Thursday, December 18, 2008

UPDATE: ABC Local Radio Steve Austen interview with CC guru and Bob Carter (skeptic from JCU)

He doesn't say when exactly, but here's the link to his programme and the streaming...

http://www.abc.net.au/brisbane/radio/

Steve Austin interviews a John Connor, a CC guru , and Bob Carter. Asks about Tibet and Nth America freezing over and the CC guru ignores and avoids the question, but Bob Carter explains why.

Should be interesting...

More scales falling?I have to do stuff so I can't listen to it all.

UPDATE: It's on now. He'll be interviewing them at about 7:30 Qld time (8:30 NSW/Vic time).

UPDATE II: It appears that adding the word "pollution" to the word carbon has done the trick. There are a lot of people who think that AGW is a crock of shit, or really don't understand it or an ETS, but they'll agree to a 5% reduction because it's reducing pollution. (One said, 5%, that's nothing. Noone bothered to tell him that emissions have increased by 2% over a certain period. That probably wouldn't make a difference to him, he's too clueless.)

No wonder the ALP keeps getting into government in Queensland.

UPDATE III: Bob Carter is finished. He was good.

UPDATE IV: And Bob Beige is getting excited about the 5% rudduction on the news.

UPDATE V: Steve Austen will try to put the interviews up on his blog.

UPDATE VI 18/12/08: Here's the link to Bob Carter's interview.

9 comments:

Skeeter said...

As I understand it, the carbon tax is going to force us to reduce emissions by making everything that uses energy more expensive.
But then the government is going to give back some of the carbon tax so we can still afford to buy things.
If the carbon tax is not going to make things too expensive to buy, how does it reduce emissions?
Reverse osmosis, perhaps?

kae said...

Skeeter
Reverse osmosis. Is that what it's called. When the government hoovers your money out of your pockets.
I see.

Wand said...

Skeeter

That's what it may look like but the compensation pitch is just the means to get the thing implemented.

Ignoring for the moment the massive shock to energy prices that will cascade through the economy causing unemployment, price rises and inflation everywhere, the real crunch will come when our green zealots in Canberra start cranking the controls that they have put in place.

As soon as the scam starts, emissions permits will be required to be held by certain businesses. The legislation (and there is heaps of it) spells out precisely who is required to hold emissions permits and these businesses are electricity generators, gas suppliers, oil suppliers as well as businesses that emit more than a certain amount of fugitive gases (e.g., steel, aluminium, coal and so on - i.e., any business that releases CO2 (or CH4) as part of the production process). There are a few exceptions to these generalities but this description will do.

The initial allocation of permits for a business will be based on the reported emissions for the year 2009/2010! After that, there will be a downward trajectory in the number of emissions permits that will be ‘sold’ each year to anyone who is required to have them. This is a tax by another name.

What Krudd and his mob intend to do is put in place a command system with massive control across the economy and it appears that few people recognise this or can see through to the consequences! Simply it is incompatible with a free market economy.

Some of the effects will be:
• Energy suppliers increase their prices to cover the costs of the permits.
• Energy users will increase their prices to cover their increased energy costs.
• Energy users will increase their prices to cover their increased costs from inputs to their businesses from other energy users.
• No business that is required to hold permits will be able to expand except at the expense of another business that either ceases operations (quite likely) or perhaps where some surplus permits are available for purchase.
• No new businesses can commence in industries that would be required to hold emissions permits.
• Emissions permits are rationed further as the trajectory takes effect.
• Price of emissions permits increase
• Energy prices increase further as energy suppliers increase their prices - but if energy supplier cannot obtain sufficient permits then the energy supplier must reduce output or ration the supply of energy.
• Businesses required to hold emissions permits have emissions permits allocation reduced resulting in reduced output, job losses and business closure.

And so it goes on.

