Julia’s explanation

Whats wrong with this statement by Julia Gillard?
….Well, the effect is that in the shops when you come to buy things, products that are made with relatively less carbon pollution will be cheaper than products that are made with more carbon pollution. So you’re standing there with your household assistance in your hand. You could still keep buying the high-carbon pollution products if you want to, or what you’re far more likely to do is to buy the cheaper, lower-carbon pollution products. That means that the people who make those things will get the consumer signal: gee, we will sell more, we will make more money if we make lower-pollution products. That drives the innovation. So I want you to have that household assistance in your hand but I also want you to see price effects which make cleaner, greener things cheaper than high-pollution commodities. That’s why it works.”
Honey, this is why it doesn’t work It only considers Australia in isolation and ignores the world economy. In Julia’s shop you could be confronted with goods made by a high-polluter and goods made by a low polluter and just when you remember Julia’s words and reach for the cheaper low-pollution made product you notice the same product along side made in China for half the price again! Oops! Julia forgot to tell the Chinese to apply a carbon tax to goods they export to Australia. Secondly; What source of power does the politically correct Low-Polluter manufacturer use? Solar Power? I hope not because if he does he will have supply line problem only being able to manufacture on hot sunny days. This leaves the shopper faced with the high-polution product, now dearer because of Julia’s Carbon tax, the empty bin of the low-polluter or the one made in China – still cheaper. Oh, and exactly what household assistance would I have left in my hand. With domestic power rates soaring from this and other Green ventures, water dearer because ALP governments traded dams for Greenie votes and built billion dollar desalination plants instead, and a host of other price increases that this tax will produce I will be so out of pocket I will need to be reincarnated as a 30 year old to start earning more money again. Failing that, has anybody got a job for an old digger? My fixed income superannuation won’t cut it.

54 comments

  • Kev
    “My fixed income superannuation won’t cut it.”
    You’re not Robinson Crusoe, but any hardship caused by increasing energy bills is small beer weighed up against the $80000 haircut to my investment portfolio caused by the GFC. I’ll have to live to 200 for my increased power bills to exceed that.
    In the real world I have much more cause to bitch about the under regulation and greed of Wall Street than increased costs of living generated by a levy on carbon generation.
    See –
    “It only considers Australia in isolation and ignores the world economy.”
    You nailed it. The world economy is much more important.
    See the bipartisan US Senate panel report – http://www.businessspectator.com.au/bs.nsf/Article/Senate-panel-slams-Goldman-in-scathing-crisis-repo-FVVMT?opendocument&src=rss

    • I wonder how many of your comfortably well off green friends would contribute and to what extent if the funds required uder this “tax” were to be sought by donation rather than imposed on those without choice. I doubt there would be too many “believers” then.

  • Bobby if you can drop 80 big ones and still drive the MX5 you have no idea of hardship. I know people who would be forced into bankruptcy if they dropped that kind of money, and some of them are in small businesses.
    Global warming/carbon DIOXIDE induced climate change, even if it could be proven,and the imposition of a tax supposedly to counter its effects, would not effect you or yours for quite a number of generations. People who are struggling and have a realistic view of the situation will be impacted greatly by the imposition of this Green/Labor driven tax. They will have no choice and no ability to pay.

    • You’ve not addressed the factual point I made which is that the GFC has had a much greater impact on SFRs than any impost on carbon generation ever will.
      BTW, an MX5 turns about 8lit/100km, and costs about the same to run as a Mazda 2.
      As to “no idea of hardship” – that’s a big call. One of the reasons I’m still working for a living is so I can afford to run a car.
      “would not effect you or yours for quite a number of generations”
      So our descendants can get stuffed?

      • GFC vs CO2 tax ….short answer= in your case Bobby where your super figure is what it is. Others less fortunate, although losing a similar percentage lost less in real terms, but of course they will be superannuated with less also and the increase in cost of living will of course cause them more grief than you.
        BTW my Pajero costs about a $1.50 more to cover the same 100 km…..and your point is?
        I hazard q guess Bobby that the last time you faced any kind of hardship was sleeping above ground cuddling your SLR in the boonies and getting paid 35 dollars a week and keep.
        Our descendants are faced with the need to adapt to climate change in the same way our ancestors did and we have in our time. In case nobody told you the climate changes constantly and has since the beginning of time. It doesn’t matter which belief you have religious or realistic. Nobody can prove that the miniscule amount (0.005% in the last hundred or so years) of increase in the percentage of CO2 in the air is caused by man’s input and all assumptions about the possible effects of this increase are hypothetical. Ask a weather man for a ten day forecast and then ask him in two days for another….there will be major differences in the forecast. It has been argued that the earth is actually now going through a cooling stage. Does that mean that CO2 and water vapour in the atmosphere are now depleting?
        The tax and compensation system about to be implemented will have no detectable effect on the global situation quoted as the reason for imposition of this tax. Utopia is a place somewhere in a Green mind, where money grows on trees alongside beef steaks, where people live in caves and the power for their laptops is generated by a solar unit attached to their mortarboards.

        • To repeat the point I made about self-funded retirees – even those on low super payouts were damaged more by their capital losses through the GFC than they will be by any impost through the carbon levy, which apparently will be compensated in any case.
          I’m fascinated by the hue and cry about this levy from those on the Right, following their total silence on the damage done to ordinary people (worldwide – not just in Australia) by greed and corrupt financial practices demonstrated by the masters of the universe on Wall St.
          Obviously, the market operates in a different ethical universe. In that parallel universe the religion is the worship of the almighty dollar, and no other beliefs or values apply.
          At least our pollies are accountable.
          My point about the fuel consumption of my car is that you were holding up its ownership as some indication of wealth. I wish….
          You would have no idea of what life I live or have lived. Don’t assume – it’s likely to make an ass (of) u + me.
          As for AGW – I’ve observed the mindset of those who don’t give a stuff about the environment both in this country and in Vietnam. For more than forty years I’ve worked with kids who were born with congenital deformities as a consequence of the cavalier use of pesticides and herbicides on cotton crops. I’ve seen swathes of scrub near Da Nang still showing clearly the results of the spraying of Agent Orange forty years on. The mindset that allowed these obscenities to occur differs little from the philosophy of those who are content to stuff up our environment by refusing to take action on AGW.
          Like the mug lairs on Wall St, the only God they worship is green and has George Washington printed on it.

  • Let’s recap for Bobby red-herring’s benefit – he’s lost the plot.

    Gillard solemnly promised days before the last election “there will be no carbon [dioxide] tax under a government I lead”, so those who voted Labor (and for the Coalition) were entitled to believe there would not be a CO2 tax imposed immediately after the election.

    They were dudded by the wedding of convenience between Jools and Bobby Brown (complete with flowers in their lapels) after which all her promises became less than worthless because of her so-called “new paradigm”.

    The self-described ‘climate scientists’ at the centre of the alarmist predictions, whose boiling planet prognosis is aimed at panicking the world into precipitous actions like the inequitable and wholly useless carbon dioxide tax, have proven themselves to be more politicians than scientists.

    Witness the execrable attempts by the CRU crowd to prevent contrarian views being published in ‘peer reviewed’ journals. And the constant derogatory name calling by even Australia’s chief scientist who shamefully links scepticism of scaremongering climate predictions to holocaust denial. These are just two examples of the warmist’s mendacity.

