the bankers will take a cut of any trading scheme - unfortunate but the way it is - doesn't change the fact that pricing pollution is still the best way to reduce it

this is an accurate economic assessment of the planned ETS ... which of course is WORSE than the trick TAX scam

http://jennifermarohasy.com/2013/08/why-the-ets-will-not-succeed-peter-lang/


Without a global carbon-pricing system, national or regional carbon-pricing schemes would be prohibitively expensive if they are to achieve the projected benefits and, therefore, would not be sustainable.

The high cost means that a scheme like the one Australia has legislated is not viable, and even regional carbon pricing schemes like the European ETS will not last.

The ‘ball-park’ analysis presented here suggests Australia’s ETS would cost $12 for every $1 of projected benefit, to 2050.

WWF (or one of those groups) was on the radio yesterday saying that with targets needing to be 20 - 25% not 5% it would be too expensive to only buy permits in Australia and were happy for Australian business to buy some of their offsets from overseas.  Makes perfect sense - as long as the scheme is legitimate it still reduces the overall amount of pollution being produced

Price triggers work it's not rocket science ffs

Missing logic of Australian prime minister's denial of climate change link to bushfires

The popular climate sceptic debating trick used by Tony Abbott fails the logic test

Imagine a teacher who wanders into a classroom full of five-year-olds, sits down, pulls out a packet of cigarettes and starts to smoke them, exhaling puffs of cancer-inducing haze that waft into the little kids' faces.

"Please stop that," pleads one of the children. "My mummy says smoking gives you cancer."

"Rubbish," replies the smoker. "People have been dying of cancer ever since humans have walked the Earth. How did the cavemen die of cancer before cigarettes were invented, eh?"

Clearly, our cancer-stick smoking friend is employing a flawed, dishonest and ridiculous argument. We know that smoking increases the risk of cancer and other nasty diseases among the general population. The fact that Captain Caveman couldn't have had a 20-a-day habit is irrelevant.

The fact that a postmortem can't identify exactly which cigarette killed you, is also of little comfort.

Suggesting that an outcome – in this case death from cancer – can't have several different causes is a logical fallacy. This would be like claiming guns can't kill people because people were also murdered before guns were invented.

But as ridiculous as these examples are, it is this same wafer-thin and intellectually dishonest debating trick that has been deployed by Australian prime minister, Tony Abbott, and his environment minister, Greg Hunt, in recent days to dismiss the link between human-caused climate change and bushfires.

Earlier this week, Abbott said in an interview with the Washington Post:

    Australia has had fires and floods since the beginning of time. We've had much bigger floods and fires than the ones we've recently experienced. You can hardly say they were the result of anthropic [sic] global warming.


Abbott's argument was the same one he used last week, when he suggested that because bushfires happened before humans raised carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere by 40%, we shouldn't think this could have anything to do with bushfires happening now. He told radio listeners:

    We have had bad fires since almost the beginning of European settlement, I think the first massive fires in Victoria were back in the 1850s.


Between these statements, Hunt told the BBC he had consulted Wikipedia "just to see what the rest of the world thought".

He reported that the Wikipedia entry "opens up with the fact that bushfires in Australia are frequently occurring events during the hotter months of the year. Large areas of land are ravaged every year by bushfires. That's the Australian experience."

As I outlined last week, scientists have been studying the links between bushfires and climate change for more than a quarter of a century.

As the Guardian has reported, the Australian government's own environment departmental website says there's a "growing and robust body of evidence" showing the number of extreme weather events will likely increase under climate change, and that Australia is already experiencing a rise in the number of these events, including bushfires.

However, Abbott dismissed with absolute certainty any suggestion that the recent bushfires in New South Wales could have anything to do with climate change. In an interview with climate sceptic News Corporation columnist Andrew Bolt, Abbott went further, saying such links were  "complete hogwash".

This argument from history used by Abbott and Hunt is a version of one of the most popular of all talking points used by climate change sceptics and denialists – that "the climate has always changed" and so why should we think humans can cause the rapid changes being observed in recent decades.

