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IMPORTANT // Please look after your loved ones, yourself and be kind to others. If you are feeling that the world is too hard to handle there is always help - I implore you not to hesitate in contacting one of these wonderful organisations Lifeline and Beyond Blue ... and I'm sure reaching out to our PRE community we will find a way to help. T.
Global Warming
- Thread starter Disco08
- Start date
Big Cat Lover said:
Some do, but generally those who earn more spend more. The difference is on the proportion spent, as low income earners tend to have the vast majority of their income directed to consumption. This is why they tend to be the focus of the majority of compensation measures in any consumption based tax introduction, as they feel the biggest direct impact.
Should point out I'm actually a fan of consumption based taxation. If you spend, you pay. If you don't, you benefit. You just need to make sure the compensation measures for genuine low income earners are legitimate.
GST did this half well, with the clean up of the income tax brackets. It stuffed it though with the compromises on exemptions (healthy food, medical, housing, etc). They inflate the rate needed, and needlessly added to the complexity of the tax.
Add to that the complications of stupid middle class welfare like the baby bonus, and it just corrupts what can be a simple taxation system.
With a carbon tax, transition measures must be transitional, and the polis from both sides need to resist the temptation to pander to the electorate to extend them.
For the permanent benefits, I prefer to clean up income taxes again rather than a subsidy on power bills (which can get very messy very quickly). Personally I'd raise the tax free threshold to around 35-40k, with a flat 30% up to around $100k (these are incredibly rough numbers and just for example purposes only, don't treat as verbatim). Unlikely to happen though as alp, green, and indi polis will all want their special little subsidy for their special little interest group.
GST did this half well, with the clean up of the income tax brackets. It stuffed it though with the compromises on exemptions (healthy food, medical, housing, etc). They inflate the rate needed, and needlessly added to the complexity of the tax.
Add to that the complications of stupid middle class welfare like the baby bonus, and it just corrupts what can be a simple taxation system.
With a carbon tax, transition measures must be transitional, and the polis from both sides need to resist the temptation to pander to the electorate to extend them.
For the permanent benefits, I prefer to clean up income taxes again rather than a subsidy on power bills (which can get very messy very quickly). Personally I'd raise the tax free threshold to around 35-40k, with a flat 30% up to around $100k (these are incredibly rough numbers and just for example purposes only, don't treat as verbatim). Unlikely to happen though as alp, green, and indi polis will all want their special little subsidy for their special little interest group.
Tiger74 said:
......by investing in more energy efficient purchasing decision..
if they can afford this, to invest as you say, rather than fork out more on bills, they won't invest, they will simply plough on with the status quo and pay a bit more - maybe turn off a few more lights.
Combined with the compensation to low/middle income earners meaning they won't change their behaviour either (which is why they are compensated ???) , what is the end result as far as impacting the climate? Diddly SQUAT, zero.
As opposed to if everyone actually changed their behaviour, when it would still be diddly SQUAT lol
This is no longer about co2 and global warming, let's drop the facade.
Merveille said:
Depends upon how the compensation is done, why do you assume those on low incomes are not sma enough to pocket the compensation, and at the same time improve their energy efficiency to keep a few of those dollars in their pocket. Not as easy to do, but can be done
Merveille said:
Perhaps you mean "moot". And it turns out the hypocrite did change his behaviour. http://www.factcheck.org/2009/06/al-gores-mansion/ Also turns out that even when the email comparing the Bush and Gore homes was accurate, even at that time the Gores paid a premium to purchase all their electricity from renewable resources.
Merveille said:
What's it about then? So you're saying it used to be about CO2 and global warming? What is the facade and what is it hiding? I'm stumped.
Merveille said:
all the evidence points to economic factors changing behaviour. But you say it won't. Based on what? a hunch, a blog maybe?
Freezer said:
What? Sorry freezer, but that is nuts. A speeding fine for example, its a big incentive for you or I not to speed, but Andrew forrest in his ferrari isn't going to be too worried.
Evidence, geez, I'm not much of an internet trawler, freezer, to much like hard work, just PRE, theage and herald sun footy and email. But look in any book on policy or economics. Its accepted. I'm sure you could find a blog that would dispute it though.
Don't be like that freeze. Honestly I've forgotten the names of extremely boring textbooks I once had or borrowed. They were generally things like 'The Policy process in Australia', 'Economics' (I remember the name of that one) "politics and the modern state' etc, etc and on and on, geez they were boring, but its all in there.
Interesting Opinion piece in The Age this morning . I would be interested in people's reactions
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics/when-science-is-undone-by-fiction-20110628-1gp26.html?rand=1309268585351
The myth of Climate-gate has endured because of media failings.
