Australia's Carbon tax's poisonous pill

Pompous Git says:
September 16, 2011 at 2:46 pm

Pompous – there is a chap named Adam Smith over at Joanne Nova’s site that can sure use your help in understanding the Australian Constitution.

@Benjamin Actually I don’t like the implementation at all, I much prefer Garnaut’s approach. But it’s a start and we need to get started. Do I think it will have a material impact on climate change? Only if other countries join in and we keep increasing emissions reduction targets. There are multiple benefits to the legislation, but they are all in the long term. The reality is that the short term impacts will be small, however. Aside from a few large emitters, it will not even be detectable to the vast majority of people.

And Blvr, if you are a Fabian society or Green member, naturally favoring redistribution of wealth
and nationalising power plants and steel industries, decapitalizing the world in favor of socialism
or communism. Take note ‘The ALP are fine at spending other people’s money, but not making any themselves’. Worst than that they are not judging what goes on overseas. It’s OK to be Green, but surely ‘horses for courses’, e.g., if you are a Vegan or vegetarian, you want everyone else to become one and hold moral judgement on those that eat meat. Stop the Livestock trade.
Stop people owning pets, by not eating meat you will safe the planet. Lucky Australia is also run by the States. And they are not happy. WA is threatening to break away by implementing its own mining royalties. How did they do that, they did, and Gillardia said ‘We’ll reduce your funding. Look at Tasmania, its lost industry because of their Green policies, and they rely on 60% of their money from the Federal Government. Unemployment is high in that State too. Lovely place to visit but no live in.
Australia has environmental problems that threaten us. Floods, droughts, bush fires (especially ones lit by nut cases) feral animals, but why give the UNCCF $600 million a year, instead of spending it here. Update coal fire generators, it will cut emissions around 40%. Would cost less than investing in stupid wind mills and give 24/7 electricity supply. At least Victoria has woken up to this scam.Gillardia said, if we tax energy, (make it more expensive?) people will use less of it. What! And you go a long with this? What a strange attitude you have.

@Bushbunny no need to stoop to insults. Almost without exception, AGW sceptical theories have been disproven. When published by mistake, they are quickly withdrawn or rebutted. Pro AGW theories, on the other hand, are rarely shown lacking in the published literature, which is only place for a scientific debate. On this basis alone it is clear that the skeptics participating on this page are the ones closest to a law suit for slander. How many times have I seen people on this page slandering the character of a wide range of people in the public spotlight? I’ve lost count And what have I said, other than to point out that sceptics have virtually no runs on the board? Not to mention your unkind words directed towards myself. Luckily it’s all sticks and stones to me, eh? Let’s not get personal my friend, rather stick to the topic, no?

Blvr. I wasn’t insulting you I was telling the truth. So you reckon skeptical science is not accepted. You must live on another planet dear. It’s the other way around, AGW is a scam of con merchants trying to politically moderate our lifestyles, financial gain from spinning a lie, that only the most ignorant or politically trying to moderate the powers of America, now believe it. (mind you we could all, I suspect improve our lifestyle for the betterment of society, but when you next get your gas or electricity bill in, and say the extra price is worth it because it will cool the climate and make poorer countries richer too.
Well wake up mate, taxing CO2 and carbon emissions will do nothing to change the climate. It is getting cooler by the year naturally. And if you don’t believe that maybe you can hang on to the words of Sen.Wong who said on election night the following. When asked if the dropping of the ETS was the reason that labor was losing support, she said in her sultry drawl ‘Nooo – because there is evidence the planet is cooling’. ”No carbon tax in a government I lead.’ until there was a hung parliament and she did a deal with the Greens to combine votes, and bribe the Independents to support her. And Gillardia also said ‘the planet is cooling too’. Garnaut said ‘farmers should farm kangaroos to save the climate. (To cut methane emissions, They are not ruminants you see) But they are not domesticated and are marsupials he forgot to add that, and so far efforts to milk and shear them have not been found commercially viable. (sarcastic tone).
My dogs like the meat though, I don’t unless you marinate it and add herbs and garlic.(It’s like venison to me) Mind you poorer people or ones on a low fat diet could live on it well.

Well said Phil and don’t forget the citizens submission to the select committee, closing tomorrow,
available on the ‘Barnaby is Right blog’. It suggests we take the government to high court to contest any carbon tax as a blight on our constitutional rights. Like the Malaysian solution was settled recently. A threat or a promise eh? Plenty of big spenders and also stakeholders can afford a high court solution. Including the States.
Oh Blrv. No you can’t comment on this but you can go to Joanna Nova site, you might aid John
Brookes and Adam Smith with your diatribe. And Penelope too, who reckons skeptics are all non toothed pensioners who aren’t in touch with the reality of their society. Humbug
I have to retire I have a presentation tomorrow, about Organic Agriculture and Alpacas.

