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Joanne Nova's blog now has the "Is the Western Climate Establishment corrupt" series as PDF documents that can be easily sent around to others. Feel free to send them to the media and politicians
...In short, I'll believe that the average person is concerned when they actually start doing something about it. Until that happens, it is nothing more than talk.
If you have a close look at our so called "free market" system you will find that is loaded with more cost and inefficiencies than the so called inefficient bureacuacy. There are more snouts in the trough there than there are in Canberra. If you want to see free market in action scroll back a year or two to the GFC.
If people really want to cut CO2 emissions then why don't they just go ahead and stop polluting?
Why do we need a financial market to force people to change if they really believe in the issue?
...QUOTE]
I have no problem and I try to cut on car or electricity use whenever I can without affecting my life too much.
But often I wander if it will make any difference?
Big polluters surely will be sceptical on Global Warming and until whole globe decides to do one thing we will not repair climate ourselves.
I keep reminding that Australia creates mere 2% of Global Warming, so even if we stop dead polluting overnight, surely it will make little difference since other polluters keep increasing their portions.
We will simply tax ourselves to poverty and besides feeling good about ourselves we will just look silly.
(Reminds me of some Monks walking naked around, so their clothing accidentally does not kill some little creatures. Noble thing, but really?)
That is precisely the problem I have with the whole ETS concept. It may well reduce CO2 emissions, but that is absolutely a sideline to its primary outcome of establishing yet another market on which to trade and speculate. For every Dollar spent, very little of it will end up actually reducing emissions.
In contrast to that, we could just go ahead and build a predominantly renewable power system without the need for middlemen skimming off most of the money. Far cheaper and it actually fixes the CO2 issue.
If my car breaks down tomorrow then I'll get it towed to a mechanic who can fix it. There's no point paying an army of middlemen to argue about what the mechanic should be paid and what might be wrong with the car. Just fixing the thing will be a lot cheaper and a lot quicker. Same with any problem.
If your household hot water bills are too high then do you employ an accountant to set up a shower trading system amongst family members? A system which can only work through either forcing the purchase of a more economical hot water system or by rationing consumption to some level below what would otherwise be preferred? Or do you just get a solar water heater and fix the problem simply and relatively cheaply? I think most would choose the latter and there's a reason for that. Trading the problem is not fixing it, all it does is waste money on middlemen.
Trading and markets certainly have a place. But the concept that bankers are the best people to fix an engineering and ecological problem worries me greatly. Keep the bankers well away at least until they can get their core business, the financial system, running sustainably (noting that failure on this point is the root cause of the CO2 issue in the first place - attempting constant growth on a finite planet).
If you have a close look at our so called "free market" system you will find that is loaded with more cost and inefficiencies than the so called inefficient bureacuacy. There are more snouts in the trough there than there are in Canberra. If you want to see free market in action scroll back a year or two to the GFC.
Oh brother! I can't believe people are still pushing that poorly thought out barrow.
GFC had nothing to do with a genuinely free market. It was primarily due to a legislated and bureaucratic credit bubble, courtesy of Bill Clinton and The Fed.
A true "free market" would have sorted out any market inefficiencies far earlier than GFC, via a normal business cycle.
GFC was a regulatory (via interference) failure not a market failure.
Bankers are the last people we need to get involved but I still see the need to hit the hip pocket nerve. I have just received a subsidy for both my solar hot water and my solar power. By installing these at considerable cost (after subsidies) I paid a price for reducing my carbon footprint. The subsidy I received had to come from taxation. I believe that it should come from a charge levied on those that choose not to reduce their carbon footprint, via a carbon tax.
The banks behaviour would have been a whole lot different if governments kept the #### out of it, even without regulatory restraints. If the banks knew there were never going to be any bailouts, they'd have been a LOT more conservative.Agree, but it was also a regulatory failure due to removing constraints off the banks...
A true "free market" would have sorted out any market inefficiencies far earlier than GFC, via a normal business cycle..
A truly free market exists only in your mind or maybe in a perfect world. The closest you could get these days is via a visit to Woodstock. The last freemarket was about the days of the cave man. The fact that it no longer exists puts in in the same class as the Tasmanian tiger. Time to be realistic and face reality.
I love to drive fast. the reason I don't is because if I get caught I get fined, lose points and could use my licence. Most drivers are the same. Apply the same rules to pollution, carbon style, and youd see the same result.
Ahh the usual faulty logic.
You say: The free market does not exist.
You say: GFC was caused by the free market.
Yet somehow trying to apply both to some point about your AGW/pollution confusion.
Classic cognitive dissonance.
As we've discussed on this forum before, applying a price to carbon in western economies only drives emissions offshore to the third world, trashing our economies and enriching others... and no net carbon benefit.
In fact, this probably increases emissions and most certainly increases general pollution.
OK, here's a very real scenario. Most roads have speed limits, but there are few roads that do not. You imply that you will obey the speed limit, but what happens when you come to a road with no limit whatsoever?I love to drive fast. the reason I don't is because if I get caught I get fined, lose points and could use my licence. Most drivers are the same. Apply the same rules to pollution, carbon style, and youd see the same result.
No prize for guessing where the steel industry, aluminium smelters and every other energy intensive process will become concentrated. They're only in Australia in the first place specifically because we have cheap electricity, a point that has long been fairly well known.
Looking at it nationally:I didn't know we had much industry left. The "free market economy" has offloaded them to the countries with no speed limits anyway. The rest will soon follow. The aluminium smelters could have had cheap Hydro power but for the no dams policies and with a little imagination.
I didn't know we had much industry left. The "free market economy" has offloaded them to the countries with no speed limits anyway. The rest will soon follow. The aluminium smelters could have had cheap Hydro power but for the no dams policies and with a little imagination.
Your a distractor on this thread nioka, you make every assertion under the sun, rarely substantiate any of it and can't answer basic question on your assertions.
Time to add you to the ignore list
I didn't know we had much industry left. The "free market economy" has offloaded them to the countries with no speed limits anyway. The rest will soon follow. The aluminium smelters could have had cheap Hydro power but for the no dams policies and with a little imagination.
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