Carbon Tax

[Oneworldplus2]

A cartoon to lighten up this thread

View attachment 3061

 

[drron]

Well we dont need a carbon tax.According to Roseanne Barr global warming is all due to cattle-
"if people were to get their protein from nuts rather than beef, you see, there'd be no global warming, and there would also be enough grain to feed all the hungry people."
article here-
Roseanne's Nuts about Global Warming : TreeHugger
So simple.We all just have to eat Macadamia nuts.

 

[AnonymousCoward]

I tell you what... despite my cautious views and concerns on man's contribution to global warming, i'm prepared to support the carbon tax!

WHEN the rest of the world does!

Well, we have Kyoto and the Copenhagen - those were global "commitments". The EU already has the EU ETS, and there is the RGGI in the US.

I think it's naive to say that everyone will implement something simultaneously on one day. It's also game theory failure scenario to argue that we should not do anything until everyone else does. Since everyone argues that, then no one does anything, and the group is doomed.

Now, perhaps it is premature for us to act right now. However that is not to say that no one else is doing anything. Even business is asking for certainty, and as the problem becomes worse, there will be increasing calls worldwide to do something. So, at least we have a proposal and we can start to prepare. Maybe the timing should be adjusted.

In the absence of action from the world's largest emitters, of which Australia is NOT one (and the per capita argument is simply spin-doctoring),

Rubbish. Why should an Australian be allowed to emit more than a citizen of some other country? I'm pretty sure that the citizens of those other countries will not be impressed. I doubt you'll ever get any global consensus for acting based on this type of thinking.

 

[AnonymousCoward]

Re: No Country on Earth Ever Taxed It Self to Prosperity

There is no science that proves human activity is causing global warming. Sorry, but that's the inconvenient truth. If you can provide a citation to any scientific, peer reviewed, published research in any scholarly journal of international repute then please post it here.

Really? How about a few thousand instead?

Just pick up the 4AR - there's only 500-600 citations of peer reviewed articles, published in every single major, international, journal *per chapter*

Would you like me to start typing them out for you?

 

[dfcatch]

Well, we have Kyoto and the Copenhagen - those were global "commitments". The EU already has the EU ETS, and there is the RGGI in the US.

I think it's naive to say that everyone will implement something simultaneously on one day. It's also game theory failure scenario to argue that we should not do anything until everyone else does. Since everyone argues that, then no one does anything, and the group is doomed.

Now, perhaps it is premature for us to act right now. However that is not to say that no one else is doing anything. Even business is asking for certainty, and as the problem becomes worse, there will be increasing calls worldwide to do something. So, at least we have a proposal and we can start to prepare. Maybe the timing should be adjusted.



Rubbish. Why should an Australian be allowed to emit more than a citizen of some other country? I'm pretty sure that the citizens of those other countries will not be impressed. I doubt you'll ever get any global consensus for acting based on this type of thinking.

1/ Kyoto doesn't include the world's largest emitters;

2/ Copenhagen failed;

3/ We can fix Australia's per capita emissions ratio.....

Candles, rose petals, fine wine and Barry White

Then we will be much lower on the world emitter's ranking both in nominal and per capita terms!

Problem solved.

 

[drron]

Now comparing us to either the EU or NZ and their ETS schemes is not comparing apples with apples.
80% of EU countries exports go to another EU country so no problem.Their ETS only covers 46% of emissions.
NZ's ETS is an effective carbon price of $NZ12.50 a tonne-ie 40% of ours.As well 60% of their electricity generation already comes from Hydro power.They only have 1 coal fired power station.So far less effect on the economy.

 

[777]

Re: No Country on Earth Ever Taxed It Self to Prosperity

There is no science that proves human activity is causing global warming. Sorry, but that's the inconvenient truth. If you can provide a citation to any scientific, peer reviewed, published research in any scholarly journal of international repute then please post it here.

I genuinely can't tell whether the the last line is a joke or not?

 

[drron]

Re: No Country on Earth Ever Taxed It Self to Prosperity

I genuinely can't tell whether the the last line is a joke or not?

Maybe because there is consensus not proof.The words cant be interchanged.There are numerous peer reviewed articles on measurements,observations and predictions-these are not proof.

 

[medhead]

@medhead - Climate change is the stated REASON we "have" to have a Carbon Tax. The stated PURPOSE of the tax is to change behavior. OK, so I'm a rational investor... so I can choose to pay a tax on production in Australia or move my production offshore to another lower tax jurisdiction and improve my return on capital... I know what choice I'm making. This tax will not save the Great Barrier Reef. It will not reduce global carbon emissions... It may actually make them WORSE because China, India, Brazil and elsewhere all have less stringent emissions standards than we do. This is a MORON TAX. It's anti-Australian and will damage our economy.

