worst govt ever the one that conned all australians by bringing in the fake for the environment co2 tax

worst opposition ever for hanging on to the toxic tax against the wishes of the electorate last election

(apologies for pinching your slogan essence womble its late and i'm too tired to come up with anything else at this point )

to prove once again that the tax is working

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/mar/07/carbon-taxed-companies-cut-emissions-by-7-in-past-year-investor-group-says

Greenhouse emissions from Australian companies paying the carbon tax have fallen by 7% over the past year “in large part” due to the carbon price impost, the Investor Group on Climate Change has said.

Calculations by the group of official data from the Clean Energy Regulator shows carbon emissions from Australia’s 350 largest corporate emitters – who are directly liable to pay the tax – fell from 342m tonnes in 2011-12 to 321m tonnes in 2012-13.

The group’s chief executive, Nathan Fabian, said he believed the carbon tax was “the major contributor” to the decrease in emissions, although other factors did play a role, including the shutdown of some large electricity generators because of weather events and the closure of some major manufacturing operations.

THE mining company owned by billionaire Andrew "Twiggy" Forrest has not paid any corporate tax for seven years.

And the high-profile critic of the Federal Government's proposed mining tax has admitted it may not be liable to pay that either.

Mr Forrest is Australia's richest man, worth an estimated $6 billion, and recently acquired a $50 million private jet. His Fortescue Metals Group is valued at $16 billion.

Fortescue Metals' tax manager, Marcus Hughes, conceded to a parliamentary committee yesterday: "We have not cut a corporate tax cheque to date."

But Mr Hughes said that after writing off exploration and development costs since 2003, the company would be "paying our first company tax cheque effective 1 December this year", of $100 million.


**** !

INDEPENDENT MP Andrew Wilkie has called for Labor to publicly apologise to Fortescue Metals' boss Andrew "Twiggy" Forrest, saying his warnings about the mining tax should have been heeded.

no difference imo 

tho a perth meteorologist says its become ... 'madness' ... over there since the co2 tax was introduced

so i looked the term 'madness' up ... in the meteorological dictionary ... but no findee   

ask qantas

before or after the government tells them what to say???

you too Thebas

money well spent imo

would be fascinating to see how many of those 350 companies increased profits and kept the same staffing - i might get someone onto it

it won't happen overnight but it will happen

interesting China seems to have seen the light, will be closing down lots of dirty coal powered plants etc

The Conversation

12 March 2014
David Holmes

The ultimate conservationist? The looming crisis for the Abbott government

Two political speeches that grabbed the most attention last week were those of Greens senator Scott Ludlam and prime minister Tony Abbott. Both were quite peculiar but for diametrically opposing reasons.

Perhaps timed for this weekend’s Tasmanian state election, Abbott gave a “let’s help Tasmania” speech to a room full of appreciative forestry workers, while Ludlam pursued a kind of ode to everything that he saw as wrong with the current government to an almost empty senate chamber.

Abbott received applause during his speech, and Ludlam only silence.

Yet these speeches were also covered by mainstream and social media, where the reception they received was abruptly reversed. Only a few news outlets bothered making a clip of Abbott’s speech, with tweets and social media recommendations numbering in the hundreds. As of today, Ludlam’s speech has passed an astonishing 710,000 YouTube views.

Ludlam’s speech dealt with a wide range of issues that are core to the agenda of the Greens: asylum policy, anti-mining, anti-privatisation, same-sex marriage, manufacturing workers. It was a broadside against the Abbott government ahead of the Senate re-election contest in WA that is not looking promising for Ludlam.

However, Ludlam returned to green themes the most – renewable energy, nuclear power and climate change – to put to Abbott:

    Your only proposal for environmental reforms thus far is to leave minister Greg Hunt to playing solitaire for the next three years whilst you outsource his responsibilities.

It is “bitterly obvious”, Ludlam said, that these responsibilities have been handed to the agents of “predator capitalism” rather than the public interest.

Abbott’s speech to the Australian Forest Products Association was an impassioned clarion call to another kind of environmentalism. It was a call to people who work on the land who are seen to be in touch with “mother nature”, a nostalgic view that assumes a respect for the natural world.

Abbott begins with an account of timber craftsmen: those who can create wonderous objects of beauty out of the forest. People who work with timber, who know the value of “working with one’s hands” are the “ultimate conservationists”, he said. He continued:

    Man and the environment are meant for each other. The last thing we do – the last thing we should want – if we want to genuinely improve our environment is to want to ban men and women from enjoying it, is to ban men and women from making the most of it and that’s what you do.

