By 2011-12, carbon emission-related direct and indirect hand-outs for industry will constitute about half the total of overall Australian Government help to industry. In short, business has a new trough into which it can aim its ravenous snout. And lobbyists, industry associations and political parties will benefit. Read more.
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About Me
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD has worked in industry and government. She is currently researching a novel technique for long-range weather forecasting funded by the B. Macfie Family Foundation.
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As an outsider, I have the objectivity needed to spot one weakness in the Australian government’s carbon-emissions-reduction program. There’s been a lot of bad press about cattle farts contributing to Global Warming, but precious little about human flatulence. If your government is really serious about getting a handle on greenhouse gases, they should put a heavy tax on lentils, dried beans, and cabbage. Or better still, reclassify them as illegal drugs! Moreover there should be generous subsidies for commercial anti-flatulence products, like Beano.
Bjorn Lomborg slams this in the Wall Street Journal…
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124286145192740987.html#mod=djemEditorialPage
“ome business leaders are cozying up with politicians and scientists to demand swift, drastic action on global warming. This is a new twist on a very old practice: companies using public policy to line their own pockets.
The tight relationship between the groups echoes the relationship among weapons makers, researchers and the U.S. military during the Cold War. President Dwight Eisenhower famously warned about the might of the “military-industrial complex,” cautioning that “the potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.” He worried that “there is a recurring temptation to feel that some spectacular and costly action could become the miraculous solution to all current difficulties.“