Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Having failed to establish climate change as the reason for Australia’s recent severe bushfires, Aussie greens are now rushing forward with demands for a new levy to be imposed on fossil fuel companies.
Making fossil fuel companies pay for the cost of climate change bushfires
By James Purtill
Thursday 30 July 2020 6:38pm…
Climate change is caused by greenhouse gas emissions. Why not ask fossil fuel companies to pay for some of the damage?
In November, a fast-moving bushfire sliced through a valley in the Warrawillah area, north of Taree, on New South Wales’ mid north coast. Fiona Lee was one of the first Australians to lose her house in what would become Australia’s worst-ever fire season. More than 3,500 houses and 18 million hectares would burn before March.
“It came with no warning,” she told Hack.
“We were the only house on our road that got burnt.”
…
Who pays for all this? Victims like Fiona? The taxpayer? This week, a group of experts including former emergency services commissioners from all over Australia proposed that at least some of the money should come from the industry making money out of fossil fuels — namely oil and gas companies, and coal miners.
Emergency Leaders for Climate Action (ELCA) are calling on the Federal Government to introduce a $1 levy on every tonne of embedded carbon produced in Australia. They calculate this would raise $1.5 billion per year.
…
“Something has to be done to wake up the fossil fuel industry,” he told Hack.
“We’re all paying through the nose for their profiteering at our expense.
…
Read more: https://www.abc.net.au/triplej/programs/hack/making-fossil-fuel-companies-pay-climate-change-natural-disaster/12509466
Australians already pay around USD $3.40 / gallon for gasoline, even after prices came down in the wake of Covid-19 – a punishingly high price for fuel in a country with such long roads and empty distances.
Adding a carbon levy to fuel on top of all the other taxes would not punish fossil fuel companies, it would punish ordinary Australians, because fossil fuel companies would simply pass the cost on to their customers.
Everyone would pay for the levy through increased road freight haulage costs, even if they don’t personally own an automobile. Fuel taxes are regressive, so poor people would suffer the greatest impact from a new carbon tax.
If greens really wanted to make a difference to CO2 emissions they could demand Australia invest in nuclear power, convert all our coal plants to zero carbon nuclear like France did in the 1970s.
France still has one of the lowest CO2 emissions per capita in the industrialised world, because unlike renewables, nuclear power delivers genuine reductions in national CO2 emissions. Unlike renewables, nuclear plants don’t need “backup” fossil fuel plants to power up when the sun goes down, to service the early evening demand peak.
But I’m not holding my breath waiting for Aussie greens to embrace nuclear power.
Will some of the funds go to the arsonists?
LOL
NO cash allowed until after all the arsonists are convicted.
And after AU rakes it forests!
Thanks UV. Right on the money!
The 2019-2020 bushfire season was a carbon copy of the Federation Drought, especially in the 1897-1898 season. Back then the pCO2 level was about 300 ppmV. But the ENSO patterns in the lead up were very similar, and the ~60 year thermohaline cycle was in the same phase.
The 2019-2020 fires were not the result of ENSO this time but resulted from the prolonged drying out of southern Australia caused by the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) pushing warm water towards Africa -hence flooding rains there-followed by subsequent locust plague, allowing upwelling of cooler waters off the western Australian coast with resultant less precipitation over most of southern Australia ie drought-which dried out the bush predisposing it to fire when lighting or arsonists struck as they did
This was exacerbated by the positioning of the Southern Annular Mode (SAM) which also brought no rain for lengthy periods
Source :Australian Bureau of Meteorology
Fossil fuels aren’t fossils and CO2 and Nuclear Power are not dangerous items. Bushfires are a result of not having enough controlled burn-offs and load reduction. Droughts in Australia are normal and floods are rare and sporadic. Between 20 and 100 million hectares of Australia burn every year on average. People in bushfire prone areas need to be alert each year.
It difficult to understand whether these people seriously believe that Australia’s small 1% contribution to GHG is the cause of the fires or whether they are using the fires as an excuse to de-industrialise the country.
Yes, it’s wealth redistribution.
That was the problem the climate council ran into in it’s submission at the Royal Commission. It was asked if Australia reduced it’s emissions what would be the impact on next year and the next decade fire seasons. Answer none CO2 emissions will continue to rise for the next decade.
“Climate change is caused by fossil fuel emissions. Why not ask fossil fuel companies to pay for some of the damage?”
And before we do that, why not have the evidence in hand that will convince the court that climate change is caused by fossil fuel emissions?
https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/05/18/12479/
https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/06/10/a-monte-carlo-simulation-of-the-carbon-cycle/
And exactly WHO is the “industry” responsible?
