| Author | Message | ||
     Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 3266 Registered: 05-2005 |
If you've heard something about climate change sceptics voting down an emissions trading Bill in Australia and want to know more, my report on it is here http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/worl d/2009/1203/1224259997483.html | ||
| David Gagen Member Username: David_g Post Number: 266 Registered: 02-2007 |
Hey Padraig, the Greens voted against it too! | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 3278 Registered: 05-2005 |
David, that's in my third sentence! With the Greens and two independent senators rejecting the ETS legislation, Labor was relying on the opposition Liberal Party for the necessary votes. Did you only read the first two?! | ||
| Charles Coy Member Username: Coy Post Number: 162 Registered: 10-2006 |
Thanks Padraig.... | ||
| Mark Leydon Member Username: Mark_leydon Post Number: 278 Registered: 05-2005 |
Good article Padraig. It's disgraceful the way the major opposition party in Australia has now been hijacked by climate change deniers. I was never a fan of Malcolm Turnbull but got to admire his attempt to stand up to these dangerous creeps. It's not just that the new leadership is opposed to an emission trading scheme. The new leader Tony Abbott is on record as calling climate change 'absolute crap'. His main backer Senator Nick Minchin claims that climate change is a total fraud and part of some global left-wing conspiracy to de-industrialise the western world. What's frightening is the way these views are now resonating with the party base and the broader electorate. The whole thing is cynical. I don't think guys like Abbott really believe that climate change is a hoax - it's just that they think they've found a new wedge issue. By presenting any market-based attempt to curb carbon emissions as a 'giant tax on everything' they're appealing to the same sort of selfish instincts that worked so well for them with the anti-immigration Tampa issue a few years ago. | ||
| Charles Coy Member Username: Coy Post Number: 163 Registered: 10-2006 |
There has to be a balance, we are all prepared to pay a cost for emission reduction, no problem. It just has to be affordable and shared. believe we all have a responsibility. Table the cost per household and lets get on with it.. | ||
| Mark Leydon Member Username: Mark_leydon Post Number: 279 Registered: 05-2005 |
Charles, the Labor party has tabled in great detail the cost of its ETS scheme. It's just that the Liberal Party has now decided that any cost is too much - mainly because it is now run by idiots who refuse to believe that global warming is even happening. I have no idea what you mean by 'there has to be a balance'? What, a balance between the views of those who take the threat of global warming seriously and those who think who think (in the words of Tony Abbott) that it's absolute crap? | ||
| David Gagen Member Username: David_g Post Number: 267 Registered: 02-2007 |
Sorry Padraig wrote my comment in response to urs before reading the article. My point being it wasnt just skeptics who voted against it. Many on the green side of politics are opposed to Rudds plan. Rudd could have got legislation thru parliament if he chose to negotiate with the Greens, after all that is there core constituency. He sidelined them. He chose to instead negotiate with the Coalition. I havent read too much commentrary in Aus press about this. Good article Padraig | ||
| Charles Coy Member Username: Coy Post Number: 164 Registered: 10-2006 |
Whilst costs have been broken down, they remain treasury estimates. I just feel that once the general public are able to budget for any cost passed on, those who oppose will have less to debate. The balance I guess is to get the numbers for the go ahead and Abbott's platform is out of the equation. | ||
| Geoff Holmes Member Username: Geoff Post Number: 605 Registered: 05-2005 |
Australia has always been sceptical of science. That the Conservatives (oh sorry, that's LIBERAL party!) have been hijacked by idiots who believe in gods at the bottom of the garden WILL play into peoples misunderstanding of the rigour of scientific thought - a way of thinking that requires evidence and understands how it accumulates to become a "present" and therefore "best" understanding of physical phenomenon....at the present time. The nuances of the scientific argument are often lost on people who then reject the uncertainty of science for the certainty of some ancient text of fairy stories. I have a very bad feeling about this whole debate. I think we're f*!$ked. Now should I just resign myself to that fact and get a gas guzzling 4WD, energy sucking widest screen plasma TV and have lots of kids just to prove the point? Howard had the Australian public by the balls as he always referred everything back to the hip pocket. Abbot is no different except he might actually really believe that his god will fix everything when the planet is rooted if we stuff it up. | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 3283 Registered: 05-2005 |
Geoff, I had a very interesting discussion with a climate change scientist (he works for the UN in this capacity) on the Sunshine Coast about 18 months ago. Well, mostly he talked and I listened. He has come to the same conclusion as you - it's too late, we're already doomed. | ||
| David Gagen Member Username: David_g Post Number: 269 Registered: 02-2007 |
Time for nuclear energy perhaps Padraig. I know some greens who are starting to advocate serious debate. If carbon emissions are so bad, then nuclear should be seriously considered. | ||
| Geoff Holmes Member Username: Geoff Post Number: 608 Registered: 05-2005 |
David I think the facts need to be revealed before we consider nuclear. Firstly, nuclear waste only decays to background levels only after 25,000 years. Considering human civilisation has only been round IN TOTAL for about 6000 years, can we expect to keep it safe for enormous amounts of time? I don't think so. Secondly, the former boss of Telstra, Ziggy Switkowski, a PhD in nuclear physics and then head of Howard's "Nuclear solution group", was asked on radio how long Uranium would last under CURRENT consumption levels. Answer?...80 to 90 years. I heard someone say once that going from coal to uranium was like giving up cigarettes by replacing it with crack - a fair analogy in my view. | ||
