CARBON TAX-It's Started!

[teresa green]

Harry Jenkins was always to good for Labor Siseman. This gentleman is perfectly suited.

[peterc005]

I think Julia is doing a great job and that poaching a disaffected Lib as Speaker so improve the numbers was a smart and practical move to improve government stability.

At least with the ALP they are doing things and moving forward.

We had a wasted decade with Howard where the Libs did nothing. The conservatives are still living in the 1950s, They are dusty, grumpy and short sighted - just like a crazy old uncle.

[peterc005]

I'm not trying to wind anyone up.

Look at the big picture:

• What country had a better political system or politicians (transparency, participation, fairness etc)?
• What country had better economic performance (growth, public debt, employment etc)
• Can you think of another country you'd rather live in?

Instead of bitching and moaning (which doesn't achieve anything except depression) people should just get out there and get on with living, not spending all their time making psychotic and paranoid rants on forums like this.

Got to get to bed now. I've got an early start and a full tank of Avgas.

[Deepsea Racing Prawn]

That should see the Tory-Boys frothing at the mouth.

[Traffic_Is_Er_Was]

No ifs, not buts, the science behind climate change due to man made warming is undeniable

I've got an early start and a full tank of Avgas

Mate, if you want to talk the talk, then at least walk the walk.

Hypocrite.

[teresa green]

Peter, please not at this hour of the morning. All rusted ons and labor trolls should go to the SMH or THE AGE, for your kicks, not this blog.

[Andu]

That should see the Tory-Boys frothing at the mouth.

More than likely, seeing the thread binned by the moderators (as promised) - which is probably what he's aiming for.

[peterc005]

I happen to think the environment is important and want to make sure my kids inherit a healthy globe.

If the Carbon Tax increases the cost of flying by a couple of bucks an hour, then I'm happy to pay it. No qualms or complaints from me. Keep it in perspective, it's not a large amount of money and looking after the environment is important.

Thinking about it, maybe I should start donating the equivalent of a couple of dollars per hour of flying to Greenpeace until the Carbon Tax is implemented.

[teresa green]

Whatever Peter.

[psycho joe]

I'm always intrigued by people who honestly believe that whatever ungodly calamity is about to befall us at any time in the future can be resolved by a government.
In this case A calamity that was unknown until governments dutifully informed the people.
We should consider ourselves lucky that this calamity can be resolved by simply paying more tax. That's a lucky coincidence.

People are willing to believe that the government can change the climate when they can't put ceiling batts in houses and build half a dozen good classrooms.

It should be remembered that most recent natural disasters in this country have been aggravated By a combination of government incompetence and the green movement.

We can't build dams for times of drought because they're bad for the environment, so we'll build desal plants which don't work and are actually worse for the environment, so we'll ration water instead, and then we won't release any excess until the existing dams are about to burst so when it does rain it will flood everything.

And we won't light fires to reduce Forrest fuel because that's bad for the environment too, so we'll wait it naturally combusts so it can kill absolutely everything.
On the other hand we will light fires to reduce the fuel load, but only at a daft time of the year and then we'll knock off for the weekend and hope for the best.

As for "greenpeace"; Before the populist carbon movement, they were little more than a pseudo-terrorist movement that spiked trees in an effort to kill sawmill workers.

[Frank Arouet]

Posters like peterc, red prawn are Labor trolls with their only aim to upset the clever populace into abuse whereby the thread gets closed. Don't get sucked in by answering them directly.

Post to make a point, not answer their insane ravings.

If you ignore them they will go away.

Someone recently said,

want to make sure my kids inherit a healthy globe

. Fair enough, but if mankind is the problem why breed more in the first place. That poster probably needs reporting to Family Services for abuse to children. (and you can't say there was no intent, he knew all the time).

[Deepsea Racing Prawn]

This thread was ticking along quite nicely, with an interesting and informative debate taking place between DutchRoll, Lodown and others.....and then....along comes Frank with...

Well fkuc me peter. There is a post worthy of being catalogued.

I now know the calibre of the idiots who put this Country in it's present state and, of more importance, whom to blame.

You then have the audacity to say...

Posters like peterc, red prawn are Labor trolls with their only aim to upset the clever populace into abuse whereby the thread gets closed.

Just because posters like Peterc005 and Chuboy have views that differ from yours, (the clever populace ), it does not follow that they are 'Labor trolls'.

[Jabawocky]

Just been looking at the last few pages, and I notice that Dutch Roll has posted some lovely big graphs about Arctic sea Ice declining.

Now lets assume these are real untampered graphs (many have been distortion of facts in the past) and lets have a think about it for a minute.

