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The Forum > Article Comments > Government should lead the way > Comments

Government should lead the way : Comments

By Michael Sullivan, published 15/9/2010

All levels of government in Australia need to take the lead and show Australians the way to reduce their carbon footprint.

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I have to agree on the issue of travel by politicians. They either don't get it or excuse themselves on the basis of offsets or the belief they are bringing wisdom to the benighted masses. We often see Bob Brown one minute in Canberra and the next minute looking groovy and green at the Hobart waterfront. However quite a few tonnes of CO2 were added to the atmosphere between time. No doubt Sen. Brown thinks tree planting offsets or similar somehow suck up that CO2. The problem is that the European Union no less thinks carbon sink offsets are temporary. Whether the kind of offsets they do approve are any better is another story.

Therefore I suggest Bob Brown operate out of a block of flats in Queanbeyan for eleven months a year. He can communicate with his constituents (if senators have those) via 100 megabit per second broadband which no doubt soon can transmit in 3D with digital seagulls flying around a waterfront backdrop. Practise what you preach.
Posted by Taswegian, Wednesday, 15 September 2010 9:51:11 AM
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If you were honest, Taswegian, I think you'd have to admit that Bob Brown is one of that smallest carbon emitters in the federal parliament. He has a small self-drive car in Canberra which he uses instead of a large chaufferred comcar, and only a mean-minded clot would deny him, or any other politician, the right to spend time in the electorate and at home. I can't recall any reports of him travelling overseas, although I could be wrong on this.

I agree with the author that politicians should do far more to reduce governments' carbon footprints, especially as so much would come with cost savings. For example, the cars provided to politicans and public servants should be turned over every 60,000 or 80,000 kilometres, instead of the current 40,000km. Half the carbon cost of a car is expended in its manufacture, and there would be further savings if politicians and public servants were the sole designated drivers of their cars and their petrol bill was paid according to a formula based on the size of their electorate or their sphere of work. Cars need to be seen as a privilege not a right, as they are now.

Overseas travel should be limited to Ministers and shadow Ministers with genuine international responsibilities.
Posted by Candide, Wednesday, 15 September 2010 10:43:16 AM
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Michael - just what recent election are you talking about? Granted the environment played a big part in the '07 election, but the issue had noticeable cooled (pun intended) by the recent poll. You will note that the coalition got back a lot of seats, but Gillard somehow managed to persuade naturally conservative leaning independents to support her rather than Abbott. The vote for the greens was more of a section of Labor voters with green inclinations shifting to that party, rather than a major shift in the electorate as such. After all, the coalition nearly won or was the vote count manufactured by the mass media?
Your article would have had a great deal more credibility if you had explained away this near win rather than simply asserting that somehow the result was a further endorsement of green policies.
As for the bit about governments at all levels leading the way on the environment, actually they are. Most government car fleets, for example, already have emission and fuel consumption policies in place. Greens would argue this could be more, of course, but they may well be doing more than the private sector.
In most other fields you will find the same effect, with one of the reasons being the government sector has money to spend (not their own) on that stuff.
Posted by Curmudgeon, Wednesday, 15 September 2010 11:44:48 AM
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"Australians are sick of our per capita carbon footprint..."

Absolutely! I am sick to death of other people cooking their food and heating their homes and travelling to their places of work! I am totally opposed to other people watching TV and going to concerts and flying off on holidays! I am violently against other people having showers and listening to music! They should all stop it at once!

Why, if this goes on much longer there won't be any energy left to run my computer...
Posted by Jon J, Wednesday, 15 September 2010 2:17:08 PM
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Michael, you are spot on about leading by example. In my view all government car fleet managers should be asked to draw up transition plans to have all electric car fleets by 2020.

Look at the carbon neutral, waste neutral and water self-sufficiency design features of the Lend Lease Baragaroo project and ask government planners are architects to take these concepts on board for all new public buildings.

Yes we can replace our dinosaur footprints with gekko trails provided we can apply visionary leadership to a strategic, well executed delivery plan.
Posted by Quick response, Wednesday, 15 September 2010 3:10:05 PM
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Michael Sullivan
I think you should lead the way. You could start by cutting out your use of fossil fuels and electricity, and anything grown, manufactured or transported with them. After all, what is your little enjoyment compared to the greater good of The Planet?
Posted by Sienna, Wednesday, 15 September 2010 4:39:09 PM
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If the author was serious about acting in the national interest, he would recommend that governments review the veracity of socalled climate change science. This would show that climate science is not settled, that there is no irrefutable scientific proof that greenhouse gases are the driver of climate change, and that there is absolutely no need for proposing carbon taxes or an ETS.
Posted by Raycom, Thursday, 16 September 2010 12:09:08 AM
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What genuinely perplexes me is why the author, clearly an intelligent man, acts as if CO2 is a major problem.

An intelligent man asks for the evidence that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are causing Global Warming and inevitably will find, if he bothers to look, that concerns about CO2 causing warming are based solely on unsubstantiated assumptions about positive feedbacks included in the models. There is NO evidence. NO proof for this. Just assumptions. And when we test these assumptions, we find that there are compelling arguments that the feedbacks are neutral, or very possibly negative.

