carbon tax.why

[jonlovepizza]

SOME HARD FACTS ON CHINA TODAY
China is a recipient of Foreign aid from Australia to this day. Julia Gillard really needs to get her facts in order when feeding us this bull shit on "why we have to pay a carbon tax". Also remember the world's temperature has cooled in the last 10 years. Some interesting stats about China:

-China has 19% of the world's population, but consumes: 53% of the world's cement, 48% of the world's iron ore, 47% of the world's coal, the majority of just about every major commodity.
-In 2010, China produced 11 times more steel than the United States.
-New World Record: China made and sold 18 million vehicles in 2010.
-There are more pigs in China than in the next 43 pork producing nations combined.
-China currently has the world's fastest train and the world's largest high-speed rail network.
-China is currently the number one producer in the world of wind and solar power.
-China currently controls more than 90% of the total global supply of rare earth elements.
-In the past 15 years, China has moved from 14th place to 2nd place in the world in published scientific research articles.
-China now possesses the fastest supercomputer on the entire globe.
-At the end of March 2011, China accumulated US$3.04 trillion in foreign currency reserves - the largest stockpile on the entire globe.
-Chinese consume 50,000 cigarettes every second.
-Whilst manufacturing 80% of the world's solar panels, they install less than 5%.
-They build a new coal fired power station every week, and in 1 year turn on more new coal powered electricity than Australia's total output
-Already the largest carbon dioxide emitter's, output will rise 70% by 2020.

Glad we're saving the planet.

[david s]

Re: carbon tax.why

China also leads the world in investment in renewables. We have hardly any investment (relatively) in renewables in Australia. The carbon tax will help kick start clean energy technology while householders will get compensation to cover the extra costs created by the tax. It is a tax on the polluters not the public. The alternative (Irish) is to run up massive debt. Maybe we should all lobby our govts. for a subsidy for those who use wood ovens because they don't use fossil fuels, but carbon that is already in the system.

[brickie in oz]

Re: carbon tax.why

We went to a party at Ararat this weekend, you drive past two vast wind farms, one at Waubra and one near Ararat.
The one at Waubra is the 3rd largest in Aus with 128 turbines, its a sight to behold as you drive past.

Waubra Wind Farm - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Challicum_Hills_Wind_Farm

Way back in time, way back, further back, long before time had almost began, back in 1975 I used to wonder why isnt Aus self sufficient in PV power with all the sun we get, here I am in 2011 still thinking the same?

Maybe the tax will shake things up a bit?

[C5dad]

Re: carbon tax.why

David,

Unfortunately, the carbon tax will hit the whole populace down under. Utilities and other companies will pass the costs on indirectly (or directly) to everyone paying the bill. Similar to the VAT, you may see it get heaped on some products several times.

As for the whole climate change thing - talk to the wolley mammoths about it - the fact is that there is constant change in the atmosphere. The problem with the alarmists is they are not taking a wholistic approach to the subject and only using anecdotal evidence and poorly written and overly conservative models which cannot even replicate this weeks weather. But heck, what do I know with a chemical engineering degree and a class or two in atmospheric thermodynamics (and other meteorological course work.) Fact is, climate change is a buzz word for research funding at universities, and like everything else, we knuckle dragging humans like to see bad news.

As for China, getting out of mud and thatch huts into the modern era is painfully resource intensive. They have the same wants as we do. Unfortunately, they do not regulate business and environmental issues as tightly as us "Westerners" do.

Just my two cents.

[Wiley]

Re: carbon tax.why

I and my wife had the pleasure of visiting China for 22 days several years back. What we saw certainly was different from what the US media presents as China.

One must consider that while the numbers for consumption of raw materials are high, China is the manufacturer for the world. Only a small percentage of the finished goods are presently consumed within it's borders. This will of course will change as they develop a middle class. Once that occurs, with basically every fifth person in the world being a Han Chinese, domestic demand and consumption will be so great that inexpensive goods manufactured in China will not be the norm elsewhere in the world. The Chinese will be pressed to meet their own needs. Whether the countries who gave up their manufacturing will be able to rebuild their domestic capacity to produce such goods is yet to be determined.

Small anticdote: Part of our excursion into China was a couple days on the Yangtze River, this was before the Three Gorges Dam was completed. Many places on the river I saw bucket dredges mining the river bottom. I asked what they were mining. I was told gravel. They were mining gravel from the bottom of the river as a buffer against the time in the future when due to the depth of the water and sediments such gravel for construction would no longer be available. Tens perhaps hundreds of thousands of cubic yards of clean washed gravel were being stockpiled for the future. The return on the investment costs to mine and stockpile the gravel would be generations in the future. China thinks in a much longer time frame than simply the next financial quarter.

There are only three countries in the world who have successfully put a man in ordit and returned him safely to earth: Russia, USA and China. Of those three only two presently (and most likely for the next decade) have that capacity.

I don't wish to present China as a panacea for it certainly isn't, however, right now with the financial mess in the Euro Zone and the US's economy (and social problems) IMHO it's better to have the problems of a creditor nation than those of a debtor nation.

Bests,
Wiley