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When Greg Hunt declares that the Coalition is behind an emissions trading scheme, he’s either lying or he’s totally out of touch with his colleagues.
If the latter, today’s Australian must be humiliating for him. With Hunt having done The 7.30 Report and other media overnight and this morning stressing that not only was the Coalition supporting a trading scheme but they hadn’t even decided if transport should be in or out, The Oz describes in gory details how Hunt’s colleagues want to significantly delay and weaken emissions trading.
It is clear that, regardless of the views of Malcolm Turnbull and Hunt, the Coalition has prepared a litany of reasons for it to back away from an emissions trading scheme. 2010 is too soon. We’ll send jobs offshore. Australia can’t solve climate change by itself. Petrol costs too much to include.
So to make life easier, Crikey is preparing a cut-out-and-keep guide to why the Coalition is hopelessly wrong. Next time you find yourself stuck at a party with a greenhouse denialist, or a Coalition MP pays a visit, or you find yourself on the bus next to Andrew Bolt, whip out this guide and have it ready for their specious arguments.
Australia’s emissions are tiny. We shouldn’t have an emissions trading scheme before other countries.
- So what? An emissions trading scheme is good economics regardless of whether other countries do it. Reducing carbon emissions is not some act of generosity. Carbon is inflicting damage on our environment and our economies. Currently we are not paying the cost of that damage, and therefore distorting our investment, consumption and production decisions. We apply the principle of “polluter pays” elsewhere in the economy — why not in relation to carbon?
- Major trading partners like Europe and New Zealand have emissions trading schemes already.
- Our emissions might be small in total but we are one of the highest per-capita emitters and major exporter of carbon-intense coal.
2010 is too soon. We need to wait.
- Any further delay creates more uncertainty and sovereign risk for business and investors.
- Because of the Coalition’s flatearther-like refusal to acknowledge global warming, we’ve already waited too long. The only scientifically credible dispute over global warming now is whether we’ll be totally stuffed in thirty years or fifty years. Every time the evidence is re-considered, the scenarios get worse. We don’t have time to wait.
- As Michael Hitchens of the Australian Industry Greenhouse Network says, there’s no reason why the process of establishing an emissions trading scheme should take longer than the Government’s current timetable.
- If the economy is not in prime position to absorb the transition costs of a trading scheme now, when will it be? We have low unemployment, businesses screaming for more workers and a struggle to contain inflation. If there are economic impacts, when would be a better time?
A trading scheme will cause jobs in energy-intensive industries to “leak” jobs offshore.
- No it won’t. Building new facilities (e.g. an aluminium smelter) in non-trading countries requires massive investment, confidence in factors like political stability, and certainty that the destination country won’t impose a trading scheme or carbon tax for years.
- It leaking does occur, moving energy-intensive facilities to other countries might yield environmental benefits, given Australia’s reliance on carbon-intense coal for electricity generation.
- Energy-intensive industries form only a small part of the economy — less than 5% of jobs.
- Given the current skills shortage, other sectors would gratefully absorb any displaced workers.
Transport should not be included — it is better to regulate greater transport efficiency than make people pay more for fuel, because they can’t control their fuel usage.
- Price signals are nearly always more efficient — and that means cheaper — than regulation. Regulation is the command economy method of economic reform that doesn’t give consumers a choice about what they do but generates significant inefficiencies and higher costs for consumers and producers.
- Regulating for higher motor vehicle fuel efficiency won’t compel people to buy more fuel-efficient vehicles in the absence of incentives to do so. Fuel efficiency is much higher in countries with higher fuel costs than in the US and Australia.
- People can control their fuel usage if they have access to alternate means of transport. Our urban mass transit systems are already seeing significant increases in patronage. Greater investment in mass transit will provide more alternatives to car use.
- Omitting transport, or any other energy-intensive sector, will just mean a higher cost across all other sectors. There’s no free lunch — if the scheme is to be effective we have to pay one way or another.
But China and India aren’t doing anything.
- We’ve benefited from 200 years of carbon production. We have a moral obligation to acknowledge this, especially when we can afford to do it.
- The developed world accounts for 80% of carbon emissions. Our emissions trading scheme will strengthen our hand to argue that developing countries should join us in curbing carbon emissions. But waiting for China and India to do something about emissions will mean nothing will ever be done.
New technologies like geosequestration will fix everything.
- This is pipedream stuff. Assuming a new technology would somehow actually address carbon emissions (and geosequestration definitely will not), by the time it is developed, proven and implemented across the world economy it’ll be 2030 and we may be facing nightmare climate change scenarios.
- There’s a wide range of existing renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies that can be a large part of the solution, just waiting to be deployed here in Australia, as they are now being deployed in many parts of the world. But these won’t work in the absence of price signals to use them.
For more on arguing with a sceptic, consult Grist’s comprehensive How to Talk to a Climate Sceptic.
