Carbon Bob: Can he fix it?

Laura says:

07:01am | 10/03/11

I care very much Mahhrat! That’s why Gillard must go to Oblivion. Currently she wants us to live between her lie and a fart place. It stinks to high heaven. I wouldn’t trust Julia Gillard with my children’s pocket money.

ZSRenn says:

07:26am | 10/03/11

@ Mahrat Didn’t you read yesterdays article “Dont address the concern, shoot the critic”

I think this wonderfully diplays what we are up against with this Tax.

Every product here will be affected.
Every bottom line of every company mentioned will affected.
Every profit margin of every company mentioned will be reduced and
Every company will have to raise prices to compensate for the loss of profit margin on every product announced.

Or am I wrong!

Will importers be affected by a carbon tax and therefore their prices cheaper than the carbon taxed home made product.

Hamish says:

08:03am | 10/03/11

Mahhrat, this article is obviously designed to highlight one of the major issues the AGW lobby has, that if they were really that worried about climate change, surely they’d reduce their own carbon footprint rather than just tell other people to. Al Gore is the classic example obviously, jetsetting all over the world, with a number of mansions and the purchase of a new beach house (yes beach house) last year.

But, you know, I guess it’s up to the plebs to cut all the emmissions while our betters swan all over the world attending conferences and giving lectures. Bob’s job is just to tell use how to cut emmissions not do it himself.

persephone says:

08:03am | 10/03/11

ZSRenn

and people will be compensated to cover these costs.

and the rise of prices will encourage them to seek out cheaper, less carbon emitting, products.

and in the end, it will become part of life - as it is in so many countries overseas - and not an issue.

Just like the GST, which raised prices across the board and was compensated for.

People kicked and screamed and foretold the end of the world and threatened to roll it all back and….

.....got over it.

billy says:

08:21am | 10/03/11

Every product here will be affected.
Every bottom line of every company mentioned will affected.
Every profit margin of every company mentioned will be reduced and
Every company will have to raise prices to compensate for the loss of profit margin on every product announced.

Same agument when the GST was introduced…did much change at all…..NO.

Joan says:

08:30am | 10/03/11

Without Carbon , life as we know it would not exist, it provides the framework for all tissues of plants and animals.  So is Gillard Carbon tax/ Carbon price a tax/price on existence??  A tax/price   on CO2 is ridiculous…  a gas we exhale. ... when you stop exhaling Co2… well you are dead man. .... and then you rot and you break down to carbon and other elements you are just part of . Carbon Cycle which goes round and round… on and on,,,.. as it always has done.

Ryan says:

08:50am | 10/03/11

@Mahhray: yep I care, I care that the worst and most incompetent unelected and unelectable communist government in history gets kicked out.

Steve of Cornubia says:

09:13am | 10/03/11

The carbon tax would work very differently to the GST, so such comparisons are misleading.

The carbon tax will apply only to goods manufactured in Australia, whereas the GST is applied to all applicable goods, irrespective of origin. The net effect will obviously be to raise the price of Australian goods relative to goods manufactured in countries where there is no carbon tax. This will make Australian goods less competitive here AND overseas.

TimB says:

09:21am | 10/03/11

Lies Perse. The GST didn’t rise all prices across the board. Many prior taxes were removed on some goods, so some products became more expensive, some were made cheaper, others stayed the same.

And there was no “compensation”, not in the sense of the carbon tax. There were simply tax cuts- for *everyone*, including companies.

More to the point, businesses were able to claim input credits for GST they paid out against GST they charged. The Carbon tax will simply snowball its way along the supply chain.

The GST in no way resembles the Carbon Tax proposal. It’s purpose is nothing more than income redistribution, disguised as a response to a puported problem that it can’t possibly solve. So stop being disingenuous and stop lying.

Lawrie says:

10:05am | 10/03/11

I think the article demonstrates quite clearly that the carbon tax would be irrelevant if people (yes including these very same bloggers in this article) looked at their carbon emissions and reduced them. An example is those big LCD TV"s look great but still draw 80% power when you turn them off with the remote. Yes, 80% which is why your electricity bills are so high!  Turn it off at the wall when not using it and you will see a massive drop in your bill.  Do a simple test and walk around the house at night looking for those red lights. If you see one then turn the appliance off and keep it off during the day if not being used.  Only turn on the aircon if it is actually hot. Try and walk as much as possible, get outside and play with the kids rather than having them and you do screen time. 

We have done all this and we have a electricity bill that is a third of our friends which will have an equivalent drop in CO2 emissions plus we are reducing the need for the infrastructure investment (i.e. costs to be passed on to the consumer) required to provide all that extra electricity.

I am not a greenie by any stretch of the imagination and still drive the car to the shops etc. I just don’t like paying any more than I have to and that includes a carbon tax. If you are one of those complaining about electricity price rises and the carbon tax then do something positive, do the above and the need for price rises and the carbon tax will be reduced. It isn’t really a government issue it is a social responsibility issue and very easy to implement.

Oh, and if you say but I have installed solar panels then by default you are implementing a carbon tax already while making it harder to reduce emissions. Why? Because of the massive taxpayer subsidies that everyone pays through our taxes. Makes you feel good but not only does it cost us but in terms of actual power generation it is not cost effective and much more benefit would be had if the public subsidies were used to build a gas fired power station that only produces 40% of the emissions of a coal fired power station.

Perhaps this is the everyman’s diet issue. Everyone knows we shouldn’t be eating too much cake (i.e. electricity or petrol) but we just don’t have the willpower to stop it. Much easier to blame someone else for our problems.

CD says:

10:07am | 10/03/11

Compensation figures thanks Persephone. Who exactly will be compensated, how much will the cut off point for earnings for said compo be and how much will it be?

Oh and how much will you know the amount of money said compensee (my word) has spent to be compensated?

You seem to know more than Julia and her committee does so how about letting us in on the minor details.

If you can’t….get over it.

ZSRenn says:

10:15am | 10/03/11

@ perse what you are saying is 100% of the money collected will be compensated back to the consumer so that their will be no extra cost to them is that correct.

And then you say on the same comment “when prices rise”

I do remember someone saying that some of this money is going into R&D of green tech. If all of the tax is being used to subsidies all of the costs where is that money coming from and who has to pay the bottom line on that?

If this is an Australian tax then I guess it won’t be on imported goods and then I would be better off buying imports to keep within my budget or will an import duty be put on imported goods to compensate for that.

Then I have to ask if we put an import duty on goods how does that affect the free trade agreements that we have?

How can I tell if I am buying green effective product? Will we have a new labelling system on our packaging. You know like the accurate and confusing dietry labelling that is on products today.

i.e.
CO2 produced / 100g = 0.000000045mg
CO produced / 100g = .00000000000000001mg

GST was easy 10% across the board bit of too and fro and we were able to come up with deal but with all of these questions and all the answers that need to be sorted and only in 16 months to do it in 4 weeks later we still don’t have an answer to our first question.

How much is it going to cost?

Great analogy perse but it falls a bit short.

Bob Stewart says:

10:16am | 10/03/11

Strange that no one mentions the bushfires that discharge in as many hours what the vegetation has been consuming for as many tears and providing the oxygen in the process..

Nothing else for me to do but prepare for the effect of the tax by installing that wood stove, put new wicks in the kero lamps and raid the bees for the wax candles,sharpen the saw and the axe to make sure there is enough wood down the road to cut for the winter to make the rabbit casserole and stay warm.

I am 80 and I know a few little old ladies who will stay in bed this winter to keep warm because the $455 they will get from the Government , (who will force the emitters to pay), will only be enough to cover the Community Help with the washing,cleaning and the weekly to bingo and Mrs Wilson’s scones.cooked outside in the camp oven.

The rest of the tax , the big part, will go to recover from the insulation fiasco, the blowout of the NBN and the school building project and salary increases for politicians.

Peter says:

10:17am | 10/03/11

persephone..what a load of mindless garbage.Higher prices will lead me to change what?..I think there is only one switch on the wall which provides electricity and if I want to drive my car it only works with petrol.So please explain how ME paying higher prices will lead me to cheaper products.
Just another repeated dose of Labor lies and misinformation.You on the left believe that you are somehow smarter than than the rest but you lack one thing and that is common sense.
If you want to persuade others on the benefits of a carbon dioxide tax then you have a lot of explaining to do .Repeating the same verbal diarrhoea won’t work.
.I bet you even believe this rubbish you are peddling.The GST wasn’t introduced for behavioural change so don’t even try and compare the two other than the fact that they are both designed to raise revenue..
Your party line rhetoric is the reason that people are beginning to wake up as it just dose not make sense.Now if you were to mention nuclear power as part of the solution then maybe you would have some credibility but up until now you have zero.

Gregg says:

10:20am | 10/03/11

@perse
” and the rise of prices will encourage them to seek out cheaper, less carbon emitting, products.

and in the end, it will become part of life - as it is in so many countries overseas - and not an issue. “
And what if those cheaper products are imported perse! , just like now with people going for the cheaper goods.

And by those countries overseas, do you mean western Europe which is also having more and more unemployment issues as manufacturing goes to the carbon rich asia or eastern Europe.

You need to take the blinkers off perse.
We’ll eventually be sending less coal abroad because of mining and carbon taxes but China will have cheaper alternate sources.

ZSRenn says:

10:25am | 10/03/11

Remember a couple of weeks ago when I predicted that the ALP spin machine would start comparing this tax to GST and everyone came back at me saying.

“You’re goose they wouldn’t be that stupid!”

Well who is laughing now!

Howard took GST to the polls with us clearly knowing that we were going to pay 10% GST and at that time we hadn’t negotiated out the food costs etc.

With this tax it has never been to a poll and we do not have a clue as to it’s costing and the ALP spin machine is out in force including Minister Incombetant telling us all is ok we are panicking it will be just like GST and you will love it.

Joan says:

10:37am | 10/03/11

Persephone : `rise of prices will encourage them to seek out cheaper, less carbon emitting, products.`  exactly which are these???  So Tax one group to give to another so they can afford to buy more of the same. Stupid.—- smoke and mirriors game   Notice how research and development totally missing from Gillard Labor equation…. which is just a big tax on everything for no gain. in fact more likely to cripple Australian manufacturing .. out of existence.  Gillard shoot yourself in the foot policy ideas at work here.

persephone says:

10:53am | 10/03/11

Steve

which is why industries which are ‘trade exposed’ will be compensated for this.

TimB

which is why I didn’t use the word ‘all’.

A carbon price will have a similar effect to that you ascribe to the GST (which also made the cost of doing business more expensive, all the way long the chain). It will raise some prices directly, others indirectly and others not at all.

There’s been carbon pricing in Europe for years, and the sky hasn’t fallen in.

CD

work in progress; such things always are.

We didn’t know the details of the GST until after it had gone through a considerable number of rewrites - what was delivered in the end was different to the package Howard took to the election.

As everyone recognised at the time, that’s what happens when you don’t have full control of both houses of Parliament.

We do know some things fairly definitely: carbon will be priced by the government to begin with, and then move to a market pricing system; companies who are likely to be trade affected witll be compensated for this; consumers will also be compensated.

ZSRenn

yes, prices will still rise, that’s the idea.

And yes, the government will still shell out other money - from general revenue, not from the money raised through carbon pricing - to encourage green industries.

There are international protocols to do with trade agreements which allow governments to compensate industries where something happens which affects their ability to compete on the ‘open playing field’ - and also allows them to impose tariffs etc on imports in the same situation.

You’ll be able to tell the ‘greeness’ of products by their price tag! The greener ones won’t be incurring as much of a carbon price, so will be cheaper than the ones that do.

It’s up to Treasury to work out the flow on effects (the GST wasn’t as predictable as you make out, which is why Hewson stuffed up the cake question; even in Howard’s final version, some kinds of food were taxed and others weren’t, which made it confusing).

The effect of the tax will be reviewed regularly - if it’s not driving the kind of behaviour as quickly as is needed, then the carbon price will be raised.

Peter

your energy company will have the incentive to switch to greener sources of energy - because if they don’t, you’ll buy your power from one that does, or you’ll cut down on your electricity use, or you’ll look at ways of supplementing your energy production, by installing solar panels or wind turbines.

Higher fuel prices - even if they’re only a few cents higher (it’s likely that, even if fuel’s included, the price won’t rise by more than that) - will make you think about whether or not a journey’s really necessary, or switch to a more fuel efficient car, or use more public transport, all options which will lower your emissions.

I’ve never expressed any objections here to nuclear power per se, just pointed out that no one wants to invest money into it, that it would cost much much more than a carbon price and will take too long to get up and running to do the job we need it to do.

Was reading the other day about small scale nuclear reactors (about the size of a telephone box) which can power towns of 20,000 people, and would be interested to find out more about them.

Dissident says:

10:55am | 10/03/11

Persephone (or anyone else), how will the Carbon tax be anything other than income redistribution?

No matter what way you paint it, there will be a lot of losers in the Carbon game because there are at least the costs of administration. We need at least a compliance division and a processing division. That costs money. We have to pay for this somehow, so you can’t give 100% back to the end users. That means somebody has to pay for administration by not getting a carbon ‘rebate’ that they should be entitled to if we were charging the big, bad polluters.

Of course, that assumes that they are going to give back 100%. If they decide to keep more of it for the consolidated revenue fund - more people get to pay more tax. Hooray!

The Carbon tax is horribly ill conceived, will not make any material difference to the pollution issue and will make Australian industries less competitive. Unless of course you introduce protectionist policies with regard to imports…

persephone says:

11:00am | 10/03/11

Gregg

yes, well, there was this little thing called the GFC, which posters here constantly tell me only affected Western Europe.

Strangely, I haven’t read any commentators connecting the GFC with carbon pricing, so if you can refer me to them, I would be most interested.

Most of them seem to think it had something to do with the housing market….

ZSRenn

in its essentials, this is exactly the same proposal that both Howard and Rudd took to the 2007 election.

All that has changed so far is that the period in which the government (rather than the market) sets the carbon price has blown out from one year to three.

And all parties went to the last election promising action on climate change.

Given that no one got a majority, no one got endorsement for their particular brand of action, which leaves it up to Parliament to sort it out, as is usual practice.

(Oh, and I’ve been making GST comparisons for a looonnnngggg time)

Northern Steve says:

11:17am | 10/03/11

@Joan,
R&D will gain simply because companies will be looking for low carbon replacement products to sell to their customers, in order to avoid the carbon tax.  We don’t need specific government investment in this.  In any case, government investing in particular research companies (often know as picking winners) almost always fails.  Leave the market to it, which will now have an incentive to provide products that create less CO2 in their production.
And Joan, are you really that dumb to mix up carbon with CO2 (8:30)?  The problem now is that we are producing more CO2 than the natural cycle can deal with.  Yes, carbon is an important part of the natural ecosystem.  Just as salt and fat are important in our own personal diets.  Perhaps knowing that little fact you could be encouraging us all to eat as much salt and fat in our diets as possible.

And just to stir, I wonder if Pers lies awake at night, realising that if John Howard had won in 2007, we would have had en ETS in this country for the last two or three years already…

billy says:

11:31am | 10/03/11

Perse, you cannont ague with Abbott supporters who think the GFC did not occur, Climate change is crap and Australia’s current broadband is just fine now and will cater our needs for the next 50years.

Bruno says:

11:38am | 10/03/11

persephone says:10:53am | 10/03/11

“The effect of the tax will be reviewed regularly - if it’s not driving the kind of behaviour as quickly as is needed, then the carbon price will be raised.”

If this statement is truly from a labor staffer with inside knowledge then I am scared, I really am. Taxing people to “encourage” them to change there behaviour, is scary enough.

This has now become a frightening policy the first policy in Australia at least that is scaring me.

I can see marching on the street, strikes, I thought this was supposed to be the lucky country why are they doing this?

persephone says:

11:38am | 10/03/11

Northern Steve

I comfort myself by reflecting that it was probably a non core promise…just as I don’t believe that Abbott’s Direct Plan to Divert Attention from Climate Change would ever be implemented.

persephone says:

11:55am | 10/03/11

billy

it’s not them I’m trying to convince; it’s sweet innocent bloggers who read their posts and think there must be an element of truth in them.

If no one bothers to point out that there isn’t, then these good people will go away with the wrong ideas.

A variant on the ‘evil triumphs if good men (or women!) do nothing’ meme.

TimB says:

11:59am | 10/03/11

Perse the GST does NOT accumulate all along the chain.

You clearly have no idea what you’re talking about. Do you understand the concept behind Input Tax Credits? At all?

As for the European scheme… have you *looked* at the state of the European economies lately?How’s Spain doing with all those wondeful green energy projects?

If you want to be taken seriously I strongly suggest learning a bit more about the things you claim before you start talking about them.

And you still haven’t responded to the charge of income redistribution.

David C says:

12:08pm | 10/03/11

p-phone . how will people be compensated., wiil they be refunded at the end of the fiscal year ? If so how do they fund the increase in the interim?

persephone says:

12:17pm | 10/03/11

TimB

Claiming back the GST imposes a cost on business which must be recouped.

When the GST was introduced, our local soccer club was not going to raise prices because of it, as it didn’t apply to our organisation.

