Carbon tax?
Posted by: Proteus
2nd Mar 2011 01:08pm
Can anyone please enlighten me as to the proposed new tax on carbon emissions?
I for one am very confused by it - how can there be a tax on something on cannot see? What is this new tax all about and how is it going to affect the ordinary person as far as how much we are going to have to pay etc.? I can understand that big companies emiitting smoke and crap from industry etc., should be made to decrease their emissions, but tax everybody for a so called carbon footprint? I'm confused but it all. Are our polies from all parties just fixated on getting more blood from us?
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Comments 31
Steve49
This was emailed to me by a friend.
1
How Well Has The Media And Government Informed The Public About CO2 Levels In The Air?
Ask yourself, your friends, family and work associates if they know the answers to the following questions about Carbon Dioxide (CO2). Be sure to write your answers before looking at the following pages.
Question 1. What percentage of the atmosphere do you think is CO2?
Question 2. Have you ever seen the percentage given in any media?
Question 3. What percentage of the CO2 is man-made?
Question 4. What percentage of the man-made CO2 does Australia produce?
Question 5. Is CO2 is a pollutant?
Question 6. Have you ever seen any evidence that CO2 causes a greenhouse effect?
I have asked over 100 people these questions. Virtually everyone says they don’t know the answers so ask them to tell you what their perception is by what they have learnt from the media, the government and Green groups. Let them know there is no right or wrong answer as you are just doing a survey as to what people have perceived the answers to be from these sources.
The answers to these questions are fundamental to evaluating the global warming scare YET almost no one knows the facts. However, without this knowledge we can’t make an informed decision about whether Climate Change is natural or not.
On the following pages are respondent’s perceptions followed by the correct answers. The bulk of the respondents (over 100 to date) are educated fairly well to very well. They comprise business managers in a diversity of large and small companies, those in medical profession, accounting, law, sales, engineering as well as scientists and trades people.
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ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
Q1. What % of the air is CO2?
Respondent’s Answers: nearly all were 20% - 40%, the highest was 75% while the lowest were 10%- 2%.
The Correct Answer: CO2 is less than a mere four 100ths of 1%! As a decimal it is 0.038%. As a fraction it is 1/27th of 1%. (Measurements for CO2 vary from one source to another from 0.036%- 0.039% due to the difficulty in measuring such a small quantity and due to changes in wind direction e.g. whether the air flow is from an industrialized region or a volcanic emission etc)
Nitrogen is just over 78%, Oxygen is just under 21% and Argon is almost 1%. CO2 is a minute trace gas at 0.038%. We all learnt the composition of the air in both primary and high school but because most people don’t use science in their day to day living, they have forgotten this. Also, the vast bulk of the population have very little knowledge of science so they find it impossible to make judgements about even basic scientific issues let alone ones as complex as climate. This makes it easy for those with agendas to deceive us by using emotive statements rather than facts. For a detailed breakup of the atmosphere go to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Earth#Composition
Q2. Have you seen a percentage for CO2 given in the media?
Respondent’s answers: All said ’No’.
Q3. What % of CO2 do humans produce?
Respondent’s answers ranged from as high as 100% with most estimating it to be between 75% to 25% and only four said they thought it was between 10% and 2 %.
The Correct Answer: Nature produces nearly all of it. Humans produce only 3%. As a decimal it is a miniscule 0.001% of the air. All of mankind produces only one molecule of CO2 in around every 90,000 air molecules! Yes, that’s all.
Q4. What % of man-made CO2 does Australia produce?
Respondent’s Answers ranged from 20% to 5%.
The Correct Answer is 1% of the 0.001% of man-made CO2. As a decimal it is an insignificant 0.00001% of the air. That’s one, one-hundredth thousandth of the air. That is what all the fuss is about! That’s one CO2 molecule from Australia in every 9,000,000 molecules of air. It has absolutely no affect at all.
We have been grossly misled to think there is tens of thousands of times as much CO2 as there is!