You can't be much of an investor if it the tax is your reason for moving off shore. Get realistic! The fact that you can get people to work in your factory for $1 a day is vastly more of an incentive to move off shore.

You're right about it being a moron tax. Lots of morons are getting sucked in by the scaremongering and can't seem to recognise all the other things that are much more important.

 

[NM]

Well we dont need a carbon tax.According to Roseanne Barr global warming is all due to cattle-
"if people were to get their protein from nuts rather than beef, you see, there'd be no global warming, and there would also be enough grain to feed all the hungry people."
article here-
Roseanne's Nuts about Global Warming : TreeHugger
So simple.We all just have to eat Macadamia nuts.

But if nobody was eating beef, the cow population would be much higher, producing even greater amounts of methane. Its the carnivores amongst us that help reduce the beef cattle population and hence reduce the methane production capability of the global beef cattle heard. So if she really was interested in protecting the environment, she would be encouraging more people to eat more beef, not less!

 

[Durin's Bane]

You're right about it being a moron tax. Lots of morons are getting sucked in by the scaremongering and can't seem to recognise all the other things that are much more important.

And a lot of morons also want to shut down Australia's biggest export industry within 10 years.

For a lot of 'rich' people this carbon tax means they have to pay, whilst low and middle income households are being reimbursed and according to the watermelons some will be better off. You can't change behaviours if you're not penalised. But why are the 'rich' penalised? Can the morons in government show statistics that illustrate the 'rich' pollute more? Or are they just playing Robin Hood?

The government could also stop instigating multi-billion dollar white elephants like the NBN and allocate that money to research, but that would mean responsibly spending tax payer monies, which this government is incapable of.

 

[777]

Re: No Country on Earth Ever Taxed It Self to Prosperity

Maybe because there is consensus not proof.The words cant be interchanged.There are numerous peer reviewed articles on measurements,observations and predictions-these are not proof.

Then essentially you are arguing that in scientific terms there is no such thing as proof - it is a process whereby, ideas are asserted, tested, challenged and refined based on evidence. It allows for doubt and for people to refine models based on new data or explanations as they came in. It's science - a dynamic and contastly contested system as opposed to say ... talkback radio.

Nonetheless, i have never heard it suggested by anyone - not even Monckton and his nutters - that there isn't any peer reviewed science supporting the assertion that we are experiencing potentially highly damaging global warming. Indeed much of the Moncktonites have moved on from that and now argue that science is itself a conspiracy and that is why the weight of public peer reviewed evidence is in the favour.

The hardest part of arguing climate change skepticism is simply that it is mostly internally incoherent and self contradictory. It is common in one discussion to someone happily jump through a range of positions: eg. 1. The world is cooling 2. the world is not warming 3. the world is warming and we have nothing to do with it or 4. the world is warming, we are doing it, and it is noting to be worried about and 5. The world is warming, it is out fault and we'll adapt. Id be curious to know which of those positions the skeptics here hold because as far as i can tell people are conveniently swtiching between all of them if and when they take their fancy.

 

[dfcatch]

Then essentially you are arguing that in scientific terms there is no such thing as proof - it is a process whereby, ideas are asserted, tested, challenged and refined based on evidence. It allows for doubt and for people to refine models based on new data or explanations as they came in. It's science - a dynamic and contastly contested system as opposed to say ... talkback radio.

Nonetheless, i have never heard it suggested by anyone - not even Monckton and his nutters - that there isn't any peer reviewed science supporting the assertion that we are experiencing potentially highly damaging global warming. Indeed much of the Moncktonites have moved on from that and now argue that science is itself a conspiracy and that is why the weight of public peer reviewed evidence is in the favour.

The hardest part of arguing climate change skepticism is simply that it is mostly internally incoherent and self contradictory. It is common in one discussion to someone happily jump through a range of positions: eg. 1. The world is cooling 2. the world is not warming 3. the world is warming and we have nothing to do with it or 4. the world is warming, we are doing it, and it is noting to be worried about and 5. The world is warming, it is out fault and we'll adapt. Id be curious to know which of those positions the skeptics here hold because as far as i can tell people are conveniently swtiching between all of them if and when they take their fancy.

For the record I'm somewhere in between positions 3/4&5.

See my earlier post with the outstanding legitimate questions for more detail.

(can't link on the iPhone - sorry).

I'm not a sceptic, I believe in global warming, and I believe all rational people do too.

However I'm a pragmatist. I'm certainly not an alarmist, and given so many alarmist predictions have been proven wrong even in recent years, I'm very skeptical of alarmists.

I also consider that in my balanced and sensible view, that even if I'm wrong, and the end of the world is coming, there is minimal detrimental effect in taking a slower, more cautious response.

And if I'm right in my concerns, then the slower, more cautious response is the prudent course of action.

You're all entitled to your views, but coming in here and trying to blindly tell me that the world is ending and this stupid tax is the only way to fix it - is itself naive.

