1. I don't think anyone is claiming we should only slow co2. But it appears to be the Greenhouse Gas we need to focus on first, if we are to prevent major damage to the eco system in the next few centuries. If we did get our co2 pollution levels back to pre-industrial levels there would still be other pollutants in the air, but it would have nothing like the effect co2 has had on the climate in the last 50 years.
Having never lived there I wouldn't know, but countries like Sweden appear to have been taxing sulfur pollution along with co2 for decades now. Sulfur causes acid rain or something. So this concept of using market mechanisms to get rid of pollution in order to fix important issues isn't new at all. Hence why the government would see it as an easy way to get emissions down, or stop them rising. And it can be applied to all harmful pollutants over time.
2.I'm not familiar with this idea. Are you saying we should do the maths to check if wind turbines cause more net emissions than they save? Agreed it's definitely something for physicists to look at.
3.I'm not sure this has much to do with anyone's views on climate science. I don't see a big problem with rising temps in crowded cities, we can cope with that (it doesn't rise the global temperatures). It's changes to the eco-system which are most worrying. If we see more heat waves they will wipe out crops. Making changes to the ocean might cause problems.
I don't have the data on me, but I'm pretty sure more "urbanized" cities are generally much more energy efficient, polluting less as a result. (which helps out with the major goal of slowing a rise in the greenhouse effect)
4.I wish we addressed as well. Much more effective way of curbing emissions but too much work for lazy politicians.
Even if we did this though, I still think we should be aiming to reduce pollution locally.
The carbon tax isn't ideal, but it's the only legislation we are going to get through anytime soon to address this issue of high co2 pollution (And in the future it can easily be applied to other greenhouse gases. ). I think it's a big stretch to say it "wont address this problem". I don't agree with a lot of the policy in this area as well, but at the moment I'd support it just to see some sort of cap put on the pollution levels.
If people oppose the carbon tax in favor of better policy, I generally agree with them. But it's not that bad of an idea to start off with IMO. My only real disagreement is with the idea we should do absolutely nothing because we are a small country (which is a view put forward by a lot of people in oz)
I only replied because I don't think anyone is really ignoring those issues. I'm not keen on discussing particular carbon taxes all over again though. Everyone else can have the last word on that.
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.