I am sure that the demand of a carbon tax, will not reduce Co2 and will not create anything except taxes and will not reduce anything except ability of political parties to be intelligent, and have integrity, because they have shown over the last fourty years that they are missing what most people have naturally. For goodness , let us get rid of these gang of unmentionals, and get people in parliament who are intelligent and have integrity. These type of people have over the last fourty years have driven our country down into a recession five or six times, and they are so corrupt that they continue to blame "global" yes we do have a global problem, but it is because all countries have a similar group in their politicial parties.

jm "I hope that it generates some fruitful discussion and is not just another catalyst for the "outraged minority" to exercise their spleens."

over 50% of Australians are now against the tax .. there will be protests in cities for the next few weeks, just the start of the backlash

an "outraged majority" is what you have now ..

the government is about to waste yet more money on advertising to convince the populace that more taxing is what we need, which is sure to fail

this on top of paying various "experts", like Tim Flannery and various others to educate the populace till we understand .. sounds like Russia in the 50's doesn't it

this isn't going to work,

berating people and employing marketing,messaging and various climate standover intellectual pompous types to instill in the stupid public how they are right and they should do as the government says, is just arrogance and a folly for a political party.

it is still a democracy and you can only do the scare tactics, practiced today by senator Milne oh so well, so far before people get fed up with it and rightly or wrongly, turn off and change the government

but, we still have the usual delusion among the alarmists that people WANT to be taxed they want to live with less, when the human condition is to try to improve your standard of living and to give your offspring what you did not have or could not afford

honestly I wonder at the alarmists attitude sometimes, do you have zero understanding of human nature?

Jedimaster - Good to see that you are aware of some of the difficulties, but you drag in points that destroy your own argument, namely China. Oh sure they have a policy but its straight window dressing. See the article by Colleen Ryan in the Australian Financial Review color magazine. Its wild. Apparently the Chinese have a policy that all generators have to have one third of their capacity or some such in wind, so they've got all these wind generators but none of them are hooked up. The grids (the power networks that deliver power to homes and businesses) aren't obliged to take the wind energy (the legal obligation is on the generators) so they don't. So much for China leading the way. They don't mean a word of it.

The bit about PV array manufacturers is certainly true. They are cheap manufacturers exporting the arrays to the west, where they are of limited use at best.

As for the bit about insulation. I'm glad you realise the effect exists, but I forgot a vital point. Whatever marginal (read tiny) effect the carbon tax will have will be lost in general increases in electricity prices. A 50 per cent increase in three years already which has nothing to do with carbon, and more on the way. All the carbon tax will do on top of that is annoy voters for no real change.

What a waste of time.

RPG and Curmudgeon swallow your pride here for a sec and tell what you would do to reduce our carbon foot print? It's very easy to play chicken little and say the world will end if this new tax comes in, much harder to come up with a different plan.

onlookers now watch them both not answer the challenge. I'll bet they'll either say Global warming isn't happening or we shouldn't do anything anyway....so predictable.

Curmudgeon

I'm glad to see that you're starting to get into the swing of referencing your assertions- baby steps at first- "the Financial Review Colour magazine". At least it wasn't the Australian colour magazine. Next, try some source that is peer reviewed or at least researched by someone with expertise.

China is chaotic- sure. But an energy -hungry and resourceful place like that won't leave their wind generators idle for long.

I suppose that you have another colour mag that says that China's 150 million sq metres of solar water heaters aren't connected to their bathrooms either. They are in evidence wherever you go in China.

Cheap Chinese PVs -yes, cheap, but not nasty- their top people were trained by our top people. And their exports are becoming part of their "soft power". I was recently in Myanmar where Chinese PV panels are proliferating in the villages.

As to the Jevons effect of home insulation- thank you for your condescension- I was writing about this 30 years ago.

One point of agreement- power costs are increasing due to energy cost increases and the recapitalising crisis caused by successive governments trying to ignore the energy sector, followed by private companies running down assets they bought for a discount. These cost increases at the consumer end will be much greater than the carbon tax, but I bet that the carbon tax will be blaimed for all of the cost increases by the outraged ones.

cornonacob .. I don't deny that man has changed the world and that climate is affected by man, look at land clearing for a start, but do not agree that taxing carbon is the answer, let alone doing something to reduce CO2.

Why do we need to reduce our carbon footprint .. why not CO2? Have you swallowed hook line and sinker the government's propaganda line, do you know anything about the purported science? It's CO2 they are talking about, but our moronic government thinks it's carbon because that sounds better to focus groups, easier to recognize.

So you're a carbon alarmist huh, so how much will this big new tax reduce the temperature?

Come on, swallow your pride and tell us,

Where will the money go .. you don't even know how much it is or how it works .. but I need to swallow my pride and just accept it?

onlookers now watch cornonacob not answer the challenge. I'll bet cornonacob'll either say Global warming is about to destroy us if we don't act NOW and per capita we're a big polluter or it won't affect us personally because the tax is only on polluters....so predictable, like you're not a polluter.

so the stupid word games and challenges aside.

Where do you stand on nuclear power, CO2 free energy? Do tell.. or are you one of the "green jobs are coming and we'll all be rich because of green technologies, any minute now, just wait on there" zealots?

cornonacob, you could easily have called yourself chickenlittle, since you appear to be the governnment's perfect little alarmist, world is ending, must tax for the look of it .. and that's all it is .. the look of it, the tax will do nothing, will not reduce anyone's "carbon footprint" .. I'll pay the tax, but not reduce my lifestyle .. how about you?