Climate change...

[auto]

Im sick of the debate on the science. The debate should be why a tax is the best solution to reduce our emissions without sending our economy down the toilet.

What other possible solutions are there?

[Banker]

The US are using a Cap & Trade system eg Carbon Credits.

A slower process to implement with increasing tightening of emissions (of all pollutants, not just CO2)

With our proposed Carbon Tax, everything will rise in price overnight... Is your wage going to aswell? Highly doubt mine will!

[White Line Fever]

Coldest May in ten years

Get ready for the ice age tax

WLF it is important to distinguish between short term localised weather and long term global climate change - a cold autumn in Adelaide is just a cold autumn in Adelaide. It is not necessarily colder elsewhere in the world. As the following graph shows, the year-to-year global temperature (the blue line) jumps around from year to year but the long term average (the red line) is creeping upwards.

300px-Instrumental_Temperature_Record_(NASA)_svg.png

Now that's an interesting graph.

[auto]

The US are using a Cap & Trade system eg Carbon Credits.

A slower process to implement with increasing tightening of emissions (of all pollutants, not just CO2)

With our proposed Carbon Tax, everything will rise in price overnight... Is your wage going to aswell? Highly doubt mine will!

Gotta say after watching parliment time last night/early this morning i think a carbon tax is the way to go in lieu of a better alternative.
ps..im not a sucker for politicians or political speak but at this stage i agree with labour and the way they are going about it.

[fish]

There is a rally in support of action on climate change tomorrow Sunday 5th June at 11am at Victoria Square.

Rallies will also be taking place in other capital cities around Australia.

[Dog_ger]

Why doesn't the entile world go Solar Panel Electricity?

With proper solar credits for those that are responsible.

I understand it can never be 100% but we can do a lot better than we are doing at the moment.

What about better subsidies on electric cars?

Make it more affordable to lower income people?

What about banning the sale of fossil fuels..?

Like we have banned smokers from shopping malls.

Opps too much....

The dinosaurs didn't die because of our pollution....

We are not really serious about entirely stopping pollution are we...?

There always must be a tax...

[fish]

The US are using a Cap & Trade system eg Carbon Credits.

A slower process to implement with increasing tightening of emissions (of all pollutants, not just CO2)

With our proposed Carbon Tax, everything will rise in price overnight... Is your wage going to aswell? Highly doubt mine will!

Banker the last I heard was that the US has temporarily dropped the cap and trade proposal, as the Obama administration cannot get it through Congress, and they are now going for a regulatory approach instead. I had a quick look for some news about this but couldn't find any so if anyone else knows where this is at please post away.

I heard Ross Garnaut answer a question on why a fixed price on carbon was preferable to a floating price, and he replied that a fixed price would probably be less than where the floating price would end up - as such a fixed price would provide a "softer landing" for the transition to a carbon constrained economy, as well as some certainty during the first few years of carbon pricing.

Either way - fixed or floating price - the same goods and products would incur the tax, but a floating price would likely incur more.

[fish]

Why doesn't the entile world go Solar Panel Electricity?

With proper solar credits for those that are responsible.

I understand it can never be 100% but we can do a lot better than we are doing at the moment.

What about better subsidies on electric cars?

Make it more affordable to lower income people?

What about banning the sale of fossil fuels..?

Dog_ger putting a price on carbon-intensive fossil fuels will increase the economic competitiveness of less carbon-intensive stuff like solar panels and electric cars.

[fish]

I still have not been able to find an answer to my question about how directly comparable CO2 levels from recent dry flask air samples from Vostok are with levels from older ice core encased air bubbles...

Welcome back to the climate change debate Psyber I thought you'd retired after your monumental blunder in relation to the Vostok ice-cores.

Anyway, to answer your question, there are three main datasets of Antarctic ice core data on the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center website - from Vostok, Siple Station and the Law Dome. The Siple Station and Law Dome records overlap with the time period of the Antarctic air flask data so they enable a direct comparison to be made.

The Siple Station data is not of much use as it only has one reading that represents the same time period as the air flask data. Nevertheless the ice-core reading for the period 1962-1983 (328ppm) compares very well with the air flask readings of 318.06ppm for 1962 to 341.17ppm for 1983.

