Climate Scientists Recieve Death Threats

[tripsis]

No "policy" is going to fix our problems. As botanika said, we need to start at the top!

No, we just need to start. We've been procrastinating doing anything of worth for too long and time is not on our side. Any start is a good start, no matter how ineffectual it may appear. The point is to set a precedent and get the ball rolling. But for anything to actually be effective, it has to gain momentum. If we stall, we will pay the consequences.

[Slybacon]

^^^^ I hate the whole something is better than nothing. With this Tax, we might as well be doing NOTHING. "green" image isn't green. Its just an illusion.

Remids me of the episode of southpark with the Hybrid cars.

Edited July 14, 2011 by Slybacon

[tripsis]

Yeah, the tax might not be a good start. I've barely looked into it, so really can't make an informed comment either way. The small amount I've read on it has allowed to me to see at least some of the pros and cons, but how effective it will actually be time will only tell.

My comment was more that working from the top down isn't the only start worth making, rather that we all should be changing our ways to reduce our emissions, instead of relying on someone else doing it for us.

Edit: typo

Edited July 14, 2011 by tripsis

[rahli]

The alternative resource based economy may sound good in theory but I doubt these ideas will be put forward as policies for economic reform at the next election. The choice will be maintaining/tweaking the current low carbon economic reforms or scrapping them in exchange for taxing to reward business as usual. They are the real choices, everything else is a distraction.

[Slybacon]

They are the real choices, everything else is a distraction.

 

Thats true. "real" is pretty fucked up. I don't support any policy, I can't see how policy has fixed more problems then it has caused. In fact I don't vote, you would have bucklies chance of me playing that game. I'd go away in cuffs before I participated in voting for the choices we currently have.

[botanika]

Club of Rome, The First Global Revolution, 1991:

"In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill... But in designating them as the enemy, we fall into the trap of mistaking symptoms for causes. All these dangers are caused by human intervention and it is only through changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome. The real enemy, then, is humanity itself."

Pavlovian conditioning/response indoctrination has been fed to every individual, through schooling. The media then takes over. Peoples' opinions are simply sound-bites from news, talk-shows or quotes from glossy magazines.

Trust replaces the instinct of self-preservation.

Jacque Chirac from 2000, he says, "For the first time, humanity is instituting a genuine instrument of global governance. From the very earliest age, we should make environmental awareness a major theme of education and a major theme of political debate, until respect for the environment comes to be as fundamental as safeguarding our rights and freedoms. By acting together, by building this unprecedented instrument, the first component of an authentic global governance, we are working for dialogue and peace."

They want us to pay. It's about money.

Edited July 14, 2011 by botanika

[qualia]

In fact I don't vote, you would have bucklies chance of me playing that game.

 

sorry man, but if you don't vote you don't have a right to turn around and complain when the elected government does something you don't like.

[qualia]

theres plenty of economic reasons to transition to a low carbon economy. part of that transition includes reducing Australia's emissions output, something which the price on carbon will do. secondly, the money gained from that will go towards renewable/low carbon intensive industries, particularly energy. the world will inevitable move to low carbon trading, thats a given. waiting 10 or 20 years will make it much more expensive. better to begin the transition now, even though i think the starting package is weak (very weak), it leaves room for expansion as needs arise, something which the CPRS never had. yeah it's going to be a shock at first, big changes are. but 10 years on from the GST are we still feeling it? no. same will happen for the CT,

In the lead up to the carbon price announcement, much of the criticism of the scheme has talked about the damage to Australia’s exports. But the move to price carbon could save us from a far worse economic future.

Australians do not need to believe in global warming to have faith in the benefits of carbon pricing. There is a strong case in favour of such measures for Australia, and they don’t have anything to do with fighting climate change.

In fact, there are many are very real benefits from reducing Australia’s extreme dependence on fossil carbon – coal, natural gas and petroleum – as its major source of energy and global “salary”.

The main arguments are rather selfish and really quite simple.

Everyone else is doing it

The recipe for the alternative case beyond climate change is based on three very concrete ingredients and one highly likely condition. Let’s begin with the latter.

