Anonymouse

Hasn't this government had enough of the hysteria about the "environment"? Enough with the token causes that will simply increase costs for businesses that will be passed on to consumers and that in reality will have no effect whatsoever. 1. Australia's emissions are insignificant. We are a very low pollution country, period. Go to the cities of any country in the world and you can barely breathe due to their pollution. The air in our cities, on the other hand, is quite clean. But, you retort, we are one of the highest "per capita" polluting countries on Earth. I say: big deal. Why? There is basically a threshold of emissions that a developed country needs to emit to sustain its quality of life. We have significant industry that generates significant value for our economy that is responsible for much of the emissions. Whether our population is smaller or larger, that industry will still emit the same amount to produce the same output. Therefore, "per capita" emissions is a fraudulent argument when used to suggest we should reduce our emissions. 2. The science is uncertain. We can't even reliably predict the weather tomorrow, so what makes you think we can predict it a century in advance when our models are painfully inadequate? What is the effect of the sun on our heating and cooling? Do we know the effect and interaction of all the gases in the atmosphere? What about the role of the oceans? Does the Earth incorporate an automatic feedback loop that tends to balance our emissions? Won't life simply evolve to adapt to the changing environment? Is the data even correct? These are all unanswered questions. It turns out that significant heating was observed in an arctic area -- except that it was false, as NASA's scientists had simply copied data from one region and applied it to that region. Luckily, one chap did not take the numbers at face value and exposed this. Who knows how many more similar instances there are. If we talk of incentives, "scientists" have a great interest in talking up global warming (or is it cooling now? Is that why the name has been changed to "climate change", to cover all bases?) because there is significant money being poured into research that, obviously, they would benefit from. Simple self-interest theory from economics tells you at least that much. And, given the fact that many of these people would otherwise be out of a job, you can see the incentive to talk up so-called climate change to be quite high. 2.5. Climate change "science" is not real science. (This is related to the above point.) Us scientists follow a simple process called the scientific method. It involves making a testable hypothesis then performing experiments to prove or disprove the hypothesis. Climate "scientists" by definition do not perform science, as they cannot perform any meaningful experiments. Theirs is more a branch of art -- looking at the world and trying to interpret it. That is the most generous way I can put it. 3. Will any action we take have any meaningful effect? Even if we moved back into the trees as some "climate change" exaggerists want, thus reducing our emissions to zero, our efforts will be insignificant because China and India, which have indicated they do not take climate change seriously at all and intend to continue growing, will more than make up for our savings. We only make up about a percent of the world's emissions. It would probably take China less than a month to overtake any savings made by us turning off. This does not mentiond the developing countries in Asia and Africa. Our efforts in a country of 20 million will always be insignificant, given the population of over 3 billion in developing countries increasing their emissions as they develop. 4. Any action for the sake of the environment will make the effects of the "global financial crisis" worse in Australia. Increased red-tape means increased costs for doing business in Australia. Companies will move overseas. If they are on the brink given the financial crisis, this may push them over the edge into insolvency, costing Australian jobs and making the "GFC" worse in Australia. Sound economic management in these times requires less compliance costs for businesses and more incentives to invest. Environmental regulation gives neither. 5. Australians will pay the price. Just like increases in the price of petrol quickly caused the price of all goods in the economy to rise (as fuel is needed for the transport of all goods), so will prices rise to cover the costs of complying with any new environmental regulation. Companies will not need to reduce emissions. They will simply pay the carbon tax and pass the costs onto consumers who will bear the brunt. And going to a "greener" company won't do any good, either. Their prices are higher because it costs more to be "green". Give me cheap Australian coal-fired power any day. Don't let the lunatics run the asylum.