Posts by Angus Robertson
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For anyone who thinks I am a climate change skeptic, or just having a go at the ETS for some political trolling - this isn't the case.
ETS is a crap "solution" propsed by the useless rich of the world, represented primarily by the EU and various Green parties therein. It is unfair and inequitable to the worlds poor because it prices carbon emission outside of the poors reach, and therefore it will fail to save the planet.
The answer to climate change is to impose taxation on the rich consumer driven societies that are stomping us to death with their carbon footprints, but tax is unpopular. Much "better" for politicians that climate change be tackled by stealth imposing costs on production and getting producers to pay so the tax is hidden. But that can't be done worldwide, because of the inequity in wealth between the developed and the developing world means the worlds poor will not sign up. Thus ETS schemes fail, investing time in setting up an ETS is investing in failure and killing the planet.
The answer remains what it has always been, we need to start slapping carbon taxation on every consumed good in this country, making it as high as our consumer can stand. That will be less popular than hiding the cost through an ETS, but as long as our consumers have carbon footprints 3x larger than the world average it is the only fair and equitable solution. And it actually has a chance of saving the planet.
Good afternoon everyone, enjoy your day. Hopefully the weather will fine up, but not too much eh?
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No I got that. New Zealand shouldn't try and reduce our carbon emissions because other parts of the world have malaria. Point well made, I can't believe I missed that yesterday.
Analogy doesn't work. I do forget that sometimes.
Please allow me to explain in very simple terms.
If we go for 40% reductions we become the world leaders in being Nimbyistic, rich, arrogant pricks.
By setting a price for carbon emission at a rate of 40% reduction, we will be pricing it massively outside of the reach of the worlds poor.
In which it's apparently completely impossible for other parts of the world to respond in any way to movements in emission production.
The worlds poor simply cannot afford to. So when a bunch rich, arrogant, nimby pricks set up a market which prices an otherwise freely available commodity outside of their reach they will refuse to participate. The fact that the rich, arrogant, nimby pricks will then scold them for not being "green" enough is neither relevant nor amusing*.
* except to the rich, arrogant, nimby pricks who will find endless glee in their own smug moral superiority.
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@Whoops
I can only hope their fears are realised.
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Kyle,
In case the analogy didn't penetrate, malaria exists pretty much entirely because the poorest countries in the world cannot afford to fight it. And the rich ones do not help.
With climate change the same shit will happen and it is worse. Because we (the rich) will be providing them (the poor) with a direct economic incentive to behave badly and then (I guess) scolding them when they do behave badly. It is sickening. At its very core the ETS movement is a bunch of rich pricks taking the moral high ground and telling everyoneelse to behave.
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This is the "The World is a Perfect Free Market" theory of the environment.
In which it's apparently completely impossible for other parts of the world to respond in any way to movements in emission production.
Malaria - you might have heard of this disease - resides in mosquitoes found in the tropics. Florida is in the tropics, Queensland is in the tropics and Cameroon is in the tropics - imagine a world "in which it's apparently completely impossible for other parts of the world to respond in any way to" malaria...
Not impossible Kyle, but they do have a lot less money than we do. In case you hadn't noticed we are a rich and affluent country. What you apper to be callously suggesting should happen is that people in the 3rd world should spend just as much money as us protecting their forests. That will not happen. Brazillians are not going to be able to pay $60* each per week.
* this figure may be in dispute.
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George
If you wish to impose an ETS I strongly advise against engaging in factual argument. Instead you really need to ramp up on the hysterical bullying.
More importantly, it gave the opposition a template for successfully making the Government back down: Ignore the minimal cost imposed by a change or any of the compelling rationales behnid it - don't try and argue on fact, argue on emotion. Labour had managed to extinguish weaker versions of it on a number of issues previously (closing the gaps etc) but this was the first time it was applied properly. After their initial success, they applied it many times, almost all with success. You have to fight hysterical bullies if you're going to win.
Fact - NZ is a really excellently ecologically sound place to farm cows and sheep, because it has a mild, damp but seasonably variable climate.
Fact - NZ is not a particularly ecologically efficient place to grow trees, because it lacks the year round maximum intensity sunlight that is present in the tropical rainforests.
Fact - a NZ ETS will encourage the planting of trees and the removal of sheep and cows in NZ. By doing so it will in turn incentivise the farming of cattle and the destruction of rainforests in the tropics. An ETS will be bad for Planet Earth.
Any imaginable NZ ETS will harm the planet. The only way it could be worse is if we increased the incentives intrinsic to an ETS, by imposing a more dramatic target.
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Saving the planet means destroying the rainforests.
I never quite get past that. Its the same with biofuels.
Can someone please point out where the fuck my reasoning has gone off track?
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Which is the antithesis of a ETS or tax - they're supposed to impose a significant price signal, in order to impose costs on emissions and incentivise other behaviour.
The big flaw in ETS theory is that "significant price signal" derived is actually to maximise profitability based on differences in global carbon pricing. This is not the intended consequence, but it is what occurs.
Say (for instance, entirely theoretically) one country were to price carbon much higher than the rest, what would happen?
If NZ for instance were to adopt high carbon pricing (as advocated here by Keith based on reasoned, but entirely anal economic modelling) we would by neccessity reduce the number of cows and increase the amount of pine. This would obviously increase the global price of beef/dairy and reduce the price of lumber. To maximise profitability Brazil, where the "price signal" is again "significant", will suddenly find it needs more cattle farms and less trees.
Apparently Keith thinks we should provide Brazil with a "significant price signal" to rip out the Amazon Rainforest and set up cattle farms.
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Bad economic modelling, which asssumes allocations as a shock, does not try to model the costs and benefits of pre-2020 adaptation to medium and high price signals, and leaves out forestry and other sequestration entirely , wins out.
On what basis is it presumed that post-Copenhagen there will be a high or even medium price signal on global carbon?
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Apologies for screed.
Short summary: Kyoto based carbon emission trading.
It will cost us a shitload of money (Keith's, Nick Smith's, whoevers estimate). It won't work. It won't be adopted by the rest of the world. It is manifestly exploitative of the 3rd world.
It has no up side.