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 Dr Gideon Polya on January 13th, 2009
Australia and the World are acutely threatened by man-made climate change and it may already be too late to stop catastrophe – however there is GOOD NEWS as well as BAD NEWS.
The BAD NEWS is that top UK climate scientists, Professor Kevin Anderson and Dr Alice Bows of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, University of Manchester, made the following shocking conclusions in a 2008 paper in the prestigious Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society: “According to the analysis conducted in this paper, stabilizing at 450 ppmv [carbon dioxide equivalent = CO2-e, atmospheric concentration measured in parts per million by volume] requires, at least, global energy related emissions to peak by 2015, rapidly decline at 6-8% per year between 2020 and 2040, and for full decarbonization sometime soon after 2050 …Unless economic growth can be reconciled with unprecedented rates of decarbonization (in excess of 6% per year), it is difficult to envisage anything other than a planned economic recession being compatible with stabilization at or below 650 ppmv CO2-e … Ultimately, the latest scientific understanding of climate change allied with current emissions trends and a commitment to “limiting average global temperature increases to below 4oC above pre-industrial levels”, demands a radical reframing of both the climate change agenda, and the economic characterization of contemporary society.” [1]
Yet, for example, Australia remains the world’s biggest coal exporter, the OECD’s worst annual per capita greenhouse gas (GHG) polluter and a world leader in per capita GHG pollution. Extrapolating from US Energy Information Administration data on Australian coal and liquid natural gas exports in the last decade, the recent decisions of the Australian Federal Government mean that Australia’s annual Domestic plus Exported GHG pollution will actually INCREASE by 40% over the 2000 value by 2020 and by 80% by 2050. [2]
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By Dr Gideon Polya on January 5th, 2009
With Parliament in recession for Christmas and the Christmas-New Year holiday), the pro-Coal Australian Government that presides over the Developed World’s worst per capita greenhouse gas (GHG) polluter and the World’s biggest coal exporter – climate criminal Australia – has finally announced commitment to a derisory “5% reduction on 2000 GHG pollution by 2020”.
This appalling decision has drawn trenchant criticism from Australian scientists and environmentalists (indeed a courageous young woman protestor who shouted “NO!” was hauled from the Australian PM’s press conference. This appalling decision is in stark contrast to the Climate Emergency Facts (from top Australian and world climate scientists) and the Climate Emergency Actions required to deal with the Climate Emergency that are summarized at the end of this article (see “Climate Emergency Facts and Required Actions” on the Yarra Valley Climate Action Group’s website.).
I have presented below a very detailed critique of this appalling, irresponsible, selfish and incompetent decision by the extreme right wing, Bush-ite Rudd Labor Government – a decision which, if adopted globally, would be tantamount to Terracide (destruction of the Earth’s Bisophere) and global Climate Suicide. A top Australian climate scientist Professor Andy Pitman responded to the Australian Government’s “5% off by 2020” by saying that we need to keep atmospheric CO2 to below 450 ppm to avoid a catastrophic 2 degrees C temperature rise and that means global 25%-50% reduction on 2000 GHG pollution by 2020.
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By Dr Gideon Polya on November 1st, 2008
6 months ago on Green Blog I reviewed “Climate Code Red – the case for a sustainability emergency” by David Spratt and Phillip Sutton (Friends of the Earth, Melbourne). This important, well-referenced, spiral bound book had helped launch the Australian Climate Emergency Network (CEN) by using the latest scientific evidence to make out a case for a Climate Emergency and a Sustainability Emergency.
Now a second, extensively edited and revised version of this book has been published in Melbourne: “Climate Code Red- the case for emergency action” by David Spratt and Phillip Sutton (Scribe, Melbourne, 2008). This revised version is very readable and accordingly ideal for getting this extremely serious message across to the general public.
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By Simon Leufstedt on September 18th, 2008
Last week the verdict came in the case against the six Greenpeace activists – Ben Stewart, Will Rose, Kevin Drake, Tim Hewke, Huw Williams and Emily Hall – who in October last year performed a protest against the Kingsnorth coal plant in the UK.
The six Greenpeace activists tried to shut down the coal plant and paint ‘GORDON BIN IT’ down the side of the coal plant’s chimney. For this they were accused of criminally causing £30,000 ($53,000) worth of damage.
But last week the UK Crown Court jury acquitted all six activists which Greenpeace says resulted in a “landmark global warming trial“. The jury “found their actions justified when considering the damage to property caused around the world by CO2 emissions from the plant”.
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By Simon Leufstedt on September 16th, 2008
In this months issue of the environment magazine Plenty they have listed the top 20 people, 20 businesses, and 10 ideas that will “change our world”.
“There are game-changers and then there are world-changers. From Internet giants working to make renewable energy cheaper than coal, to a sea captain monitoring the ocean’s plastic waste, to the growth of intentional communities (they’re not just for hippies anymore)—welcome to Plenty’s second annual list honoring (in no particular order) 20 dynamic individuals and 20 pioneering companies that are bettering the planet, plus 10 innovative ideas that will revolutionize how we live.”
Head over to their site or purchase their latest issue to get bios and explanations on, what they call, the Plenty 20.
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