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Pretorian wrote:That's because they ARE the root of the world problems.

So they are the root from which your high level of consumption branches out? Yup. Makes sense.

@ scas
" Out of curiosity, is there any relation between carbon atoms up there and consumerism/fossil fuel use? "

I take it as a rough aproximation that half of the Carbon in the atmosphere is directly produced by humans agency , the rest is biological and volcanoes

There is ferocious dabate about the ratio but that's about it
there is an uncertainty about the quantities released by atmospheric acidification
and the quantities not absorbed due to human degradation
but the last one is a bit of a bogey
not the degradation , but people are massively farming intensively
it suck a fair bit of CO2 , and largely end up in effluents

Sixstrings wrote: But you know, just throwing a word out isn't well-reasoned argument.

That's true, I just wanted to know if you'd heard of externalities or not. I'm not trying to have a go at you, I think most people probably don't know what they are, yet will still have an opinion and argue it while not understanding the flip side.

Negative externalities is THE argument against rampant, regulation free capitalism, yet I'd wager most people who cheer on the free market have never even heard of them. That's not the product of a reasoned debate, that's just brainwashing!

The simplest example of negative externalities is pollution. If a company dumps its waste into a river, which pollutes people's drinking water who then die, it may take years to go through the courts and assign blame, in the mean time the cost is not taken into consideration and the general public is abused. If the free market was working properly, there would be a much higher cost on the product and some of the proceeds would go to the people being abused and killed. This is an extreme example, and you would probably find that the price you would need to give to the people you were killing would be far higher than the market would bear.

Could you expand on that? For the benefit of not only me but the the hundreds of lurkers who read this forum and who also probably don't know what externalities are?

If you're not paying the full economic cost of something, the free market has failed. At the moment the full economic cost is not being paid for the oil we burn and the pollution is affecting everybody. The full economic cost should be paid and it should go to the people being affected. This involves the transfer of money, as it rightly should.

Maybe the government is not the best way to move the money to the hands of the people being affected, but burying our heads in the sand, as we currently do, is worse.

If I broke into your house and damaged it you would want restitution, and that should go directly to you. Carbon taxes should be exactly the same. Anytime a product is not being used sustainably, the full economic cost is probably not being paid but being kicked down the road. We are now finding, in many areas, that the road is coming to an end and the cost will be borne by current generations who may not have had anything to do with creating the problems.

The world would be a better place if more people understood externalities than thought they understood free markets.

Sixstrings wrote:
Well.. in my opinion the UK and Australia have done enough already. The US hasn't done any of this.. so why can't you guys just relax for a while and feel good for doing what you have.. is there no end to taxes needed to save the planet?

And let's face it, Australia has a population of 21 million. The future of the planet does NOT rest on your shoulders however much you tax yourselves. Rather than new tax and cap and trade schemes you ought to focus on how to pressure China into doing something.

When you will understand that "carbon taxes" aren't really about the climate and CO2, but should be viewed primarily as a way to push the products, infrastructure, and way of life of a country towards less fossile fuel use in the context of depletion, you will have made a big step.

The US keeping its current retarded third world gas tax level is stupid, not only on a CO2 perspective, but more importantly on a pure economic survival perspective.

Why are you guys so commited towards total economic suicide ? And so totally apathetic politically speaking ?
Already dead ?

U.S. Should Consider $1 Gas Tax, CEO Hess Says

The U.S. should consider imposing a $1-a-gallon gasoline tax and boosting average auto fuel economy to 50 miles a gallon to help avert a global energy crisis, the head of oil company Hess Corp. (HES) said.

“As demand grows in the next decade, we will not have the oil-production capacity we will need to meet demand,” Chief Executive Officer John B. Hess said in a speech today at CERAWeek, a Houston conference held by IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associates. “The $140-per-barrel oil price of three years ago was not an aberration -- it was a warning.”

But not anytime soon:

“Until the economy’s growing and people are put back to work, I would not encourage the country to have a debate on energy taxes,”

More Hess heresy:

The U.S. also needs to “get serious about climate change once our economy recovers,” Hess said. Increasing the gasoline tax and levying a $10-a-ton tax on power-plant emissions would raise $200 billion a year to reduce deficits and fund alternative fuel research, he said.

Carbon taxes should be “introduced over a five-year period and only when other major industrial powers” do the same, Hess said.

This is a standard CYA move.

If things go well, no problem. WHEN things go badly, they can point back to this and say, "see, told ya so." ....removing risk.

and it costs them nothing since they recommend not doing anything until a condition set arrives that is extremely unlikely.

