I have just discovered this forum and had a quick browse of the various topics. This one caught my attention because the question is a curious one. Will Climate Change impact on the election? It seems that by and large this was interpreted to mean, will the carbox tax as an issue affect the outcome of the election.

Have we arrived at any sort of consensus on that? I am actually curious about that. What is the general public's view about the carbon tax? Or is the feeling simply the tribal one where greens and Labor supporters will see it as a Good Thing and the Liberal voters see it as an agent for the destruction of our society?

Or have people given the matter of the carbon some serious thought? My suspicion is that most have not and will simply wear an ideological heart on their sleeve.

On the whole, I don't think it'll have a dramatic outcome in its own right, however the fact that it is seen by many as another one of a litany of failed policies or broken promises may be its greatest influence in terms of electoral results. I think the ALP is well on the nose everywhere.

Or did the question really want to know whether it'll be too hot/too cold/too wet/too dry/too windy/too snowy/too damned climatey to get out there and vote?

Warmair,

Review these:

http://www.businessspectator.com.au/news/2013/4/2/policy-politics/carbon-tax-cost-jobs-rusal-ceo

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victorian-hospitals-hurting-as-carbon-tax-bites/story-fnevi7ax-1226610491042

So your argument is that because businesses are already struggling with the effect of the high dollar, an additional input cost has no effect on the businesses closing? Really.

Some businesses have a low energy input, others have a huge energy input. For example Aluminium smelting has electricity as the single biggest cost, and while the direct carbon tax is small, the indirect tax via the electricity price is huge and effectively killed the smelting industry in Aus.

The effect of this is that GHG emissions in Aus drop as these industries close, but as production is taken up in less efficient smelters elsewhere, the net change in GHG emissions is an increase.

This is why Labor's go it alone policy harms industry and does nothing for the environment.

Jack Benny was a big deal when I was young. One of his routines:

Holdup man: Your money or your life!

[silence]

Holdup man: Well?

Benny: I'm thinking.

People who something think climate change isn't real are like Benny. Abbot called it crap. Abbott has said he wants abortion rare and safe. I can agree with that. Yet when he was Health Minister he banned the morning after pill. Possibly he equates masturbation with abortion. As bad as the Labor Party is it doesn't seem as heedless of the interests of the workingman as the Libs. Our Commonwealth Representative is a Lib and a former cop. One of his positions is to restrict double jeopardy. I am horrified by that as dj is a curb on the power of the state. I can expect the Libs to try to dismantle what Burke has done for the environment. Although I certainly would like to see an alternative to the party in power the Libs aren't it.

As far as noses go, and having allergies mine often runs:

You can pick your friends, and you can pick your nose. But you can't pick your friend's nose.

Lexi,
The co2 tax is like a very light shower of rain.
You say to yourself, oh its not hard, I'll finish mowing before I go in.
When you do go in you find you are sopping wet !

It is like that, it trickles down, a little bit here and there and you
do not notice it until you go to the bank.

As the IPCC has said that there has been no temperature rise for 17 years
perhaps we should call a halt to everything and wait and see which way it goes.

Even James Hanson of NASA says the same except he says 15 years.

We should keep using our coal and gas to build the infrastructure
that will be needed to make the energy transition, otherwise we will
not be able to make the transition.
It is cheap energy that is keeping our head above water for now and
it is a very silly thing to be flogging it of overseas for a pottage of Chinese rubbish.

GK you aimed a shot at me long ago up the thread.
It was the uninformed smirk about my linking extreme weather with the cold long winter up north.
Well it amused me.
We, well some of us know, extremes, ALL WEATHER EXTREMES are spoken of in the science.
You could go out side and look around, one of the strongest anti climate change posters does that.
What say we ALL leave our biases in the bucket at the door.
And thinking of the question the thread asked, look at current and recent past comment about this issue.
Seems to me we will find most in this country at least, are concerned.
Has it struck posters yet?
My question, unlike some of my posts, does not need under standing, even evidence, my question is.
Can extreme weather, or added information, China/America taking action, impact on the election.
Impacts I mention so far are Turnbull take back his spot.
But what if changed circumstances see Abbott,s policy,s change?
Again both side seek the same reduction target, so it is crap will not be on the ballot paper.
I however invite some to write that, it makes the vote invalid.

Dear Belly,

Yes, I described your comment as good chutzpah, and I still think it is!

You see you are a “BELIEVER” of the Labor Party’s policy. I also have labeled your belief in political terms. It is universally the socialists such as the UNFCC that promulgate the science that you believe. I can understand your position and know you are an ALP and union man to your bootstraps. I respect you for it. My fundamental belief systems are probably the opposite of yours.

Back in 1965 I studied Botany at the ANU under Prof Lindsay Prior, and he was adamant that the rain forests are “the lungs of the earth.” He predicted that the clearing of the rainforests would cause the CO2 levels to rise. He was right, but the “scientists” you believe in say it is caused by human activity burning fossil fuel.

Like Abbott, I think that is “crap”, especially if your scientists don’t factor in the loss of rainforest. In the 2007 election Howard had a policy of buying up the Indonesian rainforest and stopping them from being harvested. He was ridiculed! The ALP and their scientists proclaimed it was a rubbish idea.

Belly, you must realise that I see these differences between you and me in political terms because the ALP has made it a political issue. That is why the party dumped Turnbull and chose Abbott. That is why Abbott has such support, both at the party level and at the personal level. I am a Liberal “BELIEVER”.