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52 Comments
“People can control their fuel usage if they have access to alternate means of transport. “
Ahem.
alternate: every second one of a series.
alternative: a possible choice; a different method.
The petrol price issue … sigh. We are getting some stupid thing called fuelwatch foisted on us that’s supposed to make fuel cheaper, when the reverse should be happening.
“But China and India aren’t doing anything” Yes, that’s a really annoying argument. China have bad human rights as well, should we adopt them because it’s what they are doing?
Don’t forget your colleague Christian who thinks it is too soon to have the debate even. He hasn’t realised we have been having the debate for the past 11 years on climate and 30 years on oil.
The Rudd government faces a dilemma. It is under pressure to reduce the price of fuel while under pressure to increase expenditure on renewable energy infrastructure.
There is a simple solution.
Instead of removing taxes on fuel give the tax money back to the motorist but require that the motorist spends the money on renewable energy resources. If the petrol companies can create a system to give us four cents a litre discount they can also create a system to give the taxes back to the motorist instead of the government. An electronic market
place where people can spend their returned taxes is easy to create and those that do not want to spend their returned taxes on renewables can sell the tagged money to someone who wants to. The money could be spent on solar panels, windfarms, geothermal wells, solar thermal plants, plants to build hybrid cars, insulation, light rail, or any other infrastructure to reduce greenhouse gases. The effect of the system would be a reduction in the net price of petrol and instead of giving taxes to multinationals taxpayers would end up owning renewable assets.
That is, we have a problem of getting investments in renewable energy resources. We know markets are the best way to allocate money. We know governments are bad at investing so instead of inventing artificial products like emissions permits and using a market in emission permits to drive investment in renewables we drive investments in renewables by giving the population the money and let them use the existing market in investments to reduce or save polluting energy. Note the money is not to be spent on renewable energy but on greenhouse gas saving infrastructure.
This approach is simple and could get underway tomorrow with the stroke of a pen and would not require any special legislation.
If we invested $3000 per person per year to renewable infrastructure which would earn ongoing income of between 5 and 10% we would have zero emissions in 10 years and a wealthy more equitable society.
just a few amendments:
‘Major trading partners like Europe and New Zealand have emissions trading schemes already.”
sorry NZ is still debating their trading emissions scheme and is getting watered down by polluter pressure groups daily - plus there is a real chance it will stall before the next election which looks like will see a Nationals government and they’re even more on the side of recalcitrant polluters.
re: fuel pricing versus regulation.
although i agree price of fuels is a more efficient signal, I don’t think its an either/or situation. As i understand it, the Europeans have both high petrol prices and longstanding regulation of emissions control on their vehicles (eg on diesel fuel). I think attempting price signals on emission/particulates from cars would actually be a more blunt instrument than regulation because of the cost of developing the technology and the once-off pricing (that could be neutralised in other ways anyway).
You avoid mentioning the equity/affordability problem of fuel pricing for those who have no real alternative to individual transport and are unlikely to get any in the future - ie people who live in country and esp rural Australia. I know the farmers have been getting a darn good subsidy/welfare on petrol so far but still, but its possible that in the short term, many country business’ (and then towns) may go bust before higher prices for food balance out the costs of Australia’s relatively high rural transport costs (at least i assume they’re relatively high). But maybe this is what should happen. Alternatively, instead of continuing their petrol/diesel subsidies, perhaps subsidies should be provided to access more fuel efficient vehicles - given they’re not gonna get access to public transport options like the rest of us city folk.
trusty dictionary.com
alternate (n)
1. A person acting in the place of another; a substitute.
2. An alternative.
alternate (adj)
1. Happening or following in turns; succeeding each other continuously: alternate seasons of the year.
2. Designating or relating to every other one of a series: alternate lines.
3. Serving or used in place of another; substitute: an alternate plan.
“1513, from L. alternus “one after the other,” pp. of alternare “to do first one thing, then the other,” from alternus “every other,” from alter “the other” (see alter). The verb is recorded from 1599; the noun meaning “a substitute” is first attested 1848.”
so sue Bernard for using a word in a hardly obscure sense, that dates back 160 years.
and Mike Smith, the obvious point to be made anyway, is people aren’t expected to just switch to public transport and never drive a car again…
they would ‘alternate’ more between their car and public transport…
you see how that makes perfect sense…
but you really got to love:
“Alternative with the counter-culture sense of “better than the establishment” is attested from 1970, originally with reference to the press. “
oops, completely missed…
“Alternate means “by turns;” alternative (1590) means “offering a choice.”“
so the adjective is 520 years old, in the sense Bernard used it.
scrap that last one…now i’m talking crap
Let’s look at an English dictionary
http://www.askoxford.com/concise_oed/alternate?view=uk
— USAGE The use of alternate to mean alternative (as in we will need to find alternate sources of fuel) is common in North American English, though still regarded as incorrect by many in Britain.