Why has such important information been withheld from the public? If the public were aware that man-made CO2 is so incredibly small there would be very little belief in a climate disaster so the media would not be able to make a bonanza from years of high sales by selling doomsday stories. Governments and Green groups would not be able to justify a carbon tax that will greatly raise the cost of everything. Major international banks and the stock market would not make massive profits out of carbon trading and many in the science community would not be getting large research grants.
Q5. Is CO2 is a pollutant?
Respondent’s Answers: All thought it was a pollutant, at least to some degree.
The Correct Answer: CO2 is a harmless, trace gas. It is as necessary for life - just as oxygen and nitrogen are. It is a natural gas that is clear, tasteless and odourless. It is in no way a pollutant.
Calling CO2 a ‘pollutant’ leads many to wrongly think of it as black, grey or white smoke. Because the media deceitfully show white or grey ‘smoke’ coming out of power station cooling towers, most think this is CO2. It is not: it’s just steam (water vapour) condensing in the air. CO2 is invisible: just breathe out and see. Look at it bubbling out of your soft drinks, beer or sparkling wine. No one considers that a pollutant - because it’s not. CO2 in its frozen state is commonly known as dry ice. It is used in camping eskys, in medical treatments and science experiments. No one considers that a pollutant either. CO2 is emitted from all plants. This ‘emission’ is not considered a pollutant even though this alone is 33 times more than man produces! Huge quantities of CO2 are dissolved naturally in the ocean and released from the warm surface. This is not considered a pollutant either.
The two large cooling towers are emitting only steam. A tiny amount of CO2 is trickling out of the thin chimney at centre. It is only barely visible due to a small quantity of smoke particles, most of which is filtered out nowadays. The media doesn’t like to show skinny CO2 chimneys emitting nothing visible because this is unimpressive and not the least bit emotive so it doesn’t make for sensationalist journalism. So they typically choose to deceive the public by showing cooling towers.
Q6. Have you seen any evidence that CO2 causes a greenhouse effect?
Respondent’s Answers: Most did not know of any definite proof. Some said they thought the melting of the Arctic and glaciers was possibly proof.
The Correct Answer: There is no proof at all. The Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (the IPCC) has never produced any proof. There are, however the following proofs that it can’t cause a greenhouse effect.
• It is true that CO2 can absorb heat a little faster than nitrogen and oxygen but it becomes no hotter because it cannot absorb anymore heat than there is available to the other gases. This is against the laws of thermodynamics. All gases share their heat with the other gases. Gas molecules fly around and are constantly colliding with other gas molecules so they immediately lose any excess heat to other molecules during these collisions. That’s why the air is all one temperature in any limited volume.
• Even if CO2 levels were many times higher, radiative heating physics shows that it would make virtually no difference to temperature because it has a very limited heating ability. With CO2, the more there is, the less it heats because it quickly becomes saturated. For a detailed explanation go to: http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html
The following facts show that even high levels of CO2 can make almost no impact on heating the atmosphere.
1. Glasshouses with high levels of CO2 - hundreds of times higher than in the air to make plants grow faster – heat up during the day to the same temperature as glasshouses with air in them. This is also true for bottles of pure CO2 compared to ones with air.
2. The planets Venus and Mars have atmospheres that are almost entirely CO2 (97%) yet they have no ‘runaway’ greenhouse heating effect. Their temperatures are stable.
3. The geological record over hundreds of millions of years has shown that CO2 has had no affect whatsoever on climate. At times, CO2 was hundreds of times higher, yet there were ice ages.
4. In recent times when Earth was considerably warmer during the Roman Warming and the Medieval Warming, the higher temperatures then were totally natural because there was no industrialization back then.
• Water vapour is 4% of the air and that‘s 100 times as much as CO2. Water vapour absorbs 33 times as much heat as CO2 making CO2’s contribution insignificant. But like CO2, water vapour also gives this heat away to air molecules by contact (conduction) and radiation, thereby making the surrounding air the same temperature.
