The Climate Change Thread

My understanding is:

Our contribution to global CO2 increases is very minor compared with other countries such as India, China and the USA. if the deterrent of a tax on carbon works swimmingly in this country it will likely make little difference to the increasing emission of CO2 perpetrated by the other countries.

But a tax to which only Oz industries are subject will impair the ability of this country to compete and the lesser educated and skilled in our community will find it harder to get work because a nation wide aversion to producing carbon will send carbon productive industries, and hence jobs, offshore...to India, China and the USA. So there is unlikely to be an overall reduction in CO2 production on a global basis and yet we will wear the cost of the tax - including the loss of potential to value add to coal and iron ore mining by processing here, for instance.

There is also the fact that the emerging (non low lying island) nations think it unfair that they're CO2 production should be capped since they have not had the chance to develop as we have: this suggests that there will be a race by these countries to pollute so they can catch up while the catching is good.

So we will export jobs and capital without improving the globe's chances of survival.

This will impact most heavily on those least able to afford it: the people who work in industries producing carbon and they, and the less well off, will be affected by rises in the cost of energy consequent on the tax The govts plan is to compensate them but that entirely destroy the only justification (as I understand it) for the tax, namely, the deterrent effect.

Now I generally agree that faced with the present choice it would be better to limit CO2 production whether its the cause or not rather than wait for irrefutable proof by which time it will be too late. But if the proposed measure is not going to reduce CO2 emissions globally the question is a much more immediate one: Do we want to undertake a pointless costly exercise that is going to further widen the gap between the haves and the have nots?

My view is no we do not.

The only arguments to the contrary that i have heard is that we should show leadership: we are a small nation at the arse end of the world and we have nothing like the influence we think we have or even the recognition on the international stage.

It's takes someone like HarveyColon to really put things into perspective, doesn't it?

Bru et al - I'll address the arguments point form.

1. CO2 is one of the lower Greenhouse gasses in regard to its Greenhouse intensity. Methane for example has a much higher effect and Nitrous oxides even higher if memory serves. Any scheme which attacks CO2 emissions but ignores the others is not honestly attempting to reduce our environmental impact. You are quite correct that Sulphur Oxides are a cuase of acid rain, as are Nitrous Oxides and indeed CO2 and CO (Carbon Monoxide), but that is a different debate that most climate change "lay" experts largely ignore. So many focus on the Greenhouse effect but ignore as I have said on many occassions the multiple effects and inputs into the climate system. For instance a higher pH in the oceans may retard the oxygen take up of the Phytoplankton which could lead to a massively increased atmospheric CO2 level. However there is also the chance that a reordering of the types and volumes may well adjust for this change in pH, and then there is the fact that with organisms such as Phytoplankton evolution and adaption to changes in environmental systems ca be extremely rapid. Nobody really knows what will happen there until it does. There is a possibility that the whole system will totally collapse as well...

2. If a government sets up a mssive system committing a huge amount of the countries GDP and perhaps is ability to compete in international markets I would have thought that the prudent and dilligent thing to do would be to ensure that the systems being adopted would be the best to achieve the end being sought. That is the Government wants to reduce our Carbon footprint, but it is investing heavily and tying us to systems that are unlikely to ever pay for themselves (with respect to their carbon inputs). But then by stealth the Goverment doesn't really give a shit about true Carbon output as long as we (Australia) doesn't do it. In effect they are exporting our pollution. Again to use others arguments, if we are taking a leadership position and are showing the moral way (Sully's comments a few posts back about not giving a shit if our neighbour's have a Carbon Tax) then we shouldn't really export pollution in this way under the false guise of sustainable energy.

3. How can you say that the heat tank effect which raises urban tempuratures not be relevant or have material effect to Climate Change? The "consensus" is worried about a mean 5 degree increase in temp. in the global system. Have a look at the local systems in urban areas and you will find there have already been larger increases since the urbanisations of those areas. This leads to increased energy usage through Air Con. Vehicles use more fuel when hot, vehicle use more fuel when crawling in traffic etc etc etc. What about every street light, the water reticulation, sewer etc etc. Away from energy use the increase temperature is thought to generate the violent weather patterns seen over our modern cities that old records do not show. Just look in the Sydney basin which is bitumen and conrete from the sea to the mountains exept in narrow corridors. The atmosphere in Cities with their haze of Nitrous, Suplurous and Carbon Oxides + particulate matter acts to trap the heat under the "smog" layer so that a city is always warmer than the same geographical area before urbanisation. Increase the urban areas (and check google for the first satelite images taken of the globe and compare to the latest - the night shots showing city lights is truly revealing) with their heat tank effects and you will massively increase the global temperature.

4. It isn't lazy Politicians stopping discussion on this point. How would you broach the subject that for sustainability of the global systems there are probably 3 Billion too many people on the planet? Ok, the subject's been opened by some politician, how do you address it? Nothing lazy about it, I know its a problem and I have no idea how I would begin to forulate a response that isn't doomed to failure. However if we are not very careful like any natural system with an overload of a species, just like a monoculture on a farm (ask a farmer how hard they have to work to keep disease out of successive generations) a correction will come which even with our advanced medicine we will not be able to address.