And here the speech is most revealing of the Abbott government’s philosophy of nature. Enjoyment of “nature” is not an aesthetic matter but an economic one. It is economic, because “nature” is assumed to be an inert and abundant resource to be “husbanded”, which is how 18th century enlightenment thinkers constructed discourses about “nature”, assuming that “man” has very little impact on the natural world.

Thus these forests are said to be “locked up” from such enjoyment – namely logging.

    We have quite enough National Parks, we have quite enough locked up forests already. In fact, in an important respect, we have too much locked up forest.

This is why Abbott consistently throughout his speech attacks what he calls the:

    …green ideology, which has done so much damage to our country over the last couple of decades.

The green ideology is deemed to be anti-enjoyment, in two senses, as it separates us from the resources to craft timber, but also from economic enjoyment.

AAP/Forestry Tasmania

Abbott was able to appeal to a largely sectarian audience. Most of them have been part of very effective management strategies in the Tasmanian forest industry that has allowed World Heritage listing of the pristine areas in the first place.

But the problem for Abbott began as soon as he walked out of the chamber of applause. To begin with, the forestry industry in Tasmania, where the Abbott government is proposing to “unlock” 74,000 hectares of World Heritage listed forest, is not exactly an economic bonanza. It employs, directly and indirectly, far less people than are about to lose their jobs at Qantas.

And as far as romanticising it as a resource for craftsmen, 75% of trees logged in Tasmania go to woodchips at a price barely competitive with chips from southeast Asia.

Forestry Tasmania, which oversees public native Forests, reported a A$64 million gross net loss for the 2009-12 period, and it is widely viewed as a declining industry. If any part of the World Heritage forests lost their certification, Tasmania would have trouble selling its timber anywhere on the world market.

But the much larger issue here is how such a policy conflicts with “Direct Action”: a policy with no program for carbon pricing, a green army of underpaid, unemployed people, whose main carbon mitigation reform is the carbon sequestration offered by planting trees. Yes, planting trees, not logging them.

It might be just as well that Abbott’s speech has been largely “locked up” within the auditorium of the forestry workers given the Abbott government is now on a collision course with its responsibilities at the G20 meeting in November. This meeting is being hosted and chaired by Australia in Brisbane, and member nations are pushing for climate change to be very high on the agenda.

The international pressure for climate change action will be exquisite in Brisbane. It would be difficult to invent a more awkward contrast between Australia’s domestic myopia and the international momentum on climate action.

A Globe International assessment of the climate mitigation strategies of 66 countries rated Australia as the bottom of the barrel. Headed by former Thatcher government minister Lord Deben, the Abbott government’s climate policies are described as:

    …so unintellectual as to be unacceptable; I mean it is just amazing.

Australia is identified as the only country on earth to be winding back national climate legislation.

How Australia is going to chair a meeting that is starring climate change as a priority item will be excruciating to watch. And if Greg Hunt or Tony Abbott have to give a speech, that would be amazing.

henry also said this ... easy to miss i guess

Dr Henry, who led a tax review under the former Labor government, also warns Australia is facing an "imminent crisis" in its taxation system unless there is "comprehensive" reform.

The 2010 review of the taxation system identified a number of medium term challenges, such as welfare payments and an ageing population

But Labor didn't act on these or his recommendation for a widespread overhaul.

----

now as far as the ETS being cheaper ... that appears the whole purpose ... what is cheaper

the whole rhetoric about the environment and reducing co2 output HAS GONE MISSING

missing ever since the IPCC official Ottmar at Cancun advised the whole the environment was no longer a part of the climate action plan ... which is in essence is now wealth redistribution

labor () had a chance to close down all our our dirty brown coal sites .. they had a plan called "contract for closure"

ferguson told us that gillards govt "could not be satisfied that entering into such arrangements would achieve value for money against the program's objectives. 