If that is the case, then all this worry about CO2 is for nought. And now we have Marius Kloppers of BHP, presumably another intelligent man, carrying on as if CO2 is the problem. As if he has proof. My challenge to Michael and Marius is: Show me the PROOF regarding the positive feedback assumptions. When you show me the proof, I will join you in the worry queue
Posted by Herbert Stencil, Thursday, 16 September 2010 6:13:37 AM
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Marius Kloppers has no scientific proof that AGW is the driver of climate change. He is simply making an assertion. Hopefully, there will be a decline in the number of national leaders who share his flawed, or rather lack of, thinking , so that a pro-AGW world order will not come to fruition.

In the meantime BHP stakeholders should be concerned, if Kloppers'corporate decision making usually is based on "gut feel" rather than evidence-based policy.
Posted by Raycom, Thursday, 16 September 2010 11:44:28 AM
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Marcus Kloppers statements are puzzling, considering that anyone who has looked at it knows that the argument rests on feedback mechanisms in the models which are simply assumed.. as previous posters have noted.. to claim that its settled at this late date with temperatures actually falling rather than rising is quite bizarre..
Posted by Curmudgeon, Thursday, 16 September 2010 12:00:29 PM
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The government leadership we need in this country is leadership like that shown by shown by the government of the Czech Republic.

This is the only nation which tells its population the truth about the AGW fraud.

As a result, 89% of the citizens know and believe that anthropogenic global warming is a fraud. They know that carbon dioxide is a benign gas.

Strangely, 11% still believe in AGW, but considering that in Australia, we have 12% of our electorate so fouled up in their thinking that they vote for the greens, the figures are not surprising. The lies told by our government only make 1% difference to the proportion of the really deranged
Posted by Leo Lane, Thursday, 16 September 2010 8:32:14 PM
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I am sick to death of being shamed into a smaller & smaller carbon footprint so the Bank's & Chamber of 'too big to fail' Commerce's Labor & Coalition Governments can immigrate 500,000 MORE footprints every year to basically push me,Blinky Bill and our environment out & take our place.

What kind of nation is this where failure polititians like Maxine Mckew order the population to use more energy, take more risks and immigrants so we can become a more VIBRANT nation for her to ponce around and try to get reelected in. Maxine also advocates everyone using less energy to make room for her new immigrant, and thus beholden electors.

I had an islamic Origin energy rep tell me he can save me 10% on my electricity after Keneally jacks it up 40%. After he was told to go and came back 3 times I figured I'm getting electricity slugged to pay for the generator infrastructure to support his family taking over my home when he brings them all out here.

They'd all vote Keneally no matter how corrupt and diaphenous Labor has become whereas I won't.

Isn't that what using less ENERGY is REALLY about. A silent invasion of Australia as dopey polititians hand pick their electorates for THEIR ideal Australia.

The post on what motivates suicide bombers starts to make sense with this current crop of 'sell-us-out' politicians.

Trouble is, they'll be looking the other way when the mining states secede & leave what remains of federal australia to be picked over by multicultural militant power blocs.

The Second-Law-Of-Thermodynamics states : "the less energy you use,the greater the disorder(thermodynamic equilibrium)"
Posted by KAEP, Friday, 17 September 2010 5:13:14 PM
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*Mirror Mirror on the wall who's the cleverest,in this clever country, of them all?

#Why Clive Palmer and Dick Smith of course your majesty.

*I smash you mirror. NO They CAN'T. This is NOT moving Forward!

#Why, your Highness? They can divide this country in two and leave you with nothing but a bun-fight and international disgrace and ridicule.

*A pox on them! Where's my Poison apples? >

To be Continued,
Posted by KAEP, Friday, 17 September 2010 6:31:53 PM
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I just love it when the interlectual minnows, in this instance climate change deniers, self identify. I, for one, would be trying to hide my association with the great thinkers of the world like Andrew Bolt, really I would!

You all obviously have never spent even a minute in Beijing, Shanghai, or so many of the lesser known but more polluted cities of China. You all have obviously never given one moments consideration to the 100,000,000 residents of China that will die prematurely because of lung disease caused by the air they breathe every day, not caused by smoking. This just might have nothing to do with global warming, and all to do with breathing clean air.

You all might be able to bandy around big words like "anthropogenic", but that doesn't mean that you can think about the arguments in play, be they global warming or anything else, for that matter.
Posted by Salbei, Saturday, 18 September 2010 8:12:09 AM
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Salbei, learn the difference between pollution, which is a concern we all share, and human emissions of carbon dioxide.

Assertions in relation to this benign gas, referring to it as "carbon pollution", form the basis of an attempted fraud, on an unprecedented scale.

The UN wants us taxed for breathing, and for driving our cars, and for producing energy to sustain our lifestyle, and for anything else that produces carbon dioxide.

Yes, the IPCC throw around words like "anthropogenic", in an effort to make themselves sound legitimate and authoritative, and I understand your impatience with that.

When you see the distinction, you will be capable of a relevant and constructive observation in this discussion.

There is an increased volume of CO2 in the atmosphere, which has consequences like the greening of millions of hectares of the Sahara Desert, previously unproductive sand. The warmeciles want to call it "pollution"
Posted by Leo Lane, Saturday, 18 September 2010 8:58:25 AM
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