Australia's carbon tax losing public opinion big time

That quote has many translations, one of which is, “I’m gonna ram this thru, like it or lump it!”

To be fair, Julia Gillard is probably sensible enough to know that a) there is no evidence for AGW and b) even if there were, a carbon tax in Australia is going to have a negligible effect. Unfortunately she is running a minority government where the balance of power is largely held by the Greens, and where one Prime Minister has already been sacrificed because of his support for a carbon tax (coupled with general dithering incompetence). To push through a carbon tax now will probably bring down the government: but to make an embarrassing backflip will have the same effect. I suspect what Gillard is hoping for is some ‘unforeseen’ circumstance to hold up the introduction of the carbon tax until enough people have come around to the view that it is better buried; then the Greens can be dumped and sanity will prevail.

Want to reduce your ‘carbon foot print’?
Remember to wipe your feet, before you come in the door…….

Unfortunately Anthony, just as in other parts of the world, the alarmists are determined to go down kicking and screaming. They are becomign obsessed with the notion that their wonderful policy that stinks to high heaven, just isn’t being ‘sold’ properly.
In addition, theyare ramping up the rhetoric, as exampled by this comment from one of the principle climate change spruikers, Clive Hamilton.
http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/47450
In an article likening the belief in climate change to human rights and womens lib, he makes the proposal
“Sometimes coaxing the public to your point of view reaches an immovable barrier. Sometimes people must be jolted out of their complacency by militancy, even if that means a period of rancour, turmoil and danger.”
and
“A wave of environmental radicalism, of uncivil disobedience, will have succeeded when the conservative press begin praising Bob Brown and Christine Milne as voices of reason and moderation, as indeed they are.”
Note: Bob Brown and Christine Milne are our resident radical greenies.
He leaves us with
“But climate science now shows that the situation has become so urgent, and the forecasts so dire, that only radical social and economic transformation will give us a chance of avoiding dramatic and irreversible changes to the global climate.”
Also note that Clive has previously stated
“T)he implications of 3C, let alone 4C or 5C, are so horrible that we look to any possible scenario to head it off, including the canvassing of “emergency” responses such as the suspension of democratic processes”
Of course the unwritten “fact” in all of this is that Clive sees himself as the one to assume power.

Julia has many attributes. Like a pitbull does. And she shares the lack of intelligence, discernment, and temperament. It is difficult to decide whether she is simply graceless or a disgrace. One thing is sure, she is uneducated.

I think we can still thank Climategate, and whoever released the emails, for people’s continued reluctance to listen to lies. In the wake of Climategate, from memory, the 20% core of skepticism abruptly became 30%+, and the road to eco-serfdom suddenly filled with potholes.

Cementafriend, you beat me to it. The Canadian Conservative party can now be a lot more overt in rejecting the junk “science” of CAGW. I’m hoping that Steven Harper still holds his views that he expressed as leader of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation that CAGW was a crock. Now that he’s Prime Minister, and has a majority government, it will be safe for him to express those views again. I’m hoping that Canada can be a world leader in debunking CAGW and that Vaclav Klaus won’t be a lone voice speaking the truth among national leaders. We’ve had M&M demolish the hockey stick and hopefully they will now receive some recognition in Canada from the government.
Both opposition parties in Canada were for a carbon tax and the voters have spoken. It remains to be seen if the BC government sees the light and eliminates its progressive carbon tax or whether they are just too addicted to tax revenues.
My sympathies to the Australians and my advice is protest vocally now as taxes, once they are established, are harder to get rid of than getting a junkie off heroin. Governments, regardless of political party, are addicted to tax revenues and the best thing is to not allow them to get their hands on a source of income.

Indeed Boris. Once the taxes go on they’ll be very hard to take off. Fight this tooth and nail. Let Gillard know that appeasing the Greens (and outright lying!) will not be tolerated.

Cementafriend says: May 3, 2011 at 10:51 pm
“I am surprised there is no comment on the Canadian elections.”
OK, here’s one.
The media position:
“Tories opt out of campaign tour carbon offsets”
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canadavotes2011/story/2011/04/04/cv-election-carbon-footprint.html#
“The leaders’ carbon footprints – the final tally”
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/inside-politics-blog/2011/05/the-leaders-carbon-footprints—the-final-tally.html
The Conservatives [Tories] refused to knuckle under to the main stream media, Greenpeace, WWF, Suzuki and every other CAGW zealot. Every other political party in the Canadian election paid the Gaia stipend.
Canadians voted on May 2, 2011.
The Conservatives won a Majority government.
There will be no carbon tax, no cap-and-trade, no UN climate change deals and no green destruction of our economy for at least four years. The Prime Minister thinks the whole CAGW is thing is false, and has said so.
Does any other political party in the developed world have the guts to completely, completely ignore the ‘Big Green Machine’ during an election campaign?
It will be interesting watching the rest of the developed world devolve while we use our vast energy resources to build our economy.
Be patient Australia and America, your chance will come soon enough.
Great Britain; sorry, too bad so sad.

