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Bob Karmin 17/07/08 8:47PM

Reality-check time.

All Emissions Trading Schemes that have been enacted, have only been enacted as a result of exemptions form the system.

Exemptions are the rule, not the exception.

This was the case in the US (in the early nineties) - where railroads were deregulated so that power plants could be EXEMPT from the true freight costs of using low sulphur fuel.

This was the case in the EU - where the German coal and coking industry (the largest industrial emitter of carbon in absolute terms) was made EXEMPT from the policy entirely.

This was the case (in now all but defunct) Kyoto Agreement - where China (again the largest emitter of greenhouse gases in absolute terms of all the signatories) was made EXEMPT from binding emissions caps.

And it now seems, at least according to the green paper, that the major emitters will be EXEMPT from any Australian system.

You’d think, after so many goes at it, some one might catch on that their might just be something wrong with the idea that we can trade our way out of this…

But then again, some out there don’t believe in evidenced-based reasoning.

After all, for the dogmatic true believers it is always "going to be a long way to a sensible climate change policy."

ryip 18/07/08 10:22AM

to hell in a handbasket

ben.eltham 18/07/08 1:26PM

Ah Bob, I knew I could count on you to weigh in with a critical comment!

Possum Comitatus 18/07/08 2:17PM

Ben,

Australia doesnt have a "controlling position in the global coal marketplace" - we arent a monopoly supplier, nowhere near it.Having lots of the stuff is different from controlling it, think MacDonalds and hamburgers.

Let’s say that we take full responsibility for coal exports and completely stop them. The result wont be less coal being used in China, the result would be the US, South America and Africa stepping up production and filling the gap we left behind, with the processes in two of those places being far less efficient than our own. That means that not only would the same amount of emissions be created in China because of using that coal, but more emissions would be created as a result of the less efficient mining that was used to mine that coal to begin with.

Net result - greater emissions being released than if we kept exporting.

Tell me again what makes no sense for the planet?

I had my mind changed over the partial grandfathering of existing power generation assets from full carbon pricing that Peter Martin mentioned by comment number 6 by Labor Outsider over here which you might find interesting:

http://possumcomitatus.wordpress.com/2008/07/17/some-carbon-is-more-equa…

drwoood 18/07/08 3:00PM

Possum,

Suppose we take full responsibility for coal exports and completely stop them. This would increase the coal price, which will lead to less consumption, and greater production elsewhere. How much production and consumption will change depends on the price-elasticity of demand and the price-elasticity of supply. Overall coal consumption will decrease unless demand is completely inelastic or supply is completely elastic. There will be an effect from brown coal being a substitute good for thermal black coal, but there will also be an effect from gas and renewables being a substitute good for thermal black coal.

Arguing that we should ignore coal exports because someone else may increase coal production is similar to arguing that Australia should not worry about our emissions because we are only responsible for about 2% of world emissions. Both arguments are arguing that international prisoner’s dilemma and that we should be a free rider. The central problem is resolving the prisoner’s dilemma and turning global emissions around. Free rising makes this much more difficult.

A sensible policy would be for Australia to levy a border tax on coal exports, and encourage other countries to do the same.

Peter Wood

ben.eltham 18/07/08 3:07PM

Possum - thanks for pointing out an error of fact there.

You’ve right - while Australia has quite a lot of coal we haven’t cornered the market.

But let’s examine the issue further. Australian coaking coal is a highly valued product much closer to Asian customers than say, Brazil. It could be argued that an Australian export coal tax could actually drive up world coal prices, which would send a price signal in favour of decarbonisation. It would also make overseas polluters pay something for the negative externality of cooking the planet.

The carbon leakage issue is a complex one but let me make this point: there is an ethical as well as a economic dimension to the carbon leakage argument. It may be true that other nations are going to burn their way to development, but that to my mind that doesn’t get Australia off the hook. Arms sales are another example: it is undoubtedly true that nations, armies and terrorists can buy weapons in a global marketplace, but does this remove the moral responsibility from those who do sell to them? Just because everyone else is doing it doesn’t make it right, as Kant pointed out two hundred years ago.

Let’s turn to the argument that "Australian coal is cleaner than the other stuff." This may be true, but then again, any coal is substantially more polluting than renewable energy sources. The purchasers of our exports do have a choice about how they generate their energy, just as we have a choice as to whether and how much coal we sell to them.

m.diesendorf@unsw.edu.au 18/07/08 3:24PM

Ben,
Thanks for a good overview.
However, your statement, that Labor has so far kept its election promises, is debatable, to say the least:

- Labor promised $500 million over 6 years for the Renewable Energy Fund, but then allocated zero dollars for the 2008-09 financial year.
- It promised $100 million over several years for solar energy research, to be taken out of the $150 million Energy Innovation Fund, but then allocated zero dollars to solar for the 2008-09 financial year.
- It promised to expand the Mandatory Renewable Energy Target to achieve 20% of electricity generation by 2020, but will not implement this until 2009, if ever. The ‘if ever’ is included because the Labor Government recently established the Wilkins enquiry to report on whether such ‘complementary measures’ are required.
On current actions, there is no way that the expanded MRET will be achieved.

As far as I am concerned, a promise delayed is a promise betrayed.

Cheers,
Mark

jonicol 18/07/08 3:27PM

The "pollution reduction tax" to be implemented according to the Green Paper seems to address everything except the reduction of the output of carbon dioxide. Everyone involved with its organisation of course will be far too busy to notice that and after 20 rears we will be putting out more carbon to try to off-set the detriment to our economy brought about by a so-called carbon trading scheme. It is interesting to note how both industry and traders have pricked up their ears at the very mention of such a scheme. With the army of accountants they all employ, it will be a breeze to make a few more megabucks from the scheme than they are currently able just producing a few cars,refrigerators, iron and steel, aluminium etc. One of the areas most in need of restrictions is that of flexible transport fuels: gas and petroleum (diesel and petrol in all their many forms). However, this appears to be the area most likely to escape and is not scheduled to be charged before 2013. Only a government could think up a process as wasteful of human resources and many other commodities, in setting up a system which charges a carbon tax and reduces excise by exactly the same amount - net result, no change. I expect that is why the scheme is not scheduled to come into operation until 2010 - because it will take at least two years for them to realise that a much easier method would be not to tax fuel and not to reduce excise! No paper work, no army of bureaucrats counting the tax from carbon on petrol and credits needed for excise adjustment. Brilliant Penny. Please go to the top of the class - leave your books though because you will soon be back.

All that said, a large number of people claim to believe that CO2 is actually causing Global Warming. However, if you ask any one who makes the most compelling argument for a carbon dioxide tax - sorry "pollution tax" - or points to the warming found by computers under the careful control of contributers to the IPCC, how carbon dioxide causes global warming, and I don’t mean how do the models find there is likely to be global warming, I mean what role does CO2 actually play in heating the atmosphere, they will have to admit they don’t know. Try finding on the internet an explanation that actually makes sense. There are any number of meandering explanations claiming to show that it does but they include no physics whatsoever of the real world of absorbing gases. Can any one clearly enunciate the PHYSICS which indicates precisely how an increase in carbon dioxide causes an increase in the temperature of the air, any part of the air, the surface, the mid-troposphere, the tropopause, to produce an increase in Global Warming. The models don’t look at this process, they simply assume it is a fact and inject in a small amount of heat to the system - and surprise, surprise, they find that the temperature increases just as a kettle boils when you increase the energy flowing into it by means of an electric current o a wood fire!! Why wouldn’t the atmosphere heat up when some external energy is injected into it, albeit through the additional retention of heat by an assumed process laid at the feet of CO2? If any one can give me a clear description of this process, please email the solution to me at

Thank you, John Nicol

jonicol 18/07/08 3:29PM

In the blog above my email address has been deleted. It is at: jonicol at netspace.net.au
John Nicol

ben.eltham 18/07/08 3:31PM

Mark - good points all.

There has certainly been some backsliding, and not just with the initiatives you raise. The computers in schools are proving more difficult than was first perhaps imagined, and the national broadband network roll-out is also running late.

On the other hand, I do think Labor has been surprisingly firm in delivering on election commitments. Wayne Swan’s budget and the emissions trading scheme itself are cases in point. While we may not agree with the shape of these commitments, it does seem that, in the main, Labor is keeping its promises.

Still, the solar and MRET actions are a concern. They certainly reinforce the argument that Labor is beholden to King Coal in its energy policy.

ben.eltham 18/07/08 3:43PM

John Nicol, the physics of climate change is well understood and has been known in broad outlines since the 19th century. In a nutshell, greenhouse gases trap heat in the atmosphere, which is why the moon is very cold and Venus is very hot.

For an understanding of the contemporary frontier of climate science, there are several links in my article above to papers by James Hansen, whose considerable expertise I defer to in matters of climatology.

To directly answer your question, here is a link to a summary of the history of climate science by the American Institute of Physics:

http://www.aip.org/history/climate/summary.htm

Possum Comitatus 18/07/08 4:13PM

Peter,

The global price of coal over the medium term would barely move an inch if we stopped exporting because its a highly competitive industry with vast quantities of the stuff floating around, and China’s demands for coal would hardly move with any short term disruptions in price because the pre-existing coal powered assets in place are relatively new. They aren’t going to run those generators less because Australia stops selling inputs - they’ll source the inputs from elsewhere - even at a higher price in the short term because their demand for electricity is growing exponentially.Australia ceasing to export coal wont strand a single coal powered asset in China.

