The Environment - it needs you to pay more tax.

Will somebody make a profit out of the international response to climate change that may be finally grinding into gear? Well almost certainly.

Will the application of controls (and taxation) be totally uniform and fair between individuals/corporations/nations? Well probably not.

So far so good SteveS1.

Should we therefore ignore the overwhelming independent evidence regarding climate change?

Should we therefore blame everybody else and take not one jot of personal responsibility (either in our habits, our voting or our tax burden)?

I suspect that on those two questions we will differ.

Bruce (eco-bore)

Deane,

We are not going to agree.

The link between carbon emission and global warming is still, to quote this Stern report, an 'assumption'. Indeed, it was reported variously as 'strongly believed to be the cause’ and 'assumed to be the cause' by most commentators on BBC news last night.

What then followed was a whole load of spurious, yes spurious, cost assumptions that if the world spends 1% of it's income now - it won't have to spend 20% later. Rapier accuracy I'm sure, and fits very neatly with getting people to accept higher taxation as a social contribution - bloody perfect!

If we’d all known that it was the fact that people don’t pay enough tax that was responsible – we’d have all rushed down the tax office cheque in hand years ago I’m sure.

I certainly don't accept that the onus is on the unconvinced to 'prove' that an assumption isn't correct. I defy you to prove that a) carbon is responsible, and b) the proportion of carbon that is produced naturally has not increased.

The reason for the focus on man-made output is that it is far more easily measured against previous output. This is where the 150 years comes in. They have not got anything like enough information about previous levels, climate conditions or anything else, the earth has existed in various states of extreme heat and cold over many millions of years.

Who do we blame for the ice age? China wasn’t opening a coal fired power station every five days then was it?

Every time there is a weather bulletin covering a local cold snap or dry period they just love frightening everyone with ‘this is the hottest/coldest/wettest month since, say 1898. Oh really. What were they blaming in 1898 then?

The real joy is when the 24 hour news programmes (who’s role, it seems, is to fill their schedules with as many non-stories as they can muster) wheels out some scientist or other who is willing to suggest that ‘this may be an indication of climate change…etc.’ Neatly followed by ‘but we need more research’ – or put another way, ‘we’d like some more funding please’.

There is nothing governments like more than diverting attention away from what they are responsible for and on to people who’s consumption really is a snowflake in an avalanche.

My doubts remain about the current environmental debate, and more particularly those who make their living from it, and politicians who seek to use fear for their own ends.

Kind regards,

Steve.

quote:

All records go back 150 years tops against a planet history of how long?

That's not true even of human records never mind the ice cores etc. which go back much further than that!

Climate change is not a matter of opinion it's a matter of responsiblity.

Mike

My own belief is that we probably are affecting the climate. Climate aside, it cannot escape anyone that we are affecting our planet and not always for the better. We consume resources, impinge on the landscape, dump stuff right left and centre. Need I go on.

I see nothing wrong with encouraging people to cut down energy/resource usage. The problem is that there is little incentive for individuals to do so (Other than idealogical) to make any changes to their consumption habits. Taxation on consumption, or better still tax breaks on resource savings, are one way of focusing attention.

/dl

You are missing the point of punitive taxes.

It makes me laugh when the papers only calculate how much worse off we'll all be assuming we just carry on exactly as we are.

The point of increaed fuel levies and higher tax bands for high emissions vehicles is to encourage people to find a greener alternative, which will then cost them less.

We simply cannot carry on the way we are, and how else can the goverment enforce change? If they banned Range Rovers, X5's etc. outright there would be a revolution. Instead they hit you in the pocket to make you reconsider.

quote:

Taxation on consumption, or better still tax breaks on resource savings, are one way of focusing attention.

Where there are no viable alternatives, people will just pay more tax but carry on consuming. They will have no choice. The tax, needless to say is more likely to fund increased civil service final salary pensions and administration charges.

Real incentives include making alternatives viable and cost effective - they will not do that of course, as there is no revenue in it.

In the UK we allowed ourselves to be persueded that diesel is 'cleaner' than petrol for example. Maybe it is, but in any event diesel prices now outstrip petrol comfortably. Some incentive, that.

Regards,

Steve

I use the train when possible and longlife / low energy light bulbs about the house and from what I can gather this helping with a minimum of disruption to my life style. I do not drive so a rise in fuel tax will hit me indirectly as distributors will I'm sure pass the additional cost of transport onto me and other endusers of products transported across either the globe or the country and to be honest I can not be arsed and do not have the time or mindset to count food miles and and use my purchasing power to change the suppy policies of those feeding and clothging me and mine. The question of green taxes for some and tax breaks for others is imho just a way to distort a market in an attempt to pull entrepreneurs and investors into a sector that by definition is seen by them as not worth entering, all sounds a bit fishy to me and not worth the effort.

