Why just a carbon tax, how about a poverty tax, and why not a homeless tax, or an additional tax to fix the hospitals and aged care homes, or could it be that the polies only focus on things so far in the future we can never say " you promised to fix that in a year or so" meanwhile a large pension and huge tax payer funded superanuation awaits the poor over worked souls....

How about GST?...like that one?

How about your roads?...Schools? Hospitals? Aged care?....how are they working out for you?

Would you prefer that YOU pay in your poor over-worked life that YOU fix the infrastructures we take for granted?


I hear a lot of whinging...but not much solution based information.

If this summer became the norm, how might you feed your family?...How might food be produced, transported to your nice safe convenient store?


If a tax is placed on industry and everyday people for the contribution of carbon-based consumption, to generate funds that can negate the aftermath of more prevalent and unusual weather events, why wouldn't you wish to contribute?

or then again, perhaps you can use the extra ten dollars a week to feed my family, your family, your neighbour down the road's family.


You whinging annoys me.

What a pathetic response, 5 years ago it was called global warming, as it can't be proved beyond a resonable doubt that the planet is warming' it then became climate change.
I am still waiting for a so called expert on "climate change" to tell me what the efects on this country will be, so far everything we are told is so generic, this country is a land of fire and flood and allways will be. This summer is the norm...

SORRY,,,, BUT I THINK THAT THE THOUSANDS OF CHILDREN DYING OF HUNGER AS WE SPEAK ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN A THEORY AS YET UNPROVED, WAKE UP.... CHILDREN ARE DYING FOR LACK OF FOOD,... AN WE ARE GOING TO TURN CORN WHEAT ETC INTO FUEL TO RUN OUR CARS...LETS FEED THE KIDS OF THE WORLD,


PS how many carbon traders will be required to peddle credits round the world and how many BMWs Mercs etc will be purchesed by them with the brokerage fees charged,


go and plant a tree,
get rid of ur car
don't use power
grow ALL ur own food
don't use make up
use only animal skins for clothing.

Happy to hear from u but don't accuse me of whinging,
If i honestly thought we could make a better planet with a carbon tax, i'd line up to pay it....



By the way i live in the pilbra, 40c is a mild day up here and i don't have a convient local store.

carbon nazi's annoy me...

I love your response! Thankyou!


I also agree with you that there are many displaced forgotten people, many of them children, unsure where their next or any meal will come from.

A little about me...

I am fortunate enough to live on the coast of central queensland...

I don't own a car, but have the loan of one when necessary...

I have a bike and two bare feet instead...

I work swapping hours for dollars to supplement our food supply...

I don't purchase new clothes, appliances, furniture etc...I buy second hand or recycled...my house is a recycled house transported down from 200 kms away...and yes the carbon footprint was still waaaay too huge, although we certainly reduced it by using ALL recycled/certified wiring/plumbing/timber/wall boards in the renovation...(I did purchase a new stove unfortunately...I couldn't source a second hand wood stove, although it is on the short list, and am still scouring around for one, with a hotwater jacket)

I have a 3 kilowatt solar panel/inverter and battery bank awaiting installation, so grid free again...although my consumption has been minimal for years...

I live on rainwater tanks, have a composting loo, and a black/greywater plant working...

I don't wear makeup.

I spend 60% of every day working within my garden, the community garden or along the dunes, with Landcare, planting trees, plants; that are edible or shelter for the WHOLE ecosystem...not just this mere human...

We sponsor 2 children in Indonesia...and have done for over 6 years, and my eldest son has visited them, and helped work hands on in their village to build a school AND a community health centre....and his partner is looking at relocating, once their as yet unborn child has developed a strong immunity system to Africa so she can work with MSF...doctors without borders...yes she's a pediatric/emergency/trauma specialist...their house, in suburbia Newcastle is also off the grid, and their yard a complete food garden, as well as diversifying on their 100 acres in the Hunter Valley...

I lived completely self sufficient for 13 years, off the grid and off the mousewheel, so know how to minimise my consumer greed based lifestyle.

Isn't it really just semantics as to what name to call the 'changing' (for the human species in the past few generations/lifetimes)climate conditions/weather patterns?

Is it not fortuitous to START somewhere in reducing the human species impact on this planet, and it's insatiable hunger for more...which undeniably impacts on the whole planet's fragile existance?


I feel the measures we take now...are merely firebreaks in a raging bushfire that is out of control...( to quote David Suzuki at a keynote speech on Sustainability in Melbourne recently)...but EVENTUALLY all changes made will slow it down, and perhaps in a completely optimistic idealist thinking contain it.

and if a mere maximum of $10 a week will contribute through a carbon tax, is the least being asked of me...why wouldn't I?

I am not a pie in the sky greenie....just rational enough to recognise that we all share the same address...earth...and the insanity that is dollar driven gloabally is NOT sustainable.


How long has the Pilbara been in the Eastern suburbs of Melbourne???


Strange discrepancy....