The Carbon Tax is fundamentally flawed. It compromises the economy for suprious savings in C02 polution only. I say spurious because all we will do is export it along with our long term standard of living and our ability to actually reduce our real pollution impacts by making our industries efficient in use of energy and other resources but also genuinely clean. If we said we are imposing an efficiency and pollutant tax on all non efficient and dirty industries (which includes Carbon) and levy all imports with the same taxes + transport pollution as those carbon inputs to bring steel from China or Japan should not be forgotten we would actually make a difference. As things stand industries like Aluminium smelting will largely be lost in Oz yet we mine the Bauxit here. So we will export the ore to china, Malaysia, Japan burning fuel to get it there and bring back the metal burning fuel to get it back. The smelters in those countries use the same amount of energy as those here but they do not have any Carbon Tax. We still use the Aluminium in either finished good imported or metal to make finished goods so have we really reduced our footprint? No we haven't and we have lost the ability to regulate the pollution caused through the production of the metal we need.

One final point, all western societies are total consumer societies. We are throw away. Along with the system I outlined would be a governemnt push to do away with planned/engineered obsolescence. We can no longer afford to buy a cheap item that does the job for 6 months to a year and then throw it away to replace it with the same cheap rubbish. This is a massive waste in energy and resources. Efficiency across the board in the long run would have saved much more "pollution" not just from CO2 but in all forms from all sources we deal with and this Carbon Tax scheme will not do that.

How simplistic, and whilst technically correct it is the sort of half truth propaganda I referred to earlier when I spoke about the sceptics. Yes this is true, but at the genisis of this planet the CO2 level was such that life was not supported (amoungst other factors). Our current period of stability apporx. 10K years for the rise of modern agricultural man, is largely due to the ancient infestation of our seas by Phytoplankton (concurrent with Iron Oxides in the seas due to a low pH and acid rain etc etc etc). The action of these little beasties tied up huge volumes of CO2 whilst increasing the O2 level. Hence we got Oil, gas, coal bitumen and many other quite useful compounds. So while there is the same amount of CARBON as there always has been (apart from some extra-terrestial additions which does amount to some tons per year from memory) our current ecological stability and diversity is based on that Carbon being largely tied up in those resourvoirs along with the Sulphur, Nitrogen and numerous other elements.

I'm sure Harvey will take that on board, Gnostic.

so we'll melt in abject poverty

But fatprop, the idea of taxing carbon is that everybody - producers and consumers - try to minimise their carbon output. For example, increase the price of water and all of a sudden you get dishwashers and clothes washers with "water efficiency" ratings.

That question assumes that there is capacity to decide.
If you're going to melt why would you want to di it other than comfort - assuming you're

great idea - but then why not completely destroy the possibility of that by compensating the people who have to pay more for energy etc.
Which leaves the purpose of the tax as..what?

Hi Gnostic,

Everything you've said in these posts I've considered (if that was your main point anyway). I'll briefly go over my view if you still think there are contradictions in them.

1. There are gases that impact on the greenhouse effect more than co2, but co2 is the most abundant of them. (ignoring water vapor which is controlled by the other GHG's anyway.) And probably the one causing us most grief at the moment. If you want to argue against taxing co2 before any other, you'd need to formulate an argument about why methane pollution deserves our attention first (of which I have never seen).

2. From what I've seen bringing in alternative energy sources (like the ones we are talking about) usually brings down the carbon emissions of a community. If you have good evidence otherwise I'd gladly concede. I agree it's kind of pointless going down that path though, they can never replace our entire energy production sector. I think it's all about reaching their goals of emission cuts.

3. We are branching off from climate science here. My simple understanding is that an urban community is more pollution/energy efficient than a community of the same size living large distances apart. Sure there are bad aspects of urbanization, but when it comes to greenhouse gas emissions I think it has it's benefits. It's all about weighing up pro's/cons.

4. I don't know what to say about this point, I agree it will screw us over eventually. It's just not an argument against acting on our local pollution levels.

5. The carbon tax doesn't do a lot of things. It's the market that decides where emissions are cut, not us. You might think a lot of them are just being shipped off, but surely we'll see some improvements in energy efficiency. I just don't get all this opposition to the carbon tax, people aren't arguing it's going to have a negative effect on emissions, they are arguing it will have a small effect. Which is exactly my view, I can see that and still think it's a good enough starting point. There really just isn't that much disagreement here.

As I said around here before, the politics here doesn't really interest me and the carbon tax's effect will be tiny I don't see why everyone's arguing over it 24/7. So you can have the last word unless there's more science to discuss down the track.

if we tried to stop the sale of inefficient products the Chinese would "deal with us".. and no doubt lodge a complaint with the WTO...so its better that we all suffer so that they (being the Chinese who were, until recently, buying Harry Trigiboff's units) may prosper.and we should suffer longer in our martyrdom

Germany "bet" on various renewables some years ago and now sources around 20% of its total electricity needs from renewables (see Wiki). Although betting may not be the most efficient way of allocating resources, the chosen technology becomes more efficient over time.

I agree that the easiest and fastest savings are in efficiency.

It will come as news to some in this country that there is any other way of allocating resources

If the government want to lower CO2 emissions I don't understand why they don't pass legislation making all new homes built to have solar panels.