    Their extreme predictions are failing on a daily basis with more reputable papers destroying their shabby worthless propaganda in every edition of those few peer reviewed journals they left with any credibility.

    Science exposes Gillard’s carbon dioxide tax as nothing but a cash grab – the tax will have absolutely no impact on Australia’s emissions or Australia’s and the world’s climate, despite Bobby red-herrings gratuitous rhetoric and Agent Orange straw-man argument.

    But let’s suspend all rational thought processes for a moment and believe without question the climate alarmist ravings of Gillard et al and accept without a shred of scepticism that the total amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is rising solely as a result of human activities and that the burgeoning CO2 is responsible for the majority if not all of the .5C global temperature rise during the past 150 years.

    So a solution? I know let’s tax CO2 emissions in Australia (except for cars and utes and farms and pensioners and whatever else isn’t politically palatable) – whooo hooooo… This will obviously be the solution for the most important moral question of our time, have a measurable impact and save our souls from sizzling…

    But how will it work? Hmmmmm…. Australia contributes a massive 560 million tonnes of CO2 annually to the thermogeddonist future whilst China a mere 8.33 billion tonnes which is only rising at a paltry 10% a year.

    Gillard’s inequitable and unworkable tax regime is intended to reduce our emissions by 5% or 30 million tonnes a year which will dwarf China’s insignificant near billion tonne annual increase. As a result the world will cease to heat, the seas (which have not risen for a couple of years) will recede, the malevolent storms (at a 35 year low) will – umm – reduce in number even more and coral will flourish just like is, ummm, today.

    The carbon dioxide tax as an exercise in mitigating climate change is an exercise in futility.

    I note Bobby red-herring dishonestly calls Gillard’s carbon dioxide (and sundry other gasses and compounds) tax a ‘levy’. This is just another example of the deceit of the left.

    It’s a tax Bobby, even Bob Brown’s new bride admits it’s a tax. Time to grow up and face the fact Bob and Jools’ ‘bomboniere’ left (hard left) on Australia’s table after the wedding is nothing more than a dishonest cash grab hidden under a cloak of climate-change futility and lies.

    • The current government was elected, member by member, by the Australian people. We follow a Westminster system, which put simply means that these members form a government after they have been elected. This takes no account of the party system, which is a corruption of the Westminster ideal. Currently, our federal government is a loose coalition of Labor, the Greens, and a handful of independents. It’s worth acknowledging that this has been the rule, rather than the exception in federal politics in this country. Except for a few years when Labor held power in its own right, we have had coalition governments, mostly Liberal/National Party.
      Forgetting about the Westminster system for a while, at the 2010 federal election, the final figures were Labor 38.0%, Coalition 43.7% Greens 11.7% Others 6.6%. My maths indicates that the combined vote of the Greens and Labor totals 49.7%. At a guess, I reckon that those 49.7% would be supporting action on climate change.
      If this government is a “wedding of convenience” I wonder what you’d call a Coalition government – shotgun wedding maybe? Remember the years when the Coalition courted the old whore – the DLP?
      As to Gillard’s declaration of no Carbon tax prior to the election, unless she was psychic I doubt she knew at the time that she’d be leading a coalition. I also doubt that Abbott (or any other leader for that matter) would have behaved any differently. Remember the 30 years of special favours granted to Brian Harradine back in the day? Remember the Wik legislation, and the partial privatisation of Telstra. Labor also needed him to pass legislation between 1994 and 1996. I don’t remember Howard offering to go back to the people every time he made a concession to Harradine and the Democrats.
      The people you call “the self-described climate scientists” publish their work in a range of reputable journals. To get a balanced view of the science, you need to read this material rather than the junk posted by journalists. As a primer, you could start with this – “What Is The Greenhouse Effect?” Thilo Kunzemann – 20 December 2010. This is lightweight, but it is based on the science. If you want to dig a bit deeper, these journals publish regularly on the Science and are worth a read –
      Reviews of Geophysics – publisher: Springer, for the American Geophysical Union
      Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Science publisher: Annual Reviews
      Climate Dynamics – publisher: Springer
      Journal of Geophysical Research (JGR) – AGU journal series with seven sub-disciplines, five relevant to climate science:
      Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (BAMS)
      American Journal of Science publisher: AJS, at Yale University Dept. of Geology and Geophysics
      Earth Science Reviews – publisher: Elsevier
      Paleoceanography – publisher: AGU
      Global Biogeochemical Cycles – publisher: AGU
      Journal of Climate publisher: American Meteorological Society
      International Journal of Climatology (IJC) – Publisher: Wiley, for Royal Meteorological Society
      Theoretical and Applied Climatology – publisher: Springer
      Climate Research publisher: Inter-Research Science Centre.
      Specifically, you may care to consult – “Can ozone depletion and global warming interact to produce rapid climate change?” (Dennis L. Hartmann, John M. Wallace, Varavut Limpasuvan, David W. J. Thompson and James R. Holton) PNAS 2000 97 (4) 1412-1417; doi:10.1073/pnas.97.4.1412
      Or
      “The change in oceanic O2 inventory associated with recent global warming” (Ralph F. Keeling and Hernan E. Garcia) PNAS 2002 99 (12) 7848-7853; published ahead of print June 4, 2002, doi:10.1073/pnas.122154899
      Or
      “Climate change: Extra warming near Greenland” Nature 475, 9 (07 July 2011) doi: 10.1038/475009cPublished online06 July 2011
      There are literally thousands of current peer-reviewed publications on the subject by people eminently qualified in the research. If you’re fair dinkum about developing an informed opinion, these are the best places to look. Journalists are not qualified and are driven either by editorial or advertising clout.
      You claim that Australia will be going it alone with the Carbon levy. This is simply wrong. Here’s a snapshot of global action. It’s by no means comprehensive, but is indicative.

      If we start with China you may recall reports surfaced in May 2010 that China will impose a carbon tax on industry from 2012 to curb carbon dioxide emissions. The Chinese language Economic Information Daily quoted official sources in the Ministry of Finance as saying the tax would start at 20 Yuan (£1.95) per tonne of carbon dioxide, and rise to 50 Yuan a tonne by 2020. The C40 group of cities, many of which are in China, have initiated a range of actions designed to reduce emissions. Changsha is scaling back the number of high-polluting factories, building two subway lines and a light rail line and promoting electric buses. Shenzhen is making sure that new buildings use energy-efficient electrical equipment and developing its electric car industry. The southern city is home to electric car maker BYD Autos, which counts U.S. billionaire Warren Buffett among its investors. In southern Kunming cities are promoting the use of solar power.
      In Costa Rica a 3.5 percent carbon tax on fossil fuels was imposed in 1997. Part of the capital created by the tax goes to a program called “Payment for Environmental Services”. This provides incentives to individuals and corporations to practice sustainable development and forest conservation. This plan protects 11% of Costa Rica’s national territory. The program now pays out roughly $15 million a year.