A study published in the journal American Behavioral Scientist looked at 203 opinion articles written by 80 different US conservative columnists between 2007 and 2010 and found the argument that "the climate has changed before" was one of the most popular talking points.

Study authors Shaun Elsasser and Riley Dunlap, of Oklahoma State University, wrote:

    Unlike the scientific literature, where debunked claims and findings can no longer be employed, in the "denialosphere" arguments never disappear – they are continually recycled. The result is an enormous number of arguments.


The most popular argument put by sceptical columnists was "there is no scientific consensus" (there is) followed by "it's cooling" (it's not) and "ice isn't melting" (it is).

Popular debunking website Skeptical Science also looks in detail at climate sceptic myths and ranks "climate has changed before" as the most popular of all denier talking points.

This is not the first time that Abbott has tried to argue that because certain climatic events might have happened before the industrial revolution, we shouldn't think that burning fossil fuels could contribute to changes in the climate now.

In 2010, Abbott let this logical fallacy loose on a classroom of school kids in Adelaide, telling them:

    OK, so the climate has changed over the eons and we know from history, at the time of Julius Caesar and Jesus of Nazareth the climate was considerably warmer than it is now.  And then during what they called the dark ages it was colder. Then there was the medieval warm period. Climate change happens all the time and it is not man that drives those climate changes back in history. It is an open question how much the climate changes today and what role man plays.


At least he didn't blow cigarette smoke in their faces.

be original afl

"People have been dying of cancer ever since humans have walked the Earth. How did the cavemen die of cancer before cigarettes were invented, eh?"

So that proves that cigarettes do not cause cancer....RIGHT??????????????????????

crock argument and totally unrelated

So that proves that cigarettes do not cause cancer

cancer is usually confined to an organ or part of the body ... if you wish to continue with the same analogy

methods used to help a patient address the cancer


it is equally ridiculous to say to a patient that ...

you have smoking induced cancer ... but we you not going to stop smoking .. in fact smoke more and more and more

we will make the cigarette packets cost but if you smoke more than your cap then you purchase tobacco offsets from someone else who doesn't smoke ... so you can smoke more

ffs lol .. if there is a problem .. stop the problem .. don't fall for the tax-trade trick as a resolution 

Busted....

and to address a problem .. by making the person with the problem continue doing what caused the problem ... and just purchase offsets from someone who is not doing it ... is .... well lunancy or a trick

and from aL ... the guru of alarmism himself 

lucky he is not set up to make a profit from it all ... or his case would really be ... BUSTED


---


Al gore over-representing ?

http://grist.org/article/roberts2/

There’s a lot of debate right now over the best way to communicate about global warming and get people motivated. Do you scare people or give them hope? What’s the right mix?

I think the answer to that depends on where your audience’s head is. In the United States of America, unfortunately we still live in a bubble of unreality.

And the Category 5 denial is an enormous obstacle to any discussion of solutions.

Nobody is interested in solutions if they don’t think there’s a problem.

Given that starting point, I believe it is appropriate to have an over-representation of factual presentations on how dangerous it is, as a predicate for opening up the audience to listen to what the solutions are, and how hopeful it is that we are going to solve this crisis.

----

straight from the money makers mouth himslef .. read and digest it again

an over-representation of factual presentations

would you buy a used cigarette packet from this charlatan 

what a goose and yet they fall for it

what Persians u on afl?

we are talking climate change and the bankers scam (associated)you point BLANK refuse to answer repeatedly
not cancer which has NOTHING to do with anything here

How did the cavemen die of cancer before cigarettes were invented, eh?"

ffs i like your jokes

now ... to continue this nonsens ... cavemen used to sit around a fire cooking their 'catch of the day' (a bbq lol)

it's well established fact that ... burning smoke from a fire ... is a carcinigen

caveman breathes in fire ... thinks to himself ... now if only i could package my own fire and carry it with me

sadly succumbs to cancer before establishing his business plan


.... ffs i have no idea what you are talking about afl lol ... so i must include my own jokes 

Extreme weather isn’t linked to climate change
   
By Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) - 10/01/13 10:14 PM EDT





Those who want the U.S. to pursue policies to cut carbon emissions by making our energy more expensive often falsely associate severe weather events with climate change. Even President Obama resorted to these tactics when he linked a warming climate to “more extreme droughts, floods, wildfires and hurricanes,” in a recent weekly address.