@PhilJourdan nice to talk to you. You can argue semantics if you like but the reality is that AGW is the best explanation we have for recent increases in the temperature of the planet.

@Kim😉 We can agree that AGW is a hypothetical problem. The tax is a response to a risk. It’s like an insurance policy. The risk is catastrophic climate change. It’s a high probability, high impact risk. From this point of view, the premium is small.
There is also a probability associated with the response. Will it work? Nobody knows for sure. However, the body of evidence in the peer reviewed literature suggests that there is a high probability that reducing greenhouse gas emissions will reduce AGW – as long as everyone contributes. To date, all countries of consequence are moving in the right direction, albeit they are taking different paths (see my earlier comment).
I don’t need to point out that the outcomes of all future events are hypothetical – but for the sake of the argument, I will. It’s therefore perfectly reasonable to change the way we do things today so as to avoid potentially negative outcomes that have an associated probability of occurrence tomorrow.
The alternative response is to do nothing – to wait and see what happens. To me, that seems like the wrong approach. To wait for “proof” on climate – waiting for absolute certainty – is to wait forever. Vested interests are keenly aware of this, hence their desire to cast doubt on the theory of AGW, insisting that nobody should take action as long as there is any suggestion of uncertainty. This approach is understandable, but I don’t think we can regard these companies as unbiased. Energy intensive companies have a lot to lose. Pushing uncertainty produces the highest short-term investment return for the shareholders of vested interests – an outcome the shareholder’s CEOs are paid very well to achieve. Although many (particularly on this page I suspect) will suggest that scientists have a lot to gain from grants etc through dishonestly promoting AGW when they know that it’s untrue, I think it’s far more likely that a vested interest might dishonestly cast doubt on AGW when it knows better. Vested interests have orders of magnitude more to gain by pushing uncertainty. The potential for cognitive dissonance by a corporation is far more plausible.
This is important: I did not say that there will be zero cost impact from the carbon tax. I said the cost impact will be very small, and I continue to say that it will be very small – in fact, virtually undetectable for the vast majority of the population. This conclusion takes into account all of the pass-through costs that will affect the price of milk (BTW livestock emissions are exempt), bread, petrol, Barbie Dolls, newspapers, cars, water and anything else you can name. You will see, when this tax is implemented, that the price increase from the tax will be completely lost in the general price fluctuations that happen on a day to day basis for all of these goods and services. It will be a non-event.
The poor – for whom you are rightly concerned – will be protected from price increases via compensation. The compensation takes into account all of these price increases. The poor will be no worse off.

@ur momisugly blvr says:
September 20, 2011 at 11:35 am
Can you please provide evidence that reducing the worlds CO2 will lower temperatures by even 1C.
Here is the Maths [ IPCC’s own numbers ]
Q. What is the central estimate of the anthropogenic global warming, in Celsius degrees, that would be forestalled by 2020 if a) Australia alone and b) the whole world cut carbon emissions stepwise until by 2020 they were 5% below today’s emissions?
Answer a). Australia accounts for (at most) 1.5% of global carbon emissions. A stepwise 5% cut by 2020 is an average 2.5% cut from now till then. CO2 concentration by 2020, taking the IPCC’s A2 scenario, will be 412 parts per million by volume, compared with 390 ppmv now. So Man will have added 22 ppmv by 2020, without any cuts in emissions. The CO2 concentration increase forestalled by almost a decade of cap-and-tax in Australia would thus be 2.5% of 1.5% of 22 ppmv, or 0.00825 ppmv. So in 2020 CO2 concentration would be 411.99175 ppmv instead of 412 ppmv…
So the proportionate change in CO2 concentration if the Commission and Ms. Gillard got their way would be 411.99175/412, or 0.99997998. The IPCC says warming or cooling, in Celsius degrees, is 3.7-5.7 times the logarithm of the proportionate change: central estimate 4.7. Also, it expects only 57% of manmade warming to occur by 2100: the rest would happen slowly and harmlessly over perhaps 1000 years.
So the warming forestalled by cutting Australia’s emissions would be 57% of 4.7 times the logarithm of 0.99997998: that is – wait for it, wait for it – a dizzying 0.00005 Celsius, or around one-twenty-thousandth of a Celsius degree. Your estimate of a thousandth of a degree was a 20-fold exaggeration – not that Flannery was ever going to tell you that, of course.
Answer b) . We do the same calculation for the whole world, thus:
2.5% of 22 ppmv = 0.55 ppmv. Warming forestalled by 2020 = 0.57 x 4.7 ln[(412-0.55)/412] < 0.004 Celsius, or less than four one-thousandths of a Celsius degree, or around one-two-hundred-and-eightieth of a Celsius degree. And that at a cost of trillions.
Quote:A cautionary note: the warming forestalled will only be this big if the IPCC’s central estimate of the rate at which adding CO2 to the atmosphere causes warming is correct. However, it’s at least a twofold exaggeration and probably more like fourfold. So divide both the above answers by, say, 3 to get what will still probably be an overestimate of the warming forestalled.
AS for an insurance policy, would the Maths prove out for say a one-two hundred-and eightieth chance?
Why would a Government force you to buy insurance for the same actuaries as say getting hit by a rainbow colored meteor?

