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Chockstone Forum - General Discussion

General Climbing Discussion

 Page 2 of 6. Messages 1 to 20 | 21 to 40 | 41 to 60 | 61 to 80 | 81 to 100 | 101 to 111
Author
OT - new carbon tax
climberman
26-Feb-2011
9:24:53 AM
On 25/02/2011 nmonteith wrote:
>On 25/02/2011 Wendy wrote:
>>I'm very dubious about the benefits of market based systems. Sure, theoretically,
>>people use less because it hurts the hip pocket. Can anyone else remember
>>when petrol was sub 60c? And LPG sub 20? Do you actually drive less
>now
>>that it's 1.30 and 60 ish?
>
>Yes! I moved from Melbourne to Sydney as I couldn't afford the costs of
>driving to the Grampians every weekend - especially when petrol got to
>$2 at one stage. I also bought a diesel car. This morning I was looking
>at my water bill with my GF and we were discussing how to make it cheaper
>- by installing a new toilet and showerhead and fixing leaking taps.

Agreed on the transport. I took a 25% pay cut and now cycle to work 7kms rather than drive 100, each way. Loving the 'gong !

Neil, how much of your water bill is usage and how much is fees and charges ? I looked at mine recently and realised the payback on a tank for the garden would be about 120 years at current prices. Actual charges for water used were only about 30% of my bill. It was a little sad.
spicelab
26-Feb-2011
9:05:57 PM
On 26/02/2011 TonyB wrote:
>I remember arguing with people about the GST before it came in. Most people
>claimed the country "needed" it. They could not understand it was just
>another tax, without any benefit. The masses voted in a government on
>the basis of this new tax.

They could not understand! How frustrating!

Don't need to wade into your cut and paste denialist nonsense because this statement illustrates your megalomania nicely.

So when is a tax not "just another tax"?






evanbb
27-Feb-2011
8:07:43 PM
On 25/02/2011 davidn wrote:
>How would that be simple?
>
>As if the GST isn't complex enough, we have to work out the level of carbon
>usage of each and every thing we do and tax it accordingly... AND monitor
>it for inevitable changes?

Not really. You price it at the source and the extra cost just flows down the chain to consumers.

evanbb
27-Feb-2011
8:12:17 PM
On 26/02/2011 spicelab wrote:
>They could not understand! How frustrating!
...
>So when is a tax not "just another tax"?

And somehow everyone forgets the tax cuts that came in at the same time as the GST. I was heaps better off once the GST came in because at the time, fruit and veg (non GSt items) were a really big contributor to my expenses. So my cost didn't change and my income went up.

Vive la Tax!

billk
27-Feb-2011
10:14:48 PM
On 26/02/2011 TonyB wrote:
>>
>All this on the basis of a very shonky CO2 theory that doesn't have a
>single shred of evidence to support it.

Tony

I take a very different position to you on where the evidence lies on global warming (although indeed I'm not a climatologist) but I'm still impressed by the sheer amount of effort you put into defending your position. Now you might want to say that you are just standing up for the truth pure and simple. However, there has to be more to it than that, because there are any number of things out there being claimed as true that many of us don't believe but we don't go out of our way to debunk (I don't know, astrology, homeopathy and alien abductions for instance). Why is it that the global warming global conspiracy (as you see it) gets you so fired up?

For those of us on the other side, the reason is obvious why we get involved - we think we all have a lot to lose. What do you think is under threat by stuff like more renewable energy, smaller cars, more public transport and more bicycles on the roads?
martym
28-Feb-2011
8:31:01 AM
On 25/02/2011 davidn wrote:
>As if the GST isn't complex enough,

Not that I'm for or against another tax - but; isn't the GST just: +10% ?
Surely it's one of the simplest taxes in the world?
maxdacat
28-Feb-2011
10:09:42 AM
I don't think the GST is meant to change behaviour ie stop you buying stuff but act as an efficient means of collection to fund hospitals and schools etc.In theory a carbon tax would be most successful if it collected nothing ie none of that nasty carbon was released. This obviously won't happen so by extension can it be a successful tax? esp when you add in the fact there is going to be "generous" assistance for households. Further, if money raised goes towards funding alternative sources of energy where is the pressure for innovation if these new green industries are simply reliant on guaranteed tax payer handouts?

martym
28-Feb-2011
5:09:04 PM
On 28/02/2011 davidn wrote:
>On 28/02/2011 martym wrote:
>>On 25/02/2011 davidn wrote:
>>>As if the GST isn't complex enough,
>>
>>Not that I'm for or against another tax - but; isn't the GST just: +10%
>>?
>>Surely it's one of the simplest taxes in the world?
>
>Nope. It doesn't apply to everything. In many cases for good reasons,
>but it's still difficult for the layman to understand when/how/why it does
>and doesn't apply.

