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Topic: Carbon Tax to become Law in Australia (Read 4126 times)

sr. member
Activity: 324
Merit: 250
June 29, 2012, 12:42:31 PM
#55
25.905 cents per kwh. is my new electricity price. Up from 22.759.
So ok a bit extra for carbon tax, fair enough you think.....
That is not how Australian business works!
You see we also have a daily fee for the luxury of being charged that price, up from 28.787 cents per day to 65.9 cents per day.
125% extra!
And all of this for the same filthy coal we've always used.

And mining companies are working on shipping ever increasing quantities of coal to China so they can burn it tax free.

I'm sure this will really help the environment!
hero member
Activity: 950
Merit: 1001
June 23, 2012, 01:11:27 PM
#53
Perhaps these three things share something in common:

1) I am using sock puppets.
2) FirstAscent and I are coordinating attacks.
3) Globalists are tricking the world's scientists about CO2.
legendary
Activity: 3318
Merit: 1958
First Exclusion Ever
June 22, 2012, 09:20:27 PM
#52
You guys are comical, what is to respond to? This is nothing I haven't heard 20 times from him. I just enjoy the complete total over reaction at the mere sight of an opposing view induces in your little circle, as well as the coordinated personal attacks never resulting in ANY actual empirical data being introduced. The over reaction serves to illustrate how your emotional motivations clearly over power your logical observations, as well as completely entertain the shit out of me.
hero member
Activity: 950
Merit: 1001
June 22, 2012, 07:32:55 PM
#51
By the way your refractory type of rhetoric is all too familiar. Sock puppet much?
Ok this is way too good to resist, sorry everyone else.

Whose sock puppet am I?

I don't know, but Fritz Vahrenholt (TECSHARE's link) is a chemist, affiliated with energy companies, and sat on the board of Shell. He has never published a paper on climate or climatology in a peer reviewed journal.

I have said over and over: all claims made by these charlatans can be refuted, and they can be tied to Big Oil or other organizations of ill repute, such as the Heartland Institute, the Cato Institute, etc. Think tanks are what they call themselves, and what they really are are nothing but fronts for conservative thinking masquerading as organizations which claim to be experts on climate.

It pretty much began with Frederick Seitz and his claims that tobacco smoke does not cause cancer, when he was on the payroll of RJ Reynolds, and then later, when he went on the payroll of Exxon/Mobil, where he then made claims about climate change. These windbags have continued spouting their fictions ever since.

Individuals such as TECSHARE find what they believe to be these earth shattering news items, and gleefully post them as though they were real science. Pretty sad.

You called it science, I called it a related current event. You really enjoy speaking for other people don't you.

lolz Cheesy

So first you get called out on a bullshit sockpuppet accusation. Then FirstAscent completely destroys your source. And your response to both... is to weasel out of addressing either.

What a coward.
legendary
Activity: 3318
Merit: 1958
First Exclusion Ever
June 22, 2012, 05:45:16 PM
#50
By the way your refractory type of rhetoric is all too familiar. Sock puppet much?
Ok this is way too good to resist, sorry everyone else.

Whose sock puppet am I?

I don't know, but Fritz Vahrenholt (TECSHARE's link) is a chemist, affiliated with energy companies, and sat on the board of Shell. He has never published a paper on climate or climatology in a peer reviewed journal.

I have said over and over: all claims made by these charlatans can be refuted, and they can be tied to Big Oil or other organizations of ill repute, such as the Heartland Institute, the Cato Institute, etc. Think tanks are what they call themselves, and what they really are are nothing but fronts for conservative thinking masquerading as organizations which claim to be experts on climate.

It pretty much began with Frederick Seitz and his claims that tobacco smoke does not cause cancer, when he was on the payroll of RJ Reynolds, and then later, when he went on the payroll of Exxon/Mobil, where he then made claims about climate change. These windbags have continued spouting their fictions ever since.

Individuals such as TECSHARE find what they believe to be these earth shattering news items, and gleefully post them as though they were real science. Pretty sad.

You called it science, I called it a related current event. You really enjoy speaking for other people don't you.
hero member
Activity: 812
Merit: 1000
June 22, 2012, 12:50:42 AM
#49
By the way your refractory type of rhetoric is all too familiar. Sock puppet much?
Ok this is way too good to resist, sorry everyone else.

Whose sock puppet am I?

I don't know, but Fritz Vahrenholt (TECSHARE's link) is a chemist, affiliated with energy companies, and sat on the board of Shell. He has never published a paper on climate or climatology in a peer reviewed journal.

I have said over and over: all claims made by these charlatans can be refuted, and they can be tied to Big Oil or other organizations of ill repute, such as the Heartland Institute, the Cato Institute, etc. Think tanks are what they call themselves, and what they really are are nothing but fronts for conservative thinking masquerading as organizations which claim to be experts on climate.