      Canada is not taking national action at this time, but its provinces are. Quebec introduced a carbon tax starting October 1, 2007, with revenue collected used for energy-efficiency programs including public transit. On February 19, 2008, British Columbia announced its intention to implement a carbon tax of $10 per tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) emissions (2.41 cents per litre on gasoline) beginning July 1, 2008. This made BC the first North American jurisdiction to implement such a tax which will increase each year after until 2012, reaching a final price of $30 per tonne. In July 2007 Alberta imposed a carbon tax forcing companies that emit more than 100,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas annually. The companies could opt to either reduce their CO2 emissions per barrel by 12 percent, pay $15 per tonne into a technology fund, or buy an offset in Alberta to apply against their total emissions.

      The US is similar to Canada in that it’s not taking consolidated national action, but states are imposing taxes. In Colorado, Boulder city implemented a tax on electricity consumption (utility bills) with deductions for using electricity from renewable sources in November 2006. It’s designed to reduce carbon emissions to those outlined in the Kyoto Protocol. This tax, called the Climate Action Plan (CAP) tax is expected to raise $1.6 million dollars in 2010 and will expire on March 31, 2013.
      In California the Bay Area Air Quality Management District passed a carbon tax on businesses of 4.4 cents per ton of CO2 in May 2008. In addition, a cap-in-trade system was put in place under global warming law, AB32. However, a few months ago, San Francisco Superior Court Judge Ernest Goldsmith suspended it in a plaint brought by California environmentalists alleging that it failed to properly consider alternatives which the judge rules violated state environmental law. The California Air Resources Board must conduct further review before implementing the plan which had been adopted in December 2010. In Maryland, in May 2010 Montgomery County passed the nation’s first county-level carbon tax which calls for payments of $5 per ton of CO2 emitted from any stationary source emitting more than a million tons of carbon dioxide during a calendar year. The USA provides lip service to its Copenhagen commitment.

      In India, a nationwide carbon tax of 50 rupees per metric tonne ($1.07/t) of coal both produced and imported into India was introduced on July 1, 2010. The government is mandating the retirement of inefficient coal-fired power plants and supporting the research and development of IGCC and supercritical technologies. Under the Electricity Act 2003 and the National Tariff Policy 2006, the central and the state electricity regulatory commissions must purchase a certain percentage of grid-based power from renewable sources.

      South Korea has substituted a carbon tax with the current transportation tax. The revenues, calculated to amount to an annual $11 trillion won ($10.4 billion) will finance the “Low Carbon, Green Growth” initiative. The tax is imposed on emissions of greenhouse gases including carbon dioxide.

      A New Zealand Emissions Cap in Trade system was passed into law in November 2009.

      Brazil passed a climate change bill in late 2009 that is intended to reduce national greenhouse gas emission by 39 per cent by 2020. This goal is estimated to save around 1.06 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent by 2020. No carbon tax is in place at this time, but there is speculation that it will be soon.

      South Africa has no carbon tax, but they’re talking big on action, if you read their National Government’s website. They’re also hosting the next Climate Change Conference in Durban in December this year, and Jacob Zuma has already made some political statements in preparation for this.
      In May 2009 Russia dramatically changed its policy on climate change. It officially accepted that anthropogenic global warming poses severe risks and stated that immediate action to limit carbon emissions was a priority. To date, that hasn’t led to any carbon tax legislation, but given its readily available supplies of natural gas, it’s expected that they’ll be encouraging the replacement of coal-fired power stations in favour of gas generated electricity.

      Way back in 1993, the Poms introduced what they called the fuel duty escalator (FDE), which was designed to reduce carbon dioxide emissions in the transport sector. The transport lobby hated it, and it was cancelled in 1999. In 2001, they introduced the Climate Change Levy. It was hoped to cut annual emissions by 2.5 million tonnes by 2010, and forms part of the UK’s Climate Change Programme. It’s a tax bunged on all energy users, but the transport and household sectors are excused. On the carrot (as opposed to the stick) side, if you generate electricity from new renewables or cogenerational schemes, you don’t pay the tax. Nuclear is still taxed – that’s interesting.

      You can check this out on the website of the quaintly named HM’s Revenue and Customs.

      The Dutch kicked off a carbon tax in 1990. That lasted only two years and morphed into something called the Environmental Tax on Fuels. This is a bit clever in that it is assessed on a split between carbon content and energy content. In 1996 The Regulatory Tax on Energy was added to the tax mix. The Environmental tax and the regulatory tax are/were 5.16 Dutch guilder, or NLG, (~$3.13) or per metric ton of CO2 and 27.00 NLG (~$16.40) per metric ton CO2 respectively. They don’t tax electricity, but they do tax fuels used to produce it. Energy-intensive industries were originally granted special rates, but these concessions expired at the beginning of 1997.
      In 2007, the Dutch introduced what they call a Waste Fund that is funded by a carbon-based packaging tax. This tax encourages producers to create packaging that is recyclable. The goal is to of recycle 65% of used packaging by 2012. Tidy lot, the Dutch.

      Back in 1991 Norway introduced a CO2 tax on fossil fuels. It started at the very high rate of US$51 per metric ton of CO2 on petrol, with an average tax of US$21 per metric ton. It covered diesel, mineral oil, and oil and gas used in North Sea extraction activities. It is one of the highest rates in the OECD. Oil and gas produced offshore is also taxed. They generated US$1.3 billion in 2010 dollars by this. Some industry sectors have been granted exemptions from the tax to preserve their competitive position.

      The Swedes first enacted a CO2 tax at the beginning of 1991 at $100 per tonne. It applied on the use of oil, coal, natural gas, liquefied petroleum gas, petrol, and aviation fuel used in domestic travel. Industrial users paid half the rate. There were exemptions for high-energy industries like horticulture, the pulp and paper industry, mining, and manufacturing. In 1997 the rate was raised to $150 per tonne of CO2. It’s paid in transport, space heating, and non-combined heat and power generation.
      There’s lots of heating in Sweden.

      Switzerland implemented a CO2 incentive tax on all fossil fuels in January 2008. Fuels used for energy were exempt as were petrol and diesel. It adds up to US $11.41 per metric tonne of CO2. There is actually a Federal Law on the Reduction of CO2 (CO2 Law) in Switzerland. In 2010, the highest tax rate will be US $34.20 per metric tonne CO2.

      Finland is notable because it was the first country in the 1990s to introduce a CO2 tax. They started with few exemptions for defined fuels or sectors, but substantial liberalisation has happened since then. When the Nordic electricity market opened further changes were made, because the Finns reckoned they would have been disadvantaged.

      The Paddies (Irish Republic) introduced their country’s first Carbon levy in 2010 at approx US$20 per tonne of CO2 emissions. It applies to kerosene, gas oil, lpg, fuel oil, and natural gas. Natural gas users are exempt if they’re using it to “generate electricity, for chemical reduction, or for electrolytic or metallurgical processes”. The Economic and Social Research Institute has estimated the tax will cost between about €2 and €3 a week per household, or about €156 per year.

      There’s a stoush in relation to heating charges for pensioners and people on fixed incomes, and of course the Irish economy is on life support.

      To tidy up the rest of Europe, we look at Denmark where there’s been some form of carbon tax since 1992. It was about $14 for business and $7 for households, per tonne of CO2 back then. Now it’s about $18 US dollars. The tax depends on the process the energy is used for, and whether or not the company has volunteered to apply energy efficiency measures. The Danes also offer a tax refund for energy efficient changes.

