Carbon Tax...What do you think???

[wokka]

*facepalm* *** did you even read my post? I said big business organisations would simply move to China/India, they don't give two ****s about 'quality life' in Australia. Cost = everything! It has nothing to do with living cheap, it has to do with consequences and benefits. You think developing nations like China/India care if Australia leads the 'war' against global warming? NO! Furthermore like I said our carbon footprint is minimal compared to China/India. You are the perfect example of what I was referring to in my original post, please go read a book on economics or something before coming back.

You sound like a nasty little 25 year old. I was reading books on economics before you were born.Let me know what you think when you have another 30 years of experience rather than a little theroretical opinions of others! Hopefully you will develop a little environmental and social conscience rather than just looking at what is best for you!

 

[fugawi]

Wokka......I would seriously like to hear your thoughts on how this tax will help the environment and society. I just looked back on all your posts on this thread and you seem to be at least partially for the tax. I understand that all the details are not in about it yet but the price per tonne of carbon doesn't really mean much. They will never tell us where the cash cow is going anyway so from your point of view, how will we be better off.

Not flaming you, just interested in your point of view.

 

[wokka]

Wokka......I would seriously like to hear your thoughts on how this tax will help the environment and society. I just looked back on all your posts on this thread and you seem to be at least partially for the tax. I understand that all the details are not in about it yet but the price per tonne of carbon doesn't really mean much. They will never tell us where the cash cow is going anyway so from your point of view, how will we be better off.

Not flaming you, just interested in your point of view.

The way i see it is that we spend say $1000m on power. 99.9% on coal fired and say 0.1% on renewable because on the surface coal fired is cheaper. Eventually coal will run out. We have a duty to live sustainably not just for tomorrow. The easy thing is to dig coal as quick as possible so we can all be rich now and bugger the future. Most people think with their wallet so to encourage sustainable energy we need to put the real long term cost on coal now. The extra money raised now should then be given to the users of sustainable energy to increase demand for sistainable energy. The bit I am scepticalabout is the efficency of the beaurocracy redistributing the cake.If ther is no loss to beaurocracy then the power spend should still be $1000 million but say 90% to coal and 10% to renewables. By encouraging demand for renewables R&D should increase until renewables can stand alone.At the moment we, through the government, are subsidising the effect of coal energy through the increased demands on the health system ,transport infrustructure and the destroyed environment it leaves behind. These costs often dont show up for generations.Is it fair that we benefit now at the expense of the future??

 

[fugawi]

You see I actually understand where you are coming from and in an ideal society this would be great and I would be behind it 100%, unfortunately I am also sceptical of the Labor party's motives and know that any government with a massive, out of control debt is not going to use the revenue for anything green. The other thing that worries me is that they are putting together a compensation package for low income earners, which means they know that this tax will cost jobs and increase prices across the board. So they are happy with pushing already struggling families to the wall with a one off token payment on what is realistically a pipe dream.

A couple of isolated countries around the world doing this is completely worthless. The entire planet needs to do this at the same time or it is useless. China will never agree to do anything like this because they simply don't give a flying %#$@ about the environment and never will. As they are the main polluter, the carbon intake will stay pretty much the same and nothing will ever be achieved.

Closer to home, when the coal is all gone they will just look at burning something else like gas because solar and wind are still too expensive to manufacture, install and maintain. The problem is that it will hit every type of business in some way and even the manufacture of solar panels and wind generators prices will rise due to the carbon tax. Every single item we use or consume has some form of manufacturing involved and will cop the carbon tax. Add to that transport costs will also be taxed. All these businesses will either pass the tax down to the consumer, close down or move overseas.

At the end of the day I personally can see NO benefit coming to the environment or society in Australia or the world.

 

[Mayo]

When has a government been that smart Wokka? You have to no that the monies raised will be wasted. I guess that around 65-70% will be handed back out to the worst polluters. 20-25% will be taken to pay for the costs of enforcing the new tax, and the bureaucrats, and the remainder will go into the government coffers and spent on anything other than the environment. If you think they will put much if anything into actually saving the environment I think you have been mislead. The real test will be when they release the details about the new tax.

I do however agree that we need to invest far more money and research into renewable energy sources as well as dare I say it Nuclear power as far more viable and long term, and enviro friendly power sources. With the best guesstimates thus far being we have less that 150yrs of coal/petroleum based fuels left.Most of the government planning only seems to be looking to the end of there governing term rather than 50-100-500yrs down the track.