Yes, but the layman doesnˇt have to deal with it - that's what accountants are for.

Paulie
28-Feb-2011
9:30:07 PM
it's a stop gap before moving towards a cap and trade scheme, similar to how the government/water authorities manage our water supplies.

For those that don't understand environmental accounting there is a cap put on the amount of water to be used / CO2 to be released, then the cap is devolved into credits e.g., 1,000 tonnes of CO2 might = 1,000 credits = $10,000 per credit (or similar).

It works at a domestic level in Oz (something international is required to take care of the BHPs of this world) simply because those who use more water / put out more emissions, buy credits off those who don't use as much water / pollute as much; therefore reducing the economic viability of conducting the activity that's using up all the company's money i.e., the activity that's causing the company to buy more credits.

In the end, we're only animals doing what animals do - using resources - and as stupid animals (we think we're smart but really, we're still stupid apes) we'll keep using resources (which by the way we conduct the activities to free / capture these resources are doing detriment of the environment) until we reach our carrying capacity (K) which will result in mass starvation, famine, disease etc and a huge reduction in our global poplation to less than K, thus freeing up resources for those still alive.

Like it or not, that's simply the way the world works, we're not immune to the forces of population dynamics any more than a population of fusiliers on the GBR. No amount of taxing / carbon offsetting / debating / electing different political parties will ever change this simple ecological fact.

We don't, and never have managed the environment, it's far too big, interrelated and simply far too complex for us stupid humans to even think we can do such a thing - the simple and inevitable (perhaps sad?) fact is that we're all part of a massive collapse that we may or may not see in our life time...lemmings one might say, running towards a cliff...enjoy life while you can kids, coz in the next 100 years life on earth aint gonna look so pretty.
One day Hero
28-Feb-2011
10:03:13 PM
Yeah, cap and trade..........sure

The trade bit is easy, people will be making money so there's motivation to get it started.

The "cap" part though, forget about it! Capping CO2 emissions will very quickly lead to capping economic growth.............and that idea is totally abhorant to everyone in power everywhere.

Human beings make a living by digging shit out of the ground and setting fire to it. They make a profit by continually accelerating the rate of excavation and oxidisation...........we'll stop burning oil when there's none left to burn.

evanbb
1-Mar-2011
6:57:19 AM
On 28/02/2011 One day Hero wrote:
>The "cap" part though, forget about it! Capping CO2 emissions will very
>quickly lead to capping economic growth.............and that idea is totally
>abhorant to everyone in power everywhere.

The 'Capping Economic Growth' part is probably bullshit; read this http://wp.me/pDhV1-4d to get an idea of how electricity is charged and how much the price of power is going to go up.

Summarising, a $20/tonne tax equates to about 20% increase in cost of power from a black coal plant. Once though, it's a step-change. This is equivalent to about 4 years of CPI increases (inflation) or 1-2 years worth of network upgrades.
maxdacat
1-Mar-2011
10:08:21 AM
On 28/02/2011 Paulie wrote:
>>We don't, and never have managed the environment, it's far too big, interrelated
>and simply far too complex for us stupid humans to even think we can do
>such a thing - the simple and inevitable (perhaps sad?) fact is that we're
>all part of a massive collapse that we may or may not see in our life time...lemmings
>one might say, running towards a cliff...enjoy life while you can kids,
>coz in the next 100 years life on earth aint gonna look so pretty.

How very Malthusian of you :p

But i think you are right to take human-centric emotion out of the equation. Geologically speaking we are but a blink of the eye.

Paulie
1-Mar-2011
7:52:01 PM
Yeah it might sound cynical, but I've worked in environmental 'management' long enough to understand that we're just biding time and that everything and anything we do can be changed in an instant by forces far greater than we can possibly comprehend.

It always amazes me that no matter what we do and how 'technologically advanced' we think we are, we are still completely and utterly tied to plants.

They provide the air we breathe, the fuel we put in our cars, the electricity for our houses, the food on our plates (whether you're vege or carnivore), the money in our wallets and the clothes on our backs.

We can put people on the moon and work out distances to far away solar systems via complex maths, yet we can't escape the fact that our entire existance is tied to plants.