Andrew30 says: May 4, 2011 at 12:26 am
Yes, congratulations to Canada! (Pity about the Green victory, though!)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/may/03/canada-elects-first-green-mp?CMP=twt_fd
The political situation in the UK seems all but hopeless.
I’m just hoping that (not for the first time) all you folks from the Dominions and former Colonies will get your acts together and come and help us out!

Pat – some of the cleverest people I know are “uneducated” – the intelligent poor usually. And amongst the educated there are many stupid people – .the rich but thick usually. The two qualities shouldn’t be conflated.
JG should, I agree, pay more attention to the preferences of the public – that’s the essence of democracy after all – but the ship of state can’t allow itself to be blown about too much by the changing winds of public opinion, which is still too sensitive to the sensationalising of certain elements of the MSM.

Ms Gillard: “I’m interested in the policy cycle not the political cycle”
A pity she doesn’t know about the carbon cycle as well!

I can’t help admire Gillard as much as I dislike her for her dishonesty, she certainly is giving it everything to get the carbon tax regime in place.
It’s just a shame that she’s working so hard and being so resolute for the likes of Rothschild’s, Goldman’s and others rather than the people she swore to represent.
http://www.prnewswire.co.uk/cgi/news/release?id=90090

Andrew4 – congratulations to all right-thinking Canadians – shout it loud and clear that MMCC is crap.
One tiny chink of light for us in the UK – still labouring under our ‘greenest government ever’ is that eco-loon Chris Huhne, head of our Department of Energy and (for some reason which escapes me) Climate Change, may be headed for the door.
The other pinprick of light is that this ‘greenest government ever’ has quietly downgraded its proposals for offshore wind in 2020 from 30GW to 12GW. No explanation, of course…

We have a new State Premier in NSW. We are to have another 3000 wind turbines to meet the Feds (Gillard) Renewable Energy Target of 20% by 2020. O’Farrell has said however that since RET is adding to electricity and downstream prices the Feds should be compensating consumers. The case for wind is much like the case for AGW, lots of theory and very little reality. The regulators website shows an average 31% power factor which is much higher than overseas.
The fact that the Fed opposition, Tony Abbott, has a direct action carbon plan is being used by Gillard as a reason for her to have a tax. Until Abbott takes a stronger stance like the Canadian Harper we will suffer. We also need some real carbon education. Some people are so freaked by “carbon pollution” that they want to eliminate carbon from their diet. Salt water anyone?

The interesting aspect the recent Canadian election was the left of centre parties, Liberal, New Democrats and miniscule Greens all proposed either cap and trade or a carbon tax. Other than the Greens the larger parties disguised their environmental policies well hoping not to make it a central issue. When I heard one local candidate answer a question about an increase in gas prices of $.10 per liter a worthwhile price to pay via a carbon tax to save the planet, it was met with a combination of laughter and derision. Thankfully, common sense prevailed and we won’t have to worry about this for four years.

That is democracy, the right to vote in tyrants to subjugate you.
It’s such a pity that the majority of Americans don’t understand their own constitution, but most have bought into the tyrants’ dismantling of it by renaming it democracy which it isn’t. And that’s the big fib they export as they work very hard abroad to set up one tyranical dictatorship after another, and the rest of the world is the loser because we, the majority, don’t know that a really excellent constitution can exist and is workable in practice, which clearly says that a government dictatorship has no rights to exist. (Most Americans don’t even know they don’t have to pay taxes to the IRS, another area in re-education where the basic facts are no longer taught, not just in the AGW scam.)
Anti protests get fewer attending than pro AGW, the message that this is a scam isn’t getting through to enough people to make a real difference.
Since Gillard lied to get in perhaps Aussie’s could simply drum her out of office. Lock her out of the building or something? Sue her? It must surely make the votes for her null and void.