GEOLOGIST and long-time climate change denialist Bob Carter materialised on this page on Monday, reprising a weary routine - tiptoeing through the scientific archive to find the morsels of data that might, with a twirl here and a shimmy there, contrive to support his theory that global warming is a big fat conspiracy.
Meanwhile, in real news, the journal Nature Geoscience published a paper by American and British scientists that found West Antarctica's Pine Island glacier is now melting 50 per cent faster than in 1994.
In an effort to better understand the hidden mysteries of ice sheet dynamics, which have obvious implications for every coast on the planet, the team also sent a submarine beneath the floating portion of the ice. It found the glacier had broken free from the ridge that once grounded it, allowing warmer waters to circulate and melt it from beneath. This had long been the theory - now they had some observed evidence.
The hastening retreats of the Pine Island and Thwaites glaciers have been closely monitored by scientists for decades. Their collapse is a nightmare cited as one of the tipping-point scenarios scientists most fear - potentially pulling the plug to drain the western ice plateau, and possibly even destabilising the sleeping giant next door: the East Antarctic ice sheet.
The uncertainties of these processes are to blame for the wide, wild variations in anticipated global sea level rise - the hottest, most disputed topic in forecasts for a warmer world. So you might imagine that this latest insight would merit a mention. But it didn't make the cut for publication in any Australian newspapers.
The murky, under-the-waterline mysteries of media dynamics are no less confounding than those determining the movement of glaciers, and no less potentially catastrophic in terms of implications for informing policy debate and climate action.
But there are no laws of physics or nature to provide a framework to explain the vagaries of the media machine, which seems utterly overwhelmed by the task of telling the story on climate science. There is, in truth, nothing very scientific about the processes that determine what makes news in this critical debate. It's a crap shoot. Often, you get crap.
At the heart of Carter's argument against the science is the claim that the credentials of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change - and hence its authority in underpinning policy such as a carbon tax - were ''badly damaged by the leaked 'Climate-gate' emails in November 2009''. He's right - terrible damage was wrought by the accusations that scientists had behaved without integrity or honesty.
What Carter fails to then mention is that, at last count, there have been eight separate inquiries by British and US government agencies, independent panels and universities. Their findings have consistently upheld the honesty and integrity of the scientists. None have identified wrongdoing, and the science was unassailed.
The great scandal of Climate-gate is the failure of the media to recognise and report the findings of these inquiries. That failure allowed the shadow of Climate-gate to endure, and it has been identified as a powerful, albeit hollow, thief of public confidence in critical, evolving science.
Climate-gate, a triumphant moment in the machinery of manufactured doubt, continues to be used to obscure where the live debate is actually occurring. If you want a taste of the fiery end of it, you might like to pay heed to a gathering in Melbourne next month of international experts contemplating a future with 4 degrees or more of warming. (fourdegrees2011.com.au).
It might be argued that the devotion of scientists to identify consensus on climate forecasts - and the sensitivity of the media to brokering anything that might be labelled alarmist - has also nobbled debate.
The valiant efforts of scientists to deliver to policymakers and the public a coherent, consensus voice on climate change moderates the messages, substituting worst-case for best-guess, itself a distortion. As veteran British climate writer Fred Pearce reflected in the wake of the 2007 IPCC report, ''some people accuse the IPCC of being alarmist. On the contrary, my reading is that [it] worked so hard to assuage the concerns of its critics that it left out all the things its authors really fear.''
Further distortions in the debate are rendered by clumsy efforts of the media to achieve ''balance'', or contrived efforts to drum up controversy. But as new Chief Scientist Ian Chubb argued last week, ''if 99 people say one thing and one person says another thing, the one person has a right to have their view on the table, but they don't have a right to be given the same amount of time and space as the 99 without qualification''.
Recent surveys of active climate scientists (those publishing in the area) calculate that 97 in every 100 have views which reflect those of the international academies of science: the planet is warming, this is human caused, and it is dangerous. Most are unlikely to ever have the gift of this page to explain their findings.
Therefore, a more balanced, rigorous and honest rendering of their work is critical to elevating the political and public debate on climate. ''The media has a particular and important role to play,'' said Chubb, ''and the sooner they play it better, the better."
Jo Chandler is a senior writer and author of Feeling The Heat, which tracks climate science field work.
Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics/when-science-is-undone-by-fiction-20110628-1gp26.html#ixzz1QbqGaHdn
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics/when-science-is-undone-by-fiction-20110628-1gp26.html?rand=1309268585351
The myth of Climate-gate has endured because of media failings.
