Choice magazine (government lap-dog) “likes” monopolies and propaganda. Oops.

For an example of modern government propaganda, wait til you see this: Your Carbon Price (No really, go spend 30 seconds there to try to guess what this production would have cost.)

I’ve never seen a website so slickly designed, so smooth to the point of oozing graphic designer dollars with every rollover. As I watched it, I was seeing our national productivity being buried under Gucci-layers-of-gloss-red-tape. It kept asking me private questions “your name” etc as if the spelling of “Jane”, “Joe” or “John” makes any difference to my carbon footprint  (my name is Noneof Yourbusiness). Bring out the sick-bag as Dellers would say.

If regulators tie up the people in enough paper chains they eventually become as strong as steel bindings. “YourCarbonPrice” takes our money to tell us we might “earn” $2 – $5 dollars a week to help the country clean up polluters while we take cold showers, sell the second fridge, and smile with delight at being a “good citizen”. What more could we ask for? A George Orwell fridge magnet?

And watch the sycophantic supporters rush to slap their logo on the propaganda tool. 

If I had a Choice mag subscription, I would write to protest today. They support this schmuck with a logo that says “Choice — the people’s watchdog”. Wait for it, now Choice have become expert Climate Analysts. They’ve road-tested exactly one theory offered by the monopolistic sellers, ignored the test results, the competitors, they’ve downplayed the costs, uprated the benefits, and they think this “serves” the public? Their brand name moniker should should read “Choice — the government’s lap-dog”.

Poor Choice mag editors. They still think that government science is uncorrupted.

Watch the propaganda turn the cost of $3000 per worker into 2 cents on a milk bottle

This only hits those nasty polluders …

 

…and even if they do pass on some of their costs, it is only cents!

Yet, for just cents, it will get rid of a whopping 1.1 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide!

(And how many degrees is that? Would that be zero °C, or no(!) lets be accurate 0.0°C?)



Thanks to the power of Green-fairyland economics, look how much money this will generate!

You pay cents, and they get to spend $30 billion dollars. (Why don’t we double the carbon tax? Triple it? I’ve seen adverts for do-it-yourself get rich schemes which weren’t this ambitious.)


….

Right here on the screen is $30b in expenditure, from 10 million workers, which is a cost of about $3000 per worker over some undisclosed time period. But remember it’s only 2 cents extra for that litre of milk.

Let’s do the cost-benefit analysis Choice don’t do:

 

Cost

 

Benefits

$3000 per worker Global temperatures lowered by 0.0°C, sea levels changed by: 0 mm, animals saved from extinction: noneBut Julia gets to stay in power 😐


So it cost Australian workers $3,000 a head for Julia to buy off the Greens? What would you rather have spent $3,000 on?

Ladies and Gentlemen, this government is not a group of Australians who are giving us the full story, it’s a group of con artists wasting our money, then stealing some more so they can help you feel good about being ripped off. Choice Mag should be running a mile. Actually, self respecting Labor members should be running a mile too. They are screwing the workers and scorning the voters.

 

 

PS: Alexa ranks their site as somewhere north of 7 millionth most popular, and it has all of 37 links in (38 now). Still that may have been good value for money as long as the site cost no more than, say, $30…

 

8.7 out of 10 based on 83 ratings

152 comments to Choice magazine (government lap-dog) “likes” monopolies and propaganda. Oops.

  • #
    Stew

    The Banana described it all Banana Republic a bit like NZ.

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  • #
    Mike Fomerly of Oz

    I like the bit about $15 billion to help households with the rising prices. That’s interesting. Whence comes the $15 billion? From the $50 billion in taxes passed along as price increases, of course.

    It’s a stinking and cynical grab for the cash of Australians riding on the back of scaremongering. Typical leftist government program: costs heaps, does nothing to further its stated goals, but enriches politicians and their cronies.

    The truly astonishing thing is that there are some people to whom this makes sense.

    The truly disheartening thing is that those same people vote.

    00

  • #
    rukidding

    Gee hope not to many are like me or should I say like the person I created I get to pay $15/wk and get no compensation.Then again we were a dual income of 240,000 with two kids.
    The thing I never see is the GST take. Now correct me if I am wrong but if the CO2 tax adds $300 to my power bill I will have to pay an extra $30 GST.So the CO2 tax has cost me $330.So for every $10 of CO2 tax I get taxed $1 GST.
    Or to put it in their quaint way for every 2c I get 0.2c GST.

    00

    • #
      Jaymez

      So if $30 billion is passed on by the 500 ‘biggest polluters’, then that’s and extra $3 billion in GST revenue for the government. Or twice the 2012/13 budgets surplus forecast!

      00

    • #
      Bulldust

      Not only that, if you live in WA most of that GST goes to other states and territories. NT should get as much GST as WA next year in the carve up despite having about one tenth the population … how is that fair you may ask?

      Then one thinks a bit longer on the issue and realises the NT is not a state, but as the name implies, a territory. Thus by redistributing the GST from states like WA to the NT, it eases the burden off the Fed Government which would otherwise have to support the NT in balancing its books. And by doing this children, uncle Swannie gets to achieve his precious surplus by milking the golden goose called WA.

      That’s all for tonight kids, off to bed with you, and switch off the nightlight or the evil CO2 monster will get you in your sleep.

      * Not sure why, but the tone of that post changed slightly as I was typing it… perhaps it has something to do with how sickeningly patronising the current Fed Government is?

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      • #
        Bulldust

        Upon further review it may well be that the Territory-Commonwealth fiscal relations don’t work as I have suggested, but I am completely at a loss to suggest why the current Commonwealth (Fed) Government is clinging to a system so obviously broken and putting WA at a major fiscal disadvantage. Your guess is as good as mine … perhaps it is mere political pragmatism in that the Labor-voting states and terirtories are the major net recipients of GST funds and the Lib states are the main donors /shrug. But any way you look at it, the system is SNAFU.

        00

  • #
    Christian Knauer

    Jo, what you didn’t get, it must be written proPAGANda cult.

    00

  • #
    Betapug

    I thought it was illegal now in Australia to ascribe price-tag increases to the carbon tax?

    00

  • #
    Dave

    I hacked into the site and found Wayne Swan’s analysis result http://i.imgur.com/8brLL.jpg

    00

  • #

    YourCarbonSkim is registered to Craig Brady of http://www.prodigy.com.au/ and running their website reseller hosting through the vehicle http://www.virtuoso.net.au/ which, is odd, because his current LinkedIn status is:

    Assistant Director – Queensland Census Management Unit at Australian Bureau of Statistics

    No wonder they can’t help but ask questions. This is a data mining operation to figure out what demographics are interested in the carbon scam so that a political message can be tailored for them. Looks like Pillard is swapping favours with some of her old QLD public service mates. Welcome to the good ol’ boys club where the line between public servant and political party hack doesn’t exist.

    I’m shocked. /sarc

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  • #
    Jake

    Unlike the Europeans at least you call it a tax because no matter how you turn it that is what it is.
    So they take the equivalent of 70 million cars off the road by whatever the year was, 2025 I think, how will you guys get around, there aren’t even that many cars in Australia.
    Look , the good thing is that the government is not trying to make money on this, it is a re-distribution.
    The big polluters pay to the government and they give it back to the people.
    That is for the time being, subsidies of this nature are usually short lived. ( the tax will be like diamonds: forever)
    I once listened to an environment minister who was introducing a similar type of thing saying: we are not making money on this it actually costs us.
    What he was really saying was that the shortfall he alluded to will also need to be paid by you the taxpayer so we get you twice.
    As Jo stated it won’t do anything to the temperature. But you should get a cleaner air for it with a bit of luck.

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    • #
      Jaymez

      Jake, if only it was that harmless – a simple redistribution of money, but it’s not. What about the companies which find the easiest way to reduce carbon emissions, and therefore the tax, is to simply shift production off shore to a country which doesn’t have a carbon tax? Maybe they’ll even pick up some carbon credits for closing their production in Australia which they can sell to a hapless Australian company and use those funds to set up the business overseas? So Australia looses jobs, it loses all tax revenue from that company’s production, and it increases our costs of imports and our welfare bill. Sure it’s a redistribution of money – from Australia to overseas!

      But the problems don’t stop there, the government plans to increase the carbon tax from the initial $23 per tonne to $131 – $275 per tonne based on treasury modelling required to achieve the emissions reduction goals by 2050. The bulk of the Government’s redistribution by way of lump sums to pensioners and families through the welfare and tax systems are designed to only cover the starting price of the carbon tax, not where it will end up!

      I know your comment was somewhat tongue in cheek, but this tax has a huge potential to damage our economy. We can’t afford to be laid back about it. And you can’t argue with Jo’s figures – the tax take equates to approximately $3,000 per worker – at the starting price!

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  • #
    Peter Miller

    I am only half Australian, the other half is very proud not to be associated with this type of government propaganda.

    00

  • #
    Andrew McRae

    I note with amusement that their cartoon drawing of the clean green energy generator field shows no motion blur on the windmill blades and a solar panel that isn’t casting a shadow.
    Now that’s green productivity you can take to the bank! (To use your country’s overdraft facility.)

    I’m surprised Choice even bothered to review the “real product”. Couldn’t they just use the Treasury Modelling? 🙂 Oh wait, the carbon tax has not gone into effect which means… this *is* the treasury modelling. Next up, Choice reviews a computer model of a dog breed, a model of a stove, and a model of an air-conditioner… no just kidding, there’s no air-conditioning where you’re going, fellow aussies.

    What trigger is it going to take to condense popular dissent beyond the critical mass point and into a democratic restoration? Why do people just not care about this enough to stop it?

    00

  • #

    PS:Just added a thought to the post — Alexa ranks their site as somewhere north of 7 millionth most popular, and it has all of 37 links in (38 now). Still that may have been good value for money as long as the site cost no more than, say, $30…

    Just an extra thought… given that the subscriber group of Choice mag is probably older independent and discerning thinkers (? Is it?), slapping their logo onto see-through government propaganda doesn’t strike me as the way to attract new customers.

    Or am I wrong, and new Choice subscribers are inner city white university educated greenies, in which case, the logo placement makes some economic (if not rational) sense.

    00

  • #

    Jake, nice line there.

    So they take the equivalent of 70 million cars off the road by whatever the year was, 2025 I think, how will you guys get around, there aren’t even that many cars in Australia.

    But if they take 70 million cars off the road, it won’t be Australian cars. It will be ones in China or India …

    00

    • #
      Sonny

      Joanne,

      This statement may be true in terms of Carbon Dioxide (but probably isnt) but it is a gross exaggeration in terms of the pollution people associate with cars (pollution in the form of Nox and unburnt hydrocarbons which stinks and has serious adverse health affects. Carbon Dioxide is perfectly harmless!

      So really in terms of “pollution” the carbon tax is the equivalent of taking ZERO cars off the road!