However, we did, because to claim back the GST we didn’t need to pay in the first place we had to pay an accountant.

As for the gumpf about weath distribution, it’s just silly.

Someone on $70k a year is not going to end up effectively the same as someone on $40 k because of carbon pricing.

Someone on $100k is still going to have far more disposable income than someone on $70k.

All this shows is that a few of the more unthinking right wingers have seized hold of a phrase which they throw around without even understanding it.

If this is wealth redistribution, we’ve had it a long time.

TimB says:

12:19pm | 10/03/11

“it’s not them I’m trying to convince; it’s sweet innocent bloggers who read their posts and think there must be an element of truth in them.”

Wow that’s a laugh. Especially from someone who thinks The Day After Tomorrow is scientiffically sound

Given the amount of sheer spin and propaganda you spout, I’d be far more worried about these innocent bloggers reading *your* posts and coming away thinking theres an element of truth in those.

persephone says:

12:21pm | 10/03/11

DavidC

yet to be determined, but in the past compensation packages have been a mix of income tax reductions (so you’ll get extra money on a weekly basis) and increases in government benefits (so families will get extra compensation through a rise in family tax benefits, again receiving this money on a regular basis).

persephone says:

12:23pm | 10/03/11

David C

oh, and (of course) increases to the pension and other government payments.

jolly says:

12:31pm | 10/03/11

What Tim Wilson says must be true. I mean he’s a ‘Trained Carbon Accountant’ after all. It’s funny how unfunny right-wing people can be. Here’s a more in depth review of Tim’s work I just found while googling. Now thats funny. http://loonpond.blogspot.com/2011/03/tim-wilson-comedy-stylings-from-ipa-and.html

TimB says:

12:57pm | 10/03/11

“Claiming back the GST imposes a cost on business which must be recouped.”

How much of a cost exactly?

In 2000 most business would already have had someone looking after the accounts. Complying with GST requirements would have been included in their duties. Maybe they might have gotten get a bit of a raise at the time. Hardly a massive cost that would neccesitate a massive price rise on *ALL* their goods and/or services.

Smaller businesses might have had to hire an accontant do do a BAS but again, this is not a massive cost that would result in the kind of increases you claim.

The GST is not in anyway similar to the Carbon tax. You’re either lying when you make this claim, or you truly have no idea what you’re talking about.

Notice you ignored the European point now too.

And wealth redistribution =/= Wealth equalisation. What have I told you before about being disingenuous? And it hardly matters. It’s still wrong.

You really want people to stop purchasing high carbon products/services? You want your tax to work the way it’s supposed to work? No compensation. For anyone. No wealth redistribution.

See how far that gets you.

Dissident says:

12:57pm | 10/03/11

Persephone, I see you have addressed the income redistribution by saying that people who make more will still be better off, even if they are asked to carry the burden of a greater share of the cost of the Carbon Tax. I am not going to interpret that as being class warfare because your arguments are better reasoned than that, but I would like a clarification.

Firstly, do you concede that this tax will result in further wealth redistribution; and secondly, are you OK with that?

Why should a person on 100k not get reimbursed for the carbon cost when buying a dozen rashers of bacon (mmmm… bacon) but a person on 40k should? It’s the same bacon, from the same supplier, bought from the same store, and with the same environmental impact. How is that even remotely fair?

You are right, Perse, we have had wealth redistribution for a long time because of our progressive tax rates mean that higher income earners pay proportionally more tax than lower income earners. But just because we have some wealth redistribution, doesn’t mean we should have more. It isn’t silly - it is a legitimate concern.

If you are going to levy a tax based on consumption, you should compensate based on consumption too.

Ben81 says:

01:05pm | 10/03/11

Why are people actually interested in persephone’s pure speculation about compensation that doesn’t exist and hasn’t been announced yet?
Unless she has some inside information she doesn’t know how or in what form it will apply or to which tax brackets it will affect should it be linked to income tax.

There’s too many contradictions going on here to take this seriously right now, it’s not our fault the government put the cart before the horse and all these things are up in the air. 
Either the cost of living will go up enough to encourage people to use less resources or people will be ‘compensated’ and it will all be for nothing.
In the first case, the question is if the goal we are after is justified by the pain of getting that result, and considering that the result will have zero impact on climate change I’m not exactly won over by it quite yet.

Northern Steve says:

02:20pm | 10/03/11

@ persephone(11:38)

Touche

Plants food says:

02:52pm | 10/03/11

CO2 - the major cause of global warming
Global warming is caused by the emission of greenhouse gases . 72% of the totally emitted greenhouse gases is carbon dioxide (CO2), 18% Methane and 9% Nitrous oxide (NOx). Carbon dioxide emissions therefore are the most important cause of global warming. CO2 is inevitably created by burning fuels like e.g. oil, natural gas, diesel, organic-diesel, petrol, organic-petrol, ethanol. The emissions of CO2 have been dramatically increased within the last 50 years and are still increasing by almost 3% each year. This is cumulative.
At the same time, the number of carbon sink has dramatically been reduced through deforestation.
These are the facts.
http://timeforchange.org/CO2-cause-of-global-warming

danny says:

03:19pm | 10/03/11

@mahhrat Oh hell; and i thought it was funny. Can that unsustainable laughter be environmentally repaid in some way?

*Note to serious lefties
Consider also environmentally unsustainable humour tax.
After you get away with this AGW fraud

ZSRenn says:

03:54pm | 10/03/11

@ perse

I figure You are just a blogger yourself who like me does not have a clue how this thing is going to work but you are just so rusted on to labor you can’t see the forest for the trees.

The saying “I think she doth protest too much.” rings clear in my ears today!

You keep saying it will encourage people to seek out cheaper alternative”

What cheaper alternatives?

What cheaper alternative for a base power supply.

This is none!

What cheaper alternative to power our homes?

There is none!

What cheaper alternative for our industrial needs?

There is none?

What cheaper alternatives for farming?

There is none!

In one post to me you say we will not be affected by the cost and then next post we will.

Then you tell me I will be able to tell the greenness by the price. Who determines who is green and who is not and what does this thunderous bureaucratic beast cost us and will that be added to the cost? How do we keep it honest? What if the import made in China is cheaper?

Will companies be compensated for down time and cost for installing green technology or will the cost of this just prove too expensive folding those companies and causing loss of jobs income and further move what little is left of our manufacturing overseas.

Then you go on about treasury working out flow on costs but it has been four weeks now and they can’t even work out the basics.

Then you tell Peter he will be able to buy his power from the generators that use the greener technology. From my knowledge all the power used in each state is drawn from the same power generators in a grid system so are you now proposing that we dismantle the grid system and each individual power company has its own system.

Then you once again just fluff over Julia’s lie by telling me that she went to the polls with a carbon agenda in mind and that anyway Howard and Ouch I just got stabbed in the back for trying to introduce the same scheme Rudd went to the polls with in 2007.

News break this is 2011!

Then some self praise

Then more ranting about how this is so just like the GST and telling us how we are just being silly. Have you forgotten what Bob said about Australians not liking to be patronized?

Next you say pensions are going up to cover this extra cost and where is that money coming from? How damn big is this tax going to be to cover everything you have promised so far?

We have a saying in music “Less is more!” and I am afraid I may be guilty of breaking that rule in this post.

But you perse have shredded it to pieces!

Can’t you see every time you say something I get a new question a new dilemma that I have to take into consideration regarding this tax?

There are just no answers coming from the government and at the end of the day unless you are an employee of labor or in fact, as rumors would have us believe, our beloved leader herself, from you either.

You are just a blogger yourself who like me does not have a clue how this thing is going to work but you are just so rusted on to labor you can’t see the forest for the trees and wish to only spin us in a never ending spin cycle.

See you tomorrow same bat time same bat station and perse will be saying the same bat thing and not listening to anyone.  Maybe you are Julia after all!

Mattb says:

04:24pm | 10/03/11

@ZSRenn
“Every company will have to raise prices to compensate for the loss of profit margin on every product announced.”

“or am I wrong”

Gee, ZSRenn, I don’t know, are you wrong?, who knows?, the details of the carbon pricing policy haven’t been released yet, can you predict the future?, if you can, can you please give me this weeks lotto numbers, pretty please…...

Further more, you could have written-

“every company will have to invest in more energy efficient means of production, in turn enabling them to reduce their prices, making them more competitive than the next, increasing their market share and thus their profit margins”
But I take it that chain of thought might be a bit too positive for you. It is easier to be negative, than to think outside the square, RIGHT?....

ZSRenn says:

08:05pm | 10/03/11

@ Mattb

Julia and the ALP dont know how it will work!

Thats the whole point. I don’t know but neither it seems do our leaders and if they are going to stand up and say we are going to have a carbon tax in July 2012.

They should have been prepared and set forth the details for debate.

Not leave us like a shag on a rock for 4 weeks wondering what the hell is going on. That’s the fear not anything TA has conjured up but the fear of the unknown. Perse claims to know but look at the way she is jumping around.

Its obvious she doesn’t have a clue.

Squeeze the Middle says:

09:26am | 11/03/11

@ Mahhrat. “The reason everything sits at about 50% is because most of the time, we just don’t care any more. ” You shure? Isn’t it because of the AEC policies for redrawing boundaries agreed to by Labor and the Coalition.  Combined will regular polls and party numer crunchers and hey presto - minor fluctuations about an equilibrium. I.e. the 50% is by design.  Soon as one party goes too far to the left or right they ‘re chucked out whereafter they shift their policies back to the middle.  Meanwhile the AEC is also smoothing out the numbers.

Unionist says:

06:22am | 10/03/11

Simple people are amused by simple things, you are just one of the many

Squeeze the Middle says:

08:13am | 10/03/11

So are the very wise.

Flexo says:

09:39am | 10/03/11

ATM has hit the nail on the head and the paid ALP soldiers are not so happy with the reality check.

John A Neve says:

10:20am | 10/03/11

A the M,
Says “Enjoy the government you didn’t vote for Australia”! But we did vote
for them didn’t we A the M?
This is a democracy isn’t it?
Or is it only democratic if your side wins?
This is the best post from you to date, it’s “very funny” and very sad.

Against the Man says:

10:53am | 10/03/11

Johnny boy, you know darn well the ALP didn’t win the last election but your side will never wake up to that fact. So sad indeed. I think your soft cock response is really funny but the poll numbers and the fact that Australians everywhere equate Gillard to Gadaffi is even funnier. Gillard is in trouble and the poll numbers will slide down even more for the ALP as Australians have to pay more for everything. HaHa I told you so

John A Neve says:

12:08pm | 10/03/11

A the M,

Your retort to my post is even funnier than your original, “soft cock” is that the best you can come up with? School yard stuff is your limit is it?

Come on, give us of your wisdom, enough of your childish crap.

Against the Man says:

12:39pm | 10/03/11

What is with John? Did you even read my original post? I gave you more wisdom than you could handle if you bothered to read the original post. And you would know about school yards as you either still play in them or a very avid stalker.

Phil says:

01:03pm | 10/03/11

Wonder if Bob is using any lube with the screwing of the PM. I think we have all seen the cartoon of how international countries view the current minority government.

John A Neve says:

01:24pm | 10/03/11

A the M,

“very funny article” did you really find it funny?
Still following your “soft cock” comment, you’d find anything funny. Tell us how do you define “wisdom”?

With people like you voteing no wonder our parliament is in the state it is.
Now come on, give us a thought provoking comment.

Against the Man says:

04:53pm | 10/03/11

Wow John A Neve, looks like the soft cock term really hit a nerve with you huh? Look man, I’m really sorry, there are pills that can help you, just have a word with your GP (if Roxon hasn’t already scared him away) and hang on in there buddy.

John A Neve says:

05:32pm | 10/03/11

A the M,

I knew it, but you have just confirmed it. You just find it impossible to offer a constructive comment. The money put into education was wasted in your case and I hate waste.
Tell us, do you put a tick of a cross when you sign for something?

The more you post the sillier you become, please tell did you make it to grade 6 or maybe 7? Not to worry, same people are late developers.

Jade says:

06:30am | 10/03/11

Any smart business would.  But no… this will only tax big business, not us working class right

Lisa says:

07:56am | 10/03/11

What the hell, we might even sneak a bit extra in while we’re at it

Squeeze the Middle says:

08:27am | 10/03/11

I don’t have a problem with price increases Lisa.  What I have a problem with is that struggle town V8 driving boof heads will be partially compensated. From what money? The carbon tax gathered from the rest of us?

And then there’s the cost increases to governments. Will government reduce payouts or their wages to compensate?  If not then where will the money come from? The carbon tax gathered from the rest of us?

Where’s the net gain going to come from?  Where’s the incentive for large swathes of our GDP activity (like struggle street and government) to be greener?  Where’s the audit of government’s contribution to our emissions?  I.e. governments’ direct consumption for e.g. those air conditioned towers and the indirect contribution of their policies.

Australia is a high emitter per capita BECAUSE of our governments NOT in spite of them.

Sorry.  Too risky.  They have bad form so there’s no way I’ll support giving them a blank cheque.

Lisa says:

09:47am | 10/03/11

I hear what you’re saying Squeeze, I’m feeling a bit squeezed myself.
V8 boof city will be comphensated INITIALLY. Infact, they’ll be rewarded.
However,  I’ve worked for enough of these Big Carbon Polluters to know that we aren’t really concerned about this tax because we’ll just pass it on to you.  First will come the price increases.  Then we will have a look at cheaper alternatives but in the most part we won’t bother because in the main there ARE no alternatives with current infrastructure.  So basically we’ll wait for the plant doing all this ‘polluting’ to practically fall apart because hello… capital is scarce…. and then we’ll just decide that it’s much cheaper and less hassle to move our manufacturing to China.  V8 boofhead AWU member and shop floor worker now has no job, we’ve saved a bucket load of cash, we haven’t reduced any prices that we initally passed on to you and we’re all worse off

Hamish says:

10:35am | 10/03/11

You’re right about the V8 boofheads Lisa, they’ll be compensated richly for their own pollution…for a time (by all the professionals who take the train into the city). Then they’ll lose their job. Did you see Paul Howes said the other day that if only one of his members lost his job as a result of the tax, he’d oppose it. WTF, is he dumb enough to think a huge amount won’t or is he just super-conflicted and too busy eyeing off a safe ALP seat?

You also make a great point about alternatives. The theory with the tax is that businesses will find ways to decrease their emmissions because now they’ll have a financial incentive to do so, but this only works if there are actually alternatives, which there aren’t. Obviously the other problem is that the businesses themselves won’t really care anyway, ‘cos they’ll just pass the costs onto the consumer or move to China or the US or somewhere where the government isn’t stupid enough to punish productive activity in the economy.

Hamish says:

10:36am | 10/03/11

Also just meant to add, all this will do absolutely nothing for the global climate…whether you believe in AGW or not.

Lisa says:

10:49am | 10/03/11

Hamish, I’m TOTALLY perplexed by Paul Howes.  I just cannot fathom why he supports Carbon tax when it reduces the competitiveness of Australian manufacturing and strengthens the argument for offshoring.

Clearly, he is not working REAL interests of his members.

Like what you, I suspect that he’s only looking at his short term interests.  Mass offshoring is on the more distant horizon (when capital replacement decisions come up) and by then he’ll have his cushy job in Canberra, and the Workers?...... “Meh, who??”

monkey brain says:

07:54am | 11/03/11

Tony, is that you?

ZSRenn says:

07:45am | 10/03/11

@ Oops Sorry I am confused let me see if I can get this straight. The link at the bottom of the article goes to a website that has an article by another author which you claim is the most inaccurate Climate Change article ever written and so this information by Tim must be wrong.

How am I doing so far?

The most inaccurate Climate Change Article ever. That is a very big claim Oops! Considering there are articles out there that claim we are going to make a significant change to world CO2 emissions from this tax. 

Oops!

joker says:

07:51am | 10/03/11

back to Crikey for you then.

LC says:

09:32am | 10/03/11

@ Oops

There is articles on here written by people thinking the carbon tax will have a huge impact on global emissions.

This quite obviously makes any article wirtten here invalid.

(So why the hell am I here?)

Jim says:

06:27am | 10/03/11

Fact#1 is wrong JohnB…there is no evidence despite years of Al Gore Inc. trying to fudge out a result along thiose lies…err lines.

Jade says:

06:34am | 10/03/11

Fact: A tax on carbon will not help the planet.  Only make the inhabitants of Australia extremely poor… unless of course your are a pollie or in big business.

Fact: The world’s climate is doing what it has done for Billions of years before, change.

persephone says:

08:08am | 10/03/11

Jade

how will you be made poor when you will be compensated for more than the price rises?

Unless you’re so incredibly rich to begin with that you’re not being compensated, which means you won’t notice the price rises.

(Cue: oh here I am struggling along on a mere $200k, you poor people dont’ understand how tough it is maintaining a pool, three houses, four kids at elite private schools, let alone being able to Dress….)

malohi says:

08:43am | 10/03/11

I agree with fact 2 and certainly with fact 4.
It is fact 1 (well, the extent to which man contributes) and fact 3 that are the bigger issues.
These big polluters provide the services which people use daily. Even a person being fairly conservative with energy use like ‘Bob’ require these services for general living in todays reality.
Big buisness will not use less if the demand is still there, just charge more for it and know people will pay.

