Gillards Carbon Tax and effect on Aviation fuel

[djpil]

Was just reading that if we all gained weight the increased earth mass would increase the radius of the orbit around the sun leading to some cooling. Some scientist has calculated that a 5% increase in average BMI will cool the planet by 1.14 degrees.
I've also been told that if I change to a diesel engine I will add more sulphur dioxide to the atmospher which further adds to the cooling.
I'm doing my bit.
(incidentally - people keep comparing the Australian CO2 emissions with other countries per head of population - it should actually be done per unit of land area - we have much more air in Australia per head of population so our emissions have less effect because there is much more air per person)

[jas24zzk]

Nice DJ,
I spoke with the ACCC about increasing my prices to cover the direct and indirect impact of the Carbon tax. I was told I needed 3 solid reasons. I came up with 3, but have yet to recieve a response.

1. C02 pricing
2. Inflation
3. My empty pockets.

[Jabawocky]

And the new study on Diesel and cancer recently released. Have not read it, but I am sure someone will go take a look for it. Sound like TEL arguments from the 70-80's?

[Flying Binghi]

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via Towering Q #253;
I think it’s a good thing for groups like the Global Warming Policy Foundation to examine the IPCC in detail. After all, policy decisions based on reports from the IPCC will have enormous ramifications on society. I don’t think anyone would dispute this.

However, they too should not be immune to scrutiny.....

Towering Q, how goes yer "scrutiny" of the GWPF report..

http://thegwpf.org/images/stories/gw...cc_reforms.pdf








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[Flying Binghi]

Carbon dioxide - The stuff of life...

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The lie of a no 'carbon' tax while she is prime minister.

The lie that 'carbon' is polution...

Ecologist Dr. Moore coments on a new report -

“...These people are either completely naive about the relationship between CO2 and plants or they are making this up as a way of deflecting attention from the lack of warming for the past 15 years.”
...“Plants grow much faster when CO2 is higher, the optimum concentration is between 1500-2000 ppm so there is a long way to go before plants are happy. ... “We should challenge them to admit that CO2 is the most important nutrient for all life on earth and to admit that it is proven in lab and field experiments that plants would grow much faster if CO2 levels were 4-5 times higher in the atmosphere than they are today...
...At 150 ppm CO2 all plants would die, resulting in virtual end of life on earth.
“Thank goodness we came along and reversed the 150 million-year trend of reduced CO2 levels in the global atmosphere. Long live the humans,..."


NZ Scientists “stunned”, “shocked” by mere 1% rise in CO2 absorption. What spin! « JoNova: Science, carbon, climate and tax







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[peterc005]

I like Julia Gillard. I think she is a fine person and doing a good job.

[peterc005]

Getting back to the topic of the Carbon Tax, I have been reading recently about Californian Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (a conservative Republican) in 2006 and 2007 passed laws mandating that large businesses reduce their carbon emissions back to pre-year 2000 levels.

Schwarzenegger made carbon reduction a law, but I think using a Carbon Tax instead is a more flexible and less oppressive way to reduce carbon emissions.

Schwarzenegger

Low-carbon fuel standard - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Even conservative US Republicans accept global warming is a fact and that carbon emissions must be reduced.

The only people who don't believe in global warming are far right-wing and conspiracy-theory nutters and the usual band of dim witted people who believe what they hear on AM talk back radio.

[Traffic_Is_Er_Was]

"I like Julia Gillard"

Now I am certain you are taking the p$ss.

[Towering Q]

Binghi, I'm still working through the GPWF report, it's a great remedy to insomnia.
Feel free to highlight the sections you feel are most relevant.

Re: Patrick Moore.

Greenpeace Statement On Patrick Moore | Greenpeace

By exploiting his former ties to Greenpeace, Moore portrays himself as a prodigal son who has seen the error of his ways. Unfortunately, the media - especially conservative media - give him a platform for his views, and often do so without mentioning the fact that he is a paid spokesperson for polluting companies.

And regarding his comments about CO2 and plant growth...

Climate myths: Higher CO2 levels will boost plant growth and food production - environment - 16 May 2007 - New Scientist

However, while experiments on natural ecosystems have also found initial elevations in the rate of plant growth, these have tended to level off within a few years. In most cases this has been found to be the result of some other limiting factor, such as the availability of nitrogen or water.

[Captain Nomad]

In addition, volcanoes generally cause global cooling through the emissions of cloud-forming sulfur dioxide and water-cycle feedback.

Once again this is probably an over-simplification.

"Climate modeling following the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines in 1991 (using both aerosol and non-aerosol starting inputs) produced a general cooling of the troposphere (the band of the atmosphere where most clouds circulate), but also, the models yielded a pattern of winter warming of surface air temperature over the Northern Hemisphere. Dual effects such as these complicate longer-term climate impact predictions.

To what extent this tropospheric cooling is mitigated or “canceled out” by other sources of warming, such as from solar activity, build-ups of CO2 and other greenhouse gases, and long-term variation in Milankovitch cycling (currently only one cycle, precession, favors glaciation), depends on the timing and duration of all these factors, and makes for the highly complex science that is climatology."