Australia’s trading partners generally accept the need to prevent potentially catastrophic impacts of rising CO₂ levels. The level of concern varies across the countries, but our trade is likely to be deeply affected by their strategic actions within five to ten years.

Australia may think that it should be largely immune from such international policies. Don’t do anything rash and our trade – focused upon the sale of carbon-intensive output to the growth dynamos of Asia – will keep the cash flowing in.

Unfortunately, this view ignores the highly interdependent nature of global trade. Strong domestic policies to reduce fossil carbon use and emissions are almost inevitable. They will occur within years across many of the world’s major importing, high-income regions (Europe, the United States, Japan).

These actions will not be taken without careful thought about the consequences. Nations will be very interested in the impacts of their policies upon their own trade competitiveness.

They will also be deeply concerned about their effectiveness in terms of overall global emissions.

In the future, the main issue will be what to do about nations that don’t price carbon.

A carbon tariff will punish laggards

The only real option to level the competition playing field, and ensure global reductions in emissions, is to adopt some form of “carbon tariff” system.

With carbon tariffs, competing imports will be taxed according to their carbon content throughout their full supply chain. This includes the carbon in any imports used in manufacturing.

It won’t be possible for a nation to hide its carbon content. There is currently a flurry of research activity in the development of “global economic input-output” tables. These impressive databases will clearly show economic and accompanying environmental flows between nations.

If a nation exports “embodied” carbon raw materials to a carbon energy producer, or its own production is heavily geared to fossil carbon energy, then it will suffer cost competitiveness and decreased export demand. This will happen regardless of where a country lies in the global production chain.

There have already been strong calls for carbon tariff systems in Europe and the US over the past few years. While they haven’t quite made it yet, you can bet they will form a key part of future national plans for progress towards low-carbon economies.

Our carbon-heavy economy could drag us down

Combine this effective ability to crack down on carbon using accurate accounting and charging systems with two key features of the Australian economy.

Australia is heavily reliant on exports of carbon-based resources and manufactures. And the things we make in Australia for our own consumption are also highly carbon-intensive. This is because we depend on coal-fired electricity generation.

Then, throw in a hefty serving of global peak oil. As global production peaks, prices of petroleum (and hence coal and gas) are likely to rise prohibitively within 5-10 years.

Now, slide it in the stove. With this recipe there is only one positive outlook for Australia if it follows its business-as-usual path. We will have to capitalise on the situation (and intensify our carbon economic addiction) by pushing the sale of our coal (and gas) reserves.

Nations seeking a transformation to sustainable economies would meet this approach with the same reprehension they would have for economies specialising in exporting tobacco, banned medications and pesticides, fuel-inefficient and polluting vehicles, and junk food to children.

And this course may not just be unpopular. With widespread carbon tariffs, it may also be unviable.

Clinging to carbon is a five-fold mistake

To cut a long story short, even if we ignore possible climate change impacts, there are at least five major adverse effects if Australia doesn’t adopt carbon pricing and other forms of concerted related action.

Carbon tariffs and peak oil will push up prices and decrease export competitiveness.

Demand will reduce for Australia’s existing exports as the world’s economies become less dependent upon fossil carbon energy.

There will be poor gains in energy efficiency throughout the entire economy (due to lack of incentives).

The economy will become increasingly inflexible and there will be more barriers to competitive change as we continue to invest in industry, urban and social infrastructure based on fossil carbon energy.

Our fossil carbon dependence will reduce confidence and international capital flows into the Australian economy.

This is a price correction, not an imposition

There are numerous other reasons for both Australia and the rest of the world to avoid getting trapped in an economic system based on unsustainable, non-renewable fossil carbon resources.

One is fossil energy’s swag of negative “externalities”. These are the impacts that are not included in the market price and hence lead to overuse from society’s point of view.

Externalities include the loss or degradation of economically and ecologically productive land, air pollution (other than CO₂) and health effects, hydrological changes, water pollution, oil spills, accidents, ash disposal and disrupted communities.

They span all stages of production and consumption from exploration and open-cut mining, to transport, processing and refining, use and disposal. The latter stages include the environmental, congestion and land use and biodiversity problems associated with urban sprawl.