      So, how do you summarise all of this. Let me try by making a few statements of fact.

      Most European countries have a price on carbon.

      The two largest emitters (USA and China) don’t nationally, although many provinces states, cities or municipalities in these countries, particularly where the largest population concentrations exist, do.

      Many other countries have cap in trade systems, although it’s interesting to note that Californian environmentalists have issued a successful legal challenge to such a scheme on the grounds that it doesn’t reduce emissions.

      India has a tax, but it’s chickenfeed at this stage.

      Australia would not be “going it alone” if a carbon tax was introduced.

      Given that you take issue at my calling it a “levy”, take a look first at a dictionary definition of tax – “a sum of money demanded by a government for its support or for specific facilities or services, levied upon incomes, property, sales, etc.”
      And levy – “an imposing or collecting, as of a tax, by authority or force, the amount owed or collected, the conscription of troops, the troops conscripted.”

      Clearly, the terms are interchangeable. In that case I’ll continue to use the semantic freedom applicable. Interesting, isn’t it, the reference to conscription in the second definition? Obviously, the Coalition had no problem with that particular levy back in the sixties and seventies. I guess it’s consistent with their world view that it was once OK to conscript people, but conscripting wealth is a no-no.

      Apart from the regulation name-calling PeterW’s recent posts have been refreshingly free of abuse. Perhaps I’m getting somewhere. After all, a good teacher never gives up, even with his most recalcitrant pupils.

      In all, it’s been a good week. The Reds have emphasised the clear superiority of Queensland‘s sporting prowess across three football codes, action on climate change will be announced today, and PeterW is coming over all polite and civil.

      Bliss.

      • Given that climate change is with us – has been for centuries, and it’s a good idea to look to developing alternative fuels I still don’t believe that Gillard has the answer.

        In fact, how any answer from a center left government in bed with Greens and Communists; a group that have shown an inability to manage anything, will help, is beyond me.

        The Greens, ideologically driven to take us back to the stone age, actually have had an impact in this plan and will demand, over the course of their holding power in the Senate, that we pay even more to their church.

        Not good.

        Every time the Greens get their nose in the trough it simply costs me more to live for no perceptible gain to my life or the environment.

        Do I believe that only 500 businesses will be involved – no.
        Do I believe that compensation will pay for any cost of living increases – no

      • Bobby where can I get the figures for the reduction of CO2 that is attributable to the imposition of these taxes? From what I read, if you are prepared to pay for the priveledge you can produce as much CO2 as you like.

  • The goal is a reduction of 5% compared with 2000 levels by 2020, and 80% by 2050.
    See – http://www.cleanenergyfuture.gov.au/clean-energy-future/securing-a-clean-energy-future/executive-summary/
    “if you are prepared to pay for the priveledge you can produce as much CO2 as you like”
    Sure, but “paying for the privilege” is not the routine behaviour of most money-making corporations. The shareholders get cranky.

    • Some of these “measures” have been in place long enough to have accumulated a lot of money, but what CO2 savings have been recorded? My limited reading indicates that there has been limited success if any and some say that the levels of CO2 emissions have actually increased. Granted
      there have been gains in infrastructure and investigating alternative means of fuel and power, but actual reduction CO2 to prevent Global warming doesn’t seem to happening.

      My goal is to become wealthy enough to have an MX5 as one of my big boys toys…..it isn’t likely to happen.

      A long time ago my mother told me to wish in one hand and spit in the other to see which one filled up first…..a bit like taking tax with one hand and fulfilling promises with the other.
      No need to draw you a picture though, with your ongoing education you can work it out.

      You have religion Bobby and therefore the ability to have blind faith in scientifically unproveable statements.

      Even the biggest corporations when pushed to the wall will be prepared to lose a little to maintain a lot. To maintain current levels of profit, afford to pay more tax and still keep shareholders satisfied…..increase output. Probably not conducive to a reduction in CO2 levels, but the Govt.(Labor/Greens) will be happy, watching the budget deficit shrinking(as long as they don’t hand out too much compensation of course).

  • 17etc…could you comment on this post

    Makes a lot of sense to me.

    • Kev

      Happy to – let’s start with the style.
      First of all, it’s polemic. It’s written to shape opinion, not to inform. I was lucky (maybe unlucky) years ago to be trained in writing a press release. You write from the inside out, using a headline (in this case CO2 Tax Australia – Julia Gillard – Absolutely Clueless).
      Secondly, it’s peppered with tables. In this case they’re misused, as they don’t tell the reader anything that the text doesn’t. The only exception to this is the graph of power consumption across seasons. In other words “fire for effect”. There’s nothing factually new or revelatory in the article.
      Let’s look at the substance –
      “Tax is on a naturally occurring gas”
      This is a shabby and over used meme. Of course CO2 is natural. So is arsenic. What does it being “natural” have to do with anything in particular? Used this way, it’s meaningless. It’s a levy on emissions.
      “. 36% of all CO2 emissions come from the generation of electrical power.”
      And
      “The intent of this legislation is to lower those emissions”
      This is the first piece of usefully factual information in the piece. It follows that the power generators will need to clean up their act. It also follows that this will cost money. The generators will be forced by this financial imperative to produce their power more efficiently. There are alternatives to what operates now ranging from Nuclear through Gas to tide and hot rocks. The first two use currently available and use reliable proven technologies, the others will need decades to develop.
      I have no problem with nuclear so long as the lessons of Chernobyl and Fukushima are learned. Then there are the first, second and third generation stages of using renewables. I could lay them out, but a quick reference to – http://www.iea.org/papers/2006/renewable_factsheet.pdf will do a better job.
      Obviously the political environment will have to change, and NIMBY will have to be dealt with when it comes to nuclear generation. I reckon pragmatism will triumph over politics in my lifetime.
      You and I have lived through the 60s and 70s, so we’ve seen the race to the moon, and the amazing technological developments that accrued around that. It’s an interesting metaphor for the development of alternative power sources. The moon quest was an apparently impossible dream driven by courage and ingenuity. It was ultimately successful. Unless the last fifty years of “what about me” have ruined the current generation of scientists and entrepreneurs, the search for alternative sources of baseload power is not an impossible quest.
      The development of gas extraction sites in the country I routinely travel through is mind boggling, changing weekly. The problem is not the source of available energy, but the damage done to good country in extracting it. There’s enough gas here to generate cleaner baseload power for the next 300 years providing we don’t hock it off to the Chinese for next to nothing. Go and have a look at Kogan the next time you drive down the Warrego.
      “The total power supplied from all three plants is less than 14% of the actual power currently being delivered from JUST ONE coal fired power plant, Bayswater, and while Bayswater delivers its power 24/7/365, the best these three renewables can achieve is a theoretical maximum of 9 hours a day at the absolute best.”
      This illustrates the point I made above about technology. Twenty years ago, our family car was turning about 14lit /100km. The car I drive today does 8lit/100km. I can buy a diesel for the same money that gives 5lit/100km. That’s progress, without a government initiative to encourage behaviour change. Watch the corporations change their behaviour when there’s a dollar in it.
      This anonymous article completely omits to comment on one of the most important elements of the initiative. These include the commercialisation and deployment of clean technologies through the $10 billion Clean Energy Finance Corporation research, the development and commercialisation of renewable energy through the $3.2 billion Australian Renewable Energy Agency research and development of clean technologies through the $200 million Clean Technology Innovation Program.
      If nothing else, it provides a pretty good summary of the shortfalls in terms of efficiency and flexibility of the current baseload generators. In that, it provides an indication of a good place to start in the quest for cleaner energy.
      Apart from that, it’s anonymous puff piece polemic.