Planetsave (Volcanoes: The ‘X Factor’ in Climate Change | Planetsave)

The same website also says, "Numerous volcanoes presently active and erupting across the planet will impact short-term warming and climate change. Longer-term impacts are unknown."

In other words, the jury is still very much out on how much natural forces are also impacting the observable climate changes. Some changes attributed to man-made emissions might very well be (at least partially) due to other natural inputs also.

I do not deny that man made pollution has been a problem since the industrial revolution and we should be making efforts to reduce it. But how about making the changes where they are needed?

The jury is still out on whether CO2 is actually a 'problem.' Yes, there might be a considerable number of people and even some governments who tow that line and once upon a time there were a considerable number of people (scientists included) who believed the earth was flat and that the sun revolved around the earth also. I say, even still, even if CO2 is a problem, Australia's net contribution of 576 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent is only 1.5 percent of world emissions! In any computation of cost vs return, one seriously has to ask whether there will be any measurable return on the enormous cost that the carbon tax imposes on Australians. Not only that, but the deck is stacked so that the biggest players (industry) get compensated to keep on doing what they have always done while the smaller fish in the pond have to caugh up.

There are those like peterc005 who will happily pay his tax and exhibit no change in his emissions behaviour (essentially nullifying the point of having a tax to alter people's emissions behaviour), while others will get compensated to make them feel that they are not out of pocket for the tax either (at least for this year, and also essentially nullifying the point of having a tax to alter people's emissions behaviour). So with everyone maintaining their behaviour while the tax man goes around with his hand out makes no sense at all to me. I'm sure the net effect on our 1.5% contribution to global man-made CO2 will be even less, and the net effect on a global scale will not even register. Meanwhile, back on planet weird, everything now costs more for no good reason because no one is capable of stopping the ALP/Greens policy freight train.

[Rusty1970]

There are those like peterc005 who will happily pay his tax and exhibit no change in his emissions behaviour (essentially nullifying the point of having a tax to alter people's emissions behaviour), while others will get compensated to make them feel that they are not out of pocket for the tax either (at least for this year, and also essentially nullifying the point of having a tax to alter people's emissions behaviour). So with everyone maintaining their behaviour while the tax man goes around with his hand out makes no sense at all to me. I'm sure the net effect on our 1.5% contribution to global man-made CO2 will be even less, and the net effect on a global scale will not even register. Meanwhile, back on planet weird, everything now costs more for no good reason because no one is capable of stopping the ALP/Greens policy freight train.

I think this assumes that the principal behavior the tax is designed to change is all at the consumer level. I am not sure that's 100% correct. While there is certainly a consumer level behavior change (people worried about, say,. power bills) it's actually most effective higher up the production chain. That's why the flow-on effects are compensated at the consumer level for the majority of consumers.

The idea is that industry, in an effort to reduce costs, will take steps to lower emissions. Not necessarily today, but at a point. So if they are investing in a new machine to make their widgets, and there is a more environmentally friendly (but possibly more expensive in terms of purchase price) option, there is now a longer term incentive to buy the environmentally friendly option.

Your last point, that "now everything costs more". I've seen no evidence of this. In fact, I've seen no evidence of anything going up with the exception of power. Power accounts for from memory about 2.1% of household expenditure (Beer: 2.2%. Smokes 2.3%. Takeaway Food 5.4%), so any increase a small base of 2.1% and mostly compensated.

I know power is going up by more than that, but it isn't the Carbon Tax. It's mostly years of underinvestment by State Governments catching up with them, but that's another story.

In terms of aviation, there will be very little effect as far as I can tell. A small fuel increase but far less than normal fluctuations in price.

Love it or hate it, think it's useless and pointless or a great idea, but we should have an honest debate. Not just say we'll all be rooned. We were all gong to be paupers with the floating of the dollar, with the GST, and with just about everything else. And we seem to be doing OK.

[Flying Binghi]

Every little bit...

via Rusty1970;
...I've seen no evidence of anything going up with the exception of power...

Give it time..

Vegetable growers fearing the pinch of the Carbon Tax

Vegetable growers fearing the pinch of the Carbon Tax


h/t - Cookies must be enabled. | The Australian






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[peterc005]

Some good points Rusty.

The reality is that the Carbon Tax has had a negligible day to day effect on people in the street.

A few business have tried to use the Carbon Tax as an excuse for price rises, but it doesn't seem an extensive problem.

I got a letter from the Avgas supplier notifying me of a 4.5c/litre price rise due to Carbon Tax, which will probably cost me a hundred bucks a year.

I'm thinking of querying this, as my recollection is that fuel is exempt from the Carbon Tax and I assume it's for carbon emissions during the Avgas refining process, rather than the actual fuel.

If this is the case, then 4.5 cents a litre sounds a lot and I'll ask for an explanation.

[Rusty1970]

Give it time..

Vegetable growers fearing the pinch of the Carbon Tax

Vegetable growers fearing the pinch of the Carbon Tax

Sure. But you need to remember a couple of things when reading this stuff.

