Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Archives for June 2012

What the Carbon Tax and ETS will Really Cost: Peter Lang

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Tomorrow, July 1, Australia gets the carbon tax the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, promised she would never introduce.   The nation’s 500 “biggest polluters” will start paying a $23-a-tonne carbon price.

Retired geologist and engineer, Peter Lang, calculates what this tax, and the Emissions Trading Scheme to follow, will really cost Australians:

Introduction

Popularly called the ‘Carbon Tax’, the CO2 tax and ETS will cost us more than the government claims.  Initial costs will be relatively small – a ‘honeymoon rate’ – but an accelerating rate thereafter will soon create much higher costs.  Some people will be partly compensated for a while, but after that we will all pay the full costs.

Actual costs are not easily derived – much depends on assumptions and estimates.  From Treasury estimates, for instance, the cost will be more than $13,000 per person (every man woman and child), or more than $26,000 per worker, total to 2050 (in today’s dollars).

However, the costs will most likely be much higher.  Firstly, while the ‘honey-moon rate’ includes only the 500 largest emitters, all CO2 emitters will eventually be brought into the ETS to make the scheme work as planned.

Secondly, emissions will eventually have to be measured, not just crudely estimated as is done now.  Not only CO2, but all the other twenty-three Kyoto gasses, from all sources, will have to be included.  The compliance costs are not included in Treasury’s estimates (see The ultimate compliance cost for the ETS).  Therefore, the actual costs the ETS will impose on us will inevitably be higher than we are being led to believe.

Below I explain the calculations of:

  • the benefit (total to 2050)
  • the cost (total to 2050)
  • the benefit to cost ratio
  • the cost per capita and per worker

Lastly, I list the assumptions that underpin the estimate of the benefits.

The cost and benefit analysis figures I used as inputs are chosen from sources well respected for reliability and credibility. The figures and subsequent analysis tell us, in effect, that Australia is planning to spend $10 dollars for every $1 of benefit it hopes to derive – provided the assumptions about the consequences of AGW are correct.  This suggests that our climate policies are flawed and need major change.

[Read more…] about What the Carbon Tax and ETS will Really Cost: Peter Lang

Save the Carbon, Harvest the Forest?

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Government policies across the world generally favour locking-up forests for carbon sequestration. But a new study by the NSW Government’s Department of Primary Industries suggests: Total greenhouse gas emissions abatement and carbon storage from a multiple use production forest exceed the carbon storage benefit of a conservation forest.

The report stresses that to quantify the climate change impacts of forestry, the entire forestry system should be considered: the carbon dynamics of the forest, the life cycle of forest products; the substitution benefit of biomass and wood products, the risk of leakage resulting from deforestation and forest degradation in other countries.

The study compares the overall greenhouse gas balance for two coastal harvested versus two conservation forests. The accounting method used shows that most of the savings for the harvested forests is in the area of “product substitution”; the idea being that substitution of wood through the use of cement, steel and aluminium creates emissions.

If you are interested in the crooked business of carbon accounting, or looking to justify the harvesting of forests for more fashionable reasons than economics, the report is worth a read:

Harvested forests provide the greatest ongoing greenhouse gas benefits. By Fabiano Ximenes et al. NSW Government, June 2012.
http://www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/434643/Harvested-forests-provide-the-greatest-ongoing-greenhouse-gas-benefits.pdf

Act Locally to Axe the Tax

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Dear Supporters,

In the next few days we will be launching a poster campaign to coincide with the introduction of the Carbon TAX.

The campaign will consist of distributing this poster http://www.galileomovement.com.au/images/poster_campaign_800c.jpg to shops and business in your local area and asking them to display it prominently in their windows or notice boards.

We have chosen this method of communication as we think it will reach more people than will a letter box drop and needs less effort.

We need your help in two ways:

Firstly, you can request us to send you by mail between 1-5 posters for you to take to your local shops. (More if you are really confident)

Additionally, you are welcome to download and print your own copies and ask businesses to hang them in their front windows.

And secondly, we are looking for 100 supporters to donate $5.00 each to help cover the costs of printing and postage. (All money donated will go towards this campaign only).

Link to our Donations Page http://www.galileomovement.com.au/donations.php

A special big thank you to Steve Hunter who has allowed us to use his illustration.

