In celebration of World Environment Day (today), the Queensland Division of the Property Council of Australia convened a breakfast meeting last Friday morning (June 3rd) to debate the topic “Australia needs a carbon tax”.
Leading speaker for the motion was Mr. Matthew Bell (Climate Change & Sustainability Services, Ernst & Young), supported by Ms. Kellie Caught (Acting Head of Climate Change, WWF Australia) and Mr. Kirby Anderson (Policy Leader, Energy Infrastructure, General Electric).
Speaking against the motion were Mr. Michael Matusik (Director, Matusik Property Insights), supported by Mr. John Humphreys (Director, Human Capital Project, University of Queensland) and Professor Bob Carter (James Cook University and Institute of Public Affairs).
The audience of about 150 persons were treated to some pointed exchanges, with the team speaking for the motion concentrating rather more on the science, and their opponents almost exclusively on the economics and cost:benefit analysis of the introduction of a carbon tax.
One compelling argument was the observation that to introduce a carbon tax of $25/tonne of carbon dioxide would cost around $100 billion by 2020, for a notional benefit of 0.0002O C (two ten thousandths of a degree) of warming averted.
The opponents of the tax were awarded a clear win, on rendered applause, by debate Chairman Mr Mark Ludlow (Australian Financial Review).
Source: summary written by an attendee known to me – Anthony
IN AUSTRAILA as you say in the USA we cannot wait till the next election . TO KICK ARSES
Tucci78, thanks for the link; I’m placing it on my ’blogs now.
@Andy
I still think that saying there will be zero benefit from a carbon tax is actually wrong.
…. the nett effect on world CO2 levels is more likely to be in the upward direction.
I quite agree. Attacking any advanced economy will push up CO2 levels. And, of course, that will bring huge benefits to the world.
We have been on the back foot for too long on CO2 concentration levels. There is still a general feeling that, even if the science is completely wrong, it is still a good idea to cut ‘CO2 pollution’. We should STOP tacitly accepting this position, and instead ask people what the ‘correct’ level of CO2 is.
If we think it is a dangerous pollutant we might think of eliminating it immediately. But that would be an extrordinarily stupid thing to do. Plant life supports ALL life forms on this planet, and it will die at a CO2 concentration of less than 150ppm. It gets quite unhappy at 220ppm…
There is no upper limit for plant life, but humans get uncomfortable between about 5000ppm and 8000ppm. Polytunnel farmers usually run their tunnels at about 1000ppm for increased plant growth, and have no problems working inside them.
We are currently at about 390ppm, though it has been much higher in the past. I am a keen gardener, and would be happy with about 800ppm, as would all the world’s farmers. We should start an ‘800 club’…
I read the whole Glover article, I even put my glasses on the second time. It’s still rubbish, the whole point of it being to try and cajole the reader into submitting to being a Carbon Cate, to do their bit for the feel good future.
URkidding, I read the entire article and was not impressed by the author’s conviction that the proposed carbon tax is a Good Thing. The author’s gratuitous nastness about people who don’t share his beliefs is very common among true believers, one of the reasons the ‘denialist’ lable is applied so frequently. His nonsense about sentencing ‘unbelievers’ to life on low-lying islands is silly – as another poster pointed out, the wealthy are not selling their beach-side properties and the 3mm annual rise in sea level that is slowing markedly is hardly a threat to those properties. He has probably mistaken the tidally-formed sandbars that appear and reappear over time at the mouth of river deltas of the Indian sub-continent with actual islands, a very few of which do sink threough the movement of their underlying tectonic plates. If he is alluding to the celebrated Maldives or Tuvalu, he is woefully ignorant of the facts about these islands.
OT but interesting that the Australian Greens’ smug but ignorant Mr Brown is currently advising the poor ignorant New Zealanders how advantageous the coming Aussie carbon tax will be. LOL!
I’ve said this before. If a Carbon Tax is introduced (‘cos they think it’s going to save the planet), it needs to apply to all man-made methods of CO2 MANUFACTURE on a global scale.
