EVAN BEAVER: For what it’s worth, I think he/she/it is employed by one of the big coal mining companies. As to the RSI part of it. It’s probably special software with all of the key phrases linked to different letters. Frightening isn’t it? All the more so when she is probably the one who is feeding Andrew Bolt with all his carefully tailored tripe.

Even under this proposal it allows us to emit 80% of our 1990 levels in two years.

The idea of any system where the polluter pays (ie tax or permits) is that the costs are handed down to the customer. As well as the polluter having an incentive to cut emissions (and thus reduce product cost), the consumer has an incentive to reduce their usage of the product, or to look for alternatives.

Emitting carbon is a sin, once which we will continue to do for the next few years, but we need to do less. So this rather different from a RC style sin where stopping the sin completely is possible.

In my view the best solution is permits that can only be bought and sold from the Government. Permits sold back to the Government are just money refunded, so no speculation is possible. The price of the permits at any time is set by a bidding process (eg if you sell 1000 permits, the price for each permit is the very most someone is prepared to pay for the last permit).

My system would also NOT allow any international trading of permits.

Importers would have to buy permits for the CO2 emitted in making the import, and exporters would not have to buy Australian permits for goods they exported.

Money raised by selling permits would be used to subsides building new green energy, better public transport, and helping people to do things to reduce their emissions.

Problem solved

Carbon taxing isn’t an answer. It’s akin to the RC church selling indulgences to rich people so they can ‘legitimately’ commit sins.

Substituting CO2 out is orders of magnitude harder, and more costly (rebuilding power stations, finding an alternative for transport fuel…)

As for this:

Maybe you can explain why global average temperatures have not increased since 2001 despite increasing CO2 levels?

Or are you a global cooling denier as well?

both major natural drivers of temperature, ENSO and the solar cycle (the latter in the deepest minimum for nearly 100 years http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2009/03sep_sunspots.htm) have been pointing sharply down the last 2 years. Natural drivers should have put us last year at or near a 100-year low. Instead, last year’s worldwide temperature average was close to an all-time high (since the instrument record began). Why don’t we still hear all those claims of how the sun is the sole driver of climate variation?

The denial position that global warming means every year must be hotter than the last is best described as BS. The long-term trend is around 0.2 degrees per decade. Natural factors can easily result in a change that big in one year. The difference is the natural factors are short-term and cancel out of you average over a long enough period. CO_2 driven change is not a short-term effect, and jumps out from the data if you look at it over a long enough period that natural variability smooths out. Climate is defined as the average over 30 years, not the year to year average for this reason.

In other words, “There are things we can do, but they aren’t worth doing”. [See Friday’s First Dog.]

You could say the same thing about CFCs, and some people did.

But peer pressure can be a wonderful thing.

The costs of Global Warming exceed the costs of polluting the Mediterranean and they fall on nations that are prepared and able to exert peer pressure.

This isn’t just about our emissions.

We are amongst the most vulnerable of countries. Unchecked Global Warming is going to cost us dearly.

One way to reduce (not eliminate) that cost is to put pressure on other emitters, something we have the wherewithal to do, so long as we are speaking from the ‘high moral ground’. That is, so long as our own carbon emissions are heading in the right direction.

You can look to morality, or you can look to self-interest. On this occasion, they both give the same answer.

PS. I posted a shorter version of this earlier today, with a link to the first dog cartoon I mentioned. As I should have realised would happen, that post is awaiting moderation. My apologies for repeating myself should it appear tomorrow.

You could say the same thing about CFCs, and some people did.

But peer pressure can be a wonderful thing.

The costs of Global Warming exceed the costs of polluting the Mediterranean and they fall on nations that are prepared and able to lean on us if we keep dragging our feet.

Why is the Mediterranean Sea much more polluted than Lake Tahoe? (I’m not sure if those were the examples used, but similar.) If a country decided to stop polluting a body of water that it shared with many other countries, it would incur 100% of the costs of but only a fraction of the benefits of doing so. The US gets all of the costs and all of the benefits of not polluting Lake Tahoe.

The global carbon whatever is more like the Mediterranean Sea than Lake Tahoe.

“Maybe you can explain why global average temperatures have not increased since 2001 despite increasing CO2 levels?”

Unlikely.

No evidence to support your ‘theory’ there.

More likely to be a few degrees cooler.

Maybe you can explain why global average temperatures have not increased since 2001 despite increasing CO2 levels?

Or are you a global cooling denier as well?

The science behind global warming is by its nature predictive, a dangerous thing when it comes to complex systems. However, one would have to be a fool not to listen to the experts who spend their lives on the subject. But to say that later generations Michael will pay the price of our actions is big call! What price exactly are they paying? Sure it may be a few degrees hotter but in the absense of the gulfstream stopping it would be a big call to forecast that the quality of life in 50 years will be worse than it is now. Gold Coast anyone? Sign me up!

Liked the opening about being a sceptic. And the explanation from old crony unionist Wong is this: “Of course, some jobs and profits will be lost in the emission-intensive sectors of the economy if we are serious about reducing emissions.”

An insincere ALP needed to beat work choices, and they invested in any feel good policy that was useful at the time to do that. Work Choices is dead. And the veil is slipping.

Carr is talking nukes. Rudd is tub thumping on boat arrivals. Lowy Institute is pooh poohing there is even an electoral imperative in a poll.

Go Science (aka PM Kevin ‘science’ Rudd). The di was cast when Garrett was sidelined having served his purpose, 2 years ago.