Saying that ignoring coal is the same as arguing that because we have 2% of global emissions and therefore should do nothing is just a big red herring. The aim of our actions should be to produce a net benefit to human welfare. Australia stopping coal exports results in a net loss to human welfare globally - hardly a desirable outcome. It doesn’t even pass the first basic yardstick of public policy, which is also why it will never happen.

Sure it might make you feel good, but that doesnt stop a net increase in emissions from less efficient sources replacing Australian output in what is pretty close to a perfectly competitive global industry.

The prisoners dilemma part of the issue certainly wont be solved by Australia taking a lead and damaging itself when the results of that dont even reduce global emissions, but increase them!. If we want to solve the prisoners dilemma side, we need to focus more on how to monetize carbon abatement and offsets.

Ben,

Over the short term we could cause price disruptions by ceasing to export - but over the medium term it simply wont matter as new sources come on line to replace our own. There is so much coal around that the world hasnt even reached the point where we’ve found the need to actually measure global coal reserves accurately.

We know there’s large amounts in Australia, in South America, in the US, in parts of North Asia - basically where ever there’s a landmass there’s coal. We know there’s a lot of it, but there’s so much even places like South Africa haven’t been bothered to fully audit their reserves - and their resource companies would audit a small collection of ant hills if they thought there was a dollars worth of mineral wealth in it!

Coal is an issue where we really need to not put our heads in the sand over. Sure it would be lovely if the world could, let alone would make the decision to go "no more coal" - but it simply isnt going to happen because governments of poor countries want to pull their people out of poverty cheaply. And coal is cheap.

And as a global story - that’s really the end of the story despite how much we might not like it.

If we want our actions to directly reduce net global emissions from coal - all we can do is stop using coal domestically (which, remember, amounts to virtually nothing in the global scheme of things) since our exports will just be substituted for those of other countries. Our only other alternative on coal is to use our resource expertise to attempt to develop technology that allows for seriously reduced coal emissions from coal generators around the world.

I’m with you Ben, it would be wonderful if the world stopped using coal - but the world is not going to stop using coal. It would be wonderful if the world went renewable by next Tuesday, but it’s not going renewable by next Tuesday, next year or next decade - it probably wont go renewable in our lifetime.

So the question becomes one of whether we will cut off our nose despite our face, cease coal exports, and perversely increase total global carbon emissions as a result (while feeling mightily ethical and self-righteous about our counterproductive behaviour) - or do we actually attempt to lower global emissions using the hand that the world has been dealt and the reality of the situation we actually face?

tymoshenko 18/07/08 5:15PM

tymoshenko
Ben: you share the essential ignorance displayed by the Green Paper with its pejorative title, Carbon Pollution Reduction. CO2 is not and never has been a pollutant any more than H2O is. Without any CO2 in the atmosphere there would be no life at all on this planet. So how much is too much? 384 ppm? Why - when owners of real greenhouses pump in extra CO2 up to even 2000 ppm in order to boost yields? Clearly you like Ms Wong and the ineffable Garnaut are also equally ignorant that all fossil fuels release H2O as well as CO2 when they are burnt to create power etc (La Trobe’s emissions are 5 H2O to one CO2, jet planes are 3 kg CO2 to one kg H2O). It is the water component of fossil fuel burning that explains the increasing global rainfall admitted even by the IPCC (AR4, WG1). Winds etc explain why it does not always fall where it was emitted. Same in Australia as a whole - but then just as George Bush knew and knows nothing of the world beyond Texas, so you like most all urban Australians have never been to the topend with its ever wetter climate. But clearly nothing will ever dissuade you from your belief that water and CO2 are pollutants. Even so I suggest you read David Evans in today’s Australian to learn some real climate science. Try learning some chemistry and plant physiology as well. Then get back to us.

Cubby 18/07/08 5:23PM

Hang on.

Coal is cheap because in developed countries the infrastructure for burning it on an immense scale is already built and often close to being paid off. This is particularly so in Australia, so it’s understandable that people see coal as entrenched here.

But it’s not a situation that’s going to last forever, or even that much longer, and it’s naive to think that other countries including China, India and Indonesia won’t be drawn into international agreements on emissions reduction sooner (ie Copenhagen) or later. The miners are simply making hay while the sun shines. In 20 years investors will be clambering over themselves to fund renewables. The logic and trajectory of this are in the green paper, albeit in embryonic form.

Also, there’s not a lot of evidence that coal mining overseas, or the grades of coal being dug, lead to much higher emissions than Australian export coal. The companies like to put that line about, and good on them, but at the very least their arguments are open to question.

If we accept that we have better coal and mine it more efficiently than anywhere else, the best way of saving the world would be by exporting as much coal as possible. There are a few reasons why this argument is a bit thin, but in my opinion the main one is the energy security. As long as Australia is shipping it overseas as fast and as cheaply as possible, importers have no real incentive but to burn it, and invest in the facilities to burn it.

Contrary to some claims, Australia does have a fair degree of leverage when it comes to coal exports. Just because some places also have access to unmeasured and unexploited coal doesn’t mean it’s ready and waiting to be dug up and poured on to the next ship en route to Shanghai. It’s an expensive process that would give pause to importers and investors. It’s not a case of us cutting off our nose "despite" our face.

There’s also the fact, and it’s indisputable, that continually increasing coal exports gives ammunition to those parties who will want to see minimal outcomes from Copenhagen next year.

So, I’m not suggesting we stop shipping coal tomorrow. But the industry needs to begin the transition away from coal. We owe it to mine workers in Australia to broaden the scope of the energy industry here, and some in industry and unions recognise this and are acting on it. It’s very unlikely that other countries are not coming to the same conclusions.

The main reason why increasing coal exports is problematic is that if you are suitably convinced that climate change is real, then reliance on coal will have to fall. As Garnaut pointed out recently, not acting is more or less the same as accepting the consequences of unmitigated climate change. These people that trot out the lines about holding back development in the third world conveniently forget that acting to prevent and mitigate climate change will be of disproportionate benefit to poorer nations and peoples.

Sorry about the long post, it’s been a long day!

ben.eltham 18/07/08 5:58PM

Tymoshenko -

Firstly, can we inject a little civility into this debate? Name-calling is never productive. Should I just shout DENIALIST at you in caps to make my point?

Secondly, I studied biochemistry and physiology to post-graduate level. Which means I know enough about the scientific method to admit how much I don’t know - which is an awful lot. That’s why I have consistently argued that we should listen to the consensus position of the world’s climate experts. You apparently are prepared to cite the IPCC when it suits you, and yet profess to claim carbon dioxide is not a pollutant. Of course it is a pollutant: it is a toxic gas!

Really, if you can’t make at least a civil and rational comment on this vastly important issue, it would be better if you refrained from spilling your stupidity and bile onto our comments pages.

tymoshenko 18/07/08 6:52PM

tymoshenko
Ben, please give examples of my stupidity and bile, and then explain WHY H2O and CO2 are pollutants. You have failed to do this so far. How on earth you can claim that CO2 is a toxic gas is beyond belief. Or do you abstain from Cokes and all other carbonated drinks for that reason? Somehow I have survived 70 years on a nearly continuous diet of gin and tonic, the latter full of "toxic" CO2. Clearly your professors never explained to you that it is all a question of degree: an atmosphere of 100% CO2 or water vapour (another GHG aka H2O) would indeed kill us, but at the actual concentrations (much less than 1% in each case) we manage to live. Why is CO2 at 380 ppm (just over one-third of one percent) toxic? Forget the alleged "bile", can we live without your toxic CO2? Or am I being "stupid" again? Or are you just armwaving?

BillyRay1000 18/07/08 11:59PM

World coal prices have been on a sharp upward trend for the past 12 months on the back of rising demand from Asia and supply bottlenecks in S Africa and Australia.

If Australia began to cut back on coal exports this would have a major long term price impact, increasing the attractiveness of cleaner generation. Bearing in mind that Australia supplies around 20% high grade coal to the world, this is why:

1) As Cubby points out, a lot of new coal reserves are v hard to get to, meaning the price of extracting alternatives is high, leading to a higher average marginal cost per tonne.

2) Only 50% of power stations globally can accept high sulphur content coal as a fuel input. This percentage is increasing as power stations become more efficient and less pollutive meaning that cut in Australian coal supplies will have a doubly high effect on prices of high grade coal.

A further question; why are we suddenly discussing the ins and outs of coal markets when the real focus should be on this far reaching consultative Green Paper? Lets get back to the point.

Ben, thanks for putting Mr Nicol on the proper track re:climate science. While there will always be uncertainties, there is today a greater scientific consensus around anthropogenic climate change than the theory of relativity.

Thanks

Billy Ray

ncar 19/07/08 12:36AM

You know it’s a pity that we don’t have much positive thinking around decarbonisation. We do have rather a lot of sun in Australia after all!

We always think of the negatives about lost mining revenues etc but what about the positives to do with large scale thermal solar generation say? Think of the industry we could support on the back of a very large solar thermal plant north of Adelaide with its 300+ days of sun a year.

Regarding the green paper in particular: EVERY measure should be taken to tell the world that we are serious about change and we want them to be also. I wonder how Australians would feel about having higher priced energy but also the knowledge that they did something (took the first economic hit) that lead to a world wide economic change?

Much better than getting rich from digging stuff up and setting it I’d say!

Nick

ben.eltham 20/07/08 1:29PM

Tymoshenko, apologies if you misunderstood my point. I should clarify that CO2 is not a "toxic gas" in the sense of carbon monoxide or uranium hexaflouride. Small doses won’t kill you.