At the same time Antarctic Ice GREW.....and yes as a result of growth it it also broke off surplus into the sea from on land, and the greenies said...more proof about global warming .

Nobody denied that from the 1980's till 2000 there was global warming. This is in fact true. The avearge temperatures did rise. So what the heck did you expect??? Of course some melts were happening IT GOT WARMER....derrr!

Just like it did how many times before???? The North West passage became navigable again. Hang on did I say AGAIN? Surely not. But yes it did, so Jaba are you saying again, as in it was once able to be sailed through hundred + years ago? Long before man made CO2 was even thought of??

So chaps, just because a graph shows the truth, about sea ice decline, and average Global temperatures were higher, does not mean one bit man made CO2 had anything to do with it.

That is like saying you are a man, you have a penis therefore you raped that woman.

Man Made CO2 has so little to do with it the REAL climate scientists can not distinguish the effect from the data captured noise signal. Climate change is predominently SOLAR driven. Get over it.

Now here is another FACT. There are very very few real and proper climate scientists in the world, and you can count on one butchers hand the number in Australia. No Tim Flannery does not make that list.

How many of you, from both sides of the argument have spent any time one on one with any of the suitably qualified to comment scientists? I reckon the answer will be very low. Out of all the folk on this thread, I doubt ther number exceeds 2. The rest are most likely victims of the media and blind faith in what ever they want to believe, be they on either side.

Climate is measured in 30 year chunks, which are looked at like milliseconds. So take all the data, and take all the data going back millions of years, so you are not making opinions based on facts in isolation. Remember facts from the last hundred or five hundred are only facts in isolation. And then make an educated decission on what to believe.

Trouble is I doubt any of you have the resources or the help in doing that. I certainly did not until a few years ago. I was like a student pilot in cloud at the controls of a Jumbo.....lost!

Can I suggest most of you take up a MECIR in climatology

So bottom line is, man made CO2 has nothing to do with it, its solar, and a carbon tax will do nothing but harm.

If the government wanted to have a carbon tax to make us all feel good about something, the it MUST, I repeat MUST be applied to all carbon dioxide emmitting fuels usage on a rate per watt. be it Coal, Petrol Diesel JetA or whatever. It MUST be a flat rate and NOBODY gets a rebate or compensation. NOBODY. This is a "you use it you pay" Carbon tax. Therefore it is consumption based.

Hang on....a Consumption based tax...... Why have all the BS just raise the GST from 10 to 11%, same effect. The carbon tax with all these offsets and handouts and so on is nothing more than a steal from some and give to others. And that is morally wrong.

[flyingfox]

Jabawocky, Lodown, Frank, teresa, traffic, psycho, myself, ....... The posts here keep slipping onto politics as opposed to the scientific debate of what is really happening. Without being too provocative, why not leave references to political parties and politicians out of this thread. It's usually politics that is behind most of the angst driven and intemperate comments posted. Once politics becomes the over riding motivation for commenting, the obvious frustrations of that inane art gets the better of reason. Not that I'm completely against politics and it's practitioners. (Most of my good friends vote for politicians from time to time!) Political parties will always stir the pot in different directions to one another. We have so many issues which require the attention of scientists and so little resources and focus. Issues such as artificial hormones changing the food chain and human genetics; industrial chemicals killing micro organisms; vaccines altering immunity and favouring resistant bacterium; plastics bonding heavy metals into our foods; plants and animals dying or going extinct for lack of habitat; important animals and birds dying en masse from exposure to human medicines in the environment; normal decomposition processes being replaced by toxic anaerobic putrefaction; etc etc etc etc. Indeed a seemingly endless list of issues which don't get the slightest airing in popular media and are waiting to deliver the greatest 'ass bite' humans have ever encountered. Endless bickering over irrelevancies causes the main games to slip by unnoticed. Those not noticing probably includes said politicians who have a mainly 'election time' based functionality. Not noticing the tide of changes we are causing to our tiny planet is the modern day version of fiddling while Rome burns.

[Lodown]

Flyingfox, personally I'm trying to keep somewhat within the topic of the original thread posting.

CARBON TAX-It's Started!
I cannot believe that the government is imposing this on the country, when the whole world economy is so fragile. I lost my job once at Ansett, and don't want to lose my current jet job, because of costs imposed on my airline, by a tax that will do nothing for the climate!!
Domestic fare hikes will slug travellers | The Australian

I suppose the thread creep that occurred was really about our opinions on global warming. I'm thoroughly enjoying the discussion so far. I hope we can continue it, but we need to relate it back to aviation (at least a little bit) otherwise I won't blame the moderators if they choose to lock the thread.