So I guess if you are in NA, you are right.
many what?
http://www.royal.gov.uk/output/page5324.asp
“If you are using an alternate piece of software…”
If it’s good enough for the Offical Website for the British Monarchy…
Just for the Global Warming alarmists. Apart from the fact that no conclusive proof has been offered to even suggest that man-made CO2 emissions affect climate change, the Feceral Department of Climate Change cannot add anything to the level of proof either. A recent communication indicated that there had been a slight increase in CO2 emissions since 2005 but completely overlooked the fact that there had been no increase in average global temperature (AGT) since 1998 and that, in fact, from 1 Jan 2007 to 1 Jan 2008 had actually decreased by 0.67 degree C. Accordingly, it has been unable to show that there is any correlation between CO2 emissions of any type and Climate Change. Also it follows that there is no justification for keeping fuel prices at these record levels just to line the pockets of the major oil companies.
Nah “alternate” was a mistake, plain and simple. Type at haste, repent at leisure. Or something.
And speaking of typos, JohnG I’d like to know more about this Feceral Department of Climate Change. I knew about methane from cows but not about the very serious threat evidently posed by sh-t.
Blah, blah, blah.
“But China and India aren’t doing anything.”
The simple fact is that if we shut down every factory in Australia, turned off every power station, junked every vehicle - in fact, if we executed EVERY SINGLE PERSON IN AUSTRALIA, then the displace CO2 emissions would be made up by China ALONE in less than six months.
Yes, that’s right. The rate of growth of China’s CO2 emissions is more than double that of Australia’s total yearly emissions. Check on the UN’s own website yourself if you don’t believe me!
“We’ve benefited from 200 years of carbon production. We have a moral obligation to acknowledge this, especially when we can afford to do it.”
Western guilt is stock-in-trade for the Left when it wants an emotional rather than logical response.
“Major trading partners like Europe and New Zealand have emissions trading schemes already.”
But the European scheme is a farce. It allowed for more carbon credit than were actually being produced! The bottom fell out of the market because there was no artificial shortage created - and an artificial shortage is what is needed to keep these bogus markets afloat.
“The only scientifically credible dispute over global warming now is whether we’ll be totally stuffed in thirty years or fifty years. Every time the evidence is re-considered, the scenarios get worse.”
Yet world temperatures dropped by 0.7 degrees last year. Global Warming?
“Our emissions might be small in total but we are one of the highest per-capita emitters and major exporter of carbon-intense coal. “
And the Trinidanians are the worst, if we are going to use per capita statistics. Shame on you naughty Trinidad! Or perhaps we need to import 100 million people to bring the average down a bit?
How can the Green Left seriously argue this point (unless it is more bourgeois guilt-worship) when the core point of their argument is that it is the QUANTUM of CO2 in the atmosphere, not the per capita output, which is creating AGW.
Which takes me back to the original point. If you wiped evey trace of human civilisation off the face of Australia, it would not make the slightest bit of difference to global CO2 level, thanks largely to the exceptional growth rate in China. What we do in Australia means nothing. Nothing.
The scare of Global Warming is the biggest load of bollocks ever to be thrust down the throats of mankind. I studied Geology at school and Uni in the 70’s and the biggest topic we discussed was Ice Ages(There have been quite a few over the past few million years). These periods of extreme cold came to an end when the earths temperature rose by around 5 degrees, without an SUV or Coal-fied power station in sight.
I have yet to hear convincing argument to explain fully why THIS the perceived “warming” is anything other than good old Mother Earth doing her stuff.
In any event, Australia’s contribution to CO2 is miniscule and is only as high as it is because of a strange fear of Nuclear Power and the abundance of cheap coal. If nuclear power is safe enough for the French to get 60% of their electricity this way, with more to come, then surely it is safe enough for everybody - remember France is only about twice the size of Victoria so we have plenty of room.
The argument that we should cut our piddling emissions ahead of China etc beacuse we started producing emissions first is a crock of shit.
200 years of Western industrialisation has enabled the Third World to leap frog ahead in their own industrialisation.
Besides, every race on the planet has been burning fossil fuels since the the first camp fire was lit.
Captain Chaos is onto a loser here
If every one did their homework they would find that China and India are doing a great deal about addressing Climate Change.China is well ahead of many countries in developing and using solar energy. In relation to transport it is about to commission the first leg of a VFT between Beijing and Shanghai. Modern electric fast trains make a considerable contribution to reducing green house gases.
They could play an important role in Australia
By not maximizing our own efforts we are not only missing out on economic opportunities but demonstrating to the rest of the world how selfish and mean spirited we are. Fortunately our present Government is not following that course.
By the way our hybrid car is great, as are our solar voltaic cells, our solar hot water heater and our ground based reverse cycle heat pump. What a difference it would make if we all got on board .
The ACCC Chairman gave a very convincing range of comments about FuelWatch at the Press Club today.Its not about making petrol cheaper. It is about giving purchasers a choice.
Hang on JohnG, what on earth does peak oil/supply constraints etc have to do with Global Warming?
