The question I would like debated, is how tax can be raised, when it’s included in the CPI, and that is used as the basis for wage increases in our regulated labour market, which has still has the ability to achieve wage increases in line with inflation.
Inflation being, the cost of a basket of “good’s and service’s”, plus the GST "tax”.

As I see it, the domestic labour market gets the benefits of the social wage provided by the "tax" plus a wage rise as well.
This also means domestic business, without import competition also prices their G&S to achieve the same outcome, i.e. an income that rises with cost of G&S plus tax.

I have come to the conclusion, that it is DOUBLE dipping, and actually no consumable wealth is collected. I agree that "$"s is collected, but as the cost of G&S goes up with the tax, particularly tertiary services, the govt is actually in a net situation. This is because it has to “BUY” back the tax when it purchases “G&S”, along with all the compensation that has occurred.

Any modelling I have done shows a result of infinity, unless you “exclude” a section of the economy. (They pay all the tax then)

I have excluded any productivity improvement, as the benefit from this should be shared by all members of the community.

Unless someone can show me a “model’ as to how this works, it means that the tax is actually transferred to the agriculture export sector, depriving them of the ability to re-invest in the land. The rest of the economy really only has a book entry for the tax, a $ in, and a $ out. (Lets leave out the overhead cost’s to employing at the moment)

Maybe this should be the first reform in environment management

These changes should have the support of any hard-core environmentalists as it will return wealth to the land.

Govt will never be able to fund it, let along manage the environment so any expectation that will ocurr is pie in the sky stuff

Mollydukes,

There is no conspiracy to hide the truth about previous warm periods from us but there has been a concerted effort to re-write the history and science of previous warm periods. You should check out the controversy over the Mann Hockey Stick, how it was seized upon by the IPCC because it suited the politics if not the truth and how it has been defended in the face of overwhelming counter-evidence.

It makes things pretty simple if you decide that only "those who have the ‘right’(?) type of human nature" can understand the faith. By definition anyone who disputes the faith is the wrong type - heretics. Maybe we should burn them at the stake! But we can't do that - all that carbon being released to the atmosphere would be disastrous. Damn.

Mark, what is the difference between a ‘concerted effort’ and a ‘conspiracy’?

Re the hockey stick; it is easy thinking, but a mistake in rational thinking to take one example in which some people acted foolishly and use that to deride all the support by the scientific community for climate change.

I agree that simplistic thinking is a problem. The easiest and most problematic type of easy thinking is the way you see the world in dichotomies of right and wrong, left and right.

If you read my posts rather than making easy assumptions, you might be able to see that I am not suggesting that either type of human nature is the 'right' one. I was quite clearly (well I thought so anyway) suggesting that both types of human nature contribute to the diversity that has made human beings so successful and adaptable.

You bring your arguments into disrepute by portraying ‘the environmentalists’ as eiher stupid and hoodwinked or venal and untrustworthy.

Anyway what do you mean by ‘the environmentalists’?

Do you think that you are responding emotionally to a type of human nature and/or behaviour that apparently rilly rilly gets up your nose - or perhaps you believe that your own understanding of the world and science is so obviously superior that we should all trust you to be able to google your way to the ‘truth’?

This is an interesting discussion, and I thank Eric Claus for an intelligent and balanced article on this subject. While it may be inherent in the way these comments forums are structured, it is nonetheless unfortunate that the comments tend to be far more simplistic and one-sided.

For example, the term 'environmentalist' is used by those who apparently have issues with 'environmentalism' as a broad term for those activists who supposedly try to deceive and hoodwink the rest of us for their own purposes. However, for those of us who are members of environmentally-oriented organisations the situation is somewhat more complex. Some here would be surprised at the sometimes vitriolic debates within the Green movement between the 'fundamentalists' and the 'realists', the former grouping being characterised by doomsayers very similar to those that Claus describes.

I think Claus is absolutely correct to point that real environmental action is not amenable to simplistic 'quick fixes', and rather requires the entire community to accept behavioural and probably ideological changes that will assist us to achieve sustainability. Contra to what "t.u.s." says, this means approaching the environment holistically, rather than artificially trying to separate 'environmental' issues from everything else.

It is counterproductive for both 'environmentalists' and 'developers' to stereotype each other in simplistic, single-issue terms. Like it or not, all of us are influenced by both ends of this spectrum in virtually all that we do in our daily lives.

And for the benefit of "t.u.s.", I live in the bush and have a small farm, and I can't remember the last time I sat in a cafe. 'Environmental degradation' is an issue I face every day, which is why I feel I have no choice but to vote for the Greens.

I agree, garra, with your comment about the generally imaginary, but widely considered divide between "environmentalists" and "developers."

I work with a lot of construction people and manufacturing people who make a lot of extra effort to reduce pollution and limit wasting resources from their factories and work sites. None of these guys would ever consider themselves "environmentalists," because that has a tree-hugging, stop-the-economy connotation, but they do more for the environment than most of us ever will.

As environmental practice becomes absorbed into the mainstream it is no longer "environmental." In the late 1800's a wild greenie idea called sewage treatment plants emerged. Why worry some people said "It just goes down the river and disappears." Now sewage collection and treatment is infrastructure, not a goofy greenie idea.

Certainly not every environmental / greenie idea is useful, just as not every medical, legal, economic or social idea is useful. It is best, though, if we evaluate all the new ideas based on the ideas themselves, rather than some interpretation of the kind of people that the idea might have come from. "Play the ball / idea, not the man / interest group."

In my experience the tree hugging greenies and rapacious, earth scouring developers are very small groups with few ideas. Most of the ideas come from practical people in-between, who are just trying to do the best they can based on their best understanding of the world.

Thanks for all your comments. t.u.s. you are right about DDT and malaria, but now there are even better pesticides we can use. In poor countries, though, there isn't the money for DDT or the new ones.

Back to the article, where "Environmentalists" have been sprung,unsilently, by Eric.

Yes, mitigate differences by developing dialogue from an established point of agreement! And "The Environment" is not separate from our daily lives, but wrapped up together with economics, society etc. Perhaps points of agreement for dialogue could be;

Environmental resources are, ultimately, the fundamental capital for economics in a finite world. (eg. some 10% of world energy is used in crushing rocks for minerals, cement, etc.; accessible fresh water is limited).

Climate is not static. Change - natural or otherwise - will occur. This will be, now or in the future, accelerated by atmospheric pollution on the present scale. Further, populations are already precariously balanced in relation to sustenance from the climate to which we are currently adjusted. Warmer or cooler will foster difficulties.

The greater the population, the greater the demand upon environmental resources for any particular lifestyle.

But there are difficulties in getting a debating toe-hold from even these fundamentals.

The last Fenner Conference, hosted by the Australian Academy of Science, building from such themes, attemped to establish dialogue across disciplines and outlooks. Structured on sober analysis, it was an impressive effort at esbablishing cohesion rather than confrontation. But it received little support in the media or parliament.

The CSIRO conducted the monumental stocks-and-flows exercise, Future Dilemmas. This outlined options for Australian lifestyles within the framework of natural resources. Not giving a cornucopiwan outlook, it has been ignored by government and media.

Professor Duncan Brown's Feed or Feedback presents a clinical analysis of options for society in relation to agricultural production. Cheerfully but soberly written with irrefutable data, its prognosis for current society is a warning for change. Media outlets are hesitant to publish a review.

All the above gave it their best shot. And they were all big guns, well prepared; not all doom and gloom. But, as "21st Rachel Carsons" they have yet to persuade the rosy-eyed brigade to face reality. So they did not "get this new approach right", and I ask - is that possible?