"We must recognise the virtual consensus in the global scientific community that global warming is real, and that carbon emissions by human beings contributes to this."

...aaand - bang! there we go off the rails. Do you know how your so-called consensus was obtained? By soliciting voluntary responses and then filtering out all but a tiny minority who happened to agree with the alarmists. Do you know that most geologists don't support the AGW hypothesis, and that over 5000 peer-reviewed papers opposing it have been published? See

http://petesplace-peter.blogspot.com/2008/04/peer-reviewed-articles-skeptical-of-man.html

for starters.

What we 'must' do is follow the evidence. Provide some genuine evidence first, and then we will see.

Another of game of follow the denialist's favourite blogs and shock-jocks.

Er, right ... no thanks.

Tristan,

You can be relied on to punt the Labor line without deviation.

Your complete lack of any economic qualifications enables you to believe in socialism and the merits of the carbon tax.

The carbon tax is "broadly revenue neutral" just as Madonna is broadly still a virgin, and Juliar Gillard is broadly honest.

I get the impression that our exported resources are more a restriction to our economy rather than a benefit, the reciprocal imports are destroying our own manufacturing industries and the coal seam gas exports, destroying much of the underground water that is needed by many farmers and grazers. The reciprocal imports of all the goods our factories had been manufacturing, do not bode well for those factories. The low price asked for our coal and other resources, does not correspond with the value of the products which are manufactured from them. We would be better off with manufacturing our own trains, Cars and trucks, and all those articles that our importers are bringing into the country destroying our own work. I admit I do not have a view of any respect of any political party, and am hoping for a party coming into the government with views and actions that I can respect. There are too many other cases of natural warming to contend that human action is creating enough to blaim ourselves for this buildup. The coal and other resources exports could be stopped with additional benefit to our fight against global warming.

The Gillard Govt and their feeble Astrogarnaut advisors havn't a clue about alternative baseload energy options.

Any carbon tax should have been already underwritten by huge and successful investments and implementations of GEOTHERMAL and even Nuclear power stations. There is nothing ... nothing!

To assume these new baseload technologies will self create is nonsense. You have to work the science. And you must pay for that.

What I am seeing (and smelling) is that people are reverting to wood fires and even coal for heating. The winter air stinks from Sydney to the Blue mnts and ovber the ranges. And if you wipe your TV screen with a white cloth you will see a shiny grey residue of dust that is a new penomenon related to the very unhealthy use of biofuels and other fuel adulterates especially in big trucks.

What will happen as carbon is taxed is that corporations and homes will offload their energy bills onto unclean, unregulated power sources like coal and wood and poisonous/cheap liquid fuels. There is no way the government can stop this black market and it is going to make the carbon tax a flop along with huge increases in hospital admissions, subsequent health costs and most likely many deaths. The most vulnerable will as always be the very young and the elderly. Those who don't pay tax! So inevitably the Labor/Liberal Governments has nothing to lose politically in continuing to use the carbon tax as a revenue and let Australians poison this nations' airsheds in a way that escapes international condemnation.

Why? because they have NO realistic framework or answers to future energy options and they NEVER will while they continue to worship at the altar of a GFCII, sad, declining greenback $US dollar bill.

The entire immigration based Australian state and federal Westminster-government system is a DINOSAUR waiting for its imminent Chifleysaurus extinction.

The author is at least right on one point, that once a carbon tax is in place people will forget that its there - mostly. But they will blame it for the big electricity bills they have to pay every quarter, whether that blame is justified or not.

My main objection has always been why are we doing this? In attempting to justify this policy, activists often try to claim that China and India have carbon taxes. China has proposed one, but there is major doubt about whether it would have any effect given the government has trouble enforcing existing tax laws. India has a tiny per-tonne tax on coal (called a carbon tax). The US state schemes are all limited and far from stringent. The European scheme has a major design flaw in allowed polluters to buy overseas credits..

In other words there is no concerted international action to reduce carbon, nor is there likely to be. In the absence of such a regime, our carbon tax is completely pointless, at least from the point of view of actually making a difference.

