What is this thing called carbon tax?

[vmx42]

Are they serious? 

Of course not.  This was (and remains) only about wealth redistribution to help Labor in the polls (a forlorn hope) and keep the Greens quiet.

Ajay,
Your ever more aggressive rants seem to only be based on your loathing of Labor and the Greens, but please don't forget that your beloved Libs also have a Climate Policy that is based on the spending of countless billions [which Tony will magically generate with no pain to any member of the community] to attempt to achieve the same result.

And the Libs policy is based on picking the winners', something that no government of any persuasion has ever successfully achieved.

So in this instance the REAL difference between Labor/Greens and Lib/Nats is merely shades of grey, not black and white as you desparately wish to portray.

And I doubt that you will attach any links to any of the recent news articles that show that the economic premise of the Libs policy to be pure Hockeynomics.

Government is as much about each side having time in office to stuff things in their own magical way [and move policy back towards the centre]. Currently we have to endure the wonderful Labor style of mismanagement and we will no doubt have the joy of the Libs unique offerings in the future. Let's just hope for all our sakes that the Mad Monk and his bumbling Finance Minister have moved on before they gain office.
Keeno

[Mike52]

Oh and they have carbon tax in the EU don't they?

But not in Germany Moto.

[Graeme M]

Hmmm... disagreement in the palatial downtown VMX office? Hope that isn't keeping you all from the errr far more serious business of producing VMX magazine. After all, I have finished the last issue and need my fix.

Here ya go Jeff:

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/commentary/bizarre-impost-will-damage-economy/story-e6frgd0x-1226094147407

[Mike52]

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/commentary/bizarre-impost-will-damage-economy/story-e6frgd0x-1226094147407

Quote from the above article.

"Yesterday the government also announced that it will be illegal for businesses to claim the carbon tax is causing them to put up prices."

This don,t look good.

[Tex]

Did anyone see Julia Gillard meeting the people of Brisbane on the ABC news last night? Specifically I'm referring to the part where a woman was berating her for "lying" to the Australian public? ("You said there'd be no carbon tax" etc)

There's a guy next to the PM, one of those professional nodder types, whom I can only assume is an ALP staffer. What I found interesting was a comment that he makes to the angry woman to mollify her:

"Who'd have thought we'd have a hung parliament?"

Is this an inadvertant admission that the ALP is doing this not because they believe in it, but because their hand has been forced?

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-07-13/woman-confronts-julia-gillard-over-carbon-tax/2793462

Tex

[mx250]

Are they serious? 

Of course not.  This was (and remains) only about wealth redistribution to help Labor in the polls (a forlorn hope) and keep the Greens quiet.

Ajay,
Your ever more aggressive rants seem to only be based on your loathing of Labor and the Greens, but please don't forget that your beloved Libs also have a Climate Policy that is based on the spending of countless billions [which Tony will magically generate with no pain to any member of the community] to attempt to achieve the same result.

And the Libs policy is based on picking the winners', something that no government of any persuasion has ever successfully achieved.

So in this instance the REAL difference between Labor/Greens and Lib/Nats is merely shades of grey, not black and white as you desparately wish to portray.

And I doubt that you will attach any links to any of the recent news articles that show that the economic premise of the Libs policy to be pure Hockeynomics.

Government is as much about each side having time in office to stuff things in their own magical way [and move policy back towards the centre]. Currently we have to endure the wonderful Labor style of mismanagement and we will no doubt have the joy of the Libs unique offerings in the future. Let's just hope for all our sakes that the Mad Monk and his bumbling Finance Minister have moved on before they gain office.
Keeno

You've effectively argued for 'do nothing until we have a definite achievable plan" - which is what I've argued (see immediately above yours and other posts). A pox on both houses .

[vmx42]

Hmmm... disagreement in the palatial downtown VMX office? Hope that isn't keeping you all from the errr far more serious business of producing VMX magazine. After all, I have finished the last issue and need my fix.

No, healthy exchanges are only good for productivity…

…and I was only trying to point out that both parties are as bad as each other on this topic, not chalk and cheese as is constantly being claimed.

[vmx42]

You've effectively argued for 'do nothing until we have a definite achievable plan" - which is what I've argued (see immediately above yours and other posts). A pox on both houses .

Well Graeme,
I suppose you are right.

I have really tried not to get too caught up in this whole saga, and as my initial response to Rosco indicated that I am really not sure what to do in regard to action on Climate Change. Hence my decision to follow a more simplified, moral based path - while trying to ignore the histrionics of the day-to-day news items.

But I think the whole thing is wearing me down and maybe you are right that I am just getting pissed off with both houses and should follow your lead and advocate for a more delayed action approach. Both Labor and Libs are doing the nation a great disservice at this time and I think history is going to judge both camps very harshly.

Interesting times ahead…

Yours in confusion, 
VMX42

[mx250]

But I think the whole thing is wearing me down ........

I think they count on that. Some of us have to go to work and live a life.


 

Both Labor and Libs are doing the nation a great disservice at this time and I think history is going to judge both camps very harshly.

And it not just with Global Warming and the Carbon Tax - the Boat People is another example of political points scoring and not addressing the issue . And health, and education, and the Broadband Network and and and and etc etc etc.