      It is no accident that they used “cars off the road” rather than “beers off the shelf” as a measure of the environmental impact.

      Like everything about their new website and the entire carbon tax campaign – it is all misrepresentations and propaganda.

      The whole experience felt like a ride – because it is. This government is taking us all for a ride!

      Highly suggest reading George Orwell’s 1984. His prophecy was spot on just a bit early.

      00

  • #
    John from CA

    “it’s a group of con artists wasting our money, then stealing some more so they can help you feel good about being ripped off.”

    You’re not alone, Christopher Monckton did an analysis of the California Cap and Trade program, Why mitigating CO2 emissions is cost-ineffective

    Because so small a fraction of global emissions will be abated by the scheme, simple calculations based on the IPCC’s central assumptions about how much warming will occur this century (which, for the sake of argument, I simply accepted as correct) show that as a result of the full and successful operation of the scheme global CO2 concentration will fall from 410 to – er – 409.93 parts per million by volume by the end of the decade.

    Manmade radiative forcing abated would thus be less than 0.001 Watts per square meter, and the warming prevented would be – wait for it, wait for it – a staggering 0.001 Fahrenheit degrees (almost). Yup, less than one-thousandth of a Fahrenheit degree of global warming prevented, at a cost of $410 billion even after discounting to present value.

    Is that a bargain for the already over-taxed, over-regulated citizenry of California? We report – you decide.

    Its just disheartening — who elected fools who can’t find a better purpose for $41 billion a year?

    00

  • #

    OT I’m afraid, but there’s a health and eco disaster issue here, that alarmingly few people know about.

    http://thepointman.wordpress.com/2012/04/21/theres-a-killer-in-your-house-2/

    Pointman

    00

    • #
      Jaymez

      That is frightening. The one thing I know for sure and certain is that I now have all three lights on in my study when I am working where the single wall light behind my desk used to suffice when I had the incandescent light bulbs. Any idea if using three lights cancels out the supposed savings?

      00

      • #
        Wayne, s. Job

        Jaymez,
        This is for all people on here that need good light, go to a good hardware store and ask for fusible globes, in England they are called robust globes. These globes are not fragile in their operation and can be moved around for lead lights etc for working on cars and other uses.
        Halogen lights do not like being bumped or moved when lit, much the same for the ghostly whites and if they do go bang in a confined space are toxic. Thus the rebranded fusible globes are your good old incandesants, happy lighting.

        00

  • #
    Jaymez

    I’m still waiting to learn who the 500 biggest polluters are? Does the Government know yet? I don’t think so.

    So how can you work out how much carbon tax will be paid?

    Just like the mining tax the Government really have no idea and are just crossing their fingers. If it doesn’t work out Wayne Swan will just blame a rapid decline in Government Revenues for the ever growing deficit – just like he has since 2007.

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    • #
      • #
        Kevin Moore

        From 15.1 Barnaby –

        Do you think that the “500 biggest polluters” are all – or even “mostly” – power stations, miners, and heavy industry?

        That is certainly what the government would have you believe.

        Take a careful, close look at the exact words used by our government on the “500 biggest polluting companies” page of their new website (emphasis added) –

        Most are companies operating large facilities (with over 25,000 tonnes annual CO2-e emissions) that directly emit greenhouse gases, such as power stations, mines and heavy industry.

        Seems pretty clear, doesn’t it?

        If you take the government at their word, then you have been led to fully expect that “most” of the “500 biggest polluters” are power stations, mines, and heavy industry.

        And, that “most” of the “500 biggest polluters” “directly emit” greenhouse gases.

        Would it surprise you to learn then, that our electricity generators, along with all the related companies that supply electricity and maintain the transmission networks, only comprise a tiny 7% of the total companies listed on the government’s official NGER Register of “polluters”?

        And would it surprise you to learn that the 2nd biggest number of “polluting companies” are actually Freight / Transport logistics firms.

        That’s right … truckies.

        The people who haul our food and everything else we need, right across this huge, sparsely populated island continent, to our local retailers where we can easily purchase it.

        And would it surprise you to learn that the 3rd biggest number of “polluting companies” are actually Food Manufacturers.

        That’s right … the good folk whose sweat and toil keep us all alive by taking the raw ingredients and making our daily bread … and cereal, and meat, and veges, and dairy products, and processed foods, and snacks, and … you get the idea.

        And would it surprise you to learn, that the government’s own official National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting (NGER) department’s complete Register also includes the following categories of “biggest polluters”:

        * 62 government entities, such as local councils and State-owned enterprises.

        * 22 hospital / health care companies, encompassing 131 public and private hospitals, plus 100′s of day surgeries, clinics, aged care, rehab, palliative, mental and other health care services.

        * 19 water utility companies.

        * 19 universities.

        * 7 renewable energy companies.

        * 7 recycling companies.

        * 3 biofuels companies.

        * 3 scientific research and development companies (including the CSIRO).

        * 18 public transport companies.

        * 41 unknown, unidentifiable “companies”, including 3 whose ABN number (as provided to the NGER) is not recognised by ASIC, and 1 deregistered from ASIC.

        * 7 companies now in receivership or liquidated.

        * 1 recently-abandoned state government/private consortium joint venture company, that had been hoping to sell wind farms to China.

        * 1 gold miner that ceased all active mining operations in Australia in September 2010.

        * 1 gold miner with an office in Brisbane, but all active mining operations in Indonesia.

        * Double-triple-quadruple-quintuple-ups of companies owned by the same parent, or recently merged.

        The government claims that the (absence of any real) information it has (not) provided to the public about these “500 biggest polluting companies”, is based on the data from its own National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting (NGER) department.

        Problem 1.

        The NGER’s most recent Report dated April 2011 shows only 299 “polluters” reporting emissions for 2009-10.

        Problem 2.

        The NGER’s complete Register of “polluters” shows only 775 company names and/or their ACN numbers. And no other information.

        So our first obvious question must be this:

        How can the government justify the claim “1,000 of the biggest polluters”, endlessly repeated for months until mere days before unveiling their scheme, when their own official NGER Register only has 775 company names on it?

        Our second obvious question must be this:

        How can the government justify the claims made on their “500 biggest polluting companies” webpage, when

        (a) only 299 companies reported emissions in their NGER department’s latest Report, and

        (b) their official NGER Register of 775 “companies” provides no information by which to easily identify either the location, or industry sector, of each of those companies?
        ………..

        00

      • #
        Siliggy

        Reading that link makes it look like the carbon tax will self destruct in a matter of minutes.
        They have risen far beyond their level of incompetence!

        00

    • #
      Tim

      “I’m still waiting to learn who the 500 biggest polluters are? Does the Government know yet?”

      Do the shareholders know yet?

      I wonder about what the shareholders will do when they find out, knowing that this is just the starting tax-price, and not knowing how the compensation will work, how much it will be and how long it will last.

      00

  • #
    FijiDave

    I have not seen commenters pick up on the shifty attempt at finding out just who the truly gullible are for further exploitation. I would think that if they have your name and post code they have a very good idea of exactly who you are.

    Let’s see, Joanne Nova 6150 and, voila, letter in the mail and, “Can we interest you in a bridge? We’ve got a nice one for sale.” Or screeds of Green propaganda in the mail.

    Whatever, it is a bit scary, and reminds me of creepy people like the Stasi.

    00

    • #
      rukidding

      FijiDave the thing is not to identify yourself.For instance Name Fred Post code Parliament house Canberra then unless they can identify you from your IP address.
      Or if you wanted to have a laugh put yourself down as Santa Claus.

      00

      • #
        FijiDave

        rukidding? No, I put my name down as “HaveSexAndTravel”, and as I live in NZ now, I looked up the Whitepages and put in a Brisbane post code.

        As for the IP address, well knowing I know that I know nothing much about that, then that is a probability. 🙁

        Cheers

        00

  • #
    Graeme No.3

    Here are a few. Note that it is far more than electricity that will be costing more.
    You will also see the “doubling up” effect. Not only does the Government charge the the electricity companies for emitting CO2, they charge the food producers for using the electricity, then the supermarkets for using electricity.

    ALDI Stores (A Limited Partnership)
    Alinta Energy Limited
    Arnotts Biscuits Holdings Pty Ltd
    Arrow Energy Ltd
    Baiada Pty Limited
    Bega Cheese Limited
    Big Ben Holdings Pty. Limited
    Cadbury Australia Limited
    Coca-Cola Amatil Limited
    CSIRO
    Competitive Foods Australia Pty Ltd
    David Jones Limited
    Fairfax Media Limited
    Food Investments P/L
    Foster’s Group Limited
    Goodman Fielder Limited
    Graincorp Limited
    Harvey Norman Holdings Limited
    Healthscope Limited
    Heinz Watties Pty Ltd
    Hunter Water Corporation
    Inghams Enterprises Pty Limited
    Kimberly Clark Pacific Holdings Pty Ltd
    Linfox Pty Ltd
    Lion Nathan National Foods Pty Ltd
    Mars Australia Pty Ltd
    McCain Foods (Aust) Pty Ltd
    Metro Trains Melbourne Pty Ltd
    Metropolitan Health Service
    Monash University
    Murray Goulburn Co-operative Co. Limited
    Myer Holdings Limited
    National Australia Bank Limited
    Nestle Australia Ltd
    New Zealand Milk (Australasia) Pty Ltd
    Public Transport Authority of Western Australia
    Queensland Electricity Transmission Corporation Limited
    Ramsay Health Care Limited
    South Australian Water Corporation
    St Vincent’s Health Australia Ltd
    State Transit Authority of NSW
    SunWater
    Sydney Water Corporation
    Tabcorp Holdings Limited
    Telstra Corporation Limited
    The Uniting Church in Australia Property Trust (Q)
    The University of Queensland
    University of Melbourne
    Westfield Holdings Limited
    Westpac Banking Corporation
    Woolworths Ltd

    Try searching for NGER-greenhouse-energy-information-2009-10

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  • #
    Kevin Moore

    http://www.2.prnewswire.co.uk/cgi/news/release?id=90090

    Rothschild Australia and E3 International to take the lead in the global carbon trading market

    Sydney, Australia – Rothschild Australia and E3 International are set to become key players in the international carbon credit trading market, an emerging commodity market that analysts estimate could be worth up to US$150 billion by 2012.

    In a move that will re-shape the fledgling emissions trading market, Rothschild Australia and E3 International today announced their intention to launch the Carbon Ring Consortium — an investment vehicle that will provide companies in the Asia Pacific Region with an innovative way of learning about and understanding their risks in the new carbon market.

    The Carbon Ring Consortium is the first of its kind in the Asia-Pacific Region, and is the first in a series of private investment vehicles that Carbon Ring Pty Ltd will launch in coming years.

    Richard Martin, the chief executive officer of Rothschild Australia said, “With recent developments in international climate change policy, the question is no longer if, but when the global carbon trading market will emerge. Rothschild Australia, through Carbon Ring, intends to be at the forefront of this market, providing private investment vehicles to companies seeking to offset their greenhouse gas emissions liabilities.”