A 2011 report published in the “Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences” says that coal’s externalities , even without any climate change effects, mean that it should be at least twice its market price.

Indeed, “carbon pricing” is better termed “carbon price correction”. Most alternative renewable sources do not have anywhere near the same levels of externality costs.

Further delays will reinforce the creation of fossil carbon societies in China, India, Indonesia and the suite of other rapid-growth economies. The negative externalities will intensify (perhaps many times) and make major changes towards sustainable economies even more difficult down the track.

http://theconversation.edu.au/why-a-price-on-carbon-is-good-news-for-australian-trade-1764

[Slybacon]

sorry man, but if you don't vote you don't have a right to turn around and complain when the elected government does something you don't like.

 

Lets not go there.....

[WoodDragon]

Is this an example of an ad hominem argument and an appeal to authority?

It depends on what you mean by "this".

Aside from that, there is often confusion about what an ad hominem argument is, and what an appeal to authority is.

At the simplest level an ad hominem argument supposes that a premise is false purely because its proponent suffers from some negative condition - stupidity, prejudice, racial type, or whatever.

An ad hominem argument basically says "you are stupid, therefore I don't believe your claim that the sky is green". However, an argument that goes on long the line of "I don't believe your claim that the sky is green, because science has measured its background diffracted wavelengths and shown that they fall in the range 440–500 nanometres, which is blue - and by the way, you're stupid" is not ad hominem because it refutes the claim based on testable evidence, and only notes the claimant's stupidity as a consequence of the main rebuttal. Another way to state would be to say that if an argument is predicated on an irrelevant and negative characterisation of the person being challenged, then it's ad hominem; if an argument is not predicated on a negative characterisation of the person being challenged, but on relevant counter-evidence, then it is not ad hominem.

An argument from authority is not necessarily a logical fallacy. Argument from authority becomes problematic when the 'authority' appears to be relevantly qualified, but on closer inspection is revealed to be inappropriately qualified. Hence, a professor of sedimentary geology is not necessarily sufficiently informed on radiation physics to be able to sensibly comment on the latter subject. On the other hand, a professor of radiation physics is eminently qualified to comment on radiation physics.

If anyone wants to peruse formal explanations of both subject, I suggest the Wikipedia discussions of ad hominem and argument from authority.

[WoodDragon]

Since talking about smackings-down of Bob Carter just over a day ago, there has been more merciless deconstruction of his pseudoscientific claptrap.

[synchromesh]

sorry man, but if you don't vote you don't have a right to turn around and complain when the elected government does something you don't like.

 

Even if they're making Soylent Green?

Some people have commented in the media wondering why Aus has to do something, when India and China aren't. Do we really want to look at certain other countries in how we should do things? Shouldn't we be better than that? We're surely in a better position fiscally than many others. Certainly even, we don't have a one-child policy, as China does; should we follow them?

 

You act like this country is run by Australians or something...

Edited July 14, 2011 by synchromesh

[FancyPants]

Look I distrust the motives of your average politician too, but since we can't read their minds, we have to go with what we're presented. I don't affiliate with any particular party for this reason (FYI I voted Liberal in state and local election, and Green for federal to help even out the other two). In the cases of our government; I think Liberals have more selfish (big business) motivations than for example the Greens who appear to be driven more from an ecological point of view. I find Abbott appealing to the common Australian household a JOKE. In the case of Labor doing what it is, imperfectly as it may be, it is still something to get the ball rolling. I understand Sly's hatred of that view, but realistically there's no way any other more hardline EFFECTIVE way to reduce carbon emissions is going to appeal to the majority of voters who are thinking no bigger than their wallets. How the hell could anybody from any party sell a policy made to actively and immediately reduce emissions without having to pay for it somehow? WHO'S going to pay???? Someone has to, and since we're all end consumers of varying amounts of junk here and there, how could we not reasonably be expected to pay somewhat for it? Your average impoverished Somalian family shouldn't have to pay for our stereos, cars, plastic bottles, planting pots etc.

Edited July 15, 2011 by FancyPants