[bishboy]

I've resisted the urge to throw by two bob into this debate, mainly as I don't have anything very constructive to add    I'm probably more of a sceptic than a believer, but I do agree that man must have an impact with all the crap we're pumping into the atmosphere and we should do something to reduce this, but it is the what to do that is causing all the finger pointing, name calling and general lies and half truths (from both sides).  Typical knee jerk politics from all sides (as per that socialist wonker Ludwig's response to the export cattle debacle), with none of them proposing anything that has the best interests of future of nation in mind, just petty vote grabbing cash handouts to majority of people who don't care and only want to know how much money they're going to get from it.  Maybe I'm a bit disillusioned by the whole mess, but I'm one of the poor bastards in that has to pay more under the new tax (according to the govts ready reckoner) and I'm hardly wealthy. 

A bit off topic, but they seriously need to look at some senate reform.  Why does each state still get 12 senators, which in reality means that Tasmania gets a senator for every 42,500 people while Qld gets one for every 375,000 people  .   Why should it continue that such a small minority of people in Tasmania get to say who runs the senate in this country.

Someone sent me this, don't know how true it is, but makes interesting reading and the quote is spot on or as my father would say "be a conservationist, plough in a greenie"

From the Washington Post November 2 1922
The Arctic Ocean is warming up, icebergs are growing scarcer and in some places the seals are finding the water too hot, according to a report to  the Commerce Department yesterday from Consulafft, at Bergen , Norway .
Reports from fishermen, seal hunters, and explorers all point to a radical change in climate conditions and hitherto unheard-of temperatures in the Arctic zone. Exploration expeditions report that scarcely any ice has been met as far north as 81 degrees 29 minutes.
Soundings to a depth of 3,100 meters showed the gulf stream still very  warm. Great masses of ice have been replaced by moraines of earth and stones, the report continued, while at many points well known glaciers have entirely disappeared.
Very few seals and no white fish are found in the eastern Arctic, while  vast shoals of herring and smelts which have never before ventured so far  north, are being encountered in the old seal fishing grounds. Within a few years  it is predicted that due to the ice melt the sea will rise and make most coastal cities uninhabitable.

Quote of the debate.
"The only true wilderness is between the ears of a Green."

[AjayVMX]

To be totally honest, I think the Coalition's direct action policy is unnecessary as well, for the same reasons that the Carbon Tax is.  

With China and India forecast to dramatically increase their CO2 emissions in this decade, with no sign whatsoever of the world agreeing on actual reductions, there is just NO reason at all to financially disadvantage ourselves in an increasingly difficult world economic outlook.

I think, politically, the coalition only have direct action as a part of their policy because it can be used to diffuse the more difficult arguement of belief or otherwise of human activity causing climate change.  Sure that's a fairly poor reason to spend billions for no sensible reason, as have all the rediculously expensive "renewable energy" incentives that have been implemented by both sides of politics over the last 10 years.

Lets' face it - wind generation is stupidly expensive, provide very little energy, has significant environmental concerns and it is even deabtable how much CO2 it removes from being emitted to the atmosphere, when you take into account the emissions generated in a "cradle to grave" analysis.

The same with domestic solar panels - how much CO2 is being pumped into the air in China just so we, in Australia, can have a green inner glow at a rediculously high cost per kWhr?  A lot.

Finally, the real paradox of the Carbon Tax plan released by the Labor/Greens/Independants coalition is that it also includes direct action spending as well as the carbon tax.  Now that really IS silly.

[Slakewell]

I know one thing I think we can all agree on


I over the Mad Monk and his negative politics. Gillard can not be trusted.

[mx250]

From the Washington Post November 2 1922
The Arctic Ocean is warming up, icebergs are growing scarcer and in some places the seals are finding the water too hot, according to a report to  the Commerce Department yesterday from Consulafft, at Bergen , Norway .
Reports from fishermen, seal hunters, and explorers all point to a radical change in climate conditions and hitherto unheard-of temperatures in the Arctic zone. Exploration expeditions report that scarcely any ice has been met as far north as 81 degrees 29 minutes.
Soundings to a depth of 3,100 meters showed the gulf stream still very  warm. Great masses of ice have been replaced by moraines of earth and stones, the report continued, while at many points well known glaciers have entirely disappeared.
Very few seals and no white fish are found in the eastern Arctic, while  vast shoals of herring and smelts which have never before ventured so far  north, are being encountered in the old seal fishing grounds. Within a few years  it is predicted that due to the ice melt the sea will rise and make most coastal cities uninhabitable.

Quote of the debate.
"The only true wilderness is between the ears of a Green."

If its a fraud someone went to a lot of trouble (not beyond the realms of possibilities such is the passion either side of this Global Warming debate )

http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2008/03/changing-artic_monthly_wx_review.png

[Mike52]

How many readers remember their science classes at school?
Did you know that if SEA ICE melts then the sea level goes DOWN.

Get a glass of water , chuck some ice cubes in it, mark the level on the glass and check it when the ice has melted.
The more ice the better the effect.

The experts forgot to mention this effect or didn,t learn it.

[Nathan S]

*face palm*
Water expands marginally (4%?) when it freezes, that much is true.
Now, how much ice is above the sea level? More than 4% of it?