If you have any questions, or want to show your support or order posters, please email us at Galileomovement@gmail.com

Thank you for your support!
The Galileo Movement

Rio+20 Was Different

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‘APPARENTLY, the Rio + 20 Conference ended on Friday. The word apparently is used jokingly. Saturday’s headlines of both the New York Times and the Washington Post failed to include any mention of the closing of the conference. These “newspapers of record” focused on sensational sex trials instead. It seems the conference did not end as the editors wished. According to reports, the conference was tightly controlled by the BRIC countries – Brazil, Russia, India, and China – particularly Brazil which headed the conference. The leaders of Brazil, India and China have made it clear that they will not punish their citizens by stopping economic growth. Russia needs revenues from exports of oil and gas to maintain its budget and government spending.

The conference was different than past conferences for several reasons. There was no grand announcement of Western governments committing huge sums to the governments of the third world. There were no political rock-stars flying in at the last moment to put a deal together. There were no all night sessions extending far beyond the scheduled close of the meeting.

The European ministers were disappointed in the failure for the world to adopt their agenda. The non-government organizations (NGOs) were largely locked out of the process of reaching an agreement, their demands were ignored. The disappointment, even despair, expressed by a number of environmental groups is indicative of the success of the BRIC countries.

Those in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), under whose auspices this conference was given, are no doubt disappointed that they will not have a $100 Billion a year Green Fund to manage. The leaders of some third world countries are no doubt disappointed they will not be receiving huge sums from the UNFCCC, dashing their hopes of expanding their Swiss bank accounts or obtaining that special villa in the south of France. But the conference gave some political leaders the opportunity to stay at a luxurious resort while preaching austerity for others. And the conclusion gives the opportunity for many ordinary citizens in the world to sigh with relief…

By Ken Haapala at www.sepp.org

Abbot and Marohasy Join Chinese Climate Science Community

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WESTERN science, along with western civilization appears to be in terminal decline.[1] China has shot into second place in terms of number of scientific articles that are published in international journals and Chinese scientists are set to take the top spot in the next few years.[2] Drs Jennifer Marohasy and John Abbot have joined the Chinese climate science community with a recent article in the journal Advances in Atmospheric Sciences.[3]

My name is Mr Koala and I’ve been studying all the papers listed in volume 29, number 4 of Advances in Atmospheric Sciences. This is a journal sponsored by the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

I asked Dr Marohasy why she didn’t have this important paper published by the American Meteorological Society’s Journal of Climate. She replied that it was sent to the Journal of Climate, amongst others, but they rejected the article, not because they had any issues with the science, but because they questioned the paper’s relevance.

Relevance!

Even a Koala, not at the top of his tree, can see the relevance.

This is a paper that shows how to forecast rainfall better than the General Circulation Models so popular with climate change scientists in the west.

That’s how relevant it is.
[Read more…] about Abbot and Marohasy Join Chinese Climate Science Community

The Long and Costly War on Carbon: Viv Forbes

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‘The Australian government claims that next month’s tax on carbon dioxide cannot be blamed for today’s soaring costs of living.

This tax, however, is just their latest assault in the decades-long war on carbon that is already inflating the cost of everything.

For at least a decade, power companies have been obliged to source 10-15% of their power at inflated prices from costly and unreliable sources like wind and solar. And for every wind or solar plant built, a duplicate backup gas facility is needed, increasing the demand and price for backup gas, hitting other gas consumers. Moreover, the threat of more carbon taxes has deterred the construction of efficient new coal-burning power plants. Rising electricity costs feed into the cost of everything from public transport to building materials.

The climatists are also responsible for numerous policies pushing up the price of food. These include the ethanol/biofuel madness, the restrictions on the fishing industry, the Kyoto scrub clearing bans, the spread of carbon-credit forests over farming and grazing land, the never ending war on irrigators, and the virtual ban on building new water-supply dams.

Then we have all the hidden costs of the climate industry. Thousands of our smartest graduates are lured into well-paid dead-end desk jobs in the overheads industry devoted to climate red tape, while real entrepreneurs are unable to find workers to develop our continent of under-utilised resources. There is an overpaid bureaucracy devoted to climate “research”, alternate energy, international junkets, Kyoto give-aways, and administration, auditing, enforcement, accounting, law and propaganda for their empire of climate taxes and subsidies.

Finally we have income tax implications from all the money being flung around to bribe people to accept their carbon tax? Every Australian will get these bills somewhere, sometime. And who pays for the hundreds of millions poured down subsidy rat-holes like carbon capture, solar panels, pink bats and the IPCC?

Australia’s crippling carbon tax is but the latest symptom of the costly Climate Madness infecting the well-fed elite of the western world.

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Text from Viv Forbes, photograph from Jennifer Marohasy taken near Lithgow, NSW