What does the greenhouse effect have to do with the 'Socialist Left' of Labor or of any other faction of any political party? Unfortunately the answer is now all too clear. The new measures to counteract that effect are yet another socialist excuse for redistributing wealth. So why stop there? Why not introduce progressive pricing for everything? Or progressive wages for every occupation? Or progressive interest rates? (I was a very unhappy victim of the last time that happened.)

If I sound a bit on the sour side, let me mention that ever since I briefly held the position of advocate for a small public sector union and had to study wage relativities carefully, I have watched every single wage, taxation, fiscal etc measure include an attempt to redistribute wealth from the rich to the poor. That was 43 years ago. And we are still not there yet. What is needed to make the Tristans of the world happy? That's the question that everyone should be asking of our left wing politicians and commentators. Then we might know what we are up against.

In the mean time, let's acknowledge that the cost of energy is going to increase if emissions are to be reduced. And that increase will flow into the cost of everything we own and do, as night follows day. Get used to it. If politicians want to charge different amounts to different folk, the rational approach would be to charge most to the people making the loudest demands to see carbon emissions reduced. I guess that means the Socialist Left will head the list.

Curmudgeon, I think I know why we are doing this. I could be wrong here, but I'm pretty sure it's to give people like you the shiz.

Looks like it could be working too.

Bugsy - its a thought but I have come to the regretful conclusion that the world does not revolve around me..

In any case I'm not so much annoyed as puzzled, or perhaps exasperated..

Tombee;

The point is that for decades redistribution has been going on to the detriment of the poor, and of average income earners.

This includes the structure of the tax system, labour market deregulation, and the impact of privatisation and user pays.

It's also in the context of a falling wage share of the economy.

The trend has continued under both Labor and Liberal governments.

So your premises are false - Redistribution in favour of the poor and average workers would be a correction to the opposite trend - which has been going on decades.

For more info see: http://leftfocus.blogspot.com/2011/06/double-standards-when-its-comes-to-talk.html

Definition of EXASPERATE (www.merriam-webster.com)

transitive verb
a : to excite the anger of : enrage
b : to cause irritation or annoyance to

Looks like I was right.

Again.

Three Blind Mice

See how they run ....

Watch out for the farmer's wife!

Jon J:

Did you even read any of the peer-reviewed articles in the link you provided? Not one of them challenges AGW theory in their synopsis.

And as regards to your claim that "most geologists don't support the AGW hypothesis", try reading this from the Geological Society of London:

http://www.geolsoc.org.uk/webdav/site/GSL/groups/ourviews_edit/public/Climate%20change%20-%20evidence%20from%20the%20geological%20record.pdf

And this from their American counterpart:

http://www.geosociety.org/positions/position10.htm

Your information is based on false assertions made by non-credible sources

Correct TrashcanMan.

JonJ does the same as Ian Plimer - cites numerous peer reviewed papers and articles hoping that no one actually looks at them. If they do, hopes that they don't understand them.

If they did then the so called 'sceptics' and 'deniers' house of cards crumble.

Couldn't help but burst out in raucus laughter when one of the 1st of JonJ's peer reviewed articles challenging AGW was co-authored by Stefan Rahmstorf.

That's right, the same Professor Stefan Rahmstorf who is a contributing author from Real Climate:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/stefan-rahmstorf/

Yep, JonJ's link is a complete farce, imho.

The tax compensation package is mostly smoke and mirrors. Tristan has made the same error as many commentators and ignored the changes to the Low Income Tax Offset. The LITO is $1500 and will reduce to $445 next year which has the effect of reversing many of the tax changes announced.
Essentially, people earning between $18000 and $70000 will pay about $6 a week less tax next year although those earning $20000 to $26000 will pay a little less again.
The situation changes radically when you adjust for 2.5% inflation. Those earning $18000 to $36000 still pay about $6 a week less tax but everyone else gets gets virtually no tax relief or pays more tax.
The tax package is good in that low income earners get some tax relief but the majority get no compensation or pay more.
I would think that the government will get even more income tax with this package before we even consider the money raised from CO2 emissions.

Now that the rest of the world are waking up to the fact that anthropogenic global warming is a con, and therefore not justifying any CO2 emission reduction action, Labor and the Greens are pressing ahead with a carbon tax. What did we do to deserve such a crazy reaction!