  • I had a lovely day today – flying around WA’s red-north.

    Gazing out of the windows on the twin (co2 emitting) turbo prop aircraft, I’m flitting at about in at 15,000 feet, I can follow the contours of the great iron ore deposits as their twisting ridges zig-zag back and forth across hundreds of kilometres of WA’s (co2 emitting) north.

    The iron was laid down in WA’s rocks as a result of ‘climate change’ caused by bacteria.

    Millions of years ago photosynthetic bacteria produced oxygen which began oxidising iron in the oceans and precipitated iron oxides onto the ocean floor – these iron deposits outcrop today as massive iron ore deposits across the state and are the basis of the iron ore mining industry in Western Australia.

    But I digress… When I boarded the aircraft at Perth Airport a woman with hair the colour of iron ore was screeching a destructive and pitiable manifesto via a flat screen TV to a departure lounge filled with hundreds of men and women clad in lurid orange, navy and battered silver stripes. (no bobby red herring, it wasn’t a bunch of Bobby Brown’s mates, but his speech did remind me of this song: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iW4Bm7q_zOc]).

    As Gillard wobbled and fancied her way through her unappealingly delivered speech many of the men and women in the lounge began to shout their frustrations at the ”fucking lying bitch” on the screen.

    Airline staff nearby began looking nervous as the miners’ complaints grew louder and louder until one of their number yelled “keep it down – she’s fucked…”

    Raucous laughter filled the departure lounge until Bobby Brown was given yet another go at the microphone… It became quiet, the crowd looked on sullenly and a palpable feeling of hatred filled the room.

    “Fuck you Bobby” was the first loud call… “Fuck you – you fucking traitor cunt” rose out of the increasingly loud abuse from those directly impacted by Brown and Gillard’s lies. Airline staff switched off the TV, senior mine company men and women clapped their mates on their shoulders and told them to keep it cool as they filed aboard the aluminium and steel tubes which were to transport them back to the hellish conditions they must endure in order to keep Australia a first world nation.

    As the ‘hi-vis’ men and women filtered through the narrow tubes of (gassy) plastic and aluminium to their aircraft, airline staffers in ‘pilled’ jumpers and baggy kneed trousers looked out their portholes at the aircraft being ‘pushed back’ and nodded in agreement that “Gillard’s fucked that…”

    Anyway back to my flight…

    As I worked my way down the narrow fragile aluminium (gassy) steps to place my boots on the red-rust (gassy) dirt I absentmindedly flicked my fingers across the login swipe on my Galaxy S 2 (gassy) phone. It announced a message of love from my wife, now seven days away, several messages of request and love from my children (one a gassy metallurgist) and then to my surprise it vomited what looked like thousands of words of shit from Bobby red-herring.

    Whoo hoo I thought, a chance at an interesting debate about climate sensitivity to a doubling of CO2 (.5C – Lindzen and Choi 2011), but no – just discredited shit about ocean acidification (it can never be acid Bobby – try a geology primer – it’ll help)

    I scrolled through the inconsequential arguments he’d made, through the irrelevant ‘passed it’s used by date’ science he attempted to cite and landed at the bottom of the turgid list with Bobby red-herring claiming I had failed to include my usual pointed and hopefully direct abuse.

    Well that hurt, I’ve tried to keep the level of abuse up to my usual high standard and if I have let you all down I’m sorry. I’ll have to concentrate.

    But, what about Bobby’s lengthy claims? You ask (I made that up – by now most of you know he’s just and empty vessel)… Let’s look….

    Oh dear, some cherry picked papers, so lost in obscurity that Bobby’s the only one silly enough to list them, and a few dishonest statements about the non-effort made by other countries to mitigate their CO2 emissions.

    So vacuous and out of touch is Bobby that he is ignorant of Canada’s new Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s anti AGW carbon tax stance that saw him WIN the first clear-cut victory for Canadian Conservatives in 25 years by promising no carbon tax or ETS.

    China, like those of the other countries he aggrandises, is just fiddling around the edges. He doesn’t seem to comprehend (as usual) that China and India’s emissions are set to grow enormously during the next half century, so anything Australia does as a form of naïve and futile self-sacrifice is worthless to the health of the planet, but damaging to our economy and our children’s’ future.

    By the way Bobby-red-herring it’s a tax. You can pretend if you like, but the legislation will define the ‘levy’ as you so dishonestly call it as a tax.

    The rest of Bobby red-herring’s vapid utterings are so far from the point as to be features marked on adjoining map series to the one we are navigating over at the moment. It’s like some giddy recruit finding his first map in a bottom draw, where it’s been used for years as a lining, jumping up and down at an ‘O’ group saying “sir, sir, sir… I’ve got a map of Tasmania too – look just like wot youse are using here in FNQ, there’s a hill or something on mine too…”

    Oh, regarding the politeness fantasy – fuck you Bobby red-herring…

    • Where do you work? I’m at Port Hedland at the moment.

      • Just visiting a couple of copper and iron sites – I normally ‘work’ for gold companies, but what the hell, I love the detective story inherent in every mine.

        “Here be the high-grade-zone” intone the assembled geology gods above their alters of 3D modelling and small bags of drill core chips – funds are raised, heavy machines and explosives burrow into the ground and ‘waes hail’ geology gods, there it is, beautiful laminated quartz or iron red rock so heavy it seems impossible.

        Time to fly home. Oh look a check box on my QANTAS electronic ‘check in’ form. Do I want to ‘offset’ my CO2 emissions it asks. Not fucking likely I smile as I select a comfy aisle seat – the only CO2 I’m concerned about will be sparkling and bubbling out of my first complimentary beer…

  • PeterW
    One of the basic lessons I learned over forty years of working with disturbed kids is that when they ran out of ideas they resorted to obscenities. I used to then ask them to think of every other foul epithet they knew, and when they finished, I would softly (didn’t want anyone easily offended to overhear) whisper another half dozen they didn’t know.
    It got across a basic message. Usually they didn’t swear again in my presence.
    You’re wasting your time – I don’t take offense. It diminishes your argument – not that you’ve exhibited any capacity to create or maintain a logical train of thought in this exchange.

  • I find this blog is an amazing read. See how Kev’s short piece on Julia’s explanation finally extended into a short piece written by a man who freely confesses that he taught foul epithets to “disturbed children”. He did this knowing that it was absolutely wrong to do so as evidenced by his attempt to conceal his actions from others within hearing range. I am sure the parents of these “disturbed children” are forever greatful for his commitment to extending the limited vocabulary of those for the time being in his care.
    I wonder if Kev ever did a short course in interrogation technique at Rottnest.