• The Earth’s atmosphere is very thin so its heat is continually being lost to the absolute coldness of outer space (-270 C). As there is no ‘ceiling’ to the atmosphere, surface heat cannot be retained. The Sun renews warmth every day.
Over the last few years Earth has had much colder winters due to very few magnetic storms on the Sun. These four increasingly colder winters have been particularly noticeable in the northern hemisphere where most of the land is. Because of this, the Arctic has re-frozen and glaciers that were receding are now surging due to the heavy snow falls. The Arctic showed some melting around its edges from the mid 90s to the mid 2000s due to the very high level of solar storm activity at that time. But as the Sun is now entering probably 2-4 decades of low solar activity, this is expected to cause global cooling. For more detail, see the following page.
3
4
The climate has always been naturally cyclic and variable due to numerous natural drivers of which CO2 is not one. Over millions of years the climate has shown far greater changes in the geological record than we have seen over the last 200 hundred years - and there was no industrialization back then. The very minor variations we have witnessed over the last 100 years have all occurred several times even in that short period. Today’s changes in climate are common and completely natural. There are now over 50 books that provide numerous reasons why man-made global warming is false.
The Effect of the Sun on Earth’s climate
It has long been known that the Sun is by far the major driver of all weather on Earth because it is the source of all heat and energy. There is absolutely no real-world evidence that the temperature has continually risen as we were led to believe. The hottest records in the USA and Greenland were in the 1930s due to a strong solar cycle. It became cooler from 1940 to 1970. This was due to a weak solar cycle. It has again become increasingly colder since 2006 due to another weak solar cycle. The Sun’s magnetic storm activity has now moved to an extended minimum so the next 2-4 maximums are expected to be much weaker than the last few have been. By 2011 the solar cycle should have risen half way back to its 11 year maximum but it hasn’t! It’s only just started. The last time the Sun acted this way was during the Dalton Minimum from 1790 to 1830 which produced 40 years of very cold winters with subdued, wetter summers globally - just as we are expiring now. From 1450 -1750 a more intense Maunder Minimum occurred which caused the Little Ice Age. The next 2-4 solar cycles will very likely be low in solar activity causing noticeably cooler global temperatures for a few decades.
For details see: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/02/02/solar-cycle-24-update
and http://www.climatechangedenier.com.au/climate-change/another-dalton-minimum/
The effect of the current Solar Minimum is particularly obvious in the northern hemisphere where increasingly colder winter temperatures have caused massive snow falls disrupting transportation across Europe, Asia and the US.
Despite more than a decade of continual doomsday predictions of increasing temperatures and never-ending drought globally, the opposite has happened. There have been lower temperatures globally with greatly increased rain and snows over much of the planet since 2006. This has caused floods across most of Australia and most other counties, as seen on the TV news. This ended the global 10 year drought conditions from the mid 90s to the mid 2000s. There has been no drop in CO2 to cause this: in fact, CO2 has risen. There is no correlation between CO2 levels and climate. The reason CO2 levels have gone up a little is most likely due to the surface of the oceans warming very slightly during the later half of the century and therefore releasing a little CO2. (The oceans are currently cooling very slightly.) Mankind’s contribution to CO2 is so small it’s not measurable.
Polls on Climate Change
Polls in western countries now show that believers in man-made global warming are now in the minority with a sizable percentage of over 20% who “don’t know” if CO2 is causing any change. The obvious change to a cooler, wetter climate combined with the revelations of climate fraud shown by the Climategate emails has led to the change in public perception. Polls asking people what is the most important threat to them out of a list of 20 issues, place global warming at the bottom!
Popular beliefs are not fact
The bulk of the population of the western world believed that the 2000 Bug would destroy much of our technology on New Year’s Eve 2000 yet not one disaster occurred anywhere. We were told CFCs caused the Ozone ‘hole’ yet after billions of dollars were spent removing CFCs over 30 years, the slight depletion of Ozone at the South Pole has not changed. Scientists now think it is natural. Popular beliefs are often based on blind faith, ideology and profit rather than proven scientific evidence. History is littered with popular consensuses that were wrong.