Just back from Prof. Bob Carters presentation here in Hervey Bay.
Another excellent delivery of the facts and how the Australian government is conning us.
There were in my estimation, about 130 to 150 in attendance.
Only one Green alarmist with the same old question, How come all the thousands of scientists and thousands of scientific institutions around the world are wrong and you (Bob Carter) are right. Another warmista shot to bits !
Another silly old goat, about my age, had carbon soot and CO2 mixed up. Showed the effectiveness of the governments ploy of confusing CO2 with (black) carbon pollution. They have at least one person sucked in.
By the quality of the questions asked of Bob, I would say that the audience was well informed of the science and knew well that the whole climate change debate is based in lies, fraud and money.
I did wear the WUWT shirt and Bob commented that I was brave to wear it around town. I remarked that Hervey Bay is a town of sceptics and I would be safe !!

It is truly amazing the things that happen when people fall asleep at the wheel. If they wake up they tend to be surprised (and a number of other things) too.

A little more on the Canadian election results, with a look at potential climate policy dangers:
http://opinion.financialpost.com/2011/05/03/peter-foster-will-orange-clash-with-green/
Some background, the NDP is Canada’s far-left party, now surprisingly the official opposition after decades of existence as a 3rd place party.

Yet, in beautiful British Columbia we are leading the world and demonstrating the benefits of a carbon tax. All I see is my bank account getting smaller
. Could somebody please tell the sheeples of British Columbia when nobody follows, you aren’t leading?!?!?

Perhaps it’s just me becoming grumpy in middle age, but it seems to me more and more politicians are content to blatantly lie to win an election and not really try to pretend they didn’t once they’ve been elected. It cannot be acceptable for Gilliard to behave in this manner, yet she will probably continue to do so, as her contemporaries place their own interests far ahead of the people they claim to represent and wouldn’t want to risk another election.

Walter Russell Mead
http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2011/05/03/top-green-admits-we-are-lost/

George Monbiot of the left-leaning British newspaper The Guardian has a must-read column in which he admits that because of a whole series of intellectual mistakes, the global green movement’s policy prescriptions are hopelessly flawed.
Read the whole piece for a thoughtful and brutally clear expose of the intellectual bankruptcy of the green movement from one of the smartest people in it. This is what I’ve been getting at for more than a year here: regardless of what is happening to Planet Earth, the green movement does not have coherent and workable solutions.

The cracks have become fissures.

The greens are having a field day,they have Ms Gillard in a vice,busily turning the handle.How much will they get?A lot is my guess.
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/breaking-news/greens-step-up-carbon-tax-push/story-e6freuyi-1226050162959
THE Australian Greens want measures to boost investment in large-scale renewable energy projects in exchange for supporting the federal government’s carbon tax.
Greens climate change spokeswoman Christine Milne says loan guarantees and a floor price for carbon when a tax moves to an emissions trading scheme are crucial to providing investment certainty for big renewable energy projects, Fairfax newspapers report.
“The Greens are now stepping up the pressure for these policies in our discussions with the government and with the independent MPs,” Senator Milne will tell the Clean Energy Week conference in Melbourne today.

Without any preconceptions about CO2 and climate change, there is a good deal to be said for caution when it comes to making radical changes in the chemical composition of the atmosphere.
Beside any impact on the climate, the current rapid anthropogenic increase atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide is having major impacts on the biosphere, the full extent and nature of which we cannot with complete confidence predict.
Under those circumstances, a carbon tax makes good sense. It is the most efficient mechanism for limiting carbon emissions, i.e., it gives you the biggest emissions reduction for the dollar, as Ross McKitrick — no climate alarmist he — has long argued.
McKitrick has further proposed linking the rate of the carbon tax, not to some arbitrary target CO2 concentration but measured temperature changes.
I am skeptical of the merit of the latter proposal, however, since it does not take into account natural variation in temperature that may conceal important and potentially detrimental longer term anthropogenic effects. Moreover, it takes no account of the principal impacts of CO2 on the biosphere.

Canadia has been vacinated against the green dragon carried virus for 4 years.
It will remain to be seen how Carbon crisis cartel can fight against the laternative media that lets us know that there is nothing to fear.