| David Gagen Member Username: David_g Post Number: 270 Registered: 02-2007 |
Funny how we sell uranium to other countries to use for nuclear energy but its too dangerous for us to use it Geoff. I always thought that was a strange policy. I have always been against nuclear energy but in the curent circumstances i think all options should be on the table. | ||
| Randy Adams Member Username: Randy_adams Post Number: 2195 Registered: 03-2005 |
I've been reading this thread with interest. I too recently ran across an article covering the rapidly depleting known reserves of uranium. For some reason I thought this stuff that created such long-lasting radioactive waste was at least something that could be used for a long time before scrapping. Wrong! Geoff is right; nuclear is a particularly nasty dead end. Both Oz and the western US have no excuse for not pursuing solar in a big way. All of our roofs should be covered with solar collectors and the technological improvements for that should be funded by any source possible. The electric grid should be decentralized to individual structures that feed their excess back into the grid. Then the big focus should be on a means to store the excess power for use when solar generation isn't adequate. Here in the US Mr. Obama has thrown astonishing sums at propping up the parasitic banking system and now Afghanistan and nearly nothing at our desperately necessary next generation of power grids. Which, incidentally, would also be a massive jobs program. It's almost like Bush never left office. | ||
| David Gagen Member Username: David_g Post Number: 271 Registered: 02-2007 |
I agree Randy re solar. We have whole suburbs of new houses being built and not one of em has solar panels. You'd think govt would make it compulsory for all new homes to have em installed. As for Obama, I think it was more than ironic that the Nobel Prize for peace was awarded to a guy who just send another 30000 troops into a war. Must be the first time in history this has happened. | ||
| Geoff Holmes Member Username: Geoff Post Number: 611 Registered: 05-2005 |
Just cause all the Lemmings are jumping off the cliff David, doesn't necessarily mean we should follow! Especially when a couple of customers refuse to sign the nuclear non proliferation treaty(!!) and other customers want to ship all the waste back where it originally came from!!! Randy, some state governments in Auz are starting to make solar cells more viable. The NSW state government has recently made consessions that mean you get $8000 back for an $18000 upfront cost, plus excess electricity can now be put back into the grid for the same cost of buying it. I'm really thinking about it. It will mean I pay it off in about 10 years. Trouble is, I'll probably be retiring in 10 to 15 years! Also, I think Copenhagen will flush out even more compensation packages from the federal government. Apparently the leaders in the field are Germany where you sell it back at 1.5 times the cost you could buy it for! A | ||
| Randy Adams Member Username: Randy_adams Post Number: 2198 Registered: 03-2005 |
I'm sitting tight on this too, Geoff. My roof will need replacement in another few years. I'm determined to install a white metal roof. Nobody does that here but it increases the albedo for the local area (to ease urban heat island effect) and it massively decreases the heat gain inside the house during the hot season, making A/C virtually unnecessary. (I seldom switch mine on anyway). Once I've done that then I'll start exploring the solar options. | ||
| Geoff Holmes Member Username: Geoff Post Number: 614 Registered: 05-2005 |
I got a new roof about 7 years ago but got a dark one for asthetic reasons! If I won the lotto I would redo it. One thing environment minister Peter Garratt (yeah - Midnight Oil frontman!) has done so far was to start a roof insulation rebate that, basically, pays for the cost. I got in pretty early before the dodgy backstreet guys got organised. The rebate pays up to $1600 and mine cost just under that so I got it all back. I had had a discussion with friends about how insulation could be a good way of reducing heating and cooling costs about a year or two before it came in. They promptly took my advice (shock horror) and installed it themselves as well as buying a Prius! They were pretty pissed off to fine out that all of their costs could not be refunded! (Houses lose 40% of all heat through their ceilings) | ||
| Randy Adams Member Username: Randy_adams Post Number: 2199 Registered: 03-2005 |
Aesthetically, the white roof will actually work for me because the house is a dark green with white trim. Yeah, the dark color isn't the most rational during hot weather but I've surrounded it with light-filtering growth on the sunny sides, most of which is commendably drought-resistant. I'm looking forward to having the neighbors crinkle their noses and go "oooh, that's weird-looking." And then, little by little, people figure it out. The U.S. pushed insulation retrofits big-time back in the 1970s and early 1980s and my house got it in the ceiling then. I'll bet it could be thicker though. What the place could use now is insulation under the floor. But my house has a LOT of windows so it will always be a heat-loser unless I decide to shell out the $$$$ on a window change-out. I like my old wooden windows. I'm still trying to talk myself into a Prius, but for somebody used to driving zippy little Italian cars that's hard cheese! | ||
| Michael Bachman Member Username: Michael_bachman Post Number: 1693 Registered: 01-2005 |
Randy, It looks like Ford has finally got a decent zippy little car with great fuel economy in the 2011 Ford Fiesta that will soon be built in Michigan. This Fiesta version has been available in Europe for a number of years. I would hold out on the new Fiesta though until the direct injection/single turbo 4 cylinder EcoBoost engines are available in a sport SVT edition. http://www.fordvehicles.com/cars/fiesta/ |