Australia will be the first country in the world to have an economy wide carbon tax. Even though Australia produces 1.32% of the worlds carbon dioxide output, we will be punishing our industry and people with a carbon tax.
And to meet the target of 160 Million tonnes of carbon dioxide, we will not be reducing our own emissions, we will achieve two thirds of it by sending $3.7 billion dollars per year overseas to buy permits.
So how does our 160 million tonnes reduction compare to China’s annual production of CO2? China produces 7,031 million tonnes of CO2 per annum. Thats 2.2 per cent of Chinas output. So if China increases it output by the same amount it did in 2010, by ten percent, the 160 million tonnes of Carbon Dioxide saved by Australia will be replaced by China in 3 months.
Billions of dollars in extra burdens on Australian workers, industry and consumers to be replaced by China in three months.
Chines coal fired power station, replacing Australian carbon abatement
Norway introduced a carbon tax in 1991. It was set at $US65 per tonne. The carbon tax was placed on fossil fuels, and applied to petrol and diesel. As a result of the carbon tax, Norway has the most expensive fuel in Europe. While the current price for unleaded petrol in Australia is $1.35 per litre, in Norway fuel is $2.45 per litre. Diesel is only slightly cheaper.
So what has a carbon tax done for Norway’s CO2 emissions over the twenty years it has had a carbon tax? CO2 emissions have gone up in Norway by !5% per capita.
All the economists in Australia who have lined up behind the Labor Federal governments carbon tax say it will cause real world changes in behaviour and reduce CO2 production. However as we know economists get it wrong most of the time, and Norway is an example of where, despite the introduction of a carbon tax, it has not changed behaviour, and not dropped the production of CO2.
Norway does not have to worry about a carbon tax on its electricity production, as 98% of its power comes from Hydro.
The Gillard Labor government has dropped fuel out of the carbon tax, so the burden of reducing emissions goes onto an even smaller number of industries, making the pain for those industries even more severe.
20 years of punishing themselves with a carbon tax and Norway produces even more CO2
The Greens have already said they want to close down the coal industry and stop the export of coal. They also want to close down the brown coal power stations in the Latrobe Valley effectively closing down the brown coal industry in Victoria.
The latest is that the Greens are happy for the Carbon Tax to result in One Steel in Whyalla closing down, a town where 4000 of its 22,000 people are employed by One Steel. Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young wants Whyalla to magically become a high capacity wind generator manufacturer, which no one else does in Australia. In fact more and more of the manufacture of wind turbines happens in China. Senator Hansen-Young wants Eyre Peninsular covered in wind farms even through there is growing opposition to wind farms in South Australia.
The Greens solution to losing 4000 jobs in Whyalla because of the Carbon Tax
While the Gillard Government and the multiparty committee on Climate Change plot to tax Australians with a Carbon Tax, the Sun is doing something completely different. The Federal Government and its trained Climate Change Commission like to deny any link between the suns activity and global temperatures. However the Maunder Minimum of low sunspot numbers between 1645 and 1715 coincided with the coldest part of the Little Ice Age. This included the very cold winter of 1708-09 when hundreds of thousands of people died from famine and cold.
Three papers were released this week at the American Astronomical Society meeting in New Mexico USA. “The solar cycle may be going into a hiatus,” Frank Hill, associate director of the National Solar Observatory’s Solar Synoptic Network, he also said “If we are right, this could be the last solar maximum we’ll see for a few decades, that would affect everything from space exploration to Earth’s climate.”
The Australian Federal Governments Climate Change Commission says all the science is settled. Really? When the solar physicists have no idea what these changes mean for the sun?
The Earth would be a frozen ball of ice without the sun.
Will we end up getting Climate Change refugees from a frozen Tasmania heading north to warmer climes?
The Climate Commission headed by Professor Tim Flannery is not making much headway with its support of its employers carbon tax, the Federal Government Labor/Green alliance. So today Tim Flannery is spruiking the Department of Climate Change report Climate Change Risks to Australia’s Coasts. It made the South Australian news as Tim Flannery and his Climate Commission are visiting the incredibility unpopular Premier Mike Rann, who is working hard to make sure South Australians pay even more for electricity.
The report is claiming 43,000 houses in South Australia will be under water before the end of the century.
The problem is the Australian public is not listening. So what to do? Lets fall back on what we have been doing for the last 20 years, lets scare-monger. Lets make the future even more horrible. Lets find the worst possible scenario and build on that. Its got to scare people into seeing sense, doesn’t it?.
