Carbon Tax Poll

[PH005]

OK . Here we go. This could get lively. The biggest topic on the Governments list at the moment must be the Carbon Tax debate. What do you think. Will it help ? Will it do nothing at all ? Who's to blame ? Who should pay ?

Warning: Mod note: This is an emotive topic. DO NOT GET PERSONAL ... this is the first and final warning - 7 or 21 day bans will be given if needed.

[Tommo1965]

the biggest bills that my household has are electricity and fuel for travel.....the carbon tax will push these prices up even further...until there is cleaner cheaper source for me to purchase then all the CT will do is make me poorer....

if miss Gilard will use the extra revenue raised to install a 4 KW solar panel rig on my roof..then d say yes.. until that commitment is promised..I say NO CT.

another thought is .... until china /India are made to pursue a carbon reduction...what real difference will 20 million aussies make ...we are now paying a price for a government elected by many..run by a few..{greens}

dont get me wrong..im all for cleaner air..but what alternatives are there..plus tell my neighborers with their bleedin potbelly's all wound down and choking the neighborer hood

[kiwi]

Its a tax without any proof yjay it will lead to any effect at all, so, its just nothing, zero, zilch, waste, a political football

[terry.langham]

I voted No, simply because I don't think it is the most cost and job effective way to reduce emissions. However if there was sufficient alternatives to 'dirty' electricity, I think a carbon tax would work to even up the cost of producing 'green' energy. Sadly we are well and truly behind the 8ball in that regard.

Terry

[ving]

awww!!! sweet!!!

[Kym]

No!

Why?
Because it will not provide the genuine changes needed and will disadvantage Australia for no real benefit.
It is more about wealth redistribution than, CO2 with 10% (half a billion) going to un-audited, unaccountable
UN funds to 'help' 3rd world countries when in fact none of it will do anything except line the pockets of corrupt governments.

The carbon tax whole thing is a joke!
To whit ... we export nearly 300 MILLION tonnes of coal a year. That will increase to nearly 500 MILLION in the next 5 years.
Coal accounts for 23% of our gross export revenue.

Juliar got this wrong on so many levels.

[ving]

why is there more than one ving here?

there can be only one!

[ameerat42]

It's not that I don't think we should collectively do something about fixing the world in general, but a TAX?!
To achieve what?
What a backwards thought! It would be badly administered, and part of it would be used to "subsidise..." who? what? why?
And someone would develop a scam out of it.
And it wouldn't do much except make us moan and wail more.
And pretty soon they would have to increase it.

Why complificate matters any further?

Whoever Cate wants to look in the I, let her do it without taxing US!
Am. (As in, where coming from.)

[PH005]

Kym !, give yourself a 7 day ban for deliberately mis spelling Julias name.

[PH005]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I read somewhere that India already has a CT of 1 Aust $, Germany 17 Aust $, so why is Australia proposeing a FORTY $ per tonne CT ?

[triptych]

I voted NO!

I dont believe a tax should be introduced that will disadvantage tax payers when there is no proof that it will reduce carbon emissions.

[ameerat42]

Kym !, give yourself a 7 day ban for deliberately mis spelling Julias name.

PH005. And you, half as much for mis-punkchuating it!

[Lance B]

A categorical No!

Apart from the fact that there is absolutely no proof of global warming due to man's output of carbon dioxide, a tax will do nothing. Australia emits 1.5%-2% of of the worlds carbon dioxide emissions and man's total contribution world wide is only about 3% and 97% is natural! So, Australia's carbon dioxide emissions compared to the total world's carbon dioxide emissions is 1.5%-2% of 3%!!!!! In other words, .06%!!! Even a 20% reduction of Australia's emissions will reduce this contribution to about .05%!! And a tax will fix this exactly how???? Even if we removed everyone from Australia, there would be no change whatsoever in the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

All a carbon tax will do is drive industry from Australia to countries which do not have a carbon tax, like India, China, USA etc, and India and China have less efficient methods of producing electricity etc and therefore will produce more carbon dioxide emissions than what we would save here. Australia trying to implement a carbon dioxide tax is a case of the tail wagging the dog.

No one can explain how, over many thousands of years, that somehow the amount of caron dioxide that is present in the atmosphere, up until mans involvement, was magically the correct proportion to sustain life as it is now. In other words, how was it regulated before now and how come it became this magical perfectly equalised amount? There isn't any magical amount and the fact is, there are many contributing factors that result in the temperature of the earth, and carbon dioxide, a completely necessary gas for life otherwise we would all die, is just one of them. Making out that a miniscule alteration of carbon dioxide quantities in the atmosphere due to man's involvement makes no difference to the temperature because the earth has it's own mechanisms for dealing with these small changes as it has been doing for thousands and millions of years.

Having, done much research and listened to many experts on both sides of the argument, my conclusion is that man's involvement is not a causation of climate change. Climate change is a natural occurance that has been fluctuating for thousands of years and will continue to do so regardless of what we do. As Bob Carter, an eminent figure on the subject, put it, trying to stop climate change is liek trying to stop a volcano errupting.

[Tannin]

It is mad, absolutely mad, to subsidise bad things like carbon pollution when we tax good things, like wages and housing.

We tax cigarettes, which don't actually do all that much harm (other than kill smokers, which may equally well be considered a benefit), but we DON'T tax carbon, which is destroying the planet our children will have to try to live on?

Not having a carbon tax is just arrant stupidity. Should have been done years ago.

[I @ M]

PH005. And you, half as much for mis-punkchuating it!

Kym !, give yourself a 7 day ban for deliberately mis spelling Julias name.