Smokey said:
“A carbon tax makes no sense. China, India, Russia, Brazil, and a hundred other countries have absolutely no intention of restricting their growing economies by reducing “carbon””
Whether a carbon tax makes sense depends on the context. I agree that any country acting alone might bankrupt itself cutting carbon emissions without having much impact on atmospheric CO2 concentration.
A policy I have advocated, in the absence of international agreement, is a carbon tax combined with a countervail duty on goods from countries without a carbon tax, e.g., China.
The implications are complex, but quite interesting, especially for western countries where jobs are being wiped out en masse by competition from China, the world’s greatest emitter of CO2.
But the economic implications need consideration. Raise the price of energy, you cut energy use. Cutting energy use will promote investment in energy efficient technology, which is probably desirably during an era of mass unemployment in the West.
At some point, cutting energy use will begin to reduce economic output. But it will also will lower energy prices, which reduces the monopoly profits flowing to unstable ME countries, which seems like a desirable end.
These are questions that should be explored, not be dismissed out of hand.
As for “by which the scientifically illiterate mean CO2, a harmless and beneficial trace gas” you display a certain scientific ignorance yourself. To call “CO2 harmless and beneficial” is, under some circumstances, clearly false. What those circumstances are, is the subject of research.
For example:
At what concentration does CO2 significantly impact human physiology? At some point it is lethal, at lower concentrations it impairs physical and mental performance. What are the thresholds for such effects?
Plant growth responds to carbon dioxide concentration, but some species respond more than others. What are the consequences for biodiversity of the change in competitive environment created by, say, a doubling of atmospheric CO2 concentration?

CanSpeccy says:
May 4, 2011 at 1:13 pm
At what concentration does CO2 significantly impact human physiology? At some point it is lethal, at lower concentrations it impairs physical and mental performance. What are the thresholds for such effects?

I think it’s happening right now where you are, but not over here.

I’ll be attending the No Carbon Tax rally in Brisbane on May 7th wearing my NO CARBON TAX tee shirt. People are now listening, the media has more stories but Julia Gillard is still trying to push the tax through. The polls show little support for the tax and a bit less support for Julia.

Canspeccy, to say “At what concentration does CO2 significantly impact human physiology?” on this forum is simply trolling. You can look up the number, you can easily see that it has no resemblance to the anthropogenic emissions. Likewise you claim that our changes are “radical” is an exaggeration.
However you are correct about a carbon tax being the least bad option. It gets rid of the whole scam of carbon offset trading. However you would also have to agree that the owners of the carbon (energy shareholders like myself) must be compensated for our losses incurred by taxation. Agreed? Otherwise no dice.

On a similar vein, Rob Oakshot, one of the independents propping up the minority labor government made this wonderful statement:
INDEPENDENT federal MP Rob Oakeshott has pledged to base his final decision on whether to support Labor’s carbon tax on evidence, rather than the views of his constituents, saying to do the latter would be nothing more than populism.
oakeshott-to-rest-carbon-vote-on-the-evidence-over-voters-wishes
He also said
Mr Oakeshott said he would have failed his electorate if he followed his constituents’ views over those he thought were right, and that he was not scared of losing his seat as a result.
I guess he doesn’t understand what a democracy is and that he better start looking for a new job.

Millrat
Re: “I guess he (Mr. Oakeshott) doesn’t understand what a democracy is…”
Perhaps he merely has a view of democracy that differs from yours.
Australia has a representative democracy, where those elected not only speak, but also think, for their constituents. One view of the role of a representative under that system is well expressed in the words of the eminent British parliamentarian, Edmund Burke:
“Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgement; and he betrays you instead of serving you if he sacrifices it to your opinion.”
Speech to the Electors of Bristol, November 3, 1774
Your assumption that the mass of people have a clearer idea of what is in the interest of their community than a distinguished individual who has been chosen to represent them and who has devoted time and study to questions of public policy is evidently, even today, not accepted by all parliamentarians.

On further thought, I should not have used the word “morons”. I do not wish to create acrimony.
However, I am puzzled by the apparent determination of some to trash every expression of any concern for the consequences of human action on the environment, however, tentatively those concerns are expressed.
Humanity is possessed of the capacity for reflection and anticipation. We should should surely exercise those gifts. In a world of billions and a growing world economy, the human environmental impact will surely become detrimental at some point if it is not already.
We should think about that. For example, if the global economy were to grow at 3% for 100 years it would reach about $one quadrillion in constant dollars or about 20 times its present size. If energy consumption increased proportionately, we’d need nearly two billion barrels of oil a day, which would clean out Saudi Arabia in about a year, the Canadian tar sands in another year, the rest of the world in four or five years. The environmental impact of all that carbon added to the environment would surely be spectacular, which is not to mention twenty times present day pollution from coal and gas, etc. At some point we will have to limit these impacts. It is surely sensible to start thinking about it now.

