Enjoying the Carbon Scam?

[scott411]

What party - I don't think there is one - some have snippets...I guess it's the usual voting pattern of voting for the MP in the electorate I consider best of the bunch, then looking at the party vote and seeing which, if any have appalled me the least....

You offer relief to the poor, by making society a better and more equitable place to live in, with policies that promote justice, fairness and cohesiveness - not pitting one section of society off against the other and then spitting on them all - you know - utopian ideals that seem to be receding so fast into the distance, we'll not see them in my lifetime...

There is a difference between having the wealthy pay their way and oppressing them. A lot of the rich are already poor - in spirit, outlook and empathy - you don't have to make them poor. If you mean relieve them of some of their wealth, to provide decent health, infrastructure & education to society at large, then I think that is a good enough reason. How much money classifies someone as rich - the very rich don't know - it seems the more they have the more they want - if you've got a million, you want 5, if you've got a 100 mill, then 200 mill is better....and so it goes. I'm not earning a super amount, but I'm quite happy to pay my $25k a year in taxes if it helps towards a more equitable society.
Dumbing down?
If someone makes , say, $500,000 a year and is expected to pay, say $150,000 tax, should you feel sorry for him that he has to live on only $350,000 a year, when the median income is $40,000?
How is that pulling a wealthy person down to the bottom?
I guess it's all about expectations .......and those of the '60's have been well and truly shat upon, to the extent I'd prefer to keep most people away at the end of a big, sharp, pointy stick, whilst never ceasing to be amazed at how truly, deeply, stupefyingly dumb they are!

nice way to not really answer the question,

you say you are happy to pay $25k for a fair society, i am happy to pay a bit more, but it depends on what you earn, i think 33c in the dollar is a pretty fair amount to pay as a top rate, and i think aligning the company rate, teh trust rate and the top tax rate is a very good idea, i also think the GST system is an extremely fair tax as well, i even think a capaital gains tax is not that bad of an idea, but it is going to be a nightmare in implement, i think that once you start making exemptions to something, it becomes very hard to implement
(and that includes trying to make fresh fruit and veges gst free, it won;t effect the price much, and it will make a fortune for the accountants trying to sort out all the shit that goes with it)

i do not think that working for family's or interest free student loans are a good thing either, I think that teh wefare system is a shambles and needs a huge shakeup as well, helping those who are honestly in need, and not a way of life like it has become for far to much of our population,

[Winston001]

Why would they do that? Because it's a golden opportunity for them. Here we have a whole Climate Change Industry dedicated to justifying it's own existence, coming up with scarier and scarier scenarios that the media just love to use for a headline. Pollies are rubbing their hands together with glee in that they can promote new taxes as "doing the right thing for you and the environment", whilst using the new taxes to balance their budgets in tough economic times.

The "climate change industry" as you term it, is tiny. A few journalists, some commentators, and scientists doing research. Not exactly a scary bunch. Especially when you put them up against the oil, coal, and steel industries which can only be hurt by emission charges.

If there really was some conspiracy of money and power behind carbon trading, don't you think the USA would have been in there boots and all?

And incidentally, governments don't make any significant money from emissions trading. In fact it probably slows economic growth, its unpopular, and a vote loser.

So again: why have politicians all around the world introduced carbon charges/taxes?

[Scuba_Steve]

The "climate change industry" as you term it, is tiny. A few journalists, some commentators, and scientists doing research. Not exactly a scary bunch. Especially when you put them up against the oil, coal, and steel industries which can only be hurt by emission charges.

If there really was some conspiracy of money and power behind carbon trading, don't you think the USA would have been in there boots and all?

And incidentally, governments don't make any significant money from emissions trading. In fact it probably slows economic growth, its unpopular, and a vote loser.

So again: why have politicians all around the world introduced carbon charges/taxes?

Since when have Govt's done anything right??? And if you remember before this scam was signed it was 'sold' on the idea that NZ being "green" would profit from it & of course after it was signed "oh no we're not as "Green" as we thought, it'll actually cost us"
also to note, of these countries in it most don't want to be (at people level), media would hype it to sound like it's a 'popular idea' (like the RWC) but in reality the opposite is true, unfortunately tho they are like NZ & run under a party led dictatorship.

Oh and the Oil industry isn't about to "hurt" by any of this, no less than 2 of them are behind this scam & the rest are just riding the increased profits

[Spearfish]

So again: why have politicians all around the world introduced carbon charges/taxes?

For the same reason celebraties buy a Toyota Prius.

[SPman]

nice way to not really answer the question,
..... and not a way of life like it has become for far to much of our population,

the 5-6% of the population that will be there regardless of the state of the economy....4 mill pop...200k relying on benefits to live - sounds about average.

[Badjelly]

...YET ANOTHER damning piece of scientific FACT...

I realise everyone's moved on from the damning piece of scientific FACT with which Quasi started this thread, but those who are still interested might want to read this...

http://profmandia.wordpress.com/2011...t-bad-science/

[Badjelly]

I haven't really contributed to the debate on whether the ETS is a good idea, etc, because I don't know much about the subject. (Not talking on subjects you know little about! A new trend on Kiwibiker? Nah, it'll never catch on.) I generally restrict myself to trying to clear up misunderstandings about the science. However I do think it's absolutely clear that the people of the world should be trying to reduce overall greenhouse gas emissions, because these represent a substantial climate forcing, and this is likely to be a bad thing, possibly a very bad thing. (Spare me your 1.7% of natural emissions, please Quasi. It's irrelevant. Anyone who takes his scientific facts from Ian Wishart seriously needs to adjust his credibility meter.)