The Law Dome data has three ice-core datasets and is much more useful for making comparisons between the ice-core CO2 levels and the air flask CO2 levels. Here are the relevant readings for the DE08-2 cores:

1970: Ice core concentration 324.7-325.2ppm compared to flask air 324.32ppm
1971: Ice core concentration 324.1ppm compared to flask air 325.12ppm
1973: Ice core concentration 328.1ppm compared to flask air 327.62ppm
1975: Ice core concentration 331.2ppm compared to flask air 329.5ppm
1978: Ice core concentration 332-335.2ppm compared to flask air 333.69ppm

The other ice-core datasets DE08 and DSS also show very similar results for ice-core CO2 concentration and air-flask concentration.

Although this analysis is a bit technical, the comparison reinforces the validity of the Antarctic ice-core data as an accurate historical record of the atmospheric carbon dioxide over the last 420,000 years. The Antarctic ice-core data, along with the air flask data, shows that the current atmospheric concentration of CO2 has risen dramatically since industrialisation (by about 40%) to the highest levels for at least the last 420,000 years.

The science says that this high level of CO2 (and other greenhouse gases such as methane) in the atmosphere caused by human activity is the primary cause of the current warming of the planet.

For those who do not want to sift through all the data the following graph plots the historical carbon dioxide measurements graphically:

[fish]

Well in case you've been living under a rock these past couple of days the government has finally provided the detail on how the price on carbon will work. There is a lot of info out there but the ABC website gives a pretty reasonable overview of the proposal as well as the details.

From the ABC website:

The main features of the plan are:

Initial carbon price of $23 per tonne of carbon pollution to be paid by the 500 heaviest emitters and increasing by 2.5 per cent in real terms.

A transition to a market-based emissions trading scheme in 2015.

$9.2 billion from the revenue stream to help businesses and workers impacted by the plan.

Tax cuts and pension increases to protect people from higher prices.

A $1.2 billion Clean Technology Program to improve energy efficiency in manufacturing and to support research and development.

Australia's most polluting electricity generators will be closed and replaced with gas-fired units by 2020.

A $10 billion Clean Energy Finance Corporation to fund new clean energy technology.

An Australian Renewable Energy Agency to manage a $10 billion Clean Energy Finance Corporation to fund new clean energy technology.

An Australian Renewable Energy Agency to manage a $3.2 billion clean energy budget.

A target of 20 per cent renewable energy by 2020.

Agriculture excluded from paying the carbon price.

[fish]

I have long been a supporter of pricing carbon in order to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and overall I'm pretty happy with the proposal and the emission reduction targets seem reasonable, particularly the 2050 target of an 80% reduction.

Importantly, pricing carbon now sets us up well for when a global carbon pricing mechanism comes into play, which I believe is inevitable sooner rather than later.

[Psyber]

Im sick of the debate on the science. The debate should be why a tax is the best solution to reduce our emissions without sending our economy down the toilet.

What other possible solutions are there?

See the French solution - my post here: viewtopic.php?f=20&t=31910&start=280

Now that I am convinced that there is a real human contribution to CO2 levels, above the present cyclic high, I think we should get serious about solutions that have been demonstrated to work.

[fish]

Nations most at risk from global warming

A THIRD of humanity, mostly in Africa and South Asia, face the biggest risks from climate change and rich nations in northern Europe will be least exposed, according to a new report.

Bangladesh, India and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are among 30 countries with "extreme'' exposure to climate shift, according to a ranking of 193 nations by Maplecroft, a British firm specialising in risk analysis.

Five Southeast Asian nations - Indonesia, Burma, Vietnam, the Philippines and Cambodia - are also in the highest category, partly because of rising seas and increasing severe tropical storms.

Maplecroft's tool, the Climate Change Vulnerability Index (CCVI), looks at exposure to extreme weather events such as drought, cyclones, wildfires and storm surges, which translate into water stress, loss of crops and land lost to the sea.

How vulnerable a society is to these events is also measured, along with a country's potential to adapt to future climate change-related hazards.

[Psyber]

That makes sense.
Early civilisations tended to develop on low lying well watered, fertile lands, near coasts or rivers in warmer and wetter regions. They are most at risk as water levels rise and storms increase.
However, some old civilisations, like those in the middle east, have suffered from past climate change drying up their water supply.

[dedja]

nuclear is not the answer ...

[smac]

nuclear is not the answer ...

Depends on where you drop the bomb.

[The Sleeping Giant]

It's the answer for a lot of things.

[Sky Pilot]

Wednesday was beautiful and sunny and warm, yesterday was overcast and cool and today it is pissing down. If this is climate change then I'm all for it.

[Psyber]

nuclear is not the answer ...

This summary is worth a look: http://www.ensec.org/index.php?option=c ... Itemid=342

[Barto]

nuclear is not the answer ...

Nuclear fission may not be.