Here in the US, the state and federal governments ALL make more per gallon of gasoline than do the oil companies. So does the retailer, generally. And then there are the end-users, those that use the product to perform construction, drive to work, do whatever, enjoy life. Start by making all of them pay for the damage they’re causing. Why do they never talk about that, i.e., about their own gasoline and energy use?
Goldfish memories or no maths skills?
“The 1974–75 Australian bushfire season is a series of bushfires, also known around the world as wildfires, that burned across Australia. Fires that summer burned up an estimated 117 million hectares (290 million acres; 1,170,000 square kilometres; 450,000 square miles). Approximately 15% of Australia’s land mass suffered “extensive fire damage” including parts of New South Wales, the Northern Territory, Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1974%E2%80%9375_Australian_bushfire_season
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Australian_bushfire_seasons
“Recommended limits of head fire behaviour and suppression strategies:
Fire intensity less than 800 kW/m can be suppressed with hand tools with water support as a direct attack.
Fire intensity less than 2000 kW/m can be suppressed by machines, tankers and water bombers as a direct attack.
Fire intensity greater than 2000 kW/m may be suppressed by machines, tankers and water bombers using an indirect attack.
Fire intensity greater than 3000 kW/m is unlikely to be suppressed.”
https://www.dpaw.wa.gov.au/management/fire/fire-and-the-environment/51-fuel-loads-and-fire-intensity
At fire intensity of 2000kW/m with 14m flames the radiant heat forces fire fighter to be atleast 56m away (comfort dist 4x flame height) from the flames ie. Not practical to fight and control fire with just ground attack. Water bombing from aircraft helps but also not sufficient for large fires and weather conditions (wind, smoke, darkness) can ground aircraft. The ground crews would be lucky to reach 35m into the bush from a nozzle but need an expert to clarify. At full flow, these fire appliances can empty their own tanks in about 3 minutes. Once the fires reach 2000 kW/m it’s more about evacuate locals, protect a few buildings and then just protect yourself (run).
Burning the wood may give more than 20MJ/kg of energy but does 5MJ/kg get used to heat the water etc. in the green wood. 40T/Hectare = 4kg/sq.m, 60MJ/sq.m of bushland @15MJ/kg (YMMV)
0.026MJ for 1sq.m x 20m high of air (heat capacity of 1sq.m of air times 20m high, temp change by 1 Kelvin)
0.026MJ / 60MJ = 0.043% per degree C or K.
A rise of 1C is not significant compared to the 750 to 900C rise in temperature after combustion.
Air temperature alone is not a major factor.
Why worry about the less than 0.1% when it’s the 99.9% that really matters. The 60MJ per square metre of bushland (or more) is what matters. YMMV
Which fossil fuel companies will they take to task for the 1851 bushfires?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Thursday_bushfires
But I disagree with your slight on goldfish.
If goldfish had no memories there would be no goldfish…I suspect they have better memories than your average green activist.
Good post. In other words it’s emotion vs facts. With the greenies emotion always wins.
In worst cases, they have to rely on back burning, bulldozers and wetting down areas before the fire is anywhere near them. If you didn’t minimise the risk before the fire season, it’s very hard to do it during it.
If climate change is causing hotter and drier conditions, then eventually the climate will be so dry that nothing will grow. No vegetation = no fires. Climate change to the rescue.
The “experts” who make up this committee should more correctly be called the “culprits”
On their watch insufficient fuel reduction measures were carried out year after year.
Of course they now conveniently blame “climate change” for bushfires.
Deplorables!
Perhaps the houses that didn’t burn had done their housekeeping and cleared their land
Didn’t I just hear that Young Mr Murdoch has resigned from the board of his dad’s news firm because Sky Australia won’t go with the climate alarmist rhetoric that Sky employs elswhere?
https://www.thegwpf.com/climate-activist-james-murdoch-steps-down-from-news-corp/
I posted this story before I saw the link, but it disappeared. Appears the disagreement on policy is all about Sky Australia’s stand against climate alarmism.
You have to hand it to the Greens in discovering a hitherto unknown property of CO2, whereby it knows where it was emitted, and stays in that location.
So Australian CO2 causes drastic problems for Australia, apparently, but Chinese CO2 which is far more prevalent, stays in China and causes no problem… Thus by taxing the Australia fossil fuel industry the Greens, with this newly discovered property of CO2, ensure that Australia will be sheltered from further harmful (supposedly) increases…
What an utter joke! Even if CO2 were the driver of climate change, Australia could be totally shutdown and there would be no measureable effect on world climate. But Australia would be plunged to Third World or worse status – without any gain whatsoever.