You’re not conflating two completely separate issues are you?
What a nonsense article by Bernard Keane, absolute rubbish. The so called climate change which is now consensus at the IPCC is by no means a proven thesis, science is not about consensus but about facts, and the fact is there is a very large and growing body of evidence questioning and in allot of cases debunking the climate change hypothesis. The issue is these guys don’t get much of an airing except on some independent media and a little bit on mainstream, its deemed too politically incorrect. It is quite fascinating that the counter evidence that comes to light the bigger and sillier the shrill from climate change advocates, a case in point is the above article. The Grist website that refered as support is nothing more than an environmentalist pro climate change site, it offers no impartial evidence, having read it its is full of inconsistencies, contradictions and speculations being passed off as facts. And if Mr Keane is relying on this well it is not very credible, you would not expect them to print views contrary to their ideology. Unfortunately the debate has become one of politics and ideology and not facts.
And those people who think that some how a emission trading system will save the day are sadly mistaken. What will end up happening is everyone will pay more, and a small group will earn very large economic profits. Price and cap schemes have never worked and there is no evidence that they will work now. If these so called environmentalist and politicians want to clean up the environment (and i am all for this) there many measure that can be put into place to reduce pollution and encourage the development of cleaner energy without a silly price and cap scheme which amounts to nothing more than an additional TAX burden. A case in point, the price of oil since 2000/01 has gone from $20USd to around $140USD and consumption has increased despite a a 7 fold increase and continues to rise, the whole basis of emission trading is flawed.
It very much appears people have been brain washed by the constant media shrill of carbon emissions, when in reality it is a b/s story. Wake UP!!!
My, the deniers have come out in force. Including “Dr” Peter Phelps, one of the Ancien Regime’s less successful staff members. How are things going in the NSW Libs anyway, Peter? Annexed the Sudetenland yet? Declared war on Poland? Funny thing about the Right when it comes to global warming. They profess to be all for economically-efficient markets when it suits them, but the moment markets threaten their interests, or threaten to end the free ride some of their business mates are getting, they become the most economically irrational of all.
Gavin Greenoak’s comment in today’s Comments, corrections, clarifications, and c*ckups in response to Mr. Keane’s equally shrill and vitriolic article yesterday is probably even more appropriately applied to the bilge produced today. Perhaps Mr. Keane would, like his hero Henson, (no we are not talking photography , photographs I say kowingly, wink, wink, nudge, nudge etc), have climate change sceptics imprisoned?
” Science is fundamentally about questioning and falsifying hypotheses. The causes of climate change have been hijacked by politics, and a “say so all of us” which has only a profound nuisance value for scientific enquiry. Science has become a business since the “privatisation” of universities. Climate change may be due to human pollutants, but we have now entered an “age of embarrassment” where it becomes nigh impossible to maintain a rational scepticism ready to admit new evidence, when even to begin to do so attracts the charges of denialism etc. This kind of thing belongs with a medieval priesthood and not a post-modern scientific process.”
If you think it is unecessary to have a debate now Mr. Keane……late this year and early next year should be fun. If Rudd takes your attitude it will be a single term government.
Bernard Keane: I’ve had a b*gger of a day and have just gt around to reading Crikey. You are a shocker! I’ve just choked on my wine and my partner has gone to get take-away, so as I can recover my balance.
“Annexed the Sudetenland yet? Declared war on Poland?” I haven’t laughed this much in years.
Cheers
Venise
Sorry but I’m really over this “there’s still a scientific debate” horseshit. Yeah sure we can all be Popperian and declare that science never really proves anything and hell global warming is just a falsifiable hypothesis. WTF let’s go the whole hog and drag out Kuhn and talk about incomfuckingmensurable paradigms. But I won’t cop that being used as an excuse to sit on our arses and watch the planet cook and my grandkids along with it. The debate was in the 1980s, folks. Back then there was insufficient evidence to demonstrate the greenhouse effect to an acceptable degree and I even recall there being credible proponents of a “global cooling” argument.
Well, the evidence isn’t debatable anymore, except by crackpots, fossil fuel companies (and even then not many of them anymore) and reactionaries who are the first to howl down relativism when it comes packaged with a French philosopher and left-wing cultural commentary but cling to it ferociously if it enables them to deny the most straightforward climate change science.
Ultimately climate change denialism is yet another example of carping special interests pleading to retain the cosseting and mollycoddling that they’ve enjoyed for decades. Most of us are imposing significant carbon costs on the rest of the community but are not being made to pay for that. It’s unfair and economically irrational and the sooner people start paying the costs of their behaviour - and therefore changing their behaviour - the better for everyone.
Bernard, I can only assume that the intemperate language directed at me was due to the fact that you have never met me, and it may well have been after a few red wines. Let’s look at this rationally:
You made a number of allegations, cut and pasted from a totally biased website. I refuted some of those those allegations. You couldn’t refute my comments, so you launched an ad hominem attack on me personally.