  • Bob
    I’ll let you into a secret know by most parents and every first year teacher. All offensive behaviors have a purpose – either conscious or sub-conscious. Remove the consequence of the behavior and it extinguishes, either immediately or in time.
    Swearing is no different. On the scale of offensive behaviors it is minor. If the shock value is removed, it is a waste of energy.
    Forget your feigned PC sensibilities – it makes you look silly.

    As for the parents I worked with – they usually greet me with “I wish you hadn’t retired”.

  • As for the parents I worked with – they usually greet me with “I wish you hadn’t been anywhere near my child you nut-job left-wing loony, my child swears like a discontented and bitter conscript a conservative snubbed forty years ago”.

    There fixed it for you.

    • You managed a post without profanity. Bless you my son:)

        • Cant even spell it right mate.

        • It’s a deliberate misspelling Bob – like the risqué fcuk billboard in Melbourne.

          If I’d spelt it correctly bobby red-herring 17 whatever wowser-pedant wouldn’t have anything to moan about and as I feel sorry for the poor abused-by-a-conservative thing I slipped in cnut to brighten his anal day.

        • Peter, the risque billboard is actually a clothing brand and there are a number of shops around sporting the name. I was aware of your intent.
          Re-read my post aloud and note that my spelling is deliberately incorrect also.

        • I know Bob – shops, spelling etc. But I couldn’t resist the temptation to write “bobby red-herring 17 whatever wowser-pedant” and I needed a line to wrap it with.

          ;0)

  • You have been very fortunate dealing with “disturbed children” who see you as a person in authority, and some may react in the way you claim. I have spent 40+ years dealing with disturbed children, adults and in some cases animals. My experience has been that when the insulting and foul language is met by a smile or inaction then things escalate quite often into violence, usually not in proportion to the “purpose” you speak of….probably because the subject has realised the futility of baiting me and more aggression is required to push home their point. I have never answered in the fashion you have chosen as your favored method even with the animals I have had problems with. Luckily I am not a teacher and have been able to defend myself successfully on most occasions without many injuries.
    As for the parents you worked with …..were they aware of your method for silencing “disturbed” children? I doubt it Bobby.

  • “things escalate quite quickly into violence” – with this as a result, it’s probably fortunate you weren’t a teacher.
    You’d have lasted as long as your first “successful self-defense” in a school, at which time your job would have gone as a consequence of the out-of-court settlement your employer would have paid.
    Welcome to the 21st century.
    “even with the animals I have had problems with”
    I doubt it would work with animals, even if you’ve worked with cockatiels. They’re the only animals capable of swearing, and it’s meaningless mimicry – pointless exercise.

    • Bobby, like you I couldn’t see the point in using colourful language with animals and I didn’t suggest that they could use the language. I have seen a number of adults resorting to that sort of language when dealing with difficult animals ….didn’t help.

      As for the rest of the last post…..luckily my chosen fields of endeavour involved an expectation of violence and defending ones self was also expected. I understand that teachers have their hands tied these days….I have two children in the system. Neither of them would dream of handling disturbed children in the fashion you describe, and one of them is involved with “special needs” children.

      By the way you didn’t address my question in relation to how much CO2 has been eradicated on a global scale since the measures you so readily explained for me have been in place. Goals are hypothetical…..give us some facts.

  • Bob
    Research is difficult on my iPad, So if you want “facts” go to my blog for a series posted between 5th and 18th June. Posting “facts” here is a waste of my time offering a pissweak hourly rate.
    If you get your facts from the scientific journals rather than the media you might learn something. Google Scholar is a good starting point.
    The water’s warm enough here (Sunshine Coast) for body-surfing, and I’m going to make best use of our remaining break.
    Besides, I’m having too much fun watching the Fart of the Nation either trying to ignore the hacking scandal (page 9 on Tuesday) or looking for distractions.
    BTW – I guess the South Koreans must be as deluded as we are……

    Good to see your daughter working with special needs kids. Because the groups are smaller, there is a much greater potential for making a positive difference. One measure of “quality of life” is the extent to which it is dependent on others – the more dependence, the lower the quality. By teaching independence your daughter can improve the lives of those she works with.

    • Bobby, Qld must be different to here…..Special needs children are included in general classes and my daughters role is that of a “teachers aide” which in this state means substitute for a disinterested teacher. She takes great pride in her role and finds that she is given the necessary information to instruct the children with whom she spends time. The system requires the teacher to oversee the education of all in the classroom and the assistants are meant to assist. Doesn’t seem to happen that way though and she becomes the instructor rather than assisting the understanding of the pupils. She loves the responsibility and is extremely capable with young people. Sometimes when you show your ability others take advantage and shirk their responsibilities.

      • Mainstreaming of kids with disabilities is a national phenomenon. It continues the trend which began with the Whitlam government towards passing laws outlawing discrimination on the basis of disability.
        The same trend occurred in the USA with the introduction of Public Law 94142.
        Prior to these reforms, if your IQ was measured below a certain point (in Qld it was 65 points on a WISC) you were considered “unfit” for education.
        The movement for mainstreaming gathered momentum until the mid nineties, and many special schools and institutions for people were disabilities were closed. Part of the reason for this was that the bean counters were never happy with special schools as they are expensive to operate because of staff/student ratios.
        A point was reached where regular schools began to be overwhelmed by the movement of kids with special needs into general classes and wiser counsel prevailed. Most states now have a blend of special schools, units within regular schools, classes within special schools and individual students with special needs supported (often by Teacher Aide hours) in general classes.
        This mostly works in the public system, but some private schools will run a mile before they enroll a student with special needs. This is unjust because private schools get the bulk of their funding from the taxpayer, but they are reluctant to employ specialist staff to support special needs kids. The parent, even if he/she can afford the fees, cannot enroll the child in school of choice.
        There are exceptions (mostly in The Catholic system). In my spare time I work as a pro bono advocate for parents who take action under HREOC against schools who refuse enrollments or discriminate against students on the grounds of disabilities. I had a very satisfying win earlier this year against a wealthy private school.

    • I’ve had a few minutes on your blog, but still find nothing to indicate figures relating to ACHIEVED REDUCTIONS in CO2 levels considering the money that has already been collected and the theories put forward. I do note that you give equal time to reading the journals of those who disagree with the theories you have selected and quote from???? I am still at a loss to understand how this “tax” is going to reduce emissions of CO2 on a global scale when we are still selling coal offshore and must still use it to generate electricity here. If we as Australians did as Bob Gillard would suggest and closed down all our coal burners and stopped driving petrol powered vehicles the total effect in relation to reducing CO2 emissions would be so inconsequential it could not be monitored. If we as Australians are so arrogant as to believe that by setting a precedent others will follow I believe we have a lot to learn. Some of these sooth sayers should be with a travelling circus, wearing a bandana and working in a tent staring into a chrystal ball. There is no denying climate changes, temperatures rise and fall, weather patterns change etc but mankind will never control the weather let alone the climate. This appears to me to be all about money….there is little said about the emissions control,90% of what we read is about how much better the economy will be.

  • When you can tell me how many kids were saved from drowning through the introduction of pool fencing legislation, I’ll consider the relevance of your question to the debate about the introduction of a price on Carbon.
    In the meantime do a google scholar search on “Halfway to Copenhagen, no way to 2 degrees C”, and decide whether or not you’re prepared effectively to tell your children and grandchildren to go to buggery.

