Thread: Carbon Tax. Well someone had to bring it up!

Reading these posts brings three people to mind:

We should all go back to subsistance agriculture - Pol Pot was right.

Then there's Samuel Clemens (aka Mark Twain) - "Statistics and damn lies".

But I think the most relevant is Fraser from Dads Army - "We're all doomed......doomed".

Originally Posted by Chucaro

Wrong, if we have morre density in the cities then people do not need to travel long distance to go to work, roads with in the city will be shorter, electricity lines and other services will be more compact, etc, etc.
There was a large area of productive land suitable for small crops near the cities which the towplanners alocated for residencial purposes.
I can go on and on.

Not so wrong, it all depends upon where they work. If we have no industries and have an agricultural and mining based economy, then the distance to port is the important factor. Our minerals are not all located on the coast so they have to be transported to the port for export, similarly wheat, it does not grow well on the coastal strip so must be transported from the Western Slopes or the WA wheat belt to the relevant port. If we lose our manufacturing industries which is seems to be the future we will be reliant upon agriculture and mining to earn our export income and we are burdening it with an artificial cost increase that are not present in our competitors of Canada, the USA and Brazil.

When we talk about power generation, the location of that will be dependant upon the availability of the appropriate resources. Geothermal power is unlikely to be generated in a coal regon, tidal power will be most efficient if generated in lower latitudes like Broome and we are surely not going to move all the people in Perth to Broome just to save the cost of power distribution. Solar power stations require sunlight, so Tasmania and probably Melbourne that have high probabilities of clouds and overcast, would be innefficient places to place solar stations.

Originally Posted by Tombie

BP and Shell only cater to a market, like all other businesses...

No market demand, no business...


I know you get very passionate about it all, but you moved here for this lifestyle

Yes, I come here for lifestyle, mainly peace, an above that they pay me to come to do a job in demand (Not charity with me )
I do not complain about the carbon tax because I have adjusted my lifestyle in such way that it do not affect me much.
My lifestyle now is as it will be in my native country or others with similar quality of life, I built a eco friendly home, grow my own vegies, use les than $800 electricity a year, drive 5000 km a year, recycle the much of i can and also we plan our life in a efficient manner.
We eat and live well.
I lack up my words with action
If I have to do a sacrifice for the future of next generations I do it with pleasure and if i have to do something which will cost a bit to the environment I am happy to pay for it.

Originally Posted by Chucaro

Unfortunately that is true and we have to pay for that.
I believe that the user have to pay and those who choose to not consume in excess not.
I cannot understand why people that care for the environment are called ferrals, in many cases are more educated than the "civilized people".
For me is an egoist attitude not what to see the cost and implications of our actions just because we do not like to sacrifice some luxuries

Think something got lost in translation mate

Ferrals... Low, Bottom feeders of modern society...

Thieves, Muggers, Rapists etc...

Not "Native" populations...

As for "people who care for the environment" - unfortunately a lot of those who would be termed 'activists' are nothing but criminals and therefore begin to meet my original definition above.

Just a thought....

Will the sacrifices of this generation be forgotten by the next?

I look at all the young people from my sons and all their friends and they are all taught to care for the environment etc... I've seen their course info and their projects... All about recycling, climate change etc...

And yet they are all the "gimme gimme gimme" "more more more" Narcissistic "I'm self important" - I Want more of everything, the newest of everything.... Generation...

I've seen more mobile phones, and I mean new ones, owned by these young people than I've had warm dinners... They just keep consuming... And no gentle care to make things last. Just "I'll get a new one" mentallity.

If this measure of about 50 young people is anything to go buy...

Originally Posted by isuzurover

I love it - it's all too hard for poor little Australia, so let's change the rules...

Notably, if we did that, Mongolia has a much lower population density than Australia, and a similar economy (agriculture and mining) yet only 1/5 the emissions per capita. Sure they don't have the same level of wealth...

There are several other nations that have similar or lower emissions per capita and similar or lower population densities - we wouldn't look as good as you think.
<snip>

Ben

I am merely pointing out that the analysis of GHG/capita adds a bias against countries with widely dispersed populations and yet there doesn't seem to be a calculation for the GHG's associated with the export of a country's (including Australia's) comodities or products. If that were the case Singapore would be in a very poor situation.

However what I am suggesting is that this is one global atmosphere and no one country should have the right to pollute our shared atmosphere just because it's population chose to outbreed the others. It could be compared to two families living in a valley who decided to share the building of a dam. One side of the valley chooses to preserve its water resources, uses drip irrigation to water the crops and limits the size of the family to what it can sustain through the stresses of drought. The other side of the valley, uses constant sprinkler irrigation and builds a water park for the entertainment of its ever increasing fun loving population.

In times of drought, the water park side of the valley suggests that they require a greater proportion of the remaining water in the dam to sustain its thirsty population and continue to sprinkler it's crops and demands intravalley food aid to feed its starving population. Is this just and fair?

Now consider the GHG emissions to the sky/atmosphere in the same way as the valley waters!

I'm no political commentator, but IMO we've all missed the mark, just as they wanted us to.

Is the carbon tax really about helping the environment?

Surely if the government were serious about helping the environment they would do something tangible and effective as a start, off their own bat! Instead they run off after mystical costly solutions because, as Ms Gillard said; "most Australians believe climate change is real,...it's caused by carbon pollution".

Instead of taxing people, why don't they do something themselves about this "believed" problem?

Perhaps instead of making a new tax, give some incentive to do something about the problem, maybe something similar to the Research and development tax concession?

It will be just like our local government; when you develop residential land, you have to landscape the footpath (e.g. trees), if you don't want to do it, you have to pay council a fee to plant the trees themselves. Do the trees ever get planted by council? um....No.


It all just looks like a con job to me; convince people they've got a problem, then tell them that if you give someone money, it will all go away...

Originally Posted by funkyfedaykin

It all just looks like a con job to me; convince people they've got a problem, then tell them that if you give someone money, it will all go away...

I don't know, we could always do a Tony and try to scare everybody with as much negativity and lies that no one knows the truth any more. (more lies out of Tony than Julia by the way)

But I feel that instead of compensating people for the possibility of big companies passing the costs on (by compensating "9 out of 10" families, I think this actually gives the big companies an open book to pass on whatever costs they want) why don't they put that money into the R&D sector, develop viable alternatives (they ARE there) and eventually competition will tell the big companies that if they pass on too many costs, they will lose customers.

There is a lot of hollow comments and scare mongering coming out of the big companies (and the opposition party)... "we will export our jobs overseas!" and "The world will end!" Well it didn't end when they started with GST and it didn't end when compulsory super came in, and guess what? IT WON'T END NOW!

The problem with all of the scare mongering is, it blinds us all of the facts and impairs a well informed decision. Now do we believe a liar like Julia or the worlds most negative person Tony?

Yes Stevo, I voted for Julia because I cannot stand the utter negativity and even more lies and bully tactics that comes out of Tony