And where is the proof that CO2 is causing the supposed rise in temperature.No good if one looks at the hopelessly compromised Australian BOM with its non science based approach to temperature (it can’t get its forecasts for next week right, so how can we trust them on any predictions decades hence), and even the IPCC is unable to produce definitive proof…
Maybe the greens should contribute instead. After all, they are responsible for the proliferation of wind turbines, the ones that have been creating all that extra wind that fan the bush fires. 🙂
Slide of Australian science: More like a page out of John Madden’s playbook.
Fires, floods … is there nothing that carbon (sic) can’t do?
Coal miners to blame for Queensland floods, says Australian Greens leader Bob Brown
https://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/coal-miners-to-blame-for-queensland-floods-says-australian-greens-leader-bob-brown/news-story/cbfe12042fa9c4149ea3c10524f57344
“The brown skies I observed in the Blue Mountains this week are a product of human-caused climate change.”
– Back in January, catastrophist Michael Mann wrote an article for The Guardian from the burning Blue Mountains.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jan/02/australia-your-country-is-burning-dangerous-climate-change-is-here-with-you-now
Except no they weren’t:
Backburns backfired at Balmoral and the Blue Mountains, RFS investigation finds
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-06-10/backburns-at-balmoral-and-bilpin-caused-damage/12334842
“Australia, your country is burning – dangerous climate change is here with you now”
This article is more than 7 months old
“Michael Mann
I am a climate scientist on holiday in the Blue Mountains, watching climate change in action.
After years studying the climate, my work has brought me to Sydney where I’m studying the linkages between climate change and extreme weather events.
Prior to beginning my sabbatical stay in Sydney, I took the opportunity this holiday season to vacation in Australia with my family. We went to see the Great Barrier Reef – one of the great wonders of this planet – while we still can.
Subject to the twin assaults of warming-caused bleaching and ocean acidification,
it will be gone in a matter of decades in the absence of a dramatic reduction in global carbon emissions.”
So we learn “Michael Mann, [ ] a climate scientist on holiday in the Blue Mountains” incl. family doesn’t matter in the case of untaxed kerosene burning by long-range flights.
Greta Longstocking Tintin Eleonora Ernman Thunberg, a Swedish environmental activist who has gained international recognition for promoting the view that humanity is facing an existential crisis arising from climate changing spurred by Mann and relatives –
Don’t they take into account Greta can visualize Mann-made CO₂ in their vicinity.
On the risk of repeating myself –
“Australia, your country is burning – dangerous climate change is here with you now.”
On the risk of repeating myself –
https://www.google.com/search?gs_ssp=eJzj4tVP1zc0TEsrN7FIKzczYPTiSy9KLUlUKMkozUtKLUoHAJWZChw&q=greta+thunberg&oq=Greta+&aqs=chrome.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jan/02/australia-your-country-is-burning-dangerous-climate-change-is-here-with-you-now
“Australia, your country is burning – dangerous climate change is here with you now”
This article is more than 7 months old
“Michael Mann
I am a climate scientist on holiday in the Blue Mountains, watching climate change in action.
After years studying the climate, my work has brought me to Sydney where I’m studying the linkages between climate change and extreme weather events.
Prior to beginning my sabbatical stay in Sydney, I took the opportunity this holiday season to vacation in Australia with my family. We went to see the Great Barrier Reef – one of the great wonders of this planet – while we still can.
Subject to the twin assaults of warming-caused bleaching and ocean acidification,
it will be gone in a matter of decades in the absence of a dramatic reduction in global carbon emissions.”
So we learn “Michael Mann, [ ] a climate scientist on holiday in the Blue Mountains” incl. family doesn’t matter in the case of untaxed kerosene burning by long-range flights.
Greta Longstocking Tintin Eleonora Ernman Thunberg, a Swedish environmental activist who has gained international recognition for promoting the view that humanity is facing an existential crisis arising from climate changing spurred by Mann and relatives –
Don’t they take into account Greta can visualize Mann-made CO₂ in their vicinity.
On the risk of repeating myself –
“Australia, your country is burning – dangerous climate change is here with you now.”
What happened to
Richard Parncutt: Climate denial and the death penalty
Richard Parncutt (born 24 October 1957 in Melbourne) is an Australian-born academic who specialises in the psychology of music.
He has been Professor of Systematic Musicology at Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz in Austria since 1998. His research focuses on the psychology of music.