The novelty effect that CO2 plays in the world’s carbonated drinks market is a good start. And, how about the world’s daily production of bread – yes yeast likes producing CO2. Then there’s Bicarbonate of Soda – crisps, cakes, muffins. Blimey. Fire extinguishers, car air bags, limescale removers, beer, wine, sealed beam laser cutting, MAP processes in food packaging . . . . . I could go on and on and on.
Oh dear.
If they tax that lot – it will be armageddon.
G’Day Frank,
Not wanting to urinate on one’s parade, this article tells us of another small win, but the Eureka Stockade isn’t such a great example of Aussie rebeliousness – it was after all crushed in short order by the government of the day by force. I wouldn’t expect Juliar to send the ADF to attend the next anti-carbon (dioxide) rally with F-88s and bayonnettes fixed, nor for the headshed to agree if the unreasonable order was given but still not a pretty thought.
Better for a few trainloads of ‘dirty’ coal to be dumped at parliment house since it’s no longer of any use to the ecomentalists pulling the puppet strings in Cantberra. I see even old Bob Hawke recently had a can of fake tan applied to his lifted face to be wheeled out to poke fun at the opposition over this hot-air affect and the tax on thin air.
At 5:49 PM on 5 June, SidViscous had posted a link to an opinion piece published by one Richard Glover in The Sydney Morning Herald, entitled “The dangers of bone-headed beliefs,” in which Mr. Glover had written:
Permit me to infer that Mr. Glover is a very staunch advocate of statutory victim disarmament (sold to the botched and the gullible as “gun control”) as presently obtains in Australia.
A professional journalist employed by a metropolitan newspaper in these United States would be acutely aware that such a proposition, even voiced in jest, could be interpreted as “fighting words” qualifying him for termination of employment at the behest of the publication’s insurance carrier, if not the advertisers desirous of avoiding boycott.
As for treating those who have determined that the AGW fraud is without scientific validity and therefore no acceptable basis for the formulation of any public policy whatsoever to having anything “forcibly tattooed on their bodies” or being otherwise treated to violent aggression, were Mr. Glover practicing his profession within the territory of even the most cyanotically “blue” state in the Union, he would be acutely aware of having earned himself the angry attention of a great many people utterly unimpaired in their ability to undertake retaliation in kind with violent force.
In short, were Mr. Glover writing for an American newspaper, I have reason to doubt that his publisher would permit that piece to have been printed as written, if only to preserve the writer from finding himself earning a number of extra navels and the proverbial “Sicilian beauty mark” over the os frontalis as surety.
I’m getting a little despondent. Has anyone an example of a successful, bloodless, overturning of a religion,? and that is what we are facing with AGW.
Even with some my own family, when presented with facts that counter AGW, the answer is ” I don’t BELIEVE that. ” So it’s a case of “Don’t mention the War” for the sake of harmony. I have convinced the great-grandchildren of the folly of AGW though, but tell them not to challenge the teachers, as they can’t win!
This coming southern hemisphere winter may help, we have already had snow at 32°S in the middle of May and more forecast tonight, but of course, “It’s only weather” !
Some proponents of CAGW and climate change fear say that it is morally correct to reduce out carbon output.
I would have thought that the moral thing to do would be to help the developing world to actually develop not dictate to them that fossil fuel use is bad. We have for long enough held these people back for what reason I do not know. They want help not money and us cutting back on fossil fuel use will not help anyone.
OK. I shouldn’t have used the b word wrt URKidding’s sniping. I get increasingly infuriated at the type of creature that shows up here (and everywhere dissent is allowed), insults the readership, insults commenters’ intelligence and never returns to the thread.
I get the religious zeal. The dissonance that prevents investigation. The pathology of group-think. I know they are trolling without having investigated, parroting without thought and exposing their dogmatism and I should be grateful I am not amongst their number, have pity for their closed-mindedness and show some charity toward their disabilities. I have known these things for a very long time and regret that my patience slips occasionally.
