i had the unkind thought last night
[with all this rupert fox sky tv tender stuff]

i recall juliar visiting rupert in usa pre election
did she do a deal with the abc/satilite BEING..*put up for tender

heard of the uk mess..in advance via our version of the ozzie mossad
[intel]..and needed* to get another show on the road?

to wit a hasty press release on a holy day
closing parliment down..[to stop tonies opposing question's]
about the abc satilite right/tender

and save rupert
he who thinks to bring the 'fox'..propaganda
ie install a right wing.. into the mid east?

Ludwig, agree with you again.
We have no choice from now but to have a sustainability policy.
With zero growth setting in I suspect that we do not have the resources
to do a crash course on CO2.

All these ETS and carbon tax schemes are too late and are miss aimed.
Because zero growth is about here now anti co2 campaigns are irrelevant.
Our economies are about to start winding down, possibly very slowly so
panic stations will not be needed.
However if population keeps increasing whats available will have to be
spread more thinly.
What we see happening on the Kenyan/Somalia border is a view of what
is to come in coming years.

Welcome to the post peak oil world.

A low carbon future has to include sustainable population policies as others have written.

The PM talks about the Carbon Tax working as a price signal to polluters and while some industries may take steps to reduce emissions, what is the incentive though, if governments are compensating consumers to whom these costs will be passed.

A clever company might develop a low carbon policy and compete on price thus encouraging others to do the same - that might be part of the thinking on this. But will said company keep prices at the market rate to maximise profits? I still don't see the incentive except perhaps for households to cut energy use to offset higher prices. Competition policy in this country does not work well within some industries such as banking, financial services or energy.

While I understand rstuart's logic on short term vs long term strategies and maybe he is right, perhaps it is just the beginning of a slow evolving system - the tax being the impetus - to enable renewables and cleaner coal to become the norm.

“Carbon trading will become the world's largest commodities market.”
Louis Redshaw, Barclays Capital (New York Times)

Now does anybody with more than half a brain think that anybody is going to promote a moneymaking scheme where the basis of it is the alleged REDUCTION of the commodity that drives the scheme? The idea that is being sold to a gullible public is a carbon tax or an emissions trading scheme that will eventually eradicate man-caused pollution and thus save the world. So why would anybody invest in something that is going to be wiped out in the medium to long term?

Of course not. The moneymaking aspect of any scheme relies on it continuing and growing, therefore the sponsors of this scam are really relying on two things - that the human-caused carbon dioxide emissions will continue and increase, thus increasing the profits from the scam and secondly, that the value of the carbon credits themselves will rise, just like stocks and shares, reaping huge financial rewards for those who trade in them and especially those who control the trading.
THE CARBON TAX IS A COLOSSAL SCAM

Dear pepper,

The following website might clarify a few things for you:

http://newmatilda.com/2011/07/11/carbon-tax-we-had-have

It must be something that only a humanities could understand.

What ever could someone explain to me the rational of hitting us with a tax to try to force us to reduce our use of coal fired power, then continue to expand the production of that same coal, to produce cheep power for the Indians, & the Chinese.

I have no desire to prevent those 2 nations growing with cheep from our coal, but I'm damned if I can see how their CO2 is different to our CO2.

It can't be that they want the money to get us out of the debt they've run up, everyone knows they won't be around long enough to do that.

That just leaves the red queen having to pay her dues to Bob Brown, for sleeping in the lodge. Pity we all have to pay them for her.