Carbon Tax

[connieguy]

Isn't cooling of the north atlantic via the influx of cold water from the melted icecap suppose to interrupt the gulfstream, which warms north europe/northern america, and lead to colder temperatures in that area?

That is one theory but from what I have read there is little evidence of that happening so far. When the Greenland Ice Sheet starts to melt big time (probably take 100 years), there may be enough fresh water being discharged to disrupt the Atlantic conveyor.

The main worry is how rapidly and in what volume the Methane will be released once the Arctic ice cap melts out in the hotter and hotter Arctic summers. No one really knows the rate or level, just that it can't be stopped from happening.

This is sort of like Nasa discovering a 200 km wide asteroid on collision course with earth in 10 years. The pity / irony is that we have enough technology to detect it and to estimate what will happen when it hits but not enough technology to stop it hitting. Sure some will say lets spend every penny we have to stop it, but the reality is we can't and should spend the money on survival. Don't get me wrong here, I'm not saying the next 100 years will be like that asteroid hitting as that would be wrong. There will be negative effects but with planning, we should adopt and survive OK. There may, however be a few more boats heading for Australia. Coastal defense may need to have a few more dollars spent on it as border protection will be more important as we become one of the haves and the have nots want to join us or have what we have for themselves.

 

[Limewood]

What Julia and her green friends are attempting is such a minute drop in a bucket, with other huge polluting counties not following and not likely to, its crazy.

 

[Moody]

What Julia and her green friends are attempting is such a minute drop in a bucket, with other huge polluting counties not following and not likely to, its crazy.

No. What is crazy is the fact that people who can apparently type are not able to read. Please list all the countries that have no policy on CO2 emissions or have explicitly said they will do nothing to curb them.

BTW - do you pay tax? If so - why do you bother?

 

[connieguy]

What Julia and her green friends are attempting is such a minute drop in a bucket, with other huge polluting counties not following and not likely to, its crazy.

With what is happening in the Arctic, I doubt it will ever see the light of day come 1 July 2012. Plenty of time for the message that it is too late to stop the ice cube melting to get out.

 

[Limewood]

No. What is crazy is the fact that people who can apparently type are not able to read. Please list all the countries that have no policy on CO2 emissions or have explicitly said they will do nothing to curb them.

BTW - do you pay tax? If so - why do you bother?

Oh some have policies but will do nix about it.

Quote Wall Street Journal...
"Carbon cap and trade is dead in America, the Chicago emissions trading exchange has folded, and European nations keep fudging on their Kyoto Protocol promises. "

 

[connieguy]

No. What is crazy is the fact that people who can apparently type are not able to read. Please list all the countries that have no policy on CO2 emissions or have explicitly said they will do nothing to curb them.

BTW - do you pay tax? If so - why do you bother?

Had the entire world starting doing something when Kyoto was signed, maybe we would have had a chance at stopping the ice cube floating in the Arctic Sea from melting out during hotter and hotter Arctic summers. Now it is too late. It is irreversible. We did too little, too late. No use pointing fingers now.

Australian water, food, energy and real border security are now the issues which need to be addressed by Australian politics. Wonder what the pollies, on all sides, will have to say about those topics?

 

[awilcockson]

So if you claim you can’t afford ten bucks a week, I call Shenanigans,

All well and good. If it was an absolute certainty that it was only going to cost me $10/week AND it could be shown that it was actually going to have any positive impact on climate change, I'd be all for it.

Unfortunately, nobody has convinced me on either point.

 

[medhead]

Oh some have policies but will do nix about it.

Quote Wall Street Journal...
"Carbon cap and trade is dead in America, the Chicago emissions trading exchange has folded, and European nations keep fudging on their Kyoto Protocol promises. "

Except many US states are doing something. Last time I looked Chicago wasn't a country. Europe - So claims the WSJ, where is the proof?

If that is all you have it is pretty weak evidence.

 

[connieguy]

All well and good. If it was an absolute certainty that it was only going to cost me $10/week AND it could be shown that it was actually going to have any positive impact on climate change, I'd be all for it.

Unfortunately, nobody has convinced me on either point.

The ice cap is losing around 1,000 km^3 of ice every year. That is a block of ice 1 km wide, 1 km high and 1,000 km long. Spending A$10 per week (starting 1 July 2010) will not have any effect on the rate or acceleration of ice loss. Just taking the current rate of ice volume loss, which is accelerating, the Arctic should be virtually ice free in the summer of 2015:



Likewise atmospheric CH4, Methane, is rapidly increasing, about 6 times greater increase than CO2 from the base in the 1800s:



Methane has, over it's ~25 year life, about 72 times the climate forcing as does CO2. The current level is ~2,000 ppb or 2 ppm. This generates an effective value, in CO2 terms, of ~144 ppm of CO2. As CO2 is currently ~395 ppm that means Methane is currently responsible for about 1/3 of the warming as is generated by CO2.

