Carbon credits

[Michaelangelica]

War on ETS

 

* Andrew Bolt

* From: Herald Sun

* December 02, 2009 12:00AM

 

They'll sure understand it now that Abbott is there to explain it to them.

 

Tell me if Turnbull ever described Kevin Rudd's scheme to force us off carbon-based power as well as Abbott did yesterday: "This is a $120 billion tax on the Australian public and that is just for starters.

 

"We have heard from the Independent Pricing Regulator in NSW just yesterday that this ETS would add 30 per cent to the people of NSW's power bills ...

 

"What the Rudd Government's ETS looks like is a great big tax, o create a great big slush fund o provide politicised handouts by a giant bureaucracy."

 

And every word true. Hey, Mr and Mrs Voter: you may want to "Do Something" about the environment, but does that really include paying a tax that will cost your family at the very least $1100 a year in bills, and won't lower world temperatures by a flicker? And this, when the world's temperature has been falling since 2001, not rising?

 

Abbott even quoted word for word the famous line that then Labor prime minister Paul Keating used to kill another media-championed three-letter tax, the Liberals' GST: "If you don't understand it, don't vote for it.

War on ETS | Herald Sun

[BrianG]

I think a carbon credit market would have to crash, it's an artificial construct with no added value. The best carbon reduction scheme would be entirely voluntary, make a low carbon power source available, and if people want it, they'll line up at your door, lock and bar your windows.

[LaurieAG]

Hi Michelangelica,

 

Here's a relevant quote from a front page 'The Australian' story a couple of days ago about how our new National Broadband Network will work, from the same people responsible for our half baked CPRS.

 

The idea would be to encourage people to make the switch to fibre and then only slowly increase speeds and prices as consumer demand grew over time.

 

Has anybody in the entire world bought a computer 3 years later and didn't get more speed for the same expenditure than their old one?

[alexander]

maybe... well i bought one cheaper, that was only 700mhz about 2 years back... but it was ultra small and cute, so noone would think that i could be doing anything bad with it, when in reality, pen testing at its best :naughty: (ofcourse legally)

[BrianG]

Clive Spash resigns from CSIRO after climate report 'censorship' | News.com.au

 

On the bright side, carbon emission reductions might not even be necessary.

[Michaelangelica]

The Carbon Emission Reduction Scheme proposed by the Australian Government has run into opposition by right-wing,troglodyte revisionists here. While the left wing 'Greens' see the plan, as proposed, as seriously flawed.

http://christine-milne.greensmps.org.au/content/whats-wrong-with-cprs-and-how-can-it-be-fixed

The scheme is complex and as few Aussie take an interest in science or politics many are frightened by change.

Personally I don't know any more and am about to stop caring. I am not sure that the race is intelligent enough to warrant saving and i won't be around long enough to see the possible results of.any GW disaster. Perhaps GW/CC has been exaggerated, but who can really see into the future? Our climate, economic and psychological models are all inadequate to predict with certainty. Still, like Rupert Murdock I think one should err on the side of caution and give the planet the benefit of the doubt. We have polluted with impunity and still do so. you wonder how long that can go on and what effect another 2.5 billion of us coming along shortly will make.

 

Brian if you do nothing else today listen to this, take notes and forget your ego.

Nicholas Stern's blueprint for a safer planet - RN Book Show - 8 December 2009

[BrianG]

Have you seen this:

 

Carbon trading fraudsters may have accounted for up to 90% of all market activity in some European countries, with criminals pocketing an estimated 5 billion euros mainly in Britain, France, Spain, Denmark and Holland, according to Europol, the European law enforcement agency. The revelation caused embarrassment for European Union negotiators at the Copenhagen climate change summit yesterday, where they have been pushing for an expansion of their system across the globe to penalise heavy emitters of carbon dioxide. Rob Wainwright, the director of serious crime squad, said large-scale organised criminal activity had “endangered the credibility” of the current carbon trading system.

 

From: Copenhagen climate summit: Carbon trading fraudsters in Europe pocket €5bn - Telegraph

[erich]

Hi Brian,

I feel the salient sentence in this article is the last ;

"Europol has now set up a special unit to “identify and disrupt the organised criminal structures behind these fraud schemes”.

 

Now with the heightened scrutiny on "spot contracts", this it just another pitfall the US won't have to reckon with. Just as we won't grant the windfall profits the EU did at the start of their C market.

 

I'm very glad we have a cat-bird seat watching this grist being ground in the European mills.

 

Cheers,

Erich

[BrianG]

Hi Erich,

 

We can avoid fraud by making carbon reduction voluntary. Instead of limiting carbon, we could recognize and laud low carbon products and services, just as we use the voluntary Energy Star, or better yet, a private market system like consumer reports to reduce electricity consumption.

 

I agree that waiting is a perfectly good strategy when we are evaluating untried, untested climate mitigation policies. Time will tell.

[Michaelangelica]

QUOTE=BrianG;287062]Hi Erich,

 

We can avoid fraud by making carbon reduction voluntary.