    The Carbon Ring Consortium allows companies with a future carbon liability to purchase a range of carbon credits and obtain a practical insight into the operation of this new market. Carbon credits will be bought from domestic and international projects that achieve a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. These carbon credits will be distributed pro rata to Consortium investors.

    “The Carbon Ring Consortium is an important first step for Rothschild and for our clients,” said Mr. Martin.

    “The Consortium should appeal to companies that are faced with a greenhouse liability and are significant users or producers of energy, such as electricity generators, heavy industrials, oil companies, major manufacturers or airlines, amongst many others……….

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    • #
    • #
      Kevin Moore

      http://barnabyisright.com/

      One of the themes we have long followed here at barnabyisright.com is this blogger’s conviction that Australians will inevitably be caught up in the wave of government theft of citizens’ superannuation that has been slowly but surely sweeping the Western world since the GFC.

      Indeed, as we have documented many times, the tide has already gone out in preparation for the big wave’s arrival on our shores, with Labor having quietly implemented a sneaky Liberal party policy aiming to direct your employer to send your future super payments to a special new department at the ATO, not directly to your super fund.

      We have previously seen that PM-in-waiting Bill Shorten, Minister for Superannuation, has described Australians’ $1.3 Trillion in individual superannuation savings as “our sovereign wealth fund”, a “significant national asset”.

      In today’s Australian newspaper, we learn that Shorten is off to Israel to meet and greet, and investigate the Israeli superannuation fund industry.

      Your humble blogger’s sceptical eyebrow was raised sharply on noting that, while the emphasis of the story is that, purportedly, Bill is visiting Israel “to examine ways for the retirement savings system to help kick-start the Australian venture capital business” – a disturbing development in its own right – Bill’s spokeswoman let a very different kind of cat out of the bag:

      SOME of the leading figures in the multi-trillion-dollar superannuation sector will join federal Financial Services Minister Bill Shorten on a visit to Israel later this week as the government examines ways for the retirement savings system to help kick-start the Australian venture capital business.

      Joining Mr Shorten on the visit will be Australian Prudential Regulation Authority deputy chairman Ross Jones, MLC chief executive Steve Tucker and Challenger Group retirement income chairman Jeremy Cooper, author of the contentious Cooper Report on the superannuation sector.

      During the visit, co-ordinated by the Australia-Israel Chamber of Commerce and the Israeli embassy, the group will meet executives of leading Israeli financial services companies, including its largest insurance group, Migdal, and fellow insurer Clal Insurance Enterprise Holdings.

      It will also meet officials of the Capital Market, Insurance, and Savings Department, which supervises insurance and the long-term savings market.

      Mr Shorten is also planning one-on-one meetings with Bank of Israel governor Professor Stanley Fischer, chief scientist Avi Hasson and Israeli and Palestinian leaders.

      “The chamber is very excited about the Shorten-led trade mission,” said AICC chairman Paul Israel, who is based in Tel Aviv. “For the first time Australian pension funds will be exposed to the vibrant and innovative Israeli venture capital and hi-tech scene.”

      Mr Israel said the week-long trade mission would investigate how Israel — with 7.2 million people, a third of the size of Tasmania, 60 per cent desert, only 63 years old with limited natural resources — had produced more start-ups than large, peaceful and stable nations such as Japan, India, Korea, Canada, Britain and Australia.

      It would look at Israel’s superannuation, tax reform, venture capital and seed fund models, as well as its innovation and entrepreneurship culture, he said.

      A spokeswoman for Mr Shorten said it was important that super funds looked beyond traditional assets classes and the government was keen to remove investment barriers to them.

      She said the trip was designed to improve Australian super funds’ understanding of Israel as an investment destination, particularly in light of the strong venture capital sector there.

      Hold on. Wasn’t the purpose of the trip to examine “ways for the retirement savings system to help kick-start the Australian venture capital business”?

      Mr Shorten also hopes Australian super funds can get an understanding of how Israel’s pension funds go about investing in innovative and early stage companies.

      “Innovative” and “early stage”.

      That is bankster and speculator code for “high risk”.

      Given the volatility on global share markets, and the parlous state of the global economy, one wonders why any responsible politician would be interested in finding ways to direct their citizens’ retirement savings into high risk start-up ventures.

      In Australia … or Israel.

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  • #
    Kevin Moore

    Staggering Cost of CO2 Permits Revealed

    AUSTRALIAN businesses and households will have to send about $650 billion overseas between 2020 and 2050 to buy permission to keep some of our coal-fired power stations and other industries operating.
    This staggering cost is indicated in the fine print of the Treasury modelling of the Government’s carbon dioxide tax and subsequent emissions trading scheme.

    The $650 billion will be to buy “permits” to emit CO2.

    The permits will be bought from sellers that don’t yet exist, or in markets that have yet to be formed, although the Government expects – hopes – they will develop over the next few years.

    But this week it was reported that European police agency Europol had revealed a fraudulent trade in these so-called carbon credits in the only serious market that does operate – for the European Union – was far more widespread than previously thought and could have cost EU taxpayers up to €5 billion ($7 billion) in lost revenue in just 18 months.


    It’s important to stress, we won’t be buying anything tangible with this huge amount of money.

    Like wind turbines or solar panels or even licences to use technology. It will just buy “permission” to emit CO2 with every prospect it will be rorted Nigerian-style.

    These are the permits that Australian industry and power stations will have to buy under Julia Gillard and Greens leader Bob Brown’s scheme. With the costs passed on to consumers.

    Even without any rorting, the impact on the economy of this part of the scheme will be exactly like taking $650 billion and shredding it.

    That will be throwing away nearly $30,000 for every Australian, about $120,000 for a family of four.

    These wasted funds could build 15 National Broadband Networks. They could build a fast train network linking every capital city five or six times over. Every hospital we need. Every road. Every port, every dam, indeed every power station.

    The expected outlay is the equivalent of closing down the entire economy for a full six-month period. True, as it’s spread over 30 years, that allows Treasury to claim we’ll hardly notice the loss.

    Indeed, Treasury claims that by pushing up the price of power, to everyone – households and businesses alike – every year, from next year through to 2050, we’ll all get richer and richer.

    Under its plan, the Government is committing to cut Australia’s CO2 emissions by 5 per cent by 2020 and by 80 per cent by 2050. Except it isn’t, and we won’t.

    The Treasury modelling shows that would require us to cut our emissions by 152 million tonnes in 2020.

    According to Treasury we’ll actually only cut 58 million tonnes.

    So we’ll buy “permits” from foreigners that will cover the other 94 million tonnes. Theoretically somebody else – Nigerians? – will do the actual cutting; and we’ll pay them to allow us to keep emitting.

    Treasury estimates these permits will cost $29 per tonne in 2020, so the total cost in that year will be a relatively modest $2.7 billion. That’s “relatively modest”, only if you are living in Canberra’s ivory towers.

    But by 2050 we’ll be buying permits from foreigners covering 434 million tonnes, according to Treasury. And they will cost $131 a tonne then, Treasury says.

    So by 2050 we’ll be sending $57 billion every year to foreigners. Just for the right to keep our lights on. That’s to say we will be throwing away an NBN every year.

    If we calculate a constant increase in the number of permits and their price from the $2.7 billion in 2020 to the $57 billion in 2050, the total cost adds up to nearly $650 billion over the thirty years.
    http://www.heraldsun.com.au/business/staggering-cost-of-co2-permits-revealed/story-fn7j19iv-1226122430767

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      John from CA

      Wouldn’t it make more sense if Australian alternative energy projects are paid off first?

      In other words, like the US and Europe, Australia has paid some rediculous amount of money in subsidies for alternative energy projects. In your case to construct wind farms that partially power your desalination plants. Shouldn’t the Australian Carbon Credits go to Australian projects first so Carbon Tax can simply pass the cost on to industry thus eliminating any future burden on Australian taxpayers.

      Government no longer needs to subsidize alternative energy projects. Probably the only silver lining to the entire carbon tax mess.

      No one in Australia gives a hoot about the EU’s or the USA’s carbon efforts. Like the currency markets, carbon markets should be restricted to regions and international boundaries.

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        John from CA

        I guess what I’m trying to say, Australia doesn’t need anyone else’s permission to print their own currency. Why do they need to buy permits from anyone? The permits are simply the vehicle which should be managed by each country.

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      Neville

      Of course all those 100s billions $ wasted on permits over decades and incalculable lost jobs and industries won’t change the climate or temp or weather or SLs by a jot.

      This is the simplest of simple kindy maths yet these numbskull drongos can’t work it out.

      http://www.eia.gov/cfapps/ipdbproject/iedindex3.cfm?tid=90&pid=44&aid=8&cid=CG6,CG5,&syid=1990&eyid=2009&unit=MMTCD

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      Gee Aye

      You’ve out spaced yourself with these paste posts Kevin. Well done.

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    The Choice Carbon Tax Website is as infantile as their grasp of the dcience, the reality and the motivation of this whole huge scam. This sort of money transfer is what really interests Rothschilds, the Investment Houses and Banks of Australia. They and the government are set to rake in billions all paid for by the workers for no benefit at all. CO2 is just feeding the plants and increasing agricultural output. Already temperatures are dropping, seas are falling, polar bears are thriving, ice area is increasing, storms are subsiding and people are prospering not perishing. Future generations will look back and guffaw at the stupidity.

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      rukidding

      Already temperatures are dropping, seas are falling, polar bears are thriving, ice area is increasing, storms are subsiding and people are prospering not perishing

      See novholas the CO2 tax is already working and we havn’t paid a cent yet just imagine how successful it is going to be when we do start paying. /sarc 🙂

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    Kinkykeith

    Some wonderfully evocative images there : “The George Orwell fridge Magnet” for example.

    I can remember when a “carbon” was the duplicate copy produced by your typewriter when you used a sheet of “carbon paper”.

    You could hold, touch and feel the “carbon paper” in a way that contrasts sharply with today’s “carbon pollution or carbon credits” which exist only in the online blogosphere or in ABC “science” programs or in the urgent sound bites of an ABC newsreader or various bits of Government Legislation.

    Yes, we have been told about, informed, and briefed on this fantasy menace of carbon pollution but I really want to touch it, feel it and measure it, in the way of true science.

    🙂

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    MadJak

    The message I got from that slick piece of propaganda was really simple:

    Don’t let your household become a middle to high income earning household because you will become one of the 500 derdy rotten polluters and you’re gonna get thumped (as if paying more in income tax wasn’t allready enough).

    Of course, we are all aware that the really wealthy in this country normally have very low personal income. So this pricing scheme is clearly targeting the middle class of australia yet again.

    Already I have started taking action to reduce our income – it’s not worth earning a middle class income unless you’re going to collect a cate blanchet type salary.