It pretty much began with Frederick Seitz and his claims that tobacco smoke does not cause cancer, when he was on the payroll of RJ Reynolds, and then later, when he went on the payroll of Exxon/Mobil, where he then made claims about climate change. These windbags have continued spouting their fictions ever since.

Individuals such as TECSHARE find what they believe to be these earth shattering news items, and gleefully post them as though they were real science. Pretty sad.
hero member
Activity: 950
Merit: 1001
June 22, 2012, 12:31:07 AM
#48
By the way your refractory type of rhetoric is all too familiar. Sock puppet much?
Ok this is way too good to resist, sorry everyone else.

Whose sock puppet am I?
legendary
Activity: 3318
Merit: 1958
First Exclusion Ever
June 21, 2012, 09:00:06 PM
#47
Continually spamming all carbon-related threads with links neither helps your cause nor advances the discussion. We have Google too, and you're oozing with confirmation bias.

Spamming relevant current events in direct relation to the topic, which you just so happen to disagree with? Because you can find something on Google means you have knowledge of it already? That's a cool trick. By the way your refractory type of rhetoric is all too familiar. Sock puppet much?
hero member
Activity: 950
Merit: 1001
June 21, 2012, 09:34:29 AM
#46
Continually spamming all carbon-related threads with links neither helps your cause nor advances the discussion. We have Google too, and you're oozing with confirmation bias.
hero member
Activity: 812
Merit: 1000
June 18, 2012, 10:53:12 PM
#44
I think the problem with carbon taxes is that we're thinking of them in the wrong way. We're trained to believe that the choice is between increasing taxes and using the money to fund wasteful subsidies on technologies that will allow us to continue destroying the world's resources but in a more clean and shiny way on the one hand and outright denialism on the other. I think there's a middle ground that libertarians and environmentalists alike will find acceptable: add carbon taxes, but use them to replace other taxes. If the government earns $10 billion from the carbon tax, remove $10 billion from the income tax.

It's economically superior in every way - it helps protect the environment, does so in a neutral way that doesn't build in a preference for any one solution over another, and it reduces taxes that dampen the incentive to produce.

Hmmm.

Tax that which you want less of, and don't tax that which you want more of.

1. Tax extraction of natural resources.
2. Tax pollution.

Shades of Herman Daly and a steady-state economy?

http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/rethinking_growth/

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3941
sr. member
Activity: 330
Merit: 397
June 18, 2012, 08:11:52 PM
#43
I think the problem with carbon taxes is that we're thinking of them in the wrong way. We're trained to believe that the choice is between increasing taxes and using the money to fund wasteful subsidies on technologies that will allow us to continue destroying the world's resources but in a more clean and shiny way on the one hand and outright denialism on the other. I think there's a middle ground that libertarians and environmentalists alike will find acceptable: add carbon taxes, but use them to replace other taxes. If the government earns $10 billion from the carbon tax, remove $10 billion from the income tax.

It's economically superior in every way - it helps protect the environment, does so in a neutral way that doesn't build in a preference for any one solution over another, and it reduces taxes that dampen the incentive to produce.
hero member
Activity: 812
Merit: 1000
June 11, 2012, 02:13:10 PM
#42

You are confusing your own lack of imagination for a immutable law of nature. You can't figure out how property is useful without a government-granted title. You don't know how to interact with people or resolve interpersonal disputes without a government.

That's fine - you're under no obligation to know or learn alternative ways to solve these problem but by stating these things as if you know them to be true you're just putting your own unexamined prejudices forward as fact.

When you have a moment to spare, google "ad hominem."  Its a logic error and your post is a classic of its kind.  After reading up on it, feel free to make a post in which you engage with the arguments.


He didn't attack your character. He specifically attacked a fallacious element of your argument: "You are confusing your own lack of imagination for a immutable law of nature.". You reasoning boils down to this: I can't think of how a market will solve these problems, therefore they can't be solved. This is false logic.

google: "conflict resolution in a free society". There's plenty of info on this.

Note the bold parts; that's an ad hominem .

I personally wouldn't be too quick to accuse someone of ad hominem. Accusing one of ad hominem itself is often a form of ad hominem, precisely because it doesn't address the statement made, but instead draws attention to the character of the statement.

As an example, I might say to another: "Your own obtuseness and lack of imagination prevents you from seeing the bigger picture." And then I might go on with further statements, possibly logical and truthful or not. It is the further set of statements which form the meat of the argument, not the accusation that someone is obtuse.

Or I might say to another: "You're obviously an idiot. I pity you." And then go on to make other statements that might indeed be logically false, but regardless, perhaps it is obvious and true that the person I have called an idiot is truly an idiot.
legendary
Activity: 1218
Merit: 1001
June 10, 2012, 11:07:30 AM
#41

You are confusing your own lack of imagination for a immutable law of nature. You can't figure out how property is useful without a government-granted title. You don't know how to interact with people or resolve interpersonal disputes without a government.

