‘Carbon deception’ (4/7/12) is indeed deceptive, as it seeks to propagate monumentally untrue beliefs, as follows:
First, the carbon tax is not really aimed at making Australians feel pain. Fortunately, it’s not a tax on families or individuals, you or me, but a price per tonne of pollution to be paid by some 500 companies doing the polluting. It actually compensates us for any price increases via household assistance and tax cuts, particularly for lower and middle income earners.
Second, greedy behaviour of “big polluters” is unlikely to be the catastrophe claimed. These corporations will receive millions of dollars to facilitate adjustment to the carbon tax. This will hopefully eliminate the need to make the rest of us paupers. Electricity price rises, already increasing due to renewal of infrastructure, should be minimal.
Third, CO2, while the greenest of all substances from a plant’s point of view, actually is considered to be a pollutant because increased levels in the atmosphere are adversely affecting the earth’s climate. CSIRO/Bureau of Meteorology have confirmed that burning of fossil fuels is the main cause of the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere, which has caused most of the warming observed since mid-20th century and cannot be explained by natural variability (State of the Climate 2012, http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/change/).
So, guess what – anthropogenic increases of CO2 in the atmosphere DO play a major role in controlling climate.
The world has to reduce CO2 emissions to 10 Gt of CO2 per year by 2020, from a record high of 31.6 Gt in 2011. We need the world to meet this target; the impacts of climate change on Australia are expected to be severe (Nature Climate Change, July 2012 (http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v2/n7/full/nclimate1613.html).
Far from being useless, our new carbon tax will put billions of dollars into renewable energy and other low carbon technologies and create tens of thousands of jobs in this decade. We’re doing our bit in the world to avoid dangerous climate change, with both feet planted firmly in the future.
Joan Vickers
Harlaxton QLD