Anyway, I do wonder if a carbon tax would be a better idea than a trading scheme. I seem to recall that Labour proposed to introduce one a few elections ago but were blocked by their coalition partner, Peter Dunne. At that time all the opponents were saying that a trading scheme would be much better than a tax. Odd.

[Scuba_Steve]

I haven't really contributed to the debate on whether the ETS is a good idea, etc, because I don't know much about the subject. (Not talking on subjects you know little about! A new trend on Kiwibiker? Nah, it'll never catch on.) I generally restrict myself to trying to clear up misunderstandings about the science. However I do think it's absolutely clear that the people of the world should be trying to reduce overall greenhouse gas emissions, because these represent a substantial climate forcing, and this is likely to be a bad thing, possibly a very bad thing. (Spare me your 1.7% of natural emissions, please Quasi. It's irrelevant. Anyone who takes his scientific facts from Ian Wishart seriously needs to adjust his judgements about credibility.)

Anyway, I do wonder if a carbon tax would be a better idea than a trading scheme. I seem to recall that Labour proposed to introduce one a few elections ago but were blocked by their coalition partner, Peter Dunne. At that time all the opponents were saying that a trading scheme would be much better than a tax. Odd.

weither its tax or trading they're both bad ideas especially for something unproven and effectively a fairy tale. I want to see a shutdown on pollution but with all this carbon BS going on no-one cares about REAL problems, there are a few "greenies" tacked onto this carbon scam that ignorantly believe it'll stop pollution neglecting the fact so far all it's done is cost everyone more & created more pollution.

[SPman]

weither its tax or trading they're both bad ideas especially for something unproven and effectively a fairy tale.

Don't read very widely, then, eh!.......
Don't really care about carbon taxes or ETC schemes - if people need to be beaten into accepting stuff, it's not worth it and they can stew in their own crap if that's what they want, just spare me from people who refuse to comprehend or acknowledge the real science and observations out there.....and I don't mean the stuff sponsored by the Koch brothers and big business and espoused by the likes of Monckton, et al.!

[Quasievil]

Don't read very widely, then, eh!.......
Don't really care about carbon taxes or ETC schemes - if people need to be beaten into accepting stuff, it's not worth it and they can stew in their own crap if that's what they want, just spare me from people who refuse to comprehend or acknowledge the real science and observations out there.....and I don't mean the stuff sponsored by the Koch brothers and big business and espoused by the likes of Monckton, et al.!

I dont think you are reading Spman.
it isnt real science, its full of B.S open your mind a bit

And you dont care if your conned into paying taxes based on Lies?

I do, alot

no one is saying they encourage pollution are they?

[Usarka]

This topic always amuses me. The scienctific approach that concludes that the rate of global warming is due to man-made emissions is exactly the same scientific approach that they use with everything else that people accept as scientific fact on a daily basis.

The last time so many people doubted the general scientific consensus in such great numbers was when they said the earth wasn't the centre of the universe.

[Winston001]

.

....was when they said the earth wasn't the centre of the universe.

SAY WHUT??

When did that happen? Dang. I need to get out more.

[Winston001]

...open your mind a bit

And you dont care if your conned into paying taxes based on Lies?

I do, alot

no one is saying they encourage pollution are they?

Quasi - seriously. Smog is comprised of carbon particulates. It comes from industries pouring smoke out of chimneys and from automobiles. Its poisonous. To people plants soil and water.

Somehow we have to get smog reduced. Carbon trading (which is not tax) and emissions trading is the method being used. It may be clumsy, it may be inefficent, it may appear too subtle....but what else would you suggest??

Incidentally FYI check out the South Asia Plume. I've seen it. Its real.

[Badjelly]

Winston001 there's a big difference between visible smog produced by burning coal and the carbon dioxide emissions. The smog consists of soot (unburned carbon) and sulphur oxides, which eventually get turned into ammonium sulphate. The soot is black and the ammonium sulphate is white. The soot is produced by incomplete combustion and the sulphur oxides by combustion of the sulphurous fraction of the fuel. Both the soot and the sulphur oxides can be reduced a great deal by improvements to the plant that's burning the coal, without a big reduction in output or huge expense

Carbon dioxide is produced even when the coal is burned cleanly, unless you adopt very expensive carbon capture technology. Or burn less coal.

The emissions trading schemes and carbon taxes being introduced in various places are intended to reduce or limit emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. They may reduce smog, but that's somewhat incidental and if you want to reduce smog and don't care about greenhouse gases then reduction of greenhouse gas emissions isn't the smart way to go about it.

[jonbuoy]

No one will really know/accept the man made/natural cycle until its too late. Both sides can search around on the Internet to find the answers they want to hear, bit like reading six different weather forecasts until you find the one that fits in with your plans for the weekend. One thing is for sure we have to cut down on all kinds of pollution and burning of fossil fuels if we want to survive long term. Any one suggest a better idea to cut down on emission's other than a taxation/compensation? Asking nicely won´t cut it.