Elphaba says:

08:54am | 10/03/11

Fact:  A carbon tax will not slow the use of carbon.  Businesses will operate just as they always have, and slug the consumer with the cost difference.

Not many facts there in your post at all, actually…

Reg says:

08:55am | 10/03/11

Jade; ”  Fact: The world’s climate is doing what it has done for Billions of years before, change.”

Correct, but man before the industrial revolution was not striving to use natural resources at the rate they have been ever since.

1920 is an interesting year because it can be shown conclusively that with the increase in noise pollution from the introduction of large scale steel processing and riveting, (and of course WWI,) string musical instruments were fitted with the more strident steel strings rather than the more mellow gut.  This was apparently a response to the general global spread of hearing damage from high impact construction.

This is just to illustrate one of the insidious forms of damage we don’t notice because it is so gradual. We live in a coarser world where damage unrestricted is accepted as part of the cost of progress.

Ryan says:

08:59am | 10/03/11

@JohnB: proof please, please provide direct evidence that the earth is in fact warming. Last time I checked the latest global temperatures as measured by NASAwas -0.02 on the median. http://www.drroyspencer.com/latest-global-temperatures/
Oh and please don’t insult our intelligence and waste our times with the GISS temps, these have been thoroughly debunked I and will just reply to you with many many links to pictures of the GISS temperature stations next to tennis courts, outlets of air-conditioners, next to waste burning centers etc.
What is fact is that every one of the global warming alarmists have been caught lying and manipulating data to suit their agenda. This whole scare campaign is over pal, thoroughly debunked by real scientists.

Elphaba says:

09:03am | 10/03/11

@Persephone, how will everyone be compensated?

Means testing?  I thought so.  Don’t worry about slugging the rich and the middle income earners, they should just shut up and bend over for being so successful!

You are so full of sh*t.

TimB says:

09:10am | 10/03/11

Perse, how do you know what the compensation is?

The goverment doesn’t even know. Which means either you’re talking out of your hat or there’s something you’re not telling us.

Regardless, it’s income redistribution pure and simple. How is that in anyway fair?

Jade says:

09:41am | 10/03/11

@ Reg, how is adding a tax to the people going to fix that?  The only thing people can do is find green alternatives instead of using up all of our natural resources.

You don’t need to ruin a country financially to do that.

persephone says:

09:44am | 10/03/11

Elphaba

strangely enough, most economists disagree with you.

It’s this thing called market forces - I know, a rather obscure economic concept, you probably haven’t heard of it. It says that, if something becomes more expensive, people will either buy less of it or find a cheaper alternative.

So if you want people to buy less of something and switch to something else, you make it more expensive.

Governments - of all persuasions - have been using taxes to do this for centuries (even back in Elizabethan times they had tariffs).

If a government wants people to buy local products and not imports, they make imports more expensive by putting duties on them. If they want you to drink less alcohol, they put an excise on it. If they want people to quit smoking, they raise taxes.

Most people - particuarly economists - accept that this works.

So if you want energy companies and other businesses to emit less carbon, then you put a price on carbon.

That means the cost of business is higher, so the companies look around for cheaper ways of doing things, which means going for less carbon emitting sources of energy, which means less carbon is emitted.

Meanwhile, although consumers are getting compensated, they will be seeing prices go up.

So they’ll either go for cheaper (less carbon emitting) alternatives, or they’ll cut their costs by using power more efficiently, or they’ll put pressure on their suppliers to give them a better deal.

So the emitting industries will have pressure on them to emit less and the consumer will be chosing products which emit less.

Both of which mean less emissions, which means less carbon in the atmosphere.

Ryan says:

09:46am | 10/03/11

@persephone: so then based on your comments do you admit that this is nothing more than a redistribution of wealth tool much the same as any communist government.
You already told me before that it will do nothing to reduce global temperatures so then this must be the reason for it yes?

Elphaba says:

09:59am | 10/03/11

My God Perspehone, you actually believe this crap.  How are people going to find a cheaper alternative for petrol?  Food?  Electricity?

Energy Ausralia charges you to switch to green power now. What is it going to be like unde a carbon tax?  Unacceptable, that’s what..

I understand these things cost money, but this is a joke.  It’s a rort on the consumer for a problem that there is still no golobal consensus on.

Sure, a person might be able to trim costs elsewhere, but either way, they will be paying more. And since everyone uses resources differently, then compensation will be impossible.  So it’ll be means tested, and the poor will get the bulk of the funds - but only for a limited time, until they find another way to take it off them.

Disgusting.  You and you Labor cronies have got some serious problems.  Your contempt for the Australia people is staggering.  It makes me want to throw up.  And your attitude towards the high income earners?  Boo hoo they won’t miss the money?  That’s not the point.  The point is, why should high income earners be punished for being successful?  Typical socialist dogma.  I look forward to March 26th.  You’re going to be a very sorry little socialist when Labor gets the boot out of NSW.  Prophecy.  Believe it.

Anja Tangent says:

10:04am | 10/03/11

@ Reg “the general spread of global hearing damage after 1921” oh that is gold!! Where do you get this stuff from? Can you direct me to the conclusive proof that steel strings on instruments were fitted due to hearing damage and not due to the durability (and availability) of, erm, steel strings??

TimB says:

10:11am | 10/03/11

See Perse this is the problem:

“So if you want people to buy less of something and switch to something else, you make it more expensive.”

No. If you want people to switch to something else, you make that something else *cheaper*. That’s how true market forces should work.

If you can’t make it cheaper, then it’s clearly inefficient and should be dumped as the dud that it is.

AdamC says:

10:22am | 10/03/11

Persephone, you are right in theory, but a carbon tax won’t provide incentives for greater energy efficiency or the development of low-emission substitutes when it is possible simply to move emissions offshore. This is what has happened in the EU.

AGW is a global problem and needs a global solution. Quite frankly, I find the current ‘debate’ about emissions reductions bizarre. In light of the collapse of a global deal on emissions reduction, imposing an Australia-only carbon tax or ETS simply makes no sense on any level. (I actually felt like capitalising that last bit given how fundamental and obvious it is, but I restrained myself.)

It would be one thing if Australia was acting as an early adapter as the vanguard of a global trading scheme or tax. But that is not the position we are in. As it stands, global emissions trading is dead. It isn’t happening. Not now, not in the near future - probably not ever. And it doesn’t matter what other countries are doing in terms of direct actions or whatever. Repeat after me - in the absence of a system of global emissions trading, unilateral moves by Australia (or anyone else, even one of the big emitters) will not reduce CO2 emissions on a global basis.

Gregg says:

10:30am | 10/03/11

@ perse,
” how will you be made poor when you will be compensated for more than the price rises?

Unless you’re so incredibly rich to begin with that you’re not being compensated, which means you won’t notice the price rises. “

Oh yeah perse, for sure!
You are so gullible and must be in that mob that get fooled all the time but even Wally Windsor is starting to doubt where his flag should be flown.

There’s not even any detail out on the tax perse, what the additional administration costs will be and how it will be distributed.
Like are country people going to get more because they have to drive longer distances for most services!

Dash says:

10:36am | 10/03/11

Perse, thank you for highlighting that the real reason behind this tax is wealth redistribution. If you pay a significant amount of tax, therebye providing the government with financial means to fight climate change, you get nothing in the way of compensation! Yet, if you are already on benefits, paying little or no tax, or just lazy, you get compensation. What a pack of socialist cr@p.

This is the reason the ALP vote is now down to 30% and falling!

Hamish says:

10:57am | 10/03/11

Too true AdamC. I have no problem with Perse wanting to wear a hairshirt for the sake of the planet, but I do have a problem with Joolsya forcing all of us too, when as you rightly point out this carbon tax will have zero - I repeat - zero effect on global climate. Even if you do believe in AGW.

Aitch B says:

11:01am | 10/03/11

@Reg

“This was apparently a response to the general global spread of hearing damage from high impact construction.”

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Utter bullshit!

Steel strings were introduced because traditional gut ones could not provide enough acoustic output to be heard amid the brass, woodwind and percussion instruments of the day. Due to the new styles of music stringed instruments such as guitar and banjo were becoming much more featured and therefore required higher sound output levels.

This eventually led to the invention of the electronic pickup in 1931.

Hearing damage from high impact construction my eye!! Where did you pull that one from??

Jim says:

11:05am | 10/03/11

@persephone and all the other people regurgitating the official party lines…there will be no getting away from this tax. Unlike the GST which was exclusively for the end-user to pay, this is a tax that will slug every step in the process.

Imagine you’re buying a new (Australian made) car. The people digging up the raw products will get slugged, which will slow production and eventually lift commodity prices. The people processing the raw materials get slugged for every kWh they use and every drop of diesel they use. The manufacturing steps (and there are dozens here) gets slugged. There’ll be a surcharge on delivery. It goes on and on. Not to mention the increase in filling the damn thing up!
Buy an orange…you’ll be paying for every carbon tax hit from the growers to the market.
By a bottle of water you have the added benefit of paying more for the bottle on top of everything else, cause it’s made form petrochemicals…
Add to that job losses and the effect that will have on the economy, on interest rates, on inflation.

And who exactly will get ‘compensated’? The unemployed amongst us and the perpetual art students who have never worked day in their life.

Now wonder the Greens are backing this to the hilt…it’s free money for them!

persephone says:

11:14am | 10/03/11

Ryan

Of course Australia’s actions will educe carbon emissions. No, if Australia acts by itself, its reductions won’t make much difference.

That’s why it has to be a global response.

You don’t get a global response if everyone sits back and says that they only emit 1 or 2% so there’s no point them doing anything.

So far at least thirty countries are involved in carbon pricing, and most other developed/developing nations have something in the pipeline.

Elphaba

I’d rather be a fool in the company of the world’s top economists and scientists than a wise man in the company of people like Lord Monckton.

I believe ‘this stuff’ because it’s what’s underpinned capitalism for the last couple of hundred years.

You call me ‘disgusting’. I find people like you, who ignore what the scientists and the economists are telling you, dangerous and irresponsible.

I bet you pay out good money every year to insure your house on the off chance that an extremely rare event (statistically speaking) might mean you lose it in the future. Yet, when the same people who put together the figures that demonstrate that it’s worth you spending that money in case of that extremely rare event, tell you that it’s a dead cert that the planet will suffer because of climate change, you ignore them.

Your only motivation must be selfishness - you don’t want to spend money now to ensure a better future.

Your only excuse can be pig ignorance, because the message we’re getting from the experts we pay to find out these things is very very clear.

TimB

yes, and one way you make a more desirable product cheaper is to make a less desirable product more expensive.

Which is why light beer is cheaper than heavy.

Come on, this isn’t rocket science; governments have been doing this for centuries, on the advice of economists.

Northern Steve says:

11:35am | 10/03/11

@Jim:
Fact 1: CO2 is warming the earth.
This is a fundamental fact, well established for over 200 years.
The fundamental operation is thus:
Light enters the earth’s atmosphere from the sun.  The atmosphere is generally transparent to visible light.  Some of the Infrared is absorbed by CO2 in the atmosphere, some passes through (which is why the sun feels warm when it shines on us).  UV is partially absorbed by ozone and the magnetosphere. Blue light is scattered (which is why the sky is blue), but by and large stays in the atmosphere and hits the surface.
When light hits the ground, it is usually absorbed, turning into heat.  Some of the light reflects, which is why we can see it.
The heat in the surface of the earth is then re-emitted as infrared radiation (radiated heat).  Remember that infrared is absorbed by CO2?  So all the visible light that passes through the atmosphere on the way down, and is then re-emitted as infra red, is partially absorbed by the CO2 in the atmosphere on the way out.  The more CO2, the more heat is absorbed (and trapped) by the atmosphere; it sort of bounces around off the CO2 until is it absorbed as heat again by the earth.

Note the last bit: the more CO2, the more heat is trapped on earth.

Now, if you want to deny that our excess CO2 is causing warming of the atmosphere, pick apart the science above. Tell me which bits are wrong, where the flaw in the argument is, or which bits you just choose to blindly disbelieve because it doesn’t fit in with your nice little lifestyle where we can pollute the earth as much as we want and it doesn’t matter.

Ryan says:

11:39am | 10/03/11

@persephone: so it is a communist style program of redistribution of wealth to third world countries then?

Hamish says:

11:51am | 10/03/11

Northern Steve, assuming you are completely right (and that the 5% of global Co2 humans produce is somehow going to disastrously warm the planet even though there has been far more Co2 in the atmosphere in the past than there is now) how exactly does anything you have said relate to whether or not Australia should introduce a carbon tax?

persephone says:

11:59am | 10/03/11

Ryan

no.

Not following your line of reasoning, there.

TimB says:

12:15pm | 10/03/11

No Perse. You aren’t making it cheaper. You’re making it *relatively cheaper* there is a distinct difference. In the end power will be more expensive.

See if you have a choice between two goods of similar function, A for $10 and B for $100 sure, you’ll go for the $10 one.

But if the price on A is artificially raised to $110, your argument is now you’ll go for B because it’s “cheaper”. This doesn’t change the fact that you’re now paying $100 to fufill a need that you only had to spend $10 on before.

It’s an artificial market designed to prop up inefficient technology.

Suggest you read Miranda Devine’s column today. The views of Bjorn Lomborg make for interesting reading.

http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/mirandadevine/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/carbon_tax_is_a_dog_ready_to_bite_labor/

“Lomborg has never been a climate sceptic, just a realist who believes global warming has been exaggerated and we would be better saving actual lives today by spending our money on the more urgent problems of poverty in the developing world - such as providing clean drinking water to every child.

“I am an environmentalist but also a humanist,” he says. His data comes from a climate change summit of the world’s top economists he organised under the banner of the Copenhagen Consensus in 2009. They examined 15 of the most credible solutions to climate change, from climate engineering solutions such as “whitening” clouds, to planting trees and cutting methane. They ranked them by cost effectiveness and the damage they would avoid.

Carbon dioxide taxes ranked rock bottom. The most effective solution, he says, is to dramatically increase research and development on green-energy technology. “

Oh and don’t make excuses & give Elphaba a guilt trip for your socialist bullcrap. The insurance argument alone is stupidly flawed. You wouldn’t insure your home if the cost was 30% of its value every year and the risk was 0.01%.

persephone says:

12:34pm | 10/03/11

TimB

we don’t know for sure, because we don’t know what the future energy mix will be. It is quite possible that, in the future, energy will be cheaper.

However, that’s a bit of a moot point. The practice of artificially raising the price of some goods relative to others to send a market signal to consumers is an old and tried one.

Elphaba says:

12:49pm | 10/03/11

@TimB, thanks.

@Persephone, I did post a reply to your ridiculous assertions about me but I fear the cyber gremlins gobbled it up.

Suffice it to say, I am very concerned about the environment.  Certainly, if the world continues to populate and we all live for a very long time thanks to modern medicine, we should be doing something to ensure our environmental future.  I’m against the carbon tax because it will not work.  I’ve said this before - any government, and this includes the LNP, who is serious about energy concerns in Australia, should implement nuclear power.  I’m not particulary thrilled about the LNP’s plans either, but when it comes to the lesser of two evils, the ALP are dangerous.

The world is divided on carbon emissions - you can’t pretend that it isn’t.  There is not a serious global consensus - there just isn’t.  I’m not saying that because of that, we shouldn’t implement a carbon tax, I’m saying that if CO2 emissions are a real threat, we still shouldn’t implement it because business will not lower their emissions.  Not whilst they can pass the cost down the line.

And if it’s not going to save the environment, then what is the point?  Robbing the rich and giving to the poor.  Classic socialist Labor.  I for one am sick of it.

Ryan says:

01:05pm | 10/03/11

@persephone: well if its not going to make any difference to the climate and we are going to selectively compensate the poor and take from the “rich” (this being any one person in a household earning over 100k regardless of the situation of the household) then surely its a communist style redistribution of wealth program managed by this communist style government?

Northern Steve says:

02:18pm | 10/03/11

Hamish, I’m responding to Jim’s false claim that CO2 does not cause warming.  Whether we produce 5% or not I don’t know (can you reference that?), we are increasing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.  That is not being debated by anyone.  Hence, we are contributing to warming.
The effect is not linear either.  A 1% rise in CO2 does not necessarily create a 1% rise in temperature or heat.  Remember I said that light is absorbed into the surface of the earth?  That’s not true everywhere.  Light mostly reflects off ice.  So if temperature rises a little, and ice melts, then less light is being reflected, more is being absorbed and changed into heat.  So an increase of CO2 doesn’t just raise the temp, it can also change the RATE of rise of temp.
Similarly, a warmer ocean can’t store as much CO2, so as temps rise, CO2 is released from the ocean, leading to more heat being trapped.
Similarly, as permafrost in the arctic melts, it releases CO2 & methane, same result.  Positive feedback cycles.
Now, as to past levels of CO2 in the atmosphere, yes, there have been periods when there has been both more and less CO2 than now.  At those times, the earth’s environment was radically different to now.  When there was more CO2, it was significantly warmer.  Now, being different is necessarily bad, its the change between states that is difficult to survive.  If that change happens slowly, animals and plants can evolve to adapt.  If it happens quickly, you can get mass extinction instead.  There are already ecosystems where animals and plants are dying because the average temperature has risen by 0.5C. 
That’ the science.  I’ve put my but in about the tax in another post on this page.  Go find it and debate it there.