Sorry.
At 1:56 AM on 6 June, Julian Braggins writes:
I’m drawing a blank. The religious impulse is not only a matter of individual psychological character, but also driven by sociological and political forces, the latter even in nations like these United States where the separation of church and state is written into the charters of civil government under which our various “armed Banditti” claim legitimacy.
How often do we have to hear the social/traditionalist conservatives whining that “freedom of religion doesn’t mean freedom from religion,” anyway?
I doubt that any religion is (or has ever been) subject to “overturning” that was not violently coercive. If the Egyptologists are right about the history of the Eighteenth dynasty and the reign of Akhenaten/Amenhotep IV, even the concept of monotheism came in (and went out) with blades held snug against folks’ throats.
And haven’t we all heard that wonderful quotation from Cistercian papal commissar Arnaud Amalric (at the sack of Beziers, regarding the need to tell the good Catholic residents of the fallen town from the Cathar heretics): “Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius” (“Kill them all. For the Lord knoweth them that are His”).
It is possible for one religious belief system to out-compete another for what we’ll charitably call the “minds” of the susceptible, and for remarkable turnovers to be induced in the great manure pile of what writer H.L. Mencken liked to call “the botched,” presumably helping them to compost more effectively.
Heck, with regard to the AGW fraud, I can’t get away from Mencken’s immortal writings about the Scopes trial, with emphasis on his observation that:
Now don’t that sound as if the Sage of Baltimore had been predicting the “denier” branding tactic of the climate catastrophe crackpots?
I have generally found that when confronting the True Believers suckered so spectacularly by the “climatology” bunko artists, I get by with employing the same calm implacable attitude with which I discuss the etiologies of diseases, the principles of antimicrobial chemotherapy, the mechanisms of immunity, and the process of parturition. The science against the “man-made global climate change” hokum is so profound in its validity that I know I’m on solid ground and they’re floating off in Cloud Cuckoo Land.
Interestingly, I have never yet encountered anyone with anything remotely resembling scientific credentials superior to those of the average primary care grunt (like myself) who “believes” in the AGW bucket of bilge.
If this “consensus science” crap were genuine, wouldn’t you think that somebody on the average hospital’s medical staff would voice an opinion consistent with the “consensus”?
Well, our research grants don’t come out of that four-billion-a-year trough into which the politicians bleed the American taxpayers to fund “research” about some impending Steambath Earth cataclysm, do they?
I can’t replace belief in the minds of the AGW alarmists unlucky enough to confront me, but I can plant disquieting doubts that leave them with an appreciation of just how thoroughly they’d gotten themselves suckered by Algore and his dolorous coterie of defrauding doomsayers.
Makes me feel better, if it accomplishes nothing else.
Tucci78 says:
June 6, 2011 at 1:47 am
Permit me to infer that Mr. Glover is a very staunch advocate of statutory victim disarmament (sold to the botched and the gullible as “gun control”) as presently obtains in Australia.
===========================================================
I fail to see what the above statement has to do with the AGW debate, Tucci78.
However, the gun control laws were a result of this : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Arthur_massacre_%28Australia%29
Read it and weep.
Fortunately, idiots like you are few and far between in Australia.
Now go and cuddle your AK47’s, you hero.
Henry Galt says:
June 6, 2011 at 3:33 am
Hi Henry, I’m back.
As I said, it would appear nobody read the whole article.
[snip . .sorry but that isn’t helpful . . kb]
Apparently here in Australia there were 45,000(? inflated number for sure) mindless idiots at rallies wanting the government to tax them more! AGW prosyletizers are hailing this as indicative of what Australians as a whole want. What’s that famous expression – what utter crap!
A parochial analogy would be to say that a footie (Aussie Rules) stadium containing 45,000 Collingwood FC supporters only is indicative of the whole nation (millions) being Collingwood supporters! That’s how unreal, fanciful, call it what you want these “please tax me more” morons are.
