carbon tax? has the world gone mad.

[Rider_of_Fast]

^ What he said

 

[Bermshot]

My belief of the carbon tax (amongst others) is to fleece. The Disaster tax was not only a slap in the face but to fleece. I can smell it a mile away, like a sheep that has been in the rain and then the sun for a day.

Please... Government wants to now fix the world. There is so much hypocrisy that even if it were true one would have to be at best a newb and at worst a complete gumby.

There are no accidents in politics. If it happens you can bet it was planned that way. FDR

I do believe we have responsibility but I wont buy into the whole new "Green Religion" thing. There is a far more and immediate concern in Nuke plants going down and depleted uranium being thrown everywhere, whole Rainforests being cut down, Oil Rigs blowing up, Faarrrrrk. And you think there is morality in current Governance!? That they are concerned? Yeah, in their own fucking pocket and or their ego drive for power.

 

[Matt H]

Why is there not more focus on geoengineering as an accompanying solution to climate change?

 

[Cypher]

Why is there not more focus on geoengineering as an accompanying solution to climate change?

Because it is a little bit dodgy and not as cheap as other measures.

For example: We know diet and exercise and reduce obesity. It is also accessible and cheap. But a pharmaceutical/food company releases a new fat that does not get absorbed by the body - so you can have your fats and eat it too! Pity olestra causes abdominal cramping and "loose stools". Liposuction and gastric banding - other 'engineered' solutions have also shown to be pretty useless (a good portion of people who undergo these surgeries quickly lose weight then put it all back on as their habits do not change).

These 'solutions' also come with some nasty side effects.

It is not rocket science how to stop polluting. Engineered solutions for the most part are a bit pie in the sky for my liking - and don't really solve the core problem - they solve the symptom.

 

[Matt H]

I'm talking about an additional fix. Even if carbon emmissions are cut RIGHT now, the positive effects won't be seen for decades.

 

[DJninja]

no, it's a tax to raise revenue disguised as a tax to counter emissions.

it will result in nothing but tax ordinance.

even if it was to counter emissions it would change NOTHING. china builds a new coal fired electricity station every WEEK.

22 million people doesn't pollute sweet fuck all on the world scale, i don't care if we're the highest per capita or not.

Let's all just do nothing and rape the planet for all it's got and then when we've depleted all the major resources we can use our money for food. Internalising externalities is what this policy is doing. Even if the tax doesn't go straight back into climate change R+D or other areas, it's still forcing companies to change there consumptive and unsustainable methods. Even by just discussing the policy two refineries in my area have began decommissioning.

Job losses are going to be inevitable, but isn't better to diversify the Australian economy now rather than remain reliant (which we really are) on mineral resources until they deplete, leaving us between a rock and a hard place. Humans are amazingly innovative organisms, and Australia is lucky to be in a situation where we are capable of leading sustainable innovation and staying ahead of the curve. A push towards something like a knowledge economy would be optimal.

If humans started seeing themselves as part of the environment rather than as seperate entities we wouldn't have many of the problems we see today.

 

[MasterOfReality]

Its not like the mineral resources are going to be depleted in the next 50 years

Try 300-400 years at a minimum for various commodities.

The scaremongering about raping and pillaging the planets natural mineral resources is hysterical at best.

 

[DJninja]

Why is there not more focus on geoengineering as an accompanying solution to climate change?

I guess because it's treating the symptoms not the cause. Like most things in politics there will probably be some reactionary research into this stuff. But spending tax payers pre-emptively? pfft.

 

[Mattydv]

The scaremongering about raping and pillaging the planets natural mineral resources is hysterical at best.

Everything is hysteria these days. Last week I sat through a 2 hour guest seminar on how fluoride in the water is killing your unborn baby. But there's not really much we can do to avoid it? Seems like one of those things that we've just got to take on the chin until we are given the opportunity to vote some sense in.

 

[Bermshot]

If the state's sell off public assets (in process), in what way will we be able to agree/disagree with proposed new technologies? Government will tell us what to agree with, because they don't want the intelligent vote they just need the majority, and well, we know there is a lot there to rely on.

 

[dog boy]

I honestly can see solar or wind being the solution to the problem. The problem being rapidly declining resources not just pollution. I think it should be taken on solely by the power companies to implement a new power infrastructure. we are essentially buying what they are selling. I mean you wouldn't get a Nike tax where Nike said were taxing you to make a better shoe.

