective, and if so, how? Might it take the pressures off trying to reduce various accustomed carbon uses that produce CO2? He replied that the methane problem is still, currently, smaller; However, landflll has been reduced by half over the last few years (without explaining what happens to the displaced substances, elsewhere - our London "compostable waste" goes to council silos where no doubt it rots to methane - unanswered questions there ...) and he suggested we (the globe - that's you, and us) are not in disaster mode on that score, yet. But it was the beasties and their digestions that are a particular problem. USA, Argentina, even Scotland, all far away. He didn't think that experiments dosing cattle diets with something, yet, promised much. Best not to raise too much dairy.

In answering someone else's question "what about China" he suggested that on his visits there he had been impressed by their conscientious awareness of the problem and intention to do something about it. However, on his visits to the US he was horrified at the substantial 'denialist' camp (threatening to swamp the AlGoreniks). He said the commercial lobbies had made this headway, and it was harmful.
HOWEVER
He said that the US is still the world's great powerhouse of ideas and invention, emerging from the nexus of business/universities, and he hoped that something miraculous would emerge therefrom.

I think a further question, nobody had time to ask - is: are not the Chinese officials just more successful dissemblers? - the US more open and candid?

The Noble Lord closed with the famous "Layard graph" showing how when a certain GNP level has been reached, per country, there is not much if any gain in well-being. Therefore, as we (UK) have reached that point, it wont hurt us to cut back on (carbon costly) growth mania.
The flipside of that, which I put to him in chat at the reception afterwards, was to focus on those clusters of countries as yet UNDER the magical layard cusp - might they not prefer to pump themselves up any which way, likely to be quite carbon-careless.. .?.. he admitted - yes.

Finally, I also asked him why the cinderella in the evening's story had been nuclear - virtually unmentioned - and what about Thorium? He was good enough to say straight away that he didnt know about thorium.
Well now ...
Fore someone chairing a project of this sort, and saying he had 'read all the papers' (about some other technical question) - is this slightly worrying?
A tall man at his right elbow began to explain ....but too late to affect the published report ...

... woven through all this are questions of "how do you persuade the public" and "with WHAT story do you set out to persuade the public?"
also, interesting questions emerged, of how one gets the 'administrative machine' to think and act with its focus on the future rather than the past; sadly no time to discuss those matters.

time for me to go home and I left on my carbon clean bicycle....