Especially when the tax itself is dubious about it's ability to have any effect on global temperatures.

It's funny how alarmists always, always attack the man and not the argument. They're always attacking Bolt/Jones/Abbott/Monckton etc. I'm surprised these people haven't been blamed for causing global warming as part of some capitalist conspiracy

Other than attacking Julia's lie - I haven't seen too many opponents of this tax get overly personal (extremists aside).

Oh - and the way to argue science - is to acknowledge that assertions, predictions, modeling etc are not scientific laws, they are predictions. Sometimes they are proven, more often than not they are wrong, then new assertions are made.

No-one disputes the evidence, but there is no clear agreement on many of the conclusions, and certain scientists do themselves no favors by acting like forecast modeling is without a doubt - because it's not.

Hell - they can't even get the weather right 3 days out

 

[drron]

It's science - a dynamic and contastly contested system as opposed to say ... talkback radio.

If only it was constantly contested.I see just as much evidence of closed minds in Climate Change alarmists as deniers.
Now we often see graphs "proving that the earth is warming such as this-

The trend is obviously up and the earth is still warming.But lets start the graph at May 1998-

does that trend line look accurate now?Does it look like "proof that the rate of increase is accelerating as has been posted here by another alarmist?
Of course the answer is I am cherry picking and using the data incorrectly to prove my point.Two problems with that.First it is a period of 13 years and isn't any start point cherry picking.Second if you go to a graph of the Dow Jones index it has striking similarities-start in 1950,60,70 or 80 and the trend line is up.But start in 2007 and a totally different story.So would a stock broker who says the long term uptrend is still in place be right?

The hardest part of arguing climate change skepticism is simply that it is mostly internally incoherent and self contradictory. It is common in one discussion to someone happily jump through a range of positions: eg. 1. The world is cooling 2. the world is not warming 3. the world is warming and we have nothing to do with it or 4. the world is warming, we are doing it, and it is noting to be worried about and 5. The world is warming, it is out fault and we'll adapt. Id be curious to know which of those positions the skeptics here hold because as far as i can tell people are conveniently swtiching between all of them if and when they take their fancy.

Why do people have to fit into any of your arbitrarily defined categories?It's like using the labels ALP or Liberal to define a person's ideas on any issue.So there was a recent debate on the Carbon tax where ex ALP minister Garry Johns argued against it and ex Liberal leader John Hewson argued for it.
Maybe I just look at the figures and think I really dont know.And are there unknown unkowns out there?

However I do believe in testing theories.Hayden Walker is a long range weather forecaster up here in Queensland.He uses sunspot activity to give forecasts up to 5 years in advance.Now this theory has been"discredited"by many alarmists but he forecast the breaking of the QLD drought and the recent floods 9 months in advance.In contrast the IPCC predictions are vague ie more severe weather events so anything can be used as "proof" or not happening ie there will be less episodes of low temperatures.

As in anything we are all different so will have many different ways of looking at things.Accept it as you cant change it.

Sorry I meant to add a link to the temperature data-
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/wti/mean:12/plot/wti/trend

 

[AnonymousCoward]

Re: No Country on Earth Ever Taxed It Self to Prosperity

Maybe because there is consensus not proof.The words cant be interchanged.There are numerous peer reviewed articles on measurements,observations and predictions-these are not proof.

Nothing is ever "proven" in science - that's how the scientific method works, and how we move forward in our understanding of the universe. Contrast that to, say, religions, which start with a set statement of belief and then try to find ways to justify it.

The "theory of gravity", "the theory of the atom", the "theory of relativity", the "theory of evolution" - none are proven. However they are considered to be relatively settled, due to the large number of experiments that have been conducted that produce results that are consistent with the predictions of the theory.

Now, let's take our atmosphere:
a) are CO2 and other greenhouse gase concentrations increasing? The evidence is unequivocally 'yes'. There are thousands of empirical measurements, from numerous data sources that show this
b) are the increases partly caused by man? Again, 'yes'. Some is natural, but the rest is man-made. We can look at the isotopes of carbon now in the atmosphere to work out the source of the carbon. Some other types of greenhouse cases have no natural emission - they are caused by our industrial processes
c) are the gases concentrations causing a change to our atmosphere? Again, the evidence is overwhelmingly 'yes'. We have experiments in labs, and we are seeing consistent results in nature. Nature published a meta-study of several thousand other studies about 2 years ago. From memory it found around 60% indicated a warming of the atmosphere (changing in bird migration patterns etc.), about 30% no change, and 10% inconsistent
d) what are we predicting will happen when CO2 (and equivalent) stabilises? Well, the globe will continue to warm for centuries, and the sea level will not stabilies for nearly a thousand years. This is due to the ongoing feedback mechanisms within the environment. Even if we stopped putting anything in the atmosphere today, the effects will still be felt for generations to come. Stopping change is too late - we need to look at mitigation and adaption. However the longer we wait to mitigate, the more costly adaption will be.