But, yes, CO2 is a pollutant. For an air breathing mammal, once it gets above 5% concentration in any air you might happen to breathe it’s a big problem. For global temperatures, according to the IPCC and most climate scientists, it begins to cause serious warming above 320 ppm.

I’m bowing out of the slanging match at this point.

BillyRay - thanks for your informative post.

tymoshenko 20/07/08 2:10PM

tymoshenko

Thanks, Ben, but please note, today’s concentration of 384 ppm is 0.0384%, while your 5% equates to 50,000 ppm, a bit more than today’s 384 ppm. A pity Garnaut and Wong and your own good self are so arithmetically challenged. Your defence of them depends on that absurdity. And you did say CO2 is "toxic", i.e. at all levels.

Regards

Tymoshenko

rmg1859 21/07/08 10:14AM

Forgive my scientific ignorance, all you experts, but why the hell is timber counted as polluting the instant that it is cut down ? How the hell can they expect any farmer or Indigenous community to plant trees on a mass scale if they will be slugged with a carbon tax on the day that they harvest the bloody things ? So what would be the point of growing them then ?

Just asking.

Joe

ben.eltham 21/07/08 11:35AM

Hi Joe

My understanding is you can offset forestry or other emissions against reforestation, which is I believe what many big polluters are planning to do.

Part of the reasoning about this is to provide an incentive to leave trees in the ground … remember if you’re planting trees to harvest them, you’re not actually sequestering carbon for the long term, merely "banking it" in the tree until harvest

rmg1859 21/07/08 12:33PM

Hi Ben,

This is the point - what emissions at harvest ?????? A tree takes up CO2, as far as I can tell from the learned debates, it doesn’t pump it out into the atmosphere. A log of timber may not take up any more CO2, but sure as hell its not putting much back either.

And what if somebody wanted to get just a tiny bit sensible and, instead of growing trees for firewood - duh ! - she wanted to raise furniture-timber trees, high-value, high-quality, with no intention of cutting them down and then just putting them all in a bloody great pile and burning them, which is what producting trees for firewood would be like ? How long does good furniture last - 50 years, 100 years ? Plus the time to grow the bloody things and you are up around 100-150 years. I can’t believe the stupidity of some people: do they want people to grow trees or not ? Utterly dumb-ass.

Joe

ben.eltham 21/07/08 7:25PM

Tymoshenko, I’ve dug up a reference to acute CO2 toxicity for you (this is from a US EPA paper available here:

http://www.epa.gov/ozone/snap/fire/co2/appendixb.pdf:)

"Exposure to 7 to 10 percent carbon dioxide can produce unconsciousness or near unconsciousness within a few minutes (Schulte 1964, CATAMA 1953, Dripps and Comroe 1947). Other symptoms associated with the inhalation of carbon dioxide in this range include headache, increased heart rate, shortness of breath, dizziness, sweating, rapid breathing, mental depression, shaking, and visual and hearing dysfunction that were seen following exposure periods of 1.5 minutes to 1 hour …. Exposure to a concentration of 6 percent carbon dioxide can produce hearing and visual disturbances within 1 to 2 minutes (Gellhorn 1936, Gellhorn and Spiesman 1935)."

In terms of my arithmetic, I think you are confusing matters. I argued CO2 is a toxic gas. It is. I also argued that CO2 is a pollutant. It is. In regards to the long-term effects of CO2 on the atmosphere, I’d again refer you to the Hansen papers linked to above, or indeed the exhaustively referenced reports of the IPCC.

Joe - I’m going to do some research on forestry emissions and get back to you.

However I think we can say that the act of harvesting forestry products is in itself carbon-intensive, requiring chainsaws, logging trucks, pulp mills and/or sawmills. Obviously the carbon trapped in a wooden chair remains fixed, however there’s no doubt that the process of logging even so-called "sustainable" plantation forest is not carbon-neutral.

rmg1859 21/07/08 8:16PM

No, Ben, I’m not saying that anything is carbon-neutral - after a good curry, I myself am far from carbon-neutral. But surely the release of carbon etc. into the atmosphere in the process of harvesting trees from a plantation is relatively insignificant, barely carbon-positive. Trees absorb carbon dioxide and use it in their growth, isn’t that so ? And I don’t think that furniture timber would need pulp mills, and for its value, not much in the way of saw-mills either. Logging trucks ? Christ, how big are you expecting a plantation to be ? And in fifty years, will chain-saws still be petrol-driven ?

There is something ludicrously wrong with penalising growers of tree plantations - penalise power stations, aluminium producers, heavy vehicles, etc., but the idea of waiting for trees to mature and then slapping a tax on them, that is just bloody ridiculous.

Joe

tymoshenko 21/07/08 11:05PM

Ben 18 july: "You apparently are prepared to cite the IPCC when it suits you, and yet profess to claim carbon dioxide is not a pollutant. Of course it is a pollutant: it is a toxic gas!"

Ben 20 July; "I should clarify that CO2 is not a "toxic gas" in the sense of carbon monoxide or uranium hexaflouride. Small doses won’t kill you. But, yes, CO2 is a pollutant. For an air breathing mammal, once it gets above 5% concentration [50,000 ppm] in any air you might happen to breathe it’s a big problem."

Ben 21 July: "Exposure to 7 to 10 percent [100,000 ppm] carbon dioxide can produce unconsciousness or near unconsciousness within a few minutes…I argued CO2 is a toxic gas. It is. I also argued that CO2 is a pollutant. It is."

Ben, do make up your mind, within 3 days you have said CO2 is toxic, non-toxic, and toxic again! Can you tell the difference between atmospheric concentrations of 384 ppm (2007 at Mauna Loa), 50,000 (Ben 20 July), and 70,000-100,000 ppm, Ben 21 July? When do you think the atmospheric concentration now at 384 ppm will reach 100,000 ppm at the present rate of growth of 0.5 per cent per annum? How much life would there be with 0 ppm of CO2? - obviously your "science" studies never acquainted you with photosynthesis.

Is it safe to drink Coke? Do tell! Red wine is a definite no-no: ‘Yeast metabolizes sugar to produce carbon dioxide and ethanol, also known as alcohol, in the production of wines, beers and other spirits, but also in the production of bioethanol:

C6H12O6 → 2 CO2 + 2 C2H5OH’

No more biofools please! Can somebody else please explain to Ben that CO2 is a fertilizer that boosts yields at up to at least 2000 ppm. (nearly six times today’s level).

tymoshenko

ben.eltham 21/07/08 11:16PM

Tymoshenko, I think my position is pretty clear. Too much CO2 is bad for you, and the planet.

ben.eltham 21/07/08 11:19PM

Joe - as I said, I’m going to do some research on the emissions issues around forestry. The general Kyoto position is that it is changes in the amount of forest cover generally that affect carbon emissions. Reforestation takes CO2 out of the atmosphere while deforestation reverses the equation.

BPobjie 22/07/08 4:44AM

Perhaps I can assist you tymoshenko.

Ben said that 5% was the concentration at which people will have difficulty breathing the air. He said, quite clearly, that 320ppm was the point at which "serious warming" began. So there’s no use you trying to conflate the two; he was quite clear.

He also clearly said that CO2 was not a toxic gas "in the sense of carbon monoxide or uranium hexafluoride", in that small doses won’t kill you. He did not say it was "non-toxic".

Clear now?

If you have a good argument, people will be more likely to be persuaded should you not rely on deliberate distortion of your opponents’ statements.

rmg1859 22/07/08 8:55AM

Tymoshenko, when are you going to realise that carbon dioxide can kill you - sure, like ice cream, a little may do you little harm, but if somebody dropped you into a vat of it, you would die very quickly. And there isn’t that much difference between 380 and 50,000 - it’s just a matter of time, after all.

No, Ben and Ben, there is something wrong with how carbon pollution is being calculated: take for example this issue of cattle putting methane into the atmosphere - if you put all the world’s mosquito and beetle farts together, I’m sure that they would easily outdo all the cattle in the world, as they have probably done ever since cattle were invented. Insect, bacteria and fish farts probably caused the over-heating of the planet back in the Carboniferous or whenever.

Surely there is a tolerable level of CO2 which is produced by ‘natural’ processes, and which is not particularly harmful to man or beast, and any level above that which is produced by ‘unnatural or industrial’ processes is what we should be trying to reduce ? i.e. not a straight-line penalising process, but a stepped process ? i.e. taxing emissions above a certain level, and progressively, but not below it ? Is this too naive ?

So surely, whatever takes CO2 out of the atmosphere should be promoted and encouraged ? Pump billions into re-forestation across the North of Australia, where it is going to be wetter - give all the grants necessary to Indigenous communities to save the planet, and go some way to resolving the unemployment problems in remote communities at the same time. Win-win !

Joe

ncar 22/07/08 10:30AM

Tymoshenko,

Everything is toxic in sufficient amounts: 100% oxygen will kill a breather of it. The toxicity of CO2 is in the amount that we are putting up in the air and the rate at which we are doing it. By rapidly changing the chemical composition of the atmosphere we WILL change it.

The atmosphere has undergone massive changes in the past, including reaching much greater and also much smaller CO2 concentrations, and will certainly so in the future but humans are evolved to something like what we have now and it would be prudent to keep it that way.

