OT: Australia votes to repeal carbon tax - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: rolycat
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 17, 2014, 11:50:22 am
content: Fairly horrified to seethison the BBC website today.Particularly since "Australia is the developed world's worst polluter per head of population."I've always thought of Australia as a clean country, but I guess with its size and relatively low population it will take time to really screw things up. Or maybe it all ends up in Antarctica.Bring on the climate change deniers...

author: bwat
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 17, 2014, 12:07:35 pm
content: Quote from: rolycat on July 17, 2014, 11:50:22 amHorror? Why?Quote from: rolycat on July 17, 2014, 11:50:22 amThe BBC doesn't give a source for this. Does anybody know what the source is? And just how much of that pollution is pollution by proxy, i.e. pollution generated creating/mining things for export to other countries?Quote from: rolycat on July 17, 2014, 11:50:22 amI see you've loaded the gun already. Why does it have to be about climate?Anyway, what's your alternative? If you want to say nuclear then read this and ask yourself the last time fossil fuels led to a 24 year ban on sheepmeat sales:http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/scottish-sheep-farms-finally-free-of-chernobyl-fallout-2020059.htmlEdit: Basically it makes no difference what Australia does or how horrified people are. Our future is doomed and the tale is told by the y=exp(x) curve.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 17, 2014, 01:56:22 pm
content: Quote from: rolycat on July 17, 2014, 11:50:22 amI understand, repealing taxes and subsidies can be intimidated to socialist minds. If the Australian continue in this direction they may even get their guns back.Quote from: rolycat on July 17, 2014, 11:50:22 amLast time I checked Antartica's ice extent is at record highhttp://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2681829/Global-warming-latest-Amount-Antarctic-sea-ice-hits-new-record-high.html

author: bwat
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 17, 2014, 02:04:57 pm
content: Quote from: mojo-chan on July 17, 2014, 02:01:12 pmIt was a shame you didn't get chance to reply to my posting in the other thread! Oh well, we don't make the rules.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 17, 2014, 02:10:25 pm
content: Quote from: mojo-chan on July 17, 2014, 02:01:12 pmWe will see. Moderation here is very arbitrary so it can go both ways.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 17, 2014, 02:15:25 pm
content: Quote from: mojo-chan on July 17, 2014, 02:01:56 pmDo a quick search, there are many other sources. Don't be a denier.

author: GeoffS
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 17, 2014, 02:29:15 pm
content: If it stays on topic, it stays.If it gets off topic it get locked.Nothing arbitrary there.

author: vk6zgo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 17, 2014, 02:43:44 pm
content: Quote from: zapta on July 17, 2014, 01:56:22 pmSome Americans have no idea of the political realities of other countries.Nobody "took our guns away".--we have never had "open slather"!The Howard Government (a conservative one,by the way),tightened up the gun laws a bit after some loony killed a lot of people in Tasmania,but we have always had to register our guns,just like our cars & dogs.

author: GeoffS
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 17, 2014, 02:45:46 pm
content: Quote from: wilfred on July 17, 2014, 02:43:14 pmLet's leave it for a while.Who knows? people may act intelligently.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 17, 2014, 02:55:38 pm
content: Quote from: GeoffS on July 17, 2014, 02:29:15 pmGeoffS, is it OK if the OP approves extension of the topic?

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 17, 2014, 03:54:13 pm
content: Quote from: mojo-chan on July 17, 2014, 03:38:01 pmWell, below are NASA numbers (millions of square kilometers) for the ice deniers among us and as you see it's record high. I am glad to see that the Australian government do not fall for the global warming FUD.1979–2000 18.71999/2000 19.02000/2001 19.12001/2002 18.42002/2003 18.22003/2004 18.62004/2005 19.12005/2006 19.12006/2007 19.42007/2008 19.32008/2009 18.52009/2010 19.22010/2011 19.22011/2012 19.02012/2013 19.42013/2014 19.8Source;http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/WorldOfChange/sea_ice_south.php

author: rolycat
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 17, 2014, 04:05:54 pm
content: Quote from: bwat on July 17, 2014, 12:07:35 pmBecause I don't follow Australian politics in any detail, and had no idea this was being planned. Just seems like a bad precedent and encouragement to right-wing American nutters.QuoteDunno, but if Auntie Beeb says so it must be true, right?Most statistics do agree that Australia is worse than the USA, which is no slouch in the pollution stakes.QuoteThe question is whether that ban was scientifically justified or more about politics and public perceptions.The total death toll from the Chernobyl explosion is around 4000, almost all in the immediate vicinity of the disaster. That's very bad, but compared to natural disasters which regularly kill over 100,000 people it's not huge.The next worst nuclear disaster, at Fukushima, hasn't killed a single person.QuoteThere's an interesting documentary by Professor Hans Rosling called "Don't Panic: The Truth About Population" which quite convincingly refutes this gloomy prediction. His figures suggest that the global population will peak at around 11 billion and then start to fall.

