so why are the far right fearful of


If you could save money by cutting your carbon footprint ... would you, could you.

if we cut our carbon footprint, other nations would follow and this would be the turning point of humanity controlling global climate.  

a carbon tax is just an easy way of attaining the world we desire.


so come on far right, don't be a stick in the mud, join the rest of us over here.

It's experimental, deceptive and dicey, this and will take it's toll on our nations living standard. It's not just a tax on the mining industry, this tax will trickle down to all goods and services....is like a good-will, environmental GST, which fundamentally insults our intelligence due to the false reporting of a said 'scientific consensus' based on 15 year old data now telling us a very different story.

Of which is ....

More scientists than not, are not convinced that global warming is man-made.

End of story.

Fool us once, shame on you, fool us twice, shame on us all.

Everything will attract a carbon-tax deary, right down to the price you currently pay for toilet paper (enviro or not) as the energy used to truck it to the store will transfer the carbon-tax price increase down to the consumer.

The buck has to stop somewhere, and guess where this will be?

...You are completely delusional if you cant see what's happening here, and or why.


An experimental minority-government imposing experimental carbon-taxes on the basis of a dubious AGW-theory is not my idea of responsible.

Tell Gillard to get herself back to the drawing board.....she needs to think things through again.

mellie, do you think polluting our environment is a good thing ... also do you think burning coal creates pollution?

The travesty of this notion is that 81% of voters supported the two major parties whose policies included NO CARBON TAX. How about taking this policy to the next election instead and see how the country supports it? after all that might only be months away anyhow.

The cream of Australian business has - overnight, it seems - undergone a transformation from climate-change sceptics into environmental warriors.

Each day brings forth a new prophet, proclaiming the virtues either of an emissions trading scheme or a carbon tax; or, as Tony Abbott put it during the election campaign just last month, a ''Great Big New Tax On Everything''.

If you find this sudden metamorphosis perplexing, given the vehement opposition from the business lobby in recent years, fear not, dear reader, for you are not alone. Just imagine how Tony feels.

BHP Billiton's Marius Kloppers started the ball rolling last week, advocating a hybrid system, with a carbon tax and a limited emissions scheme - an idea quickly endorsed by business lobby groups.

There followed the amazing spectacle of Andrew Forrest grudgingly backing Kloppers, calling for the government to introduce a carbon tax. Even more astounding was the TRUenergy boss, Richard McIndoe, advocating the introduction of an emissions trading scheme.

How has it come to this? A cynic may conclude that with the Greens being elevated into a powerful new force in Parliament, business leaders see a carbon price as inevitable and a certain urgency has arisen to take control of the debate.

How has it come to this? A cynic may conclude that with the Greens being elevated into a powerful new force in Parliament, business leaders see a carbon price as inevitable and a certain urgency has arisen to take control of the debate.

Before we delve into the excruciating complexity of the whole thing, let's just dispose of a ''Great Big Myth About Climate'' that has grown up around the debate in this country.

The big lie, almost universally believed by Australians, is that after the failure of the Copenhagen summit to come to an agreement, we would be foolish to go it alone.

The argument goes: why should we impose a huge cost on our export industries and our standard of living when the rest of the world has walked away from taking action on climate change?

Wrong. The rest of the world is doing something. Australia and the US - the two heaviest emitters of carbon per head of population - are the laggards. In fact, 32 nations now have emissions trading schemes in place. We're not talking obscure countries in exotic locations. Try Britain, the country with its flag in the top left hand corner of ours. Think all of the European Union. And then, of course, there is New Zealand.

Even China, the world's biggest polluter and the country accused of torpedoing a global agreement on climate change at Copenhagen, has imposed stringent undertakings upon itself to reduce emissions, with a commitment to cut 40 per cent per unit of GDP by 2020.

And before you accuse China of simply paying lip service to the idea, a fortnight ago it virtually shut down its steelmaking industry in an effort to meet emissions reduction targets it gave several years ago.

The workings of emissions schemes and carbon taxes - and the debate about which is superior in reducing carbon dioxide emissions - is devilishly complicated. But the unavoidable truth is that both will increase the price of conventional energy sources. Green policies in Britain are expected to add 33 per cent to the cost of electricity by 2020. That's for consumers. For industry, it could be as much as 43 per cent.

Those two factors - complexity and cost - have allowed our leaders to create a smokescreen so thick that it threatens to completely hide the carbon.

So which is superior, a trading scheme or a tax? Both attempt to achieve the same end but via different means. A trading scheme sets a quantity of carbon dioxide emissions and allows the market to work out the price. A carbon tax, on the other hand, sets a price and allows the market to determine the quantity of emissions.

Most economists believe a trading scheme is a more efficient means of achieving the goal. And if such a scheme were global, Australian coal producers could buy credits from those replanting rainforests in other countries.

That's not to say a carbon tax wouldn't work. Where both schemes get messy, however, is the extent of exemptions and compensation handed out to emitters and consumers.

It is also useful at this point to understand that almost everyone putting in their 2¢ worth right now has a vested interest.

Marius Kloppers last week proposed an emissions trading scheme for the handful of power companies but a carbon tax on just about everything else, with three notable omissions.

Transport (that includes motorists), agriculture and export industries were to be exempted from the tax. Those three categories just happen to be the three main sources of pollution. Under the Kloppers proposal, that pretty much puts the entire burden of paying for carbon emissions on a handful of companies in the power industry.

Kloppers apparently has deep personal convictions about the need to shift towards more environmentally friendly fuels in the future. But he also has a responsibility to act in the best interests of his company.

So, too, does McIndoe, whose company owns the Yallourn Power Station in Victoria, one of the biggest emitters of carbon dioxide in this country, and a staunch opponent of the Rudd government's trading scheme.

This week, he ridiculed Kloppers's proposal, labelling it as ''clumsy'', instead calling for, you guessed it, a trading scheme.

gizmo_2655 wrote on Sep 23^rd, 2010 at 8:27am:




Because excess carbon, caused by human activity, has caused the planet's climate system to approach a tipping point ... where it will spin out of control.

Excessive carbon is a pollutant ... and the far right is addicted to the pollutant's cause ... coal !!!

At what global temperature will the mass amounts of methane under the permafrost start escaping into the climate system ... a gas 20 times heat trapping than carbon.

Does the far right know?

longweekend58 wrote on Sep 23^rd, 2010 at 8:36am:


As I recall it, Bates, the Coalition was elected on the lowest common denominator of 4 over-simplified factors...

They took 4 petty soundbytes to the election - all of which were parroted ad nauseum ad infinitum - and none of which included any reference to carbon...

Actually, the squawk that I heard most from Lib pollies and parrots was 'STOP THE BOATS' - apparently that divisive non-issue is what got Conservatives into the biggest flocking flap!

I suggest that you review the dominant non-issues peddled by the LibLabs throughout the election campaign - cos they were both avoiding any electorally-toxic discussion of climate change as much as possible...