Here is are example from the report on South Australia. The upper end of the IPCC projection for sea level change for 2100 is 79 cms. However it could be as low as 20cms. However that’s not very scary is it? How can we improve on that?
Well you make it even higher and project it up to 1.1 metres, and then do your damage assessment on that projection way past the highest sea level IPCC projection.
Now that’s sounds much scarier doesn’t it?
Its just the continuation of the last 20years. If people don’t think the way we want them to, lets just keep inventing even scarier scenarios….
Will the Adelaide CBD look like this projection of New York in 100 years?
The Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC) gets a chance, on a slow news day on Sunday, to push its pro-carbon tax line. The article (with no byline other than ABC/AAP) reports in excited terms about the pro-carbon tax rallys in Australia Capital cities. The ABC had no problems quoting Don Henry head of the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) saying that because 10,000 rent-a-crowd protesters turned out in Melbourne (only 2000 in Brisbane) then that showed that the majority of people supported action on climate change. Really?
Its so disappointing for the ABC’s pro-carbon tax agenda when the next day the Daily Telegraph posts a story showing that 75% of people surveyed thought the carbon tax would do nothing to help the environment, and 64 percent of those surveyed wanted a new election, because they believed Prime Minister Julia Gillard had no mandate for a carbon tax. Especially when she promised before the election not to have a carbon tax.
A chance for the excited ABC to push its pro carbon tax agenda
Update: Fran Kelly on ABC Insiders 19th June says “I am firmly of the view that there should be a price on carbon”. Is there no surprise that the ABC pushes a pro-carbon tax line?
Canberra insider Barrie Cassidy does not like Liberal opposition leader Tony Abbott and his continued opposition to the carbon tax. Barrie Cassidy has already written his low opinion of Federal Liberal Opposition leader Tony Abbott, and anyone watching ABC Insiders over the years knows he is committed to a carbon tax, and cannot understand why there is any opposition. Barrie Cassidy writes in his latest piece hoping that Tony Abbott will self destruct before the 2012 Federal Election. Barrie Cassidy is typical of the the Canberra Insiders, the Press Gallery, and the Canberra bureaucrats, who cannot understand why there is so much opposition to the Carbon Tax.
What the Canberra insiders think, is that once the Carbon Tax is legislated, and been operating for a year, everyone will be happy and used to it. However, as I have written before, the carbon tax is not like the GST. The Carbon Tax means unrelenting price increases. To get electricity prices to the level that makes renewable sources of power equal in price to cheap coal, will require a massive carbon tax.
The Canberra insiders think that once the pensioners have their increased pension, everything will be settled. However those pensioners will know that they have years of price rises to go. Tony Abbott just has to point out that they might have compensation now, but where will the extra compensation come from next year, and the year after that, as the carbon tax steadily increases.
When the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) comes in, a few years later, it will be even worse. The ETS will mean no-one will be able to predict the carbon price. The price of carbon will be up to the financial markets. Will we get manipulative schemes like the 2008 one which pushed up the price of oil? Who knows? Will we have a Lehman Brothers of ETS trading?
Every company that goes broke, will be blamed on the carbon tax. Every employee who is laid off will be blamed on the carbon tax. If a company moves off-shore, it will be because of the carbon tax, whether it is true or not.
Every price rise will be blamed on the carbon tax. Companies will be able to increase their prices knowing that the blame can be placed on the Federal Labor Government and its carbon tax.
The Federal Labor government may take Professor Ross Garnaut’s ideas and push responsibility to an independent government authority, a “Carbon Bank”. However that won’t help the Labor government. If interest rates go up, do people blame the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) or do they blame the government?. They blame the government. If the economy suffers from the carbon tax the voting public will sheet the blame back to where it belongs – the government.
The “independent” Climate Commission has released its first report. The “independent” Climate Commission was appointed by an Australian Federal Labor/Green alliance government that wants to introduce a carbon tax. So the Federal Government appointed members to the Climate Commission that would endorse the Labor/Green alliance views. And surprise, surprise, it has produced a report that agrees with the Australian Government!
This is another example of the Federal Government paying for advice that will agree with its position. Firstly we have Economist Professor Ross Ganault who surveys the scientific literature he agrees with and makes pronouncements (paid for by the government) supporting the governments view. Now we have the Climate Commission who cherry picks the scientific papers to get a result that will be acceptable to their paymasters the Federal Government.