1. Business hates tax increases (fair enough) so it is in their interest to overstate the effects. We need to see the effects to get a real indication.
2. There will certainly be some effect at the checkout, but probably nowhere near as much as people who have a vested interest in not having the tax are claiming (but probably more than those saying there will be no effect are saying - somewhere in the middle).
3. Every time there is change everyone panics, and it almost always turns out to be nothing.

I'm neither advocating for or against the tax. But I suspect it will all turn out to make very little difference.

It is worth noting though that the alternative Government has a policy to spend taxpayer dollars on schemes that will allegedly make the same reductions in Australia's CO2 production. So no matter who you vote for billions will be spent and it is taxpayers that will pay for it one way or another.

So if you don't believe that humans are having an effect, or that our contribution is not enough to make a difference, then you'll get no comfort from the Coalition. Their targets are identical.

[Rusty1970]

"I got a letter from the Avgas supplier notifying me of a 4.5c/litre price rise due to Carbon Tax, which will probably cost me a hundred bucks a year.

I'm thinking of querying this, as my recollection is that fuel is exempt from the Carbon Tax and I assume it's for carbon emissions during the Avgas refining process, rather than the actual fuel."

Fuel is exempt for households, and for agriculture, fisheries and forestry. Heavy vehicles are exempt for I think 2 years then I suspect it will be reviewed.

I think domestic aviation fuel will be subject to an increase in the excise equivalent to a carbon tax on $23/tonne. I have no idea what this works out to in cpl. So it will rise. I assume most reputable suppliers will be able to say how they arrived at their increase (likely the fuel companies will have decided for them). But if they tell you the cost of getting the fuel trucked to them is included in the rise, at this point they are fibbing.

[Flying Binghi]

via Towering Q;
I'm still working through the GPWF report, it's a great remedy to insomnia.
Feel free to highlight the sections you feel are most relevant...

Towering Q, please "highlight" the entire document. I've spoted a couple of things ah question - be interesting to see what you find. The report has been out a while so the climate hysterics shoulda listed all the 'faults' by now..

via Towering Q;
...And regarding his comments about CO2 and plant growth...

Towering Q, perhaps yer shoulda had a bit more of a look-see at it. I did a quick google of CO2 useage in nurseries and here's one off the first page...

"...Carbon dioxide (CO2) plays an important role in increasing crop productivity (Rijkdijk and Houter 1993). An actively photosynthesizing crop will quickly deplete the CO2 from the greenhouse environment (Rijkdijk and Houter 1993). In summer, even with maximum ventilation, CO2 levels within the typical Alberta vegetable production greenhouse typically fall below ambient levels of CO2 [below 350 parts per million (350 ppm)]. It has been estimated that if the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere doubled to 700 ppm, the yield of field crops should increase by 33% (Tremblay and Gosselin 1998). Optimum CO2 targets in the greenhouse atmosphere are generally accepted to be approximately 700 to 800 ppm (Portree 1996)...
... CO2 is especially advantageous for use on sensitive seedling plants early in the crop season (Portree 1996). Distribution to the crop can be accomplished through a system of delivery pipes to the crop canopy as with the stack recovery systems. The draw-back to the use of liquid CO2 has been the cost..."


Hmmm... costly, though those that can afford it still use it...




Components of the Greenhouse System for Environmental Control


So, we have the plant growing industry spending money to increase the CO2 atmosphere of their nurserys because it makes plants grow better then in our CO2 deficiant 'natural' environment... and Australia has a muppet government that wants to remove one of the best plant foods around... errr..






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[eagle 86]

As usual a lot of people only tell some of the story. The co2 tax is part of the clean energy reforms. Another part is diesel subsidiary changes which will affect the price (upwards) of diesel for heavy transport. This increase in haulage costs will be passed on to the consumer.
GAGS
E86

[Rusty1970]

"As usual a lot of people only tell some of the story. The co2 tax is part of the clean energy reforms. Another part is diesel subsidiary changes which will affect the price (upwards) of diesel for heavy transport. This increase in haulage costs will be passed on to the consumer."

Doesn't come in for (I think) a couple of years. Certainly not in place as of today. Agriculture, fisheries and forestry will retain their subsidy - is no change for them. (Boats, tractors, chainsaws, that kind of thing.)

If people are blaming transport costs / fuel on Carbon Price today, they are telling porkies.

[Rusty1970]

"So, we have the plant growing industry spending money to increase the CO2 atmosphere of their nurserys because it makes plants grow better then in our CO2 deficiant 'natural' environment... and Australia has a muppet government that wants to remove one of the best plant foods around... errr.."

Leaving aside the scientific questionablity of the statement....

Government AND Opposition. They both have the same CO2 reduction targets. (5% less than 2000 levels by 2020 I think). They both will use taxpayer dollars to do it. Just in different ways. Most economists agree that a price is the best way, but then economics is the "dismal science", so take that how you will.

But the point remains, if you disagree with the climate science you'll get no comfort voting Lib/Nat.

Unless you think they are lying. But given the comments about the current Govt lying I am sure nobody here would think that would be acceptable.

[Frank Arouet]

The reality is that the Carbon Tax has had a negligible day to day effect on people in the street.

At the risk of feeding the Troll;

I note the climate hasn't changed much for the better in those 16 days either.