Frankly, that’s a disgrace - and something that Christian Kerr would never have engaged in.
I fear that Stephen Mayne is correct when he says that Crikey! has gone too far to the Left - as he did recently on Melbourne community radio. Certainly the preponderence of opinion dressed up as reporting has gotten much worse since you arrived on the scene.
I wouldn’t mind so much if you actually had political access - they way Christian had - and break legitimate, top-rank political stories. But you haven’t done so so far. All we get is tea-room gossip from bureaucrats, press releases straight from Peter Garrett’s office and the all-too-often opinion piece.
Prove me wrong and break a REAL political story and then you can call me whatever names you like.
I believe Bernard Keane in his last comment has amply demonstrated that he cares not for facts and scientific process such as that we get to verifiable facts so an appropriate course of action taken, rather he has either been suckered into the climate change ideology or deliberately acting as a propagandist. Its seams this climate change crowd believe if you repeat something long enough and loud enough it will make it true. The shrill gets sillier and sillier with more and more silly prediction. The record of the climate change crowd to actually forecast from their models is so woefully poor it is embarrassing. And if Bernard Keane is really serious about cleaning up the environment he would do well to examine alternative strategies that can cut emissions, provide for more cleaner and efficient energy than just parroting an emission trading system like a brainless chook. Clearly he hasn’t done his homework on this matter. What we really need is intelligent, factual and unbiased reporting from journalists rather than the peddling of ideological positions. Journalism in this country has become a disgrace and shame on crikey.com!!!
Wow! So much lunacy in one small place. The big question is when will the far right begin to acknowledge that climate change does exists? I guess when they realise they can make lots of money off it.
Peter Phelps esq private citizen today or will you be the political operative at the back? It’s just so miserably awful being caught isn’t it. Happy trails.
Strangely, climate sceptics have become like God Delusionists. The overwhelming scientific evidence provides an explanation for what is happening with our climate (greenhouse warming), and yet they still run around saying “prove it, prove it”.
That not being enough, we get misleading statements about our contribution to the problem, somehow managing to include poor old Trinidad; they don’t export millions of tonnes of COAL!
We’re intelligent, we’re rich, we’re responsible for our contribution to the problem, we have the skills and we have an opportunity to show the way much like Germany or California. We even have a magical solar thermal generation system….oh sorry….the Liberals let that go to the USA.
People like Peter Phelps, Greg Hunt, Dennis Jensen and the rest of that decimated rabble, need to be ignored in more ways than one; they have NOTHING useful to contribute.
Both sides of politics agree that there must be action on greenhouse gases. The science is that there is a high probability that it is actually a real phenomenon(man fueled global warming). The follow up evidence for dire consequences is less clear but is strong. The evidence that, if we could reverse or at least stabilise such emissions, such changes would make those consequences unlikely or ameliorated is not that strong at all.
However if we could have ameliorate it oe even better prevented it and we failed to act then we have failed in our duties to the future.
An overwhelming majority in this country at least seem agreeable on this.
There needs to be a debate on how best to act cognisant of our place in this world. Foaming at the mouth rants about Howard lessen not make more likely agreement among us. Rudd is not The Second Coming and Garnaut who was not elected now is incredibly powerful. What do we know of him?
The Coalition do not want any hasty and costly decisions made. That is reasonable and not insane as some have suggested. We debate but in the knowledge that we are dealing on probabilities and possibilities that are potentially too costly to ignore and run the risk.
Incendiary grandstanding from both sides make successful agreement less not more likely.
Australia as a nation can only contribute really by leadership and example.
What is the goal here? Do we want agreement? Then some egos need to deflate and reason return.
For the rabid right-wing the words ‘climate change’ are enough to give them epileptic fits. Also, it causes them to reach into spurious research to produce evidence which wouldn’t stand up at the local high school. Chuck in a quasi-scientific word or two, stir with a giant stick called hypothesis. Bingo! The world is flat, plentiful fresh water is suddenly abundant and every big company can indulge in laisser faire capitalism, as long as a large supply of the profits go into the pockets of the Liberal/Nationals and their supporters. If these mentally constipated clods wont believe the evidence before them, try putting a different slant on things. It isn’t climate change at all. It’s overpopulation and even the greatest greedy bast*rd can attempt to wonder how the world will cope with 9-10 billion people. The Catholic Church will love it as the more people living in squalor, the greater the chance they will reach out to a Catholic God. The Muslims aren’t much better. So there we will be, devoid of water-look at the death of the Murray Darling -and millions and millions of starving people. What a world man has f*cked up by f*cking his way to eternity.
Have another glass of wine, Venise
My gosh, this has been an interesting comments section. Bernard, relax, you are no scientist and should not be forced into defending yourself from attacks which demand that you be one, especially not in the way you have just done. I agree with Peter, ad hominem is inappropriate.