A Carbon Tax
Taxing CO2 achieves nothing for the environment; in fact, it deprives real environmental issues from receiving funds. A carbon tax will have a disastrous impact on lower and middle income earners. Even if drastic measures were imposed equally on all countries around the world to reduce the total human CO2 contribution by as much as 30%, this would reduce total CO2 by an insignificant percentage. It would have no affect whatsoever on the climate but it would totally destroy the economies of every country and dramatically lower everyone’s living standards. Most people and politicians are making decisions emotively, not factually about a complex science they know virtually nothing about.
Gregg D Thompson
Climate Researcher
Astronomer
Environmentalist
Author of two science books
Business Manager and Director of 3 companies
Author of science magazine articles
Designer and project manager of special effects attractions
Nature photographer
Has a great interest in most sciences
Loves creating innovation in art
Nefertari
Now the carbon tax bill has been passed I would like to know just who is going to have to pay....correct me if I'm wrong as it is all a bit confusing but I understand that the tax is aimed at big business and the amount of carbon they release into the atmosphere. Unless I'm missing something any extra costs they incur as a result of this bill will just be handed on to the average citizen through higher clothing and grocery prices etc! So who is really paying...certainly not the people who are most at fault
ozziedigger
well,it`s great to hear and read there are other people out there in the big world,
that i can agree with.Really,i don`t socialise or go out much,but i get so damned frustrated with all the new rules and who are trying to run this great country and the huge majority ,us, who are letting them do whatever they want.--
When climate change was first mentioned,(this is fact) the Govt. actually laughed
at the ridiculous people standing up for global warming,------untill a MP worked out there was money (tax) to be made.The Govt.then went all out to get a plan together.
It would seem now ,intelligent people are starting to become outraged at the
utter stupidity of being taxed because we should be trying harder to help Mother
Nature produce more carbon dioxide.Mother Nature is a clever girl and cares for herself and her planet.
If the Govt.was fair dinkum about stopping us poisoning us and our planet,why
don`t they impose the tax (which will collect approx $14 Billion) and get started on irrigation and planting the land west of the Blue Mountains.How good would that be? I would pay that tax!
errolsyd
Agree with all, this tax is the one this government would NOT give us, it is a tax we do not need, it is a tax we do NOT want, it is a tax we do not need, it is a tax that only Australia will have out of the big countries, it is a tax that will send us to the bottom of the industrial heap,it is a tax that will NOT reduce the earths temp.
We must let Tony know that we do not need his form of CO2 reduction either, man is not raising the global temps, it is a science that is incomplete and full of people after the Golbal research $$$$$$$$$$$$ not the truth.
Steve49
The trouble with an election is that you end up with a new batch of self serving politicians. They are supposed to represent the people so how are they representing the people with this tax. Every single person that I've spokent to are against it. It seems that the govt. is representing the tiny lunatic fringe so that they can stay in power. The other lot aren't any better, they were the ones that proposed this tax in the first place and now they are very vocally against it. Get rid of the green lunatics, they are ruining this country with their lies and misinformation.
Steve49
This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules.
Proteus
Couldn't agree more Boysie, the Greens are a very dangerous lot to be honest, and I'm sure we haven't heard the last of their policies and demands on the government yet either.
Look out for the death tax they are also wanting to introduce.
Proteus
Well our redhead leader has announced the plans for the new tax!!
According to her and her spin doctors, everyone, well a lot of people will be better off under this scheme, but I really doubt it to be honest.
Costs are going to rise again, electricity will go up yet again, food costs will also rise, as will the cost of freight etc., so will the costs of manufacturing of goods, which will be again passed down to consumers etc One thing that she also said was that after the 3 year period of settling in so to speak, there will be a shift ot buying international carbon credits?? This means we are going to be paying for it yet again. I really don't understand any of it to be honest!! It seems to me that the Greens have had a huge say in this debate, and it would appear that they have got what they want, again. I also wonder, how are they going to measure the output of smog ? Isn't it time we forced them out of power and got an election happening?? Although I fear that the alternative isn't much better either to be honest.
redrobin
it's a con job people- it's the easiest excuse they can use for a tax because they know that most people WON'T investigate the science of it. It's just a TAX. It won't save the planet, and it won't reduce carbon emissions, and they don't cause global warming anyway.