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    Carol Kav

    ABC 24 hour News Radio is reporting this morning on Minister Combet being in China to check out the Emissions Trading Scheme they intend to introduce, along with Singapore and Korea and so importantly (the ABC’s description)for the Gillard government our biggest trading partner is joining with us in this. BTW, they carried a cut from an interview with Combet saying Australia has an ETS. I didn’t think we did? Can anyone here please enlighten?

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    Greg Cavanagh

    It didn’t need a name at all, simply klick past that one. But it did require a post code to continue.

    For an information brochure, it asks a lot of personel questions. I couldn’t get past the post code part, so I got no information for their efforts.

    As Waffle above says, its more of a demographics exersize.

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      rukidding

      Greg as I said above all you need is a name lets say Fred and the post code of parliament house.
      Have a bit of fun with it put in Mickey Mouse or the tooth fairy or the easter bunny.
      The last thing you want to do is put in your real name and post code.

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    Keith

    By altering the income amount the “how much will it cost me” figure changes. When did this become an income tax ?

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      MadJak

      Keith,

      I have been saying this for months now. This has nothing to do with the environment. This is a command economy implementation which will give the faceless bureaucrats the perfect tax – a tax where they can target a specific industry or even business without people being able to have any hope of being able to accurately figure out how it will affect them until it has been implemented.

      This government has rammed through a communist income distribution mechanism and hardly anyone can see it for what it is. It seems that hardly anyone has noticed the real implication of this tax.

      If this was really about targeting the “derdy polluders”, there is no way that any part of the carbon tax would be income tested.

      All the talk from this government about this being a “pollution reduction scheme” is just verbal Dhiarrea in my opinion.

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      rukidding

      When did this become an income tax

      Keith it is not an income tax in the sense that it is not a tax on your income it is just using your income to determine what compensation you will get if any.

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    Slicker than any crap advertising I have seen in a long while. Shirley this must have cost a bomb.
    Unable to suspend disbelief after the enormous 375% (?) rise in banana price balloon. Bought some this week for $2.86/kg or thereabouts.

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    It is worse than you thought Jo

    The £30bn costs (4 years) do not match up with the CO2 savings (up to 1.1 billion over eight years). So instead of the minimum implied cost per tonne of CO2 saved being $27.27, it is $54.54.
    What if firms cannot pass on all the costs? The supermarkets and the oil refineries will be able to, as will the power stations, but what about manufacturing that competes with foreign companies unhampered by this carbon price? These companies will absorb some of the cost, reducing their profits. Alright in the short term, but what about in the longer term impact on growth?
    Let us assume that carbon policies knocks economic growth. This can get a bit complicated. Assume constant 2011 A$, 3% growth and GDP in 2011 of A$1100bn. If carbon policies knock 0.1% of growth, the cost is A$45bn over 8 years. A 0.5% reduction in economic growth would be A$225bn over the same period. Assuming that the CO2 reduction target is met, the opportunity costs of growth forgone are in the region of A$40 to A$200 per tonne.

    Is this an exaggeration? Not if one accepts the UNIPCC / Greenpeace economic models. A report published last year projected that the wrong set of policies could cause the global growth per capita to -0.5% per year through to 2030, as against the baseline scenario. This is no slip of the pen. Lower economic growth means (for the poorest) less reductions in mortality rates. So by 2050 the wrong policies are forecast to result in 330 million less people by 2050. My analysis is here.

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      It’s worse than you think Manic, that $30b number came from adding up the supposed beneficial money the government would give back. They actually have to take more than that from the public to cover all the admin, accounting, fraudulent cabcharges and other expenditure that they can’t brag about.

      But I like your analysis of cost of CO2 idea. Good point.

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      Truthseeker

      Manicbeancounter,

      Question: What is 330 million less people by 2050?

      UNIPCC Answer: A good start.

      Correct Answer: A massive disaster on a scale that has never been experienced before.

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    pat

    it’s a good day. Lovelock admitting it’s all over on MSNBC, and now this (only Business Spectator’s headline sticks to the raw facts, all other MSM i’ve seen are desperately attempting to SPIN:

    24 April: China delays plans for carbon trading scheme
    Further details on China’s plans for a carbon trading scheme undermine Labor’s contention that Australia’s carbon pricing plan was necessary because other countries, like China, are also taking tough action on climate change, according to a report by The Australian Financial Review.
    The details suggest that China’s plan, which has been delayed, won’t see energy companies directly taxed under its carbon trading scheme.
    Plans to launch a national emissions trading scheme in 2015 have instead been delayed until at least 2016, according to the project’s top official….
    http://www.businessspectator.com.au/bs.nsf/Article/China-delays-plans-for-carbon-trading-scheme-pd20120423-TMQ7B?OpenDocument&src=hp6

    let’s call the whole thing off.

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    Robber

    “This only hits those nasty polluters.” But what about the hidden tax – the 20% renewable energy target by 2020 that is forcing electricity companies to buy more and more high priced wind and solar power? This policy is pushing up electricity prices for everyone, and making Australia less and less competitive.

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    Patrick

    Has anyone seen this?

    http://www.unemg.org/MeetingsDocuments/IssueManagementGroups/GreenEconomy/GreenEconomyreport/tabid/79175/Default.aspx

    Really scary stuff.! What’s the bet that Gillard surrenders Australian sovereignty and $billions more are sucked out of our economy?

    Sink the slipper and let’s have an election now.

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      Andrew McRae

      Nice find, Patrick. When I start reading anything from the UN my eyes start to glaze over. I think they are counting on that to keep their nefarious plans “hidden in plain view”.

      I started reading Part IV at Ch 9.6:

      At the project level the challenge is the lack of incentives for investors to channel financial resources towards greening.

      Yeah, no 5h!t, it’s called solving a problem that doesn’t exist.

      A global transition towards a green economy will require substantial redirection of public and private investment to increase funding at scale for key priority areas, the bulk of which will need to be mobilized through financial markets.

      Wouldn’t that mean a commie government acting in collusion with the big private investment banks to take your money and gain more power? But surely that’s just crazy conspiracy theory talk! They would never plan to…do…what… they just said in this document they recommend doing….hmmmm.

      Ch 11.2:

      Full-cost pricing66 is a powerful way to support the transition to a green economy. Prices guide people’s decisions on what, when and where to buy, and on what, how and where to produce and invest. Market prices, however, will not properly reflect the true social costs
      of transactions if production or consumption causes environmental damages. In that case, decisions are misguided by market prices. Full-cost pricing means that prices are corrected for the external costs of transactions, and ensures that consumers and producers face the right price, one that restores socially efficient decision-making.

      See, those free market types are just misguided! The poor fools! They set their prices wrongly, so we just have correct them. We’re fixing their mistakes by controlling what, where, and when people buy, aren’t we helpful! Prices are the synapses of the market, so to convert a free market into a command economy we just need to tweak those prices until they are right….for the greater good.

      The ability to raise substantial amounts of public revenue in an efficient way is an important side benefit of full-cost pricing. For instance, with global emissions of 8.5 billion tons of carbon a year, a global tax of, say, US $23 per ton of carbon would raise approximately US $200 billion, or 0.4 per cent of world GDP. It is important that governments spend such revenue wisely, such as by reducing public debt, reducing other distortional taxes or by increasing productive public spending. Governments should not forego the revenue, for example, by grandfathering emission permits free of charge or by granting tax-free allowances, as this would substantially raise the social costs of the environmental policy.
      Indeed, grandfathering tends to create windfall profits to existing firms by leaving scarcity rents in private hands. It would be much more efficient for the government to capture the scarcity rents to spend in a productive manner.

      How many lies, half-truths, spooky co-incidences, lethal ideologies, and hypocrisies can you find in that paragraph?
      Getting very GRRR now….

      Full-cost pricing can be applied much more broadly than just to carbon, ….

      NO! STOP!

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    amcoz

    That web production makes me puke.

    Similarly, I choke with anger every time my power bill turns up as the energy retailer keeps asserting that I have produced so much carbon emissions for the quarter. I tried, once, telling the ‘retailer’ that although I may use electricity to run my fridge, and other appliances, my actions do not produce any carbon (dioxide) emissions whatsoever. Rather, the retailer, should be checking on its supplier of my electricity to determine the real source of any alleged emissions. Needless to say the retailer never responded, probably because the minion reading my letter had no idea what I was on about, let alone know what to say in reply.

    We, that is, those of us who still question the sense of imbecilic things, should all live in fear that we’ll end up like poor old Winston Smith, or ultimately, the lobotomized Randell Murphy, because we have failed to conform to the ‘controllers’ point of view.

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    Carol Kav

    Apologies to all. New to this. Not sure how to go about moderating my post as requested so I’m trying again. ABC 24 hour News Radio is reporting this morning on Minister Combet being in China to check out the Emissions Trading Scheme they intend to introduce, along with Singapore and Korea and so importantly (the ABC’s description)for the Gillard government our biggest trading partner is joining with us in this. BTW, they carried a cut from an interview with Combet saying Australia has an ETS. I didn’t think we did? Can anyone here please enlighten?

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      Neville

      Carol we have passed the co2 legislation through both houses of parliament and it will be introduced on i-7-12.

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    old44

    There are an awful lot of words that website will not accept as names.

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    That’s great! It will cost me $9 per week and I will receive $25 pw…..Gee, I’m convinced. SHOW ME THE MONEY, Great Green Gillard Government (GGGG)

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    crakar24

    I just went through the process on the web site and the result was

    How much will it cost me 0.00
    How much will i get 0.00
    How much can i save 0.00

    Obviously it is too hard to calculate such is the complexity of a single income couple with children, we are doomed arent we.

    The disclaimer is a hoot of course and it also provides another link to get a “more accurate” estimate of what it will cost me so i went there.

    https://www.cleanenergyfuture.gov.au/helping-households/household-assistance-estimator/

    And guess what this is the response

    The household situation described by the information you have entered is not covered by the scenarios used by this Estimator.

    So does this mean i get nothing or are the government too stupid to figure it out.

    If you combine the above with the reprisal of the role “King Kong” in their cartoon i am not feeling very comfortable with this situation. I hope Windsor and Oakshot put their country above personal gain and end this madness.

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      rukidding

      I hope Windsor and Oakshot put their country above personal gain and end this madness.

      Gee crakar I think you missed a sarc tag there.
      Winsor and Oakshot would vote for Australia to be nuked if it ment they held their seats for another minute.

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      Wayne, s. Job

      I entered 3 children and a spouse with 150k income and got a cost of $600 a year obviously a tax on those who are successful in life.

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    […] Choice magazine (government lap-dog) “likes” monopolies and propaganda. Oops. […]

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    crakar24

    OK i give up, just for the record i have 3 kids all under 18, my wife does not work and i earn more than 80K however no matter what scenario i plug into the estimator i get the same result

    The household situation described by the information you have entered is not covered by the scenarios used by this Estimator.