That's fine - you're under no obligation to know or learn alternative ways to solve these problem but by stating these things as if you know them to be true you're just putting your own unexamined prejudices forward as fact.

When you have a moment to spare, google "ad hominem."  Its a logic error and your post is a classic of its kind.  After reading up on it, feel free to make a post in which you engage with the arguments.


He didn't attack your character. He specifically attacked a fallacious element of your argument: "You are confusing your own lack of imagination for a immutable law of nature.". You reasoning boils down to this: I can't think of how a market will solve these problems, therefore they can't be solved. This is false logic.

google: "conflict resolution in a free society". There's plenty of info on this.

Note the bold parts; that's an ad hominem .  

We've talked about "conflict resolution in a free society" here before.  It always comes back to the same problem.  You can think of clever and imaginative ways to do it but without a state, they are too inefficient and the nature of competition means that you end up with a single overwhelming entity.  A democracy is better.
hero member
Activity: 812
Merit: 1000
June 09, 2012, 07:27:29 PM
#40
The only thing you said which came close to a counter argument was "Ranchers own land". With the beef example, you're assuming the wolves have value worth saving. Also, the wolves are unowned, hence the problem of unowned capital (assuming anyone want's to own them). Likely, they are a liability, hence there is value in destroying them. They have been priced appropriately.

Seriously. Don't you think adding knowledge and educating yourself would make your arguments a little more palatable? Do you really believe the stuff you write?

Here's some advice. Please read it carefully: If you have gaps in your knowledge, then you have to assume that perhaps your view of the world and its systems might be too simple. Here are some key words: trophic cascades, riparian zones, balanced ecosystems, edge effects.

Quote
If you are so well versed in Garrett Hardin, perhaps you can condense his central argument into a short paragraph and present it here. After a glance at this http://www.garretthardinsociety.org/articles/art_tragedy_of_the_commons.html He seems to be highly critical of The Commons as the cause of social problems.

Garrett Hardin specifically said that those such as you misinterpreted his document. If you really want to grasp the content of his material, then study him in depth, and his colleage, Herman Daly.

Quote
Which is exactly what I'm telling you; all these social problems result from the concept of common property. The government is one big fat problem of the commons, preventing the price mechanism from allocating scarce resources properly, resulting in environmental pillaging.

The government does create problems. But private property ownership is not, and will never be a complete solution. Also, and as an example, you still haven't addressed anything I said about blue whales.

Quote
I'm glad you don't advocate price fixing, but what then do you advocate? If the price of a commodity isn't set by voluntary trade, then by what mechanism would it be accurately priced? If you believe that the market pricing is "inaccurate" then you must be comparing it to something that you believe is accurate. Else how could you make this determination?

The mistake you're making is assuming that a buyer and seller have anyone's interest in mind other than their own. Once you get past that point, and realize that in addition to the buyer and seller, there are other parties involved, both current and future, then you'll be in a better position to see that there is no such thing as an accurate price. And again, it is explained effectively by the likes of Garrett Hardin, Herman Daly, Paul Ehrlich, and others.

Let me put it simply. Consider: Party A (the seller) has a certain set of knowledge about the world, and certain goals. Party B (the buyer) also has a certain set of knowledge about the world, and certain goals. Within this limited microcosm of likely incomplete knowledge, they engage in a transaction, trading goods at a certain price. To them, the price is "accurate". But their transaction has external effects, which translates to external costs to others. These external costs may have no effect on party A and party B, and thus they continue in their transactions, with further external costs to others.

You are a prime example of both party A and party B. Your gaps in knowledge cause you to value transactions which can be executed at a certain price (which you deem to be 'accurate').
hero member
Activity: 527
Merit: 500
June 09, 2012, 07:08:26 PM
#39
For palm oil, blue whale and beef, this is the problem of the commons: There is unowned or collectively owned property (an artifact of government), which prevents the market from pricing the destroyed resources. The problems is government, not the market.

Sadly, but typically, you are wrong, your ideals are misplaced, and your lack of knowledge on the subject shows. Regarding palm oil, it's safe to say you don't understand the details at all. Poverty is the problem. Regarding beef, again, you miss the mark. Ranchers own their land. With regard to the blue whale, I see you failed to really learn about the problem, its cause, and what saved the blue whale. And regarding the commons, I suggest if you want to cite something which you feel backs up your ideology, then perhaps you should really learn more about the well known document which discusses it. How much do you really know about Garrett Hardin and his colleague Herman Daly?

For coal, agriculture, solar, I don't see your point.