They want to tax most of Australia with it (directly or indirectly) and then supposedly give back the money to some, but how exactly does this reduce carbon? It doesn't. It's actually a carbon dioxide tax if the truth be known- and the way to reduce that is to have all the politicians in Canberra stop speaking and hold their breath and then the resultant reduction in hot air would cool the planet. Believe that? nah.
It's just a scam and people are sucked into it.
What happened to the hole in the ozone layer? Perhaps it evaporated because the whole world stopped using flurocarbons....what about the myth that we were going to run out of oil in the seventies....it's just a TAX people, Labor loves to tax people. WISE UP! Don't put up with it!
Proteus
Hmm, well I have to agree with all of the above, but I'm still stumped to see what imposing this new tax is going to do to lower emissions from polluters, and why should we have to pay for it anyway?? The oddest part is that the government of the day is going to reimburse the lower income brackets for this tax? Yet another oxymoron from our leaders it would seem to me.
Steve49
If you ask me this is just another rort on the Australian People. All this global warming talk seems to be based more on ideology than scientific fact. One large volcano eruption puts more polution into the air than man has since the start of the industrial revolution. The greens seem to have too much power for the small lunatic fringe that they represent.
Proteus
That's what I've bee saying all along....why impose this so called new tax, when in my opinion it will do absolutely nothing to stop the polluters?
Go figure..and pay up seem to be the common logic lately in the political arena.
mysteron347
Climate change - at least human-induced climate-change has to be the biggest pseudoscientific joke of all time. Proof, if it was ever needed was Tanya Alphabet's claim on Q&A last night that it existed.
Sure - we have climate-change, but it's always happened. We're just not a long-enough-lived species to know about it - and our records go back less than a century - a tiny fraction of the cycle-time.
People should know from history that in the 1700s it became so cold in London that the River Thames froze. If the climate-change quacks had been around then they'd have claimed an ice-age was upon us.
In the middle ages, the 'Cinq ports' (five ports) in the South of England supplied the English navy with harbour facilities. New Romney and Sandwich are now inland towns, and Hythe's harbour is 'silted up.' In fact, what's happened is simple - the sea-level has dropped since those times, and it's now rising again - and the quacks say "caused by human influence on climate change."
As for a tax - well, apologies to Gertrude Stein. An irresistible opportunity for the pollies to "justify" another impost in the perpetual chase for revenue, that you "have" to support unless you are prepared to be decried as a heretic. Add to the the benefit of being able to have more ludicrous expensive arguments in the courts to keep the lawyers and judges employed. And then there's a marvellous to employ accountants to charge a fortune to perform meaningless calculations to gather the tax.
Notice anything about this group? All waffle-merchants that do nothing to produce goods and services and charge a fortune for their busy occupations. Parasites one and all. Pass the wormwood!
Ness
I'm sorry,
Even Julia can't answer this one.
Nothing is exact yet.
Vote Liberal next time, and you will at least know what your getting.
keno
Here's a practical way to understand Julia Gillard's Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme.
Imagine 1 kilometre of atmosphere and we want to get rid of the carbon pollution in it created by human activity. Let's go for a walk along it.
The first 770 metres are Nitrogen.
The next 210 metres are Oxygen.
That's 980 metres of the 1 kilometre. 20 metres to go.
The next 10 metres are water vapour. 10 metres left.
9 metres are argon. Just 1 more metre.
A few gases make up the first bit of that last metre.
The last 38 centimetres of the kilometre - that's carbon dioxide. A bit over one foot.
97% of that is produced by Mother Nature. Its natural.
