By Dr Gideon Polya on July 15th, 2009
As evident from the failed G8 meeting at L’Aquila, Italy, the worst greenhouse gas polluters of the First World support cap-and –trade emissions trading scheme (ETS) approaches to reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution despite contrary advice from top climate scientists and climate economists. In short, a Carbon Tax is the best way and Carbon Trading is flawed, will not work, is inequitable and will lead to a carbon pricing “bubble” and another market meltdown. Further, top climate scientists say that we must be urgently REDUCING GHG pollution rather than INCREASING it (see “300.org – return atmosphere CO2 to 300 ppm”).
Nevertheless, environmentalists and environmentalist groups are being seduced into supporting the Carbon Trading ETS approach e.g. that of Obama that is now before the US Senate and the disastrous, proposed, pro-coal Australian ETS . The weak argument they offer is that “something is better than nothing”.
The pro-coal, pro-war Rudd Labor Government of Australia was elected in November 2007 with promises to the electorate that it would stop Australia’s involvement in Occupied Iraq (18 months since the election, two thirds of Australian troops are still there and there has a big boost to Australian forces in Occupied Afghanistan) and that it would take strong action on man-made climate change (but its post-election actions have been largely confined to rhetoric and propaganda while Australia’s world-leading per capita Domestic and Exported greenhouse gas pollution continues unabated).
The Rudd Labor Government did sign up Australia to the Kyoto Protocol in 2007 (a decade late) but balanced this by helping the US sabotage the Bali Climate Conference by refusing to agree to definite targets. As a ploy to avoid having to do anything concrete to decrease Australia’s world-leading Domestic and Exported greenhouse gas pollution (54 tonnes per person per year as compared to a world average per capita GHG pollution of 6.7 tonnes per person per year), the Australian Government appointed an economist Professor Ross Garnaut to research climate change for about a year and then proceeded to propose a softened version of Professor Garnaut’s final recommendations.
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By Dr Gideon Polya on July 5th, 2009
A number of eminent scientists, economists and writers variously argue strongly FOR a global Carbon Tax that will directly put a price on greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution and enable urgently required rapid transformation to a non-carbon economy.
They variously argue AGAINST carbon pricing based on a Kyoto Protocol-based Cap-and Trade Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) of which the pro-coal Australian Government’s carbon pollution-increasing and misleadingly named Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) is a spectacularly flawed, irresponsible, anti-social, anti-humanity, anti-environment, anti-Planet and disastrous example.
Thus the pro-coal Australian ETS involves a rigged auction involving only major polluters and then extraordinarily hands most of the receipts back to the major polluters. The proposed Australian ETS is estimated to mean an increase in Australian domestic and exported greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution by 80% on 2000 levels by 2050 (see my letter in the leading Australian newspaper The Age, 14 June, 2009).
Well, we hear plenty from ignorant and dishonest politicians about their pet Cap-and-Trade Emission Trading Scheme (ETS). Indeed such a scheme is a key part of the Obama Administration Waxman-Markey energy, climate and cap-and-trade Bill that has just passed the US House of Representatives and now faces the US Senate.
But what do top climate scientists and climate economists say? Below are some key comments made by experts who press for a direct, global Carbon Tax rather than failed, worse than ineffective, dishonest, risky and market manipulatable Carbon Trading (for detailed, extensive and updated documentation of such views see the website of the Melbourne-based Yarra Valley Climate Action Group).
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By Dr Gideon Polya on June 18th, 2009
“Nevertheless the climate sceptics are unfazed and essentially all governments around the world are committed to continuing to increase atmospheric carbon dioxide…”
An overwhelming global scientific consensus says that man-made global warming is happening NOW. Indeed for the latest see the report from President Obama’s science advisers that states that massive climatic disruption is already affecting the United States and that projects that the average U.S. temperature could rise by as much as 11 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century (see “White House: climate change damage happening now. Obama’s first global warming report most dire yet: Ill effects already here, will get worse”). Thus White House report report co-author Anthony Janetos of the University of Maryland:
“There are in some cases already serious consequences. This is not a theoretical thing that will happen 50 years from now. Things are happening now.”
Nevertheless the climate sceptics are unfazed and essentially all governments around the world are committed to continuing to increase atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration above the present level of circa 390 parts per million (ppm) to even more dangerous levels.
In contrast, in climate criminal Australia (one of the world’s worst annual per capita greenhouse gas polluters) climate activists and leading climate scientists are calling for urgent reduction of atmospheric CO2 to 300 ppm. The Australia-based Climate Emergency Network, the Canberra Climate Action Summit (over 140 Australia-wide climate action groups), the influential Yarra Valley Climate Action Group and 300.org all say – informed by the latest science from America’s Dr James Hansen (NASA GISS), Australia’s Professor Barry Brook (climate science, University of Adelaide) and others – that for a safe and sustainable existence for all people and all species the atmospheric CO2 of our warming-threatened planet must be urgently reduced from the current circa 390 ppm to 300 ppm (click here for details and documentation).
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By Simon Leufstedt on February 5th, 2009
A new study, published in the journal Nature, shows that Antarctica, like the rest of the world, is warming up. The authors of the study fear that West Antarctica may have reached a “tipping point” which will melt most of the ice. If all of West Antarctica was to melt away it would raise global sea levels of up to seven metres with devastating consequences around the world.
Eric Steig, of the University of Washington, one of the authors of the study, said:
“The thing you hear all the time is that Antarctica is cooling and that’s not the case. If anything it’s the reverse, but it’s more complex than that.
“Antarctica isn’t warming at the same rate everywhere, and while some areas have been cooling for a long time the evidence shows the continent as a whole is getting warmer.”
Professor Barry Brook, of the University of Adelaide, said after seeing the study that together with the melting of Greenlands ice sheet global sea levels would rise 14 metres:
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