So this character is arguing that while there's no tax it's costing money "to reduce emissions". How? It doesn't cost me a cent because I haven't bought the crappy argument that there is a need to cut emissions.

And, he says, when you have a carbon tax in place, you either pay the tax or you don't use energy (and thus "save" money).

As a philosopher, this guy ought to know the word SOPHISTRY.

No Ken, Sophistry is using rhetoric to "oppose" all solutions just because their sugar daddies will lose their cash cows.
"Direct action" is poli-speak just like Fox News is "fair and balanced".
Just months ago all the Liberal power brokers publicly backed the line that "Climate Change is cr*p".
Why have they changed this tune?
Because the rest of the world is not in thrall of the misinformation campaign that the west has been subjected to, and our pollies, even the conservatives, realise they look like ignorant hicks by continuing the "GW is a myth" rubbish.
When the US military takes it seriously, as does all big business with more than a 10 year planning horizon, as does the leading national experts in *every major country*...yes, only bloggers and industry marketeers can pretend that "GW is cr*p" now.
It's a bit like the moon landing "hoax". Millions still believe it, but hundreds of engineers, amateur astronomers and ham radio operators around the world *know* it can't be faked.
It seems that no matter how much knowledge is out there, some folks will always find is advantageous to spruik for ignorance.
The Libs (and Labour these days) will spout whatever their paymasters want them to. Pretty obvious that a highly profitable energy industry wants the rest of us to pay for their industry to be modernised...Can't blame them for trying but, like bankers, they don't deserve $M handouts.

You must have an odd dictionary, Ozandy. Mine defines sophistry as 'a subtle, tricky, superficially plausible, but generally fallacious method of reasoning; a false argument'.

Which is pretty much exactly what KenH - accurately - identified Michael's opening argument as. If anything, reducing emissions currently saves the consumer money, as the only mechanism to reduce emissions is to reduce consumption, hence reducing spending.

It is entirely plausible to argue that the reverse of Michael's argument is true: with a carbon tax, the consumer will lose money no matter whether they reduce emissions or not. If there is a tax, someone has to pay it: any other argument is truly 'voodoo economics'. Of course, you will argue, the 'big polluters' (presumably electricity generators, etc.) will pay the tax - and they *won't* pass on the cost to their consumers? Spare me.

I had a good chortle at your assertion that the US military believes in it, therefore it MUST be true. Just like the Domino Theory, hey? The US military sure believed in that. Or 'psychic warfare', perhaps? The US military certainly investigated it (however briefly), therefore, as the woo-woo believers assert, it MUST be real.

Ozandy, I suggest you save yourself some future embarrassment and, like many previously hardcore AGW spruikers, and even some recent writers on OLO (like Steven Meyer) and join the climb-down from the Global Warming/Climate Change/Climate Disruption (feel free to use whatever is the currently fashionable terminology) bandwagon. The longer you stay aboard, loudly tooting your vuvuzela, the sillier you'll look when everyone else has slunk away in shamefaced silence.

Clownfish. Perhaps I should have said "the rhetoric being used amounts to sophistry". Either way I know which side of the argument is using sophistry in it's tactics.
Fair cop on the US military...I wouldn't usually use them as an example of wisdom...but they are not always totally insane. I think it was more a high level strategy group that suggested that GW was more of a threat than terrorists.
I will not be "climbing down" anytime soon because I'm working very close the data and the scientists...I see too much real data to suddenly dis-believe my eyes and brain. In the South Pacific the warming signal is pretty strong and the locals are busy trying to adapt. As I see and hear about the implications every day, and it agrees with the rigorous science results (which by their nature are based on data a few years old), I see no reason to doubt the folks I work with. Unlike banking, basic science usually an inherently honest profession as there is little to gain by lying and getting caught.
I agree that some of the proposed solutions are silly...there is a lot of over hyped rubbish from the "sky is falling" brigade. But to argue that GW is not happening is just ignorant flat earth stuff.

Michael Rowan's (philosopher) grasp of economics and the coalition's policy are laughable.

The coalition has ruled out a carbon price until at least Australia's trading partners are implementing something similar, and are until then focusing on improving efficiency, and developing technology.

As for the economics, energy is already a considerable cost for most businesses, and nearly everyone already goes out of their way to conserve. A carbon tax increases the price of power, which for most businesses, industry and farming is one of many cost inputs. The demand for power is very inelastic in the short term, in that no one is going to sell their car, or rebuild their businesses because of a 20% increase in fuel or electricity costs.

The additional costs of business will simply be passed onto the consumer, or the business will close in favour of business in a country like China with no carbon tax. The result is a negligible change in pollution, just shifting production (and pollution overseas)

Sophistry is a good term to use for this article. Philosophically good, but technically vapid.

In December, 2009 Mr Turnbull wrote an article for The Times of London, calling Mr Abbott a ''colourfully self-confessed climate sceptic''. He warned that any policy announced by the Coalition would be ''a con, an environmental figleaf to cover a determination to do nothing''.

That is precisely what Coalition policy climate change has proved to be. What little it proposes to do will be, as one would expect from conservatives, a cost to taxpayers, weather or not they have any involvement in carbon emissions and irrespective of the magnitude of their emissions. Those who escape paying anything are the largest polluters.

Non-scalability of Coalition policy is an important point made by Professor Rowan since the policy would be hard pressed in achieving the nominal bi-partisan target of reducing CO2 emissions by 5% below 2000 levels. If, as is likely, the Australian government comes to its senses and introduces a national reduction target of 25%, Coalition policy would be shown as being unable to deliver and nothing more than a sham.

What else could one expect from a Coalition which comprises the National Party which believes the climate is cooling, that no action is necessary and takes its advice from that known denier of global warming, Ian Plimer. The larger Coalition members is of course the Liberal Party led by Tony Abbott who (in)famously described global warming as “a load of crap” and rather likes the ideas of that fruit-cake Chris Monckton.

The only surprise is that the Coalition has managed to cobble together a collection of disparate ideas which satisfies a majority of its elected members. However the electorate is under no illusions that it represents a serious, cogent and effective policy. It is no such thing.