What has not been mentioned in this forum is that one of the first, very devastating, effects of increased CO2 in the atmosphere is increased acidity in the oceans which will stop coral forming. There is a point of acidity at which coral will no longer form calcium carbonate structures that make the reefs. Is increased acidity in oceans toxic? It’s a bit of a null questions in the face of a collapsing sea ecosystem.

Joe:
I’m not sure about your beetle fart hypothesis- I’d like to see some data on that. There are a lot of cows and rumen animals are particularly bad farters. I’m not sure beetles fart in the same way.

About the tolerable levels of CO2: remember what’s important here is the pace of atmospheric CO2 change. It may be that we are too late and there is enough stuff up there (or there will be soon) to change the atmosphere irrevocably. We actually need to reduce CO2 emissions by all means possible so that a step process or straight line process should be judged simply by their ability to rapidly reduce overall emissions.

Nick

rmg1859 22/07/08 10:45AM

Hi Nick,

At the risk of being e-lynched by deep-greenies, my point about beetle farts is this: is there a tolerable level of CO2 in the atmosphere, that contributed ever since Adam (and his dog) by all manner of organisms, a level that the Earth has dealt with more or less comfortably ? And that anything above that ‘natural’ level, and produced otherwise than by Mother Nature, is what we should be worrying about, and taxing ? i.e. don’t tax ‘natural’ producers, like growers of forests, on their products, especially not if they happen to be Indigenous too, Black as well as Green.

Joe

Venise Alstergren 22/07/08 4:06PM

Did anyone seriously believe that the Rudd government would do something to get on top of this ‘green Götterdamërung’ we are faced with?’ At least they recognized there was a problem which is more than the rotten, rotten, little Johnny Howard and his bullying thugs, ever did.
However, to just recognize the problem is no longer enough. To deal with a calamity of such, quite literally, earth-shaking importance requires courage. I’m talking REAL courage. The sort of courage that we as the voters of OZ could force upon our governments. Only:- the only thing the average Australian is interested in is the footy, followed by cricket………………fill in the dots according to one’s preference. ‘Navel gazing’ is probably up there. If we could force (all it would take is a referendum) all governments to a two year term. It would mean that no longer would it be a question of "What will big business think ? what will the bl*ody Catholics think? What do the Latter Day Saints think? What will the Greens think? Way, way down at the back of the queue is the lone question, "What will the voter think?" If it’s the second year of a two-year term, without a chance of being re-elected, may perhaps the politician think. "It’s my last shot, so I might as well make it a good one". I can see a couple of negatives in there; however, I can see a thousand negatives with Australia being landed with a foreign, overseas head of state. Oh, but don’t the oldies love it? They care a hell of a lot more for QEII aka bum-face, than they care about our country. Think of the expression on the face of a member of the Country Women’s Association. A face lit up with orgasmic lust and lips closed like a rat-trap at the mere mention of QEII’s possible replacement by an OS-TRIAL-IAN.
With this superbly middle-class attitude, together with the worship of Catholicism,
bad grammar, and nick names; Australians are all leached out of thought and couldn’t give a stuff about anything.
If Kevin Rudd could preoccupy his mind with the thought that he may not be re-elected, he might do some good. But he’s too wrapped up in naked little girls to amount to much.

rmg1859 22/07/08 4:11PM

Hi Venise,

I don’t think that all is lost, not just yet. So, sorry, neither you nor I can wash our hands of the difficult issues that we are inflicting on our children and grandchildren. Roll up your sleeves, Venise ! Courage, mon brave !

Joe

ben.eltham 22/07/08 4:16PM

Venise - I don’t think it’s as bad as all that, though I do share your considerable frustration with the current political process. On the other hand, although it’s easy to have a shot at the CWA (a really important and worthwhile NGO in the country, by the way) and "middle-class attitudes", I think many in our society and government are facing up to the challenge of climate change, as terrifying as it sometimes appears.

But are Australians "all leached out of thought"? I don’t believe it for a minute. We’re full of good ideas, and if the polls since the Green Paper release show anything, they show that the average Australian is much smarter than the media and the Opposition give them credit for.

Venise Alstergren 22/07/08 4:58PM

Venise Alstergren:
ben.eltham: Semyon Konstantinovich, your uncle was a brave man. But very stubborn. He had always wanted to be a marshal of the Soviet Union and he got there by half-routing the Finns, still half is better than nothing, I suppose. Tell me, why did you change the spelling of your name?

Venise Alstergren 22/07/08 4:58PM

Venise Alstergren:
ben.eltham: Semyon Konstantinovich, your uncle was a brave man. But very stubborn. He had always wanted to be a marshal of the Soviet Union and he got there by half-routing the Finns, still half is better than nothing, I suppose. Tell me, why did you change the spelling of your name?

Venise Alstergren 22/07/08 5:12PM

Venise Alstergren: I’m pleased that you should think that Australians aren’t leached out of thought. I know I tend to overstate things, but I’m talking about your real ocker. He-and just such a man said to me the other day-; we had been talking about the pronounciation of the word resevoir. I said "well if it was mean’t to be pronounced your way the word would read resevwar" This man is not a stupid man and he has very high class tastes. He hates footy and only drinks champagne, which makes him pretty unusual. Anyhow he said "I come from a Scottish familly, I don’t have any Mediterranean blood in me, and I was born in the Western Suburbs; so I’m not going to pronounce it resevoir". He is a died-in-the-wool Liberal Party man. He likes to think the whole Greenhouse, CTS, etc, etc, was invented by the Labour Party, and the trajedy is, there are hundreds of Australians like him. Look at Andrew Bolt for Chr*sts sake.

Cheers

Venise Alstergren 22/07/08 5:26PM

Venise Alstergren:
Hi Joe, I know it’s for our children, and their granchildren. I just don’t happen to think that mankind is going to be around that long. Thanks to over population the world will be at 9 billion people in about 10 years time. The flip side of Global Warming IS over population. There are so many people out there who are incapable of saying, "I don’t believe in God, the Catholic church, whatever. And you heard that madman, and consumate bully aka George Pell, telling the faithful at the Catholic Gymkhana to go forth and multiply!
I have a lot of courage mais je regret tous les choses. A bien-tot. Which just about runs me out of French.
Cheers
Venise

rmg1859 22/07/08 7:35PM

Hi Venise,

The sure-fire solution to population growth is the education of women: if girls have decent schooling, and hopefully some tertiary education as well, three things at least happen:

* they are kept away from reproducing for that much longer;

* since education forgirls usually occurs in societies which have some respect for women, they usually have a bit more choice over who and when to marry;

* the more education, the more girls/women want to do something else besides use their biology: work, for example. And when they do decide to have kids, on the whole, they have fewer than their barefoot sisters.

Ergo, fewer children: in Europe, population growth is either stalled or negative. In China, when their single-child policy works its way through the demography, and they discover too late that it will lead to a population decline, it is unlikely that they will hit fifteen hundred million: India might reach that figure before China.

But that’s the point: if the Indian economy is to take off, they will need to educate their girls, if only to have enough trained professionals. So it will have to be for Africa, and South America.

So pollution will still be a more pressing problem than over-population in twenty, fifty one hundred years. People won’t be the problem.

Joe

brettrobertson 23/07/08 12:59AM

Ben,

Good article and congratulations on your very admirable efforts in responding to readers’ comment. Hope I am not joining the debate too late. I’m a strong supporter of climate change mitigation, but I find that I cannot join the chorus of condemnation this green paper has been subjected to. I have a couple of points:

- A stronger proposal than this green paper would never make it through the senate.

- Regarding the free permits given to trade exposed industries, carbon leakage is not just an ethical and economic problem, it is a an environmental problem too. If the costs we impose on companies that must compete in international markets are too high, they will simply move their operations off shore, to countries that do not impose carbon constraints. That is the reality of our globalised economy. For example if our aluminum producers move their production facilities to China as a result of our ETS, our national carbon emissions will reduce but the global emissions will stay the same or possibly increase.

- On the issue of coal, I broadly agree with Possum Comitatus, but I want to add one more point. Whatever actions we take regarding our coal exports, coal is getting more expensive. The rising price of oil will continue to spill over into other fossil fuels (due to the rising costs of mining, and fuel switching to coal-to-liquids for example), causing a much higher price rise over the long term than we could engineer by erecting a tariff barrier against our own exports. In any case, such a proposal would be an economic and political self-inflicted wound, and I don’t think it is realistically on the cards. A better approach is to make sure all major polluting countries implement carbon cap-and-trade systems. The global system we are aiming for is one where we control emissions, not inputs.

I have expanded on these points here:
http://everythingischanging.wordpress.com/2008/07/22/responsible-economi…

Venise Alstergren 23/07/08 1:31PM

Venise Alstergren
Hi Joe,
I am in total agreement with you about women being the key to our future.In fact I couldn’t agree with you more. What worries me about this hypothesis is the fear I have of so many women throughout the world who are in thrall to any form of religion. Don’t forget reason and religion are mutually exclsive terms of reference.
The Catholiic religion urges their followers to pro-create, and the majority of their female believers are ill-educated women who sincerely believe their church to be sacrosant. They actually believe that the Pope is God’s representative on earth, that Jesus was the son of God, and that the Cardinals and priests are ordained to rule their lives. Just as her cousin-in-thought; Fatima of Saudi Arabia, believes utterly, that the local mullah is the font of all wisdom, that he alone can translate the word of God from the Koran and she believes him when he tells her to keep breeding for the greater glory of Allah.
It will take generations of the female members of the Exclusive Brethren to start questioning the so called wisdom of their men. But, as a planet, we don’t have the time or room to allow these generations of women to realize then are on a dead-set loser. We can’t let the world’s population to get to 15-20 billion whilst waiting for these women come to their senses.
I’ve got to dash, as I’m in need of some lunch, but I will be back this afternoon.