Again though, if you think my science is wrong, tell me where, or admit that our lifestyle is causing warming.

Jim says:

02:24pm | 10/03/11

@Northern Steve - believe me mate, I know my subject very well. What you have rehashed is a very simplistic, and very dangerous assumption about what is going on.

You have come close to some truths but you are still miles away from the entire truth, which is what makes the Greens and idiots like Rising Tide so dangerous with their misinformation.

Atmospheric CO has only been able to be ‘measured’ for 200 years. It’s thermal ‘absorbance’ was only theorised in the early 1900’s, and not demonstarted till the 1960’s. More advanced experiments since the 90’s have shown that CO2 can only absorb wavelengths of a very small bandwidth, which excites the molecules for a brief amount of time generating heat.

After the light hits the Earth, the wavelengths that bounce back contain some of this spectrum…now here’s the clincher; there’s no extra light hitting the planet, and all the wavelengths than can be absorbed by CO2 is already being absorbed. Add more CO2 and no more heat will be generated.

Of all the heat generated in the atmosphere, only a very small percentage is caused by CO2, and as mentioned, that component is not - cannot - increase. Most of it is trapped in water vapour…should that be taxed?

I could pick your ‘science’ apart further but it will be a waste of time won’t it? You appear to be well indoctrinated into the School of Gore.

Northern Steve says:

03:24pm | 10/03/11

@Jim
“Atmospheric CO has only been able to be ‘measured’ for 200 years. It’s thermal ‘absorbance’ was only theorised in the early 1900’s, and not demonstarted till the 1960’s. “
Okay, let’s accept that we’ve only know that CO2 causes warming for the last 50 years then.  I’m happy to live with that.  The pot being we’re happy to agree it does cause warming and we’ve know that for some time, which my friend earlier didn’t believe.
“More advanced experiments since the 90’s have shown that CO2 can only absorb wavelengths of a very small bandwidth, which excites the molecules for a brief amount of time generating heat.”
Very small bandwidth compared to what?  How long is very small?  Does the time matter? Actually it does. The frequencies of light it absorbs are critically in the IR range, and if it only excites molecules for a short time, then that means it can absorb and re-emit more photons of IR per second than if it was for a short time.  More photons of IR being reflected back to earth, means more heat.
“After the light hits the Earth, the wavelengths that bounce back contain some of this spectrum…now here’s the clincher; there’s no extra light hitting the planet, and all the wavelengths than can be absorbed by CO2 is already being absorbed. Add more CO2 and no more heat will be generated.”
Absorbed and re-emitted.  Absorbed and re-emitted.  Back the earth.  The CO2 isn’t being used up.  It is absorbing heat, and reflecting it back to the earth.  The quicker it does it, the more it can reflect.,  The more CO2 there is, the more it can reflect.  Heat is not generated in the atmosphere.  At the surface of the earth, light is converted to heat, which is less able to leave the atmosphere the more CO2 there is.
Now earlier on, you were saying that in the past the earth has been both warmer and cooler than now. Yet at those times we weren’t receiving any extra or less sunlight either.  However, the quantity of CO2 in the atmosphere was different.  You seem to be contradicting yourself.
“Of all the heat generated in the atmosphere, only a very small percentage is caused by CO2, and as mentioned, that component is not - cannot - increase. Most of it is trapped in water vapour…should that be taxed?”
Water plays a significant role.  But the CO2 component is not insignificant, certainly not a ‘very small percentage’, and that is the part that we can control.  It makes sense to control those things that we can.  To say we should do nothing because we can’t control the effect of water is non-sensical.
“I could pick your ‘science’ apart further but it will be a waste of time won’t it? You appear to be well indoctrinated into the School of Gore.”
No, just well read and educated.

Northern Steve says:

03:32pm | 10/03/11

@Jim,
I’ve just twigged Jim,
In your first post, you claimed that the CO2 is not warming the earth.
And then in your last post you said it’s been demonstrated that CO2 acts as a greenhouse gas for 50 years!
You’re just full of manure, aren’t you!

Jim says:

04:28pm | 10/03/11

Not sure how you read that into what I wrote, but hey, if your selective reading and fear of the facts helps you sleep at night go your hardest!

The Badger says:

05:27pm | 10/03/11

Jim
it’s pretty apparent to anyone who looks at the comments you started off with a blanket statement that CO2 doesn’t cause global warming, then went on to say it does. All we are left with now that you have admitted it does, is to argue over how much is it contributing to global warming and what are the repercussions of doing nothing.
Pretty simple really.

Let’s see,

JohnB says: 06:09am | 10/03/11
Fact (#1). CO2 is warming the Earth.

Trying to be clever
Jim says: 06:27am | 10/03/11
Fact#1 is wrong JohnB…there is no evidence despite years of Al Gore Inc. trying to fudge out a result along thiose lies…err lines.

Then
Jim says: 02:24pm | 10/03/11
Of all the heat generated in the atmosphere, only a very small percentage is caused by CO2

Sounds like jim agrees that heat get generated in the atmosphere by CO2 doesn’t it? Jim goes on to say:
Okay, let’s accept that we’ve only know that CO2 causes warming for the last 50 years then.  I’m happy to live with that.

Not much to argue about there jim

Northern Steve says:

07:09pm | 10/03/11

I’d like to say thanks, Badger, but that last quote is actually me.
The first quote denying CO2 warms the atmosphere is Jim’s as is the second one, where he admits it warms it (albeit only a bit).  The last one where I agree to work on 50 years is me paraphrasing Jim.

But even that is reasonably typical of many deniers.  Deny, and then when shown the facts, agree, but qualify the agreement so that it is insignificant.  Which is a more dangerous lie because it distorts the facts.  In fact CO2 contributes from 10-25% of the heat generated. That is a significant amount, and is something we can and should do something about.

Another distortion peddled on here is that we only contribute 5% of CO2 to the atmosphere.  Perhaps.  I had a look at a few sources that seem to agree with that.  But the point is that while the earth’s natural systems can absorb the 95% that it creates naturally (that is, the steady level of CO2 we’ve had for a while), the other 5% builds up each year, so that after 20 years, we have doubled the CO2.  That is significant (and it takes much longer than 20 years for CO2 to breakdown).

Gnoll110 says:

08:29am | 11/03/11

Fact. CO2 is warming the Earth.

Fact. We’ll use fossil fuels until they’re gone.

=> Highly likely: Species extinct within one hundred year. If James Lovelace & Frank Fenner think it, it worth considering.

RBarron says:

11:36pm | 12/03/11

John B and Northern Steve 1st of all go and educate yourself.
Do yourself a favour.
Go the Council on Foreign Relations read the text or listen to the audio of a speech give by Fatih Birol, chief economist and director of the office of the chief economist at the International Energy Agency, reports on the world energy market and the ways to combat climate change.
There was more than Climate Change and the environment that they wanting Copenhagen passed.
From the speech
(“So—and I can tell you if some countries, like China—if they are looking for alternative technologies, alternative policies—as I will tell you in a minute in the context of climate change—it is not driven by the climate change reasons but it is mainly driven by energy security reasons and $147 traumatized many oil-importing countries in terms of their reliance on oil. So this is the reference and—I will say risky consequences.”)

Most of our Governments are apart of the IEA the issue is the Sleeping Gaints China & India and with that this is nothing more then a plan for energy security.

As for the sciences Northern Steve you are all over the place.
My friend you don’t really understand what you are saying.
You have chopped and changes in your posted.
My friend Northern Steve.
I have studied Civil Engineering, Electronic Trade in Radio Communication, Electrical Engineering in Process Control, Network Engineering and Accounting. All these occupations require analytical skills. I could debate on the co2 and IR and the greenhouse effect. please don’t mix the phase greenhouse effect and the Global Warming but I will not because you just don’t understand from what you have written
Listed to the speech 1st.
Now I have been retired for the last 10 years. I have since a 13 year old been involved in Astronomy. I have had 10 years to read every day and the study of science is my hobby.

Form your post be all end all and _uck all.
Northern Steve says:03:24pm | 10/03/11
@Jim
quote from you to Jim
You said to Jim that (“Now earlier on, you were saying that in the past the earth has been both warmer and cooler than now.”) You said (“Yet at those times we weren’t receiving any extra or less sunlight either.”)  However, the quantity of CO2 in the atmosphere was different.  You seem to be contradicting yourself.
You said (“Yet at those times we weren’t receiving any extra or less sunlight either.”).
In fact you are wrong. go and research it, You prove me wrong.
There has been different amounts of sunlight and increase of solar temperature. Every billion years our sun ages it increases luminous by 10% and its surface temperature. Our Sun with best science is 4.57 billion years old. It is only thought that land life on earth has been around for the last billion with man kind much shorter because there wasn’t enough light. As the Sun ages and losses energy it will expand from its current state a yellow dwarf to a red giant and consume the 3 inner plants. Due to the increase in solar temperatures in another billion years the surface of the Earth will be too hot for liquid water to exist ending all life on earth. The sun will be a Red Gaint in another 5 billion years. Fact so what you are talking about is rubbish and you are quoting some facts but you don’t understand it at all. My problem is that I have dyslexia and can’t write. But in terms of IQ I can do what ever I wanted to do.
Please do be had.
(Cambrian Period) 496.0 to 542 million Years ago Co2 20 to 35 times higher then present – day 6000ppmv. No Man.

(Cretaceous Period) 70.6 to 145.5 million Years ago Co2 close to present – day 385ppmv. No Man Current day levels no 6.8 billion people.

(Paleogene (Tertiary) Period) 28.4 to 55.8 million Years ago Co2 lowering from 3800ppmv to 650ppmv.
No Man back up again and then down.

Wake up.

RBarron says:

01:59am | 13/03/11

Northern Steve says:03:24pm | 10/03/11
@Jim
I have already replied about the age of the sun and it increase of luminous by 10% and its surface temperature every 1 billion years it ages.
You wrote to jim Quoting what you wrote(“Now earlier on, you were saying that in the past the earth has been both warmer and cooler than now.”) You said to jim (“Yet at those times we weren’t receiving any extra or less sunlight either.”)  However, the quantity of CO2 in the atmosphere was different.  You seem to be contradicting yourself.’)

As it said before in the other post it is you that is contradicting yourself from proven physics and what we know as a yellow dwarf hydrogen star ages it increases in brighter and continues to heat up at the core until it losses enough mass and hot enough at the core to start a helium fusion reaction and continues to enlarge and gets brighter.

Astronomers can determine the mass, age, chemical composition and many other properties of a star by observing its spectrum, luminosity and motion through space. The total mass of a star is the principal determinant in its evolution and eventual fate. Other characteristics of a star are determined by its evolutionary history, including diameter, rotation, movement and temperature. A plot of the temperature of many stars against their luminosities, known as a Hertzsprung-Russell diagram (H–R diagram), allows the age and evolutionary state of a star to be determined.

As for the change in co2 on earth and the heating and cooling, given what we know for certain about stars with them increasing their luminous by 10% and its surface temperature every 1 billion years.

It has been said the faint young Sun paradox or problem describes the apparent contradiction between observations of liquid water early in the Earth’s history and the astrophysical expectation that the Sun’s output would be only 70% as intense during that epoch as it is during the modern epoch. The issue was raised by astronomers Carl Sagan and George Mullen in 1972. Explanations of this paradox have taken into account greenhouse effects, astrophysical influences, or a combination of the two.

Early in the Earth’s history, the Sun’s output would have been only 70% as intense during that epoch as it is during the modern epoch. In the then current environmental conditions, this solar output would have been insufficient to maintain a liquid ocean. Astronomers Carl Sagan and George Mullen pointed out in 1972 that this is contrary to the geological and paleontological evidence.

According to the Standard Solar Model, stars similar to the Sun should gradually brighten over their main sequence lifetime. However, with the predicted solar luminosity 4 billion (4 × 109) years ago and with greenhouse gas concentrations the same as are current for the modern Earth, any liquid water exposed to the surface would freeze. However, the geological record shows a continually relatively warm surface in the full early temperature record of the Earth, with the exception of a cold phase, the Huronian glaciation, about 2.4 to 2.1 billion years ago. Water-related sediments have been found that date to as early as 3.8 billion years ago. Hints of early life forms have been dated from as early as 3.5 billion years, and the basic carbon isotopy is very much in line with what is found today. A regular alternation between ice ages and warm periods is only to be found occurring in the period since one billion years ago.
Part1

RBarron says:

02:03am | 13/03/11

Part 2
When it first formed, Earth’s atmosphere may have contained more greenhouse gases. Carbon dioxide concentrations may have been higher, with estimated partial pressure as large as 1,000 kPa (10 bar), because there was no bacterial photosynthesis to reduce the gas to carbon and oxygen. Methane, a very active greenhouse gas which reacts with oxygen to produce carbon dioxide, may have been more prevalent as well, with a mixing ratio of 10?4 parts per million by volume.

Based on a study of geological sulfur isotopes, in 2009 a group of scientists including Yuichiro Ueno from the University of Tokyo proposed that carbonyl sulfide (OCS) was present in the Archean atmosphere. Carbonyl sulfide is an efficient greenhouse gas and the scientists estimate that the additional greenhouse effect would have been sufficient to prevent the Earth from freezing over.
Following the initial accretion of the continents after about 1 billion years, geo-botanist Heinrich Walter and others believe that a non-biological version of the carbon cycle provided a negative temperature feedback. The carbon dioxide in the atmosphere dissolved in liquid water and combined with metal ions derived from silicate weathering to produce carbonates. During ice age periods, this part of the cycle would shut down. Volcanic carbon emissions would then restart a warming cycle due to the greenhouse effect.
According to the Snowball Earth hypothesis, there may have been a number of periods when the Earth’s oceans froze over completely. The most recent such period may have been about 630 million years ago. Afterwards, the Cambrian explosion of new multicellular life forms started.
A 2010 Nature article by researcher Minik Rosing presented a new theory, that Earth was able to maintain liquid oceans due to fewer clouds and less land.
That is an answer for the changing Co2 levels without mankind and changing Temperatures on earth.
Water vapor is the main driver of the Greenhouse GAS Effect.
The problem with the IPCC computer models is that they don’t take into account alot of things.
But the changing brightness of the star is certain.

Give me another answer based upon science
Maybe God done it ????????????????
With ADAM & EVE

RBarron says:

06:48am | 13/03/11

Northern Steve
Sea levels during several previous previous interglacials were about 3 to as much as 20 meters higher than current sea level.

What without the Industrial Revolution??
You are wrong on sunlight not changing It is a fact that as a yellow dwarf star as it ages it gets larger and brighter and hotter. Due to the fact that as it losses mass up until it losses 30% and the turn into a Red Gaint. It is a bit more detailed. But in a billion year because of this process of get 10% hotter per 1 billion year there will be no liquid water of earth because of hot it will be and the run away greenhouse effect. Caused in main part as a result of the suns changes.

Information from usgs.
http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/sealevel.html
Global sea level and the Earth’s climate are closely linked. The Earth’s climate has warmed about 1°C (1.8°F) during the last 100 years. As the climate has warmed following the end of a recent cold period known as the “Little Ice Age” in the 19th century, sea level has been rising about 1 to 2 millimeters per year due to the reduction in volume of ice caps, ice fields, and mountain glaciers in addition to the thermal expansion of ocean water. If present trends continue, including an increase in global temperatures caused by increased greenhouse-gas emissions, many of the world’s mountain glaciers will disappear. For example, at the current rate of melting, all glaciers will be gone from Glacier National Park, Montana, by the middle of the next century. In Iceland, about 11 percent of the island is covered by glaciers (mostly ice caps). If warming continues, Iceland’s glaciers will decrease by 40 percent by 2100 and virtually disappear by 2200.

The glacier has been retreating rapidly since the early 1900’s. The arrows point to the former extent of the glacier in 1850, 1937, and 1968. Mountain glaciers are excellent monitors of climate change; the worldwide shrinkage of mountain glaciers is thought to be caused by a combination of a temperature increase from the Little Ice Age, which ended in the latter half of the 19th century, and increased greenhouse-gas emissions.

Most of the current global land ice mass is located in the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets (table 1). Complete melting of these ice sheets could lead to a sea-level rise of about 80 meters, whereas melting of all other glaciers could lead to a sea-level rise of only one-half meter.

Glacial-Interglacial Cycles
Climate-related sea-level changes of the last century are very minor compared with the large changes in sea level that occur as climate oscillates between the cold and warm intervals that are part of the Earth’s natural cycle of long-term climate change.

During cold-climate intervals, known as glacial epochs or ice ages, sea level falls because of a shift in the global hydrologic cycle: water is evaporated from the oceans and stored on the continents as large ice sheets and expanded ice caps, ice fields, and mountain glaciers. Global sea level was about 125 meters below today’s sea level at the last glacial maximum about 20,000 years ago (Fairbanks, 1989). As the climate warmed, sea level rose because the melting North American, Eurasian, South American, Greenland, and Antarctic ice sheets returned their stored water to the world’s oceans. During the warmest intervals, called interglacial epochs, sea level is at its highest. Today we are living in the most recent interglacial, an interval that started about 10,000 years ago and is called the Holocene Epoch by geologists.

