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Changing the world

Posted by: Michael Smith | 8 June, 2009 - 1:20 PM

If someone said to you “drink this, you’ll feel good.

Oh, just one more thing, it will give your organs cancer over a few years, but don’t worry; scientists are going to come up with a cure for cancer so it will all be OK. Just drink it.”

Would you take the drink?

We create our energy with fires in engines and furnaces. The Rudd Government wants to tax fire-based energy out of existence and to replace it with renewable energy. The ETS is designed to make the fires in our engines, power stations and furnaces so expensive that we won’t use them.

The theory is that we’ll replace the fire-based power with renewable energy like solar or wind power. There’s also an as yet unproven proposal to pump the carbon dioxide from our fires underground and to store it there.

The problem is that there’s not enough energy available from those power sources to meet our needs. And the mechanics of carbon capture are yet to be commercially demonstrated.

So we are being asked to take a leap of faith. To tax our fire-based power sources out of existence. And to “believe” that science and engineering will come up with economically feasible ways to replace that energy.

The picture with jobs is even worse. We know that if we go ahead with the tax on the emissions from our fires we’ll lose jobs. Lots and lots of jobs. And we’re being asked to take the same leap of faith and to believe that new green jobs will replace them.

Show me the science. Show me the jobs. Show me the money.

Until you can I just can’t sit by and let you tax our fires out of existence.

I hope scientists will come up with a cure for cancer. But until I know that they have, I wouldn’t take the drink. It’s just too risky.

Blog comments

Spot on Smithy and God help us. Once upon a time the worlds scientific communities believed that the universe revolved around the earth and that the earth is flat. Science changes daily. What worries me is once Rudd has stuffed this country there is know going back. In 20 or so years time we will look back on this carbon tax and the so called science that supports it and think just how stupid our government was. It's foolish policy designed to make Rudd look good around the rest of the world. But he will go down as a joke, with both him and Swan being relegated as the worst leaders this country have ever had. The scales are finally tipping. Long live commonsense.

Wayne Friday 12 June, 2009 - 8:43 AM
Smithy, as I understand it our government is going to tax people for creating a very common gas called carbon dioxide with the reason being that they want to stop climate change and encourage us to use solar and wind for power.

Since when in the Earths history has climate ever been static? The climate is always changing regardless of human activities.

We are being played for fools, the plan from our leaders is to create an imagined problem, use fear as the motivation, then sell the solution as increased taxes, it's a great plan nothing will happen, it costs little to implement and our governments can then reflect back and say aren't we great for avoiding disaster.

Wake up Australia this all boils down to taxing us on a common gas called carbon dioxide. What next Sunshine or Oxygen? In the mean time Australian industry and it's workers will bear the brunt from misguided leadership.

Rod Monday 8 June, 2009 - 4:52 PM
Smithy in the UK since the advent of wind farms the cost of electricity has risen considerably in the 2007-2008 fiscal year taxpayers paid over $1 billion to the owners of wind turbines.
While European energy prices rose by 15% the UK price increase was 29.7%.
If the wind drops or blows too hard the turbines stop spinning so you need a backup system, natural gas appears to be the only way to go that is extremely expensive but more to the point it would have a detrimental effect on reducing carbon dioxide so one eliminates the benefit of the other.
So here we go again another smart idea copied from someone else without checking to see if there are negatives

Gayle Monday 8 June, 2009 - 3:33 PM
I sent the following in an email to S A Senator Nick Xenathon and a few other members that actually work.
Dear Senator,
While Australia has been sleeping, a lot of the developed world has installed nuclear reactors. Of the G8 nations, only Italy doesn't have nuclear power. After the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, Italy shut down their reactors but have now made arrangements to return to their nuclear past.

I found the following from Google news:
"China is planning to build 2 dozen nuclear reactors and in the U.S. 19 applications from 17 electric power companies seeking a total of $122 billion in loan guarantees to build new reactors, with the cost of a new nuclear power plant now at more than $9 billion.

Bangladesh signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Russia to develop a plan for a nuclear power plant to produce up to 1,000 megawatts to ease its energy shortage.

After two years of negotiations, energy-starved Japan is to sign a nuclear supply deal with Russia on Tuesday during a visit by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, to enable trade in technology and uranium while addressing proliferation issues".

I believe Australia needs to revisit the nuclear debate, I'm not saying we should build nuclear reactors, just that we need to have the debate and why does yellowcake leave our shores without further processing?
Sincerely,
A.D.

Albert Monday 8 June, 2009 - 2:55 PM
You are right on the mark Smithy, it is like the story about the Turtle and the Scorpion, in this case, we are the Turtle and the Government is the Scorpion. They are saying to us that if we carry them across the river, they will not sting us, however half way across, we feel the sting and the scorpion says to us, it is in his nature to sting, why are we surprised.

Albert Monday 8 June, 2009 - 2:22 PM