Venise

ben.eltham 23/07/08 1:56PM

Brett - no it’s neveer too late to comment on an article - thanks for your thoughts here.

Senate politics: the threat of a double-dissolution election would certainly concentrate the minds of wavering Senators

Carbon leakage: It strikes me that carbon leakage is a variation of the classic "race to the bottom" debate we often see in discussions of globalisation. So in a sense we are a hostage to the world’s worst practice (at least in terms of carbon emissions) until some kind of global carbon price is established. It’s such a big challenge.

On the other hand there is obviously some truth in what you say: concrete, steel and aluminium are essential components of the modern economy and we would be better off making them in highly efficient low-carbon industries onshore than importing them.

I’ve had a chat to Miriam Lyons here at the Centre for Policy Development on the issue. She agrees that carbon leakage is a real issue but that it should be approached on a case-by-case level. She also quite likes the Greens’ idea of tying free permit to audited improvements in reducing pollution - rather than just giving permits away, or letting even relatively clean plants rest on their laurels by say investing in forestry offsets.

Miriam also thinks the recent Per Capita paper on the aluminium industry is worth having a look at:

http://www.percapita.org.au/01_cms/details.asp?ID=120

Finally, I completely agree with you on the need to include as many industries and countries in a cap-and-trade system as possible, working towards a "contraction and convergence" scenario. As Jeffrey Sachs has recently pointed out, China ia actually working much harder, and compared with already-industrialised nations much earlier, on environmental mitigation than many in the rich world assume.

rmg1859 23/07/08 4:31PM

Hi Venise,

Thanks for your thoughtful comments - I think they are bit black-and-white really: there is space between reason and religion (look at Iran, for example) which allow women just a little room to move: I cold be wrong but I think women make up most of the engineering and medicine students in Iran. Iran, after all, is nothing like Afghanistan. Even a brutal dictatorship like China allows women to get to university in huge numbers. Even Saddam’s Iraq encouraged women to go to uni. Keep your eye on India - just notice whether or not it makes it easier for women to get a good education.

In Australia, Indigenous women are now at parity with domestic students generally: 1.6 % of the ‘domestic’ adult female population (i.e. over 20) is Indigenous, 1.6 % of all ‘domestic’ students are indigenous. Two thirds of all Indigenous graduates each year tend to be women: a total of about fifteen thousand, out of twenty three thousand by the end of this year. Not bad - there were only a thousand Indigenous graduates just twenty years ago.

I’m not saying it will happen in the next few years, trying to turn pig-ignorant male-dominated cultures around to give women a fair go will take decades, but it will happen perhaps faster than we might think. I don’t think that the world’s population will reach nine billion soon, and certainly not 15-20 billion. But the trade-off is that better-educated people, including women, want a more expensive lifestyle, and that means more pollution, given our current technology. Pollution control is the issue, not population, Venise. So what do we all do about that ? My money is on furniture- and building-timber plantations, especially on Indigenous land (well, isn’t it all ?)

Cheers,

Joe

Venise Alstergren 23/07/08 6:12PM

Venise Alstergren
Hi Joe,
Yes, in Iran women, indeed people, are far better educated than people in the West imagine. I was in Iran, Syria and Jordan, by myself, using public transport, a woman on my own about five years ago. It was a wonderful experience. And I met some wonderful people. Yes, the universities are full of women working flat out to become medicos, dentists, scientists, chemists-you name it- BTW English is a mandatory subject in Iran.( Can you imagine making Australians learn another language? The Anglo/Irish/Scotish brigade in the Western suburbs would riot against this.) But, and it’s a huge but. Thanks to the religion, the men who run it, and the women who dutifully follow the teachings of their men (it would need a full and bloody revolution to fix the problem and women are not born fighters) preference is ALWAYS given to men. So most of this excellent education is just not used. Sure there are lots of women in the travel industry, university teachers, etc. but where are openings for potential surgeons, and jobs of this calibre? If you thought the land of OZ used to be bad it’s 10-100 times worse in Iran. The system, backed up by the mad Mullahs and Imans alienates men and women. A simple fact. In the land that used to be world famous for it’s wines, especially the wines of Shiraz, sees not one grape vine left. Why is this serious? Because so many medical products are based on alcohol. So many of Iran’s medicos are dersisive of the religion as dictated by Iran’s Ayatollahs (Syria and Jordan have a much better attitude towards their (also Islamic) religion. Yet than can do nothing for fear of being thrown into a very nasty slammer.
I don’t think indigenous Australians-in respect of pollution, women”s rights, whatever, have either a positive or negative position in this particular place. The sooner EVERYBODY realizes that we are all in this together, the greater the chance of fixing the problem.
In my opinion pollution is the flip side of over-population. If there were less people in the world, the less water, food, oil, land and so on, would be consumed, ditto the less pollution. I see both pollution and over-population as being at either end of a see-saw. If one gets too heavy, the whole balance will be thrown out of wack, and balance is everything.
I do not believe man has got another 10 years. If gigantic steps towards controlling the problem aren’t taken in the next 5 years we will revert to barbarism. Which is exactly what the Catholic Church wants. The greater the chaos, the greater the chances that man will, en masse, reach out to the Catholic God. This is why I hate the Catholic Church so much. ALL THEY WANT ARE THE NUMBERS, THE CHURCH DOESN’T GIVE A STUFF ABOUT A DECENT LIFE, OR HUMANITY. There endeth the lesson.

rmg1859 23/07/08 7:09PM

No, I don’t think population and pollution are the flips-sides of each other, Venise; the wealthier a population is (not the more numerous) the more it uses resources, and uses them more wastefully, i.e. for luxuries - so it’s not people per se, but their access to resources, and the amount of resources they use, and for what. America could have ZPG and - if their economy was in any sort of shape - they would gluttonise the world’s resources more and more. The Chinese population could stop dead and China would still be rapidly increasing its use of resources, and its capacity to pollute. Africans make up around a sixth of the world’s population but how much of its pollution ? Probably barely 5 %.

Don’t blame people so much as their desire for goods, especially luxury goods, and some people far more than others: if you totalled up how much resources some waste of space like Alan Bond or Paris Hilton uses in a year, on air travel, booze, food, clothes, accommodation, it would be a hundred times, a thousand times what the average African uses. Greed and gluttony, not just numbers.

Cheers,

Joe

brettrobertson 23/07/08 7:29PM

Ben,

Senate politics: You are certainly not the first to suggest a DD. I’m not very politically minded, but Tim Watts has gone to considerable depth to explain why it would be a risky move for Labor:
http://tokblog.org/?p=681

Carbon leakage: Thanks for the link to the Per Capita paper. It was interesting and we certainly need to encourage the full cost accounting approach.

Unfortunately, I found that the paper had one significant flaw. It considers the value of the carbon emissions savings due to plant closure to be positive (and offsets this against the negative social value from job losses). But if a plant closure here leads to a new plant being built in another country, there are no emissions savings at all. Even if the new plant is identical to the one that was closed, globally we have lost out due to the significant amounts of carbon emitted in the construction of the new plant.

Climate change is a global problem, and we must remember to think globally when we talk about solutions. It we simply stop doing the things we see as bad for the environment - like aluminium smelting or coal mining - and let someone else do them, we have achieved nothing. We must keep doing these things, while leading the world in reducing the impact that they have AND in reducing our demand for these activities.

rmg1859 23/07/08 8:20PM

Spot on, Brett.

Venise Alstergren 23/07/08 8:24PM

Venise Alstergren:
Then we must agree to disagree. Certainly the wealthier the population the more they consume. But try to imagine the now starving millions of Africa, suddenly having the money of the average Australian; together with the concomitant greed of the average Australian. Let’s say that the many, many dictators of this continent suddenly dropped dead and the people had suddenly attained reasonable income. What chance would the people have to get educated within 5 years? Can’t you hear the population/pollution clock reaching high-noon? approximately One billion people on a consumer spending binge, without the infrastructure to cater for them. Pollution and over-population coming together in a cataclysmic bang. One, then the other falls off the see-saw (the see-saw which represents the planet and the eco-systems which support it). The vine, to use another analogy, carrying the whole hideous mess, strangles in its own excessive growth. The clock is still ticking and it is now five minutes to midnight. We have five cosmic minutes to overturn the Catholic Church, the Muslim beliefs, the Exclusive Brethren, all the mad religions with which America is beholden to, the Anglicans, every half-baked superstitious ignorant twaddle masquerading as a belief in God. We have now got four minutes to midnight. Four minutes to educate the masses. No time for a smooth transition. We have to overturn the Kimilsungism of North Korea, wake up and get rid of the lethargy which besets most of the western world. It is now three minutes to midnight and the world has reached 8 billion people, none of whom have any time to consider the consequences of their actions; they’ve been too busy having fun!. It is two minutes to midnight; Western countries, and the Tiger economies of Asia, belatedly realize that education, and the need for it is of paramount importance. It is one minute to midnight. The Pope and the Mullahs, the whole cacophony of multitudes of ignorant followers, not to mention the world’s politicians, finally realize they are in ‘standing-room’ only. The Pope (an old and wizened man of ninety) climbs laboriously up to the podium and clears his throat in order to appeal to the billions of Catholics to exercise birth restraint. The clock reaches midnight. The pontiff and all the glories of the Church’s possessions are covered with a dense cloud of black vomit which has been hovering overhead is, in fact not the prelude to the re-en-carnation of Jesus Christ after all; (the message the Church has been telling its ignorant followers for the past four years); it is merely the final answer to the ignorance and stupidity of mankind. It is, quite simply, the over- population bomb which was predicted by saner elements of the community. Slowly the acid rain eats into the skin of the suddenly mute denizens of the world. Olé, olé.

rmg1859 23/07/08 8:33PM

Venise,

Yes, this is precisely the task before us: to try to convince people, no matter where they are, to consume less, or more sensibly. And improving life for people in Africa won’t happen anywhere near as quickly as you suggest, which perversely will mean less consumption of resources. The poorer, the less consumption. Not that I’m recommending that as one solution to global warming ! But that’s how it goes: the richer people get, the more they pollute, not by just existing on the earth but by using more of its resources and putting more crap back. I wouldn’t be surprised if Australia uses more resources than all of Africa, and pollutes more, but I could be wrong there.