 

[wokka]

Certainly the "me" society who live for the day, is of concern. Is it just a race to the bottom? Somewhere in the world they rape small children. Should we join them? or maybe turn a blind eye to inhumane slaughter of animals because if we dont supply someone else will. Should we try to live ethically and sustainably? or join others who may not.
As an example of incurring cost for the future to pay:
I am project managing a subdivision in the Hunter Valley on land which was previously underground mined for coal some 100 years ago. The cost today of remediating the effect of mining from 100 years ago, will be born by those who buy that developed land today. The consequences of digging bloody great holes for the sake of short term buck needs to be considered into the future.

 

[SYNeR]

You sound like a nasty little 25 year old. I was reading books on economics before you were born.Let me know what you think when you have another 30 years of experience rather than a little theroretical opinions of others! Hopefully you will develop a little environmental and social conscience rather than just looking at what is best for you!

That's a rather ageist / ad-hominem attack.

 

[wokka]

* You are the perfect example of what I was referring to in my original post, please go read a book on economics or something before coming back.

The trouble with most books on economics is that they fail to account for non economic consequences.There is more to consider than merely the financial consequences We need at least a tripple bottom line and I am sure there are other considerations besides environmental and social consequences.

That's a rather ageist / ad-hominem attack.

Perhaps, although my point is that theoretical economics often fails to account for the social and environmental consequences and that this is something which comes from experience.

 

[moosenoose]

Redistributing the "cake" (and it'll be a bloody big cake at that - of our money btw) is already drying up for most people...before its even started. So to say it'll help with renewable energy is certainly a massive stretch. The government doesn't want to keep handing money back to us...or saving the world...they just want the cash, as always. Its got nothing to do with your carbon footprint, but everything in filling their coffers. I honestly believe we're becoming more stupid and naive as time goes by, and this pay-to-pollute deception is the icing on this particular cake.

Already NSW has stopped feed-in tariffs for solar power customers - why would the government do that? The solar rebate scheme, soon to become the solar credits scheme actually EXPIRES in 2015-16. Why would they do that?

The head of Australia's Climate Change Institute Tim Flannery has stated that we're staring down the barrel of a 700-1000yr fix if the entire world stopped Carbon emissions today. Yet here we have the Federal government knocking the most minute customer incentives like feed-in tariffs and solar credit schemes on the head in 4yrs. Great incentives for renewable energy :lol: :lol:

 

[jack]

please go read a book on economics or something before coming back.

let me guess, you are right on top of the GDP concept?

 

[Snakeluvver2]

at least a tripple bottom line and I am sure there are other considerations besides environmental and social consequences.

irrelevant, Tripple Bottom Lines are old fashioned and out of date, there's a few other good consideration operations out there though, please keep posting Wokka and Jack.

 

[Ramsayi]

We reduce our need for coal as a direct result of the tax but said coal will still be mined,exported and burned.Net benefit to the environment = zero

 

[S&M Morelia]

no matter how much you reduce your carbon footprint, how much less coal is burned etc, 1 Volcanic Erruption will spew out enough carbon products into the air to cancel all your hard work of saving the environment for the last 50+ years.....

 

[Snakeluvver2]

That isn't really part of the equation though...

 

[S&M Morelia]

So if the Carbon tax is put in place to reduce carbon pollution and the government is using "Global Warming" as an excuse then to me its just a money grab.
If "Global Warming" is in fact a real threat then nothing we do will stop it IMO.

 

[lizardmech]

I don't know why everyone is complaining about China, their output is low when you consider the population and the amount of production developed countries have outsourced there. They are also spending huge amounts on renewable energy and developing related technology.

As for the carbon tax, I don't mind the government investing money in renewable energy even if it's not cost effective in the short term, however I'm not sure I would trust putting either the ALP or the coalition in charge of anything.

The state of the current political parties is more worrying than the carbon tax itself.

 

[jack]

no matter how much you reduce your carbon footprint, how much less coal is burned etc, 1 Volcanic Erruption will spew out enough carbon products into the air to cancel all your hard work of saving the environment for the last 50+ years.....

an annoying and insidious urban myth.

volcanoes usually put out just over 100 million tonnes, we put out nearly 30 BILLION tonnes of carbon dioxide

 

[fugawi]

Since CO2 is the main culpret, wouldn't planting billions of trees and stopping the wholesale destruction of the remaining rainforests be a better idea than paying our government billions of dollars. I don't think any of that money will go towards tree planting.

 

[wokka]

What do you think the money will go towards?

 

[lizardmech]

Since CO2 is the main culpret, wouldn't planting billions of trees and stopping the wholesale destruction of the remaining rainforests be a better idea than paying our government billions of dollars. I don't think any of that money will go towards tree planting.

It would help but you will still have to deal with fossil fuels running out. Scrambling to develop new energy sources after fossil fuels become scarce would be a disaster. It makes more sense to develop the technology while the world economy is still functional.

Although the government doesn't seem very competent so they will probably just waste money and then have to buy renewable energy technology from overseas.