Julia's going to tell Caucus what's going on via a 140-odd phone hookup, and then explain to the rest of us why we're going to spend money on something that many of us doesn't believe necessary. Let's face it, the Carbon Tax has been so spin-kerfuffled that nobody has a clue any more, but are going to feel hurt from the attacks on their wallet.
It's to be hoped that Julia willl vindicate the need today, and that the propoganda war being fought on the issue will be assuaged and mollified.. but don't count on it!
I've thrown this thread up as a starting place for conversations that might stem from today, but hope that more larned minds than mine might put up their own opinions either as comments here or as seperate pieces. Over to yoiu!
Only idiots shit in their own nests!
We can act quickly to prevent cruelty to cows, the ABC had us ringing our politicians and before you know it a billion dollar industry was brought to a halt.
Why is it that we do not have the same fire in our bellies when it comes to protecting our children and their unborn children?
The science is in Climate Change is real, the economists have said a carbon tax and ETS are the best ways to tackle the problem.
Get emotional about your children's future, thousands of species will be lost forever, just because we cannot see it on our TV screens today does not make it any less real.
So a few thousand miners might loose their jobs, So What!
Millions of new jobs will be created in new alternative energy industries.
Did we worry about blacksmiths when we replaced horses with our cars.
We have learnt that it is smart to clean up our land and river pollution, what is so difficult about cleaning up our atmospheric pollution?
Only idiots shit in their own nest!
Elegantly put, John
Elegantly put, John Pratt.
Let's hope Australians start to think more seriously about the new carbon reduction scheme. We really have been confused by Abbott's tax scare campaign, amplified by the tabloid media megaphone. What ecological Hansonists seem really not like are the redistributionary aspects, such as raising the tax free level as compensation for those at the bottom of the income pile.
They don't grasp that this Carbon reduction initiative, to more accurately describe it is a necessary recognition and acknowledgement of the unfolding problem of climate change, without immediately imposing any vast imposts, despite the whingings to the contrary from the more stubborn amongst the obscurantists.
Reducing, Gillard "gets it" on this, Abbott does not.
If the only thing that comes of it is a government acknowledgement, which is all this actually is in its actual substance and impact, then some thing has been acheived, and you hope its more evidence a beginning for more adult policies concerning enviro as time unfolds.
But please, no more miseries from folk because they might have to turn a bar off on the heater and put a sweater on. Flawed though the scheme may be, it's goals have to encouraged, as JP said, it's not just us, its future generations, also.
Come on Australia! Give our kids a chance.
The carbon price agreement:
• helps the most vulnerable Australians;
This is the agreement that will be put to the the government over the next few weeks, what is it that is causing so much hysteria?
Generations before us fought wars and gave us freedom, have we become so self obsessed that we are not willing to give a few cents for coming generations?
On the ABC'S Lateline last night:
Leading climate change expert Professor Hans Joachim Schellnhuber says progress will be much easier now Australia has put a price signal on carbon emissions.HANS JOACHIM SCHELLNHUBER: I mean, people often say, well, I have fluctuations of temperatures between say Queensland and Melbourne and whatever, much higher levels - why should we care about it?
You have to compare it to body temperature. Our body temperature is about 37 degrees. If you increase it by two degrees, 39, you have fever. If you have add four degrees, it is 41 - you are dead, more or less.
And you have to think about the body temperature of our planet, which has been brought about through many, many processes over many, many millions of years. So, disturbing our planet at such an amount would, as I said before, create a different world, it would mean agriculture would have to find completely new ways.
And, by the way, Australia is surrounded by oceans - four degrees sustained for a while would mean at least seven or 10 metre sea level rise; probably it would melt down all the ice on this planet. That accounts to 70 metres, seven oh, metres in the long term.
If we want to see our grandchildren and great grandchildren have any chance at a good life surely we have to act now.
If we can't do this by political means will we have to revert to civic disobedience or even civil war?
I for one feel strong enough about this issue to do what ever it takes to give my kids a chance.
Getting out of the card game with the shirt still on his back.
Ricardo, my bs detector is not malfunctioning either. Since Abbott won't even acknowledge the problem, what alternative am I left with?
An acknowledgement, as with the Apology to indigenes; even an acknowledgment is better than nothing, surely?
I admitted in my post that I didn't think it was perfect- to think of it as a silver bullet is risable, it's only a start. and it is indeed in danger of collapsing under the weight of its own contradictions, as bolt-ons added to protect certain interests undermine its original objective.
But Labor is on its last chance- either it reins in its opportunists, or it will crash, next time beyond retreival.
As with the coalition, the eternal battle between the leaders and thinkers and the opportunists, continues unabated.