Out of our journey of one kilometre, there are just 12 millimetres left. Just over a centimetre - about half an inch.
Thats the amount of carbon dioxide that global human activity puts into the atmosphere.
And of those 12 millimetres Australia puts in .18 of a millimetre.
Less than the thickness of a hair. Out of a kilometre!
As a hair is to a kilometre - so is Australia 's contribution to what Julia Gillard calls Carbon Pollution.
MTD
Hi, in addition let me quote Andrew Bolt last week, "How much is it going to cost" and "what are the guaranteed results of this massive expenditure" Ask the Government to quantify both.
wendiau
This is the "Tax" we will be voting on....Please Read....
Firstly, you have to understand that the proposed carbon tax is not a tax on that black sooty stuff that is in chimneys. However, the Labor government is trying to fool the public by calling it a Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. This is a... tax on carbon dioxide (CO2), the trace gas in our atmosphere that is not a pollutant, but is the vital building block on which all life on Earth depends.
Carbon dioxide is photosynthesised into oxygen by plants. Without CO2, there would be no oxygen and no human life on Earth. it is a proven fact that the more CO2 there is in the atmosphere, the more plant life is stimulated into growing better and faster and producing more oxygen for us to breathe. Ask any tomato grower why he pumps CO2 into his greenhouses.
Each molecule of CO2 comprises of one atom of carbon and two atoms of oxygen. Plants ingest CO2, strip out the carbon that they need and release oxygen back into the atmosphere. Does that sound like pollution to you?
CO2 is heavier than air, so it does not rise into the upper atmosphere and cause greenhouse problems that the Labor government and its Greens supporters would have us believe.
The Labor government is trying to spin the image of huge factorie...s belching out sooty black carbon. This is a blatant lie. Industries that emit CO2 are doing the plant life in their vicinity a big favour by feeding them. Those plants then produce more oxygen for us. That's the real truth.
But even if the Labor Government told the truth and admitted that the proposed tax is on CO2, not the element carbon, exactly how much CO2 is out there? Is there actually enough CO2 being emitted by us to have any effect whatsoever?
Here is a great explanation that everybody can understand. Once you read it, you will see exactly how ludicrous this carbon tax really is and you will understand that it's nothing more than a blatant grab for your money by way of a tax on virtually everything you do and everything you touch.
Read the following analogy and you will realise the insignificance of carbon dioxide as a weather controller.
AN EXPLANATION OF THE PRIME MINISTER’S CARBON POLLUTION REDUCTION SCHEME
Imagine 1 kilometre of atmosphere. Let’s say that we want to get rid of the carbon pollution in it created by human activity.
Let's go for a walk along this 1 kilometre bridge.
The first 770 metres are nitrogen.
...
The next 210 meters are oxygen.
That's 980 meters of the 1 kilometre gone. Only 20 metres to go.
The next 10 metres are water vapour. Only 10 metres left.
The next 9 metres are argon. Just 1 more metre to go.
A few rare gases make up two thirds the first bit of that last metre. Just a few centimetres to go.
The last 38 centimetres of the I kilometre - that's carbon dioxide. A bit over one foot in the old measurement.
97% of that is produced by Mother Nature. It's natural and there’s nothing we can do about that.
So out of our journey of one kilometre, there are just 12 millimetres left - just over a centimetre - about half an inch.
That's the amount of carbon dioxide that global human activity puts into the atmosphere. World-wide, not in Australia.
And of those 12 millimetres, Australia puts in 0.18 of a millimetre.
That is less than the thickness of a hair. Out of a whole 1 kilometre!
As a hair is to a kilometre - so is Australia's contribution to what the PM calls Carbon Pollution.
Imagine Brisbane's new Gateway Bridge, ready to be opened by the PM.
It's been polished, painted and scrubbed by an army of workers until its 1kilometre length is surgically clean.
Then the PM says that we have a huge problem - the bridge is polluted - there's a human hair on the roadway.
We'd laugh ourselves silly.
That human hair on the 1 kilometre long bridge would have absolutely no impact on it.