Joolia schmoolia, who cares how it is spel'd or punktuatid, if they manage to get this "carbon reduction cure" going I think she will be able to look back on it as probably the last thing she did in office ----

[junqbox]

I believe a CT is an important thing to implement for the following-
- It will encourage us to use less electricty made by non-sustainable means.
- The money which will be returned to users, particularly in the lower socio-economic groups, can be spent on purchasing more economical devices.
- Encourage companies to look at more innovative ways to do what they currently do in a less pollutive way. EG- Automobile manufacturers are developing Hybrid, Electric and Hydrogen (among others) cars because of the punative financial measures implemented by governments, particularly Europe and California, which has resulted in more fuel efficient petrol/diesel cars and the proliferation of the alternative based fuel cars, as above.
- The CT is not intended to a long term measure, the process is designed to become a Emmision Trading program after a given period of time.

What is the alternative (be honest with yourself before you start ranting back at me).
Continue as we are? Not very generous towards our future generations. We don't think too hightly of the peoples who have gone before us and created devastating environmental vandalism.
Direct action? Doesn't actually encourage strong action by those who believe they can afford to run un-economical/environmentally unfriendly lifestyles.

At this point in time an actual dollar figure has not been officially announced, so there is much mis-information being spread by the likes of Mr Abbott, Mr Jones (et al), and others. China and India are actually investing in more environmentally power production processes than we are because they know as their usage will increase in the future they cannot be a slave to resources which are only going to go up in price as availability goes down.

The ALP are doing a poor job of communicating the need, The LNP (with a few notable exceptions) are pressing forward with a small minded negative campaign designed to continue the lining of the pockets of their more ardent supporters (anyone still feel sorry for the 'poor boys' club of Rhinehart, Palmer & Twiggy? (top 10 richest) and how they were going to be devastated by a Mining Tax). Given the LNP's track record on infrastructure growth/maintenance it's little wonder their policy is 'do nothing' till it breaks completely.

We as a country, and as individuals, are responsible for our actions and can leaders of how best practice can be implemented. Australia is know as being an innovative country, this is one of our opportunities to prove how innovative we can be.

Or we can sit back and wait for the tele to go blank and die of asphyxiation from poor air quality.

Rant ended.

[ameerat42]

Yes but a Carbon Tax being able to fix the world's woes fits in the genre of FICTION, if not specifically SUPERHERO COMICS. Alright, even Fantasy.
(It's intereseting to consider how the sudden imposition of this tax is going to help us find "efficiences" and better them than without it. In fact it makes me think of how the Ptolemaic System of Cosmology had "developed" by the time of the Middle Ages: epicycles upon epicycles to try to coax the universe to work as we (then) thought it to. What is the trend in the modern world: tax upon regulation upon restriction, all applied with a clearly shortsighted view of what will be achieved. I heard this quote in the 1970s: "...it's like driving a car flat out along the road while staring into the rear vision mirror...")

So although we might agree on things needing to be fixed, junqbox - TVs and choking aside, we will have to disagree on the means.
Am.

[Nonas]

Thank you, junqbox.

There was a rebroadcast of an interesting program on all of this on ABC Radio National this morning, particularly on what's happening in other countries - the podcast or transcript can be found at http://www.abc.net.au/rn/rearvision/...htm#transcript.

[WhoDo]

For mine this is a case of good intentions gone hog wild! Apart from Lance's excellent summary of the issues, there is one fundamental thing that should PREVENT Australia from introducing this tax, in the interest of and for the BENEFIT of the whole planet!

There is no argument that when you burn coal you get CO2. The issue is how much coal you burn for how much CO2 output. Australia has high quality coal that burns easily (less moisture content) and produces more heat energy per tonne than many others (high volatiles and low ash content) - the exception being those revolting lignite-burning (brown coal) power stations in the Latrobe Valley which should be replaced with cleaner burning black coal stations yesterday!

[rant start] Instead of taxing coal (carbon) we should be subsidising the production and export of our high quality coal to those countries who will otherwise burn dirtier, wetter coal anyway (like India, China, etc) to reduce their reliance on those dirtier local coals that produce far more CO2 per Kj generated! We already compete despite long and expensive supply chains because of our isolation, our higher wages and standard of living for miners, and the currently high rate of exchange for our dollar. Let's not make it impossible with an ill-conceived and fruitless tax just because we see miners as cash cows to be milked for providing alternatives. Coal is NOT tobacco! It actually produces substantial benefits in all sorts of areas not being discussed in this debate.

The fact is the world has enough proven coal reserves to last 122 years at present rates of consumption and only has oil and gas for around 40-60 years, and yet the are "green" groups suggesting gas-fired power generation as a cleaner alternative to coal (no-one wants nuclear and everything else is too immature in technological terms and so far too expensive to implement). Go that route and we'll exhaust gas in half the time or less and STILL be forced to resort to coal or freeze!

The problem is certainly critical, and we need to find alternatives, but let's clean up sensibly rather than forcing our better quality product off the market with tax-based price hikes! India and China already burn more coal than the rest of the world combined; they just use their own poor quality coal because they can't afford the better stuff we supply, most of the time. Carbon capture and storage is the most promising solution for coal-fired power, and that will still do little to prevent the atmospheric pollution from cars, cows and even political speeches! At least the cars will run dry in 60 years!
[/rant over]

[PH005]

I have No doubt what so ever that any CT will be passed on to the consumer, US. So how can we as individuals make a difference with less money in our pockets. We will not be able to afford to update to a more eco friendly car. We will not be able to afford solar water and power. I feel a CT is a catch 22. If it was 100% certain that Joe Blog will not be effected financially, ( and hey, the Joe Blogs of this world did not make the mess ) then OK tax the Big corps. Otherwise go back to the drawing board.