Thanks for trying to save the planet, but alas the more you tell me the more I see just how much you are dependent on “The system”.
Well did you give thanks to BHP for mining the ore that made your water tank?
Did you give thanks to BHP for mining the ore that made your cooker?
Did you give thanks to BHP for mining the ore that helped make your solar panel?
Did you give thanks to the power company for generating the power used to manufacture all the things you now use in your eco paradise?
I could go on but I think you should get the point.
While you inhabit the planet you can’t avoid using resources and generating various pollutants (carbon is not a pollutant by the way), I am sure you are aware that for ever tonne of wood you will burn in the wood fired cooker you will generate 999 kilos of gasses and particulate, not very good for the atmosphere!
Now back to carbon tax, I don’t see how charging the emitters of carbon then reimbursing me for the inevitable price rise is going to make one iota of a difference to the overall carbon output. A bit pie in the sky if you ask me.
Now if we are really serious about carbon this is what we must do.
Stop mining and selling coal to China NOW!!!!
Convert ALL cars to gas.
Make it law that every new house has solar power of some sort installed
Put the unemployed to work on a serious regeneration scheme (paid at the award rate with all the entitlements any other worker would get)
We have the Environmental Protection Agency, we should use that agency to enforce a clean air policy, and after all if I drive a car that blows smoke I get a fine and an order to fix it, why should industry be any different?
A carbon tax is a licence to emit carbon, we must make it LAW that industry reduce its emissions or face hefty fines, if the cost of goods goes up so be it.
Do we really need a carbon tax; history shows that just because we raise the price of petrol etc., people don’t automatically use less.
I retract the carbon Nazi remark unreservedly
And as for Melbourne, the best laid plans of mice and men (and woman) etc. I might get there one day.

Thanks for trying to save the planet, but alas the more you tell me the more I see just how much you are dependent on “The system”.

I don't deny dependence, nor am I out to save anything....minimising impact is sufficient for me, right now...


Well did you give thanks to BHP for mining the ore that made your water tank?

Oil, actually...it's a petro-chemical derivative plastic....and no, I haven't nor will.


Did you give thanks to BHP for mining the ore that made your cooker?

No, and I am aware of what you are sharing.

Did you give thanks to BHP for mining the ore that helped make your solar panel?

Again no, nor the machines made for the purpose, the deisel to run them, the land and flora destroyed for the mining..

Did you give thanks to the power company for generating the power used to manufacture all the things you now use in your eco paradise?

No, again...I am fully aware of my greed based consumption, and contribution to the continuance of the greed based industries.


I could go on but I think you should get the point.


While you inhabit the planet you can’t avoid using resources and generating various pollutants (carbon is not a pollutant by the way), I am sure you are aware that for ever tonne of wood you will burn in the wood fired cooker you will generate 999 kilos of gasses and particulate, not very good for the atmosphere!

I beg to differ, however I wouldn't wish to rattle your soapbox...it seems to only have room for one...


I had not intended to appear some glorified Eco Mother Theresa..and apologise if this is the sense you got....I just get jacked off at a whole heap of whining from so many who do absolutely nothing about their consumption.

Now back to carbon tax, I don’t see how charging the emitters of carbon then reimbursing me for the inevitable price rise is going to make one iota of a difference to the overall carbon output. A bit pie in the sky if you ask me.

Ok....so an across the board tax would impact you, at a maximum of ten dollars, and would be offset by a reimbursement from the collective pot of cash created by the emitters of carbon...namely big industries...surely you can see there must be a vast profit margin in there, as no government I am aware of goes into debit for the little person.


Now if we are really serious about carbon this is what we must do.
Stop mining and selling coal to China NOW!!!!

Agreed



Convert ALL cars to gas.

Hmm I would go further and look at alternative energies for city transportation, electric/renewable...and limited other fuel cell modes for long distance transportation.


Make it law that every new house has solar power of some sort installed


...a viable and productive one, yes...with a higher kilowatt outtage than usage.


Put the unemployed to work on a serious regeneration scheme (paid at the award rate with all the entitlements any other worker would get)...

Which unemployed? specifically?...healthy, able-bodied, with no dependent children?, or over school age?

Access to transport to these schemes?



We have the Environmental Protection Agency, we should use that agency to enforce a clean air policy, and after all if I drive a car that blows smoke I get a fine and an order to fix it, why should industry be any different?

I like your thinking.



A carbon tax is a licence to emit carbon, we must make it LAW that industry reduce its emissions or face hefty fines, if the cost of goods goes up so be it.


Hmmm...carbon emission is not licensed in any form right now...surely this is a kick off point?


Do we really need a carbon tax; history shows that just because we raise the price of petrol etc., people don’t automatically use less.

Agreed, although threaten their thought free existence and they awaken fairly quickly...


I retract the carbon Nazi remark unreservedly


I am still in amongst it....guilty as charged, although I can't goose step to save myself..


And as for Melbourne, the best laid plans of mice and men (and woman) etc. I might get there one day.

Pilbara....or Melbourne???

have large number of trees and shrubs to plant on the morrow, (you need a permit x 10 to do anything up here and if you even so much as walkon the land you gotta start plantin)so will ponder your responce and will get back................plenty of room on my soap box for two...