    • “mankind will never control the weather”
      We already are – blogspot.com/2009/01/global-temperature-graph.HTML

      • “blogspot.com/2009/01/global-temperature-graph.HTML”

        “Not Found – Error 404”

        Says it all really.

        Human activities influence local, regional and global climates through changing land cover, creating large permanent bodies of water and sundry other accomplishments. Additional carbon dioxide is no longer a potent driver of warming.

        Taxing Australia’s meagre CO2 emissions will have no effect on Australia’s influence on climate nor the world’s. It’s just a money-go-round – all pain for no gain. Meanwhile real pollution and environmental degradation such as smoky dung cooking-fires in India and Africa, tropical de-forestation, soil destroying farming practices and over-fishing which pose real threats to our ecosystem are ignored by the so called ‘green movement’.

        It’s a pity the greens have morphed from a bunch of naïve “we must do something about wetlands” local activists into Malthusian haters of human kind – they’ve lost the plot and have become nothing more than caricatures of ecologists.

        “…tell your children and grandchildren to go to buggery…”

        That’d be a Gillard like “hyperbowl” eh 17 Bobby science illiterate red-herring?

        I tell my grandchildren that the battle to save Australia from the extremist nation-destroying crusade of the Greens is nearly won. I tuck them into their beds with the comforting reassurance that should Gillard survive her party’s growing wrath and her miserable inequitable, unnecessary and ineffectual carbon dioxide tax become law, Saint Tony will strike it down within a year when our country returns to a benevolent conservative administration.

        “Halfway to Copenhagen…” You’re having a lend.

      • I don’t understand your idea of control Bobby. I cannot find a reference to control of wind rain or sunshine or temperature on the reference you supplied. The information indicated by the graphs seems to be in doubt also if you read a bit further in the blogging. Tobis doesn’t attempt to address the possible inaccuracies but instead attempts to attack the veracity of the person making the “negative” observation. He then apologises for the attack but does not address the possibility that the information is “useless” and “as bent as a nine dollar note” as claimed. The “denier” is apparently further up the heirarchy of the GISS than the person you seem so at ease believing. The blog is Janauary 2009 so you must be desperate to push home a point that is lost on most clear thinkers. I notice also that there is a quote in that blog that should interest you and others of your ilk, ie:
        “I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives.” Leo Tolstoy .

        I know Bobby, this seems at odds with your beliefs and you will choose to ignore it.

        Pool fences…..saved lives…..no record, but children and adults still drown in pools that are fenced and waterways that remain unfenced and in some places actually constructed under permit and without the requirement to be fenced.
        Nobody can give figures on something that doesn’t happen, but you can say more, or less than can be expected in changed circumstances. Having personal experience in pools, fencing and drownings and near drownings I am still not convinced that fencing pools is a big winner. Parental control is the big winner…..eyes on and teach them to swim. Even with a fence and good parental control nothing is guaranteed. Some of the drownings that haven’t occurred may be because parents are more aware of the dangers because of the lighter purse.

        The difference here is that people you readily quote supposedly have the wherewithall to do the measurements on the facts of CO2 and its ratio in the composition of the air I breathe every minute of every day, but no information is forthcoming about the actual reductions achieved by the big cash grab. Are you aware that studies done in relation this CO2 religion have been restricted to mans output and no other form of generating CO2 in natural circumstances has been factored into the arguement? This ignores natural phenomena causing fluctuations in CO2 content in the air. It seems to me that field of view is way too narrow and that the results as explained to we mortals are about as accurate as a study of the percentage of males in the population who are homosexual, gleaned by taking a poll in a gay bar.
        Last thought Bobby….the air I take into my lungs is 0.0037 percent Carbon Dioxide…the air I exhale is about 4.000 percent Carbon dioxide and Juliar hasn’t worked out how to tax me on it, yet. I bet you hate that.

  • “Nobody can give figures on something that doesn’t happen, but you can say more, or less than can be expected in changed circumstances”
    My point precisely – you’ve rendered your question of July 15th meaningless.
    “Are you aware that studies done in relation this CO2 religion have been restricted to mans output and no other form of generating CO2 in natural circumstances has been factored into the arguement?”
    Yes – and your point is?
    “and Juliar hasn’t worked out how to tax me on it, yet. I bet you hate that”
    Sorry – don’t know anyone of that name.

    • Bobby you appear to be losing it. I don’t remember asking a question on the fifteenth of July. I suppose you mean my previous question in relation to the amount of reduction in the level of CO2 as a result of the TAXES imposed on the populace…..you missed the point of course that lives saved by the introduction of pool fences cannot be measured and therefore cannot be statistically recorded. The purported reduction in CO2 levels can be recorded apparently, but it appears that it may be embarrassing to the global warming gurus (that includes you) to reveal the resultant statistics.

      My point in relation to the studies is that without factoring in natural phenomena that may effect the results of these “studies” you cannot assume that the changes in atmospheric content are the result of man made emissions alone, and by the way CO2 in not a pollutant. The study seems to be driven by a desired result and should be seen as flawed because it cannot be given credibility due its narrow field of study.

      Picture this if it seems difficult…..The levels of water in the Wivenhoe dam are measured on Monday. On Wednesday I travel down to Wivenhoe dam with a litre bottle of water and pour it into the dam. The next Monday readings are taken to assess the levels of water in the dam and they are found to be two feet higher than the previous week. We set up a study to assess the effect of me adding a litre of water to the dam. Some clever little Bobby finds out that the water levels have increased, but does not include the fact in his study that it is possible that Somerset Dam has released water into the system or that it may have rained or the bloke checking the levels may have been an unqualified lab assistant who made an error. The only information little Bobby includes in his study is that “Mexican Bob” has added a litre of water to the dam and it has been measured, therefore, quite logically if you ignore all the other possibilities, he is totally responsible for the rise in levels of the dam. How’s that for a picture? (That’s a question BTW.)

      “Sorry-don’t know anyone by that name”…..Bobby that’s poor form…..you know that a Juliar by any other name is still a Juliar. My eight year old grand-daughter understands the term and she attends a very well known Catholic School in Qld. where the term is not infrequently used by fellow classmates.

  • Your climate rubbish, 17 Bobby science-challenged red-herring, is just fodder for an agnotologist.

    A link to a blog which displays a few out of date charts, including Mann’s infamous “hide the decline” spaghetti hockey stick, is not evidence of anything except your ignorance of this subject.

    The ludicrous claim pedalled by Gillard et al that increasing CO2 in the atmosphere will lead to a global warming of as much as 6C by 2100 is a lie.

    Lindzen and Choi spell out the basic premise:

    “…warming from a doubling of CO2 would only be about 1°C (based on simple calculations where the radiation altitude and the Planck temperature depend on wavelength in accordance with the attenuation coefficients of well-mixed CO2 molecules; a doubling of any concentration in ppmv produces the same warming because of the logarithmic dependence of CO2’s absorption on the amount of CO2) (IPCC, 2007).”

    However, the IPCC’s disreputable climate models all assume water vapour will act as a feedback mechanism and amplify the effect of CO2 giving rise to Gillard’s 2C to 6C thermogeddon.