Of course, now that the Climate Commission has released its report, there is now no further need for debate. In fact not only is there no further need for debate, there should be no more debate. Professor Wil Steffan of the Climate Commission says“I don’t think we have the luxury anymore of climate denialism. We need to get beyond this fruitless phoney debate in the media,” . The head of the Climate Commission serial doom-sayer Tim Flannery , agrees, he says “You get all sorts of people posing as having some expertise in climate science, whether they be taxi drivers speaking to me or people in the media who don’t have the expertise.” Tim Flannery of course does not have the expertise, as he has a doctorate in Palaeontology. Perhaps he should be listening harder to the taxi drivers.
Australian Green Senator Bob Brown wants you to forget what he said in 2007. He wants you to forget that he said that he wanted the coal industry shut down. He was quite happy in 2007 to have tens of thousands of jobs lost, whole towns wiped out, support industries shut down.
He said in 2007 ” Last week, I called on whoever wins office at this year’s election to commit to a plan to phase out coal exports”. He was quite happy to retrench the 28,000 people that work in the coal industry plus the thousands of other workers who support the coal industry. He was quite happy for Australia to forgo the billions of dollars in export income from the coal industry.
However in 2011, Senator Bob Brown seems to have forgotten what he said. He now claims it was an invention of the evil Murdoch press. The transcript of a press conference he had:
INTERVIEWER: That $11 billion that you’re talking about is money that he would forego in the mining tax, and I noticed you started your budget and reply speech just there. How would you replace the $50 billion a year in export income which comes by way of coal – an industry that you’d shut down?
BROWN: Well, a lot of that money is bouncing straight back out to shareholders overseas. Now what we’re…
INTERVIEWER: A lot of that money is circulating in the economy. It’s creating job, Senator, it’s bouncing through to our cities.
BROWN: Yes, Chris, and what we would do is take the advice of the Treasury of this nation and recoup the $145 billion over the next 10 years through a super profits tax. Tony Abbott says…
INTERVIEWER: But you can’t recoup it if you shut the industry down.
BROWN: Treasury…
INTERVIEWER: If you shut the coal industry down there won’t be that money…
BROWN: I’m sorry…
INTERVIEWER: ..available to you.
BROWN: I’m sorry, Chris, Treasury has no intention to shut the industry down. it tends to- it tends…
INTERVIEWER: No, but you do.
BROWN: No, I’m not.
Another Climate Change evangelist also wants to shut the coal industry down, none other than Climate Commissioner Tim Flannery. Flannery said in 2007 that is was no longer socially acceptable for Australia to be exporting coal.
Well what a difference nearly ten years make. In 2002 the CSIRO was predicting that Global Warming would reduce the snow cover on Australian ski resorts. They said “that scientific modelling suggests a very real threat exists to snowfields in both New South Wales and Victoria”
Nine years later, and Perisher Ski Resort opens three weeks early because of good snow falls. A spokesman said “It’s the earliest that I know of skiing in Australia. It is very exciting.”
A Deloittes report commissioned by the Australian Federal Government states that the Carbon Tax price will have to be at least $40 per tonne to encourage the building of gas-fired power plants. Of course the Federal Government Labor/Green Alliance Climate Change Minister Greg Combet is running away as fast as he can from the idea that the Carbon Tax will be $40 per tonne. However the Greens are telling the truth, they know it will have to be well above $40 per tonne to make expensive alternative energy equal in price to cheap coal-fired power generation. Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young says that the Carbon Price would have to be above $100 per tonne.
The Federal Government Labor/Green Alliance does not want the Australian population to know that after we transfer from a Carbon Tax to and ETS the Carbon Tax could be much higher than $40 per tonne. With an ETS, the governments preferred model, they would have no control over the carbon price, it would be subject to the whims of the financial markets.
How much more will the Australia public be forced to pay for electricity, petrol, diesel and goods and services if the Carbon Price is greater than $40 per tonne?
Petrol prices in Australia soon with a carbon tax?
The Federal Government Labor/Green alliance would like to close down all operating coal-fired power stations in Australia. The fact that these coal-fired power stations all work perfectly well, and could continue to work decades into the future means nothing. The Gillard government is determined to destroy this infrastructure and replace it with renewables or gas-fired power stations.
Why replace them with gas-fired power stations? When gas is burnt to produce electricity it emits less carbon dioxide than the burning of coal does. Coal is a more complex molecule, so it emits a higher level of carbon dioxide (CO2). Natural Gas produces about 45% less carbon dioxide than coal. However proponents of natural gas never talk about the cost of drilling, collecting and processing the gas. All these processes emit carbon dixoide.