I would like to see biomass become implemented more, not just 10% ethanol in fuels. Biomass is essentially just burning plants for energy. It is what is known as a closed carbon cycle, plants are burnt--> release carbon --> new plants grow absorb carbon.

Oh yer and I just saw the new carbon tax add on the TV. I loved how it didn't mention the word tax.

 

[Mattydv]

I would like to see biomass become implemented more, not just 10% ethanol in fuels. Biomass is essentially just burning plants for energy. It is what is known as a closed carbon cycle, plants are burnt--> release carbon --> new plants grow absorb carbon.

This is so far from a solution that it's largely ridiculous that we're considering it now. It just requires FAR too many resources and land to farm the required level.

Brazil is a great example, they use a lot of ethanol and so are 'clean', but they use a ridiculous amount of land farming the sugar cane. It's just not viable for the world. Not the best explanation, but I'm pretty stretched for time right now. Hoepfully someone else can elaborate.

Edit: I guess it's current use is effective as a flagship, but it's not a feasible solution.

 

[seventyseven]

Let's all just do nothing and rape the planet for all it's got and then when we've depleted all the major resources we can use our money for food. Internalising externalities is what this policy is doing. Even if the tax doesn't go straight back into climate change R+D or other areas, it's still forcing companies to change there consumptive and unsustainable methods. Even by just discussing the policy two refineries in my area have began decommissioning.

Job losses are going to be inevitable, but isn't better to diversify the Australian economy now rather than remain reliant (which we really are) on mineral resources until they deplete, leaving us between a rock and a hard place. Humans are amazingly innovative organisms, and Australia is lucky to be in a situation where we are capable of leading sustainable innovation and staying ahead of the curve. A push towards something like a knowledge economy would be optimal.

If humans started seeing themselves as part of the environment rather than as seperate entities we wouldn't have many of the problems we see today.

i'm going to have to repeat myself here a bit but,


i'll answer the simple one about the economy first:

they aren't just going to run out one day. there will be PLENTY of forecasts and a slow decline until it does happen. in short, LOADS of warning.

the thing about raping/pillaging the planet:

i think you're missing the point. as i mentioned, china makes a new coal station every WEEK. our tiny little country contributes sweet f**k all.


on the topic of whether we should pollute or not, it's quite simple.


if you tax carbon, good luck getting investment. companies will just set up shop somewhere else and pollute there. or go out of business. all those countries that need income? the ones for which carbon pollution is WAY down the list of priorities? they'll spruik their places as somewhere to come pollute your brains out just to get the income they need.

irrespective of whether the world pollutes or not, australias best economic option is still to pollute our brains out and take the economic growth. otherwise known as a nash equilibrium, when our dominant (best) strategy doesn't change.

there are 4 outcomes to this:

everyone cuts down on carbon, and everyone loses wealth/economic riches/etc, but have cleaner air to breathe.

we cut down on carbon, and nobody else does, resulting in us both being poor as f**k and having dirty air to breathe (or whatever).

we don't cut down on carbon, and nobody else does, resulting in the same dirty air as above but the country isn't broke

or the final option, everyone else cut down on carbon but we don't, resulting in us having nice clean air and being filthy rich.

as you can see, irrespective of what everyone else does our best option is to just keep "destroying" the environment because we either win or remain the same doing it, compared to remaining the same or losing out if we do.

if, remarkably, all the countries in the world could agree to cut down on carbon, this agreement in itself would be unstable due to the tempation to screw everyone else over in order to take the riches. then when you factor in those who cannot afford to agree to it.. (like many african ones)

the only time that there should be intervention is when the benefits of operating are lesser than the costs of doing so. i.e if a well pissed oil everywhere (but some was refined) and the costs of cleaning it up were greater than the savings in the oil/fuel price that this new wells supply of oil created.

what would be a better policy option for them would be to enable a tax writeoff of reducing carbon. i.e, a business can operate polluting or not, but if it takes the non-polluting option, and it CURRENTLY isn't the more cost effective way of operating (it often is) then they can write off 101% of the additional costs.

this would do two things. firstly it would create much more demand for "green" technology, and supply-demand would dictate the markets responses to it. engineering firms or whatever might start developing, investing in, engineering new things. scientific think-tanks or uni's might start looking more in this direction, etc etc.