    I tried dual income below 80K and teh same result, i tried culling a kid and the same result.

    Ok if i had no kids and earnt over 80K i get a result

    If i am married with no kids and earnt over 80K single income i get a result

    If married, one kid under 18 i get a result

    If married, two kids under 18 ……………..

    The household situation described by the information you have entered is not covered by the scenarios used by this Estimator.

    COULD THIS GOVERNMENT BE ANYMORE INEPT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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      MadJak

      Crakar,

      ” i tried culling a kid”

      Wow – the watermelons agenda in action already maybe?

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        crakar24

        Mad Jack,

        I meant that metaphorically although i should mention some think tank in Europe came up with the idea of retrospective abortions up to the age of 3. Yes i know that makes everyones skin crawl but some sad F(*(&^%^rs out there actually think this to be a good idea.

        If we cant save the planet for ourselves then what is the point in saving it?

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    Matt Bennett

    What a sad little existance you must live in Jo. When, instead of re-examining your own beliefs and seeing whether it might actually be YOU who is in error, you go blandly labeling innocuous third parties as “buying the line” or “not seeing the conspiracy”. I can clearly see that your science degree was not of much benefit in educating you in a scientific mode of thought.

    Just a question: what happens, in ten-fifteen years time, when climate changes continue to gather pace and force changes beyond our control and even YOU finally realize the error of your ways – what then? Will you apologize to all those you’ve mislead, make good on all the intellectual shallowness you’ve introduced to the discourse? Will you attempt to restitute the damage you’ve done? Are you a big enough person to do that Jo? What would be your reaction? (even if you KNOW that won’t happen, humour me and pretend it did – do you ever allow for the possibility that you’re not in possession of the fulll picture?) M

    ————————————
    REPLY: Matt, 1. re-examining my views? Constantly. Since I was a alarmist for 17 years, then switched, I’ve proved I’m rather good at it. I was in error. I admit it. I thought CO2 was a problem. 2. I have not said anything about buying lines or conspiracies, perhaps you could do a reading comprehension course? 3. If the climate becomes warmer in 15 years, I shall happily re-examine my views again, and yes, if it appears the models work, and the pattern of warming fits, I may even decide it appears to be CO2, though of course, it could be ocean currents, solar irradiance, solar-magnetic effects, geothermal, or anything else, and I’ll consider all possibles without prejudice. 4. Will I apologize for working unpaid to bring people logic reason and the best evidence available today — Why would I? — If you have some evidence, why don’t you post it? Jo

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      Sonny

      What a sad little existance you must live in Jo…

      woah what an entrance!? What do we have here? Another alarmist in the pay of government coming onto Jo’s site to troll?

      Cute!

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    pat

    Carol Kav –
    see the China story linked above to see how Combet is actually spinning what is very bad news for our ETS, especially as China will NOT be including energy companies. go to google australian news page and u won’t even see mention of the China story, but u will see this:

    24 April: ABC: Anna Vidot: Hopes for carbon trades between Australia and Europe
    The Federal Government says a carbon trading network between Europe and Australia could be up and running by the end of this year.
    The Parliamentary Secretary for Climate Change, Mark Dreyfus, has just returned from Rome, where he’s had further meetings with EU leaders about the possibility of linking the two carbon trading systems.
    He says that would give Australian farmers the opportunity to get the best value for carbon credits they generate under the Carbon Farming Initiative.
    “The president of the European Union came to Australia last year for talks with the Prime Minister and our Climate Change Minister, and agreed that we would have officials talking from then on,” he said.
    “That’s been happening, and I’d be hoping that we can bring that to some kind of conclusin later this year.”
    http://www.abc.net.au/rural/news/content/201204/s3487705.htm

    reminder – btw have we been signed up to who-knows-what that Barroso mentions in this:

    5 Sept 2011: SMH: AAP: Australia, Europe consider linking carbon schemes
    Ms Gillard met European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso in Canberra today and discussed climate change and a raft of other issues.
    She said Europe was a pioneer in reducing carbon emissions, having established an ETS six years ago.
    “Both Australia and the EU recognise that carbon markets are the most cost-effective way of reducing greenhouse gases and creating clean energy jobs,” Ms Gillard told reporters…
    Mr Barroso praised Ms Gillard’s plan to price carbon.
    “Australia’s decision to put a price on carbon emissions in our view is an important step,” he said.
    He said a price on carbon was the “most cost effective way” to attack climate change and was a “great green business opportunity.”
    Mr Barroso also said the European Commission had sought a mandate from its 27 member states to negotiate a co-operation framework treaty with Australia.
    He said the mandate could be signed next month…
    On climate change, Mr Barroso said it was also important to enlarge the global carbon market initially launched in Europe.
    He said many nations were now moving in this direction, providing a clearer indication of how best to deal with climate change.
    “The more like-minded partners working in this direction the better,” Mr Barroso said…
    http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/australia-europe-consider-linking-carbon-schemes-20110905-1jtcv.html

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    Allen Ford

    (And how many degrees is that? Would that be zero °C, or no(!) lets be accurate 0.0°C?)

    You’re stretchng your credibility a bit there, Jo, I am afraid. The models can predict temperature changes to 2 decimal places in a century, so we are reliably lead to believe, so, if you were to follow suit, you should be able to justify 0.00° C, at the very least.

    Shame!

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    pat

    i firmly believe the Dreyfus piece above was put out simply to counteract the China story, because what little was written about the Rome Meeting was in the MSM by the 18th April, the day after the meeting ended. no wonder hardly any MSM picked up on what happened there!

    18 April: Europolitics: EU aviation emissions plan slammed at major economies’ talks
    Brian Beary in Washington
    Non-EU major economies continue to vent their anger at the EU over its plan to curb greenhouse gas emissions in the aviation sector. Meeting in Rome, on 17 April, for a Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate, “two or three countries” gave “uniformly negative” opinions of the EU plan, US Special Envoy for Climate Change Todd Stern told Europolitics. The EU policy, under which all flights departing from, or landing at, EU airports are bound by the EU’s Emission Trading Scheme (ETS) from 1 January 2012, was slammed as an inappropriate unilateral step affecting trade, he said. There is “a potential for a negative spill-over effect” from this dispute on the ongoing United Nations talks on a new climate treaty, he added…
    The EU was represented by Climate Action Commissioner Connie Hedegaard, along with officials from France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom. The other participating states were Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, India, Indonesia, South Korea, Mexico, Russia, South Africa and the US, while Singapore, Qatar, Colombia and New Zealand also sent delegates. Stern said there was a “good initial discussion” on a future UN climate treaty for the post-2020 era, on which countries aim to reach agreement by 2015. But commenting on China’s stance, he noted “nothing it said today broke new ground” in terms of Beijing being willing to make binding cuts in emissions.
    http://www.europolitics.info/external-policies/eu-aviation-emissions-plan-slammed-at-major-economies-talks-art331887-44.html

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    ATTENTION MattB

    Perhaps you may be able to help all our readers here in your capacity as a member of your local Council.

    Now that the CO2 Tax is in place, I feel sure your Council would already have had many discussions on its impact with respect to your Council.

    I fully understand that this is classified as ‘Council In Confidence'(CIC), but perhaps you might be able to ballpark it for us and give us the general idea, and that being CIC provides you with a ready made excuse to not divulge any details, but perhaps just a general idea might be of assistance.

    Understandably, as the local Council, you must do garbage collection, and because of that you must also have a local Waste Disposal ‘Tip’ where that rubbish is deposited.

    Knowing that all waste disposal tips are now subject to this CO2 Tax, might you ballpark, perhaps in the form of a percentage perhaps how much your council will be putting up Rates to cover these increased costs.

    It’s a relatively easy thing to calculate how much your Council will have to pay, as it’s all there in the Legislation with respect to waste disposal tips, as this Tax also covers those calculated Methane emissions, so just work it out for your Tip, then multiply the $23 per ton by the equivalence Multiplier of 20, and that gives you $460 per tonne for all your Methane emissions.

    After you’ve done that, perhaps you might mention if your Council will be increasing the cost at the gate for residents to dump their own (non household) garbage.

    Perhaps from that, the readers here might be able to gauge how much extra they will be paying on their yearly Rates Bill, and how much extra a ‘run to the tip’ might cost. Oh, I suppose you’ll need to also add the GST impact on top of that.

    Then as large consumers of electricity, you might also add in that component as well.

    Oh, and if you use Natural Gas for anything, might you also add that in as well, and that’s at the same $460 per tonne also.

    Then I suppose you could also add in all your transport costs, like mowing etc, oh and the GST added on for that too.

    Oh, and, naah, look, that’s enough for now.

    Wow, it soon all adds up, doesn’t it.

    I just thought that you’d be the best person to ask about this.

    Tony.

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      Bob Malloy

      Tony

      You ask some good questions, I admire your analytical mind. I have been pondering the following in relation to my own council.

      with respect to waste disposal tips, as this Tax also covers those calculated Methane emissions, so just work it out for your Tip, then multiply the $23 per ton by the equivalence Multiplier of 20, and that gives you $460 per tonne for all your Methane emissions.

      You see my council Newcastle NSW, has one of the most modern waste disposal facilities ( as opposed to a recycling centre ) in Australia. To manage Methane they installed an incinerator at the high point of the original cell and burnt off the trapped gas.

      They have since installed two generators utilising the methane to produce electricity. They have a sign on the fence around the generators that states,

      This significant environmental project generates 18,000 megawatt hours of renewable electricity per year which is enough to power an average 3,100 homes, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.
      Methane gas produced naturally by the decomposition of organic waste at the Summerhill Waste Management Centre is collected and utilised to generate renewable energy, resulting in the reduction of approximately 85,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions (CO2E) each year.
      This facility also saves 24 million litres of water each year when compared with a traditional coal fired power station generating the same amount of electricity.

      What puzzles me is will Newcastle be exempt from paying the tax on methane produced in the land fill, somehow I doubt it. Wht you may be able to help me with is the claimed 24 million litres saving in lost water factual. While I know some water is lost by evaporation from the cooling towers wouldn’t most of the steam used in the generation process be reclaimed and recycled.

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      MattB

      Tony we actually have our 1st budget 2012/13 meeting next week (it was meant to be tonight but has been pushed back a week). I’ll see if I can find out for you, although our waste is handled by a regional council of which we are a member. Sorry I missed this, I’ve not even read this thread. fluff piece about Choice? despite evidence to the contrary I do actually ahve beter things to do:)

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    Matt Bennett

    [Snip…. Matt the mods explained + the email address you use doesn’t inspire credibility. Plus you are complaining about a few hours delay in responding to a complaint for a service you paid nothing for? — Jo]

    Do you have an answer? Maybe Choice Australia is just as sensible an organization as all the world’s chief scientific bodies (not to mention companies too, like Shell, BP etc) and it can digest scientific literature like an adult….