Let the train take the strain

So what's next weeks big news story?

quote:

The point of increaed fuel levies and higher tax bands for high emissions vehicles is to encourage people to find a greener alternative, which will then cost them less.

I agree entirely. Focussing attention.

quote:

Real incentives include making alternatives viable and cost effective - they will not do that of course, as there is no revenue in it.

Government grants are available under the low carbon buildings programme which is something I suppose.

What I can't understand is why it is not possible to make simple and direct incentives such as having zero rate VAT on low enery light bulbs... OK, OK, I'm being naive, prices will drop by 5% at retailers will pocket the difference. But that's human nature for you.

Same is true of energy saving technologies. Charge as much as the market will stand. Of course. Any manufacturing or supplying company would be stupid to do otherwise.

Not much hope is there

/dl

quote:

You are missing the point of punitive taxes.

I don't think we are.

I think you are being idealistic. To stay with the diesel case, the price of diesel was lower originally to encourage people to move over.

Now that many people have, Bob's your uncle the price is right up at a level that makes the mpg/cost against petrol increasingly marginal.

I am sure that when critical mass is achieved, the same would happen no matter what the current vogue.

Take LPG. It will only be cheap while nobody uses it. Sadly for HM Gov even the most eco-minded motorist saw the huge conversion costs and not being able to find a filling station as a problematic.

The demonising of 4x4s is interesting of course. If our problem with them is that they use too much fuel, well the owner pays proportionately more. Most of them are diesel and output no more CO2 than larger saloons, and sports cars.

But it all helps with the righteous indignation of course, and I have no doubt that after the 4x4 it would be sports cars and after sports cars etc. etc. Then we can all have no cars at all. After all, we didn't always have them and on that basis we don't 'need' any of them.

Now about these electricity consuming Hi Fi units - we don't need those either. See, the trouble is we don't 'need' lots of things we are just discussing the balances that individuals are comfortable with.

Regards,

Steve.

quote:

Originally posted by rackkit:
So what's next weeks big news story?

That we're another week closer to global catastrophe and still no-one's done anything.

quote:

Originally posted by rackkit:
So what's next weeks big news story?

Council workers entering your home, taking photographs in order to determine if it's nice enough to justify charging you more tax. "Is that a 552, oh that'll be an extra £50 per month " Of course it won't bother me as I'll have sold my kit to pay the extra tax next time I buy a tank of central heating oil.

Regards,

Willy.

quote:

The point of increaed fuel levies and higher tax bands for high emissions vehicles is to encourage people to find a greener alternative, which will then cost them less.

Trouble is people don't look for and find the greener alternative. They find cheaper ones. The cheaper options tend not to be the greener ones. The cheaper ones tend to have been made in an economy on the other side of the planet with far lower production costs while not having to pay so much detailed attention to ethical, employment and environmental issues, from materials shipped in (with related environmental costs) from another corner of the globe. Then the finished item is packaged and sent around the planet again.

Like the good lady from Chinese Green Peace said "If you stop buying the stuff, we'll stop making it".

The point of any increased taxation is to increase revenue. Encouraging the greener alternative would more likely be achieved by reducing the taxes on those green alternates or even offering other incentives to aid the travelling experience (a free bicycle for all) or tax credits for instance. This may also in fact increase revenue (from a pile em high sell 'em cheap perspective) and reduce spending over the long term, trouble is, any Party in power fears they do not have the long term on their side and the associated accountants will be number crunching figures for revenue generation over this and the next finacial year, not ten or fifty years down the line.

Like I said in my earlier post, vested interests are what count.

Anyway, I believe the cabinet discussion with Tony went something like this:

"It's clear that the Committee has agreed that your new policy is really an excellent plan. But in view of the doubts being expressed, may I propose that I recall that after careful consideration, the considered view of the Committee was that, while they considered that the proposal met with broad approval in principle, that some of the principles were sufficiently fundamental in principle, and some of the considerations so complex and finely balanced in practice that in principle it was proposed that the sensible and prudent practice would be to submit the proposal for more detailed consideration, laying stress on the essential continuity of the new proposal with existing principles, the principal of the principal arguments which the proposal proposes and propounds for their approval. In principle."