Sea levels during several previous interglacials were about 3 to as much as 20 meters higher than current sea level.
The evidence comes from two different but complementary types of studies. One line of evidence is provided by old shoreline features.

Wave-cut terraces and beach deposits from regions as separate as the Caribbean and the North Slope of Alaska suggest higher sea levels during past interglacial times. A second line of evidence comes from sediments cored from below the existing Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets. The fossils and chemical signals in the sediment cores indicate that both major ice sheets were greatly reduced from their current size or even completely melted one or more times in the recent geologic past. The precise timing and details of past sea-level history are still being debated, but there is clear evidence for past sea levels significantly higher than current sea level.

It is about energy security nothing more nothing less.

andrewp says:

06:42am | 10/03/11

If people don’t want to be treated like fools, then maybe they should stick to facts? Our population has not tripled in 30 years, and spreading carbon emissions over a longer period of time means a lower peak volume.

bleD says:

07:35am | 10/03/11

You’ve hit the nail on the head JohnB. World overpopulation is the main reason for the problems today. Until that is tackled globally, expect things to get progressively worse.

JohnB says:

08:00am | 10/03/11

It sure has andrewp..Global population has tripled since 1980 and will continue to triple again but this time over a shorter time frame. I’ve been studying this for twenty years including uni. We are increasing population at a rate of between 90 and 130 000 000 people a year.

JohnB says:

08:08am | 10/03/11

“lower peak volume” ......what the?

CO2 in the air is CO2 in the air; no other terms or numbers matter.

Loss of millions of acres of land to sustain growing population will exacerbate that. Common sense tells me andrewp that reducing carbon emissions while ignoring land clearing is ridiculous and a waste of time and our money.

persephone says:

08:13am | 10/03/11

JohnB

the stone age didn’t end because we ran out of stones.

We found something better to take their place.

And if we are going to use all the carbon fuels until they’re gone, wouldn’t it be a really good idea to already have alternatives in place for when they are?

We didn’t stop using halon gases as propellants because we ran out of them. We didn’t stop using DTD because there wasn’t any left. We didn’t stop using asbestos in buildings because the world’s supply of asbestos was gone. We didn’t take lead out of petrol because people were panicking that we’d reached peak lead.

We stopped using these resources because we recognised that they were having adverse impacts on the environment.

We kept doing what we had been doing; we simply developed different ways of doing it.

L. says:

08:56am | 10/03/11

“Population has almost tripled in 30 odd years”

Umm… No it hasn’t.

If that were the case, the worlds population would be 13.5 Billion, which it clearly isn’t. Nice hyperbole.

JohnB says:

09:07am | 10/03/11

Great point persephone.

My point ishowever that coal, oil and gas are inexpensive (yeah yeah I know that’s the point of a tax to make them more expensive) and there will be no extra tax on the exported stuff that I’ve heard of? So..because we stop using CO2 products doesn’t mean other countries will…

I remember a couple of decades ago a very clever professor told us other countries with far bigger populations are about to make all the mistakes we did but on a far greater scale. With asbestos, leaded fuel and DDT that’s mostly a local problem but with CO2 it affects us all on a far greater scale. The elephant I keep talking about is more people equals more land clearing equals less CO2 locked up in plants. The forgotten (massive) elephant in the room.

Squeeze the Middle says:

09:16am | 10/03/11

So persephone.  How much CO2 does our Parliament House contribute? Or Treasury. DFAT. Defence. The National Library.  All those Court and Police buildings. All those centelink offices. I’ve yet to see one piece of data.  How much do our governments and their agencies contribute in delivering their goods and services? Tim Wilson came up with plenty of numbers for private companies.  But I’ve yet to see numbers for the public sector’s consumption.  Why do you think that is persephone? Let only the impact of their policies like stamp duty which obstructs the more efficient use of our housing stocks.

If they were serious about this issue then don’t you think they would have published detailed numbers?

Australia is a high emitter per capita BECAUSE of our governments and NOT in spite of them.

Face it.  Our governments are addicted to CO2.  And THAT’S why it hasn’t been swiftly dealt with like DTD and CFCs.

JohnB says:

09:29am | 10/03/11

Picking straws over whether the population has tripled or not is semantics. However you look at it, at least 90000000 extra people on the planet every year is leading us to certain disaster. Surely you can’t pick holes in that?

L. says:

10:18am | 10/03/11

“Surely you can’t pick holes in that?”

Actually I can…

There’s no such thing has an overpopulation of anything. The surplus ALWAYS die.

AdamC says:

10:25am | 10/03/11

Pers:

“[T]he stone age didn’t end because we ran out of stones.”

Too true, but we also didn’t stop using stagecoaches because the government put a tax on horse shit.

Think about it, Pers.

Elphaba says:

10:28am | 10/03/11

“Picking straws over whether the population has tripled or not is semantics.”

JohnB, you were the one who said the population had tripled, when it obviously hadn’t.

It’s not semantics, it’s wrong.  Accept it - you posted a furphy and got done for it.

Gregg says:

10:46am | 10/03/11

@perse,
I reckon you needed to go on a holiday with nossy lost all over the place somehow ” lostnow ” because you’re all over the place this morning.
”
the stone age didn’t end because we ran out of stones.

We found something better to take their place.

And if we are going to use all the carbon fuels until they’re gone, wouldn’t it be a really good idea to already have alternatives in place for when they are?

We didn’t stop using halon gases as propellants because we ran out of them. We didn’t stop using DTD because there wasn’t any left. We didn’t stop using asbestos in buildings because the world’s supply of asbestos was gone. We didn’t take lead out of petrol because people were panicking that we’d reached peak lead.

We stopped using these resources because we recognised that they were having adverse impacts on the environment. . “

So what adverse impact do stones have on the environment and though it may be more energy use to move them, artificial ones still need manufacture and will not last anywhere near as long.
Real stones still have some great uses and even as rocks in the head of some!

Not all asbestos use has been bad and it does occur naturally in the environment.
” We kept doing what we had been doing; we simply developed different ways of doing it “

And so we have yet to show that carbon is an environmental problem and as for what it is used for, there are still going to be different approaches looked at, be it nuclear, renewables or whatever.

But increasingly more taxes is going to make it harder and harder for people to do the same ol thing any whichever way.

Bennymac says:

07:20am | 10/03/11

Faz,

Tims exercise in ad hominem was purely for entertainment value,

Your missing the point of the article.

It doesn’t matter if it’s Tim’s day, your day or my day thats analysed, the carbon tax will cost every australian more, not just the big polluters as Julia is claiming.

bobw says:

10:20am | 10/03/11

Yep, because that’s what think tanks exist for:  entertainment value.

fairsfair says:

12:02pm | 10/03/11

Only thing better Jimbo is some of the comments!

Adam Diver says:

08:28am | 10/03/11

You have to include

“make green energy cheap (and reliable) and we will switch tommorrow.”

The greatest cost of green energy ATM is that it doesnt work.

L. says:

08:59am | 10/03/11

“Ahhhh, make green energy cheap and we will switch tomorrow.
Mmmm no brainer really…”

No, it is a “brainer”.. Cheap or not, “green” energy simply cannot produce the levels of base load power required to run Australia.

LC says:

09:43am | 10/03/11

The problem with the two main sources of truly green power is they are unreliable to provide power on such a large scale. Wind blowing too slow (or too fast)? Wind turbines generate no power. Rainy/overcast day? Solar farms generate no power.

The only sufficent alternatives is hydroelectric power and nuclear power, and the Greens won’t have a bar of either (they stopped the construction of a hydro-electric dam in Tassie).

Rev says:

08:13am | 10/03/11

Children?

Is Bob Brown one of those morons who treats his dogs like they are little people?

JohnB says:

08:16am | 10/03/11

The fluffy “solutions” like saving plastic bags, saving whales, clean up Australia day and now a carbon tax won’t make a bit of difference to the environment until governments make efforts to reduce population. There is the biggest ever, massive, humongous elephant in the room no one in government wants to talk about.

persephone says:

08:24am | 10/03/11

Fine. Tell the Libs to negotiate with the government - as they did in the last Parliament - and they can make him irrelevant tomorrow.

It’s the Liberals refusal to work in a bipartisan fashion on anything which gives Brown power.

If they refuse to do this, then they’re the ones putting their own political interests ahead of the good of the country.

Brown is just doing exactly what he was elected to do.

The government has to govern. To do that, it needs to get enough votes in both Houses. It’s also just doing what it was elected to do.

And our style of democracy says that whoever gets the most votes for their legislation gets to make the laws. 

If you don’t like the way our democracy works, I suggest there are a lot of nice right wing dictatorships where you’d feel right at home.

Dash says:

11:03am | 10/03/11

Perse, negotiation is a two way street. There in lies your problem.

And how is policy on the back of a deceitful lie on the eve of an election, democracy? THe ALP has only 30% support! If they implement this, they are going against the will of the people! And if you think that’s our version of democracy, perhaps you’d be more at home in North Korea! Take Chairman Gillard’s little red book with you when you leave!

persephone says:

11:19am | 10/03/11

Dash

Labor offered the Libs a couple of seats on the climate change committee.

They refused them.

Labor came to a deal on carbon pricing with the Libs. They walked away from it.

It’s pretty clear who’s not co operating.

Bruno says:

11:20am | 10/03/11

@perse I don’t remember Mr Brown campaigning to be the next PM but he is.

If he isn’t then why is Gillard implementing his policies and not hers?
Why are his people saying the tax will apply to petrol before labor announces it?

*As a side note you have stated we will be compensated. Now let’s take milk as a example.

It costs a certain amount to make it, with this tax it will cost more, so the price of milk will go up we all agree so far right?

Now I buy lets say 3 2L milk’s every week so now I’m out of pocket a little more thanks to this tax. 

How does the government know how much I spend on milk?

More importantly if I’m compensated 0 that means were running under the assumption that when cost rises for big business they will pass the cost down to the customer without raising it a little extra for themselves (witch I can guarantee will happen)

Where is the extra money coming from the rich people who won’t be compensated?

Finally all those paper pushing jobs that will have to be created to deal with this tax, were are they going to be paid from?

I look forward to your explanation in very confused

persephone says:

12:09pm | 10/03/11

Bruno

Brown and the Greens can say whatever they like at the moment, there’s no guarantee it will be in the fnal legislation which gets through Parliament.

Pollies always make big announcements at times like these, often so that they can then pretend that something which was in the package anyway is only there because they made the big announcement.

Parliament will decide what the carbon pricing package looks like - and that includes the Liberals and Nats, if they want to get involved.

So if you have any concerns about the Greens agenda, put pressure on your local Liberal member to negotiate something else, rather than letting them sit on their hands bleating that there’s nothing they can do.

Treasury does calculations about compensation, flow on effects, consumer habits, etc all the time, that’s their job, and generally get it fairly right.

Given that the compensation will (on all indications) be greater than the average person ‘needs’ it to be, if you buy more milk than the average you should still be OK.

(The laws of economics say that if you’re drinking more milk than the average, you’re probably drinking something else less, and thus probably saving there…if you only have a fixed amount to spend, spending in one area is offset by savings in another).

And Treasury knows quite well that businesses won’t necessarily pass on savings - that’s what competition is all about.

I’m not sure I understand what you’re saying about rich people, sorry.

Ben81 says:

12:44pm | 10/03/11

persephone no matter how many times you repeat your line about negotiations by the Liberals making the Greens irrelevant it doesn’t become any less of a fairytale.
There is nothing here that Tony Abbott can offer Labor that doesn’t include support of the carbon tax, which is where the line has been drawn in the first place.
We have a PM whose credibility will be completely shot if she backs down from it at this stage, and an opposition leader in the same boat should he back down from his position.  Neither of them are doing it for fun.  Don’t you know a stalemate when you see one?  You’re pretty much saying that someone should wave the white flag and that it should be the Liberals.  You know it doesn’t work that way.

Dash says:

01:58pm | 10/03/11

Perse, and the rest of my questions which took up 80% of my post???

Northern Steve says:

02:05pm | 10/03/11

pers,
It is true that Labor had a deal with the Libs under Turnbull for an ETS.  It’s just that they thought they could also get a political win, and twist the knife in the liberals while also having a legislative win.  They tried to use the bill to split the liberals, and in the end, they lost both battles.  It was this action that brought Tony Abbot to the fore, and cost them a PM and majority government after one term.  If they had stuck to doing the important thing, governing, and forgotten the politics, we would now have an ETS, and a second term Rudd government with a much better record under its belt, looking for an easy third term in 2013.  Sucks for you, hey?

Adam Diver says:

08:32am | 10/03/11

If this is your determing factor of validity of claims

“We all know which side of the political fence the IPA sit.”

Then you will never change an opinion. I have no profound knowledge of the IPA, but if his figures are correct, then his point still stands.

Ignoring one side of the argument does nobody any good. In fact its a wonder you even bothered reading the article.

L. says:

08:51am | 10/03/11

No Skatman, what it highlights is that the only way we can meet Brown expectations is if we become stone age cave dwellers.

I believe my favourite saying on AWG sums it up best…

““I’ll believe climate change is a catastrophe, when the people telling me it’s a catastrophe, start behaving as though it’s a catastrophe.

In short, Brown, Gillard and Milne aren’t.

Samuel says:

11:01am | 10/03/11

@L.

“I’ll believe climate change is a catastrophe, when the people telling me it’s a catastrophe, start behaving as though it’s a catastrophe.”

That is the pivotal point in all discussions of the challenge of climate change and an appropriate response.

If the future of our grandchildren is truly at stake, where are the mass movements of people willing to sacrifice their coal-reliant lifestyle to save the planet?

Martin Hopes says:

07:43am | 10/03/11

Flexo - Gillard is doing what is best only for the Greens, she doesn’t give a damn about the economy, her country or its people, the polls clearly show she is doing this for votes…..there, does that make you feel better.

I really do worry about the thought processes of some people!

ZSRenn says:

08:06am | 10/03/11

@ Paul, Sorry to address your comment but it is getting very hard these days to find an argument in the pages of Punch for this tax.

The only big business I can think of whose only interest is to count money are banks. Correct me if I am wrong but I do not think they are counted as one of the big polluters.

The companies whose job it is to count the number of degrees the planet is going to warm if we don’t do something have in the past been quick to tell us exactly how many but we bloggers at the punch have been asking how many degrees would the Earth not warm up by if AU introduces this tax and this question has yet gone unanswered.

As for Bob’s balls in trying to stop CO2 emissions I would suggest it doesn’t take very big balls to stop 0.015% of world CO2 emissions. Just a want for notoriety and a nice government pension when you retire.

Hamish says:

08:33am | 10/03/11

Paul, Australia doing something or not doing something will have zero effect on global climate…even if you believe in AGW.

L. says:

09:04am | 10/03/11

“At least Bob has the b&lls; to try and stop all those carbon emissions as opposed to blindly ignoring the fact we need to address such. “

Balls or not… stupid policy is still stupid policy.

persephone says:

09:11am | 10/03/11

Hamish

Australia doing something or not doing something would have had very little effect on the outcome of World War I, the fight against Nazisim, the war in Afghanistan etc etc etc.

Yet we got involved in these anyway, because we recognised we had a moral responsibility to stand up and be counted.

Are you suggesting that next time something like this comes along, we should sit on our hands and let everyone else do the work?

Dazza says:

10:11am | 10/03/11

Australia doing something or not doing something would have had very little effect on the outcome of World War I, the fight against Nazisim, the war in Afghanistan etc etc etc.

Yes pers but at least they were real threats!

L. says:

10:13am | 10/03/11

“Australia doing something or not doing something would have had very little effect on the outcome of World War I, the fight against Nazisim, the war in Afghanistan etc etc etc.”

Well if we follow that logic we should be ready to roll into DR Congo… 20,000 people a month are being killed there. Or we should have rolled into Rawanda to save 750,000. There was plenty of time, we were asked.  How about Tibet..? We can help there…no..??  How about an easy one.. Lybia..?

Dick J says:

10:40am | 10/03/11

Perse I don’t believe we should martyr ourselves on the basis of the AGW religion. You can if you want but don’t expect everybody to follow.

After all the science is not in and if that is used as an excuse to shut down debate it is not a belief I would follow.  The “science is in” argument like saying just shut, don’t argue , question or inquire.

Will the tax reduce the earth’s temperature no one knows but what we do know is that the temperature has changed up and down for eons and eons.

. Surprisingly you used the analogy of war and out moral responsibility etc. We did go to war with allies like the USA. Presently they ,China, India and the other biggest emiters of a colourless oudourless gas vital for life are not allies when it comes to carbon tax .They even met a couple of times but no one could agree.

If Australia goes alone it will be a Pyrrhic victory. We will become uncompetative lose jobs and a standard of living for no gain.

Hamish says:

10:42am | 10/03/11

Perse, that analogy might work if all our allies were also introducing a carbon price, you know doing our bit and all that, but they’re not (and the ones that already have are desperate to scale them back). I would approve of Australia being involved in a global Co2 management system, not because I agree with AGW really (or disagree particularly), but because if we didn’t all the other countries would use it as an excuse for a non-tariff trade barrier.

