We Need Climate Pain

17 July 2008

Kevin Rudd has promised that no one will be disadvantaged by the new Carbon Trading Scheme - there will be compensation for all. So then why would anyone actually reduce their carbon emissions?

For businesses, details of the scheme include such allowances as receiving 90% of their (tradable) carbon permits for free if they emit more than 2,000 tonnes of greenhouse gases per million dollars of revenue. So we could actually see businesses increase their emissions levels over the next two years, in order to secure permits they can later sell. Meanwhile, motorists are hardly likely to reduce their reliance on cars if they believe they won't face increased petrol costs to compensate for the damage they're doing to the planet for at least five years. Has anyone actually thought this through?

The point of the carbon trading scheme is to discourage carbon emissions by putting a cost on them. The Rudd government though, has given Australia a scheme that doesn't involve anyone having to reach for the wallet (the Bush administration did the same thing to pay for the war in Iraq). They're willing to risk electoral dissatisfaction by launching the scheme, but not enough to ask us to pay for it.

Still, their hearts are in the right places. Australia should take a leading role in combating climate change. Naturally, this has been one of the main points Piers Akerman has chosen to attack:

But it is a tribute to the awesome egos of Rudd and his Cabinet that they believe other nations, or even neighbouring countries, stand poised, holding their breaths, until they see which course Australia takes.

Unlike those on the right who honestly believe that terrorists cared if Australia was or wasn't in the Coalition of the Willing? There were a lot of nations against us on that, too. A consistent ideology is probably too much to hope for - from either side of politics.

2 comments:

  1. TO DREAM OF SKATING ON ICE

    “To dream of skating on ice means satisfaction with a current project.”
    --Dictionary of Dreams

    Amidst white groves
    Inside a lilac tree
    I gaze at airy flights across a frozen lake.

    Like soaring birds
    We are all of us, skating on ice.
    Spanning circuits
    Dense, ring-shaped,
    Effortless,
    Dazzling as a diamond dream
    Before the break.

    Beneath the brightness, I see a shadow
    And the semblance watches me.
    A shrill remembrance,
    The impervious stare of quartz:
    A trade-off between tomorrow and the past.

    The break below faces a ruptured skyline.
    Its path
    Squalls out for meaning.
    The meaning is the sea.
    I seize the mirror and the likeness mirrors me.

    Beneath the brightness, a shadow floats
    Under a pond of ice.
    Freezing up in time and space
    I drift inside the memory of a winter’s whorl,
    Headed to where I came from.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks!

    Good stuff, interesting metaphorical word play.

    ReplyDelete


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