Are we all looking forward to the Carbon Tax?

[rod@plasterbrok]

Here are some questions I would like to see the Media ask Rudd.

1. If the world has stopped warming, why have ascheme at all?
2. If world emissions will keep soaring whatever we do, why have a scheme at all?
3. If the biggest emitters - and our competitors - have no intention of cutting their own gases, why have a scheme at all?
4. If the price of coping with any warming is much less than the price of trying to stop it, why have a scheme at all?

There will be a lot of finacial pain for the average Joe in a Carbon Tax. It would be nice to have the benefit quantified with a cost benefit analyisis.

Some how I dont think we will get that.

What do you guys think?

[Elbow]

Just another example of rushing in to be the good guy regardless. The bigger polluters will continue on and not worry. Meanwhile our costs go up and can't compete with the evil doers.
Rant off

Allan

[Big Shed]

I see absolutely no point in it unless the 3 biggest economies, (US, China, India) do the same, and that isn't going to happen anytime soon. So why put ourselves at an economic disadvantage for no environmental gain?

[damian]

Well, I hate to perpetuate stuff like this but here goes anyway:

Man made global warming is a con. If you stand on the equator of the moon at noon when it is on earth's orbit line you are near as dammit the same distance to the sun. The reason there is a difference in temperature is that the earths atmosphere insulates us. Solar radiation comes in during the day and heats up the earth and atmosphere and leaks off during the night. The GW evangelists claim CO2 is 30% of this effect, but they say 30% of the GASS'S effect. The reason they always say gas is because water vapour isn't a gas, it's a suspended aerosol. It's also 95% of the insulation in our atmosphere. So CO2 is 30% of 5%. Even if you assume some signifigant proportion of the methane or CO2 is manmade directly or indirectly it would still be irrelevant in the scheme of things.

No doubt there are some true believers here who will jump on me. I'd like to point out in advance that I'm telling 1% of the story here. I don't have time to write a book.

The media are pathological liars. They couldn't tell the truth if you handed them a story on the second comming. Geenpeace are not an enviromental organisation. They are a fund raising organisation who use similar tactics as women's magazines to get you to fork out. The so called scientists who stick their heads in front of TV cameras are furthering their careers and lining their pockets. I'd call them prostitutes but that is an insult to the working girls, who are a good deal more honest than those kind.

/rant....

[echnidna]

hmmm, an enlightened summary

[ss_11000]

......

I like it

So, if i was to look into this any further - is there a website that has this infromation

[petersemple]

I like it

So, if i was to look into this any further - is there a website that has this infromation

Yep, there are plenty of websites that have this info.... and plenty that do a very convincing job of presenting exactly the opposite too. You can't believe everything you read on the 'net. Problem is when a good deal of it is contradictory it's hard to know which one to not believe.

Peter

[Rattrap]

WOW.
Such blind, ignorant, 'head in the sand' thinking.
I had half a page of ranting but then i realised that if you haven't seen the writing on the wall then theres very little point in me trying to convince u any further.
A lot of people are scared & looking for somebody to tell them that 'everything is gonna be alright, nothing needs to change or at least not much'. Sadly there are also plenty of people who will tell them just what they want to hear, ignoring real hard science, or worse, twist & distort it along the way.
Come on people, open your eyes for real. I'm sure you're all seen the future population predictions so u don't need me to look them up. Add to it major population countries like china & India are jumping into the 21st century with both feet & making all the same mistakes the western world has been making for years. This planet is turning into a tip. If somebody doesn't start doing things the right way nobody will!
Don't give me that lame 'hes not doing it so why should i?' I stopped whining like that when i was 12 years old.

Yes its gonna cost & damn right its gonna hurt like hell but the simple fact is the sooner we start the cheaper & easier it will be. If people hadn't used the very same excuses that u are sprouting right now 20 years ago then we wouldn't have the crisis we have now on our hands.
& we DO have a crisis. Don't doubt that for a moment.

OK so it turned into a min rant. If i offended anybody, well good. It means at least some of my rant got thru.

PS, In 20 years i hope like hell that all of u will be able to point at me & laugh & say 'see, told u you were wrong fool'.

[chrisp]

Are we all looking forward to the Carbon Tax?

Absolutely. It is a sad fact is that society as a whole dosen't seem to change or react until each individual has to bear the cost.

We all hear that oil is running out, and that carbon (CO2) is damaging the environment and most of us, me included, just go on our merry way.