Blvr says:
September 20, 2011 at 8:31 am
Actually it’s true that skeptical science is not accepted, and the majority of scientists that carry out research in relevant disciplines agree with AGW, so you are both wrong.

Your ignoranance knows no bounds. Skepticism is the basis of science, not a branch of it. You do not “accept” it. You either live it, or accept on blind faith (such as religion). I stated nothing that you have disagreed with. I stated facts. You came back and spouted religion. Which is your choice. But do not pass off your religion for science. You only make a fool of yourself.

Actually the Maths have been done Blver
Here is what was done:
I will use IPCC’s own numbers. Which support man is the ONLY Driver of climate – a premise we know to be a lie.
First and foremost – Remember CO2 is not climate…it is gas. In other words, We can reduce the gas and not touch the Climate.
BUT say, I agree with you that CO2 drives climate AND we wanted to ‘Mitigate” just 1C by reducing CO2. Here is what is required. That MAGIC number is 1,767,250.
And here is how we get that number: How much CO2 emissions are required to change the atmospheric concentration of CO2 by 1 part per million [ ppm ],
Then we’ll figure out how many ppms of CO2 it takes to raise the global temperature 1ºC. Then, we’ll have our answer.
Now we have what we need. It takes 14,138mmt of CO2 emissions to raise the atmospheric CO2 concentration by 1 ppm AND it takes 125 ppm to raise the global temperature 1ºC. So multiplying 14,138mmt/pmm by 125ppm /ºC gives us 1,767,250mmt /ºC.
Now, let’s apply this: Using IPCC numbers, again.
In the Waxman-Markey Climate Bill considered by Congress,
CO2 emissions from the U.S. in the year 2050 are proposed to be 83% less than they were in 2005.
In 2005, U.S. emissions were about 6,000 mmt,
So 83% below that would be 1,020mmt or a reduction of 4,980mmt CO2.
4,980 divided by 1,767,250 = 0.0028ºC per year.
In other words, even if the ENTIRE United States reduced its carbon dioxide emissions by 83% below current levels, it would only amount to a reduction of global warming of LESS than THREE-THOUSANDTHS of a ºC per year.
A number that is scientifically meaningless in climate temperatures.
Of course, this is assuming CO2 is Climate Changes Driver…ignoring all other Natiural drivers, As AGW does. We know that to ignore all other Natural drivers, we are premising a lie.
Now….Why would there be such a dramatic push for us to REDUCE THREE-THOUSANDTHS of a C…..UNLESS, someone was making a killing..AND using AGW trying to scare us ??
You are welcome to test my math
If you are trying to sell this TAX by using IPCC’s own Maths – it fails to provide what it promises.
You trying to inject this as a “first step” fails – IF the “first step” ,itself fails. You can not expect it to get any better then the base.

@PhilJourdan We misunderstand one another – or perhaps you are intentionally trying to twist my words around. I am referring to the activities of AGW sceptics, not the practice of sceptical science itself. I think you know all this anyway and suspect you are simply splitting hairs.
Let’s call these people contrarians so as not to confuse the issue. So I rephrase that the contrarians are generally wrong.
The majority of scientists publishing in the peer-reviewed literature – which is the only place that matters – support the AGW hypothesis, which attempts to explain recent temperature rises by positing that anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases are the main cause.
A fringe group of scientists have attempted to explain the temperature increase with alternative theories and have generally failed. Hence AGW continues as the best explanation we have.
True scepticism is good – all science should be tested. I have a problem when contrarians continue to represent alternative theories as correct after they have been rebutted or refused publication in the peer-reviewed literature, or represent alternative theories as conceptually correct before the scientific community has had a chance to review them in the peer-reviewed literature. This is not true scepticism.
Your statement that every real scientist will disagree with me when I say that AGW is the best explanation for the planetary warming that we are experiencing is just nonsense.

Or you can offer resourced evidence that the IPCC numbers are false?