While the focus has been on CO2, the real 600 lb gorilla in the room is Methane, which is concentrated over the Arctic:



And is one of the reasons the Arctic Ice Cap is rapidly melting away before our eyes:



There is nothing we can do to stop the Arctic Ice Cap from melting out in the hotter and hotter Arctic summers, nor can we stop the increasing release of Methane from the once frozen Arctic permafrost and sea bed stores.

When Methane reaches 5 ppm, it will be responsible for as much warming as CO2 at 360 ppm. Once we get there, in a few years, Methane will then take over from CO2. Or basically we can now emit as much CO2 as we wish, because we have allowed the Arctic Ice Cap to melt enough to open Pandora's box of Methane release.

So save you money to spend on water, food and border security taxes.

 

[gumpy]

Yep everyone, sustainability is the issue. How we going to feed, power, house 9 billion humans in 2050... =(

 

[connieguy]

Yep everyone, sustainability is the issue. How we going to feed, power, house 9 billion humans in 2050... =(

That will not happen. It is more about how to sustain Australia's 25 million while the worlds population shrinks by several billion and many see Oz as a nice place to live. I mean access to food and water come way before access to shelter and the other nice bits of our culture. Unlike most other nations, we are basically self contained.

 

[oz_mark]

Yep everyone, sustainability is the issue. How we going to feed, power, house 9 billion humans in 2050... =(

We can't, and toward the end of this century when various supplies start running out (phosphate for example), the population will fall off. Then things will get really messy.

 

[connieguy]

We can't, and toward the end of this century when various supplies start running out (phosphate for example), the population will fall off. Then things will get really messy.

We are hitting many more brick walls:



Continual growth is a myth. We all know there is a limit where continual growth is / will be constrained. I guess most of the world's politicians and multi national CEOs just hope it is not reached on their watch.

 

[gumpy]

That will not happen. It is more about how to sustain Australia's 25 million while the worlds population shrinks by several billion and many see Oz as a nice place to live. I mean access to food and water come way before access to shelter and the other nice bits of our culture. Unlike most other nations, we are basically self contained.

you don't feel the world population will grow? many people and organisations are predicting 9 billion by 2050, which is a rather scary thought...

 

[gumpy]

We are hitting many more brick walls:

View attachment 3327

Continual growth is a myth. We all know there is a limit where continual growth is / will be constrained. I guess most of the world's politicians and multi national CEOs just hope it is not reached on their watch.

Oh yeah you can't keep growing and when resources run low there will be wars... but many are reasonably confident that it'll be 9 billion by 2050...

 

[oz_mark]

Oh yeah you can't keep growing and when resources run low there will be wars... but many are reasonably confident that it'll be 9 billion by 2050...

The idea of limitless growth is one that at some point in time is going to have to be abandoned. One just needs to look at history to see that every species that has ever gone into an over population state has eventually come unstuck.

Basically the world is heading towards a situation where food, water and energy are going to start becoming in short supply. Australia's challenge, being reasonably self contained, may be to defend itself, and keep its population under control as the situation worsens.

I don't think this will happen before 2050 though!

 

[connieguy]

you don't feel the world population will grow? many people and organisations are predicting 9 billion by 2050, which is a rather scary thought...

Sure for a while, until the effects of having no Arctic ice cap during the summer months starts to kick in. Just look at Africa, where mothers are making babies to die. Crazy world which will just keep on doing what it did last year, just with more of us to do it.

Anyway the Arctic ice cap knows or thinks about nothing. It just accelerates it's melting rate from the hyper GW and positive feed back loop effects at the North pole. Just like trying to stop population increase, we can't stop that ice cube from melting, nor can we stop the resultant Methane release.

What we can do, however, is to plan for a world where access to food and water is something people will fight and die for. Being an island, we do have certain advantages in protecting our borders. Hopefully we also have the necessary public + political will and physical ability to do so.

Yes it could get messy.

 

[Limewood]

Was at a 50th birthday party recently, during conversation with a group there, not one understood what this carbon tax is about or believed once funds collected could not trust any Govt. of what they would do with it, and price increases in future for that matter.

And if we produce less (polluting) coal for instance, the rest of the world will too" or will other producers take up the slack?

 

[connieguy]

Was at a 50th birthday party recently, during conversation with a group there, not one understood what this carbon tax is about or believed once funds collected could not trust any Govt. of what they would do with it, and price increases in future for that matter.

And if we produce less (polluting) coal for instance, the rest of the world will too" or will other producers take up the slack?

China, India and the rest of Asia will not stop building coal fired power plants. If Aussie coal, with the carbon tax applied is more expensive than coal from another supplier, well you know whose coal those power plants will burn. Not ours.

 

[Limewood]

China, India and the rest of Asia will not stop building coal fired power plants. If Aussie coal, with the carbon tax applied is more expensive than coal from another supplier, well you know whose coal those power plants will burn. Not ours.

So same amount of coal same amount of pollution, wonder if anyone has told Julia & Bob