But we would be immensely angry if the PM demanded that we paid billions of dollars in a new tax to remove that hair.
The people of Australia are being scammed by the biggest confidence trick in the history of this nation and it is being perpetrated on them by their very own government.
And it’s because the average punter out there doesn’t actually understand that what the government says to them is a pack of lies, firstly about carbon pollution, when it’s about carbon dioxide gas that is not a pollutant at all, then about the extent of this alleged pollution problem that actually doesn’t exist. There’s no evidence that CO2 is causing climate change, global warming or anything.
This analogy using the bridge and the hair should put things into perspective.
FIGHT THIS COMPLETELY UNJUSTIFIED TAX WITH ALL YOUR MIGHT
DO EVERYTHING YOU CAN TO PUBLICISE THIS SCAM ON THE PUBLIC OF AUSTRALIA
PASS THIS EMAIL ON TO EVERYBODY YOU KNOW, ESPECIALLY VOTERS
Send a message to Julia Gillard at info@pm.gov.au and demand that she keeps her pre-election promise of no carbon tax or carbon price, as she likes to spin it.
spolyhro
i'm a bit late in adding to this discussion, but thought i'd add my 2 cents worth.
here's an interesting link that explains how much CO2 is required to kill a person.
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_much_carbon_dioxide_would_kill_you
not sure how accurate it is, but as most of this debate is based on hearsay & rhetoric, what does it matter.
wendiau
Hey Keith....thank you...a friend of mine sent it to me...and all I am doing is passing it on to everyone I can...
but really this is what we learnt in school....it's just been "covered up' so to speak..
Best of luck with the rally..can't make it due to health problems...but will be there in spirit.
Leonardi
Hi Wendiau,
At last someone is telling it as it is. It is simply a ploy for the banksters in London to use us as serfs to pile money into their coffers. CO2 is the gas of life, paying money will not change any thing at all. You are 100% correct in what you state. We are not sheeple to be led by the nose to suit Governments who are tugging the forelock to London. We are going to the rally in Canberra, which has been organised over Chris Smith on radio 2GB.
Keith
MTD
Hi. this carbon tax is invented by people that trade in carbon credits, which I fail to see actually reduces carbon gasses production or output and actually allows some companies to emit/produce more carbon as long as they pay or trade for it, at everybody else's and environments expense of course. To me, it is just a means of making a lot of money by freeloaders that just use up oxygen. If the authorities disregarded biased advice and used/implemented some of the technologies and methods available with even current practices (maybe modified), it would go a long way towards any level of proposed reduction of these gasses.
peppi6
Only another way to take in revenue tax us all and spend it stupidly
maccus
Hi Proteus,
All taxes are means by which the government raises funds for its various needs and in this case those needs might extend to disaster funds to accommodate worst case scenarios involving extreme climatic outcomes like cyclones, floods and fires. At least, the idea of a carbon tax is to make carbon a costly matter that encourages alternative approaches in business and industry that result in less carbon being delivered. Unfortunately, the obvious answer is not being considered: sequester carbon through annual crops. A ten tonne tree sequesters or absorbs ten tonne of carbon. A ten tonne annual crop sequesters ten tonne of carbon annually. Therefore, the annual crop is a better way to remove carbon from the atmosphere. If Australia used 3% of arable land for annual crops like spelt wheat or hemp production, we would accommodate all our annual carbon emissions. If we used 10% of our arable land for annual crops, we could remove the annual global - yes, global - carbon emissions but no one is promoting this obvious answer. So, the carbon tax is another example of political parties applying another tax to increase their spending options. Every party does it and the 80% of the population who own 20% of the wealth of the country have to pay unlike the 20% who own 80% of the wealth. If enough of us promote divergent thinking about such issues, we might all be better off. Hope this helps.