    [PS: Ever heard of argument from authority? – Jo ]

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    Greg Cavanagh

    I do hope commenters on here are wrong about adding 10% GST to the Carbon Tax.

    It’s supposed to be a “Goods and Services” Tax. What “goods” or “service” did I get in exchange for paying a Carbon Tax?

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      Greg,

      take out your most recent electricity bill.

      On it, and they are relatively standard, no matter who the provider is, in the list of headings, you will see the GST component.

      The per unit cost of electricity is calculated in cents per KWH (excl GST).

      That unit cost of electricity will be rising because of the imposition of the tax on CO2.

      Multiply the Current bill KWH by that unit cost and then by the number of days and you get a total, and on top of that then add the GST at 10% and you end up with the amount you pay.

      If the unit cost rises, then the GST also rises.

      Also, with respect to those of you who use Natural Gas in your homes, the same applies here as well.

      The Legislation provides for the gas distributors, be it ‘Town Gas’ or bottled gas, to be charged this new tax, only because it is Natural Gas (NG), that multiplier is 20, hence $460 per Tonne. That increase will also be passed on to consumers, in the rise of the unit cost of the NG, and then add on the GST to that as well.

      Tony.

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      rukidding

      Here is how simple it is Greg the service you are paying GST on is for the provision of electricity to your place. The fact that the cost of that service has gone up because of the CO2 tax is irrelevant.
      And you know what the good part is you get to pay the GST increase for all the other organizations you deal with as well.
      So in effect the CO2 tax has also created a 1% rise in the GST but that is not talked about.

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    Matt Bennett

    Hi Tony,

    Not sure where you got your information, if it is indeed me you were addressing. Anyway, I’m more than happy to pay more tax if it is used properly and for a common benefit to all. I do think you’re a little mis-informed though, given that for most people, rebates will see that the tax is neutralized for most people.

    At any rate, that’s got nothing to do with weather global warming due to CO2 emissions is a real and present threat – I assume you accept that, if you’re scientifically literate?

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      Truthseeker

      Matt,

      There is another commenter on this blog who uses the name “MattB”. Like you he is also unable to construct any argument that provides any actual data or source material. Like you he can also only argue from authority and never answers the question that is actually asked. Like you he is unable to accept any verifiable information that goes against his pre-conceived dogmatic beliefs. Since there are so many similarities, it is understandable why there is a possible confusion here.

      As for your unsubstantiated claim …

      given that for most people, rebates will see that the tax is neutralized for most people.

      please see Tony’s comment at 47.1

      Also for you other unsubstantiated claim …

      At any rate, that’s got nothing to do with weather global warming due to CO2 emissions is a real and present threat

      Please try these excellent publications. They are written using very clear and simple language so you should have no problem in understanding the content.

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    incoherent rambler

    I have been reading the Melanie Phillips book “The world turned upside down”.
    It helps explain to me how this insanity comes about.

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    pat

    remember the carbon tax goes up each year, yet i have heard nothing to suggest the compensation goes up. it’s time persons of goodwill in the Parliament – who do not want the destruction of the Australian economy – to do whatever it takes, including resigning, to force a general election:

    still making it up as they go along:

    23 April: Reuters: UPDATE 1-EU may mull use of global carbon permits from 2020
    Reporting by Gabriela Baczynska, with additional reporting by Charlie Dunmore in Brussels; writing by Nina Chestney; Editing by Anthony Barker
    *Poland wants to use Kyoto credits in EU carbon trade scheme
    * EU could be open to discussion ‘at later stage’
    * Commission rules out inclusion before 2020 (Adds quote from European Commission climate spokesman)
    So-called Assigned Amount Units (AAUs) are allocated under the U.N.’s climate pact, the Kyoto Protocol. EU countries cannot currently use them to meet their own domestic climate targets.
    The Polish proposal faces opposition from some western EU nations as it is feared that if AAUs are used in the EU scheme, it could drive EU carbon prices further down. They are currently trading near record lows.
    “Global AAU supply is estimated at 10-15 gigatonnes while the size of ETS is 2 gigatonnes. That means if you bring that into the market, the price would immediately go to zero,” Artur Runge-Metzger, the EU’s chief climate negotiator, said at a conference in Warsaw…
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/23/eu-aau-idUSL5E8FNB5K20120423

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      pat makes a good point here.

      Notice that in this first year, the Government artfully says that they are (magnanimously) giving away more in bribes compensation than they are actually taking in. This is a very clever subterfuge that gives the impression that they are supposedly giving back more than they are taking. This comes about because they are not selling the full amount of credits per tonne to those derdy polluders emitters, and are easing it in to lessen the impact, by giving away some of those credits. What this effectively achieves is that it confirms the ‘give away greater than the take’ meme, but only for year one.

      During year two and year three, that selling of credits will ramp up to the full amount for emissions, as will the cost for those emissions, but the compensation remains the same, so that by the start of year three, the introduction of the ETS, then the full amount will be charged for those full emissions, and here, consider this. The full cost at the start of the ETS for the emissions just from electrical power generation will come in at close to $8 Billion.

      Even so, with that compensation, that will be eaten up by bracket creep, inflation etc, so withing a short time, any compensation will be eaten up, and the full take will able to be garnered by Government.

      Also keep in mind, that compensation is for the residential sector only, which is only for 38% of all power being consumed, and that compensation is only for part of that Residential sector.

      Tony.

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    pat

    24 April: Climate Spectator: Reuters: Gerard Wynn: Lumbering toward carbon price limbo
    The European Commission is in favour of higher carbon prices to drive emissions cuts, but at least one EU member state, Poland, disagrees, and from there stems a skirmish which threatens the scheme…
    On Thursday the commission’s head of climate action Connie Hedegaard proposed a short-term solution. The question is whether this will work – in raising prices – and whether a longer-term back-up is ready.
    At present, there is no obvious reason why the short-term remedy of temporarily withholding permits should boost prices, as it simply holds these in reserve to swamp the market later.
    Almost all analysts agree that the present carbon credit glut is sufficient to leave the market over-supplied throughout its third trading phase from 2013-2020…
    Given that amending a directive takes more than a year, and the commission hasn’t kicked off that process yet, that leaves carbon prices potentially in limbo through 2015.
    On Thursday, the Commission proposed, from next year, to limit the supply of EUAs under an amendment to an existing Auctioning Regulation, which is secondary legislation under the ETS Directive.
    It drew a firm riposte from Poland’s environment minister: “We simply do not have a mandate for manipulation in the market mechanisms,” said Poland’s Environment Minister Marcin Korolec…
    In the EU, amending a directive and a regulation are quite different: the first takes over a year and requires a decision by member state ministers and parliament; the other is a technical decision achievable in months, requiring majority approval by experts plus parliamentary scrutiny.
    The Commission’s interim proposal hinges on successfully arguing that it is ‘non-essential’ to the carbon market, and so doesn’t need a re-opening of the directive.
    However, even if successful, the commission then has to make the withholding of EUAs permanent.
    That would certainly require a re-opening of the ETS Directive: if Poland loses the first round, it gets a re-match.
    As well as being time-consuming, such a re-opening of the ETS Directive is fraught with danger…
    Emissions trading could be put on ice, or killed off, if east European objectors successfully argued that cancelling EUAs manipulated the carbon price and so counted as a tax measure.
    That threat is probably a major reason why the Commission is reluctant to back a carbon price floor, which would turn the scheme more into a tax.
    A price floor would be the simplest solution to support EUAs. Proposed cap and trade schemes in California and Australia, expected in 2013 and 2015, both propose price floors.
    But in Europe, that would have to be legislated retrospectively: and could be argued to be a tax measure…
    Analysts favouring a floor price argue it could operate in another way, by setting an absolute price level.
    This argument has a long way to run: supporters argue a floor price is the only way to give the market a transparent future. Detractors point to its legal hurdles as well as the problem deciding where the floor should be set, and the windfall it would hand traders if set far above present levels.
    Meanwhile, waiting in the wings is Poland.
    http://www.climatespectator.com.au/commentary/lumbering-toward-carbon-price-limbo

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    pat

    23 April: Europolitics: Anne Eckstein: (European) Commission guidelines not in line with ETS Directive – Eurometaux
    “It is surprising that the Commission is proposing a scheme that will only serve to speed up the de-industrialisation of Europe, thereby increasing the EU’s dependency on imports of strategic metals and adding to higher unemployment. Once closed, these smelters will never come back to Europe,’’ says Robert Jeekel, director of energy and climate change policy at Eurometaux…
    Eurometaux recalled that competitive power prices are critical for the survival of Europe’s non-ferrous metals industry, since it is prevented from passing on to its customers the price increases resulting from the EU’s CO 2 cost, with product prices globally set at the London Metal Exchange.
    http://www.europolitics.info/business-competitiveness/commission-guidelines-not-in-line-with-ets-directive-eurometaux-art332418-5.html

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    rukidding

    I have sent an email to Choice from the link Jo has provided above.
    I would encourage people here to do the same.
    I will be interested what reply, if any, I get.

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      rukidding

      I have received an email back essentially saying they believe the CSIRO science.

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        Bob Malloy

        From the “who we are” section of the Choice website,

        CHOICE is an active advocacy group that is constantly agitating government and industry groups to ensure the rights of consumers are being protected. CHOICE campaigns against unjust policies and practices on behalf of all consumers.

        On this occasion they seem to have reversed their processes on this one. That last part would now read, Choice campaigns against all consumers to assist the introduction of unjust, unproductive, restrictive, just plain dumb policies and practices on behalf of the Government.

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          Wayne, s. Job

          Bob I gave them a rather large serve on what they are doing is against their stated aim, whether I get the same reply will be interesting. I did mention that pushing the propaganda of the government could make people a little wary that they push products for profit rather than being the best available. That they may loose customers for selling a product that is not tangible nor pluginable and is going to cost everybody wether they want to buy it or not.

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      I dropped my subscription to Choice more than a decade ago. It was pretty obvious that their actual technical competence had dropped too far to be worth the money asked. The organization appeared at that time to be more focused on itself as an authority than the consumers it purports to serve; but blind to that at the same time.

      Choice is not alone. Other organizations have festered into self-serving buraucracies which still pretend to serve their members’ interests. They can sleep tight in the belief that they are going good. And that breeds the worst kind of tyranny.

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    Matt Bennett

    [snip complaints about mods… ]

    Jo, I ask again, what provisions have you made, whether physically or mentally, should it eventuate that you were wrong? It’s a very serious question. Where would you feel you stood with respect to all you followers here if you had to turn around one day and say you were wrong? Have you allowed for that contingency? All good scientists, Jo, should ever humbly be prepared to admit when they were in error – are you, on a day-to-day basis ever even cognizant of that possibility?

    M

    [Answered, been there, done that. Sleeping happily at night. You? — Jo]

    PS: Do look up the word “patience”.

