Seen as the biggest economic reform in a generation, the proposed “carbon pollution reduction system” unveiled by Climate Change Minister Penny Wong yesterday will hit 1000 firms responsible for 75 per cent of Australian greenhouse gas emissions, with a cost for their carbon pollution. The scheme will flow through to every section of the economy, causing a one-off jump in inflation of about 0.9 per cent at a relatively low initial carbon price of $20 a tonne.
The new impost could drive up electricity bills by 16 per cent and gas bills by 9 per cent.
But the Government will lift pensions to cover the increased costs, with low-income households earning up to $53,000 also to be shielded through direct payments or tax cuts.
Middle-income households will receive an unspecified amount of limited financial help, possibly through a tax cut.
You can’t help being cynical about this emission trading scheme from Brother Number One. Or thinking that in political terms it is a perfect example of the old shell game. By “compensating” most low income people(largely supporters of Brother Number One) the government hopes to protect its electoral foundations from harm until after the 2010 general election. The partial replacement of the fuel excise with the carbon price is clearly aimed at that. But there is a great way to avoid all of the impact on Australian voters and that is to drop the whole thing. Frankly that is what the opposition should be advocating. They should be saying long and loud that any Australian go it alone ETS is utterly pointless without global co-operation in the absence of any efforts from China the USA and India. And it is about time that some opposition polles started to resist the stupid claims that CO2 is a “pollutant”, heaven in a hand basket, it is an essential element in all of the biological processes of the planet, without it no plants would grow and no animals (including us) would survive.
Brother Number One , for good or for bad , has hitched his wagon to the climate change caravan and with any luck the people will start to recognise that it is a snake oil show that promises much but that will deliver nowt, with another two years of non warming maybe the Australian people will realise that the way to deal with snake oil sales men is this…
Cheers Comrades
8)
Iain Hall's SANDPIT 
Two questions Iain:
Why have you tagged this with a poetry tag? I can’t see any here? (Although I am olf fashioned and think poetry has to rhyme).
In what way would Australia’s ETS scheme be ‘going it alone’?
BTW I do take your point that CO2 is a naturally occuring gas – but pretty much anything can be toxic at dangerous levels. People have overdosed and died from water poisioning for goodness sake, even though the stuff makes up about 72% of our bodies (remember that woman in the States who died in a ‘wee for a Wii’ radio competition for example). The AGW fear is that returning CO2 levels to those not seen in millions of years in a short space of time will be similarly unsafe to the Earth.
PKD
I got this from here
You might also want to check this article out as it explains why CO2 ia les significant than warminists are willing to admit.
You do realise, don’t you Iain, that referral to CO2 as a ‘pollutant’ within the context of AGW is not a reference to it being so concentrated that human beings can’t breathe? It’s a reference to it being so concentrated that it begins to have a deleterious effect on our climate.
As such it is reasonable to call it a pollutant, even where it has failed to reach levels of concentration that would directly affect humans.
Mondo read the article I link to at the end of #2 🙄
Iain,
Well I went through the link. Given the size of the thing I won’t respond in detail but make a few observations.
First off, it’s written by Monckton – hardly a sterling recommendation.
Secondly, I dont know when this year Moncktons article came out, but I quote
“In the cold winter of 2007/8, record sea-ice extents were observed at both Poles.”
Yet the sea ice has already retreated faster than those gained last Winter and is now and its lowest recorded level since records began. Monckton’s point has already been shown nonsense in one summers worth of ice loss.
Thirdly (and this my point) – there are obviously plenty of factors that affect global temperatures – and CO2 levels is only one of them. But it is a factor in global temperatures and no-one can definitely say how much or little a role it really plays. So yes, there is still more to learn about its significance.
But to assume that, while we do still have much to learn about its role, that its ok to keep belching the stuff back into the ecosystem on the assumption that its role is minor is incredibly naive. But thats the position sceptics and denialists represent…
PS – Can you answer my question now I’ve read through the Monckton cut-and-paste?
What way do you think Australia is ‘going it alone’ with adopting an ETS?
Also cheers for taking off the poetry tag – that was confusing! 🙂
[…] https://iainhall.wordpress.com/2008/07/17/a-big-price-for-nowt/ […]
Sigh–there’s never a shortage of unoriginal little idiots, is there?
Yes KG and especially ones who don’t realise that things have moved on
Sorry about the delay responding PKD,I had to remove the Troll spoor from my blog,
🙄
Here goes.
Read his arguments and in particular what he says about the way that water vapour (always more significant that CO2) responds in the tropics.
You may Pooh pooh him but his logic and thoroughness can’t be faulted. He goes back to first principles and finds the AGW case very faulty indeed.
So it is claimed but the sea ice melt in is not unprecedented even before the industrial revolution due to natural variation and the amount of ice cover at the south is increasing…
Hang on am I reading you right but it looks like you are trying to distance yourself from AGW here by conceding that the theory is far from conclusive.
No what is more naive is to commit the economies of the world to mitigate a problem that is far from being proven to even exist and the belief that it is even possibly scientifically, or (more importantly) politicly to enact the prescription for this “disease” even if the disease were actually real.
I personally think it wonderful that Prime Minister Rudd is taking the bull by the udders and leading this reluctant recalcitrant economy to the enormous revenues available through “cap and trade” and other measures.
Doing nothing will mean that our children will suffocate as a direc result of our inaction. Can we live with that??
Kaboom
I don’t think that you are for real, having looked at your blog you are either a total parody or a total religious nutter for the church of the green faith. I have children and I don’t for one minute think that the dire prognostications are any where near true. Check out my other blog Carbon Credits Australia for some more detailed reasons not to believe the Gaian conspiracy rubbish.