Sixstrings wrote:

scas wrote:

Scas, you're using a cumulative graph going all the way back to 1850. As of 2007, China is #1 in CO2 emissions along with all kinds of far worse environmental nightmares.

Emissions don't go away after one year. About 47% of all CO2 emitted is still in the atmosphere. It's okay though, people who pollute the most don't like taking responsibility for their pollution. That's normal.

Pretorian wrote:That's because they ARE the root of the world problems.

You obviously have no clue. The worlds problems to date have been industrialized consumers: Climate change, fish depletion, ozone hole, nuclear war threat, deforestation, exported deforestation, WW1, WW2. You also have no clue about demographics. While world population is climbing, birth rates are dropping and flattening in many industrialized countries. Many are falling precipitously, Russia namely. USA, the biggest cumulative and present polluter, has a fast growing population. Maybe they should take care of both their problems.

Yup, poor people having too many babies are the root of all the worlds problems. Their numbers will be easily cut down by disease and famine. The industrialized world will keep burning coal to keep their air conditioners running. It is typical for big polluters to point at others in order to claim innocence.

Unfortunately the extermination of species and the conversion of the planet to something resembling Venus is not undoable. The P-T extinction took 30 million years for recovery, ours may not recover at all.

scas wrote:Emissions don't go away after one year.

A lot of people were done wrong in 1850, there's not enough money in the world to make it right. Forget carbon emissions, how about all the opium the UK pushed on China? And slavery of course, and imperialism, on and on. So now you want to add carbon emissions to the list of generational guilt.

Bottom line.. what matters right now in 2011 is who is polluting right now, not what Queen Victoria did in 1850. China is the world's #1 carbon emitter, that's a fact. And China's priority is 10% annual growth, that's a fact too. There can be no climate change solution without China, India, Brazil, and all the other emerging nations on board. One thing is for sure, neither China or Brazil is ever going to "carbon tax" themselves. Heck, Brazil won't even stop clearcutting the Amazon.

"Carbon" taxes must be considered for a country, primarily as a way to push products, infrastructure, and way of life, towards less need of barrels per day for about the same functionalities.
Looking just at the CO2 is plainly stupid.
The current volume based tax on gas in most OECD countries (except for the retarded USA, also known as United Slaves of Allah), were of course set up without any reference to CO2 or climate.
The result : much more efficient cars fleet, fossile fuel use in Europe around half of the one in the US, pump price less influenced by barrel price

Wonder why Americans seem totally unable to grasp that ??

Arthur75 wrote:Wonder why Americans seem totally unable to grasp that ??

We're American and we don't like taxes - not on the super rich, and especially not on our gasoline!


On a slight positive, China plans to cut back emissions (think it will happen)?

http://www.desdemonadespair.net/2011/03 ... hinas.html

Climate models show that drought should be spreading across the Sahel. In fact, this is the case and millions are affected by hunger, drought and violence.

Given that these changes are cause by past emissions causing damage today, who is responsible? I would imagine it is the people who caused the emissions, by percentage.

But I don't think they should be compensated - I think the damage should stop being done my phasing our carbon and geoengineering to prevent runaway conditions (When the pointy-heads with the multiple PhDs say we should)

Sixstrings or someone else might have a solution that doesn't involve a carbon tax, sorry, fee-and-dividend, but if so no one has made it clear.

sixstrings

re australia has done enough

australia is one of the highest per capita emitters

the German Advisory Council on Global Change ( WBGU) has estimated the high emitting countries like Australia, EU,USA and Japan have to reduce their emissions to zero by 2025 unless an emission trading scheme is in place

with an emission trading scheme they need a 90% reduction by 2050

so no, Australia definitely hasn't done enough

we are still increasing the emission level because there is no financial signal and the population is still rapidly increasing

scas wrote:

Pretorian wrote:That's because they ARE the root of the world problems.

You obviously have no clue. The worlds problems to date have been industrialized consumers: Climate change, fish depletion, ozone hole, nuclear war threat, deforestation, exported deforestation, WW1, WW2. You also have no clue about demographics. While world population is climbing, birth rates are dropping and flattening in many industrialized countries. Many are falling precipitously, Russia namely. USA, the biggest cumulative and present polluter, has a fast growing population. Maybe they should take care of both their problems.

Yup, poor people having too many babies are the root of all the worlds problems. Their numbers will be easily cut down by disease and famine. The industrialized world will keep burning coal to keep their air conditioners running. It is typical for big polluters to point at others in order to claim innocence.