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    Matt Bennett

    Hi Tony,

    You do realize, don’t you, that the whole idea of a carbon price is to make it more expensive to emit CO2? So I should hope the price continues to go up! Economics 101 says these determined price signals will shift behaviors and push research investments towards renewables and their subsidization. (Just like fossil fuels have NEVER been asked to pay for their full cost to society) So even if Jo miraculously turns out to be right and tens of thousands of scientists wrong, we’ll still be in a much better place, with less pollution, more energy independence and security and less disturbance of our agriculturally productive lands. A win-win! Surely you’d agree?

    ——————

    [REPLY: Matt, can you name those “tens of Thousands of scientists” who support AGW or would that be a wild exaggeration? — Jo]

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      Matt Bennett,

      You are not the MattB who is a regular here, so my earlier question was not directed to you.

      Had you bothered to catch up, by actually what has been written at this site for the last, well, ages really, you would realise that we are the ones who are coming from a point where we know what we are talking about.

      We’re not going to go over ALL of that again just for your sake. Instead, we leave it up to you to check back through all the Posts and comments at this site to see that in fact, we know what we are talking about, and we also understand it.

      You wrote six sentences in your comment, and each indicate that you understand very, very little of what is actually being done.

      You need to read what has been written here, and that way, you’ll gain a better understanding.

      Tony.

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      Unless man was put on this earth to save the planet from C02 starvation… Do your research on long term C02 trends.

      You should also investigate the fallacy of the precautionary principle. I mean, would our time not best be spent protecting the planet from a more certain form of doom as it materialises in the form of an asteroid? Or worse, the next mega volcano?

      There are real environmental problems which are happening today which are being completely ignored by the politicians and the MSM. Would it not be a better use of our time solving proven environmental issues rather than tilting at every windmill that the globalists invent?

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    Mark

    I went to the Choice site & nominated them for their own ‘Thumbs down award’ with a note:
    “The professed aim of this organisation is “to ensure the consumer voice is heard loudly and clearly. CHOICE empowers consumers to get the most out of all their purchasing decisions by providing a mix of advocacy and advice”. Yet by becoming the Government’s lapdog through a bodgey website called ‘Your Carbon Price’ it has put its name to three lies – 1. it is not mine, it was imposed by a government lie, 2. It is CO2, not carbon, 3. it is a tax, not a true price. Shame.”

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    Bob of Castlemaine

    What an absolute disgrace. This mob has long been suspect as far as its ideological bias goes, but this rubbish completely dispels any doubts we may have had.
    I for one will not bother consulting any of their publications again.

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    manalive

    There are so many layers of lies and absurdities associated with the carbon (dioxide) tax, it’s a challenge to comprehend them all simultaneously.
    For instance, even if you accept the absurdity that it is designed to ‘save’ the GBR, KNP, snowfields etc., it won’t work if it doesn’t hurt — not the ‘big polluters’, not the top 10% income bracket, but hurt the vast majority of low to middle income bracket.
    And for people to reduce their energy use, it’s got to hurt a lot

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    crakar24

    If you have some evidence, why don’t you post it? Jo

    And there endith the lesson.

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    crakar24

    Why are Matts comments not appearing?

    Anyway

    Matt, I earn over 80K, single income and 3 kids under 18 and when i look on the estimator the stupid government cannot even tell me what this useless taxs mees to me financially oh by the way no it is not tax neutral for as i earn too much and i dont think 80K is all that much. This tax scheme is aimed at hitting all the socio economic tards that hang out at Lizbiff or Penriff as nothing more than a brazen vote grab so please refrain from saying this sort of stuff in the future

    I do think you’re a little mis-informed though, given that for most people, rebates will see that the tax is neutralized for most people.

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    crakar24

    Maybe it is the stupid government internet but i cannot see Matts comments

    Author: Matt Bennett
    Comment:

    Jo, I ask again, what provisions have you made, whether physically or mentally, should it eventuate that you were wrong? It’s a very serious question. Where would you feel you stood with respect to all you followers here if you had to turn around one day and say you were wrong? Have you allowed for that contingency? All good scientists, Jo, should ever humbly be prepared to admit when they were in error – are you, on a day-to-day basis ever even cognizant of that possibility?

    Normally in this situation a person asking such a question would preface it by stating their position if they had got it wrong. In other words how would Matt respond if he in fact has got it wrong, the mere fact that this possibility has never entered Matts mind shows how hubris he really is.

    What if the world did dive into an ice age in the near future will Matt Bennet confess his sins? I think not.

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    rukidding

    A Bit O/T
    But if the folks here like they could slip over to this ABC site and have some fun with our old mate Stephan Lewandowsky.
    Happy hunting. 🙂

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    Joe V.

    “…., given that for most people, rebates will see that the tax is neutralized for most people.”
    “… global warming due to CO2 emissions is a real and present threat ”
    “… I assume you accept that, if you’re scientifically literate?”

    Where have I heard these before ?

    We have to be literate to understand such propositions . We have to be innumerate to swallow them.
    The economic concensus ( for what it’s worth) is against spending money to avert CO2’s influence on the climate , for what that’s worth.

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    Billy Bob Hall

    Propaganda lives. We do indeed live in frightening times. 🙁

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    Dave

    .
    How wrong they are!

    Bread (700g) One loaf
    kgCO2 per Unit 1.04
    Price B4 CO2 Tax $3.00
    Price after CO2 Tax $3.03
    Percentage Increase 0.83%
    Only a 3 cent increase!!!!
    This is from Tim Grant, Australia’s leading life-cycle analysis practitioner in Climate Spectator says 3 cents.

    Yet this bunch say only 2 cents (above in Jo’s post)- WOW – only a difference of ONE cent!
    But it is 50% increase on what is stated!

    Lets look at bread making at home – below:
    •450grams flour – $1.00
    •1 tablespoon. salt – $0.01
    •Yeast – $0.07
    •Fuel – $0.50 (based on a 2000kw oven at 19 cents kilowatt = 50 cents for one & half hours)
    •Total $1.58, without labor per loaf of 700 grams.

    But on a commerial basis this all changes –
    The wheat grower – CO2 Tax on fertilizer and power!
    The flour processer – CO2 Tax on power
    The flour processers bag supplier – CO2 Tax on manufacturibg bags
    The Distributor sending the flour to the bake – CO2 Tax on emmisions packing, forklifts etc
    The Baker – power increases through electricity CO2 Tax
    The Shopping Centre – increased rent because of power increases CO2 Tax.

    Because it is all added at individual stages – the loaf of bread is not going to go up by 2 or 3 cents – it’s going to go up by 20cents plus!

    The multiplier effect is far greater than these idiots think – that they try to determine the imbedded CO2 in each loaf of bread! When are they going to get in the real world of suply chain and business?

    And don’t forget the GST component! Choice and this website should be banned!

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      John Brookes

      I’m sorry Dave (said in Hal’s voice), but that comment is particularly moronic. Please never ever try and work out the cost of anything, ever again.

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        Wayne, s. Job

        I think Dave is closer to the truth, this mob in government are the kings of the unintended consequence. If six months from now Dave is right will you apologise.

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    KeithH

    Nice little touch the linking of 375% increase in price of bananas with Cyclone Yasi. Join the dots: the carbon dioxide tax is going to stop all those nasty “extreme” weather events that used to happen in the past due to natural variability, but are now “caused” by a few extra parts per million generated by the activities of Man plus all the extra breathing, burping and farting by the increased populations of all animals including Man!

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    Matt Bennett

    For goodness sake Crakar, we’ve been through all this before on Coby’s blog. OF COURSE I’d change my mind if the evidence pointed that way. The point is (for those that live in the real world of peer-reviewed climate science) it currently points distinctly and unwaveringly in the other direction – not that you’ve been able to see that yet.

    Jo: your claim to have been a believer for 17 years before finding the truth has the ring of someone who claims to have once been atheist all their life (prob just through never having encountered religion in their youth) who claims to have found God and so can speak with authority of both sides. The truth is though, like the believer who probably never understood the intellectual hollowness of the supernatural position, I’m not sure (if you can toss it aside someasily) that you ever understood the depth of climate science underlying our understanding of global warming and how long we have known of it’s potential. Hey, I’m happy to be proved wrong but that’s what strikes me first up.

    For example, you talk blithely of warming being potentially due to other factors but then list things that can’t possibly be responsible for the pattern we see: (i) ocean currents – can only move heat AROUND the system, like SOI, and can’t add heat TO the system (ii) solar irradiance – too weak by an order of magnitude and currently in a prolonged low while temps keep rising (totally disproved) (iii) solar magnetic effects – mechanism?! (considering we already know for a fact that CO2 is intimately linked to the earth’s moves in and out of glacials on orbital timescales (iv) geothermal – the heat leaking through the largely insulative granitic crust is, again, orders of magnitude too weak to account for the warming and has not, at any rate shown any variation of late (v) other factors – fire away? (although, one wonders why you need to keep looking given the CO2 concentration accurately predicts, added to natural variation, exactly what we see.

    It’s funny, you say ‘without prejudice’ but display the typical unscientific ‘anything but CO2’ prejudice when the answer is right under your nose…

    Anyway, I’m happy to be proved wrong and I’m terribly sorry that my post appeared a little too brusque on first appearance – thought the Ed were cutting/pruning what I was trying to say and it would end up with no meaning. I will adhere more closely to the nicities henceforth, I assure you. I too sleep well at night. M

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      Mark

      That’s OK Matt. Even dumb troglodytes get a fair go at this forum.

      Oh, have you caught up on the latest public statements of the (former) world’s greatest Gaiaist James Lovelock? Wotchagonna do, have him burnt at the stake for apostasy?

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      Kevin Moore

      Matt Bennett,

      You say –

      (i) ocean currents – can only move heat AROUND the system, like SOI, and can’t add heat TO the system

      If you mean that ocean currents just swirl around without having an effect one way or the other on climate ,then I think you are wrong.For example –

      Keeping Europe Warm

      “EUROPE is an anomaly. The populous parts of the United States and Canada are mostly between the latitudes of 30° and 45°, whereas the populous parts of Europe are ten to fifteen degrees farther north. “Southerly” Rome lies near the same latitude, 42°N, as “northerly” Chicago — and the most northerly major city in Asia is Beijing, near 40°. N. London and Paris are close to the 49°N line that, west of the Great Lakes, separates the United States from Canada. Berlin is up at about 52°, Copenhagen and Moscow at about 56°. Oslo is nearly at 60°N, as are Stockholm, Helsinki, and St. Petersburg; continue due east and you’ll encounter Anchorage.

      Europe’s climate, obviously, is not like that of North America or Asia at the same latitudes. For Europe to be as agriculturally productive as it is (it supports more than twice the population of the United States and Canada), all those cold, dry winds that blow eastward across the North Atlantic from Canada must somehow be warmed up. The job is done by warm water flowing north from the tropics, as the eastbound Gulf Stream merges into the North Atlantic Current. This warm water then flows up the Norwegian coast, with a westward branch warming Greenland’s tip, at 60°N. It keeps northern Europe about nine to eighteen degrees warmer in the winter than comparable latitudes elsewhere — except when it fails. Then not only Europe but also, to everyone’s surprise, the rest of the world gets chilled. Tropical swamps decrease their production of methane at the same time that Europe cools, and the Gobi Desert whips much more dust into the air. When this happens, something big, with worldwide connections, must be switching into a new mode of operation.