The economists and the green zealots behind this madness will say that the increased price of ‘carbon’ (really carbon dioxide) will create a demand for technologies to reduce emissions associated with energy generation. There is just one major problem with this line of thinking: it won’t happen. The technologies that are required just do not exist and even if they did the time frame for implementation would be decades and not the short time before this destructive ETS takes hold. Curiously green zealots talk about renewable energy but that only refers mostly to electricity generation. The one common aspect with all renewable energy is that it is intermittent and all of it requires back up from conventional power stations. Now there may be a few exceptions such as geothermal power but even with this technology there are severe practical engineering limitations.

However, emissions permits will be required from all energy suppliers and generators of fugitive emissions. For example, there is no discussion about renewable energy when it comes to the supply of gas but gas suppliers will be required to hold permits that will be reduced in number as time goes by. And sure we can produce alcohol from anything that ferments but the idea that our oil needs can be supplied in any quantity in this way is fanciful.

So what we have is a massive command system where the government effectively gets to command how much this economy can produce! If energy is the lifeblood of the economy, the government is going for the jugular with the intention of strangling it. These controls will give them the tools.

So yesterday while some people were laughing at the Greens falling over themselves in despair at the paltry 5% proposed by Krudd, I didn’t laugh. Actually I don’t give a toss what the Greens think. The real danger here is if this scam passes into legislation because the zealots behind it are serious about controlling our lives, even if it means destroying the economy because that it the only possible outcome.

Some final comments. IMO the only sensible course for the Opposition would be to call this scam for what it is and vigorously oppose the whole thing. I would be surprised if they have the guts but who knows, in politics anything is possible. If they happen to support the scam, as some people are suggesting Krudd will pressure the Opposition for support in the Senate rather than the Greens and the Independents, then the Opposition would deserve the opprobrium with the government for being complicit in destroying the economy.

Under these circumstances I suppose one Westminster principle that no government may bind its successors would not matter because it will have been well and truly ditched.


Merry Christmas Skeeter. Next time I’m in Qld I’ll let you know and maybe we can have a chat about it all then.

PS: A disclosure - As you may know, I am involved in this game and will benefit financially from it.

kae said...

Hiya Wand, long time no hear!
I'm annoyed that all the news seems to be about an ETS, etc. About doing something. How it's good that something's being done.

Unfortunately there is no dissent at all, noone with an opposite view is being given air time to put that view forward. No wonder the general public believes in AGW etc., it's been force fed to them with no alternate view.

I'll keep an eye out for the audio of that interview that Steve Austen did last night with Connor and Carter. It was good. Connor really had no answers and kept with the AGW/CC line of the science being in, etc., whereas Carter was able to say why there was a cold spell and the earth was cooling.
I was impressed by some of the phone callers on the Steve Austen programme last night, and stunned at the idiocy of those callers who thought it was good to "do something".

Wand said...

Hi kae,

Actually I listened to the programme last night from the link you posted. I happened to be at my computer so ...

Bob Carter is good value. I went to a presentation that he made in Sydney a couple of years ago now.

Carter has given advice to governments but has been ignored.

kae said...

Hi Wand
So pleased that someone was paying attention to my blog!
It was interesting, wasn't it?
Some of the calls to the radio today have been interesting, however, it seems to have slipped from the radar again.

I loved Bob Carter's comment (paraphrased) "Concensus? If 99 scientists tell you that 2 plus 2 equals 5, and one tells you that 2 plus 2 equals 4, do you go with the concensus? Or do you check the sum yourself?

Wand said...

Terry McCrann has the ETS and Krudd accurately assessed.

But will anyone listen?

Anonymous said...

Bob Carter on ABC Radio?

What's next, Lateline?

I'd like to see that!
Cheers
Cav

kae said...

Hi Cav
I don't know whether the other interview, the one with Connor, went up.
That's a negative on that.
No AGW believer interview.
He wasn't very good, and really had no argument.
Just the basic "Science is in", "consensus", etc.