    Unfortunately for the modellers’, satellite measurement of the planet’s energy balance shows outgoing radiation exceeds their pessimistic assumptions, water vapour is not equally distributed throughout the atmosphere and absolute humidity is variable season to season, latitude to latitude and between each hour of each day. Instead of providing a positive feedback, water vapour produces a negative feedback. That coupled with CO2’s logarithmic effect equates to perhaps half a degree of global warming with a doubling of CO2.

    “We again find that the outgoing radiation resulting from SST fluctuations exceeds the zero-feedback response thus implying negative feedback. In contrast to this, the calculated TOA outgoing radiation fluxes from 11 atmospheric models forced by the observed SST are less than the zero-feedback response, consistent with the positive feedbacks that characterize these models. The results imply that the models are exaggerating climate sensitivity.”

    On the observational determination of climate sensitivity and its implications: Lindzen and Choi (2011).

    So half a degree with a doubling of CO2, shit, better tax it…

  • [em]”Actually, your promotion of this paper reveals the hype that goes on in quasi-scientific circles when a sceptic actually finds a paper that sheds any doubt at all on AGW. They get over-excited. That’s why peer review exists. Anything dodgy gets exposed pretty smartly.”[/em]

    Oh dear, in his Google frenzy poor 17 bobby science-challenged red-herring didn’t read the citation properly. It was:

    On the observational determination of climate sensitivity and its implications: Lindzen and Choi (2011).

    See that last bit in parenthesis…. It says 2011 not 2009.

    What was that about getting “over-excited”?

    You know this exchange reveals the hype that goes on in quasi-scientific circles when a thermogeddonist finds a paper that provides any support whatsoever for the faltering temple of AGW.

    So far you’ve stumped up an out of date squiggly graph or two and a bunch of blogger rubbish from the laughably entitled ‘Real Climate’ – Real Climate, what a joke, the un-defendable defending the indefensible.

    What you unsurprisingly fail to have realised is that so called ‘sceptics’ picked the first holes in Lindzen and Choi (2009) and as a result of their expert feedback the authors revisited their paper. The broken peer review nonsense practiced by the comics which have supplanted the once proud journals of science failed to ‘review’ the 2009 paper with any level of skill so it was published errors and all.

    Gratuitously

    Shit bugger fuck…

    Arse.

  • Peter W,
    Could you point out this quote to 1735099, he ignored my reference to it. I think he probably knew it off by heart due to his extensive education in subjects close to his watermelon heart, but it didn’t suit his purpose.
    “I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives.” Leo Tolstoy. (free minded Christian-anarchist.)

    • Oy, 17 bobby red-herring!

      This is VERY close to your AGW heart:

      “…as would oblige them to admit the falsity of [their AGW] conclusions which they delighted in explaining [badly] to colleagues, which they have proudly [mis-]taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their [miserable science-challenged] lives [after being abused by a conservative last century]…”

      Bobby red-herring to a T.

      • Lindsey’s rejigged article was rejected for publication on 19th January 2011 by the national Academy of Sciences on the grounds of poor quality research, unjustified conclusions, and poor procedures.
        I’d suggest that if you want to base an argument on a piece of research, you find something with a little more rigor.
        The report from the editor-in-chief with a comprehensive outline of Lindzen’s methodological shortcomings is available on line.
        “squiggly graph” – graphs are “squiggly” because they plot variations. Suggest you enroll in Statistics 101 at an institution close to home.
        I’d be worried about those uncontrollable expletives if I were you – they’re a reliable presentation of Tourette’s Syndrome.

  • “Lindsey’s rejigged article was rejected for publication on 19th January 2011 by the national Academy of Sciences on the grounds of poor quality research, unjustified conclusions, and poor procedures.”

    Can’t even use Google yet 17 science-challenged red-herring.

    On the Observational Determination of Climate Sensitivity and Its Implications: Lindzen and Choi (2011). Asian Pacific Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences.

    Who’s Lindsay by the way?

    So after all your efforts not one valid criticism of the paper, just PNAS’s feeble attempt at justifying why it violated its own guidelines in the treatment of the paper. Amusingly the major criticisms by PNAS’s ‘vanity press’ pal reviewers were aimed at Lindzen’s use of the IPCC’s ‘back of the envelope’ calculations. A bit of a cake and eat it situation. Fine to use those arguments if you are part of the ‘consensus, but BAD if you are sceptical of the outlandish sooth-saying of the climate catastrophists.

    The Lindzen and Choi paper simply demonstrates that outgoing long wave radiation (OLR) is increasing, but all models predict a decrease in OLR. As this is the case their assumptions regarding CO2 and other forcings are clearly exaggerated. It’s not a new claim, as be-medalled warrior of warming Gavin Schmidt simply puts it: “All climate models are wrong…”

    The models are not competent, the effect of beautifully enhanced CO2 in the atmosphere will not lead to runaway catastrophic warming and yabbies will not boil in their dams. Taxing CO2 will have no effect of Australia’s CO2 emissions, the world’s CO2 emissions or the planet’s temperature here now or forever. Gillard’s suicide note is an exercise in futility with no winners except perhaps the shonky traders who see the stupidly named ‘carbon [dioxide] credits’ as another Ponzi scheme they can use to get richer quicker. The European and US experiences demonstrate that comprehensively.

    But as the world bank put it: “The international market in carbon [dioxide] credits has suffered an almost total collapse.” The much vaunted Chicago Climate Exchange ceased carbon dioxide trading when carbon dioxide prices dropped 10 cents per tonne. And Gillard wants to bring in a CO2 tax at $23.00 a tonne. Wow that’s credible.

    But that’s all right, because what the hell, who needs a manufacturing sector anyway – we’ve got mines… Oh wait… Jools is gunna tax them too… Oh dear…

    Not to worry though, Saint Tony will repeal the lot when he sweeps the ALP and Greens aside as he gallops into office.

    By the way your cretinous, and as usual gratuitous, suggestion about further study is just another red-herring… It’s obvious you have no idea of the provenance of your out-of-date squiggly lines. Par for the course though.

  • “who’s Lindsay by the way?”
    Lindzen after iPad predictive text is finished with it.
    “can’t even use Google…”
    Do your own searches – it’s there. Not my problem if you can’t find it.
    The paper you cite is unfit for publication. Your cherry picking resembles the digger who tells the RSM that “everyone is out of step except me”.
    It’s interesting that the UK House of Lords has just issued a “cease and desist” to Christopher Monkton who continues to call himself “Lord”.
    Apparently he’s found a cure for Herpes Simplex. Why am I not surprised.

  • “The paper you cite is unfit for publication.”

    It’s been published idiot, can’t you read?

    “Well may you say: “Do your own searches – it’s there. Not my problem if you can’t find it.”

    “It’s interesting that the UK House of Lords has just issued a “cease and desist” to Christopher Monkton who continues to call himself “Lord”.

    Are you another one of the fools fixated on Monkton?

    A redundant question really.

    Amusingly the letter you’re so obviously pleased about is apparently addressed to “Dear Lord Monkton…”

    Here: some help with spaghetti: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005A54KEM/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=bishil-20&linkCode=as2&camp=217145&creative=399373&creativeASIN=B005A54KEM

    Do try and keep up.

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