Unfortunately the extermination of species and the conversion of the planet to something resembling Venus is not undoable. The P-T extinction took 30 million years for recovery, ours may not recover at all.

who said I claimed innocence? I do not. All I'm saying is that the bigegst problem is a number of people consuming, along with their ability to procreate, not some stupid per-capita consumption rate in a country with a dwindling population. At least 50 000 000 of USA residents are either third-worlders, or their litter. I fear even to guess how many are their grand-litter. Without their fellow third-worlders dropping dozens of babies on each other and shitting in each others water supply they might have chosen to stay at home instead of violating laws of other countries.

http://www.theage.com.au/national/carbo ... 1erfn.html

A report by consultants Deloittes, to be released today, says a price of $40 per tonne is needed to prompt the closure of coal power stations and the building of cleaner gas plants.

But Mr Combet said other power industry players had cited lower carbon prices for a switch between coal and gas. AGL has previously nominated $20 a tonne as the shift price.

The Deloittes modelling finds if there is continued policy uncertainty on carbon, up to $5 billion a year could be added to the nation's power bills.

Its good to finally get some figures will be interesting to see if the have the ticker to go all the way or what they think they can sell

Brown coal generators told Deloittes the government might ''buy out'' a substantial part of the emissions from plants like Hazelwood. If they were not bought out, they intended to keep their stations open well into the 2030s, the report says.

Makes you so happy that we privatised our elctricity industry we now have to compensate them to stop polluting.

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/national/carbo ... z1MeMYL3Sv

http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics/on-climate-change-its-allout-war-20110925-1krlh.html?rand=1316956540763

Under the Gillard government's proposed carbon tax, the revenue will be recycled to ensure that 90 per cent of households will be no worse off and that compensation will be paid to the most trade-exposed industries. This will hardly cause a blip in the inflationary radar

The Coalition opposes a carbon tax and has promised to spend $3.2 billion on carbon abatement projects over four years, financed by unspecified expenditure cuts. Per tonne, the Coalition cuts will be twice the cost of those under the Labor carbon tax and there will be no compensation.
But the Coalition has no mechanism to discourage new investment in high-emission industries such as coal-fired power stations, providing they adopt ''best practice'' in order to minimise emissions. The policy is neither cost effective compared to a carbon tax nor administratively feasible.

No wonder there is a huge gap between the science community and the political community. ............ the science which points to the conclusion that the carbon budget constraint would only allow 30 to 40 per cent of existing global reserves of coal, oil and gas to be consumed. ............... why does the world continue to pour billions of dollars of investment into expanding reserves of fossil fuels ........ if we can only afford to burn less than half the existing reserves?

Over the three years to 2013 the mining industry will have invested in the order of $150 billion in mainly fossil fuel-related developments which are ''crowding out'' industrial investment, including investment in renewable energy.
...if countries such as China continue their massive drive to reduce their reliance on carbon-intensive industries, most of the new mines on which Australia's present prosperity depends will become stranded assets within five years.

[LEFT]
Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics/on-climate-change-its-allout-war-20110925-1krlh.html#ixzz1Z036b4Ir


[/LEFT]
Interesting read
[LEFT][/LEFT]

why does the world continue to pour billions of dollars of investment into expanding reserves of fossil fuels ........ if we can only afford to burn less than half the existing reserves?

Because afford or not, we WILL burn them; and those countries with moral objections to burning them, will still find ways to produce and deliver those fuels to countries that don't have those moral objections.

What I find most entertaining about the Australian carbon tax debate is their status as an exporter of some 250+ million tons of coal annually. It just hurts my head. Ostensibly, the carbon tax is supposed to reduce CO2 emissions and reduce Australia's impact on AGW; yet they ship a vast amount of coal to places where it will be burned under inferior environmental regulation, contributing further to AGW, as well as general pollution.

There are also "externalities" associated with taxing carbon.

Raising energy costs will hurt economic growth and job creation. Thats why Obama flip-flopped on his 2008 campaign promise to tax carbon in the US

Shaved Monkey wrote:..if countries such as China continue their massive drive to reduce their reliance on carbon-intensive industries, most of the new mines on which Australia's present prosperity depends will become stranded assets within five years.

Its very naive to imagine that China will stop using coal. When you look at the real data, China's CO2 emissions aren't shrinking---in fact they've grown by 170% over the last 10 years. AND the growth in China's CO2 emission will more than double again over the next 10 years.

China's CO2 production is growing so rapidly that its a waste of time for any other country to reduce their CO2 emissions. For instance if Obama is re-elected in 2012 and finishes destroying the economy of the USA to the point that US CO2 emissions drop to zero, the increase in CO2 from China would completely replace the CO2 from the USA in less than a decade

China's coal use and CO2 production continues to grow rapidly

china will stabilize its population within 10 years

and its ghg emissions will decline rapidly

any country with an increasing population is committing genocide