The folks down under may wish to remind their government of what happened in BC Canada. Our last BC election, then Premier Campbell made a similar pledge as Australia’s Gillard, not to introduce a new tax. In BC’s case it was the HST.
In spite of his pledge to the contrary prior to the election, Campbell did introduce the HST after the election. The people of Australia may wish to take some inspiration from BC. Then Premier Campbell did not survive as Premier to fight another election. He was forced to step down in disgrace by the public backlash against his own BC Liberal party, and there is concern that the government will be thrown out of office in the next election.
As for the HST? The government of BC has been forced to hold a referendum on repealing the tax. However, they have not yet understood the message from the public. Like the government of Australia, the BC Liberal government continues to spend (waste) taxpayer dollars, telling us how good the HST is for us.
Many in BC find this an insult, and undemocratic, having the government spend our hard earned tax dollars telling us how we should vote. I for one will vote against the government on principle. They deserve a swift kick in the ass. They have not gotten the message, even after they lost their leader. They need to be thrown out of office. Run out of town on a rail.
Governments have no business going against their election pledge. If an ordinary citizen or company did this it would be breach of promise and you and I could be held liable before the courts. For some reason the governments of BC and Australia feel they are above the law. Do as we say, not as we do, that is their message, loud and clear.
Governments have no business spending taxpayer’s hard earned dollars telling taxpayers how they should vote. It is contrary to the fundamental principles of democracy. Any government doing so does not belong in government. Not in BC, not in Australia.
ferd berple says: June 6, 2011 at 6:19 am
They deserve a swift kick in the ass. They have not gotten the message, even after they lost their leader. They need to be thrown out of office. Run out of town on a rail.
Surely they would have ensured a tax on the power used for the rail prior to be running out of town ferd? That will assist their longevity in the public space.
http://www.gwb.com.au/gwb/news/pasquarelli/280899.htm
“One compelling argument was the observation that to introduce a carbon tax of $25/tonne of carbon dioxide would cost around $100 billion by 2020, for a notional benefit of 0.0002O C (two ten thousandths of a degree) of warming averted.” I wonder if they applied the “magic number” from a previous post; 1,767,250. Applied, divide alleged emissions savings, in million metric tons of CO2, by 1,767,250 to obtain the reduction in temperature. The poster used the Waxman-Markey climate legislation, to illustrate and obtained a reduction of .0028 degree C.
Why stop at Carbon ? Why not go full Aussie (think full Monte) and tax the whole bloody Periodic Table ? Surely there is much more on the table. Be the first country to tax Nitrogen ! Or tax gold, silver and potassium! Taxing lead by weight makes a lot of sense at first blush. Think of the revenues possible from taxing silicon. You could tax the government for all the sand that it owns ! Then why stop there. Tax all the derivatives ! and tax for Futures real or imagined.
Hi URKidding – usually I don’t play, but as you returned here is my take on just the last couple of paragraphs.
“Looked at through this lens, our generation has it easy. Already wealthy and armed with new technology, we need to front up to the challenge of building a low-carbon economy.” – Through the diatribe preceding this sentence there is zero science offered for this conclusion. None. Not surprising as no-one has offered any. In fact, to move any new technology prematurely out of the development phase and into production leads to tears. As for “low-carbon economy” it would not be built so much as fallen into by pursuing his suggestions. Low-carbon destitution more likely. We will create carbon based fuels when the easy to extract ones deplete. Steel, aviation, freight distribution, modern agriculture, to name a few, demand condensed energy if prices of food, medicine and education are to remain within our reach.
“The tool we’ll use is a carbon tax that seeks to subtly redirect some of our choices. Cut your power bill by more than the compensation offered and you get to keep the change.” – Only fools waste energy. I am on a very tight budget. How can I cut my usage further without hurting my children and parents? I do see a tool here.
