So here's the comment:
Its seems this argument is a little shallow as it does not look at all the areas inluding historical factors - people in austrlia and around the world listen to so-called scientists who claim they can foretell the future when our economists could foretell the gfc, we cant even see 2 years in front of us - here we are bantering over a point less tax - which is a band aid solution as with all and most austrlian solutions - short term. if you understand the human physiology it is not difficult to understand that reward is far more plausible than punishment. We do it do our kids and pets when they are growing up - this leads to autonomous behavior which means the government can focus on larger projects/ developments. The other interesting topic I find is that the general public don't pickup history books and learn do THEIR own research and try gasp the so called climate issue. As you may learn the earth over periods of years (thousands of years) goes through cycles hot and cold. The more solar activity we have the more earth quakes and volcanic activity we have. None of which is controller able. If you think you can control it - you're greatly mistaken. A volcano can simply run for 10 days straight and product more harmful chemicals and natural co2 than an entire country of several years.
Folks like everything, make and informed decision - unlike your last election - based on hopes of change aka USA and Australia labor party.
great example - is this NBN - I've asked a lot of under 25 year old who and why they voted for in the last election here in Oz. their response - Labor - Why? cause im gonna get faster internet..." that is an uninformed decision.
Education is key!
Good luck researching folks.
And here's my response:
My argument doesn’t go into depth about climate change because there are hundreds of scientists, universities, research bodies and governments who have done that for me*. The vast majority of experts in the field of climate change have unanimously agreed that it is anthropogenic and that if we don’t do something about it soon, we are going to have a real problem on our hands.
The main argument against anthropogenic global warming comes from a mathematician with no formal scientific qualifications and – most recently – a retired palaeontologist with no expertise in the field of climate change. A lot of encouragement is also given by newspapers with a shameless and obvious agenda.
I think evaluating scientists based on the performance of economists is a strange link to make. It’s a bit like saying “how can you trust taxi drivers when bakers all over the country continue to burn my bread?” The professions aren’t linked by any universal web of relativity…that I know of.
In saying that, however, I have to defend our capable economists, because if you would have had a look at economic reports before the GFC, you would have noticed plenty of warnings about sub-prime loans and the way the system was structured. Australia has always had one of the world’s highest regulatory systems in place (hip hip to economists), which is why, to some degree, it was buffered from the worst effects. Naturally things are always better with hindsight and no economist pretends to achieve 100% accuracy, they do work with models after all.
However if you really don’t believe that economists can offer fair predictions, than I wonder why you don’t keep your money tucked away in a sock drawer? You must be aware that all financial modelling done by banks (including how the money in your savings account is invested) is performed under the advice of economists, as is the RBA’s monetary policy…and so far we all seem to be doing quite well.
The tax is not pointless. It’s not a perfect solution and it certainly isn’t as effective as an Emission Trading Scheme would be, however it will turn into one so problem solved.
I’m also not sure that you understand the structure of the tax and the ETS – the whole idea is to provide companies with economic incentives to switch to cleaner means of energy.
Whenever a company cuts down on carbon emissions it saves money by avoiding the tax. Reward. When the ETS comes in, companies that fall below their permit amount will be able to sell their left-over permits to other companies for money. Reward. Some media outlets have been spinning it pretty hard as a ruthless punishment and a way to run various industries into the ground, but that’s simply not true. The companies most affected by the tax will receive help from the government, but will also have a good fiscal reason to switch up the way they view their business.
The thing is, whether or not you believe the overwhelming amount of evidence to support anthropogenic climate change, you have to be aware that fossil fuels are running out and the switch to renewable energy is going to have to happen at some point. The tax is very small scale, but the point is that it’s a start. If structured well, the ETS will make a much bigger impact and it is a long-term solution aimed at changing behaviour. If there is a better option out there I’d love to hear about it, right now the carbon tax and the ETS are the best things going round. Mr Abbott’s idea of throwing money at selected industries and hoping that it’ll affect the future is the definition of short-sightedness – even his own party can see that.
Reading history books is great – knowledge is power and all that – but if you’d like an informed view on climate change you need to read the reports that are released on the topic. You simply cannot hope to understand the complexities of climate science by reading up on ice ages or even previous CO2 fluctuations. There are thousands of various factors involved (including the relatively recent introduction of humans) and hundreds of scientists have dedicated their lives to understanding them.
And you couldn’t be more wrong about volcanoes. According to studies performed by Gerlach (1991), Varekamp (1992), Allard (1992), Sano and Williams (1996), Marty and Tolstikhin (1998) and Gerlach (2011) among many, many others, volcano eruptions are insignificant in terms of this debate. On average, all of the world’s volcanoes release between 0.15 and 0.26 gigaton of CO2 per year (these are the most generous estimates…most experts have recorded a far lower number), whereas the anthropogenic CO2 emissions for 2010 (too early for this year) were 35 gigaton (so about 80-270 times more). In one year. So the compounding effect takes volcanoes out of any serious global warming discussions.
I can’t speak for the 25 year-olds you interviewed, but I do agree that a large part of the electorate (of all ages) doesn’t understand the issues or policies and runs with popular opinion – which switches from time to time. It is a shame that there isn’t more political dialogue going on.
Also I just wanted to say thanks for commenting, even if I don’t agree with all of your views I really do appreciate you sharing them.
*I'm too lazy to include links to the most influential and comprehensive of the reports and findings, however Wikipedia has strung together a pretty good list of scientific bodies et al. and it's a great starting point if you're interested in some further reading.
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