So there is a double task before us: to raise the education level of the world, as a whole, especially of the women, and at the same time to persuade everybody, wherever they are, to use reasources sparingly and pollute less - which they can do, the more income they have. Many years ago, 1973 I think, there was a wonderful bloke on radio named Malcolm Caldwell, murdered by the Khmer Rouge in early 1979, who pointed out that, as you suggest, the world could not support everybody using resources at the same rate as the US or Australia or the West generally. So the task is to find alternatives, not to blame the poor, even inadvertently or obliquely.

Joe

Venise Alstergren 23/07/08 11:16PM

Venise Alstergren
If I gave you the impression I was blaming the poor I completely misrepresented my case. I have seen far too much poverty in far too many countries not to feel anything but compassion for the poor. Yes they are generally ignorant. Not because they were born that way. But because they have limited access to what we in the West-I know poverty exists in the West as well-take for granted. It is the maintainers of poverty, ignorance, despair, over-population, disease, starvation and desperation that I blame. I have a feeling you may be a Catholic-this is not said to deride you- You agree with many things I say, however there seems to be a ‘wall of glass’ through which you don’t seem to wish to face the evil which IS the Catholic Church. Other religions aren’t much better, orthodox Judaism is another religion which acts against women. How many female Rabbis are there? The fundamentalist right-wing churches, all churches, in fact, especially Islam and Catholicism treat women as shit. But it is only the Catholic Church which actively says to the world "Go forth and multiply’. It may be implicit in other religions, but it isn’t actively preached. In a world as fast losing control over it’s own future as this world. This is insanity. That alone is enough to condemn the Catholic Church. Add to that its vested interest in deceiving its own followers; of lying to them, taking advantage of their poverty and ignorance, misleading these followers with out and out lies and voilå, the ultimate hypocrisy of the Church. Other religions seek to empathize with their (male) adherents. I just can’t believe they are at all sympathetic towards women. They’re not. But the so called Holy Romans turn this whole religious thing into a black-art form. They won’t allow female priests for Christ’s sake! As to why women would want to support this contemptible male club escapes me. The Church, is enmeshed in a total conspiracy to prevent the poor from helping themselves. Even the schools the Catholics have, teach, along with ordinary education, lies, superstitions, fairy tales and distortions of a book which was written 2000 years ago. The Church loves everything that is illogical. It is an immutable fact of life that logic and religion are mutually exclusive.
I hope it is apparent that I am an atheist. Normally atheists don’t proselytize, you have just found one who is not content to lie down and let other religions alone. I was born an atheist and will die one. I’m tired now, goodnight.

I’ve had a moderately long day; so I will finish here. I’ll be happy to return to the fray tomorrow. Sharpen your sword. This could be a long duel.

Cheers,

Venise

rmg1859 23/07/08 11:31PM

Hi Venise,

No, I’m a marxist and an atheist, since about 1950. As for the Catholic Church, in spite of the fact that about 5 % of its Australian members turned up in Sydney last week (and 95 % didn’t), I believe that fundamentally it is dying, for all the hoop-la. Natzinger has the allure and the permanence of fairy-floss and I have the feeling that this was a sort of a swan-song, at least I’d like to think so. In a short time, the Catholic church will seem irrelevant.

That may be even the case with sections of Islam - the salience of 9/11 and Iraq and Iran and Afghanistan and Bali may have had the effect of forcing debate - often for the first time ever - in parts of the Islamic world, and it may not survive in its present medieval forms. So it may be in the same boat as Christianity generally. Maybe this might seem to be wishful thinking, but I can’t believe that sensible people could possibly analyse their religion, debate it, evaluate it and still come out of that process believing in gods and angels and so on.

Of course, I would love to believe in a Paradise like believers do, it must be very comforting, but I don’t think there is one: when I die, that will be it, the worms will get me, as old Don McLeod said. What’s left will be hanging outside the barbed-wire fence around Paradise, wistfully watching all the believers inside, happy and singing and playing their little harps. That’s if I’m allowed to get up there at all, but at forty thousand years for each sin, it could be some time yet.

Seriously, I don’t think the Catholic Church, or any church, or any religion, is that important. And if I was God, I would be pissed off wit hbelievers who wanted only to happy-clappy and stuff the rest of the world - they would be the first bastards I would be sending off down into the seven cirlces of hell. I would be a fair bastard of a God, actually.

Cheers,

Joe

Venise Alstergren 24/07/08 8:49PM

Venise Alstergren
Hi Joe,
I’ve only just got around to reading this comment-I’ve had a trying day at the Dentist. It is now 8.49pm and I’m free of the anasthetic but starving. May I contine on with this tomorrow?

Cheerrs

Venise

Audax 25/07/08 1:44PM

Hi all,
The author is Myoptic & ill informed. Let’s get REAL.
Lets not get too carried away with emissions. Australia is but 1% of the world’d population. We contribute a TINY amount of emissions compared to Europe, India, China, Russia USA, Canada etc. Forget the stupidity of using a per capita basis to frighten us into a frenzy of wrong action. Garnaut is saying what Rudd whats him to say. A postulating & a guessing academic. PM Rudd & Roxon are politicising. Carefully consider Professor McKibbin of ANU Canberra & a member of the Reserve Bank of Australia consideration of the Carbon Trading Scheme. He is independant & lucid. His estimate is that our projected costs of $80 billion for a projected population of say 25 Million Australians will cost each one of us an average $4 bilion a person!!
This is a preposterous expense. The coal fired electricity generators are producing cheap electricity for HOME consumption & Industry. Coal exports are propping up the NSW & QLD economies. Remove that income and we will be taxed @ 100c in $ or worse!!
The federal treasury has yet to publish any modelling projections. Any system for 21 Million persons in a land mass the size of continental USA needs to ensure we do not rush in where wise men fear to tread.If you don’t like coal, then consider Atomic Energy. Be REALISTIC/NOT EMOTIONAL. Remove coal=cuts jobs & then Taxes Industry + HEAVY TAXES for AUSSIES & Jobs go offshore.= RECESSION. Take a cold shower & think outside the square, first. We Aussies are an INSULAR lot. Consider our place in the world, and sit and consider that fact carefully. Unless the world of 6 Billion acts in concert we are but a grain of sand on the face of the earth. We are insignificant in emissions and population. The polies are conning us & most commentators cannot see that at all. Be rational & thoughtful. Use of Solar is a help (tiny), wind power helpful (TINY)hot rocks (yet to be proven)water waves(yet to be proven). Thus clean coal is it. Or we perish financially. THINK THINK & DO NOT PANIC.

Audax

Venise Alstergren 25/07/08 1:59PM

Venise Alstergren
Hi Joe, I’m back again. At least we are ideologically, not far apart. I am an atheist and a socialist.
I wish I had your optimism about the decline of the Catholic Church. Ditto Islam. Muslims, the ones I’ve met, seem to reason things out. They are all for improving their lives. There is no bar to education, even if the jobs aren’t readily available. If the Islamic middle-class perceive the problems confronting the climate and the world. They will do something about it. Not so the Catholics. All of the upper echelon Catholics have a vested interest in keeping the world downtrodden. The more the people are desperate, the greater the number of potential ‘voters!’. Think about it. The Church has a vested interest in a.) keeping the people ignorant. Certainly they have schools and at these schools, along with basic learning, the hapless students have ground into them the superstitious shibboleths of the remnants of a stone age culture. Christ was an interesting man. But the son of God? Hello, which looney bin did this Cardinal, Priest, whatever, escape from? b.) It is the only religion which purports to act for God. THIS IS A VERY, VERY important point. Other religions follow God. It takes the Catholics to take the ultimate step. The acolyte is not FOLLOWING God. God is following HIM/HER. Peering at him all his/her life. Telling this person what to do in bed, and via the idiots like George Pell "Go forth and multiply." If these religious zealots can convince the followers that God is following, every foot of the way, these adherents will believe anything. Including ignoring ETS and the environment

Watch Joe, when the coalition comes up with its plans for global warming. They will do everything short of outright denial of the whole problem. The coalition is soaked with Catholics: Brendan Nelson, Tony Abbott are but two. I’ve been out all day and haven’t looked at the news. However, I’m prepared to bet fifty dollars that this is what will happen. Ultimately Malcolm Turnbull will be shafted. Why? Because he uses reason and logic. Personally I think if Turnbull has all the brains he known for, should start another Party, or join the greens. He won’t because he’s greedy for the top job, in the long run, Australia doesn’t matter.