“So if you don’t accept the Navy as being an authority on the effect of CO2 on submarine crew performance,”
I didn’t say that. That US submariners operate at 5000 ppm CO2 merely proves that it is possible to function in such an atmosphere. It says nothing about the impact of such an atmosphere on performance relative to performance at 370 ppm.
The concentration of CO2 in a submarine will reflect a compromise among various factors including human performance and the size and cost of the equipment necessary to scrub CO2 from the ship’s atmosphere to concentrations below 5000 ppm.
“Burning every last barrel of the world’s oil could not double CO2 levels from here. ”
That seems to be incorrect.
Proven oil reserves are around 200 billion m^3. So let’s say there’s nine times that much still to be found (you’d probably say more). Burnt, it would yield 7.3 X 10^12 Mg of carbon dioxide, or more than 3.5 times as much CO2 as is currently in the atmosphere. So burnt all at once, it would raise atmospheric CO2 concentration by about 1300 parts per million.
If oil consumption were to grow by 3% a year for 100 years, the annual use would total about 4.5 X 10^11 Mg per year, at which rate it would take just 4.4 years to increase atmospheric CO2 concentration by the amount currently in the atmosphere (ca. 370 ppm), assuming negligible sequestration of the added CO2.
What the actual rate of sequestration by geologic and other processes is seems obscure. I once asked a number of experts in the climate science field but got no satisfactory response. I doubt if anyone really knows — wow, a whole new field of modeling for the climate science guys.
In addition, there might be several times as much CO2 added to the atmosphere through the combustion of natural gas and coal, which are much more abundant than oil.

I am using different machines that automatically log me in. I had not notices the change of id. Canspeccy is my blog, which is the name I thought I was using here all along.
So hope that dispels your paranoia.
Now to the facing the facts you have wrong.

“By arbitrarily inflating my statement by 9X, ”
I wasn’t arbitrarily inflating you statement. You talked about burning all the oil there is.
To estimate how much CO2 that would produce, you have to estimate probable as well as proven reserves. I estimated probable reserves at nine times proven reserves. I assumed you would claim the ratio to be higher than that. If you think it is less, you could have told us what you think it is.
But although you boast of an interest in facts and logic, you seem to find both annoying. You just keep repeating your mantra “CO2 is good.”
Pointless, to continue the discussion.

Actually I wish Ms. Gillard all success in pushing through her carbon tax/carbon trading scheme. This will offer several clear benefits.
1. It will crush Australia’s resource based industries, driving up the price of commodities yet further for the benefit of all those economies, such as that of my country, as a free rider on Australia’s misery. Because of the large administration required for it, it will increase public service and decrease the private sector, reducing Australia’s productivity. Again this works to the benefit of all other nations with resource based economies.
2. As the first nation to actually implement such a policy, Australia will serve as the great ghastly example of what not to do. Thus far, questions of adverse economic impacts have been largely theoretical. Australia will serve as a useful test case as to how destructive it really is.
3. If the tax is effective then it will be universal. And it will thus conclusively demonstrate just how regressive it is.
4. The claims of revenue neutrality will finally be shown for the lies that they truly are. Never in the history of mankind has there ever been a revenue-neutral tax. Such claims will certainly add yet another patina of mendacity to the already thick tome of falsehoods uttered over the years by the Green machine.
5. The economic horror inflicted on Australia will be more than sufficient to exterminate Labour at the next election and banish Ms. Gillard to electoral hell.

Colin,
you say, “It [the carbon tax] will crush Australia’s resource based industries …”
But it will, in fact, affect all industries, some more energy reliant even than resources, e.g., airlines.
Further, why will a carbon tax, any more than any other tax, crush these industries?
Australians use approximately 6000 kg of fossil fuel per person per year, so a carbon tax at the rate of, say, 4 cents per kg, as currently applied in the booming resource-based Province of British Columbia would total about $240 per person. A significant charge, but quite small given that western states currently impose taxes equal to 40 or 50% of GDP.
And in fact, a carbon tax may have no impact on the overall level of taxation despite Latimer Alder’s cynicism, since it may be applied on a revenue-neutral basis, e.g., with a compensating reduction in income tax, as Ross McKitrick has urged.
Further, if a countervailing duty on imports from countries without a comparable tax, then there should be no negative impact on overseas trade.
And, as indicated above, Australia would not be blazing a trail, but following the lead of British Columbia, which has a strongly pro-market and free enterprise government.
Your idea that there is some universal law against tax reductions, which negates the possibility of a revenue neutral carbon tax is mistaken. If you follow the history of taxation in a country such as Britain where left and right governments have alternated over many years, you will see a consistent pattern or alternating tax increases and reductions (as a percent of GDP).