author: rolycat
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 17, 2014, 04:16:48 pm
content: Quote from: zapta on July 17, 2014, 03:54:13 pmAnd here come the selective statistics.Those figures are for sea ice. Sea ice is of far less importance than land ice, since it is a transient phenomenon and doesn't affect sea levels.Since 1992 the Antarctic ice sheets have lost over 1,500 gigatonnes of ice into the oceans.Independent data from multiple measurement techniques all show the same thing: Antarctica is losing land ice as a whole, and these losses are accelerating quickly.

author: sunnyhighway
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 17, 2014, 04:18:24 pm
content: Quote from: zapta on July 17, 2014, 03:54:13 pmThese numbers say nothing about global warming.QuoteQuoteThere is no mention of the actual percentage of coverage, only that the median coverage in the measured area is larger than 15%They also did not measure the thickness of the ice.All it says is that the available ice is spreading across a bigger area.

author: mtdoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 17, 2014, 04:34:19 pm
content: Quote from: sunnyhighway on July 17, 2014, 04:18:24 pmYou'd think someone on an engineering forum would know the difference between area and volume, wouldn't you ?Of course even if you are idiotic enough to just think it's surface area that counts - if you include the Arctic Ice as well as Antarctic Ice you'd see that it is decreasing.The very idea that somehow NASA's data refutes the idea that the the earth is warming is laughable since NASA scientists have been very clear that global warming is occurring.You've got to realize that the global warming deniers do not have science or facts on their side so having any kind of rational discourse is pointless... They can cherry pick a few bits of data and distract with their usual bs talking points but it's really not about discovering the truth - for them it's about a political agenda.

author: Artlav
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 17, 2014, 04:34:45 pm
content: Ignoring CTs for a moment, can someone explain why politicians think that replacing "Introduced in July 2012, it charges the 348 highest polluters A$23 (£13; $22.60) for every tonne of greenhouse gases they produce." with "a A$2.55bn taxpayer-funded plan under which industries will be paid to reduce emissions and use cleaner energy." is a good idea?Before the industry was to do something or pay, now the people have to pay the industry whatever.Does not sound like something making sense to me.

author: retrolefty
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 17, 2014, 04:39:17 pm
content: Quote from: Artlav on July 17, 2014, 04:34:45 pmWell Government programs to change human behavior seldom meet their goals and often have side effects that in some cases are worst then the problem trying to be 'solved'.So does anyone have the facts on this change of method to greenhouse gases reduction? Just the facts if you please.

author: miguelvp
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 17, 2014, 04:42:00 pm
content: Quote from: rolycat on July 17, 2014, 04:05:54 pmWhy everything has to always turn to the US? plus American is a pretty broad term, there are many countries in that continent so you know

author: rolycat
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 17, 2014, 05:03:30 pm
content: Quote from: miguelvp on July 17, 2014, 04:42:00 pmWell aware, but only one of those countries is world-famous for its right-wing fruitcakesDon't most citizens of the USA proudly describe themselves as 'American'?I had never realised they were just expressing solidarity with the good people of Cuba, Guatemala, Haitiet al.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 17, 2014, 05:11:42 pm
content: Quote from: mtdoc on July 17, 2014, 04:34:19 pmInteresting how people use a metric while it serves their agenda and start bashing it when it refutes their claims. I noticed this also with iPhone fans, whenever Android beat them on one metric they immediately claim that it's not important and refocused on another one.Anyway, kudos for the Australian government for cutting taxes (if this is what they really did). Leave the money with the people that earned it. This is personal liberty.

author: miguelvp
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 17, 2014, 05:20:25 pm
content: Quote from: rolycat on July 17, 2014, 05:03:30 pmSure you don't have any right extremist in Europe, please!and the derogatory terms is getting boring, maybe it gives you a high. Not sure about the obsession about what we do, must be a love/hate relationship.Anyways, this is about Australia, not Austria nor America

author: rolycat
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 17, 2014, 05:23:44 pm
content: Quote from: zapta on July 17, 2014, 05:11:42 pmInteresting how you ignore the refutation of your own spurious statistics.Quote

author: owiecc
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 17, 2014, 05:25:13 pm
content: Quote from: zapta on July 17, 2014, 05:11:42 pmAccording to the current climate models we will see a temperature rise between 2 and 4 degrees Celsius in 100 years depending on how much CO2 we produce. It is very scary to see that many people prefer to have cheap gas/electricity vs. the destruction of Earth.