But there is no need to just take my word for it. THere are, literally, thousands of peer-reviewed studies cited in each of the of FAR/AR4 volumes - several hundred per chapter. Understanding and Attributing Climate Change (Chapter 9 - Volume 1) cites over 500 studies alone: Chapter 9: Understanding and Attributing Climate Change - AR4 WGI You can go look these studies up yourself in your Uni library, and also read any conflicting studies if you want.

 

[drron]

Yes I have read the IPCC report and I already have quoted inconsistencies and predictions that haven't transpired.
Another one on this page-
9.5.2 Sea Level - AR4 WGI Chapter 9: Understanding and Attributing Climate Change

Sea levels.It quotes a rise of 1.8 mm a year for 1961-2003 and 3.1mm from 1993-2003.What it doesn't say is the method of measuring that rise changed in 1993 to a satellite based method and that the rise has not as yet been accelerating.There are some and not just the "Deniers" that feel at least some of that increase observed is due to the change in measurement of those levels.

The problem i have is that some "alarmists"overstate their position hence raising doubts.this is discussed in a review of Tim Flannery's latest book in the NY Times-
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/17/b...-on-earth-by-tim-flannery.html?_r=1&ref=books

 

[AnonymousCoward]

Yes I have read the IPCC report and I already have quoted inconsistencies and predictions that haven't transpired.
Another one on this page-
9.5.2 Sea Level - AR4 WGI Chapter 9: Understanding and Attributing Climate Change

Sea levels.It quotes a rise of 1.8 mm a year for 1961-2003 and 3.1mm from 1993-2003.What it doesn't say is the method of measuring that rise changed in 1993 to a satellite based method and that the rise has not as yet been accelerating.There are some and not just the "Deniers" that feel at least some of that increase observed is due to the change in measurement of those levels.

As clearly stated at the top of the page, the point of the table you are citing is to see if *predicted* vs *observed* rates of change are inline. That's part of the scientific method: you need to make falsifiable predicitions to allow your theory to be tested.

From the page: A precondition for attributing changes in sea level rise to anthropogenic forcing is that model-based estimates of historical global mean sea level rise should be consistent with observational estimates

It doesn't have anything to do with the method of collecting the data. Instead predicted changes from 1961-2002 and 1993-2003 (based on the prevailing method of observation at the time) are compared to the predicted change over that time.

The problem i have is that some "alarmists"overstate their position hence raising doubts.this is discussed in a review of Tim Flannery's latest book in the NY Times-
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/17/b...-on-earth-by-tim-flannery.html?_r=1&ref=books

I have a problem with anyone (whether it be alarmists or deniers) who do not use the prevailing science as a basis for their dsicussion. As stated succinctly in XKCD once: Science: it works coughes. The scientific method is what has managed to put man on the moon, split the atom, eliminate polio, given us modern computing and so on. It's, so far, the only effective method we have found to work out what is going on in the universe, and how we can alter that. Based on its record to date, I'd put a lot more trust in that, than randoms on the internet.

 

[drron]

Of course it matters how you measure the sea level rise.The figures i have quoted are the observed levels.if there is an error due to changing the method of measuring then it affects whether your predictions are right or not.That is if the Predicted levels agree with an induced error you really are wrong not right as you think you are.
And these figures have been queried by climate scientists in peer reviewed journals-google it and find it as I did.

 

[Durin's Bane]

It's funny how alarmists always, always attack the man and not the argument. They're always attacking Bolt/Jones/Abbott/Monckton etc. I'm surprised these people haven't been blamed for causing global warming as part of some capitalist conspiracy

Didn't the watermelons also blame the Qld floods on the coal miners?

 

[Smackbum]

Of course it matters how you measure the sea level rise.The figures i have quoted are the observed levels.if there is an error due to changing the method of measuring then it affects whether your predictions are right or not.That is if the Predicted levels agree with an induced error you really are wrong not right as you think you are.
And these figures have been queried by climate scientists in peer reviewed journals-google it and find it as I did.

OK. And in the article you quoted they state that :-

"Overall, it is very likely that the response to anthropogenic forcing contributed to sea level rise during the latter half of the 20th century."

No absolutes - just an assessment of probabilities. And the rate of change looks to be accelerating, but there are so many factors at play (silting, water retained in dams, geological shifts, etc.) that more time is needed to find the best model. The worrying thing is that the oceans are a huge thermal sink that likely lag the atmospheric effects by decades or more, so the current trend is irreversible in the short term.

But maybe we can return to the mechanics of the carbon tax and the likely impact to the economy/environment. I fear that if we turn this into a climate-change rant that we will wake up the flat-earthers and moon-landing conspiricists, and then we are all doomed to death by a thousand references.