Barnaby Joyce

[Wongo]

So what’s wrong with her giving an opinion of what she believes in, as long as she puts it into practice?

People who cry about how expensive their electricity bills are should really rethink the way they live their life. The levels of carbon dioxide emissions last year was at a record high. What the hell is wrong with everyone? Can't we stopping consuming? Trust me it doesn’t harm to use less and you should try it too. How many KW do you use per day?

[Greg Ward]

Up on the farm, we just burn wood to keep warm.

That saves on electricity, perhaps it doesn't save the planet, but it saves us having to go the bed to keep warm as the poor old pensioners have to do under current and future rising electricity prices .......and they don't have the pleasure of being able to cover their roof tops with rebated solar scheme panels as they simply don't have the funds.

I guess they can all sit near to their new set top boxes in future and watch TV in bed as well.
Greg

[Ian Smith]

People who cry about how expensive their electricity bills are should really rethink the way they live their life. ........

.

Ah but you see Wongo there's the rub ...apparently up here in the Sunshine state our power bills will be increasing by over 6% this year because.....wait for it ...we used LESS power last summer and the reason/excuse is that they need to charge more to keep their revenue stream going to maintain the network..


My BS meter is off-scale but I'm not sure exactly why. All I can be certain of is that there's a stinking pile of it somewhere is this mess

Ian

[Wongo]

But aren't you glad that you produced less CO2?

[Ian Smith]

But aren't you glad that you produced less CO2?

Ohh....over the moon!!! At this rate I'll go broke paying for stuff I don't use.

[Wongo]

Paying for stuff I don't use?? That's an interesting way to look at it.

[Ian Smith]

Paying for stuff I don't use?? That's an interesting way to look at it.

I'll not be drawn into a debate that I, and I suspect most others, don't fully understand.

I notice that if you own a pool (I don't) there's going to be some sort of concession on your power bill so there goes my CO2 savings

I accept there's climate change and I'll do what is within reason to look after this place but I'm agnostic as to what is causing it.
There's' far too many agendas

Ian

[silentC]

People who cry about how expensive their electricity bills are should really rethink the way they live their life. The levels of carbon dioxide emissions last year was at a record high. What the hell is wrong with everyone? Can't we stopping consuming? Trust me it doesn’t harm to use less and you should try it too. How many KW do you use per day?

Wongo, I have reduced our consumption by about 8 to 10 kwh per day, but our bills have gone UP.

That's because the price of electricity has increased from 15 cents per kwh 6 years ago to 22 cents per kwh today. And it's going to go up by another 50% over the next 5 years. We will cut back and cut back but there is only so far you can go without radical changes to the way we live. We'll need to re-open the local abbatoirs because no-one will be able to afford refrigeration. We'll be reading by candle light and washing our clothes by hand. That's where it is heading.

What frustrates me about this carbon tax debate is the inability of some to separate out the two issues of a) do we need to do something and b) what is the best thing to do. They seem to think that if you are against the carbon tax, then you are a climate change denier. The argument goes "we need to do something so we should support the carbon tax". Wrong. We need to do something but the carbon tax as proposed by the Gillard government is not necessarily the best thing to do. Even if you believe that there's anything at all we can do to change what's happening, which many don't, and many believe it's too late.

I happen to think that it is a largely ineffectual policy designed to create the appearance of doing something without actually doing anything at all. It's just a big money-go-round - as someone put it on Q&A the other night, just a big pile of money being burned. Taxing from the top, compensating at the bottom, how is that going to change anyone's behaviour. It makes no sense to me at all. Julia Gillard tried to explain how it would work and the best she could do was "the person with the extra $250 compensation in their hand might decide to spend it on something different". What the? In all seriousness, if anyone here can explain how it will work, I'm sure plenty would like to hear it.

No you can count on government getting this way wrong. It will push prices up and people will suffer and lose their jobs. You could almost handle the downside if there was going to be an upside, but as far as I can see, there won't be one.

If they put it to the vote, it will fail. It's like the republican referendum: a lot of people voted against it, not because they didn't want a republic, but because they didn't like the model that was proposed. This is the same.