For anyone who is interested in the debate surrounding global warming and are, like myself, p-ssed off with reading unreferenced opinion pieces and the litany of equally unreferenced comments that are always due to follow, fear not. There is a place where sources of data are considered and logged, discussion is encouraged and in the end, the false information is held up for what it is. This magical place is called Wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming_controversy
If you do not find this page to be accurate, change it, but be sure to include some good proof or your amendment will likely be tossed in the rubbish bin where it belongs until there’s reason to believe it.
Anyone who wants to reduce the amount they spend on petrol may do so, just drive slower.
For as long as motor vehicles can be seen wizzing along the highways at 100k p.h. the drivers aren’t being stressed out by the cost of petrol. When it really hurts they’ll drive slower, share with a friend or catch the bus.
Fordie: Well done, sure Wackypedia will help. I prefer my science from New Scientist (as an example).
I agree with Bernard, ad hominem IS appropriate because you can’t reason with these people. It’s like trying to explain natural selection to Creationists. These people are the enemy of the path forward.
Actually Connor, you are agreeing with Peter Phelps but I would be most surprised if that was what you intended. Pity because Peter makes some other good points as well.
Ad hominem IS…..oh shit time to join Venise and slug a bottle or two before bed. We are all going to die!
Connor Moran: I too enjoy a subscription to the New Scientist magazine, which is great info for the layperson interested in science. What you call Wakypedia is a culmination of information from a great plethora of valid sources, including New Scientist. I would argue that this makes the Wikipedia page a more appropriate place to get a broader perspective on the subject matter.
Yes, in regards to ad hominem I totally understand where you come from. Many climate-sceptics I’ve found are so full of fallacious information that it is simply too much of a laborious feat to prove them wrong and the easy method is to target them instead of their arguments. But, as a member of this respectable publication, I still do not consider it appropriate for Bernard to conduct himself in this fashion (although I confess to having a quiet little cheer when reading him defend himself against such ridiculousness).
Marion Wilson: You may find it interesting that driving on highways, is far more economical (L/km) than via regular streets driving at slower speeds. This is of course due to the energy wasted by stopping and starting at intersections and traffic lights not the speed at which we are permitted to travel. But yes I agree in essence, there is a great need for society to change its ways.
Since Peter Phelps mentioned it and JamesK wants to give him some undeserved cred, I’ll have a crack. “Yet world temperatures dropped by 0.7 degrees last year. Global Warming?” My thoughts are (and I’m no scientist) that this could be due in part by a mini cycle whereby the transfer of energy from the increasingly heated atmosphere at the poles melts the ice caps which in turn cool the ocean somewhat and inevitably the ocean’s lowered temperature has an effect on the atmospheric temp via slightly cooler sea breezes causing the world average temp to drop.
Just a theory, though if it’s true you have this situation: two years ago, lots of ice on the caps, lots of heat energy coming into the earth from the sun, and now, the same amount of heat coming from the sun, and a lot less ice on the caps to cool us down with.
JamesK: You’re right, I do not agree with Peter Phelps.
Peter Phelps: “What we do in Australia means nothing.”
That statement is wrong.
We have a base-load capable wave power technology and we HAD a solar thermal (with storage) technology which we could be installing around the world.
We could require Chinese-made goods to have less packaging and encourage other countries to do the same.
We could require Chinese-made goods to have a longer life-cycle and be less disposable and encourage other countries to do the same.
We could require Indonesian wood based goods to be from plantation timber and encourage other countries to do the same.
We could even give General Motors and Ford the bankruptcy frights of their lives by making Toyota rulers of the efficient car universe.
JamesK: Ad hominem IS…..particularly effective at getting people to drink uncontrollably.
Alas, Peter… I’m sorry - DR Phelps - but it has been my misfortune to meet you. I don’t recall making any allegations about you, unless, perhaps, the complete absence of anything resembling a sense of humour in you made you think I was seriously suggesting you had invaded Poland. If I WAS to make some allegations about you, I might touch on such unfortunate episodes as your involvement in foisting the Howard Government’s disgusting electoral reforms on us, or your true moment in the sun when you accused Mike Kelly of invoking the Nuremberg defence and succeeded in embarrassing even your political masters, or efforts by the far right of the NSW Liberal Party to run you for preselections or senior party positions - all sadly unsuccessful thus far, but we all live in hope for you, because you’d truly adorn any office.
As your position on climate change demonstrates, your mob truly belong with the Nationals, dedicated to pork-barrelling and market distortions that deliver benefits to your mates. Although you probably think th Nats are a bit left-wing in their social views for your liking.
And, yep, Christian would never have done this. Bring him back, I say.
Humiliating for Greg Hunt! I’d say humiliating for Bernard Keane! This is a most disgraceful piece of journalism. It based on conjecture and riddled with hyperbole. Other countries have a scheme so we should have one! Other countries don’t have a scheme but we shouldn’t wait, we should get one now! His references to Global Warming is reminicient of Chicken Little! His comments on how this will affect businesses and jobs makes me very glad that he is churning out garbage like this and not running the country. Plucking facts off the internet and applying it to what ever you feel is appropriate is not the way to research an article.
