Thread: Climate change? what climate change?

Carbon tax or no carbon tax aside, what I couldn't understand is that Government modeling on the tax showed that the imposition of the tax or a trading scheme would only reduce the rate of increase in CO2 it wouldn't actually reduce the total.

The major proportion of the reductions were to come from Australia using the income generated by the tax to purchase offsets from other countries. Some of these offsets were to be purchased from EU credits on coal fired power stations in India. The credits issued not because the power station converted CO2 to something green and environmentally friendly, but because it was more efficient than the coal fired power station it replaced, but still emmiting CO2.

How does that help the planet?

Did you read the article Lotz A Landies? It doesn't sound from your comments that you did.

Originally Posted by ramblingboy42

Did you read the article Lotz A Landies? It doesn't sound from your comments that you did.

Actually did you read the links? Specifically, China's "carbon scam oops scheme"?

Again we are CUTTING CO2 output at the cost of industry by purchasing Indian coal fired credits, yet China's " scheme" is to reduce energy intensity, but still increase emissions. Instead of growing their coal mining industry by 230 Mtpa, they are going to limit it to 130Mtpa increase, this is on top of the over 4 billion tons they already mine and burn

There was an article the other day (maybe in AFR?) making the claim that it may not have been the actual carbon tax that has resulted in the drop in emissions, but Abbott's scare campaign about how awful it would be. The argument goes that people were so worried about the carbon tax, people have started using less electricity (or using it more efficiently). Certainly the actual impact of the carbon tax would have been small enough not to worry most people.

Seems as good an explanation as any.

Well, Antarctica is in trouble.
Warm water likely to accelerate Antarctic ice melt and sea level rises, Australian scientists find - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
Think I'll move a little further inland.

As demonstrated in the fantastical geoengineering projects dreamed up to address climate change, the human race's belief that the world revolves around it knows no bounds. What if whales were nature's ultimate geoengineers? The new report only underlines what has been suspected for some time: that cetaceans, both living and dead, are ecosystems in their own right. But it also raises a hitherto unexplored prospect, that climate change may have been accelerated by the terrible whale culls of the 20th century, which removed hundreds of thousands of these ultimate facilitators of CO2 absorption. As Greg Gatenby, the acclaimed Canadian writer on whales told me in response to the Vermont report, "about 300,000 blue whales were taken in the 20th century. If you average each whale at 100 tons, that makes for the removal from the ocean of approximately 30m tons of biomass. And that's just for one species".

Why whale poo could be the secret to reversing the effects of climate change | Philip Hoare | Comment is free | theguardian.com

Originally Posted by bee utey

Why whale poo could be the secret to reversing the effects of climate change | Philip Hoare | Comment is free | theguardian.com

Yes - in short - there are several scientists who believe iron particles (and other nutrients) in whale poo drive phytoplankton growth which in turn sequesters carbon in the ocean.

Tests to prove this hypothesis by seeding iron into the southern ocean at the right time have proven inconclusive last I looked, though this is possibly due to issues with the test design.

Well, I like to know these things, Bob


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