Gillards Carbon Tax and effect on Aviation fuel

[Lodown]

De flieger, you've linked to papers and articles that indicate the global temperatures have warmed for roughly 150 years up to 1995 or 1998 (accounts vary a little). Very few people deny this. All through its history, the earth has warmed or cooled. There is comparatively very little in its history when the temperatures have remained constant for any period of time. What is missing is proof that man's CO2 emissions are the sole, or even predominant cause for this comparatively recent rise. The fact that temperatures have not risen since 1998 or so while CO2 concentrations have continued to go up, seems to indicate that CO2 is not the cause of rising temps, particularly as some evidence appears to indicate the reverse might be true; that the rising temps might be the reason for much of the CO2 concentration rise.

There is little argument that man is having some affect on the atmosphere. How much affect is the subject of conjecture. You appear to have taken the side of the argument that temperatures have risen for the last 150 years and so has man's industry, so therefore fossil fuels are to blame. Like the alarmist climate scientists, you have chosen to minimise or discount changes to the sun's output, cosmic rays, ocean and air currents, clouds, water vapour, volcanic activity, etc., and have focussed on the CO2.

So the earth has warmed a little. Roughly 0.8 degrees C. Alarmist climate scientists have blamed that entirely on a connection between CO2 (specifically man's component) and those warming temperatures. That's yet to be proven in it's entirety. It is what it is. It's the next step; a set of assumptions and predictions that many people have an issue with. The alarmists use positive feedbacks from clouds and water vapour and a definitive runaway feedback loop from growing CO2 concentrations to predict snowless winters and a catastrophic increase in temperatures. There is simply no evidence of this at all. In fact, as research accumulates, it appears that the catastrophic predictions are no more than the same predictions that we have had from crackpots ever since the dawn of man that the world will end tomorrow. The predictions are simply not holding true. If the predictions (cloaked in the "science" mantra) are not holding true, then that says the assumptions and information that led to those predictions is wrong or incomplete. This is the crux of the matter. However, the alarmists are not to be put off. They continue to fiddle with their models on the basis that the catastrophic prediction holds true. It's the timeframe, or the wrong evidence, or something else that they've overlooked, that is disrupting their predictions. They refuse to consider that maybe they've over-emphasised the affect of CO2. There are many conjectures on why this might be so.

Meanwhile, the Australian government has decided to ignore cautious advice about throwing all their eggs in one basket and has implemented the carbon tax with at best; a dubious outcome, and at worst, hamstringing many businesses and taxpayers for no benefit whatsoever to the environment. This is simply to appease the Greens, who don't really care if the "science" is there yet; they just want to penalise industry and "polluters" who impact on their deluded perception of how the world should be. If the example of California is one to mimic, then the actions of the Australian government will result in reduced CO2 emissions simply because less people can absorb the increased costs, many businesses will move or go broke and economic activity goes backwards.

Renewable energy (solar, wind, tidal) rely heavily on immense government subsidies and cannot provide base load power. It is unlikely at any time in the next 100 years (if ever) that they will despite some of the more optimistic reports. But the subsidies go on. The oil companies don't care. They know full well that any change of regulations benefit them. World oil consumption is rising, despite the flurries of a renewable energy industry that will never seriously threaten their interests. People are and will still buy oil, and natural gas, and coal, and methane clathrates. Changes to regulations help keep the little players out of the big boys' sandpit.