It takes big news for Australia to rate a mention in Europe, but the carbon tax was all over CNN in Italy. A big tick to Julia for having the guts to put together a plan that covers most of the issues, isn’t too hard on business and doesn’t over-compensate richer households.
At last we are seeing some leadership on this globally critical issue.
Anyone who doubts climate change will end up like the dinosaurs, and, as mentioned in a comment on one of Graham’s blogs, the Age of the Anthropocene is now upon us.
That is a coin termed by scientist Paul Crutzen for the changes our species has brought to the ecosystem. And it was also the cover story of a recent Economist magazine, in case you think I read it in the whole earth catalog.
No wonder there is confusion about the impacts, or the patterns being altered or created. We may be the dominant species (for now), able to affect the nitrogen, carbon, water and other cycles, but we are not fully able to comprehend, much less control, the consequences, unintended or not, of our behaviour. Any more than wolves are able to work out or even express awareness when their prey gets over-eaten and their baby wolves starve. Are we really so arrogant to think we are so much smarter?
It is time for us to get behind our leader and buckle down for the ride ahead. Latest predictions say there is no hope of avoiding 4 degrees of warming this century. Adaptation is now the only way forward.
That sand some of us still have our heads in is going to get very warm indeed.
Rhonda,the Earth is cooling.This is why there is a new theory of Anthropological Global Warming.CO2 according to the new theory is upsetting the ocean current conveyer belts and making the North Atlantic cooler. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shutdown_ofthermohaline_circulation Do you see the Orwellian double speak Rhonda? Global warming is actually Global cooling.
We have been lied to.Study carefully the agenda behind carbon taxes.Gillard has already agreed to give 10% of our carbon taxes to the UN.It is all about Global Goverance which Bob Brown recently endorsed.Do you want a world Govt which you cannot elect? Who in Aust voted for the carbon tax and Bob Browns’ Global Governance?
Comment by Ross — July 13, 2011 @ 1:31 pm
China is forecast to increase generation from 900GW to 1800GW between 2010 and 2020.
More than two thirds (650GW) of that will come from coal. Australia’s total power output is 50GW, 85% is from coal.
Our efforts are senseless when China and other major emitters are not taxing CO2 or have ETS schemes. China, USA, Canada, Japan, India, Brazil, SE Asia are NOT taxing their consumers or business.
Australians are not stupid. They are not prepared to lead the world in abatement measures. At $23/t Australia will have the most expensive scheme in the world. Australians have no desire to be the gold medal winners. They will not support carbon taxes or ETS scemes until they can see our competitors and contemporary countries doing the same. Anyone who thinks the public are up for this are deluded.
There will be NO bounce in the polls for Gillard. She will be sacked within six months, Labor has no other option. She is seen as a liar and a fake.
The distinct possibility will be that a NSW type slaughter will give the coalition a majority in the senate.
Comment by Ian — July 13, 2011 @ 1:43 pm
As an Australian citizen, born and currently living overseas, I can be proud that Australian Government does the right thing and leads the world. Carbon tax or plain cigarette packaging initiatives are only of a few examples. Time has come to stop greedy corporations and introduce environmental and public health legislation which can finally put the world on the sustainability path.
Globalisation was supposed to be a good think, but unfortunately NAFTA has resulted in shutting down the manufacturing industry in the western world and moving it to the countries with fewer environmental safeguards and workers rights. Workers exploitation and consumer life style in China or India has resulted not only in the increasing global environmental problems, but also (in many western countries) in the considerable polarisation of the society. Middle class is disapearing almost as part of the current mass extinction as part of environmental imbalance. However, this is also beneficial to corporations and corrupt western governments. Low socio-economic background members of the society are less environmentally typically conscious and day-to-day survival is their main objective.
This also coincides with moving away the western economies from the Keynesian welfare state concept and democracy, often through ‘shock therapies’ after natural disasters (see for example Katrina in the US) which results in even a greater privatisation of traditional government services (e.g. education, public housing, security, water supply). As a result, corporations compete with the government and want privatisation of what is yet left. Corporate monopolies are hardly good for consumers.
In this context, natural disasters are then actually beneficial to corporations. A few of them cares about the climate change, the future of the world or sustainability (though they have often sustainability reporting and environmental policies to keep all of us happy). Their growing greed and shareholders’ interest prevail.
Corporations increasingly have a greater influence on politicians and media which promulgate misinformation, e.g. about climate change. Fully ‘independant media’ are no longer present.
The 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report has been the only reliable source of information on climate change being based on 4,000 scientific papers and extensive climatological modelling. The consequences described there are grim, catastrophic and will ocurr in the near future, within the next 1-2 generations. It is expected the 2011 IPCC report will provide even more alarming predictions in relation to our grim fate and a clear evidence of relationship of recent natural disasters worldwide to the progressing climate change.
Though the scientific evidence is crystal clear, out-of-context views are common about ‘global cooling’ or that global warming will be reversed by itself.
At present, not only the carbon emission stabilisation is at stake, but the whole western livestyle and our freedoms. Fewer taxes. imposed on corporations will not help to resolve the current financial problems, but will exacerbate the environmental problems and finally the government’ budget deficit.
The Australian Government has shown the world its leadership in climate change issues. Please stay that way. Do not drop the carbon tax. The world needs the leadership and examples in the climate change issues. I also keep the fingers crossed in the Philip Morris legal challenge of the plain cigarette packaging legislation.
Comment by Rob Canoe — July 17, 2011 @ 9:57 pm
Rhonda, very funny, you have taken off an airheaded warmist beautifully.
You may have overdone it. Some posters are taking this load of tripe seriously.
Comment by Leo Lane — July 18, 2011 @ 8:59 am
Latest info I have at hand says east African famine (and violence) is linked to climate change, and that countries will need to take an EROI (that’s energy return on investment) perspective. Energy is becoming the new currency.
Some of you may think I am a wanker (and proud of it, too), but I challenge you to come back to me in five years time and tell me (again) that it isn’t true.
Comment by Ronda Jambe — July 23, 2011 @ 6:19 pm
There is a new web-site that proves anthropogenic global cooling.
Please visit: http://www.AnthropogenicGlobalCooling.com
Comment by Dr Josef Tainsh — January 13, 2012 @ 9:59 pm