[craigieburn]

Fox, you can't leave politics out of it unfortunately. It seems that views about AGW are so closely aligned to the proponents political bias, that there is no option other than to dismiss it as simply another tool of the left that is being used to try and redistribute wealth.
I am sick to death of the smugness and self righteousness of left leaning tossbags who will not hear a counter view to their own. If someone does dissent, it is because they are variously: uneducated, ill informed, low intelligence or a bogan.
Rather than having constructive debate, they tend to shut it down by making sweeping motherhood statements and then figuratively sticking their fingers in their ears so they can't hear anymore bad things. If someone continues to not toe the party line, they must be silenced. If you want evidence, look at the attempts to get this thread locked, look at the inquiry of the thought police into News Limited.
There is a warning on the PPrune home page about sciolists. I think this thread is where they all lurk!

[Arnold E]

If someone does dissent, it is because they are variously: uneducated, ill informed, low intelligence or a bogan.

Hmmm

Rather than having constructive debate,

Again Hmmmm

[sisemen]

"climate change" is inextricably linked to politics. That's what the whole thing is about. It's an unholy alliance between the loopy left that want to redistribute wealth; the greedy capitalists who can see a killing in trading thin air (called carbon nowadays); and naive scientists who think that by 'bigging it up' they can attract grant money that they have been chasing for decades in order to keep them in a job.

I find it fascinating to see that the IPCC are now saying that there isn't enough evidence to back up claims of extremes of weather; that evidence is now coming forward that the various "experts" have deliberately put massive spin on their "findings" in order to scare everybody into forking out for grants.

The whole thing is a crock.

And anyway the thread title is about the Carbon Tax. That's political. It's also one the many big, big cons used shamelessly by this sorry excuse for an Australian government in their attempts to scam the people of this country. But, the day of reckoning will arrive even though, by underhand tactics, that day is now a little further away.

[Jabawocky]

Well said siseman

now here is a balanced view of things, from one of the very few qualified to comment climatologists.

The Factors and Fundamentals of Climate Science

Air & Waste Management Association
Annual Conference 104, June 21-24
Coronado Springs, USA