Global problems need global solutions. We didn’t fight WW1 and WW2 on our own you know.

persephone says:

11:22am | 10/03/11

Dick J and Hamish

Australia is not going it alone on carbon pricing. We’re not even going first. There are thirty other countries ahead of us and many others gearing up to go.

The fact that you can already trade carbon on the international market is a big hint.

Stop being dishonest.

persephone says:

11:26am | 10/03/11

And the country which we have been allied with the longest - Britain - announced its plan to price carbon earlier this week.

Hamish says:

11:39am | 10/03/11

Perse, you are aware that there are between 192 and 195 countries on earth depending on which measurement you use, so at best 16% (rounded up) have Co2 mechanisms in place. For extra points Perse, how many of those countries are outside the EU?

AdamC says:

12:21pm | 10/03/11

Hamish, I think Persephone is just obfuscating. The point has been made several times, and made well, that to reduce *global* emissions we need a *global* system of capping and trading (or taxing) CO2 emissions. It doesn’t matter what individuals countries do. They are responding to political imperatives not environmental ones (sound familiar?) and, in any event, will just leak emisions like the EU has.

I find it difficult to believe Pers doesn’t understand this, and it has nothing to do with one’s stance on the existence or severity of AGW itself.

Hamish says:

12:49pm | 10/03/11

True AdamC, I refrained from mentioning that the EU’s system (which accounts for about 25 of the 30 countries she mentioned) hasn’t actually reduced emmissions in Europe and that’s not even counting all the offshoring that has taken place since they brought it in. So it hasn’t done anything for the environment, but at least London finance companies have made a truckload out of it.

Hamish says:

01:14pm | 10/03/11

You mean like Joolya’s political imperative to keep The Greens happy, AdamC?

Haven’t you listened to anything Perse has ever said Adam? The ALP were always going to bring the tax in and everyone knew that. JGill never lied. Everyone else is lying when they say they didn’t think the ALP were going to bring in a carbon tax. I mean everyone’s just disingenuous, don’t they realise ALP leaders have a God given right to say one thing and do another? Remember L.A.W.? And no one will be worse off under the tax anyway. Everyone will be compensated and we’ll simultaneously reduce global emmissions (we’re the world’s largest polluter don’t you know) and increase our standard of living. There’ll be peace on earth and no pollution and the climate will never ever change again and no one will get sick or grow old. You just need a little faith dude.

Jim says:

02:30pm | 10/03/11

“The fact that you can already trade carbon on the international market is a big hint.”

Yes, yes it is. It’s a hint that this has nothing to do with saving the planet, and everything to do with lining the pockets of large world banks and global corporations.

It’s the new gold.

Hamish says:

03:44pm | 10/03/11

You’re right Jim. And for all this ability to trade carbon in a global marketplace, global Co2 emmissions have gone up…along with finance company balance sheets. There’s nothing financial corporations love more than a market in nothing.

ZSRenn says:

04:15pm | 10/03/11

@ perse My Mum used to ask me

“if your mate would jumped off the Sydney Harbour bridge would you?”

Our next door neighbour New Zealand introduced an ETS in July 2010 and fuel costs there rose by 14% over 2010 to our 2.5% rise. I will admit that a 7c extra tax was also added but that still makes an 11% rise over the period compared to our 2.5% and when did this major differential occur?

If you guessed the last half of the year then you guessed correctly.

Pete says:

09:46am | 10/03/11

Its really bad when somebody highlights the hypocracy of grubs like Brown. It must really burn the left up to have people see thru their BS. Jsut waiting for somebody to follow another Gillard lie that we are bigger polluters than the us per head of capita.
Maybe their arguments would gain more traction if every second statement amde was not a lie.

Tony of Poorakistan says:

08:33am | 10/03/11

mid
could you please explain how we might go about making the big companies pay for it rather than, as looks likely,  them passing the costs straight onto us?

LC says:

09:49am | 10/03/11

And do you really belive that these “big companies” will simply absorb the costs?

John C says:

11:50am | 10/03/11

Duff

I don’t want to argue with you because we probably agree more than we disagree. I only raised the immigration issue in the context of political hypocrisy which is what I think the author of the article was trying, sometimes laboriously, to do.

Many people of all political persuasions are guilty of double standards and are so righteous in their promotion of their views that they can’t or won’t see the hypocrisy. For example, the capital punishment abolisher will support their view by pointing to the sacredness of human life yet often supports abortion and refuses to recognise the arguments of those against it that it involves a human life. Conversely the anti-abortionists are often people who favour capital punishment and, while trumpeting that abortion is the termination of sacred human life, refuse to recognise that condemned prisoners have a human life too.

Hypocrisy does not in itself render an argument invalid just as Bob Brown’s double standards do not necessarily weaken his conservationist stance but hypocrisy does cause me to give less respect to the arguers.

That said, I sometimes have double standards myself but I mostly recognise that and try to both acknowledge and correct them. These guys don’t.

Joel B1 says:

11:57am | 10/03/11

On that point ie Green hypocrisy, Green Corrections Minister McKim (Tasmania) is setting the police on the poor whistle-blower who let leak how crap and violent conditions are for guards at Risdon prison.

So, while McKim and his cohort sprout whistle-blower protection on one hand, with the other he’s ringing the police to get the poor sod found and charged.

you couldn’t make it up.

Kevin says:

09:23am | 10/03/11

“On the one hand they argue that we should take as many deserving immigrants who want to come here.”
When have they said that?  I believe their position is that asylum seekers (you know the ones fleeing persecution) who arrive on our shores should be processed in accordance with the UN Convention on refugees (of which Australia is a signatory).
You are confusing those refugees with the hundreds of thousands of immigrants who come into the country under skilled migrant programs, study, family reunions etc..

Duff says:

09:34am | 10/03/11

I find this “double standards” argument (which we’ll ll heard before) quite interesting.  You say that Al Gore, Bob Brown, Bono etc. should practice what they preach, by having a smaller homes, less income etc.  Otherwise, I assume, you think they have no credibility.

Yet, I’m sure you think Australia should not “go it alone” because our emissions amount to little, when compared with the rest of the world.  This is the mainstream argument for doing nothing, is it not?

So, which is it?  If prominent “do gooders” must take a symbolic stand by reducing their personal carbon footprint, surely you must agree that it is right that Australia should too?  That we should practice what we preach?

If so, I agree with you entirely.

John C says:

10:23am | 10/03/11

OK, Kevin.

The Greens stated policy is as per their website.

‘Australia has humanitarian and legal obligations to accept refugees and reunite families.
asylum seekers and refugees are no more of a threat to our borders or to society than anyone else and must be treated with compassion and dignity.
Australia must assess in good faith all asylum seekers who arrive on our mainland or any of our islands, without discrimination based on the method of arrival.’

So how many people do you think would come here if they were assured of being settled here as the Greens would want (and really all you need to do is lose your papers and claim refugee status) and they could bring their families here. Dad arrives, is accepted, then brings Mum and the kids. Mum needs her brothers here, they come with their wives and kids - and so on. A real geometric progression.

Does that explain their policy for you? If boat smugglers had a vote, it would be Vote 1 The Greens.

And , no, I am not confusing those who come here under an established migration program that has been accepted by the Australian people for nearly 70 years. And no, I don’t care where the migrants come from - all cultures and religions acceptable.

And Duff, there is nothing in my post to suggest that I don’t believe that Australia should do nothing about global warming. Even if the science turns out to be wrong, the sooner we wean ourselves off reliance on limited fossil fuel energy sources the better. And as Thatcher pointed out, we would be foolish to take the risk of the science being right.

What I would like to see is the Bonos and the Gores and the Bob Browns of this world actually realise that they have double standards.

Duff says:

10:54am | 10/03/11

Although I think your point about the relevance of Asylum Seekers to this debate is a red herring, I think that I do agree with you in terms of Australia’s approach to emissions.  Totally agree, in fact, with the idea that, even if the Science turns out to be wrong, we should make a move for other reasons which justify action on their own.

But this: 

“What I would like to see is the Bonos and the Gores and the Bob Browns of this world actually realise that they have double standards.”

That has been said, over and over, by the anti-AGW brigade and, after awhile it becomes tired.  I mean, so what?  It sounds petty, to me.  Bob Brown’s personal carbon footprint means nothing.  It is only a matter of symbolism.  C’mon, this guy is out there every day of his life arguing the case for reducing carbon emissions.  What more can you ask of a person?  I’m not saying the guy is my favourite politician, but no one can question his commitment to the cause(s) he promotes.  He’s the real deal, and I think Bono and Al Gore have each stuck their necks out quite a bit as well.  They’ve copped a lot of criticism and, you know what, they don’t have to do it at all.  They could just sit back, enjoy their wealth and let the rest of us go to hell.

ZSRenn says:

08:46am | 10/03/11

@ Geoff Russell Good point! Bob Brown should understand the relative cost of these products and not frequently choose high cost products over low cost items. After all this is what he has based his career on.

Unfortunately you can’t blame Tim for the picture as Punch Editors choose those.

I would also ask you for the name of your accountant who can stop tax affecting my bottom line and help me increase my profit.

Maybe this use of statistics is worthy of an honorable mention for misuse of statistics but the gold medal would go to the creators of the / capita CO2 emissions table placing Australia as the 8th largest polluter in the world.

You seem very informed and a nice enough kind of guy maybe you could tell me how shaving 0.015% off world CO2 emissions is going to help the environment?

Nobody else can.

AdamC says:

08:28am | 10/03/11

Dan Cass, do you have anything to say about the actual article, as opposed to merely dissing Tim’e employer? I mean, are you a blow-in from Per Capita or the Centre for Policy Development or something?

Adam Diver says:

08:36am | 10/03/11

Wow, thats a new one. The greens have set up a policy target based on the wishes of the conservatives. Whats next the greens advocating nuclear power as well.

Also on that note if a market based solution is the way the greens and Labor want to go, what is the point of an interim price? Why not just set up the ETS?

Shelly says:

02:01pm | 10/03/11

Didn’t you get the memo - it’s Climate Change these days.

What’s a carbon industry, btw?

Richard says:

08:53am | 10/03/11

Of course prices will rise, but the overall financial burden on most people won’t because the cause of the rise (tax on polluters) will be going straight back into their pockets (reduced tax on consumers).

The pro “ruin our future environment and economy to protect my current share value” lobby, of which you’re no doubt an ardent admirer, keep pretending this tax is all going in one direction. It’s a deliberate lie to scare people.

Paul C says:

10:09am | 10/03/11

@Richard - Not sure where you are getting this Tax on Polluters going straight back into the consumers pockets theory.  I don’t recall Julia saying anyone is going to be better off, other than the traditional Labor Voter of course.  Then again the Low income family are always suckers for this typical Labor spin - It is never until after the election that they discover their socialist hero was ‘full of it’ on the campaign trail.  One can hope, that eventually they may learn.  As for your “ruin our future environment and economy to protect my current share value” - nothing could be further from the truth, but keep on assuming that I don’t give a damn.

Dash says:

10:48am | 10/03/11

Perse, firstly what about the intellectual dishonesty of deliberately saying “there will be no carbon tax” during a closely run election campaign and then (without a mandate) implementing the policy on the back of that lie?

How is a compensation scheme based on income instead of pollution, “making the polluters pay”? Can you not see the problem middle Australia has with the ALP demographic being compensated at the hands of the LNP demographic despite emmitting the same level of pollution?

And how is that socialist approach necessary to save the world? And how is it representative of we all “should take responsibility”??

This is not about the environment whilst it has wealth redistribution at its core and you know it.

And next we’ll have the ALP spending significant amounts of taxpayers money advertising their socialist propaganda (more than the $38million of OUR money they used to advertise their profits tax).

Also, can you please tell me how much of total green house gases is represented by CO2? And how much of that is man made? And of that, how much is produced in Australia? I think if you answer those three questions, you may well see this tax is a SHAM!

The horse is dead Perse, stop flogging!

persephone says:

11:36am | 10/03/11

Dash

have a look at:

http://www.edf.org/documents/5596_GlobalWarmingWaterVapor_onepager.pdf

‘Atmospheric levels of CO2 are determined by emissions (for example, from burning fossil fuels), as well
as by plant growth and ocean uptake. Atmospheric levels of water vapor, on the other hand, are
determined by temperatures because warmer air holds more water vapor. Humans can only ?control?
water vapor levels by changing air temperature?and the best way to control temperature is to reduce
CO2 emissions.’

So, although CO2 is not the ‘biggest’ greenhouse gas, it is the one we emit and can control, and by doing so we limit the amount of water vapour.

On man made CO2:

http://www.skepticalscience.com/human-co2-smaller-than-natural-emissions.htm

‘Human CO2 emissions upset the natural balance of the carbon cycle. Man-made CO2 in the atmosphere has increased by a third since the pre-industrial era, creating an artificial forcing of global temperatures which is warming the planet. While fossil-fuel derived CO2 is a very small component of the global carbon cycle, the extra CO2 is cumulative because the natural carbon exchange cannot absorb all the additional CO2.’

Australia produces about 1.5% of the world’s total, which makes us the biggest emitters per capita.

MarK says:

12:14pm | 10/03/11

“Australia produces about 1.5% of the world’s total, which makes us the biggest emitters per capita.”

Wrong

Really wrong.

A lie in fact. A twisting of the truth. Cherry picked data. Gillard herself tried this on last night.

Out damn spot I say!!!!

It is only true when you look to energy production. This is because we have a small population and our energy needs are basically all met by coal fired stations. When all emissions are taken into account we are not the top. Plenty above us

http://unstats.un.org/unsd/environment/air_co2_emissions.htm

Direct from the fools of the UN.

We are not the top.

The question I have is if this is such a good tax, if we need it, if the world needs it why do people lie about figures?

Why the untruths. Why the FUD?

Why not prosecute it on its merits?

Desperation….................

persephone says:

12:29pm | 10/03/11

MarK

yes, sorry - the data’s all over the place. Some sources say ‘highest in the world’, others ‘highest in the OECD’.

Regardless, not something to boast about, and an indicator of our responsibility to act.

MarK says:

01:11pm | 10/03/11

The problem is you are not sorry. You are without the correct facts.

And yet you use disinformation to paint an incorrect picture to support a tax.

It scares me that the people so enamoured of this scheme do not have the facts right.

Another thing taken from the your posts above that continually refer to market forces, tariffs and seeking cheaper alternatives like this

“If a government wants people to buy local products and not imports, they make imports more expensive by putting duties on them. If they want you to drink less alcohol, they put an excise on it. If they want people to quit smoking, they raise taxes.”

Is basically mixing up your argument and coming to the wrong conclusion. In the passage I have qutoed you have actually given the reason why we should not do this alone.

We will impose an artifical tariff on all the goods ans services we produce by imposing a tax. When our widgets become more expensive compared to the imported widget then people buy more imported widgets which leads to increased production in countries that don’t have a carbon tax. The emissions are exported. Not stopped.

Similarly if we impose a “carbon tariff” on imports to bring the playing field level on input costs then, in retaliation the exporters impose tarioffs on our goods.

End result we are less competitive.

The way to change behaviour and get research into developing cleaner and more efficient energy is not to tax the effiicient energy. It is to provide incentive to R&D better “clean” energy so it comes in at the same price or better.

Just like the NBN in scrapping the copper network it makes little sense to essentially scrap perfectly good capital in the form of coal power generation by artificially making them inefficient by a tax. We are tossing way to much infrastructure and capital away in this country.

It is deluded to expect that green energy sources become more efficient when they don’t have to as they know the government will make their direct competitor, being coal, inefficient for them. And progressively more inefficient over time as the tax is ramped up and compensation cut.

Promoting jobs and technical advances by driving inefficiencies are not the answer. This is what you are suggesting

This is the act of a desperate, stupid and incompetent person.

Listen to this

http://www.mtr1377.com.au/index2.php?option=com_newsmanager&task=view&id=8095

You tell me if this woman knows her stuff.

She is Jill Duggan from the European Commission’s Directorate General of Climate Action. And she can’t answer basic questions and is left speechless by the most basic of requests for broad detail.

Very embarrassing for her.

It is like when you quote that compensation will cover the cost of all of this you have no facts. You have some political promises from Gillard, Combet etc that make the same claims as you that we are the highest per capita emitter of CO2 in the world..

If they cannot get their ducks in a line and their information tight then why should we give any credence to any promise they make now.

They cannot even tell us what is in and what is out and they will be dealing with more hardline and hostile greens than they are now all buoyed with the knowledge that Gillards modus operandi is to capitualte to demands.

She has picked the wrong fight to get tough on. She will have to be moved aside very soon or the government is gone.

Dash says:

02:11pm | 10/03/11

Perse you didn’t answer my question. What percentage of total green house gases is CO2? And what percentage of CO2 is due to humans? And then Australia accounts for 1.5% of that amount. I’ve heard human derived CO2 is approx 0.2% (no way to verify) of total green house gases! So by your numbers Australia contributes basically zero.

Everything sounds bigger “per capita” but the actual whole number is tiny! Add’s up to the environment as an excuse to tax!