[rrobor]

With no carbon tax finding alternate means of energy will not happen. Sure there are silly things, If I generated power from my roof and sell it to the grid that is deemed as income and as a pensioner I would be penalised. So my means is by insulation and reducing loss. Pulling plaster off the walls and retro insulating room by room etc. People look at tax as some form of horror. The super tax on mining shouted down etc. If you look at Denmark today you will find they taxed north sea oil and built a massive future fund which now works similar to the Nobel prize. The pool is large enough to run infrastructure ad infanitum Australia feeds her wealth to trough feeders who wish to pay no tax.
The UK did the same and now the UK is on the brink of being broke as the oil runs out.
I repeat 10 years ago I stated on another forum that the world nature patterns would get more violent, It has and it will not stop.
What proof is there? there is no conclusive proof. But there is none to prove the otherwise ito be correct. Job loss has been the great call, In the middle ages in the UK weavers smashed looms. In Australia shearers went against wide combs. The sky is yet to fall in. Jobs come and go, My trade is gone as many others have gone before, its evolution and that will not stop

[ColW]

A chap said to me recently "we've seen the best of life in this country" I suppose he was talking about our lifestyles as opposed to our standards of living. There's much concern about the elderly in our society being reasonably able to change their ways, they have set routines and spend much of their time indoors and of course a limited income, but they've also come from a different time "the good old days, that weren't so good" and are equiped with frugality and other survival techniques, such as knowing how to make sacrifices, going to bed to keep warm I doubt would be a new experience for them, nor would growing their own food to supplement diet, or stitching a hole in a garment, or owning 1 appliance until it dies, etc etc. It doesn't take much to see that their old lifestyle was actually pretty good, sustainable even.

Consumerism tells us that "there is never enough" and that "what we buy won't keep us happy for very long, and that it's not about what we need, it's about what we want, what we deserve. There is so much sh#t out there to make us happy, it makes my head spin, when they switched off the analogue TV here recently 6000 units hit the tip in 2 months, thankfully much of the components can be recycled, thankfully I live in a reception poor area and didn't watch much free to air stuff anyway, but i'll keep my old analogue to watch dvd's and give tele a miss for good, doubt i'll miss much.

So here's some free advice handed down from our parents and there's etc. stop buying sh#t we don't need, make do with what we have, and do what you can to help our environment. most people have changed to CF globes, many have gone much farther even to a point of stepping outside what's comfortable, one thing that is certain, we can't rely on Government alone to make the changes necessary, the environmentalist movement has been around for 50 years, about the same amount of time it's historically taken to move from one fuel source to another, eg wood to coal, coal to oil, oil to ?
we're 10 years into any serious kind of push towards renewables and at our current rate it'll take another 200, such is our dependence on fossil fuels,
we can't do much about the bile spewed forth daily from the "business as usual set" but we can ignore it, stop buying their sh#t and hopefully they'll just cannibalize themselves into extinction, of course jobs will be lost, the human toll of our lifestyle hasn't even been realised yet.

It's taken us decades to work out what sustainability actually means, i'm pretty sure most of the pollies still think it's just a handy buzzword, kinda like "feelgood" but no-one really feels good when it comes to this subject, not when were talking about our own races sustainability.

[Wood en I]

Who is David Evans funded by?

David Evans was funded by the Australian Greenhouse Office (now the Department of Climate Change)

What he is doing now I have no idea you would need to ask him.

[silentC]

If I generated power from my roof and sell it to the grid that is deemed as income and as a pensioner I would be penalised.

That's actually not true in NSW at least. If you take a cheque from the power company, then yes it is considered income if you are a pensioner (but not if you're not a pensioner, figure that out). However most or all energy suppliers pay the tariff in the form of a deduction from your bill. You only get a cheque if you ask for one.

Only history will show whether or not the carbon tax will stimulate any development of alternatives. It's a stick-poking exercise. I would much rather see legislation that forces companies to change, backed up by government grants and subsidies etc. I'm happy to pay for that.