GEOLOGIST and long-time climate change denialist Bob Carter materialised on this page on Monday, reprising a weary routine - tiptoeing through the scientific archive to find the morsels of data that might, with a twirl here and a shimmy there, contrive to support his theory that global warming is a big fat conspiracy.
Meanwhile, in real news, the journal Nature Geoscience published a paper by American and British scientists that found West Antarctica's Pine Island glacier is now melting 50 per cent faster than in 1994.
In an effort to better understand the hidden mysteries of ice sheet dynamics, which have obvious implications for every coast on the planet, the team also sent a submarine beneath the floating portion of the ice. It found the glacier had broken free from the ridge that once grounded it, allowing warmer waters to circulate and melt it from beneath. This had long been the theory - now they had some observed evidence.
The hastening retreats of the Pine Island and Thwaites glaciers have been closely monitored by scientists for decades. Their collapse is a nightmare cited as one of the tipping-point scenarios scientists most fear - potentially pulling the plug to drain the western ice plateau, and possibly even destabilising the sleeping giant next door: the East Antarctic ice sheet.
The uncertainties of these processes are to blame for the wide, wild variations in anticipated global sea level rise - the hottest, most disputed topic in forecasts for a warmer world. So you might imagine that this latest insight would merit a mention. But it didn't make the cut for publication in any Australian newspapers.
The murky, under-the-waterline mysteries of media dynamics are no less confounding than those determining the movement of glaciers, and no less potentially catastrophic in terms of implications for informing policy debate and climate action.
But there are no laws of physics or nature to provide a framework to explain the vagaries of the media machine, which seems utterly overwhelmed by the task of telling the story on climate science. There is, in truth, nothing very scientific about the processes that determine what makes news in this critical debate. It's a crap shoot. Often, you get crap.
At the heart of Carter's argument against the science is the claim that the credentials of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change - and hence its authority in underpinning policy such as a carbon tax - were ''badly damaged by the leaked 'Climate-gate' emails in November 2009''. He's right - terrible damage was wrought by the accusations that scientists had behaved without integrity or honesty.
What Carter fails to then mention is that, at last count, there have been eight separate inquiries by British and US government agencies, independent panels and universities. Their findings have consistently upheld the honesty and integrity of the scientists. None have identified wrongdoing, and the science was unassailed.
The great scandal of Climate-gate is the failure of the media to recognise and report the findings of these inquiries. That failure allowed the shadow of Climate-gate to endure, and it has been identified as a powerful, albeit hollow, thief of public confidence in critical, evolving science.
Climate-gate, a triumphant moment in the machinery of manufactured doubt, continues to be used to obscure where the live debate is actually occurring. If you want a taste of the fiery end of it, you might like to pay heed to a gathering in Melbourne next month of international experts contemplating a future with 4 degrees or more of warming. (fourdegrees2011.com.au).
It might be argued that the devotion of scientists to identify consensus on climate forecasts - and the sensitivity of the media to brokering anything that might be labelled alarmist - has also nobbled debate.
The valiant efforts of scientists to deliver to policymakers and the public a coherent, consensus voice on climate change moderates the messages, substituting worst-case for best-guess, itself a distortion. As veteran British climate writer Fred Pearce reflected in the wake of the 2007 IPCC report, ''some people accuse the IPCC of being alarmist. On the contrary, my reading is that [it] worked so hard to assuage the concerns of its critics that it left out all the things its authors really fear.''
Further distortions in the debate are rendered by clumsy efforts of the media to achieve ''balance'', or contrived efforts to drum up controversy. But as new Chief Scientist Ian Chubb argued last week, ''if 99 people say one thing and one person says another thing, the one person has a right to have their view on the table, but they don't have a right to be given the same amount of time and space as the 99 without qualification''.
Recent surveys of active climate scientists (those publishing in the area) calculate that 97 in every 100 have views which reflect those of the international academies of science: the planet is warming, this is human caused, and it is dangerous. Most are unlikely to ever have the gift of this page to explain their findings.
Therefore, a more balanced, rigorous and honest rendering of their work is critical to elevating the political and public debate on climate. ''The media has a particular and important role to play,'' said Chubb, ''and the sooner they play it better, the better."
Jo Chandler is a senior writer and author of Feeling The Heat, which tracks climate science field work.
Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics/when-science-is-undone-by-fiction-20110628-1gp26.html#ixzz1QbqGaHdn
Too little too late from the media. They love a beat-up, it their bread and butter. the whole so-called climate gate thing was like saying a brand new BMW is undriveable because it has a cracked tail light.
tigersnake said:
Actually it was accused of having a cracked tail light. After inspections from eight independent authorities it turned out that the tail light wasn't cracked after all.