What about my other questions. Why do you avoid those constantly?

How is a compensation scheme based on income instead of pollution, “making the polluters pay”? And how is that socialist approach necessary to save the world? And how is it representative of we all “should take responsibility”??

Kevin says:

09:26am | 10/03/11

You’d prefer if he was naked and lived in a cave?

persephone says:

09:09am | 10/03/11

OO

1. A lot of trace gases essential for life on earth are harmful if they’re in the wrong quantity.

Are you seriously suggesting - for example - that it doesn’t matter how much CO2 there is in the atmosphere, because it can’t hurt us?

Try breathing it in for a few minutes, then.

2. CO2 is a greenhouse gas. It’s used in, er, greenhouses.

3. No, volcanic eruptions do not spew out that amount of CO2. They amount to about 1% of the amount produced by humans, even in a very active year.

iansand says:

09:46am | 10/03/11

Original Oz - Could you do me a favour?  I always forget what the temperature of the Earth would be without that “trace gas”.  Could you do some research (instead of repeating the lies of deniers) and let me know the figure?  Minus 20 is the figure that sticks in my mind.

Once you have worked that out you should apply the same level of scrutiny to the claims of other denier pundits.  The answer will not be pretty.  You are being played for a sucker.

The Original Oz says:

10:33am | 10/03/11

Now that I have the attention of the warmists (or as affectionately called in another comment the Green Fairies) please answer the following questions:
1) What effect is Australia’s Carbon Tax going to have on the global temperature? (and please don’t use the fob off that Australia will be leading the world - New Zealand did that and look where it got them. Combine Australia’s and New Zealand’s influence on world policy and you five eights of one tenth of stuff all)
2) Why have the coastal towns not started going under water like your gurus Flannery and Brown predicted?
3) Why has NASA temperature mapping shown that the global sea temperatures have fallen slightly and not warmed as predicted by said gurus?
4) How do the Green theorists propose to maintain base-load electricity generation if they continue to oppose nuclear power generation? (Solar, wind and tidal generation are insufficient to maintain base-load power requirements)
5) Why is it that the warmists discount the long term cycles of El Nino and La Nina as contributory effects to current weather patterns?
6) Why is it convenient for the warmists to ignore the effects of the Mini Ice Age (1300s to 1800s), immediately following the Medieavel Warm period, as being a contributor to current patterns?
(Note: The Mini Ice Age is an accepted scientific event that lasted for almost five hundred years and only ended about two hundred years ago. The climate is still rebalancing from this event)
7) Our dams will never be full again so we must build no more dams but instead pay billions to build and support desalination plants (warmist statement). Funny but dams Australia wide are almost full again due to La Nina. Please explain what wnet wrong with your theories there?
8) The Northern Ice Caps may be diminishing but Antarctica is adding ice. If the Globe were truly warming would it not be true that both ice caps would be diminishing?

BB says:

10:50am | 10/03/11

OO
You seem to be a keen observer of the weather, but an abject failure at understanding the long term affects of AGW.
I suggest you are an emu.

Adam Diver says:

11:02am | 10/03/11

@ Oz, you may have all those fancy points, but don’t you think the weather has been a bit wierd lately. Like yesterday was really hot for march and now today its cold and cloudy.

Explain that away, it must be CO2 and the obvious course of action to mitigate against a logarithmic effect pattern is to impose a tax on 1.4% of the production.

AGW problem solved all for $XX a tonne.

The Original Oz says:

11:08am | 10/03/11

BB - typically standard Green’s way of answering specific questions there. These questions have been floated through these forums for months now and not once has a warmist lodged a reasonable response to any of them, the usual response is to attack the person rather than answer the question. This is the same way that most religious cults respond when they are challenged over the content of their preaching - either attack the person and declare that you must have faith.

Greg says:

11:14am | 10/03/11

Persephony, CO2 is a significantly small part of total greenhouse gases! It is essential for life here on earth and most scientists do not view it as a pollutant (the trees love it!) The man made element of CO2 is a small fraction of that. And Australia’s contribution is next to nothing.

Doesn’t sound like a valid reason fior the ALPs tax!

I wish Gillard and Swan would breath it in for a few minutes!

Btw, the earth has cooled over the last two years!

iansand says:

11:19am | 10/03/11

Unfortunately, we seem not to have attracted your attention.  I will try again.

Could you do me a favour?  I always forget what the temperature of the Earth would be without that “trace gas”.  Could you do some research (instead of repeating the lies of deniers) and let me know the figure?  Minus 20 is the figure that sticks in my mind.

Jim says:

11:58am | 10/03/11

Hahaha….oh, I can’t believe no one else noticed this from dear old, Labor funded persephone…

“2. CO2 is a greenhouse gas. It’s used in, er, greenhouses.”

Ummm….no, it’s not.

Greenhouses use glass or plastic panelling to allow light in and trap heat…some big commercial ones sometimes pipe in extra CO2 to maintain levels around 300ppm (normal atmospheric levels) but that is more a fertilizing process.

You make me laugh sometimes…

Oh, and OO’s correct in a way…CO2 will only absorb heat up to a certain level and only in a very small, precise wavelength. Most of the heat (95%) absorbed is in water vapour…would you like to tax that as well?? Maybe get rid of it??

The Original Oz says:

12:20pm | 10/03/11

Iansand - CO2 is .0038% of the total of atmospheric gases. Of this only 5% of the .0038% is man made. Are you saying that one twentrieth of .0038% of the atmosphere is responsible for preventing the world temperature from being minus 20 degrees celcius?  And that this one twentieth of .0038% of the atmosphere justifies wacking on a great new tax because it might prevent a temperature increase of what .002 degrees over the next 100 years or so. Last time I checked NASA had shown that the average global temperature has actually dropped in recent years. Hmmm, using Greenie logic we must be headed in to catastrophic Global Cooling. Quick run around in circles crying the “Sky is falling, the Sky is falling” then whack on a big new tax that penalises everyone.

The Original Oz says:

12:21pm | 10/03/11

BTW Iansand - your lot still have not attempted a cogent or logical response to any of those questions

Northern Steve says:

02:46pm | 10/03/11

OO, I will answer some of your questions, if you promise to actually listen to them.
1. Directly, probably not much.  We do have to act as a global community.  China and the US have already started to act in various ways (a trading scheme operates in some 13 US states, and a national system is on the cards, China is beginning to invest heavily in renewable energy systems).  By starting a system now, it encourages R&D into low carbon products, and makes certain that we’re ready when the world is.  Much like the Howard/Hawke financial reforms of the 80s and 90s
2. No one said the towns would flood in 5 years.  The rises so far are not necessarily measurable compared to normal fluctuation.  The time span given was 100-200 years for a measurable or significant rise.  We could wait that long, but then it would be like King Canute ordering the tides back out.
3. Do you mean <a >this one?</a>
I find it amusing when deniers post this because it does show such a clear upwards trend.  You don’t even need to look carefully.
4.  Buggers me.  I’m all for nuclear.
5. Who does that?  Can you quote a decent scientists who does?  Or are you just repeating claims designed to sling mud?  Reference please!
6.  See answer above.
7.  High seasonable variability is a prediction of climate change, so nothing went wrong with climate change theories.  So yes, we will still have seasons with lots of rain and storms (I think we just had one), and long dry seasons. What will happen is statistically more of the extremes, and less nice middling seasons. You can’t use one season to prove or disprove climate change.  Shows you don’t understand the difference between weather and climate.  Desal plants are crap.  They should only be used in extreme cases.  In fact, if you need a desal plant, you shouldn’t build a city there.
8.  Both caps are adding ice.  They are just losing it faster than they are adding it.  The north is worst.  There will be cycles, and there will be seasons where they gain ice.  This isn’t one of them.  You need to look at the long term trends.  Can you show me the evidence that Antarctica is adding ice?  It’s news to me.

Not that I expect OO to read this, but a lot of rubbish is written about ‘warmists’.  Most of it distorted, which is worse than lies.

iansand says:

03:24pm | 10/03/11

I didn’t ask that, Original Oz.  I asked what the temperature of the Earth would be without the “trace gas”.  I suspect you actually know but find the answer inconvenient.

iansand says:

03:37pm | 10/03/11

OK Original Oz.  I found this.  http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/co2-temperature.html

Of course NASA is part of the conspiracy, and the conclusion is a result of a computer model blah blah blah…

But why are you pontificating about climate change when you are apparently ignorant of the most basic facts?

Northern Steve says:

07:22pm | 10/03/11

Why didn’t my link work?
I’ll try again, or someone can tell me how to do it.
This is the graph that sceptics are using to show the temperature isn’t rising.
I laugh.  Look at the trend over 40 years
Here it is

Duff says:

11:07am | 10/03/11

C1 - ok, so the German design was better and the “Greenies” were mistaken,, despite trying to get it right.  What’s your point?

Macon Paine says:

01:25pm | 10/03/11

Agreed, that was a hilarious episode, McCloud clearly enjoyed giving them a good kick up the backside!

@ Duff
Most Greenies are complete dolts!

Greg says:

09:38am | 10/03/11

AdamC, my understanding is that man made CO2 is less than 0.2% of total greenhouse gases! And Australia’s share so close to zero it’s not funny! So why all the fuss about Carbon emmissions? Can someone please explain this to me.

Why do we need to shoulder massive costs? And why does the government run a policy that puts that responsibility on to sections of the community who are alread paying significant taxes for the government to use to address what ever issue it is we’re talking about?

RBarron says:

09:59am | 10/03/11

The ETS must be stopped it is just a tax on everything that requires the use of carbon based energy (Coal powered, Gas and Petrol).
Everything you do or buy in Australia requires the use of carbon based energy somewhere along the line. It will increase prices, push up inflation and drive use interest rate and as a result will lower real wages and costing jobs. And do nothing to decrease man-made Co2 which is only 5% of the total Co2 in the world of the other 95% is natural. Of the 5% that is man-made, Australia in responsible for 1.4% of the 5% of all man-made Co2 or 0.07% of total made-made Co2. The government is look to cut Australia’s man-made Co2 by 5 to 20% by 2020 if we take 20% cut that equates a 0.014% cut from 0.07% of Australia’s man-made Co2. Australia will be still emitting 0.056% but it will cost Australian Tax Payer 123 Billion Dollars in the next 10 years.

Modem Atmosphere
Air is
nitrogen 78% to 79%
Oxygen is 21% to 20%
The other 1% are trace gases
These trace gases include Noble gases that are very inert or unreactive gases
Noble gases
Argon
Helium
Krypton
Xenon
Hydrogen is also present in trace quantities in the atmosphere but because it is so light much of it over time has escaped Earth’s Gravitational Pull
The remaining trace gases are greenhouse gases.
Carbon dioxide
Methane
Nitrous Oxide
Water Vapour
Ozone
These greenhouse gases are what keep the planet warmer than it would be without them.

Co2 or Carbon Dioxide is 0.38% of the 1% the other 99% being the Nitrogen and Oxygen.
95% of the 0.38% of Co2 is natural leaving only 5% of the 0.38% being man-made and the problem that was 1st said to cause Global Warming and now called Climate Change.
Greenhouses Gas Effect
Water Vapour Contributes 36 - 72%
Carbon Dioxide Contributes 9 - 26%
Methane Contributes 4 - 9%
Nitrous Oxide
Ozone Contributes 3 -7%
CFCs

Gases absorb and emit radiation at the same frequencies
total greenhouse effect is not simply the sum of the influence of each gas

The main driver of the Climate is water vapour which 99% is natural
Co2 is next which is 95% natural and 5% man-made

Tell me this 95% of Co2 is natural and 5% is man-made and I believe that this from the IPCC. So it is only the 5% that is man-made that is causing the problem.

PLEASE GO AND LEARN SCIENCES

AdamC says:

10:48am | 10/03/11

Geez, settle down boys, I am inclined to agree with you.

“AdamC, my understanding is that man made CO2 is less than 0.2% of total greenhouse gases!”

I think you are wrond about that, Greg.

R Barron, I’ll learn ‘sciences’ when you learn to express yourself in a way that doesn’t make you look like a mental patient who has stolen his treating psychiatrist’s computer.

Though I do agree that this unilateral, pointless carbon tax must be stopped.

Hood says:

06:25pm | 10/03/11

RBarron
What trace amount of arsenic in your tea will cause your death over the period a year?
PS - 72% of the totally emitted greenhouse gases is carbon dioxide (CO2), 18% Methane and 9% Nitrous oxide (NOx

Dash says:

09:32am | 10/03/11

Yep, that’s because the greens are really reds! They hide behind the environment to push a socialist agenda. Go to their website and read their policies. It’s all about wealth redistribution. Higher taxes for corporates and higher taxes for individuals.

And what does this tax do, yep, higher taxes on corporates and increased living expenses for middle Australia and high income Australia.

This tax is being put in place to redistribute wealth and it will largely go to ALP and green aligned demographics. It’s a fraud and people need to wake up to it!

The greens are the Australian Communist party with a new name! Gillard was a member of the Socialist Forum right up until 2002 (ie until it became politically impossible for her). She is ideologically aligned with the greens socialist agenda and is running it despite just one green representative in the lower house!

The impact of this policy on our local environment is next to nil. The impact on world global warming is zero! Enyone who buys the environmental bullshit that goes along with this policy has a screw loose!

Aasq says:

10:18am | 10/03/11

Off you go then, Federal government. Dash has had enough.

Dash says:

10:32am | 10/03/11

Aasq, fair call, I guess if I was Robinson Caruso I wouldn’t have much luck! Just as well the ALP primary is down to 30%. I think I may not be alone.

Aasq says:

11:12am | 10/03/11

Just as well that the only person in Australia less popular than the Prime Minister is Tony Abbott then, Dash.

Kevin says:

11:49am | 10/03/11

I’m sure all the high income earners can consult their accountants who are well versed in setting up trust funds, investment properties and other means of tax avoidance.
I’m not sure why you are so against socialism and communism.  Look at China where the communist dictators (who had the luxury of being able to ignore the selfish interests of big business) have made that country the fastest growing economy in the world, raised living standards and, incidentally, are the only nation in the world to have taken a responsible approach to population growth.  In Australia, as in most western democracies, we have the choice between Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum, both of whom are captive to the interests of big business.

Gnoll110 says:

01:13am | 11/03/11

Running out of oil won’t save us, more than enough coal to cook us all.

Countries like China & India are using it as there primary energy source.

“Developed’ national are moving back to it, in spite of it being the energy of the past.

PS Peak oil look to have been in 2005, when Global Average Annual Crude Oil Production peaked at 73.718 mbpd,

RBarron says:

09:43pm | 12/03/11

Here mate this is one for you.
Go the Council on Foreign Relations read the text or listen to the audio of a speech give by Fatih Birol, chief economist and director of the office of the chief economist at the International Energy Agency, reports on the world energy market and the ways to combat climate change.
There was more than Climate Change and the environment that they wanting Copenhagen passed.

IEA is ran by Governments around the world, Australian Governments is apart of it . It is funny it about carbon energy and carbon only and CHEAP carbon energy coming to an end in our life time. Bp has been keeping records for 30 years.

This is only small parts of the text from the speech
(“Dr. Birol.
FATIH BIROL: (Applause.) Thank you.
So, good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. It’s a great pleasure and honor for me to come back to CFR to share with you some of the findings of our latest World Energy Outlook.

As you will see there is a lot of emphasis on climate change this year I’m going to share with you. The main reason for this is the Copenhagen meeting coming very soon; and if not in that meeting, perhaps six months to one year later I hope to see a framework—how to adjust to climate change.

Now, what I’m going to do today is, first, I will share with you some of our findings of what happens if there is no deal in Copenhagen and afterwards, which we call the reference scenario, or so-called “business as usual”—in fact to underline why we need a deal for Copenhagen.

A key message that, in fact, I tried to already share with you last year when I was here that the oil demand in the OECD countries, I said, has already peaked. In fact, in 2007 with about 49.5 million barrels per day of oil consumption—the OECD countries as a group—and as of today, we have 45.5 million barrels, but there’s a 4 million barrels per day of a decline. This is mainly as it is out of the financial crisis, but not exclusively. There are many policies and measures which are put in place in many OECD countries, including U.S., Europe and Japan, in order to slow down oil demand growth, especially on the transportation sector.

What I said at that time is if we want to keep current production level, which is about 85 (million), 86 million barrels per day, where it is in 2030 just to compensate the decline and stay where we are, we have to—in the next 22 years, we have to find four new Saudi Arabias building into the production—four new Saudi Arabias—about 45 million barrels per day.

And this is a huge challenge. And this is—only and only—I want to highlight this—this only and only to stay the production level where we are. If the demand increases, oil demand, which I think it will, the amount of oil we will need will be more than four Saudi Arabias just to meet the growth in the demand. So, therefore, there’s a huge challenge geologically, investment-wise and political.

But I continue to say the era of cheap oil is over because I talked the fundamentals—medium- and long-term fundamentals which push us to a higher price levels, and I still maintain the idea we have today, $80, and we shouldn’t be surprised if the prices will still go upwards, especially in the absence of investments forthcoming in the upstream sector.
Couple of things on natural gas. The issue of decline applies to natural gas as well.