Where does Australia get its natural gas from?
Most of it comes from existing natural gas basins, but there is increasing interest in Coal-Seam gas and Shale Gas.
Shale Gas is extracted from shales that have a low permeability, so drillers are required to fracture the rock to get the gas out. This called fracking, and has environmental problems of its own. Fracking involves injecting large amounts of water, mixed with sand and many dangerous chemicals, at high pressures to break up rock formations and release the gas. As well the production of coal seam releases large volumes of salt that is underground. If you are interested in finding out how fracking has been going in the USA, try to watch a film called Gasland. Coal Seam gas extraction can pollute groundwater, You can read more about the Australian community reaction to coal seam gas extraction at LocktheGate.org.au
So the Federal Labor/Greens alliance is happy to risk our environment by covering Australia with Coal Seam and Shale Gas drill rigs, pipelines and processing.
Natural Gas drilling rig. Coming to a place close to you soon?
People who believe completely in the AGW (anthropomorphic Global Warming) view of the world have been in recent time referred to as “warmists”. While the anti AGW proponents are referred to as Climate Change Skeptics, or Climate Change deniers. There is a new term for warmists, that is “Warmenist”.
Gullible, scientificially illiterate, unthinking acolyte and zombie-fied propagandist of the Religion of Anthropogenic Global Warming. One who takes direct orders from High Priest King of Idiocy, Albert J. Gore. One who puts the “mental” in environmentalism. Historical inheritors of those who believed that King Canute could hold back the tides and that the wolf would eat the moon unless their first-born daughter’s virginity was sacrificed to the local shaman.
I have always thought that for a lot of warmist, Global Warming is a religion. They believe, and do not read or accept any evidence to the contrary.
Failed presidential candidate Al Gore - High Priest of Global Warming
Professor Ross Garnaut who is an economist, not a climate scientist, says that the debate on the carbon tax is a debate between science and ignorance. If you don’t agree with the Professor, you are ignorant.
He said- ” It’s not the first time we’ve had contests between knowledge and ignorance that are of great significance for the future of our civilisation but this is certainly one of them.” .
This seems pretty clear. If you do not believe in the interpretation of Climate Science as put forward by Economist Professor Ross Garnault, then you must be on the ignorant side of the debate.
Once the GST was passed by the Australian Parliament most people accepted the GST as a new tax, and a done deal. Many people may have whinged about its implementation, the dreaded BAS form, and all that is involved in the GST. Ultimately in the end, nearly everyone agrees that the Federal Government has to collect tax, and we have to pay it.
The Carbon Tax is very, very different.
For a start at least a quarter of the population (at least), don’t believe the premise that the tax is based upon, that is that climate change is caused by the human race. This means at least a quarter of the population is never ever going to accept a Carbon Tax. Every election they will remember that the Federal Labor/Greens alliance has imposed a tax on them personally that they feel is unjustified. They might be mostly Liberal voters, but you can be sure there are a fair proportion of Climate Change Skeptics in the Australian Labor Party (ALP).
There are about 40% of the population, are not sure about the cause of Climate Change. This might be a nice issue to discuss at the BBQ on a Sunday with a beer in hand, but after 1st July 2012, they will be paying for a Carbon Tax whether they are sure or not. So this interesting philosophical question of the cause of climate change becomes a hip-pocket question, which clarifies the mind. Lots of these unsure people will start searching the internet and talking to friends, and finding out there is another, skeptical view, about climate change, one the mainstream media does not normally mention. Some of these people will also go to the Federal Election in late 2013 annoyed that they have been forced to pay a Carbon Tax by the Federal Labor/Green alliance, for something they don’t believe in.
Every time electricity prices go up they will blame the Carbon Tax (whether it is true or not). If a Carbon tax is applied to petrol or diesel, every time the fuel price goes up they will blame the Carbon Tax. This is the reason John Howard dropped indexation of fuel excise, because it had become a community mantra, that every time fuel went up, it was because the Federal Government was getting more money from excise, yet really it was just rising world prices. Doesn’t matter, when fuel prices go up – it will be the Carbon Tax. In fact when anything goes up in price – it will be the Carbon Tax….
Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard has announced Australia will have a Carbon Tax in place from 1st July 2012. Australians will then pay more for fuel and Electricity.
All Australian businesses will pay more for their energy use. Any overseas competitor in the USA or China will not have to pay a Carbon Tax.