Instead I'm going to be paying even higher prices for just about everything and that will be subsidising low income earners so that they too can pay their higher bills. More than half of the revenue raised is eaten up in compensation. Then what's left does what? Nobody knows. The whole scheme relies on industry finding alternatives. But if all they are going to do is pass the cost on to us, where is the incentive? We have a choice of one energy supplier where I live. Where is the competition? We already pay the highest rate in the state. They just keep applying to IPART for a price increase and they get it. A carbon tax is only going to exacerbate that.

Even if there's nothing we can do about climate change, it's still worthwhile doing something to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels and to reduce pollution, I just don't see this as the way to do it. Other countries like the UK are doing different things, we should be looking at them.

[artme]

When we were travelling through Turkey and Greece a few years ago I could not help but notice the number of solar hot water system, especially in Turkey. I remember thinking how this put our boasts about "leading the world in solar technology" to shame.

There are no susbsidies there to help people out, at least according to our tour guides.

Makes you wonder about our attitudes and expectations, does it not?

In Spain I made a comment on the number of places, particularly new buildings, that had PV panels and solar hot wter systems. In Spain it is mandated that you have these on all new buildings. Again no subsidy.

Ar we greedy out here or have we missed something??

[mic-d]

Consumerism tells us that "there is never enough" and that "what we buy won't keep us happy for very long, and that it's not about what we need, it's about what we want, what we deserve.

there was a Festool sale coming up to, but you guilted me out of it.
We would like to get solar but apparently you also need to get a smart meter and are worried about the results on the hip pocket and we've heard they emit increased levels of radiation
My concern was that since I often work from my home workshop, most of our electricity consumption will be in the shoulder and peak period. It's a terrible way to think and of course the thing to do is put the environment first and get the panels. But what is happening with smart meter installation? If they aren't going to be phased in to everyone, why should I do my bit, swap to solar and then be punished by higher electricity charges? Yes I understand the solar will generate electricity and offset the higher tariff, but in the first place, why must we suffer the higher tariff for being responsible humans while others that continue to use the coal fired electricity do not I know the solar electricity is bought at a higher price than we'd buy electricity off the grid, currently, but who is to say that in the future this won't reverse? It's the difficulty in understanding the ramifications of even a simple thing like solar panel installation that has me wondering how I will ever understand if the carbon tax is the right thing to do.

[Waldo]

Wongo, I have reduced our consumption by about 8 to 10 kwh per day, but our bills have gone UP.

That's because the price of electricity has increased from 15 cents per kwh 6 years ago to 22 cents per kwh today. And it's going to go up by another 50% over the next 5 years. We will cut back and cut back but there is only so far you can go without radical changes to the way we live. We'll need to re-open the local abbatoirs because no-one will be able to afford refrigeration. We'll be reading by candle light and washing our clothes by hand. That's where it is heading.

What frustrates me about this carbon tax debate is the inability of some to separate out the two issues of a) do we need to do something and b) what is the best thing to do. They seem to think that if you are against the carbon tax, then you are a climate change denier. The argument goes "we need to do something so we should support the carbon tax". Wrong. We need to do something but the carbon tax as proposed by the Gillard government is not necessarily the best thing to do. Even if you believe that there's anything at all we can do to change what's happening, which many don't, and many believe it's too late.

I happen to think that it is a largely ineffectual policy designed to create the appearance of doing something without actually doing anything at all. It's just a big money-go-round - as someone put it on Q&A the other night, just a big pile of money being burned. Taxing from the top, compensating at the bottom, how is that going to change anyone's behaviour. It makes no sense to me at all. Julia Gillard tried to explain how it would work and the best she could do was "the person with the extra $250 compensation in their hand might decide to spend it on something different". What the? In all seriousness, if anyone here can explain how it will work, I'm sure plenty would like to hear it.

No you can count on government getting this way wrong. It will push prices up and people will suffer and lose their jobs. You could almost handle the downside if there was going to be an upside, but as far as I can see, there won't be one.

If they put it to the vote, it will fail. It's like the republican referendum: a lot of people voted against it, not because they didn't want a republic, but because they didn't like the model that was proposed. This is the same.

SilentC, I whole heartedly agree with you.