4. The Swine Flu Pandemic of 2009

Yankee Rose

How do you draw that conclusion ?

Petrol prices rise and fall on a daily basis, surely you would see the level of driving rise and fall.

So do you think people are driving less than say 30 years ago ?

Back then each house hold might have 1 maybe two cars. These days its more like 2-3 cars.

People get use to petrol prices rises, there is already a carbon tax on petrol, adds up to nearly 60% of the pump price, and only a fraction of that money is returned back into infrastructure, clear evidence that a carbon tax across the board will not be spent on better environmental outcomes by the governments you seem to want to trust with a flawed new tax.

Most public transport costs rise with oil prices, eventually leading to rises in tickets, I see absolutely no basis for your argument.

You seem to continually deny social trends that have been going on for over a decade, dp you think these social trends towards consumerism can be turned back, considering countries like India and China are only just starting ?

5. Enron stock.
6. Bernie Madoff investments.
7. Carbon exchanges ... or should that be classified as 3a?

I can't help thinking that one of these days, our descendants will look back and regard carbon exchanges as the 21st-century version of treasure maps to the Lost Dutchman's Mine. But hey, I'm sure they'll look great in a frame on a wall, similar to the old stock certificates from gold mining companies that never produced an ounce of anything besides fairy dust.

Seriously, the best way to reduce CO2 emissions is to encourage the free market to develop cleaner, more efficient technology. Tax incentives might work, but you have to make sure you don't make it too easy to claim a tax break for doing next to nothing.

If you impose taxes, who gets the tax money and where does it ultimately go? More than likely, straight into the coffers of government, where the politicians in power will eagerly allocate it in ways that make it likely that they'll continue to get elected. Trusting politicians with large sums of money is about as smart as hiring Alferd Packer as your personal chef.

Your logic is a bit flawed Belgarion. Sticking to cars for the moment, the efficiency of cars has increased enormously since, say, the 70s ... but on average we haven't gained from that increase because at the same time, they made cars bigger, heavier, and more powerful. There are still enormous changes people could make to their fuel consumption by switching to more efficient cars.

Compare that to when they started putting mandatory efficiency standards on home appliances like fridges and air conditioners. At the time people were saying "you can't do that, it'll drive up the prices!" But with regulations in place, manufacturers still had to compete with each other to make the cheapest efficient appliances, and appliance prices actually dropped in real terms because they were forced to look for new and better technology.

I started reading Peter Singer's "One World" this weekend and his opening chapter describes carbon trading. I'm actually starting to come around to an ETS more. Before I was thinking on a national level of "how can Australia pollute less" but he looks at the problem at the international level of "how can the world pollute less". And a world-wide ETS will do that better than each nation setting up its own set of taxes. Here's how a global ETS would work:

First you set a global standard of how many tons of emissions per capita is allowed per country: let's say we set it at 5 tons per capita. Obviously developed countries like the US emit a lot more (currently around 19) and developing countries like India a lot less (currenly around 1). But of course it's not fair to expect America to drop to 5 tons tomorrow, its economy simply wouldn't recover. So you set up a trading scheme. Each year that India stays at 1 ton per capita, they have an extra 4 tons of carbon permits they can sell to countries like America, so that America can continue to emit their 10 tons per year. This gives each country an incentive and a choice to make. America's government can continue to pay for those credits at a cost to its economy, or it can set up internal policies to reduce its pollution so it doesn't have to buy as many credits next year. India can continue to develop using "dirty" energy, knowing that eventually it won't be able to sell carbon credits anymore; or it can use some of the money it gets from selling its credits to keep its emissions low, so it can keep selling its credits every year. Developed countries have an incentive to cut back their pollution, developing countries have an incentive to stop their emissions from growing.

T4E you mention wanting a market-based system. And ETS is a market-based system, by definition - it's setting up a market for buying and selling carbon. A carbon tax, on the other hand, isn't really a market based system, it just makes one good more expensive.

But I also get when people say a tax is easier for people to understand. I'm having a helluva time getting my head around how ETS's work.

Yankee Rose

"Compare that to when they started putting mandatory efficiency standards on home appliances like fridges and air conditioners"

All done without an ETS..... however did the idea work ?

Does that mean you're a supporter of Abbott's proposal, Option 3, using government standards, subsidies, etc? Are you actually going to contribute to this discussion, or just heckle?

Yankee Rose

"Your logic is a bit flawed Belgarion. Sticking to cars for the moment, the efficiency of cars has increased enormously since, say, the 70s ... but on average we haven't gained from that increase because at the same time, they made cars bigger, heavier, and more powerful. There are still enormous changes people could make to their fuel consumption by switching to more efficient cars."

Again your in complete denial of social trends, cars have become more efficient and cheaper meaning that the option to buy bigger cars becomes more viable, this has been going on in the 4WD market which has cut deeply into then Dunnydoor/Falcon market. Most 4WD's spend 90% of their life on tar, its the big car they want for most. The are many joe averages out ther buying $60k + 4WD's and then spending many $10ks upgrading them. You can buy 6 Cylinder cars that will out perform v8's from the 70's.

Yankee Rose

Why don't you sort out your own opinion on the flawed ETS that your crowing about, I personally don't think much about anyone's opinions and views when I am forming my own, clearly you do !

Belgarion is arguing that there's no "give" in the system, that people are dependent on the amount of energy they currently use. I used cars as an example of something people could make large cuts in their energy use if they needed to ... but because energy is so cheap, they don't bother, and opt for the large 4WD instead. If petrol becomes more expensive, people will start having to make those choices more wisely.

I do not deny social trends. But unlike yourself, I do not believe that social trends are impossible to change. I've had the discussion about petrol price influencing how much people drive their cars before, and you choose to ignore all the evidence that higher petrol prices do, in fact, reduce petrol use.

I make no apologies for still being undecided about the best way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, or for changing my mind as I learn more about it. And when I am certain about something in a discussion, I am accused of being pig-headed and blinded! Can't win either way I suppose.

Turnbull tantrum.

I think we've got another Malcolm Fraser here. Full of self-important conceit, he'll make a career of whinging and whining in the background, totally unable to reconcile himself to the fact that he got the arse, and that he's not cutout to be the Legendary Statesman of his deluded ego.

Serves him right.

When poor little Brendan Nelson was Opposition Leader, Turnbull made it his business to lecture him like a headmaster with an errant schoolboy, at every opportunity. He drove Brendan Nelson nuts.

I'm glad to see this monumental egotist relegated to sulking on the backbenches.

In fact, I hope Tony Abbott takes a swing at him.

Yankee Rose

That is pretty correct, there is no give in the system, governments don't make public transport a priority hence the low usage, especially here in NSW, geographically Australia is a difficult country for any infrastructure without a recalcitrant government(s).

Sure people could driver more economical cars but at best its a marginal improvements, nothing you have stated any explains how people will pollute less when trends show people have been polluting more with or without an ETS. According to you and all your co-alarmists this won't be enough.

We could get rid of all the four-wheel drives. That might save a few dollars in petrol and carbon for the nation.

"BULLSHIT!" said Malcolm Turnbull, in reference to Tony Abbott's claim that keeping down our pollution output will NOT cost a king's ransom.

It remains to be seen if any of these dopey palooka's will have the sense to switch Australia's electricity needs over to nuclear power reactors.