VALUE FOR MONEY FFS   ... ie fk the environment

yet at the same time gillard announced she was earmarking $10 billion from the co2 to GIVE to the UN/IPCC as our 'donation' against the war on global warming (now called climate change )

value for money choice under the gillard deceiver
1. pay to close down existing dirty brown coal sites
2. give billions to the UN for ZERO return for australia's environment

her fake for the environment co2 tax was exposed .. as soon as she opened her deceiving mouth

major closure of coal plant electricity generator in victoria

AIG report the same closure of businesses ...  8.0% ... during the period of reduction of electricity usage

hmmmm less businesses using less eclectricity with less employees ... great trad-off

and yet the alarmists are saying climate change is worse than ever

TAX DIDN'T WORK FOR ITS STATED PURPOSE .. ie  the environment

tax did work .. in putting australians out of work (as predicted)

i did put a wink after it AFL 

sceptics .. alarmists .. all got an agenda ... co2 tax it trade it .. all money movement shame about the environment

the IPCC/UN should immediately retrench the 97% 10,000 climate scientists ... the "scisnce is stelled" lol

then they should employ 10,000 more scientists (and keep the 3% ) and spend the next 10 years finding a way to deal with nuclear waste ... as that is the ONLY issue left

thorium based nuclear reactors cannot be subject to a plutonium like chain reaction explosion as it non fissile

thorium cannot be used for weapons bombs etc ...


china are now are building new nuclear plants daily

http://europe.chinadaily.com.cn/2014-03/11/content_17340260.htm

China has 17 nuclear power stations in operation with a total installed capacity of 14.8 million kilowatts. A further 28 units are under construction.

In 2012, a medium-term nuclear safety plan was passed, curbing nuclear pollution as well as raising security at nuclear facilities. The plan includes better anti-seismic and radioactive substance control designs for new plants.

.. for a total of 45 nuclear power stations to be up and running

... while the IPCC/UN and lackies like the gillard-disposed Australia piddle around with 5% emissions targets etc etc for the next 75 plus years waiting for all the coal to dry up ...

europe have been at the fake-for-the-environment tax-trade scam for over 10 years at a cost to their honest hard working citizens of biliions and billions

the co2 tax-trade scam is up gillard ... otto let the cat out of the bag at cancun ... it has no longer anything to do with the environment

(our own greg combet was in attendance at cancun but failed to advise our countries citizens of the change to policy - asleep at the wheel greg ? or just watching all the scantily clad men & women on the cancun beaches )

indeed it is Thebas, the science is settled so all we need to work out is what action to take - coal is dying

a slow lingering 75 year death is a sick way to treat the planet

euthenasia is best imo

but hang on .. while the sick & dying linger ... there is $$$$$ to be made ... trading & taxing on their misery

deceivers

$280 billion+ spent and redistributed in the EU...for what??? they are still moaning about CC....derr the climate always changes regardless on $$$ spent

BIGGEST RORT EVER

watsed and just gone SC .. irresponsible

but lucky the "science is all settled once and for all nothing else to consider just tax & trade the invisible stuff"

.. but hang on ... NASA are still looking into associations ... of clouds & climate (read climate change ) etc in the hope that we all learn more ... they clearly don't think its settled ... hey maybe NASA are the 3% who knows


http://isccp.giss.nasa.gov/role.html

If the climate should change, then clouds would also change, altering all of the effects listed above.

What is important is the sum of all these separate effects, the net radiative cooling or warming effect of all clouds on Earth.

For example, if Earth's climate should warm due to the greenhouse effect, the weather patterns and the associated clouds would change; but it is not known whether the resulting cloud changes would diminish the warming (a negative feedback) or enhance the warming (a positive feedback).

Moreover, it is not known whether these cloud changes would involve increased or decreased precipitation and water supplies in particular regions.

Improving our understanding of the role of clouds in climate is crucial to understanding the effects of global warming.

good top see Clive backing the renewable energy target - has he seen the light???

IPCC must be running out of money....spewing out garbage daily now....latest is it will displace hundreds of millions of people ....cost the world collectively trillions all by 2030.....some really good Persians at hand over there.....bankers rubbing hands gleefully

and lucky the science on arctic climate is not yet settled 

http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/lookingatearth/ipy-20071113_prt.htm

PASADENA, Calif. –

A team of NASA and university scientists has detected an ongoing reversal in Arctic Ocean circulation triggered by atmospheric circulation changes that vary on decade-long time scales.

The results suggest not all the large changes seen in Arctic climate in recent years are a result of long-term trends associated with global warming.

----

that's the beauty of science - just when you think its settled, science finds something new

Climate Myth...