maccus
HWY84
Hi maccus,
I have thoroughly enjoyed your explanation and I totally agree with you. I am 55 years old and I am really starting to be very concerned, probably to the point of being scared about what is happening in our Country. Is seems that we are losing on every front, whether it be Carbon Tax, Flood Levy, Burqua, Illegal Boats, Electricity, where is it all going to end. I always lived a comfortable life but now I am being bombarded with higher and higher prices and am starting to worry how we will eventually pay for it.
santaclaus
Does anyone realise that the most carbon emissions in Australia are from NAYURAL bushfires? The recent fire in Western Australia would have emitted more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than human caused emissions- estimated for the rest of Australia for the next 200 years (approximately) How is the JULIAR Gillard government going to price a tax on this?? No mention of this problem has been made available to the general public.
maccus
Hi Keith,
The only way firewood can be burned without releasing carbon emissions is if there is complete consumption of the firewood. Apparently, the technology exists to effect such outcomes; in Sweden, they are replacing nuclear power generation with exactly these types of systems. I'm told that, anyway but I haven't verified it. In terms of using other crops to produce fuels, the only issue seems to be the automotive technology. Modern German cars tend to die when ethylene laced fuel is used. But on the issue of automotive options, I support using carbon fibre tanks of compressed air. The only emissions are air. These cars can be used to cover up to 125 kilometres on a single tank of compressed air and because of their lack of heat generation, they can be made from different materials to the ones we use currently. The ugly reality is that there is little thinking around these matters and less decisive action by governments or political parties. Even the Greens are not offering pragmatic responses notwithstanding that they identify the problem. Carbon sequestration, air compression vehicles and geo-thermal energy generation along with other energy options like tidal power generation is not even on the table.
keith
Hi Maccus,
Fair enough, you have used an example which supports your argument. Can you reach the same happy conclusion if a tree is burned as firewood after it is felled or some annual crop, such as corn, is converted to ethylene?
maccus
Hi Keith, Let's imagine the crop used to sequester carbon is hemp. As it grows it inhales carbon dioxide and exhales oxygen. Over the year, a quantity of carbon is sequestered equal to the weight of the crop which we harvest and use to make cloth. During the growing process, the plants absorb carbon; that is the point of this as a remedial action. After we harvest the hemp, we turn the soil and replant for the next season.
keith
Hi Maccus,
Your idea of annual crops absorbing a large pool of carbon dioxide is appealing. What happens when those crops are consumed or processed? Is the carbon released or is it permanently removed from circulation?
lyle
Hi Proteus
This tax is a tax for a problem that does not exist.
Follow the link below to an article written by Professor Bob Carter who is a geologist, environmental scientist and Emeritus Fellow at the Institute of Public Affairs.
He explains the 10 most common lies about Climate change and why this tax is just a con job. Also wendiau's comment was very good.
http://www.quadrant.org.au/blogs/doomed-planet/2011/03/bob-carter
Proteus
Mmmmm Maccus, now I'm more confused than ever. I understand that govenments impose these type of taxes for whatever need they might have for extra revenue, but I'm confused as to what it is going to do to decrease these carbons? Watching tele the other night, people who are supposedly "experts", were saying that everything we own and use, tv's, washing machines, irons, stoves, etc., etc., all emit a carbon footprint. Well again I'm confused...we cannot se it, yet it loks like we are going to have to pay for it in some form or another. I understant that trees, crops etc., absorb emissions, and that these sources are diminishing rapidly the world over, well maybe not crops, but certain the trees are vanishing in a hurry. I appreciate the fact that this proposed new tax should be aimed at the industries emmitting the carbon footprints, such as our coal fired power stations, gas operated ones, deisal powered ones, and other industries that pour out plumes of stuff from chimney stacks etc., but I'm still concerned that it is going to be another tax we will just have to live with, and also that the revenue raised will NOT be put towards decreasing emissions from such industies. I'm of the opinion that we should be doing more to stop emissions yes, but not at our expense.
Thanks for your input, and would agree that these new taxes are used as they see fit to be honest. It is a very sad state of the world when governments just tax everyone to help with their (government) spending options. Sigh. Wonder if anyone else has any thoughts?