Hi AC,

Agree, the carnage in Ukraine is horrible. Also agree with you re the need to have welfare for those in need. The US health system is a mess.

Hi Max,

Five billion dollars saved over twenty-five years to offset how many trillions of dollars in economic activity generated by the fossil fuel industry? I guess such pearls of logic have dampened my enthusiasm for erratic energy.

I am not a glossy brochure enthusiast. I grew up with a psychopathic sibling who was ever trying one con or another on my family, so sales pitches don't tend to persuade me.

What I would like to see is more development of biogas generation from green waste. A huge amount of potential energy in this form is wasted, but I guess it comes down to the economics of the solutions.

Not so fast festy!

It's not just fossil fuels that generate economic activity - but *energy* itself that does that. Instead, fossil fuel particulates poison us and cost Australia $6 billion a year in extra health costs that our struggling health departments could really do without!

http://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2018-06-27/climate-policies-ignoring-billions-in-health-savings-experts-say/9836894

Why do we give $11.6 billion in government subsidies to big coal and oil?
http://australiainstitute.org.au/post/australian-fossil-fuel-subsidies-surge-to-11-6-billion-in-2021-22/

So with health & subsidies, that’s like $18 BILLION in extra costs per year. So you can take that off the $54 billion coal we sell overseas - that’s down to $35 billion. We made $36.6 billion selling education to overseas students.
http://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2019/11/australias-37-6b-international-student-export-con/

We should retrain coal workers to work on solar and wind and pumped hydro stations, and massively increase our overseas education. Because the end of coal is coming - and soon we’ll have no one to sell to! Especially as fossil fuels also kill more than 8 million people a year!
http://www.seas.harvard.edu/news/2021/02/deaths-fossil-fuel-emissions-higher-previously-thought

And all that extra CO2 in the atmosphere - identified as fossil fuel by the isotopes - really does cause climate change! The science says so. I don’t care what you ‘believe’ - the science said so decades ago and keeps getting clearer.

These lefties consult only left wing sources and think tanks. Only the ones that suit their bigotry and ideology. They leave the thinking to others. So much easier.

Unfortunately these far right climate deniers like ttbn brand all the true science as left wing lies, whilst prattling on with their own extremist clap trap! All they have to hope for is that Dangerous Doctor Donald returns to the White House in 2024.

"Why do we give $11.6 billion in government subsidies to big coal and oil?"
http://australiainstitute.org.au/post/australian-fossil-fuel-subsidies-surge-to-11-6-billion-in-2021-22/

We don't, perhaps you should read your own articles a little more carefully.

"The largest subsidy is the federal Fuel Tax Credits Scheme, at $8.07 billion, which exceeds the $7.5 billion spent on the Australian Army.
Tax credits aside, Federal Government fossil fuel subsidies increased four-fold to $1.16 billion, from $266 million in 2020-21."

http://www.ato.gov.au/Business/Fuel-schemes/Fuel-tax-credits---business/

Fuel tax credits provide businesses with a credit for the fuel tax (excise or customs duty) that's included in the price of fuel used in: machinery, plant, equipment, heavy vehicles, light vehicles, travelling off public roads or on private roads.

It's not a gift to big coal and oil, it's an incentive to Aussie businesses across the board, you lot are always guilty of twisting the truth, and that's why normal people don't listen to you.

"So with health & subsidies",
The claimed 'cost' to Australians heath, isn't a cost in the sense of being a loss that someone had to pay out.
What we actually spend is 200 billion a year on health goods and services, services that wouldn't even exist if not for fossil fuels, and clearly fossil fuels are an export that bring money into our country.
Do you think you can build or run a hospital without coal, oil and gas?
Those health costs, are the cost of doing business or of having cars and vehicles, these are the benefits of our modern society.

"We made $36.6 billion selling education to overseas students."
What's that got to do with anything? Please explain.
Do you think those students aren't adding to fossil fuels use too?
How do you think they get here? By rowboat?

"We should retrain coal workers to work on solar and wind and pumped hydro stations"

Yeah ok, but who's going to dig up the coal?
Or are you offering to donate 50 billion to the Aussie economy yourself?
Maybe we can export the wind instead?
- Start with all your hot-air.

"Especially as fossil fuels also kill more than 8 million people a year!"
- Not in this country they don't.
Let me guess, are these calculations brought to us by the same people claiming a 10kg dog eating 500 daily calories of chum produces 6.5 tonnes of CO2 per year?
Should we even pay any attention to these numbers, or is that buying into the madness?

You haven't been eating bacteria already have you?