additionally, this would result in better economies of scale for the producers of current green technologies.



on the tax front, i'll cover it with a graph. and for the record before, i said ordinance. incidence is what it's called here. i apologise, been a year or so since i did tax econ.

now let's assume a business (or businesses) are operating at what you might call "minimum profit". otherwise known as "perfect competition" this is the absolute bare minimum they can be making to stay operating in the industry.

now if you give them a carbon tax, they've got two options: absorb it, or pass it on to the consumer.

situation 1: if they try absorb it, then they can make more money doing something else and so will leave the industry for that. this will mean fewer suppliers of that good, and the price will therefore increase back to the point of minimum profit/perfect competition.

the other thing they can do absorbing it is to simply raise their prices proportionately. this is what they do instead of situation 1. this immediately means we're effectively paying the tax, not them. this solution also has the added problem of what we call demand elasticity. basically, if they raise their prices and proportionately less of their product is sold (resulting in them making less money) then they're also going to leave the industry.

so as you can see, either way the consumer ends up getting fucked, not the businesses.

the only possible exception to this is if businesses are making above normal "super" profits. this you might think gives them the ability to absorb the additional costs, but you need to remember that this immediately means that all those people who invested in the company (buying stocks or whatever) expecting a certain level of return on their investment just lost that return. this is compounded by the fact that the price of the stock will also drop because of its lower return.

an additional problem with this that can't be calculated is all the extra investment (read: competition) that was being attracted by those "super profits", and all the jobs and income and so forth that came with it.


the other thing we need to look at is the politics in play here. the labor party needs the greens support in parliament. the greens we now know after reading above^ are retarded. they seem to think that taxing something will change anything, and we of course know it won't.

labor, desperately needs more tax revenue to fill the hole in its budget because it just can't stop spending money. labors policy is to simply tax & spend (we don't need to go into why, but labor just don't reduce taxes. they just don't.) so what we have here is a tax that both the moronic greens want because they think it will lower emissions, and one that will raise government revenue that the labor party desperately needs.

i have little doubt that someone somewhere in the labor party KNEW they had an absolutely golden offer they could bribe the greens with to get their support, because they know it's not really a bribe at all. the greens have just given labor a get-out-of-jail-free card with their outrageous budget spending.


i'm tempted to do my honors project on this but this is perhaps amazingly one of the few topics out there that i'd struggle to make the word count with. my current topic doesn't have that problem thankfully - quite the opposite.


there will no doubt be a response from arete here about how the world is totally boned if we don't stop polluting in a major way soon. we've had this argument before and i'm not rejecting the science at all so please don't get that impression. rather, i've tried to explain why it's a virtually unfixable situation and this way sure as hell isn't the best of the available solutions. the best i can come up with is as i mentioned a 101% tax refund for those who cut down on their emissions even when it costs more to do so (there is already incentive to do so when it saves money - it saves money). but that would mean labor is giving tax money back and letting the private sector/free market work rather than taking more of it, and that's something they're clinically incapable of doing.

 

[dog boy]

This is so far from a solution that it's largely ridiculous that we're considering it now. It just requires FAR too many resources and land to farm the required level.

Brazil is a great example, they use a lot of ethanol and so are 'clean', but they use a ridiculous amount of land farming the sugar cane. It's just not viable for the world. Not the best explanation, but I'm pretty stretched for time right now. Hoepfully someone else can elaborate.

Edit: I guess it's current use is effective as a flagship, but it's not a feasible solution.

I totally agree it wouldn't be a complete solution. But when you go up the dump theres a big pile of trees grass cuttings ect. As far as I know thats just left to rot down to soil. If every piece of green waste was used along with designated forestry's that would be constantly replanted, surely that would make some difference. " The U.S. burns a billion tons of coal per year. Since biomass is less energy dense than coal it would take 1.6 billion tons of biomass per year to replace all that coal. According to a DOE study, we can grow about 1.3 on exising available land.
Not quite enough." http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2009/06/can-biomass-replace-coal

 

[Arete]

there will no doubt be a response from arete...

We've done this before but a summary:
We agree:
- Climate change exists and represents a threat.
- that the current tax achieves little/nothing.