Antarctica is gaining ice
"[Ice] is expanding in much of Antarctica, contrary to the widespread public belief that global warming is melting the continental ice cap." (Greg Roberts, The Australian)

What the Science Says

Antarctica is a continent with 98% of the land covered by ice, and is surrounded by ocean that has much of its surface covered by seasonal sea ice. Reporting on Antarctic ice often fails to recognise the fundamental difference between sea ice and land ice. Antarctic land ice is the ice which has accumulated over thousands of years on the Antarctica landmass through snowfall. This land ice therefore is actually stored ocean water that once evaporated and then fell as precipitation on the land. Antarctic sea ice is entirely different as it is ice which forms in salt water during the winter and almost entirely melts again in the summer.

Importantly, when land ice melts and flows into the oceans global sea levels rise on average; when sea ice melts sea levels do not change measurably but other parts of the climate system are affected, like increased absorbtion of solar energy by the darker oceans.

To summarize the situation with Antarctic ice trends:

    Antarctic land ice is decreasing at an accelerating rate
    Antarctic sea ice is increasing despite the warming Southern Ocean

Antarctic Land Ice is decreasing

Measuring changes in Antarctic land ice mass has been a difficult process due to the ice sheet's massive size and complexity. However, since the 1990s satellites have been launched that allow us to measure those changes. There are three entirely different approaches, and they all agree within their measurement uncertainties. The most recent estimate of land ice change that combines estimates from these three approaches reported (Shepherd and others, 2012) that between 1992 and 2011, the Antarctic Ice Sheets overall lost 1350 giga-tonnes (Gt) or 1,350,000,000,000 tonnes into the oceans, at an average rate of 70 Gt per year (Gt/yr). Because a reduction in mass of 360 Gt/year represents an annual global-average sea level rise of 1 mm, these estimates equate to an increase in global-average sea levels by 0.19 mm/yr, or 1.9 mm per decade. Together with the land ice loss from Greenland, this represents about 30% of the observed global-average sea level rise over this period.

Examining how this change is spread over time (Figure 1) reveals that the ice sheet as a whole was not losing or gaining ice in the early 1990s. Since then ice loss has begun, and is clearly seen to have accelerated during that time:

Shepherd et al. 2012

Figure 1: Estimates of total Antarctic land ice changes (bottom) and regions within it (top) and approximate sea level contributions using a combination of several different measurement techniques (Shepherd and others, 2012). Shaded areas represent the estimate uncertainty (1-sigma).

The satellite mission that is best suited to measuring land ice mass change is the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE). The GRACE satellites measure changes in Earth's gravity and these can be directly related to surface mass variations such as the Antarctic ice sheet. Recent GRACE estimates of mass change show the dramatic mass loss in West Antarctica and mass gain in East Antarctica (King and others, 2012):

King and others, 2012
Figure 2: a, GRACE estimate of ice-mass change (2002-2012), with ice drainage basins numbered (boldface italics where trends are statistically different to zero with 95% confidence). b, c, Basin-specific lower and upper bounds on ice-mass change, respectively, reflecting the potential systematic error in the basin estimates (King and others, 2012).

The East Antarctic Ice Sheet is growing slightly over satellite period (Figures 1&2) but not enough to offset the other losses. It is not yet clear if the increase in mass in Antarctica is a short-term phenomena due to a particularly snowy period (Boening and others, 2012) or if it is a long-term trend. Increased snowfall in East Antarctica has long been predicted in a warming climate, so this is an important region to continue monitoring.

The land ice loss from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is not due to surface melting, as the summer temperatures in Antarctica are generally always below freezing, and measured changes in precipitation cannot explain it either. Instead, the melting is occuring due to warm ocean water melting the land ice around its edges, resulting in a spreading of this ice loss inland:

Pritchard and others, 2012

Figure 3: Rates of lowering of land ice and its floating extensions in West Antarctica, 2003–2008 (Pritchard and others, 2012). Floating extensions of the land ice (ice shelves) that are labelled are Venable (V), Abbott (A), Cosgrove (C), Pine Island (PI), Thwaites (TH), Crosson (CR), Dotson (D), Getz (G), De Vicq (DV), Land (L), Nickerson (N) and Sulzberger (SZ). Arrows highlight areas of slow-flowing, grounded ice. Bathymetry landward of the continental-shelf break is in greyscale. The divide between floating and grounded ice is shown in white. The inset shows the location of the figure (green box) overlaid on the outline of Antarctica.

The influx in warm water onto the continental shelf in this region is not entirely understood but is probably at least partly linked to increased westerly winds that have occured as a result of reduced stratospheric ozone levels since the mid-20th Century (Gillet 2003, Thompson 2002, Turner 2009).

The Antarctic ice sheet plays an important role in the total contribution to sea level. That contribution is continuously and rapidly growing.