Their manifesto will be one of endless crawling on their faces to big business. Groveling.

I find religions to be sickening because they say that all good behaviour was given to us by God. As if people can’t think for themselves. As a kid, I once stole some money from my mother. I felt sick that I should have done such a thing. Both my parents were atheists, as was my grandmother who really was the one to bring me up. Is it unreasonable for a six year kid to get the guilts and feel bad about doing this? Apparantly, it was God who made me feel guilty. Bullsh*t I wasn’t motivated by God. It was merely good manners. I didn’t even know what God was.

The stupidity of the uneducated and alienated, usually young men, Muslims who, incidentally, fear and hate women, and are probably virgins when they volunteer
to bomb the infidel. Have bought, hook, line and sinker, a story-probably true-in which a leader in about the fifteenth century who needed a lot more troops for his army and hit upon the idea of kidnapping young men, bringing them to a luxurious palace, ordering the palace dancers to sway in front of them-meanwhile shoving Bhang into them AFAP to make them hallucinate. They thought they had died of pleasure and had entered Paradise, where every Houri was a virgin, and they were all aching for the young soldiers’ bodies. Once again. Hello? Who are these F. Wits and which mental institution did they hail from?
Here endeth the lesson. Just wait and watch for the Libs to do what we all knew they would do. It’s a bitter revelation of the lack of care in these thugs for anything.

Cheers

Venise

ben.eltham 25/07/08 2:08PM

Audax I do wear glasses so yes I am myoptic …

You might want to check on your numbers with regards to Warwick McKibbon’s modelling … Australia is not an insignificant emitter by the way - with approximately 2% of the world’s emissions, and (despite your dismissive attitude to per capita calculations) one of the highest rates of emissions in the rich world, we are polluting at far more than the average rate for the rest of the world.

I’m not sure how we could be taxed at more than 100c in the dollar by the way, that would seem to be both unlikely and mathematically impossible.

No-one is seriously proposing completely removing coal - we are talking about re-orienting Australia’s stationary energy away from fossil fuels and towards renewables.

Finally, concerning nuclear power, certain renewables like wind are already cheaper than nuclear power over the life-span of the nuclear fuel cycle.

Will we really "perish financially" without coal? I doubt it. Remember that mining only provides a relatively small number of jobs, and that corporate taxes (of which coal and resources are again only a percentage) provide only a small proportion of both state and federal revenue.

rmg1859 25/07/08 5:14PM

Audax,

Check your calculations again: $ 80 billion divided by 25 million is only a bit over $ 3100 per person, three or four weeks pay for the average Australian.

And I think every government that Australia has had or is likely to ever have will do somersaults to avoid ‘removing’ coal, oil or LNG. Hence permits.

Ben, my question still is: if the government is going to tax vile things like trees, and give major polluters permits, but all the same if some revenue is going to be generated from polluters like those bastards growing furniture timber plantations, then where will the revenue go - will it be used to subsidise wind and solar power, and hot rocks technology and carbon sequestration, that sort of thing ? Or is that too much common sense ?

Hi Venise, I’m not saying educate ONLY the women, although if I had a million dollars, I would give it to girls’ schools in the Muslim world rather than to boys’ schools. But since I do believe that the truth shall (eventually) set you free, the more education for girls, the better.

And if only young suicide bombers could be convinced that bits of them don’t regenerate after a vigorous bombing, that standing there limp (or detached altogether) while seventy two naked virgins danced around them, might not be much fun and they might think twice. Perhaps they could try suicide drowning: it might not have the same impact but at least they would still be intact.

Cheers,

Joe

rmg1859 25/07/08 5:59PM

Venise,

I just found this terrible news item, right on your topic:

‘PESHAWAR, Pakistan - Police say militants have blown up a girls school and 10 shops in northwestern Pakistan. There were no casualties.

Police official Farman Khan said the attacks happened before dawn Friday in two separate areas of the troubled Swat valley.

Authorities in May signed a peace deal with militants in Swat, ending monthslong military operations against them.

The militants promised to halt attacks against security forces.

Violence has significantly decreased in Swat since then, but militants have returned from the mountains and reasserted their influence over parts of the valley and resumed attacks.

Some Islamic hard-liners are opposed to the education of women.’

Which for me is exactly why the NATO forces have to keep fighting in Afghanistan - to give the women a chance. Yes, I’m a Marxist who thinks that the US should stay in Afghanistan. The Taliban must be broken. Women there must get a fair go, and it is the obligation on anybody who believes in equal rights to support their rights.

Joe

Audax 25/07/08 6:40PM

Audax

Thanks.I miscalculated per head. (Disraeli : Lies damned Lies and Statistics.
My machine added extra noughts!

The correct figure would be $3,200 per Man Woman, Child, Pensioner, Disabled or Out of work person in about 2020 viz 25 million (not 21 mil at present.

Who is going to pay for the PERMITS? Fabciful.

Cost of living increases are killing the average person. Vide SMH of 24 & 25 July 2008 front page articles.

With about 8 million workers)ie Taxpayers) that is $10,000 (approx) per income earner; how does one pay this sum?

Wind generation is miniscule generation. Check ABS stats.

Too much hyperbole & not enough hard and accurate statistics.

Emissions per square kilometre is a more accurate calculation. Pro rata per head is very false, and a false basis is no basis at all.

Audax

ben.eltham 25/07/08 6:48PM

Audax I’m not why emissions per square kilometre is a more accurate calculation …. this merely measures emissions intensity against population density. Suddenly Singapore and the Netherlands become high emitters compared with Canada and Australia. Not very informative.

While you are very critical of calculating carbon emissions on a per capita level, you have no problem using the same formula for adjustment costs … which you also express in per capita terms.

What I find interesting is that the very same cost of living pressures you claim are killing the average person are intimately related to our current carbon-intensive economy.Commuters driving vast distances are particularly vulnerable to petrol price pressure, while our love of sparse, sprawling cities have ensured there is undersupply of affordable housing.

The truth is we can decarbonise quite cheaply if we are prepared to invest and adjust early, as several reputable modellers have found. Ignoring the problem now will actually make things more expensive when we do have to adjust.

rmg1859 25/07/08 7:44PM

Audax,

That $ 10,000 per working head will be spread over what, ten years ? forty years ? i.e. from $ 250 to $ 1000 per working head. Is Professor McKibbin’s $ 80 billion in today’s dollars or future value dollars ? Even a thousand dollars a year doesn’t seem too much, i.e. around $ 300 per head, six dollars a week for each of us. If that will help us avoid being poisoned by vast clouds of CO2 rolling over the Equator down on the southern hemisphere, killing and flattening all in its path, as we are assured by Ben, it will be worth it. I hope we will be saved in the nick of time, like in the last scene of one of those disaster movies. I wonder who would star as the cloud of CO2, seeing as it’s colourless and seemingly empty: one of the Hiltons, probably.

Joe

Audax 26/07/08 12:12AM

Joe CO2 doesn’t kill. Rolling clouds is very Emotive & fanciful.

Carbom monoxide does kill.

‘Clean coal’ is an oxymoron, like some of the discussions here. Too little oxy and a lot of moron.

It is said ‘clean coal’ is not carbon neutral.

McKibbin’s acheme has efficiency gains relative to Rudds cap & trade.

Reality is, nothing will be done until after the 2010 elections, and so much hot air will be expended until then.

rmg1859 26/07/08 11:17AM

Speaking of morons, sometimes satire is just too subtle. Even oxygen, Audax, can be a poison, just ask Ben.

The question is: how much is too much ? What has been the ‘natural blance’ of CO2 in the atmosphere over the past millions of years ? After all, trillions of mosquitoes and cockroaches and beetles have been farting away ever since they were invented, along with the fish and amphibians and dinosaurs and early mammals and sparrows and primates and, of course, our own ancestors. So much methane and CO2 going up into the atmosphere, and yet the earth seemed to be able to deal wit hit up until now.

So, on the one hand, leave natural processes alone, including our own (even though my wife may wish to impose a severe carbon pollution tax on excessive production by husbands generally and on me in particular) - and on the other hand, what level of emission of an economy (since it is economic activity which is making all the difference) is ‘acceptable’, bearable, processable, just enough for the forests and oceans to deal with it all. Or is that heretical to even ask about ? So burn me at the stake - oops, not burning, that would create an ecological catastrophe - bullet in the back of the head then. Or perhaps an alternative (which I would enthusiastically support) might be to discuss this issue more fully.

Joe

Venise Alstergren 26/07/08 6:17PM

Venise Alstergren
Hi Audax. Hold it: To come out saying Australia’s pollution is infinitesimal is begging people to think, Oh well, if we’re that insignificant we may as well continue to pollute our heads off until someone comes up with all the magic bullets. I think the percentage of our pollution is much greater than you suggest. Also DO NOT FORGET all our bl*ody Governments are accepting as many as possible migrants as they think the traffic will bear. This is the flip side of being a tolerant nation. Personally I’ve always wanted it both ways. Tolerance and MODERATE immigration. At the moment with the God botherer Kevin Rudd in power (who is more concerned looking at and and being horrified by naked little girls than he does about what we all elected him for. RUNNING the blo*dy country.) He encourages the ignorant savages such as "The George Pell’s of Aust. saying "Go forth and multiply". No one in power has the guts to enforce a two child policy, so we’ll continue on multiplying like frigg*n rabbits. By 2015 we’ll be up to 30 million, all polluting themselves into perdition. Because the only thing Governments do is to wait around sopping up OUR taxes. Some countries have static populations, but never in the land of OZ. Chri*t! China at least attempted to control it, but never in OZ.