So, let's implement a carbon tax and tip the economics in favour of alternative technologies. It's only when we are all hit with the extra cost of a carbon tax that we'll make the renewable energy sector viable - and the world a better place

[Big Shed]

But chrisp, we already have a carbon tax, oil has increased by 50-75% in the last 12 months or so, far more (I hope) than a carbon tax will do.

Has that made renewable energy more viable? I haven't seen any evidence of that.

I repeat my point, and no it is not the whine of a 12 year old, there is no point in a country like Australia acting alone. Whether we like it or not Australia's economy is but a flyspot on the world's economic wall paper. We need the major economies, yes US, China, India etc to be part of this, otherwise we will be penalising ourselves and hurting our economy for the long term.

Our children and grandchildren will not look kindly on our kneejerk reactions.

Ranting and raving with religious fervour will do nothing to solve the problem. How many of the people that rant and rave about global warming have wall to wall plasma screens? Read what those gasses are doing to our environment, measured how much energy they use?

Do as I do, not do as I say (did you hear that Mr Al Gore?)

[ss_11000]

Yep, there are plenty of websites that have this info.... and plenty that do a very convincing job of presenting exactly the opposite too. You can't believe everything you read on the 'net. Problem is when a good deal of it is contradictory it's hard to know which one to not believe.

Peter

yeah, i know but what damian said is more to my liking than the rest of the BS people go on with

although, i do tend to believe the person that has the scientific and mathematic evidence to back up their entire arugment - its a pity that people make 'evidence' up!

[Gingermick]

statistically speaking, 99.9999% of all statistics can be misinterpreted.

[dazzler]

Well, I hate to perpetuate stuff like this but here goes anyway:

Man made global warming is a con. If you stand on the equator of the moon at noon when it is on earth's orbit line you are near as dammit the same distance to the sun. The reason there is a difference in temperature is that the earths atmosphere insulates us. Solar radiation comes in during the day and heats up the earth and atmosphere and leaks off during the night. The GW evangelists claim CO2 is 30% of this effect, but they say 30% of the GASS'S effect. The reason they always say gas is because water vapour isn't a gas, it's a suspended aerosol. It's also 95% of the insulation in our atmosphere. So CO2 is 30% of 5%. Even if you assume some signifigant proportion of the methane or CO2 is manmade directly or indirectly it would still be irrelevant in the scheme of things.

....

Hi damien

Global warming is not a con. There is a lot of conning going on and rod points to some of it, stupid little measures that will do nothing as it needs to be a global thing not a local thing.

It is simple physics that man is effecting the atmosphere by releasing carbon into it. Remember, you cannot destroy anything, just change its composition. The coal/oil/gas that we are burning and releasing into the atmosphere all comes from a period of the earth where the CO2 % in the atmosphere was much much higher than today. It was sequestered into the earths surface when it decayed and was covered by silt etc and hidden away.

As we burn it, and we are burning it at rates beyond imagining, the carbon molecules are released and enter the atmosphere. The problem is that the more CO2 in the atmosphere the less heat can leave and so the atmosphere heats up.

I believe what we are doing is changing the atmosphere simply because it makes sense. If I light up a cigarette in my house I can see the resultant contaminants floating around (smoke). The earth is just a big house, pump carbon into it and it changes.

So I believe that man is changing the atmosphere through the unregulated burning of fossil fuels.

But I disagree with the way us earthlings are going about reducing it. Without all countries coming on board, reducing or at least stopping overpopulation and reafforesting the worlds forest, its all just feel good crap.

[rhancock]

But surely, (whether you agree that human created global warming is real or not) if the point of an emissions trading scheme is to persuade people to use less (carbon emitting) energy, then

Current amount of monthly budget I spend on petrol = $400
Current distance driven per month = 1000km
Emissions trading increases energy cost by 50%
New distance driven per month = 666km
New amount of monthly budget I spend on petrol = $400

How much has carbon trading cost me?.....

Of course, I've simplified things, although for me this will work (Every month I drive about 25km to pick up takeaways!).

The difficulty is those people who are not able to reduce their mileage - tradies are top of that list, and some of the mileage I save will be by changing from a trade job to an office job, but still everyone has the ability to make some changes, many tradies for instance will restrict the area they are prepared to service.

And there's always this...

[Big Shed]

But petrol has already increased by 50%, by how much has that reduced your driving?

Nice theoretical exercise, but the real world is different..............