Richard Parncutt:
Born 24 October 1957 Melbourne
Residence Graz, Austria
Nationality Australia
Known for research on music psychology
Political views:
Climate denial and the death penalty
In an internet text entitled “Death penalty for global warming deniers? An objective argument…a conservative conclusion”
dated 25 October 2012, Parncutt, [ ] proposed restricting the death penalty to individuals who cause more than one million deaths, and
– claimed that influential “global warming deniers” could fall into that category if they slow progress toward reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and thereby cause the deaths of millions of future people. […]
– Parncutt suggested that a panel of scientists should decide whether a given individual had caused more than one million deaths. […] Convicts should also have the chance to reprieve to life imprisonment, if they withdraw, publicly repent and commit themselves to “participate significantly and positively over a long period in programs to reduce the effects of global warming (from jail) – using much the same means that were previously used to spread the message of denial”. [] “At the end of that process, some global warming deniers would never admit their mistake and as a result they would be executed. Perhaps that would be the only way to stop the rest of them. The death penalty would have been justified in terms of the enormous numbers of saved future lives.”
– He then doubted his argument, saying “People will be saying that Parncutt has finally lost it” – but in the year 2050 “perhaps the Pope would even turn me into a saint”.
– Parncutt continued that if the death penalty were limited to individuals causing more than one million deaths it might also apply to popes since the 1980s, whom he claimed to be responsible for millions of AIDS deaths for their failure to change the church’s position on contraception in the 1980s and subsequently. The paper remained on the website of the University of Graz until 24 December 2012.
After several people [ ] cited the text in their blogs, and some of them threatened to take legal action against Parncutt and the university administration, Parncutt replaced the text by a shorter explanation and then by an unconditional retraction and apology.
– University officials ordered the removal of all political texts and issued a statement saying:
“The University of Graz is shocked and appalled by the article and rejects its arguments entirely. The University places considerable importance on respecting all human rights and does not accept inhuman statements. Furthermore, the University of Graz points out clearly that a personal and individual opinion which is not related to scientific work cannot be tolerated on websites of the University.”
Subsequently, a disciplinary process against him was initiated by the university.
Parncutt later responded to criticism on his private homepage.
https://www.google.com/search?q=death+penalty+for+Climate+deniers&oq=death+penalty+for+Climate+deniers+&aqs=chrome.
____________________________________________
And what about the global warming brigade, the Global warming’s glorious ship of fools …
exquisite symbolic perfection of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition:
https://www.google.com/search?q=Antarctic+ship+of+fools&oq=Antarctic+ship+of+fools&aqs=chrome.
____________________________________________
Sorting priorities:
– death penalty by coronavirus for the white old climate deniers:
http://www.nytimes.com
Opinion | ‘Covid-19 Kills Only Old People.’ Only?
22 Mar 2020 · Why are we OK with old people dying? … “Not just old people: Younger adults are also getting the coronavirus,” a news network …
https://www.google.com/search?q=coronavirus+old+no+longer+living+anyway&oq=coronavirus+old+no+longer+living+anyway+&aqs=chrome.
– after mass Xtinction
– saving our happy youth a greening renewable planet!
From Professors of Systematic Musicology to studied social psychology resilient new hope.
The world governments are powerless in the face of a virus; pubs have to close, businesses shuttered, events cancelled, etc, etc. Oddly enough, however, a governments can change the world’s weather with a few tax rises……..
From the article: “Climate change is caused by greenhouse gas emissions. Why not ask fossil fuel companies to pay for some of the damage?”
There is no evidence that CO2, a greenhouse gas, causes the Earth’s climate to change. There is no evidence of damage to the Earth, or its inhabitants, caused by CO2. Therefore, there is no reason to make fossil fuel companies pay for anything related to CO2.
On the other hand, isn’t there some evidence that the earth is “greening” in part due to increased atmospheric CO2 levels? If so, shouldn’t fossil fuel companies should be paid, not be asked to pay?
The exquisite irony of demanding a tax on fossil fuel companies while also asking for more water bombing aircraft -which fly on avgas- a fossil fuel derived energy source -plus more firetrucks and pumps –which also largely run on diesel derived from fossil fuels
Tells you a lot about their analytical abilities
It can be argued that the potential to increase co2 content of the atmosphere is present in fosile fuels but no co2 is released until fuels are burned by a third party.
I have never seen a gunpowder manufacturer charged when a bullet is used to murder someone.
And then there’s the
Great Artesian Basin replenishment.
https://www.google.com/search?client=ms-android-huawei&sxsrf=ALeKk019GPMiLKIvVqNnW4FFZANqE6XoFA%3A1597212908495&ei=7IgzX-PFHaaMwPAP7o6MsAo&q=australia+queensland+farm+aquifers&oq=australia+queensland+farm+aquifers&gs_lcp=ChNtb2JpbGUtZ3dzLXdpei1zZXJwEAM6BAgAEEc6BAgjECc6BggAEBYQHjoICCEQFhAdEB46BQghEKABOgcIIRAKEKABOgQIIRAVUKqdAVjH1AFg3NQBaABwAXgBgAHEAYgBggqSAQMwLjeYAQCgAQHAAQE&sclient=mobile-gws-wiz-serp