CO2Australia boasts of planting three million carbon credit trees. This is “just the beginning” of a new bubble industry, the CO2.con.

This bubble is set to inflate rapidly. To offset just one day of Qantas operations, CO2 promoters must plant more than 200,000 trees in permanent forests covering 130 hectares. How much land is required to offset all Australian power stations, industry and transport?

Yes these trees will consume carbon dioxide. However CO2 levels today are well below what is ideal for plant growth. While they are growing strongly, these trees will suck the gas of life from the atmosphere, competing strongly with nearby crops and plant life for the traces of carbon dioxide remaining.

Then as the trees mature, growth stops. The aging forest just sits there, some trees growing, some dying and net carbon sequestration ceases. It becomes a sterile shrine to the green religion whose main impact on the biosphere is providing a haven for feral animals and noxious weeds.

Green spruikers claim that they only use land not suitable for anything else. Wrong! Every bit of Australia not covered by road, cities, parks or deserts can support crops, timber-getting or grazing animals. Carbon-credit forests gnaw away at this national land asset every year.

Moreover, CO2.con investors, like all speculators, want quick returns. Their quick return demands rapidly growing trees in arable country – deserts and salt pans are uneconomical. Thus the wheat/sheep belt is shrinking.

No one can demonstrate any climate or environmental benefit from the CO2.con.

Forcing consumers and taxpayers to fund this large scale permanent land sterilisation is clearly unsustainable. All Australians fund this destruction via increased prices for electricity, cement, steel, air tickets and rail fares, and reduced land for food production. The carbon tax will increase their burden.

Like all bubble industries, the CO2.con industry must end in tears, and the sooner it ends the better.

Read on for more, including:

1. Vested Interests in the Climate Debate
2. Solving Three Problems
3. The Rice Video: Carbon Dioxide in perspective
4. Flogging a Dead Horse
5. Two Green Prophets Recant

See: http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/co2-dot-con.pdf [PDF, 171 KB]

What do you know about carbon dioxide in the atmosphere?

Every day we hear about the dangers of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. But most people spreading the scares do not know or do not tell how significant this gas is in the atmosphere.

Here is a 6 question quiz. Take the quiz and see how well you compare to sampling carried out by Gregg Thompson.

Those who do not know the answers to these questions should not be voicing opinions on the role of carbon dioxide in affecting earth’s temperature.

Get informed, and then inform others.

The questions are here: http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/co2-information.pdf [PDF, 73 KB]

This question was received in response to the article “Government Gas Wastrels”

Re: “Government Gas Wastrels”

Well, Viv, Gas burns cleaner.

And Big Coal doesn’t need to be defended — it is capable of defending itself, or are you Big Coal itself… bought paid, signed sealed and delivered…?

B&T

Reply to B&T:

“Carbon Sense” does not defend or oppose any particular energy source. We will comment on their technical or economic advantages and disadvantages. We oppose government taxing some and not others for spurious climate reasons. And we oppose government forcing everyone to pay more for electricity because politicians have forced electricity companies to use unreliable and costly means of generating their power (via their market mandate schemes).

You should be free to buy gas energy, or solar energy, or coal energy, or cannabis energy, or cow pat energy as long as you pay the full cost, and leave me also free to make my choices on whatever basis I choose.

My personal position is clear. I do not represent Big Coal, Big Oil, Big Gas, Big Farming or Big Government. I have been chairman of a small oil and gas company, director of a coal producer, manager of a cattle grazing enterprise and a lowly public servant. I am presently a director of a small coal exploration company and I breed and graze cattle and sheep. I also use electricity and liquid carbon fuels. Does all that make me a vested interest schizophrenic? I have learned from all of these experiences, and I do not hide my continuing interests in mining, pastures, cattle, sheep and politics. Should we only listen to people who know nothing about the science and economics of the industries they presume to “Cap-n-Tax”?

My interests do not change in one whit what I think and say about the science, and politics, and economics of the Global Warming Scam.

In fact I am opposed to the weak policies of the industry bodies representing Big Coal and Big Farming. Both seem to think they can get special deals for themselves leaving the rest of us to fend for ourselves (and thus pay their share of the increased costs of Cap-n-Tax). Far better to oppose the whole thing.

Unfortunately Big Coal does not support the policies of “Carbon Sense”. They support the emissions trading scheme with all the stupidities that brings. They also have conned taxpayers and shareholders to pour billions of dollars into Carbon Capture and Burial. They also lobby for exemptions from the Ration-N-Tax Scheme that they are content to see foisted on the rest of us. “Carbon Sense” has opposed all of these policies.

The Carbon Sense Newsletter has been funded sparingly by about 40 individuals who pay subscriptions for newsletters and advice. Another 1,500 or so get the newsletter for free. Like the government, our expenses exceed our income, so we are making our contribution to the Great Financial Stimulus Package.

Viv Forbes

The essential ingredient for all growing plants is CO2 in the atmosphere. But organic matter in the soil is also of value for the plant life on which we all depend. It can only be put into the soil by growing plants (including fungi) and the bacteria, worms and other microbes that live on and beside the plants. All plant and soil carbon comes, in the end, from CO2 in the atmosphere.
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Question:
I think that companies that are making millions of dollars should be forced to use renewable energy, and/or invest in it; they should be doing their bit for the planet. The government should not be forcing householders to pay a tax or more for living, food, electricity etc., especially when they can’t stop what big business does to the environment, or what the government spends the carbon money on.

You can’t be serious that the burning of fossil fuels doesn’t hurt the environment; even if you don’t believe in climate change, this would be one point that I don’t agree with. Also I don’t agree that the planet needs more emissions to be able to grow food, as plants were growing on this planet long before companies started burning fossil fuels to fuel factories.
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[A journalist (“Louise”) asked recently who funds the Carbon Sense Coalition.]

I and a few friends around Australia and overseas founded the Coalition. I have paid for the business registrations, web servers and all such related matters. No one has reimbursed me. A computer friend built the web site and has not sent a bill. He maintains our web site and has not sent a bill.

Other members have helped with research, editing and writing, and none have been paid for it.
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A: No, we are opposed to pollution.

Pollution is the transfer of unusual or harmful matter or energy to another person’s property without their consent. Thus I should not allow smoke, ash particles, industrial effluent, noise, noxious gases, bad smells or light from my property to annoy anyone else unless we have negotiated an agreement.

Burning of carbon fuels has been part of the natural cycle of the earth since the first plant was set on fire by the first lightning strike. All the products of burning natural carbon fuels are easily and beneficially absorbed by the atmosphere, dissolved by rain and go to fertilise the soil.

However there are some emissions that are annoying or dangerous in concentrated amounts, for example nitrous oxide, hydrogen chloride, sulphur dioxide. And others such as soot and ash that are not so dangerous, but visible and annoying. Bush fires produce all of these, but usually not in troublesome amounts.

Burning coal or oil in power stations can produce continual pollution in a small area, so modern clean plants remove almost everything from the emissions except water vapour and carbon dioxide, which are disseminated into the atmosphere via a tall stack. These two are normal beneficial atmospheric gases not pollutants. Taking them out of the emissions would be a silly and very expensive exercise for no benefit.