It’s been my experience that big business will jump aboard a new concept as soon as they see a buck in it. Not so our lovely pollies, all they want is to take. Perhaps clean coal is the answer, perhaps it isn’t, but why stop at just one solution? We need to try as many different answers as possible.

It isn’t the farting cows that worry me. It’s the sub-moronic old farts who own them who have invoked my wrath. They are the ones who did away with the trees, they are the ones who’ve ploughed all the top soil away. They’re the ones who’ve built uncovered water systems which lose up to 80% of the water to evaporation.
They are the ones who made the template for screwing the land. And what does Rudd do? He wants to alleviate the poor darlings’ teething problems for their distress on having to catch up to the 21st cent. Thousand of years ago the Afghans, knowing their land was sunny and dry, built a huge system of underground reservoirs and water pipes. They have no evaporation. Why couldn’t the farmers of Oz read? They followed the English didn’t they? Does anyone realize that Australian is the most expert ‘copying country’ on earth? We have always left the Japanese for dead, and anyone who is halfway smart goes overseas to sell their ideas. Until the land of Oz pulls its collective finger out and encourages thinkers instead of sports heroes, we are doomed to over population, pollution and fifth-ratedness from here until the end of time.

Now I’ve got that off my chest, I can answer Joe. See next bulletin.:) :) :)

Venise Alstergren 26/07/08 6:17PM

Venise Alstergren
Hi Audax. Hold it: To come out saying Australia’s pollution is infinitesimal is begging people to think, Oh well, if we’re that insignificant we may as well continue to pollute our heads off until someone comes up with all the magic bullets. I think the percentage of our pollution is much greater than you suggest. Also DO NOT FORGET all our bl*ody Governments are accepting as many as possible migrants as they think the traffic will bear. This is the flip side of being a tolerant nation. Personally I’ve always wanted it both ways. Tolerance and MODERATE immigration. At the moment with the God botherer Kevin Rudd in power (who is more concerned looking at and and being horrified by naked little girls than he does about what we all elected him for. RUNNING the blo*dy country.) He encourages the ignorant savages such as "The George Pell’s of Aust. saying "Go forth and multiply". No one in power has the guts to enforce a two child policy, so we’ll continue on multiplying like frigg*n rabbits. By 2015 we’ll be up to 30 million, all polluting themselves into perdition. Because the only thing Governments do is to wait around sopping up OUR taxes. Some countries have static populations, but never in the land of OZ. Chri*t! China at least attempted to control it, but never in OZ.

It’s been my experience that big business will jump aboard a new concept as soon as they see a buck in it. Not so our lovely pollies, all they want is to take. Perhaps clean coal is the answer, perhaps it isn’t, but why stop at just one solution? We need to try as many different answers as possible.

It isn’t the farting cows that worry me. It’s the sub-moronic old farts who own them who have invoked my wrath. They are the ones who did away with the trees, they are the ones who’ve ploughed all the top soil away. They’re the ones who’ve built uncovered water systems which lose up to 80% of the water to evaporation.
They are the ones who made the template for screwing the land. And what does Rudd do? He wants to alleviate the poor darlings’ teething problems for their distress on having to catch up to the 21st cent. Thousand of years ago the Afghans, knowing their land was sunny and dry, built a huge system of underground reservoirs and water pipes. They have no evaporation. Why couldn’t the farmers of Oz read? They followed the English didn’t they? Does anyone realize that Australian is the most expert ‘copying country’ on earth? We have always left the Japanese for dead, and anyone who is halfway smart goes overseas to sell their ideas. Until the land of Oz pulls its collective finger out and encourages thinkers instead of sports heroes, we are doomed to over population, pollution and fifth-ratedness from here until the end of time.

Now I’ve got that off my chest, I can answer Joe. See next bulletin.:) :) :)

Venise Alstergren 26/07/08 6:58PM

Venise Alstergren
Hi Joe,
If timber was taken just for furniture it wouldn’t be quite so bad. It’s the companies like Gunns who appall me.( Paul Lennox,ex- premier of Tasmania, is so bent it’s sickening. What Gunns paid him will probably never be known.) The environmental slaughter of old growth forests is obscene. Naturally in pre-industrial, still rural Australia, we are unable/can’t afford/too busy selling our mineral wealth and buying back garbage, we are unable to use this precious, once vibrant life, so we flog it off to Japan, so that we may import it all back as lavatory paper and newspaper paper. If ever there is justice and Lennox and the CEO of Gunns are to perish in an Auto da Fé. Someone please invite me to light the first match.

Of course it’s essential to educate women in Pakistan and Afghanistan. If nothing else they will, ultimately, start to have less children. Islam doesn’t have a crash hot regard for women, and only women can help themselves; with political help, of course. It wasn’t long ago in the West-about 1985-that the Catholic Church was just as barbaric. Even today the Priests only pay lip-service to the concept. You know, "Go forth and multiply" George Pell. He and his fellow Priests don’t have to have the kids. And they believe in climate control as much as farmers who use bear traps to catch Dingos believe in mercy.

For what it’s worth, I think we have missed the bus on nuclear power, which is probably just as well. Or we would have people like John Brumby using it to water our fields, as it were. As for his desalination plant, I would love to know how much he was paid, by the company, to build it. It’s the most inefficient and expensive, not to mention polluting way to produce water that I can think of.

Apart from all the usual suspects-clean coal, solar, etc-I’m, for no apparent reason, fascinated by the ‘hot rock’ alternative. I’m not at all sure why it appeals to me. But it does.

Cheers

Venise

ben.eltham 26/07/08 6:59PM

For your interest, here is a slide show of James Hansen’s recent presentation to the United Nations University in Tokyo, detailing the problem and possible responses to climate change.

I am particularly struck by his argument that young people have to mobilise on this issue, as it they who will inherit the planet.

http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/2008/Tokyo_20080704.pdf

Venise Alstergren 26/07/08 7:13PM

Venise Alstergren
Ben Eltham, Hi
It was your excellent article which brought me into the comment section. For which I thank you.

Have you ever known the malevolant spin-meisters at the Oz to be even-handed about anything? Maybe they get the sport section right. But I doubt it. The Oz and Andrew Bolt are my pet hates. I know Bolt is paid by the word by his uber spin meister, Murdoch, but the creep isn’t even articulate and his syntax and composition stinks.

It’s been niice meeting you.

Ciao

Venise

rmg1859 26/07/08 7:39PM

Hi Venise,

Down here in Adelaide, we are not so dismissive of desalination plants - of course, we should be treating all of our effluent and rainwater run-off as well, but since all those water-users upstream are not going to roll over and give us as much water as we need, then the next best hope is desalination plants. And if anybody upstream or in Sydney, Melbourne or Brisbane (all out of the Murray-Darling Basin area, as it happens) doesn’t think so, then trade us your water rights and we’ll take it from there.

Joe

Joe

Venise Alstergren 26/07/08 11:28PM

Venise Alstergren
Hi Joe,
Don’t you think it is ludicrous to have stuffed up what was a perfectly good river system-ok, I’ll lay off the farmers, they used to be ignorant, but many of them are learning to change.(slowly) The water-users, as you politely put it, paid the various governments to give them water. So now we have a river system that doesn’t work.
Why should John Brumby give the go ahead to a desalination plant which will be using the of Victoria’s infamously polluting brown coal industry? Clean coal from brown coal? Ha! So, in your words the next hope is desalination plants. Don’t you know the amount of power that it takes to run them? Trading water rights-it’s almost Biblical in it’s terminology-is arcane. The money should be put into used to re-start our rivers, lay underground irrigation systems-gigantic the cost- but one lousy desalination plant treats so little water. Don’t you see? Our bone- dry part of the continent needs far more than desalination plants. Why can’t solar power be used? Or, I hate to say it, but I have to think that it may be time to go nuclear. I know the down sides, but should we be so negative? If the French can use it safely, why can’t we? Why do we have to send our uranium overseas? That’s all Australians think of; sell it, or better still, give it away as in LNG at 3 cents a litre to Japan! We have the basic elements for nuclear energy. Why waste all of it, by sending it overseas?
Isn’t it time we learned how to use our own resources? You know the litany, gold, wool, iron ore, etc. and so the rural pace of Australia is maintained into the 21st century. Our governments State and Federal (at least up to the time the infinitely corrupt John Howard régime bit the dust) is doing is maintaining a people-growth country as we were in the 1950s. Well the days of living off the sheeps’ back are but a distant memory. We HAVE to something, and fast. Desalination is like using a bandage to cure small-pox. Not only have we lost the rivers, but everything that used to live in them. For Christ’s sake we are using our water to create artificial snow for the skiers.
Water-rights? Thanks to the greed of business and governments, we don’t have any water-rights. Or right to water.
I am going to do a Rumplestiltskin-wasn’t it-who went to sleep for a 100 years. When I come back in three hundred years time; I will find a waterless, therefore featureless dry country with desalination plants dotting the seascape like oil wells off the north coast of Venezuela. There will continue to be enormous a. They will be running out of trees AND water! Wunderbar!

Good night!

Venise

PS: I never thought I’d hear myself saying ‘go nuclear’ but I’ve done it. Voilå. I must be tired all my comments are becoming far too long. Tomorrow I will reform.

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