Problems with your argument (and the arguments of economics in general):
- You suppose to know all possible outcomes based on a simplified classroom version of game theory modelling.
- You make unfounded assumptions regarding cost/benefits - e.g. the only costs of your hypothetical oil spill worth evaluating are economical, they will be measurable and quantifiable - which is simply not the case.
- By doing the above you present hypotheses as absolutes, conveniently supporting your conclusions. (as in - the outcomes of a model are hypotheses until empirically supported)
- Your argument for non action is based on a logical fallacy http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/two-wrongs-make-a-right.html.

We Disagree:
- Australia's role as the largest exporter of coal (28% of global production) is irrelevant and we have no control over supply and demand. I believe the opposite.

 

[TonyG]

Moving this discussion in another direction,
For those of us who do agree with Climate Change and would like to support a gov't reform to reduce carbon emissions, how does this particular carbon tax reduce future emissions?
My concern is given the rebates, a large portion of the population is effectively immune to the tax. Then at the other end of the spectrum, another large portion of the population is wealthy enough not to be overly concerned with the cost of carbon tax....
So it just seems middle Australia is kicked in the short-shorts again.. Which is becoming a tired old story for those of us trying to raise a family, pay off a mortgage, and some how save for retirement...

 

[MasterOfReality]

It sort of depends how you classify middle class Australia. The new notion doing the rounds seems to be a combined income of $150k is 'rich enough'. Thats absurd - its 2 adults each on marginally more than the average wage. Once taxes are taken out, it doesn't look so good any more. There also seems to be a fixation on combined incomes - a couple with a combined income of $150k a year pay less tax than say a family whos one and only breadwinner earns $150k a year. Thats a serious imbalance there when taken into context of mean testing.

Even if one is 'weathy' enough to afford the extra increase, I still think the question remains why they should be expected to wear the cost so the guy next door gets compensated and has no motivation to change their behaviour.

 

[TonyG]

I get where you are going on the "middle Australia" bit, but my concern is more in what you addressed in your last paragraph. I'm happy to pay a carbon tax, but not if it's not going to be implemented properly. What's the point if a small producer like Australia implementing this type of reform, but only to a certain (possibly minor) demographic of people in the country?
It just doesn't make sense to me, so I'm assuming I must be missing the point?
If you only going to target a small percentage of the population to reduce their carbon input, then it doesn't appear to me to be a very effective reform???
In it's current form I would have no problem voting against this reform if it goes to referendum.

 

[MasterOfReality]

No, I don't think you are missing the point at all, its something that I'm trying to get an answer to as well.

I would be satisfied if the carbon tax was implemented and there was no compensation for anyone. Yes, prices will rise and we would be forced to look at ways to negate those rises. If people lived within their means then it wouldn't be a problem. Of course if someone is on the average income, mortaged to the hilt and has all the latest gadgets on Harvey Norman 36 month interest free, then its their own problem if price rises start to bite into their budgets (but thats going off on another track )

Then again, why implement a carbon tax at all with a risk to the economy when China is forging full steam ahead with power plants that would undo any carbon emission reductions in a split second.

In its current form, I'm still convinced its a socialist wealth redistribution exercise dressed up as a warm and fuzzy environmental initiative.

 

[TonyG]

No, I don't think you are missing the point at all, its something that I'm trying to get an answer to as well.

I would be satisfied if the carbon tax was implemented and there was no compensation for anyone. Yes, prices will rise and we would be forced to look at ways to negate those rises. If people lived within their means then it wouldn't be a problem. Of course if someone is on the average income, mortaged to the hilt and has all the latest gadgets on Harvey Norman 36 month interest free, then its their own problem if price rises start to bite into their budgets (but thats going off on another track )

Then again, why implement a carbon tax at all with a risk to the economy when China is forging full steam ahead with power plants that would undo any carbon emission reductions in a split second.

In its current form, I'm still convinced its a socialist wealth redistribution exercise dressed up as a warm and fuzzy environmental initiative.

That's pretty much where I'm at too. I'm hoping someone with Arete's experience can shine some light on what the benefits of this carbon tax will bring to the environment, given the large offsets by way of rebates and other concessions.
Effectively what I'd really appreciate someone explaining is - Does this tax still do anything functional in reducing our carbon footprint in it's current form?
What I'm worried about hearing is "it's better than nothing, but ----"