      The North Atlantic Current is certainly something big, with the flow of about a hundred Amazon Rivers. And it sometimes changes its route dramatically, much as a bus route can be truncated into a shorter loop. Its effects are clearly global too, inasmuch as it is part of a long “salt conveyor” current that extends through the southern oceans into the Pacific.

      I hope never to see a failure of the northernmost loop of the North Atlantic Current, because the result would be a population crash that would take much of civilization with it, all within a decade. Ways to postpone such a climatic shift are conceivable, however — old-fashioned dam-and-ditch construction in critical locations might even work. Although we can’t do much about everyday weather, we may nonetheless be able to stabilize the climate enough to prevent an abrupt cooling…..”

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      crakar24

      Hello Matt,

      I did recognise your name but was not sure it was you. I hope you hang around for a while as i would like to catch up a bit.

      Cheers

      Crakar

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      Kevin Moore

      Matt Bennett,

      You say –

      ii) solar irradiance – too weak by an order of magnitude and currently in a prolonged low while temps keep rising (totally disproved)

      Can you explain the heat exchange mechanism by which heat is trapped in the atmosphere or to put it another way, how is it that you assert that less energy leaves the atmosphere than enters? What is the rate of the heating and how will it stop?

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      The Black Adder

      …if the evidence pointed that way.

      Mr Matt Bennett, I assume you are a newcomer to this site!

      I cannot recall anything you have said before that stands out!!

      The evidence my friend is definitely pointing straight ahead if not downwards, depending on time and scale! And depending on which dodgy figures you follow!

      …Anyway, I’m happy to be proved wrong

      Ok then, please feel free to scroll through any of Jo`s archives …

      ….you will be proved wrong on all of them…

      (Pressing the button to open the trapdoor containing the 15 Foot Very Hungry Crocidiles…)

      …Goodbye Mr. Bennett…hahahahhohohoho ahhh Mr. Bond….

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      Sonny

      The “real world of peer reviewed climate science”

      Are you taking the piss Matt?

      The real world is not peer reviewed it is just the real world.
      In the real world there is no proven link between global warming and CO2 rise.
      The last 10-15 years of NO GLOBAL WARMING make that abundantly clear.

      If you think that scientists, employed by government in order to provide information in support of government policies constitutes “the real world” then you and I live in very different worlds.

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    KeithH

    I slipped in the name of Peter; Post Code 2600; Income $300,000+; put in 6 squiggly mercury polluting globes, a new shower head and a couple of other “savers”. The tax on carbon (not sure whether that’s on diamonds, graphite or the amorphous form charcoal, I’ll have to clarify with Choice) will cost him $14-59, he’ll get no Govt. assistance but save $8-16!
    It appears poor old Pete can’t take a trick. Maybe he can borrow the Thomson credit card for any required extras!

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    KeithH

    The getting of Wisdom? Here’s a surprise!

    ‘Gaia’ scientist James Lovelock: I was ‘alarmist’ about climate change

    http://worldnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/04/23/11144098-gaia-scientist-james-lovelock-i-was-alarmist-about-climate-change?lite

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    Matt Bennett

    Hi Kevin,

    Yes, that’s exactly what I mean. Ocean currents don’t add heat to the earth system as a whole. They (thankfully!) can move it around, just as your example points out, and keep some latitudes warmer than they would otherwise be. They can also do the opposite, like the circumpolar current surrounding Antarctica that stops certain latitudes on the bottom of the globe from ever reaching the more moderate temps that their counterparts in the north would have you predict.

    Hi Mark, thanks for the fair go! Trog.

    (ps – good to see Lovelock showing true scientific rigour, just like I’m espousing, and ‘manning up’ when he thinks he’s erred. Great stuff. Doesn’t mean it’s not happening though, just that his more extreme concerns were unfounded, in his opinion)

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      The Black Adder

      Matt,

      Any proof for catastrophic man made global warming?

      Just wondering…..

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        Sonny

        Yes Matt,
        Can you please qualify and quantify your predictions or projections for climate change over the next 10 – 15 years. What exactly will need to happen to the climate for Jo to be proved wrong? What exactly will happen to the climate to prove Matt wrong? Will this be a global or local shift? Will it be based on temperature extremes or averages? Will it be based on an increase in extreme weather? Will it be based on sea level rise? Will it be measured in human costs? E.g. Number of People killed or displaced from human induced climate change.

        Alternatively, if over the next 10-15 years the climate (global temp anomaly) continues doing what it has for the last 10-15 years (sweet f$&@ all) an extreme weather events become no more severe or frequent (despite scientists best efforts to change to definition of extreme events eg “heat wave” in order to manipulate the statistics) — and it actually turns out that the preventative steps implemented to fight climate change (such as making people pay much more money for electricity) which results in fuel poverty, sickness and death in cold and hot climates, how will we measure the extent to which people such a yourselves are held accountable for your alarmism?

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      Wayne, s. Job

      Matt, it is over AGW is over and out. We have been subjected to scientific nonsense and political spin for twenty years. It has failed as the planet refuses to do as it it told, it is doing what it always did. Following the cycles that are totally external in origin, the odd big volcano or a meteor impact may give rise to a problem for a while but the earth heals and stabilises.
      What the IPCC and other climate unrealists have been playing with is weather.

      Climate is what you expect and weather is what you get, climate is controlled almost exclusively by external influences, weather is the world trying to reach equalibrium chasing its tail by ever varying external influences. Prove me wrong with your models of climate.

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      Mark

      G’day again, Matt.

      If you can find scientific rigour in the works of Phil Jones, Michael Mann, James Hansen et al then clearly we have an irreconcilable difference of opinion.

      Your opinion also requires that we tax and hobble ourselves into stone-age poverty whilst China and India reap the benefit of our mineral wealth. A dubious cabal of (political) scientists, socialists and bankers will be the only ones to prosper and be empowered.

      You refuse to see that this debate was never about science.

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    MadJak

    I’m guessing Choice magazine must’ve really appreciated whatever handout they got from the Guilleard/Thomson/Slipper Mob – after all, their entire business model is under threat from the new media.

    Maybe the extra dollars will help them struggle on for a few more years.

    Personally, I refer to retrevo and a few other consumer oriented sites to get for free what choice still try to charge for.

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    […] Jo Nova Share this:PrintEmailMoreStumbleUponTwitterFacebookDiggRedditLike this:LikeBe the first to like this post. This entry was posted in Cap & Tax, Climate Change and tagged carbon scam, carbon tax, climate fraud, climate hysteria, dioxycarbophobia, government cash grab, PlayStation® climatology, weather superstition. Bookmark the permalink. ← Peter C Glover: UK Goes for Shale-fuelled ‘Gold’ […]

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    Matt Bennett

    Oh dear Black Adder, you seem WOEFULLY misinformed, probably because you read blogs instead of peer-reviewed science. Do you understand how orbital cycles, northern latitude snow cover, oceans and CO2 work together to move us naturally in and out of glacial-interglacial cycles? Let’s start with that…..

    And Kevin, when the earth is in equilibrium, there is NO difference between the incoming and outgoing radiation energies. However, when the amount of energy being trapped in the system increases (ie more greenhouse gases, natural or man-made) there is a lag on at least centuries timescales before the system settles into a new equilibrium, where incoming equals outgoing again, although now at a higher temperature than before. Do you understand that?

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      Kevin Moore

      Matt Bennett,

      Thanks for the laughs!

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      Sonny

      Matt,
      Jo and the contributors to this site have posted volumes of scientific evidence that demonstrate that CO2 is an insignificant driver of global temperatures. I suggest that if you are intellectually honest you will review this evidence with an open mind. Resist the temptation to succumb to groupthink on this issue. Resist the temptation to be fooled by government propoganda.

      They want your money Matt, it couldn’t be more obvious.
      Unless you are being employed by government Matt? In which case YOU WANT OUR MONEY.

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    Matt Bennett

    Anytime Kev, 🙂 laughter/mockery is oft used to mask an insecure intellectual position.

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    crakar24

    To all,

    I am glad you all had the opportunity to meet Mr Matt Bennett, he and i have conversed before on a pro warming site in the past and i must say we did have some very colorful and wonderful discussions across the whole range of subjects.

    By reading the comments above it would appear that Matts approach has not changed one iota and remember he was/is an avid believer in the AGW myth. Back in the day Matts beliefs were intrenched based on the following:

    1) The planet is warming in conjunction with the rise in CO2
    2) This will be a hot spot, any second now…………….any second now.
    3) There will be more cyclones etc (my it has been a few years since we last spoke)

    Now so far all of the booga booga dooms day/the sky is falling predictions turned out to be false so leaves us with “the big one”.

    http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_stddev_timeseries.png

    Unfortunately even this booga booga (give me all your money) prediction has blown up in his face like a bad trick cigar so now Matt is reduced to merely “hit and run” raids on sites like this, bible in one hand, IPCC propagander in the other.

    It is a crying shame to watch how a once great debator has been forced to stoop so low due to being wedded to his beliefs.

    Its time to let go Matt…………..seriously its time.

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    hergo007

    Just wanted to say, as a subscriber to Choice, I wrote an e-mail to them decrying their involvement with the website. My main point was the fact that the information shown was incorrect, e.g. Carbon vs Carbon Dioxide emissions. I’m not sure I agree with their view of their involvement, but still it’s their view.

    Here is the reply:

    Thank you for your feedback about the Your Carbon Price online tool. I appreciate your feedback, and your suggestion that we take care about the organisations that we partner with.

    While you obviously disagree with CHOICE’s involvement, we only engaged in this project with very serious consideration, and ensuring that the independence of the project was maintained throughout.

    The online tool is based primarily on independent analysis undertaken by CSIRO and AECOM. The Climate Institute commissioned CSIRO and AECOM to undertake independent research into the impacts of a carbon price on costs of living for Australian households, with project funding from the Federal Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency. CHOICE and ACOSS provided advice through the development of the report and partnered with the Climate Institute in the launch of the yourcarbonprice.com.au website.

    We joined in this project because we believe the carbon price is a significant consumer issue, and the debate around its implementation has been characterised by very strong views, but not much clarity. This is not a question of supporting the government, the opposition, the greens, the independents or any political party. It is rather an attempt to provide information on a major policy which will be implemented on 1 July this year.

    Obviously with such a contentious and divisive issue, the very act of trying to provide information will be seen by some as a political act. But that is not our intention, nor we believe is it the outcome.

    Thanks again for your feedback,

    Matt

    On behalf of the CHOICE campaigns team

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