PREFACE

Twenty five years ago, in the Dark Ages, climate scientists were doing what scientists used to do – which is to say beavering away in their laboratories, and out in the field, collecting meteorological and climatic data with which to pursue their research. It was an exciting time because high quality data streams providing truly global coverage were starting to become available from new satellite-mounted instruments, and a spanking new international body had been created that was relevant to climate research, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which augured well for increasing both the research funding and the public importance of climatic studies in future.
And how! For looking back at what has elapsed since then, it is truly astonishing to observe the way in which a number of arcane, and rather immature, branches of science have morphed into perhaps the single most potent political issue in the world today. The IPCC has gone on to produce four large Assessment Reports regarding parts only of climate science (those parts concerned with the potential for dangerous increases in global temperature caused by human-related greenhouse gas emissions). And the political stage has become littered with the metaphorical corpses of leaders who have mismanaged the generally poisonous politics global warming, which are dominated by a worldwide push by environmentalists for introduction of carbon dioxide taxation or emissions trading schemes in a claimed attempt to “stop global warming”.
For example, in Australia, from where I write, in the last four years battles over the global warming issue have helped to claim the scalps of two prime ministers (John Howard and Kevin Rudd) and two opposition leaders (Brendan Nelson and Malcolm Turnbull), and resulted in the election of the incumbent opposition leader Tony Abbott. Current Prime Minister Julia Gillard is currently in hot pursuit of legislating a carbon dioxide tax against public opinion that is now so strong (not least because Gillard’s plans are a flagrant breach of an election promise) that the issue bids fair to send her to the same political graveyard as her predecessors.
The scene has, of course, been just as vigorous in the US, with a ruling by the Supreme Court that carbon dioxide is a pollutant (a ruling, it must be said, that represents an abuse of language, logic and science), endless battles in Congress and state legislatures in pursuit of cap and trade legislation and, more latterly, the involvement of the EPA in regulatory activities towards the same end.
In short, the politics of global warming have come to have extraordinary political potency, and now involve every lobby group and interest group in our western societies. Yet sweeping away the baggage, much of which is self-serving activity with financial or political intent, the matter at hand is a SCIENTIFIC issue and in principle a simple one. Put simply, until there is a proven, as opposed to speculative, scientific problem, no political or economic problem exists – and, were that to be the case, then much of the many tens of billions of dollars of expenditure and political busy-bodying that has occurred over the last two decades would simply be costly irrelevancies.
It is commonly said that there are “two sides” to the issue of dangerous global warming, which is often caricatured by the press as a battle between the IPCC “alarmists” and the scientifically independent “deniers. This is to grossly over-simplify a complex debate. For given that there are upwards of 100 subdisciplines of science, sociology and economics involved, there are almost as many sides to the issue in detail as there are professional persons competent to comment.
The nub of the issue is this, and in the late 1980s this was a good question to ask: “Are human carbon dioxide emissions causing dangerous global warming?”
Currently that question is answered in flatly contradictory ways by two main groups of scientists. Those who advise the IPCC, whose ranks are dominated by some meteorologists, geographers and computer modellers, say “Yes, and we need to do something about it by reducing carbon dioxide emissions”. In the other camp are thousands of independent scientists, many of whom work in empirical disciplines like astrophysics, geochemistry and geology, who say “Good question, but no empirical evidence exists that the late 20th century warming was either dangerous or was materially caused by human carbon dioxide emissions. So rather than wasting money on unnecessary (and, as it happens, ineffectual) mitigation measures, we should instead concentrate on managing better the all too real risks of natural climate-related events and change, i.e., the natural hazards of storms, floods, droughts and bushfires”.
Who is right, and how should policy makers proceed when faced with such an impasse?
Many will answer that they should “apply the precautionary principle” (or put another, sloganistic way, “give Earth the benefit of the doubt”). But the precautionary principle is a “principle” of sociology and politics, not of science, and its application in policy making has been adjudicated a failure by no less a body than the U.K. House of Commons Select Committee on Science and Technology – which recommended in 2006 that:
“We can confirm our initial view that the term ‘precautionary principle’ should not be used, and recommend that it cease to be included in policy guidance… In our view, the terms ‘precautionary principle’ and ‘precautionary approach’ in isolation from any such clarification have been the subject of such confusion and different interpretations as to be devalued and of little practical help, particularly in public debate.”
Nonetheless, it is anyway the case that the precautionary principle is impotent when faced with the embarrassing fact that - the much vaunted GCM models notwithstanding - statistical-empirical models and a continuing solar quietude support the likelihood that over the next few decades the climate will cool rather than warm. Are we, pray, to take precautions against cooling or warming?
Confronted with this situation, the average member of the public says, simplistically in view of the depth of the politics now involved, “Well, why can’t we just get a bunch of talented scientists who represent both main sides of the issue into a conference hall for them to discuss and resolve the matter”. Many have striven mightily towards such an end, in many different countries, and nearly all have failed. The reason is that, with extraordinary arrogance, leading IPCC scientists, arguing that “the science is settled”, simply refuse to engage in public debate with other qualified scientists, whom they often badge and dismiss as “climate deniers”.
Which brings us to the A&WMA Panel on The Factors and Fundamentals of Climate Science. Persons attending this Panel will be offered a full briefing on many major aspects of the currently intense debate amongst scientists regarding global warming and climate change. Not that there is any dispute about whether carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, increases in which will ab initio cause some warming - for that is a given. Rather, the essence of the controversy lies in three things.
· First, what EMPIRICAL evidence exists that the warming of the late 20th century was dangerous, i.e., lay outside previous natural limits of climate change;
· Second, HOW MUCH future warming will be caused by likely human-caused levels of increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide (the climate feedback and sensitivity issues); and
· Third, to what degree have the IPCC’s complex GCM computer models been validated, and should their PROJECTIONS be taken seriously for use in framing policy advice.
The Panel convenors have assembled for you a distinguished group of scientists who are leaders in their fields. All have public reputations for both the high quality of their research, and for the balanced way that they give equal consideration to all the information bearing on the most important scientific question in our society today. That question is: Are human carbon dioxide emissions causing, or likely to cause, dangerous global warming?
It has been my great pleasure to write in introduction for this outstanding public session about the science of global warming and climate change. Please listen, learn and enjoy.

Professor Bob Carter
Emeritus Fellow, Institute of Public Affairs, Melbourne
Chief Advisor, International Climate Science Coalition, Ottawa
Academic Advisory Panel, Global Warming Policy Foundation, London

[teresa green]

Well gentlemen, I posted on this blog previously about our little shack on the far north coast of NSW built right on the water 60 years ago. I reported the xmas tides that actually went thru the shack and have done so as long as I can remember. Sadly I have to report that the last two xmas tides have been very disappointing. We were told to expect 2mm, so dutifully packed all the furniture fairly high, sadly all we got was 1.7 mm which was only a spit not a flood, ( I rely on this flood to kill the bindies in the grass, and saves the xmas guests hopping on one foot, you all know what I mean) I am beginning to fear that global warming has passed us by, but am hoping the tax will restore all.