Wednesday, October 1, 2008

McCrann slaps Dudd08 about the head*

With the release of Garnaut MKIII and a bit, The Final Solution, in which some say he's backpedalling from huge reductions (well, he seemed to be in Garnaut Interim Pending Prior-to Almost Report No. 2 and three quarters). Strangely enough those who support AGW seem to think Garnaut is supporting greater reductions.

Amongst other things, McCrann says:

The idea that we should lead is beyond absurd; that the world is 'waiting on us'.
Worth a read. I'ts not as if Rudd doesn't need a wake-up.

While you're there, check out some of McCrann's other articles.

And by the way, I heard some nong say on the radio yesterday that it won't cost more than about $8 per month for each person to support this ETS/CRAP or whatever the fashionable name is for it this month. I think they've got their calculations wrong. It's probably $8 per month per whatever it is you buy. Then again, I think it's an underestimate.

Garnaut's supposed to be an economist. How can he say that when he's advocating destroying Australia's economy for something which doesn't exist. I say the same thing about all economists who support any scheme which even acknowledges AGW.

*Don't think it'll make any difference to Krudd at all.

5 comments:

Wand said...

More drivel from Garnaut. McCrann’s assessment is accurate that if Emissions Trading proceeds the whole thing will destroy the economy. Of that I have no doubt whatsoever.

However, McCann also says, “There is no way even the Rudd Government is going to embrace a policy to destroy the economy, in the wake of this week's disaster on Wall St and the Hill - the US House of Representatives.”

But is he correct? Mind you, I suspect that business in Australia has held this view because traditionally, let’s face it, business will always choose to work with the government that happens to be in power. There have been plenty of examples of this over the decades, wartime included.

But I have my doubts that KRudd will back off because the mob in Canberra has an agenda and so far there are no signs that they will do anything but impose a regulatory regime on the economy that will suck it dry.

It is all very well for economists like Garnaut to produce drivel with fanciful projections about a “modest” impact that this thing will have on the economy with implicit assumptions that reductions in greenhouse emissions will result by creating a market in which “greener” technologies will somehow magically appear. Forget for the moment the difficulty in projecting interest rates and economic activity over the next 12 or 42 years, (just look back 20 to 40 years at history then try to find someone who has accurately predicted it) Garnaut defies technical and practical reality. Of course all this really means is that Garnaut has not got a clue.

Some basic facts are these:
With the exception of nuclear power, about the only lower emission technology that exists for electricity generation is to use natural gas. Other renewable technologies that are available for electricity production such as solar, wind, biomass, tidal, geothermal, generally are small-scale, requiring grid backup and are not reliable. Any shift to use these technologies on any scale would require a massive investment, the allocation of resources on a huge scale and take decades. Then there would be the question about the mechanism by which this would be achieved. Who would act and who would pay? A command economy everyone? And BTW, ‘clean coal technology” may sound great but it requires a huge amount of energy to implement and even then it would require suitable locations to ‘bury’ the carbon dioxide. Never mind that we don’t need the technology, for it to work economically, there are a few fundamental laws of matter, physics, thermodynamics to be overcome. Maybe we should ask our legislators to do that first.

When it comes to other types of energy such as oil or natural gas which produce emissions through the production process, generally there are no viable low emissions technologies available to deliver clean energy sources. That’s right, none! So with these technologies, the emissions trading scheme will simply throttle production irrespective of demand.

And as with greener electricity, even if ‘greener’ technologies existed for other energy sources and shift to use them would require a massive investment, huge resources and decades to implement.

Then there are most of our major export earning industries that produce fugitive emissions as part of the production process that will be systematically shut down as emission permits are reduced!

The way things are progressing is that we will be saddled with regulations and a scheme that can do nothing but shut down the economy and all the economic modelling will not alter that. And as Terry McCann has pointed out, our efforts will achieve absolutely nothing for the climate. Of course there is nothing we should be doing because increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere at the rate it is being added are beneficial.

Ho hum, it will be welcome to the new Australia. I suppose there would have to be a business opportunity - welcome to the dark side but how would people come? By sailing boat taking 9 months from Europe?

I would dearly love to be proved wrong about all this and I await the government’s white paper on the scheme in December to see what the final version will bring.

I predict that the Australian Emissions Trading Scheme will go down in history alongside other grand schemes such as Eugenics and Lysenkoism.

Anonymous said...

Only $8 a month? Was I the only one who heard Rudd on the ABC (Lateline or 7.30 Report or something like that) argue that addressing climate change would cost each Aussie something like $1 per year??

$8 a month sounds wrong to me, too, but it's 96 times what Rudd suggested it might cost!

Could be time to resurrect the 'I voted for Howard so it's not my fault' t-shirt.....

kae said...

Hi Dylan (is that you, in Europe?)
No, that $1 per annum was Kevin07. I'm talking about the latest one. It's gone up a bit.

I'm sure it's gonna go up a bit more before it's finished with.

Anonymous said...

Yep, me here! :)

I'm sure you're right that the cost will keep going up, at least until the costs start to bite the pollies where it hurts: votes.

Meanwhile over here countries are begging the EU Commission to give them a break on climate costs. Poland, for one, is begging for free permits for polluting industries so as to keep people employed.

France is stil taking the 'tax anything not explicitly green' approach for the moment. The latest is the just announced 'Picnic Tax' which is set to whack nearly a euro to the cost of plastic cutlery, paper plates and the like. (Linky) This is on top of all the other green taxes we pay...heck, every electrical product already includes what is called an 'eco-participation' charge and this new plan is set to make fridges, washers and other such items even more expensive.

What I wouldn't give for some governmental sanity! :)

kae said...

Hah! I know someone who is over there in Bordeaux stomping grapes... but he tells me these days they don't stomp, a machine does it. I'm so disappointed. I was envisioning him in his knotted hanky hat, with his jeans rolled up, stomping away with purple legs... shame really. I wouldn't mind some samples, but I don't like my chances.

Well, I did a quick search when I was looking for the $8 comment and found that power would cost us 37% more, that'd be way over $8/month just there. Who are they trying to fool? And like anything else that means more taxes (which I don't mostly mind, but this is mindless and just a scam), someone's gonna pay for it, and I suspect it's me.
A bit like the paid maternity leave scam - I hear the television talking heads saying that the government will foot the bill.

Who TF do they think funds the government?

Idiots.