So—and I can tell you if some countries, like China—if they are looking for alternative technologies, alternative policies—as I will tell you in a minute in the context of climate change—it is not driven by the climate change reasons but it is mainly driven by energy security reasons and $147 traumatized many oil-importing countries in terms of their reliance on oil. So this is the reference and—I will say risky consequences.

A 450 Scenario. What does 450 mean? Four-fifty is the concentration of carbon in the atmosphere which would bring us to a more sustainable energy future. With the reference scenario, with the current policies in place, we come to a temperature trajectory which can bring us to the raise of the temperature up to 6 degrees Celsius, and 450 will limit the temperature increase to 2 degrees Celsius. So this is 6 degrees, the bad one in the reference scenario, and 2 degrees—in other words the 450 is the better one, which limits the temperature increase to 2 degrees.”)
What is it more sustainable energy future or the envoronment?
It has nothing at all with Global Warming or Climate Change NOTHING.
You believe what you want a Fool and his money is easy parted.

brian m says:

09:45am | 10/03/11

Felicity, I think we’d all agree that polluters should pay big-time but for the life of me I can’t see what that has got to do with the production of carbon dioxide; a harmless gas that makes plants very happy. Could you please explain.

Squeeze the Middle says:

11:14am | 10/03/11

“if you want to pollute our earth it will cost you big time.” Unless you’re one of Christine Milne’s “people struggling to make ends meet”.  Or a government. Even if your activities are more than 60% of GDP.  You won’t have to pay ‘big time’

danny donaldson says:

04:18pm | 10/03/11

@felicity, Seriously now felicity; does Punch pay you spondoley to run defence (draw flack) in all these leftie initiated dramas.
Or do you run the gauntlet of your own voilition?
Fess up now to yer unkie boone!

Chicken Little says:

07:05pm | 10/03/11

Yes Daniel,we need to start building Nuclear Power Stations now.

Squeeze the Middle says:

10:41am | 10/03/11

Some yes Duff.  But are you saying we shouldn’t let ANY facts get in the way of the Gillard/Brown story.

Squeeze the Middle says:

10:38am | 10/03/11

Is this how it goes Rosie.  It’s I, got the benefit.  But then it’s WE have to pay.  Or worse: I get the benefit and YOU have to pay. All sold under the banner of ‘‘punishing the polluters. OK then Rosie, who are the polluters? Because if you reward the polluters and punish the conscientious then aren’t you doing the opposite of what you claim?

The numbers for the CPRS didn’t come out until the eleventh hour. Where are Gillard/Brown numbers. Who exactly IS using all that Australian electricity?

Rosie says:

08:08pm | 10/03/11

Squeezey

I am not going to stress out worrying about the so called polluters that you have mentioned. I believe Australia’s big polluters are very concerned about the amount of carbon that they emit into the atmosphere as well as the people they employ and the increase in electricity prices etc that Australians have to bear. With true conviction something will be done about the carbon that is emitted into the atmosphere but it won’t happen with the Gillard Govt.

What I am not happy about is the PM’s dishonesty and the fact she is now doing something about it because of her alliance with the Greens and for her to remain in power.

Squeeze the Middle says:

12:46pm | 11/03/11

Rosie. See the calculations I just posted.  If my suspicions are correct then the high emitters are the low income earners that are heavily subsidised by government activity.  And if you’re one of them then no wonder you don’t want to “stress out worrying about the so called polluters that you have mentioned.”

Rosie says:

03:46pm | 11/03/11

Sorry Squeezey not me, have just renovated my old 1915 home back to its former glory with modern bathrooms, kitchen, laundry etc and have installed very efficient low energy appliances. We also have solar heating. Have planted heaps of trees in the last 40 years so feel I have done my bit for the enviroment.

Squeeze the Middle says:

04:32pm | 14/03/11

Rosie.  Good.  Now get the Solar PV. I’ve been told that 10% of electricity is lost in transmission. (Because of things like distance to consumer and cheaper aluminium conductors instead of copper. All decision made by governments.) If your SolarPV generates 1/2 the electricty you consume then back of envelope calculations means that you’ve cut your emissions by 5%.  Add to that the savings from your green electricity.  How much reduction is Gillard’s tax aiming for - 5% isn’t it? What a joke.  It’s just an exercie in wealth redistribution.

fairsfair says:

10:56am | 10/03/11

I joined the “stop gillard’s climate tax” group on facebook (details the rallies etc ad has a petition for you to sign) and was immediately defriended by a couple of people who are all about the “plight of the environment” and the “less fortunate”. They all live on the Gold Coast and are so “in touch” with it all. 

Score - it has its advantages!

Elphaba says:

11:33am | 10/03/11

Me too!!

Bart says:

11:35am | 10/03/11

Hope Punch allows this.
I will be going to the Canberra rally on the 23th March.
Be there or cop the tax in the neck without a job and a higher price on electricity and food etc etc
Many jobs and industry will go overseas, China is hoping like hell we do get a carbon dioxide tax because they will hugely benefit as our industry will go over.
Toyota is hinting possibly pulling the plug in Aus

http://www.nocarbontaxrally.com/no_carbon_tax_rally.html

MarK says:

12:05pm | 10/03/11

Since you cannot refute the logic you attack the messenger.

Read Sophie’s article and take note.

bobw says:

12:46pm | 10/03/11

What logic would that be, MarK?  I don’t even see an attempt at sensible reasoning in the piece above, let alone the semblance of a meaningful conclusion.

Pointing out that the article has no substance, engages with no issues, decontextualises the facts on which it “relies” and makes no useful contribution to public debate does not amount to shooting the messenger.  There is no message being delivered.

The ironic thing - and I assume it escaped your notice - is that the article itself is perhaps the most unsubtle, shoot-the-messenger hatchet job I’ve ever seen on The Punch.  The thought process behind it, such as it was, must have been along the lines of:  “I have an ideological barrow to push with respect to carbon pricing but nothing substantive whatsoever to contribute.  I know:  let’s attack Bob Brown.”

Wow.  Logic.

I read Sophie’s article, by the way.  I even commented, actually.  It was 60 seconds of my life that I’ll never get back.

MarK says:

03:54pm | 10/03/11

Oh dear Bob you cannot see the logic in what Tim was saying.

Let me use small words then so you keep up.

We all use products daily that come form CO2 emitters.

A price on CO2 will affect everything we touch.

Nobody is exempt nor could live in a modern society without using products made by companies that emit regardless of how pios they are.

See the point?

I am so happy to have been of service. Warms the cockles of my heart with no extra CO2 expended.

I know reading comprehension is hard. Stick at it - you will get there.

Silly Git says:

04:40pm | 10/03/11

MarK
Do you actually have a point?
Of course a price on CO2 will affect everything we touch.
Isn’t that the idea?
That’s a no brainer. Which is why it is the only thing you can understand and explain about Tim’s article.

Please let me know if I used words you don’t understand.

bobw says:

05:05pm | 10/03/11

MarK @ 3:54pm:  “Let me use small words then so you keep up ...  I know reading comprehension is hard. Stick at it - you will get there.”

MarK @ 12:05pm:  “Since you cannot refute the logic you attack the messenger.”

Interesting juxtaposition there, big fella.

To matters of substance, though.  You have imagined a “point” that isn’t there.  That a carbon price will have pervasive effects is simply a fact, not an argument requiring “logical” demonstration.  But Tim makes no attempt to say anything useful about such effects anyway.  The piece is simply a flimsy attempt to paint Bob Brown and others as hypocrites.  It’s a lengthier version of a familiar Punch comment along the following lines:

“If Bob GiltalrdLIAR really beleived in global waming he would vbe living a liek a troglodyte with no electriccty its a FRAUDGREATBIGTAX!!!”

Translation:  Greens are hypocrites.  Greens must be wrong about everything.  Know nothing about the issues, but got that messenger a good one.  Oh yeah.

Now, let’s look at some ironies, because they’re mounting up:  (1) You initially accused me of attacking the messenger, apparently oblivious to the fact that the article you were “defending” was itself a classic ad hom hatchet job; (2) You then responded to my second post by completely ignoring what I had said and instead deriding my powers of comprehension, apparently oblivious to the obvious discord with your first response; and (3) To compound the silliness, you coupled your suggestion that I “can’t read to gud” with a precis of the article that was essentially plucked out of the air, and missed its point entirely.

Oh dear.

Still, it’s all part of the standard MO, isn’t it?  Proliferate and confuse the issues; if in doubt, mock the poster; don’t back down.

MarK says:

07:29pm | 10/03/11

Thanks silly got. Is that a nick you picked by your yourself or you just wrote it down because people call you that all the time and it sort of stuck in the brain?

I digress.

Yes. Sometimes you have to point out the obvious.

Thanks so much for pointing out how correct I was.

This intrigues me though

“Which is why it is the only thing you can understand and explain about Tim’s article.”

Well of course it the only thing. That was the theme. I must have missed the posting rules for articles that said they must make multiple points in order to be accepted. Was Tim also alluding to some post modernist choice of fast food as well and how marketing affects us? What?

I just checked a few other pieces. They seem to concentrate on and make one point.

Would you like to reassess your whinge? Feel free to post back and tell me how sorry you are for making a fool of yourself. It’s ok. You were having a go. Nothing like getting out there and giving it the old college try.

MarK says:

09:39am | 11/03/11

I see,

“That a carbon price will have pervasive effects is simply a fact”

So you did get the point!!!

“The piece is simply a flimsy attempt to paint Bob Brown and others as hypocrites”

*snicker* Not so flimsy….your panties are all in a punch.

“Translation:  Greens are hypocrites.  Greens must be wrong about everything.  Know nothing about the issues, but got that messenger a good one.  Oh yeah.”

Slow down son. This is starting to get hard to understand because u are mad.

“(1) You initially accused me of attacking the messenger, apparently oblivious to the fact that the article you were “defending” was itself a classic ad hom hatchet job;”

No. I successfully accused you of not answering the charge of hypocrisy and of defending the “tax” from invading every part of our lives by simply dismissing what was said. You merely attacked the author. Not a very good engagement son. Refer to your favourite on line dictionary for the definition of irony please.

“(2) You then responded to my second post by completely ignoring what I had said and instead deriding my powers of comprehension, apparently oblivious to the obvious discord with your first response”

No.

Since you have a reading comprehension issue I explained what the article was about slowly and calmly. You again just ignored the article. The article is the point dear boy. My contention is you cannot understand the subtlety of what the author is saying and are confused. I guess the other explanation is you are an ideological warrior with no true thought processes of your own and are merely chanting the slogans you learnt by rote.

“(3) To compound the silliness, you coupled your suggestion that I “can’t read to gud” with a precis of the article that was essentially plucked out of the air, and missed its point entirely.”

Hmmmm. No to this again.

It is obvious to me you can’t “read to gud” as you say. My precis was the awesome sauce.

Still waiting for yours champ.

Do you have one or are you too afraid to discuss the article?

bobw says:

11:03am | 11/03/11

LOL.  Talk to the tumbleweed, brother.

Squeeze the Middle says:

01:07pm | 10/03/11

And the way we do government. You realise don’t you that goernment is about a 1/3 of our GDP and they haven’t outlined any plans of how they’ll change their behaviour.

Squeeze the Middle says:

12:29pm | 10/03/11

Excellent point Nathan.  So why haven’t the Government asked Heinz? I keep asking why we haven’t seen detailed data on each contribution each government department, building, group and activity makes to our CO2 emissions.  Still no answer. Seems they haven’t asked that question either. Isn’t that Tim’s point?

MarK says:

07:22pm | 10/03/11

When?

Now?

Nothing. They are the same.

Except the pub using renewables will be making less of a GP% than the other one.

Now in the future.

The same.

GP’s are closer together but the one using coal power (for want of a better descriptor) now has a lower GP% than before and has had to sack a casual barmaid.

In other words they are both now inefficient.

Great question. Thank you so much for your interest in this subject.

Edward James says:

12:57pm | 10/03/11

Yep natural gas a huge amount under the Timor Sea which I understand we sell in bulk to China for around 2 dollars a tonne. This cheep price is tied to the fact they are buying in bulk. We are told it cant be supplied to us at that price. Perhaps this is more about keeping the cost to fuel our gas powered engines artificially high. Because of the existence of loans from bankers and stock exchange investments which may be defaulted if the gas price drops to a few cents a liter inside Australia. In fact that sort of drop in price would drive a change in the type of energy consumed for heating and power generation which would adversely reflect on the level of coal consumption in Australia the cost of energy is all about the cost per BTU. I understand the cheapest per thermal unit which works is what drives up demand. Bring dirt cheap gas energy into Australia and watch what changes.I would like to see that.

Squeeze the Middle says:

01:04pm | 10/03/11

And Turnball.  An ex Goldman Sachs man likes the Carbon Tax.  Say it isn’t so.

Aasq says:

01:49pm | 10/03/11

Thanks for the warning, Mark. I read the link, and it does say andrewbolt.

MarK says:

02:10pm | 10/03/11

Asaq.

If you choose to self censor then that is your business. He was talking to Jill Duggan the European Commission’s Directorate General of Climate Action.

She is a warmist. She gets paid to spread the message. She should own BoltA on your estimations.

Listen and learn.

Really it is low brow and the height of intellectual cowardice not to listen to someone because you don’t like the message. How tranquil your world must be.

How positively boring.

Feel free to refute anything he says in the interview. Feel free to defend her. Sitting in the corner screaming and throwing a temper tantrum doesn’t achieve much.

PTom says:

02:42pm | 10/03/11

Bolt only line “it is all Labor’s fault”, he does not need facts, proof or even knowledge of the topic because his Master at Liberal party told him all the truth he needs.

TimB says:

03:21pm | 10/03/11

This is what AASQ does MarK. He refuses to read *anything* that disagrees with his point of view, yet runs around screaming “wheres the proof?!”

You cannot reason with someone of his calibre. It’s all about belief with him, facts and logic have no place.

MarK says:

03:51pm | 10/03/11

Thanls for the info Ptom.

So glad you managed to comment on the subject without listening to interview.

You really are coming from a position of strength there son. Good to be you.

Hamish says:

03:55pm | 10/03/11

PTom, pop quiz: which party did Andrew Bolt work for as an advisor?

Aasq says:

04:15pm | 10/03/11

Perhaps I wasn’t clear enough, Mark.

It says andrewbolt.

p.s. What screaming ? What temper tantrum ? Did I call anything a farce ?

Kevin says:

04:20pm | 10/03/11

See my reply to Obob below.  Obviously she can’t say what the result of the EU’s measures will be on overall world temperatures unless she also can accurately predict what action all the other countries in the world will be taking in the meantime.
Bolt’s articles are for the dummies.

Aasq says:

05:48pm | 10/03/11

Oh there you are, Tim. I was wondering where you’d gotten to after wimping out after your humiliation in that other thread.

After mouthing off with ...

TimB says: 10:45am | 04/03/11

“I can keep this up for just as long as you can.”

... not so much as a peep out of you for 3 days.

TimB says:

06:23pm | 10/03/11

Sorry to disappoint, but The Punch mods blocked my last post in that thread. I took that as a sign.

Besides which, I also promised I’d be back when you countered the argument I actually made, not the one you claim I made. You have yet to do so.

BTW looked at the polls lately? My argument looks better every day.

MarK says:

07:19pm | 10/03/11

You were very clear aasq

You are into censorship and playing the man regardless of the message. You are intellectually challenged by anything that you perceive will not agree with your ideology.

You are immature and intellectually challenged by anything that you do not agree with. Either that or you are so weak that you have to avoid other thoughts or you will be swayed.

Whichever it is try to get over it.

Good on ya Kevvie. That really stuck it to me. How will I ever respond? Oh yeh…....she doesn’t know what it will cost the EU and she can’t even give us a ball park figure of a drop.

Why are we doing this again?

Ben81 says:

08:15pm | 10/03/11

Aasq out of interest I had a look at what you were talking about, wow.  I can’t understand for the life of me why you would actually want to draw peoples attention to that.
I’m not sure that you continually biting at Tim’s heel like an annoying little dog (first metaphor that came into my head, i’ll try to do better next time) with a ridiculous strawman argument about a position he didn’t take and saying “Game, set and match” a few times amounts to some kind of humiliation on his part.
Perhaps you should take the old advice and learn to know when to hold ‘em and when to fold ‘em..

TimB says:

08:06am | 11/03/11

I did try to warn him Ben. He seems to honestly think he had a point. Also seemed to think me bringing it up would embarras me and not him.

It’s so nice that the internet is here to let all the delusional people play on it.

Kevin says:

04:17pm | 10/03/11

So, if your doctor tells you that you have cancer but is unable to tell you in precise terms a) how much the medical treatment will cost; and b) whether the treatment will work, then it is completely pointless to get that medical treatment.

jolly says:

05:00pm | 10/03/11

Obob, please tell me you didn’t make a fool of yourself by asking foolish questions. Oh my lord, no wander the rest of the world consider aussies slightly loopy.

LC says:

06:07pm | 10/03/11

If the treatment was to cure a disease that may or may not exist and may or may not have proceeded to a point where it’s untreatable, and would cost enough to bankrupt this person, then yes your comparison would be valid.