Is that a bit like making the use of money as a medium of exchange voluntary?

Without global acceptance-or at least national acceptance-- i can't see how a CC scheme would work

Instead of limiting carbon, we could recognize and laud low carbon products and services, just as we use the voluntary Energy Star, or better yet, a private market system like consumer reports to reduce electricity consumption.

Yes we can. Yet denialists generally say there is nothing we can do to mitigate Climate Change.

 

I agree that waiting is a perfectly good strategy when we are evaluating untried, untested climate mitigation policies. Time will tell.

Do we have the luxury of time to wait?

Time will certainly tell.

[BrianG]

...

Do we have the luxury of time to wait?

Time will certainly tell.

 

We've been waiting since the discovery of fire, man and all animals have always added carbon to the atmosphere and plants have always taken it out. The proponents of climate change mitigation have the responsibility to show we can't wait, rather than "deniers" arguing we can. That's how science works, you can't prove a negative.

[freeztar]

We've been waiting since the discovery of fire, man and all animals have always added carbon to the atmosphere and plants have always taken it out.

 

Ho hum, nothing to see here folks.

 

The proponents of climate change mitigation have the responsibility to show we can't wait, rather than "deniers" arguing we can. That's how science works, you can't prove a negative.

 

The "proponents of climate change" have shown that we can't wait. What part of their appeal do you disagree with?

 

("they" refers to the IPCC)

[BrianG]

...

The "proponents of climate change" have shown that we can't wait. What part of their appeal do you disagree with?

 

("they" refers to the IPCC)

 

The lack of experimental tests on climate change mitigation. Tests, samples, demonstrations and examples of man's ability to improve climate conditions by restricting emissions or sequestering [ce]CO2[/ce]. If time is so short until total climate catastrophe, a few experimental tests before we try a policy isn't too much to ask.

[Essay]

The lack of experimental tests on climate change mitigation. Tests, samples, demonstrations and examples of man's ability to improve climate conditions by restricting emissions or sequestering [ce]CO2[/ce]. If time is so short until total climate catastrophe, a few experimental tests before we try a policy isn't too much to ask.

I was gonna say something about cutting emissions ...and seeing what happens... as an experiment; but then I realized you'd expect immediate results.

 

Do you think there is a direct correlation between CO2 levels and regional (wherever the experiment happens to be run) temperature and/or climate?

===

 

p.s. I think "Lemit" has already addressed the impracticality of this sort real-world testing CO2 mitigation's effect on the climate ...or words to that effect. ...recall the bridge and wind-tunnel testing?

[BrianG]

I was gonna say something about cutting emissions ...and seeing what happens... as an experiment; but then I realized you'd expect immediate results.

 

Do you think there is a direct correlation between CO2 levels and regional (wherever the experiment happens to be run) temperature and/or climate?

===

 

p.s. I think "Lemit" has already addressed the impracticality of this sort real-world testing CO2 mitigation's effect on the climate ...or words to that effect. ...recall the bridge and wind-tunnel testing?

 

Cutting emissions and measuring climate change sounds like a great idea, go for it. That sounds better than my idea of setting a large coal seam on fire and looking for a climate temperature increase. If I understand the greenhouse theory, if [ce]CO2[/ce] levels are cut there would be less heat retained in the atmosphere, so air temperature in a region with low [ce]CO2[/ce] levels should fall, right? Of course, immediate results aren't expected.

 

Don't they put scale models of bridges in wind tunnels? They do that with aircraft wings.

[Essay]

If I understand the greenhouse theory, if [ce]CO2[/ce] levels are cut there would be less heat retained in the atmosphere, so air temperature in a region with low [ce]CO2[/ce] levels should fall, right?

Nope!

 

Brian, you're demonstrating a basic misunderstanding about how CO2 works - to "cause" heating.

CO2 doesn't directly affect the temperature that we perceive (as above freezing heat) on our skin.

 

CO2 affects the heat that escapes from the upper (v. cold) atmosphere, that is then lost to space.

When that escaping heat (at below-zero temperatures) is retarded from leaving and builds up (over previous levels), then a cascade of energy (mostly heat) builds up in the heat-transfer mechanisms that normally transfer "our" above-freezing temperatures ...down to the below-freezing temperatures that normally escape into space.

 

Does that make sense? It's just one sentence, but it skips over a lot of science and paints an odd picture, I'm sure. But if you follow that (whether "true" or not) do you see what the implications would be?

 

...and why "regional" results could not be expected... immediately, or ever....

===

 

 

They call it the "greenhouse effect," but CO2 operates in a very different range, and based on very different mechanisms at the atomic level, than does glass (which can be directly tested locally or regionally with a big enough piece of glass).

 

~ :)

[BrianG]

Clouds at night can create a kind of greenhouse effect, a local area under the clouds that's warmer than unclouded areas. Haven't you ever noticed a clear night is cooler than a cloudy night?