But there is little science to support any connection between climate change and more frequent or extreme storms. And contrary to climate models, climate change has been far less severe than predicted.


According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), there is “high agreement” among leading experts that long-term trends in weather disasters are not attributable to human-caused climate change.
Hurricanes have not increased in the U.S. in frequency, intensity or normalized damage since at least 1900. The U.S. currently has gone seven years without a Category 3 or stronger hurricane making landfall. This is the longest streak ever recorded.
Government data also indicate no association between climate change and tornado activity. Whether measured by the number of strong tornadoes, tornado-related fatalities or economic losses associated with tornadoes, the latter half of the 20th century shows no climate-related trend.

The data on droughts paint a similar picture. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration found that “Climate change was not a significant part” of the recent drought in Texas. And the IPCC found that “in some regions droughts have become less frequent, less intense, or shorter, for example, central North America ….” IPCC’s draft report also states there is “low confidence” in any climate-related trends for flood magnitude or frequency on a global scale.

So if science doesn’t support a link between extreme weather events and climate change, why do so many media and politicians keep making exaggerated claims?

To drum up support for costly, unnecessary regulations and subsidies, activists stretch the truth. They want people to believe that these policies will decrease the intensity of hurricanes, tornadoes, droughts and floods. But that’s a scare tactic that needs to stop.

Unfortunately, with activists and the mainstream media, there is no room for reasoned, logical debate. Anyone who questions the planet’s sensitivity to CO2 or the extent to which humans contribute to climate change is labeled a climate change “denier.”

Climate change is due to a combination of factors, including natural cycles and human activity. But scientists still disagree about how much each of these factors contributes to the overall climate change the Earth is experiencing.

But understanding the causes of climate change is critical to developing a serious and effective solution.

With emissions increasing in developing nations and decreasing in the U.S., America’s contribution to greenhouse gas concentrations is increasingly insignificant. In fact, data from the Energy Information Administration show that between 2005 and 2012, the U.S. cut carbon dioxide emissions by 12 percent. At the same time, global emissions increased by 15 percent. And even the EPA concedes that substantial cuts to America’s emissions are unlikely to affect future temperature changes.

Meanwhile, the U.S. has spent more than $77 billion on climate research between 2008 and 2013. Despite dire forecasts, nearly all major temperature records show that global temperatures have held steady for the last 15 years.

Across the board, our most sophisticated climate models have overestimated warming. A recent study in the journal Nature Climate Change compared 117 climate predictions made in the 1990s to the actual amount of warming experienced. Out of 117 predictions, only three were relatively accurate. The other 114 overestimated temperature rise. As a respected climate scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, John Christy, said “The Earth system is just too complex to be represented in current climate models.”

We are fortunate to have a beautiful planet and, as a global community, we should promote policies that protect our environment. But we must set aside partisan rhetoric and focus on the facts.

President Obama and the Environmental Protection Agency recently released carbon pollution standards for new power plants that, even the EPA admits “will result in negligible CO2 emission changes.” These regulations will increase the price of electricity and gasoline in the U.S. Why pursue unnecessary costly regulations that will hurt working families for no significant environmental benefit?

A better approach is to place a higher priority on fundamental research that will enable new energy technologies to become more cost-effective. In order to impact global emissions, we must shift from costly subsidies and regulations to research and technological solutions that will be used not only here, but around the world. In other words, let’s set aside the fiction and focus on a real solution.

Smith has represented Texas’s 21st Congressional District since 1987. He is chairman of the Science, Space and Technology Committee, and he serves on the Homeland Security and Judiciary committees.

good day to all my bf mates and many winners

I think you guys should get your CO2 levels at the base of your brains checked..

There seems be something amiss with your arguments.

all the best afl ... don't fall too hard for the propaganda attached to the science

stick with the science .. keep pushing to do "something" ... and don't fall prey to the tax/trade scams