Are you happy to see Australia's Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) get voted down? ( Archived) (53)

thanks for explaining this bourbon

I think this is a pretty complex topic, and I'm sure I won't do it justice here, but here's my two cents anyway.

It's incredibly disappointing to see how many people view the CPRS as environmentally responsible. I view it more-or-less as a scam designed to make Australia/Rudd 'look' semi-responsible while doing nothing of environmental or national worth. There's good reason why Kevin hasn't gone to any lengths to explain its inner workings.

Just recalling from memory, the CPRS is environmentally useless because:

1) The reductions in Green house gas emissions (about 5-25%) below 1990 levels are inadequate to stop global warming. If all developed countries set such pitiful targets we would not avoid catastrophic climate change.

2) It restricts how high the price of carbon can go for a number of years. This price is too low to drive any real change in Australia

3) It allows unlimited international offsetting of emissions. This means that polluting companies here in Aus don't have to stop polluting, they can just pay a lot less money to someone in a poor country to say that they're reducing emissions by a certain amount. International offsets are notoriously dodgy. This also means that domestically Australia will be left flat-footed in future years greenhouse pollution is restricted more strongly - it takes time to change.

4) The legislation would essentially create pollution 'property rights' for powerful multinationals who pollute the most. This means that the country could get sued in future if we actually decide to take real action on the climate.


Sure Aus only emits 1.3% of the world's total.. but we are also one of the world's major exporters of coal. The emissions our coal exports cause aren't presently counted towards our total. Even without them, we are essentially the worst polluters on the planet per person. I'm not sure if somehow people think that the rest of the world is going to act responsibly on the environment while letting Australia pollute without consequence - just won't happen.

As much as I hate to mention politics, there are essentially two parties in Australia when it comes to climate change: The Greens and 'the other two'.

In summary, I was incredibly relieved to see the CPRS voted down. At least now there's a tiny chance of doing something effective in future - otherwise, why bother?

Hi

I've been hearing a lot lately about Carbon , environment and targets but no real world applications .

Overview:
- Old crap boxs burnt or crushed or recyled
- People start acting responsible and take care of placing rubbish correctly
- Using glass instead of plastic ?
- Solar Farms
- Home users baring the cost for business/education/commerical


Besides Commercial and non Commercial changing polution emissions , what about the rest of the waste in the world today .

Am I the only one disguested at Drunk and Lazy people that drop litter so close to the creeks/water ways/bins ?

I work Night Shifts at a Service Station (Yes not the most enviromentaly friendly) but its amazing how many people will walk past SEVERAL BINS and drop something on the ground or get to the bus stop which is just outside the grounds then dump their waste on the ground BESIDE the BIN.

Myself I would like to see a simular car system like Japan has , if your car is used x amount of km's on its engine the engine has to go and be replaced or the whole car (Bit of a waste of a nice shell) It would finaly get rid of these old datson/kingswoods/gemmi/crapboxs off the road .

I am hoping once all the service stations go E10% blend of Ethlon then all the cars that cant work it get the flick

I would like to see Milk and Drinks come back in Glass Bottles as I found it tasted better in them , and when I was young you could collect the bottles to get money.

With all the problems with the utter piss poor quality of Queensland Power Grid , I am amazed we havent gone Nuclar or some people with huge areas of dry hot land has setup a solar farm , were its setup with a truckload of solar pannels to feed power to the main grid (might aswell use the sun since the bloody heat is annoying)

Recently a school that close by to my work built a new office building that 2 months on they still havent moved into , but for a good 6 weeks they left every single light inside the building and outside on during the whole night , what a WASTE OF POWER .
Normal peoples power keeps on going up and up and up , so what do the goverment and schools do , ohh lets just chew it up for no good reason . My point here is that home users , shoundnt bare the cost for business/commercial/schools

thats is a great post , my brother in law runs a major recycling / waste centre in Adelaide's northern suburbs & literally everything is recycled. whitegoods are tested & repaired, same with furniture & donated to charities. bikes, etc that need minor repairs are fixed & given to disadvantaged children, all the bricks, etc are crushed & used again for roads, etc they at present recycle 95% of everything that is sent there

And of the people cant afford new cars?

maybe the tarrifs have to be looked at , to make the cars more affordable

For years many have said that but sif that would happen..

I know mate , wishful thinking when you see how cheap new cars are in Eurpoe, japan etc its quite dissapointing

I’ve seen all the arguments for and against global warming and I lean towards natural occurrence. Last time we had Global warming was about 9000 years ago and there was no industries around. But in saying that chemicals in the air, while not having a great affect on the environment are doing some real damage to our well being.

great post . I am of the same view, I posted on the inters how the murray - darling has been blamed on irrigators, etc up stream from Vic & SA , but in 1901 there was the Federation Drought where the entire system was bone dry also there were no cyclones for a period of 2 years then aswell.

so even though I do feel we are contributing to some issues maybe it is the earths way of reinvigorating itself

There is a great perception that the Earth does do its own work, it certainly held its balance in nature until humans came along and unstableized everything.

wow another great post on this topic

I think the science of global warming is complicated... and the layperson has little chance of 'seeing all the arguments' let alone understanding them.

There are some seriously brainy guys out there who dedicate decades of their lives to understanding the science. When the overwhelming majority of a scientific profession says global warming is happening and we're causing it, we sensibly should take their word for it - as the governments of the world are doing.

I don’t know how old you are or how well your memory serves you but do you remember the same hype with global cooling in the 70’s and 80’s and from the same institute of science! Some people were spending big around the world in stocking up for the up coming event...lol Whenever there is money to be made be sure to find falsified evidence. Independent studies have shown Chlorine and fluoride in our drinking water have the potential to lower the IQ by 40 points Sugarine cause brain tumours in rats and if it shows up in rats be sure its has some effect on humans. The bottom line is, if they cannot exploit us financially they don’t need us. Everything is a money grabbing scheme these days and there is very little truth in the truth. but that’s only my opinion!

And a correct opinion mate! So sad aint it..

It is sad, more in Australia then anywhere else in the world that has a free market. The other day I stopped in Coles to buy a hand full of items which I use daily and I mean few and they summed up to $90 far out and I still haven’t done my shopping for the week!

Yea I know other day at coles was near 200 bucks! what can we do..

The thing is not much- we have lost the art of survival due to busy& cramped lifestyles. I was born on a small hobby farm and I don’t ever remember going to the shops to buy veggies, eggs chickens.. etc places like Franklins at the time really had to fight the competition for your dollar. Honestly these days I couldnt do what my parents did, they worked longer hours and still found enough time and a desire to attend the gardens and few animals.

Ya people aint like what they used to be..we are mechanised now. Automated now, well not everyone but most lol. Just the way it is mate...