Have we really met? I can’t say that I recall you at all.
As for your comments, you know exactly what you did. I refuted some of the nonsense and you fell back on the standard Green-Left technique of implying that I was a fascist. Very intellectual. And if that wasn’t your intention, they, pray tell, who else invaded Sudatenland and Poland? Libertarian capitalists like me, perhaps?
In fact, your attitude is decidedly Stalinist: anyone who disagrees with you is automatically branded a fascist.
Your assessment of my political successin the Liberal Party is also pathetically wrong. For four years I was on the State Executive of the NSW Liberal Party - the highest echelon of the elected Party - and I always topped the vote as the Country Rep. Now if you had REAL political contacts into any political party, like Christian did, then you would have been able to make a simple phone call to confirm this.
But you don’t. You’re just a dreary middle-ranking bureaucrat who has been elevated into a position that belongs to a person with REAL political contacts, who can find a story and deliver it up.
Finally, I return to the key point of my original post. The Green-Left can babble as much as it likes, but there is no incentive for China or India to come on board and self-impose limitations to their development. Even if Green-based total embargoes were placed on their goods, the size and relatively low base of their domestic economies would see them simply turn inwards for the next half century, and they would have the ability to absorb that capacity - largely because of the large, poor, agrarian base that they start with.
Just look at the facts from the UN:
China’s emissions (in Kilotons):
2002 - 3,628,029
2003 - 4,251,329
2004 - 5,010,169
That is a growth of 623,300Kt in the first instance, and 758,840Kt in the second instance. So what about Australia’s output?
2002 - 314,108
2003 - 315,450
2004 - 326,756
So I maintain my original point. If you eliminated ALL trace of human activity from Australia, the net decrease in CO2 output would be absorbed by China in less than six months.
That is why this talk about Australia “making a difference” is errant nonsense.
People pushing this line are either:
(a) Leftists who hate the West and want to cripple its economic vitality, while imposing nanny-state oversight over all aspects of our lives;
(b) guilt-ridden bourgeois twits who feel they owe the Third World some sort of dues for us being so historically successful;
(c) intellectually compromised scientists who revel in the money, appreciation and fane that they get out of pushing this absolutist line; or
(d) opportunistic huckster who see a quick buck to be make in milking the fear campaign for all it’s worth, cf. Alphonse ‘Internet’ Gore and accolytes in the ‘Green Power’ industry.
Really, Bernard, have we met? What was the setting? You have me totally intrigued, now.
Peter Phelps: OK, so what would YOU do? Nothing? Business as usual? I repeat my point; you have NOTHING to contribute. You are part of the cabal that have us in this position. Step out of the way and take your looney Liberals with you.
Conor, I intend to do precisely nothing.
If you want to ‘do good’, then do it on your own time and with your own money. Don’t conscript me into your cause, because it’s all a big fat lie as far as I am concerned. The ‘climate models’ are continually having to be re-jigged because ol’ Mother Nature doesn’t seem to be agreeing with what all those brainy scientists are saying about her.
Why has there been no increase in temperature since 1998, despite 10 year’s worth of increase CO2 emissions. And the sea levels have stopped rising too - so it looks like Tuvalu will have to think of some other way of playing on the consicences of the stupid Left to extort money out of the West.
If you want to feel good by turning off the lights for an hour, please be my guest. If you want to pay me money to plant some trees in my backyard, then I’ll be happy to accept it. But it’s not going to change anything. We are either screwed (if you’re right) or AGW is a lie (if I’m right). Nothing anything anyone does in Australia is going to change that one little bit, thanks to China and India.
You can have the licit pleasures of being a middle-class martyr to the environment, but, to borrow a phrase from my feminist friends, “Keep your morals off my body”.
JamesK: That was very funny! Don’t tell me that a ‘pillar of the right’ actually has a sense of humour? You should do more of it; makes you almost human.
Peter, did you REALLY always top the vote as country rep? On ya! Good stuff, mate.
Reactionaries persist in trying to portray climate change as a left-right issue. It’s nothing of the sort. The division is between the rent-seekers who want to continue the subsidies that we are all paying to them for their carbon-intensive activities - involuntarily, through market distortions and the costs of climate change - and those who want polluters to pay for what they’re doing. It’s economically - not to mention morally - straightforward. Opponents of an emissions trading scheme want to perpetuate an economically-flawed model that is massively distorting our economy in their favour. But as we’ve seen, the Right is no fonder of the efficient operation of markets than the Left - especially not when their main source of political funding is from those who benefit most from current arrangements.
So where do you claim to know me from, Bernard?
You certainly weren’t a Finance Department official. An old Defence official maybe?
Were you at the ANU Democratic Audit workshop? [Nope, just checked the photo].
I just can’t for the life of me remember meeting you. Gimme a hint, Bernard. I’m sure that I can get it with just a small clue.