...so it will probably never happen. Unless it actually went like this:

Sir Humphrey: "Taxation isn't about what you need."
Jim Hacker: "Oh, what is it about?"
Sir Humphrey: "Prime Minister, the Treasury doesn't work out what they need to spend and then think how to raise the money."
Jim Hacker: "What does it do?"
Sir Humphrey: "They pitch for as much as they think they can get away with and then think what to spend it on."

quote:

Originally posted by Willy:

quote:

Originally posted by rackkit:
So what's next weeks big news story?

Council workers entering your home, taking photographs in order to determine if it's nice enough to justify charging you more tax. "Is that a 552, oh that'll be an extra £50 per month " Of course it won't bother me as I'll have sold my kit to pay the extra tax next time I buy a tank of central heating oil.

Regards,

Willy.

You've been reading the Daily Mail?

You'll be fined a grand for not letting them in to take photographs.

Make the place look a bit of a shit tip before they come round and your council tax will be less. We will be penalised for maintaining our properties and having good taste in decor. Socialism is alive and well.

Slip them 50 quid and the new fireplace you just had fitted doesn't exist.

Corruption will be rife.

Steve S1 says - "The link between carbon emission and global warming is still, to quote this Stern report, an 'assumption'."

Stern actually says:

"The scientific evidence is now overwhelming: climate change presents very serious
global risks, and it demands an urgent global response."

Those two statements do not conflict, but as we are talking about carbon's role in it....

Climate change whether natural or not would present risks to all, no conflict in stating the obvious. What we have is a debate as to the cause(s).

There was a question earlier about the hole in the ozone layer.

According to Dr Susan Solomon of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and Dr David Hofman of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, the hole has stopped widening, and may even close up in the next 50 to 60 years. The hole, however, is now the size of North America. They say that the halt in ozone depletion is the result of the phasing out of ozone-depleting substances such as CFCs following the 1987 ratification of the Montreal protocol.

In other words, it has taken concerted international effort nearly 20 years to stop the situation getting worse, and will take three times that to reverse the damage. This is roughly what is being said about global warming; but the methods for solving the latter would appear to be far more difficult and complex - which is why the public will continue to give off their 'too much of a problem, so I won't bother' message.

quote:

Originally posted by Deane F:
So go ahead. Scratch the surface. Go to your library and get a few scientific journals that contain peer-reviewed articles about global warming. You should have around 700 (peer-reviewed) articles to choose from. See if you can find one that disputes global warming.

will this do, Deane?

quote:

One example of this is where the movie quotes a research study by Naomi Oreskes. Her study says that all 928 papers she looked at under the search of “climate change” held a “consensus” view that our global warming is not a natural variation. When other scientists tried to replicate the study with the same parameters, their results came back different.

Finding similar numbers of papers in the exact same database, Oreskes’ findings could not be reproduced. It was found that fewer than 30 percent of the papers either directly or indirectly implied that human activity was the root of our current rise in global temperatures, not all of the papers. Forty-two percent of the papers did not draw a conclusion one way or another.

I listened to a senior US Republican strategist ealier who said America would never sign up to the Kyoto agreement (remember the US causes 2/3rds of the World's pollution) because China and India would not and to limit pollution would be to lose the No.1 position in the world that the US holds at this time. Keeping in mind the fact that the US can not possibly stop first China and then India from overtaking them it seems likely that the US, far from clamping down on emissions of greenhouse gases etc. will actually de-regulate to allow more. Just a thought.

Peer review.

Referencing

John

There is nothing in the article to convince me of even the barest intellectual rigour.

Present the evidence about global warming.

So far only media reporting, none here have presented a scientific paper or conclusion based on meta analysis or similar. Surely you would not quote from a newspaper article!

http://www.epa.gov/climatechange

Worth a look.

quote:

Originally posted by Deane F:
There is nothing in the article to convince me of even the barest intellectual rigour.

what you mean is that there's nothing in the article that you agree with so you're going to ignore it.

Well here's another inconvenient article for you to ignore.

quote:

“There are ominous signs that the Earth’s weather patterns have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may portend a drastic decline in food production– with serious political implications for just about every nation on Earth.”

(Newsweek Magazine 1975 ... referring to the coming ice age)

quote:

Originally posted by John Sheridan:

quote:

Originally posted by Deane F:
There is nothing in the article to convince me of even the barest intellectual rigour.

what you mean is that there's nothing in the article that you agree with so you're going to ignore it.

It isn't me that relies on the news media to inform my opinions about scientific progress. I simply wouldn't entertain the notion of forming a conclusion about something so huge without going to some of the actual sources.