“Is that really so onerous compared with a depression or war?” – So those are the choices the author offers us? I would laugh if he was joking. Or maybe he equates them with the threat of global warming because he “believes” the line that has been fed to him? Or maybe he knows his pension, like most in the fourth estate, depends with immediacy upon renewables and future carbon trading?
“Our grandparents didn’t fail us, even though the challenges they faced were so much greater. So why are we in the process of failing to live up to their example?” – This comment, in the context of the article, deserves the vitriol which would surely be rained down upon him by both my grandfathers if they still lived and they were poles apart politically. Nearly every sentence of the article is in error IM(not so)HO. Maybe the article is not saying what you think it is?
Enlighten us.
When you live in a sycophantic world, you never learn debating skills. You expect when you speak to be believed. That is why AGW proponents can never win a debate (and progressives in general).
For Tucci78 and Deadman, I would hesitate to disagree with a philosopher like Patrick Crowley but some of the examples given are plainly wrong. In the first place, in the list of explanations, the term model is missing. A model is usually an artificial construct of a natural system which whilst not accounting for all factors, will still give useful results (predictions). Climate models attempt this but seem to have fallen short on the useful side. The test of a model is how useful it is This worked in the sociological theory of ‘rising expectation’. It was not a theory of course but a model of society and gave a good result in the examination of the Russian period under Gorbachev.
The quote from Crowley’s work gives Darwin’s ideas on evolution the status of theory but the crucial point of theory (and climate scientisits note this) is that it can produce testable conclusions. Darwin’s ideas cannot do this. Even his rule of the fittest survive tells us nothing and gives us no way of prediction. His ideas do not qualify as an hypothesis or perhaps only just. They are better regarded as conjecture although, it has to be said, pretty good conjecture and so far, the best explanation of diversity of species on the planet that there is. Is this OT. Absolutely not. AGW must be relegated to the conjecture status and pretty poorly evidenced at that. The so called science behind AGW is very poor with even climate scientists admitting that understanding climate change is very little advanced since the Earth’s orbit around the Sun was noted as a factor and the realisation that tectonic shifting altering the ocean’s currents was a major player.
The whole point being that refering to AGW as a ‘theory’ or even as a ‘hypothesis’ gives these so called scientists far too much credit. Call it for what it is: conjecture or speculation. They may be right but they are far more likely to be wrong given the tools they use. We must get the message across. This is not a theory. It’s not even science.
URKidding says:
June 6, 2011 at 5:13 am
—
I’m not surprised that you believe that banning guns would make people safer.
If I were to post an article about a horrendous highway crash in which dozens of people were killed, would you call for the banning of all cars?
The truth is that violent crime in Australia, and especially violent gun crime, went up after private ownership was banned. Which was exactly what anyone who knows something about how the real world works, could have predicted. The same affect happened in England after they banned private gun ownership.
The fact that you believe in both gun banning and AGW is very telling, and it says nothing good about you.
MarkW says:June 6, 2011 at 1:33 pm “The truth is that violent crime in Australia, and especially violent gun crime, went up after private ownership was banned.
Huh..private ownership was not banned..they restricted the categories the public could buy..
But..the gist of your argument is correct. 🙂
“More Guns Less Crime by John R Lott examines the statistics well..
I’ve just posted this on Open Thread #7 but it deserves to be here as well:
I’ve come up with a powerful and aggressive visual image that would do nicely as a tattoo for us scorcher-scam scoffers: a pair of upraised, shackled hands decisively snapping a hockey stick (with its blade upturned at the right). It is based on the well-known (to warmists) logo of the War Resisters League, in which the hands are snapping a rifle. A large, easily readable caption around the perimeter of the button reads, “Gore Resisters’ League.”
Following an earlier version of my suggestion (which had a weaker slogan, a too-small typeface, and lacked the chain), a kindly blogger named S. Weasel created an image that came close to my vision, here (then hit page-down twice): http://sweasel.com/archives/6403
I hope he’ll create an upgraded version—then I could take it to a tattoo artist and “get it on.”