Even if your business does not export, your costs will go up, and any imported item from the USA or China will not have a Carbon Tax, and thus will be relatively cheaper.
The Carbon Tax will result in industries being shifted overseas to countries that do not have a Carbon Tax (almost every other country in the world)
The Carbon Tax will increase inflation in Australia, and add cost to every item. Every item, every service, needs fuel to move it, electricity to store it, so every item, every service will become more expensive. Alan Kohler says manufacturing will be devastated
The Carbon Tax will hit poorer families who live in the outer suburbs more. There transport costs are higher. Even if they take public transport, they will pay more, because the Carbon Price will flow into the cost of public transport. The poorer families pay a higher proportion of their income for Electricity, which means they will pay an even higher proportion of their income.
How much of the worlds CO2 does Australia emit – 1.28%
Prime Minister Julia Gillard promising at the 2010 election that there would be no Carbon Tax under her government. There is an online petition against the Carbon Tax here
While the number people that believe in Climate Change continues to drop, Galaxy Poll Feb 2011:
The Federal Labor/Green alliance government, not content with wasting the taxpayers money on the Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency, is going to waste another $5.6 million dollars on a Climate Commission headed by Tim Flannery. This Commission according to Minister Greg Combet “It will provide expert advice on climate change science and impacts” . Well read on to see some of Tim Flannery’s previous “expert advice on climate change”:
That is Tim Flannery with no qualifications in Climate Science, he has a doctorate in Palaeontology.
This is the Tim Flannery that said in 2005 that droughts could leave Sydneys Dams dry in just two years.
The Tim Flannery that said that most climate skeptics were men over 65.
The Professor Tim Flannery that said in 2008 “The water problem is so severe for Adelaide that it may run out of water by early 2009.” (Adelaide’s Dams are almost full)
The Tim Flannery who said in 2007 that “Sydney and Brisbane, water supplies are so low they need desalinated water urgently, possibly in as little as 18 months”. No desal plant is being used anywhere, because all the three cities have too much water in their Dams.
The Tim Flannery who said in 2004 that “I think there is a fair chance Perth will be the 21st century’s first ghost metropolis” . Ten years into the 21st Century, Perth is still there.
The Tim Flannery who said in 2008 (three years ago) that “in five years there’ll be no Arctic ice cap“. Well the Arctic Icecap is still there, but Tim Flannery says there is only two years left.
Tim Flannery who said in 2007 ” I think it’s too late for debate now”, and have no doubt that Tim Flannery wants a Carbon Tax, he said in 2007 “Carbon tax is the way forward” , so much for the ‘independence’. Tim Flannery is just a propagandist for the Labor Government.
Its an indication of how much this Labor Government is out of touch with the people, that they somehow think the appointment of a serial alarmist and exaggerator will be a PR positive.
UPDATE: Tim Flannery was interviewed the next day (11/2/11) on 891 Adelaide by Ian Henschke. Three times Ian Henschke asked him “are you a climate scientist”, and three times Tim Flannery squirmed and evaded the question. Tim Flannery gets $180,000 per year for a part time job, and he is not even a climate scientist.
Economist Professor Ross Ganault says there will be more extreme weather events including more cyclones, and that’s why we need a carbon tax. He bases his claims on more extreme storms in the North Atlantic.
There is only one problem with this claim, there are less Hurricanes in the North Atlantic, especially over the last two years. There is even less energy in the Cyclones worldwide. The Accumulated Cyclone Energy (ACE) over the last few years has been going down. North Atlantic Hurricane energy is down as well.
The Greens are at it already. Cyclone Yasi has not even reached the coast, and Christine Milne Australian Senator for the Greens is claiming it is a “tragedy of climate change”.
There have been 207 cyclones since 1858 along the East Coast of Australia since 1858. Were they all caused by Climate Change?
There are an average of 4.7 cyclones per year that affect Queensland. Cyclone Yasi is number 3. Seems well within the average so far.
And what about all those cyclones that were so disastrous more than 100 years ago? Were they caused by Climate Change as well?
On the 4 March 1899 a cyclone hit Bathurst Bay, north of Cooktown causing 307 deaths. On 5th March 1887 a cyclone causing a tidal surge struck Burketown wiping out nearly all the town. The 1918 Mackay cyclone which had 1411mm of rain in 3 days, and a storm surge of 2.36 metres. Cyclone Willis damaging Cairns in 1927.
There have been so many cyclones in Queensland over the last 150 years, yet it seems only Cyclone Yasi was caused by Climate Change.