That's because you willfully choose to wear blinders. Your obtuse desire to remain ignorant on the complexity of the problem does not reinforce your point of view.

Besides, what are you suggesting; that a collection of bureaucrats can know and set the "true price" of... anything? That the price should artificiality be set using threat of violence? What is the "accurate" price, if not determined by the subjective valuations of individuals voluntary transactions?

Would you mind telling me where I advocated price fixing?

You sound like some socialist eco-hippy.

I am an environmentally conscious individual who knows a heck of a lot more than you do, and I am not one who advocates price fixing, but I am also someone smart enough to know that unregulated free markets result in exploitation to make a quick buck by individuals with little more knowledge than you - thus resulting in unsustainable and irreversible damage to our planet's biosphere and ecosystems.

You are proof of the the damage the free markets can cause, by virtue of your willful ignorance.

The only thing you said which came close to a counter argument was "Ranchers own land". With the beef example, you're assuming the wolves have value worth saving. Also, the wolves are unowned, hence the problem of unowned capital (assuming anyone want's to own them). Likely, they are a liability, hence there is value in destroying them. They have been priced appropriately.

If you are so well versed in Garrett Hardin, perhaps you can condense his central argument into a short paragraph and present it here. After a glance at this http://www.garretthardinsociety.org/articles/art_tragedy_of_the_commons.html He seems to be highly critical of The Commons as the cause of social problems. Which is exactly what I'm telling you; all these social problems result from the concept of common property. The government is one big fat problem of the commons, preventing the price mechanism from allocating scarce resources properly, resulting in environmental pillaging.

I'm glad you don't advocate price fixing, but what then do you advocate? If the price of a commodity isn't set by voluntary trade, then by what mechanism would it be accurately priced? If you believe that the market pricing is "inaccurate" then you must be comparing it to something that you believe is accurate. Else how could you make this determination?
hero member
Activity: 812
Merit: 1000
June 09, 2012, 06:40:05 PM
#38
You reasoning boils down to this: I can't think of how a market will solve these problems, therefore they can't be solved. This is false logic.

That's funny. The words you're putting in Hawker's mouth are very expressive of your own views. Was it not you who basically said: "I can't think how a market would solve these problems, therefore, you must advocate price fixing."
hero member
Activity: 527
Merit: 500
June 09, 2012, 06:31:20 PM
#37
Property requires something called legal title to be useful.  You can't raise a mortgage on a patch of land just by saying "A market entity will support me if I pay it" as someone else can pay a bigger "market entity" and take it off you.

A market requires enforcement of contracts.  That means you needs courts and lawyers.  If you rely on the free market, you will have competing courts giving alternative verdicts. 

Absent a government, these problems get solved by a single "market entity" overpowering all the others so that only land title it recognises and only contracts it validates count. 

That "market entity" is now a government - unelected; unrestrained and it will be a tyranny.  Congrats!
You are confusing your own lack of imagination for a immutable law of nature. You can't figure out how property is useful without a government-granted title. You don't know how to interact with people or resolve interpersonal disputes without a government.

That's fine - you're under no obligation to know or learn alternative ways to solve these problem but by stating these things as if you know them to be true you're just putting your own unexamined prejudices forward as fact.

When you have a moment to spare, google "ad hominem."  Its a logic error and your post is a classic of its kind.  After reading up on it, feel free to make a post in which you engage with the arguments.

He didn't attack your character. He specifically attacked a fallacious element of your argument: "You are confusing your own lack of imagination for a immutable law of nature.". You reasoning boils down to this: I can't think of how a market will solve these problems, therefore they can't be solved. This is false logic.

google: "conflict resolution in a free society". There's plenty of info on this.
legendary
Activity: 1218
Merit: 1001
June 09, 2012, 06:45:49 AM
#36
Property requires something called legal title to be useful.  You can't raise a mortgage on a patch of land just by saying "A market entity will support me if I pay it" as someone else can pay a bigger "market entity" and take it off you.

A market requires enforcement of contracts.  That means you needs courts and lawyers.  If you rely on the free market, you will have competing courts giving alternative verdicts. 

Absent a government, these problems get solved by a single "market entity" overpowering all the others so that only land title it recognises and only contracts it validates count. 

That "market entity" is now a government - unelected; unrestrained and it will be a tyranny.  Congrats!
You are confusing your own lack of imagination for a immutable law of nature. You can't figure out how property is useful without a government-granted title. You don't know how to interact with people or resolve interpersonal disputes without a government.

That's fine - you're under no obligation to know or learn alternative ways to solve these problem but by stating these things as if you know them to be true you're just putting your own unexamined prejudices forward as fact.

When you have a moment to spare, google "ad hominem."  Its a logic error and your post is a classic of its kind.  After reading up on it, feel free to make a post in which you engage with the arguments.
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