Interestingly, plants are also way more advanced, from an evolutionary point of view, than we are...when the last female and male human is gone, our entire species is gone forever; yet plants can wait out catastrophic events and keep their seeds alive for (in some spp) up to 10,000 years and make food from water and sunlight...and we think we're the superior species...humans and our debates around carbon tax schemes don't even rate!
martym
1-Mar-2011
10:49:22 PM
On 1/03/2011 Paulie wrote:
> we can't escape the fact that our entire
>existance is tied to plants.
>

But what have they done on grit?
lacto
2-Mar-2011
11:08:41 AM
labor did not get a mandate to delay a carbon tax to next term, Liberals did not get a mandate not to have a carbon tax the green (yes only one ) had a mandate to introduce a carbon tax and by negotiation has managed to implement this mandate . Scaremongering re the rapidly rising power bills ignores the fact that 90% of the increases are due to rapid escalations in peak demand (airconditioning) versus our ability to generate this power with very slow response time on coal fire plants and high costs of peaking capacity which is really only needed for a few hours a year . Victoria is rushing in smart meters as a way to reflect this cost to consumers but our current generators and grid leave a system that isnt suited to such large variations . If the aluminium smelters stopped in vic and tasmania then 1600 Mw of load would disappear leaving the average victorian demand of 2800 Mw low to 5400 Mw coal capacity is 6500 Mw and cant easily ramp up and down over this range economically .
Philtown
2-Mar-2011
12:54:03 PM
On 2/03/2011 lacto wrote:
>Scaremongering re the rapidly rising power
>bills ignores the fact that 90% of the increases are due to rapid escalations
>in peak demand (airconditioning) versus our ability to generate this power
>with very slow response time on coal fire plants and high costs of peaking
>capacity which is really only needed for a few hours a year .

Actually no. All of the increase is due to investment in the distribution and transmission infrastructure. In Victoria this is due to 2 things: 1) upgrades to tighter specs following the Black Saturday inquiry and 2) past underinvestment that the infrastructure owners are catching up on.

In NSW it's all the second one, since prices hardly rose at all for the 10-15 years previous since no-one was investing in their networks. Now their infrastructure is worn out and dying and there's a painful catchup period. Blame NSW labor for wanting to keep bills low in the short term.
Wendy
2-Mar-2011
1:15:27 PM
things really are getting a bit silly over this.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/03/02/3152798.htm?section=justin
lacto
2-Mar-2011
3:56:39 PM
On 2/03/2011 Philtown wrote:
>On 2/03/2011 lacto wrote:
>>Scaremongering re the rapidly rising power
>>bills ignores the fact that 90% of the increases are due to rapid escalations
>>in peak demand (airconditioning) versus our ability to generate this
>power
>>with very slow response time on coal fire plants and high costs of peaking
>>capacity which is really only needed for a few hours a year .
>
>Actually no. All of the increase is due to investment in the distribution
>and transmission infrastructure. In Victoria this is due to 2 things: 1)
>upgrades to tighter specs following the Black Saturday inquiry and 2) past
>underinvestment that the infrastructure owners are catching up on.
>
>In NSW it's all the second one, since prices hardly rose at all for the
>10-15 years previous since no-one was investing in their networks. Now
>their infrastructure is worn out and dying and there's a painful catchup
>period. Blame NSW labor for wanting to keep bills low in the short term.
beg to disagree as on those really hot days there just isnt the generating capacity to supply all demand within the state ,power goes for $10000 Mwh which is $10.00 per kwh which the consumer pays around $0.20 cents so to ensure the business are profitable and just dont shed load a higher price needs to be paid for general use . the distribution system and interconnectors are also run down here . The ZCA2020 report believes all power can be generated by solar, wind and hydro with some bio fuel upgrades 13X2300 Mw solar with salt storage , 50,0000Mw of wind and then all interconnected with an upgrade of HVDC transmission rather than HVAC lines which are more inefficient . It is feasable to do this but what pollie would discard all coal and gas power generators ???
One Day Hero
3-Mar-2011
12:13:55 AM
On 2/03/2011 lacto wrote:
>. It is feasable to do this but what pollie would discard all coal and
>gas power generators ???

I think you meant to say "where are the pollies going to find the couple of trillion dollars which will be needed to fund all this stuff?"
lacto
3-Mar-2011
9:08:34 AM
Wind power is relatively cheap to install and can be built in increments of 1 to 5 Mw units and while they certainly can replace carbon unfortune=ately the range from 30 to 40 % average production of their rated capacity and on those really hot days seem only to get up to 5%. A large solar 2000Mw would produce power during the day when needed and salt storage would allow longer operation . This would knock off all the peak pricing available to to generators and the market of hedging offer by say the hydro operators who actually sell the right to generation at a price which they recieve even if they dont actually have to supply . To me the funny thing is the current talk of having to compensate the coal generators if they were to close eg Hazelwood was to be shut down and that was known when sold by Kennett government but Bracks extended their life as victorian continuity of supply couldnt have coped without Hazelwood and nobody would commit to new brown coal generation without huge guareentees about future carbon costs and operating lives .

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