JamesK: Did you mean “Oh shit-time to join Venise? ” OR “Oh shit, time to join Venise”
Here’s looking at you kid.
Cheers
Venise
Keep up the good work, Peter Phelps. More of your type of thinking and the Libs would still be government, and doing a far superior job than the bumbling diplomat posing as a PM and his uni guild commie brigade role playing as Ministers. One good thing Bernard has done - highlight the idiocy of Greg Hunt (and other confused Libs before him) wanting the Libs to pander to left mythology while trying to remain credible as th only responsible political party - mission impossible that only undermines the Libs.
My how the naysayers descend like an angry swarm of bees. Keep it up Bernard you are upsetting the right people.
Well done Bernard ‘I can turn nasty’ Keane. Edging up to 50 comments!
Annabel Crabbe summed it well today Fairfax rags:
“Members of the public stared down from the galleries, horrified. Vote Labor, and have your pocket picked mercilessly at the pump?
Or vote Liberal, and have your dengue-racked frame simultaneously drowned by tidal waves and toasted by historically intense bushfires?
A terrifying choice.”
http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/irritable-bowser-syndrome-for-blowfly-swatters/2008/06/25/1214073338055.html
Whose fear are you more afeard of?
This (far very very far) Right Wing Barely Human Inebriate is most afeared of Bernard ‘Malice is my middle name” Keane and what climate apocalypse he’s writing about next!
Will it be a starter for 50?
Tony Papafilis: Aren’t you in the wrong department? You always bring your depth of thought — — — That deep.
into the circuitous up your own a*se, hard right wing bollocks to the political sphere. Since when did you give a stuff about the environment? You don’t, of course so f*ck off.
JamesK: Why do you rant about Bernard when you have at least 4 contributions, ON ALMOST EVERY ISSUE UNDER DISCUSSION , every day of the week. Bernard is a stirrer. So what? He is paid to make people jump up and down. If he gets 50 comments it’s great for Crikey’s circulation. This is terrific when all the other stirrers are hard right-wing cr*psters like Arthur, sorry Andrew Bolt. Also, JamesK I didn’t notice that you were too proud to join the Bernard Keane band-wagon. (6 comments on this issue alone) I,m guilty of over-commenting too. But at least I restrict myself to the environment and politics. Also I have the grace to laugh at myself.
Ms Crabbe’s piece was very good. A commenter bagged her the other day but I like her stuff.
I agree with Bernard, Annabel Crabbe is a fantastic journalist. So there you have it - a scientific consensus.
I also agree with Bernard that AGW is not a matter of Left or Right. For example…
Geophysicist Dr. Claude Allegre, a top geophysicist and French Socialist who has authored more than 100 scientific articles and written 11 books and received numerous scientific awards including the Goldschmidt Medal from the Geochemical Society of the United States, converted from climate alarmist to skeptic in 2006.
Allegre, a member of both the French and U.S. Academy of Sciences, had previously expressed concern about manmade global warming. “By burning fossil fuels, man enhanced the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere which has raised the global mean temperature by half a degree in the last century,” Allegre wrote 20 years ago. In addition, Allegre was one of 1500 scientists who signed a November 18, 1992 letter titled “World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity” in which the scientists warned that global warming’s “potential risks are very great.”
Allegre, who was one of the first scientists to sound global warming fears 20 years ago, now says the cause of climate change is “unknown” and accused the “prophets of doom of global warming” of being motivated by money, noting that “the ecology of helpless protesting has become a very lucrative business for some people!”
“Glaciers’ chronicles or historical archives point to the fact that climate is a capricious phenomena. This fact is confirmed by mathematical meteorological theories. So, let us be cautious,” Allegre explained in a September 21, 2006 article in the French newspaper L’EXPRESS.
The National Post in Canada also profiled Allegre on March 2, 2007, noting “Allegre has the highest environmental credentials. The author of early environmental books, he fought successful battles to protect the ozone layer from CFCs and public health from lead pollution.”
Allegre now calls fears of a climate disaster “simplistic and obscuring the true dangers” mocks “the greenhouse-gas fanatics whose proclamations consist in denouncing man’s role on the climate without doing anything about it except organizing conferences and preparing protocols that become dead letters.”
Welcome aboard, comrade!
BTW, Bernard, I have been thinking more and more on the little riddle set by you in a post above.
Would the answer have anything to do with:
(A) Robert Smith, and/or
(B) Ronald Reagan?
There is a hysterical level of religious fervour in this piece. It is quite ignorant of science. (For example, the use of the word ‘carbon’.)
The main issue is that the scientific position on ANY question is one of scepticism. Otherwise, we WOULD still be flat-earthers.
It’s not about the numbers, or words from ‘respected’ scientists, etc.
It is a scientific issue, projected into the future. Therefore, it cannot be proven at this time. It’s quite simple.
The only scientific position that can be taken is one of a ‘sceptic’.