Nil Diabolus Advocatum
I'm one of the Great Unwashed, Paul, prepared to be convinced that something needs to be done, happy to go along with attempts at solution if it's not going to cost me too much, but alll in all fairly ambivalent.
However I feel that if it's perceived by my leaders that I couldn't be coerced into supporting climate change action without a long barrage of opoinion-manipulative spin psychology then I will have earned the right to treat them with the same level of inttellectual contempt as they appear to bestow on me.
Wasn't meant to cure the problems of the world
Yes Richard, we know you are playing devil's advocate. We know that it's not a world beater, probably won't do much to control a problem that involves a whole planet and is loaded with anomalies like the one you mention.
But it wasn't meant to cure the problems of the world in one hit. It's a cautious step, hopefully similar small steps are taken elsewhere also, so as to deny deliberate damage by rivals to our store of competitive advantage, with reciprocity developing trust between nations, to act an issue that threatens us all if the science is right.
More telling in future will be the response to increased coal gas seam mining, a big problem offshore and likely eventually one here, too and other enviro problems that threaten the future productivity and habitability of this country
Half of "Australia's 1000 big polluters" aren't being taxed
It blew a bit of air of the balloon as far as I was concerned, to heJar our Prime Minister, in reespnse to a question from Tony Jones on Q and A, explain that the reduction in number to 500 was a direct result of the decision not to inclued petrol in carbon tax.
She's admitted that petrol-based industries cause half of prominenent emissions, but are being ignored.
Sounds to me like only half the job has been done.
Cripes, better be careful, I'm starting to sound like a Liberal!
Green Sunday
Green Sunday: 10 July 2011, a day we will all remember.
A day when Australia took up a leadership position and turned its back on fossil fuels.
Some facts from Getup.
A long time coming and still a lot of work left to do but hope at last that our generation will have the guts to face the challenges of this century.
Well done to the Greens the independents and to the ALP.
Now listen to the facts, the scientists', the economists' and forget the crap coming from the great denier Tony Abbott and his band of fear mongers.
Julia: from Renege to Reign masterful spin!
Couldn't quite believe that the person who gave a solemn promise of no carbon tax as a prime miniseterial candidate, who expained her need to backflip as a result of minority govt formation, was sitting up on telly like the Queen of Australia, taking credit for everything.
I've noticed of late, too, the recent rise in the expression. "Gillard Labor Government" in press releases.. thought Julia wasn't going to do that, either?
It's masterful spin, and Bob Brown's line "It's a great Green Action fay for Australia" might've belied far greater aspirations.
So what?
It's not going to cost a lot of money, it seems worthwhile, so why not? That's the most I can make of it. Looks like the complainants are petty-minded muckrakers.
After a day of ABC, I'm looking forward to the Prime Time Dunday night version (6.30 on Nine) to see how it' put across to "The Great Unwashed."
Abbot's not going to get his "People Power" street revolution.. the fact he's stopped trying suggests he's woken up to this. Methinks tnat many are like me in thinking him making, to borrow from The Bard, much ado about nothing.
Tony's Tim Tams should rest in history beside John Hewsons Birthday Cake and Meg Lees' cooked chook. Still, fun to watch isn't it Paul? However, the cynic in me wonders what media-divertive purpose the timing of the announcements might be intended to conceal? Did someone say "W-Curve" ?
Satanic mills and focus groups.
Yes, I have been watching this issue develop, also. It is the next big story, because of both the issues and the politics. The press and blogosphere are alive with thread starters and op pieces; have just come from Former WD er Brian Bahnisch, who does threads on enviro at LP and Sauer Thompson's "Public Opinion", also Club Troppo running a thread by Ken Parish, that echoes the sentiments of Michael Pascoe, the Fairfax finance writer, for the opposing viewpoint.
These latter are sceptical that the tax will be efficient enought to do any job on carbon pollution, whilst also putting additional strains on the economy and working families. Methinks a cop out emanating from Big Carbon, but one of the few things Sauer Thompson and the others agree on, is that the exercise is really about having in place mechanisms for the future, should the evidence firm as to global warming.
The scheme up and running ideally would be part of similar movements toward a responsible fallback position for carbon amelioration, in other countries also, and I understand there is a general if slow and and inneffectual, movement across the world, in the face of fierce opposition from big business and its mouthpieces, like Murdoch.
As Annabel Crabb was making clear in an interview I was just watching, the public will cop the costs, not polluters, despite the Greens complaints that the contrary should be the case. But they are not excessive, about ten bucks (packet of smokes?) extra a week and some thing in place, should the science get even more pessimistic than it already is.
Crabb offered the insight that it appears to be the Greens that "gave" on issues like alternatives and their funding and this is where the politics comes into it, because Gillard 's best hope is to set herself up as a sort of Bob Hawke consensus figure, capable of getting things done that Abbott's barge arse would fail at.