The Carbon Sense Coalition today claimed that the Rudd Resource tax was just another in a long line of taxes helping to depopulate rural Australia.

The Chairman of “Carbon Sense”, Mr Viv Forbes, said that depopulation of the outback started with the fringe benefits tax and the removal of accelerated depreciation, both of which penalise companies who provide housing for employees.

“Every government since then has accelerated the drift to the coastal and capital cities.

“The heavy burdens of excessive fuel taxes, coal royalties, rail freights and infrastructure bottlenecks have for years restricted the development of the outback resource industry. Only deposits that are rich or close to the coast can pay their way, which is why the Galilee Basin has been undeveloped for so long.

“The vegetation control bans, water mismanagement and growth of carbon credit forests are depressing agriculture and will depopulate rural towns.

“Humans and their industries are also prohibited from vast areas of our land and sea sterilised by a confusing mixture of exclusion zones. And the lack and high cost of outback infrastructure has fed the fly-in mentality of industry and governments.

“Had the money wasted just on roof insulation been spent on new infrastructure, Australia would be a more decentralised and productive place.

“The climate alarmists urge still more carbon taxes and force the usage of expensive alternative energy. All outback industry relies almost totally on carbon fuels for motive power. None of our quad bikes, cars, trucks, road trains, tractors, dozers, trains, planes or ships are powered by solar panels or wind turbines – they need diesel, petrol, gas and electricity (from coal). And our biggest outback industries are focussed on exploring, developing, supplying or transporting carbon products. Coal, gas, oil, beef, sheep, dairy and timber are all threatened by more carbon taxes.

“The Rudd Resource tax is yet another centralising force, depressing outback industry and stimulating the population of drones around the government honey pots in Canberra. It increases the risk that the belated rush to build infrastructure will leave new trains without freight and new ports without ships.

“Taxes are creating ‘A Nation without a Heart’.”

PDF version: http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/taxing-the-outback.pdf [10KB]

1. Gambling our Future on Sunbeams and Sea Breezes
2. The Great Kyoto Land Grab
3. The Iceland Volcano and Climate Change
4. Oceans, Volcanic Heat and Ice
5. Emissions from Nature
6. No Time for Resting

The full newsletter: http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/sunbeams-and-seabreezes.pdf [PDF, 111KB]

The Carbon Sense Coalition today called for Sunset Clauses to be inserted in all past and future Global Warming legislation.

The Chairman of “Carbon Sense”, Mr Viv Forbes, said that even though the Ration-N-Tax Scheme is on ice, Governments are still wasting billions of dollars to create an artificial global warming industry.

“As an example, the Australian government is spending $800 million per year on climate change research and probably more on carbon geo-sequestration. And every state has its own bloated climate change and energy bureaucracies.

“Next we are promised the “Mother of all Renewable Energy Schemes” to cost untold billions.

“There is no doubt that some enlightened or distressed future government will have the distasteful job of taking the well chewed subsidy bones off these greedy and unstainable industry dogs.

“There is no evidence that man is causing global warming, no evidence that the natural warming we have experienced is dangerous or even unusual, and no chance that politicians can control the climate.

“It is thus essential that every piece of global warming legislation is subjected to an annual cost-benefit analysis and a sunset clause which triggers repeal within five years, or sooner once it becomes obvious to all that man-made global warming is not a problem.

“Such a cautionary clause is needed to warn investors and promoters relying on subsidies, market mandates, tax benefits, ethanol subsidies, carbon credits, renewable energy targets or research grants that unsustainable industries are high risk and can only create sub-prime assets.

“As we have seen with the government roof insulation disaster, it is easier to inflate an artificial industry balloon than it is to let it down gradually.”

Viv Forbes
Chairman, The Carbon Sense Coalition

http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/sunset-global-warming.pdf [PDF, 8KB]

Dr Howard Hayden, Professor Emeritus of Physics, University of Connecticut has studied the 19 or so Global Circulation Models relied on by the IPCC to forecast world temperatures for the century ahead.

To date, not of them has got a forecast right, and they do not agree with one another. As Dr Hayden says:

“I have Just One Question: Which one of these models settled the science so that we can discard the rest and quit funding them?”

See Dr Hayden’s comparisons: http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/science-is-settled.pdf [PDF, 3.6 MB]

1. Computer Models, Climate Forecasts and other Dice Games
2. The Ins and Outs of Coal Fired Power Generation
3. Watts Up with the Climate? Australian Tour
4. Global Warming? Nothing New

The full newsletter: http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/dice-games.pdf [PDF, 333 KB]

Our Challenge

Some people think that the global warming scam is finished, that the Ration-N-Tax Scheme is dead, and that there is no further threat to our jobs, our economy and our energy supplies. Unfortunately there is no reason to relax. Public opinion has changed but the politicians have not.

Britons recently had a chance to vote on the “Oh so Green” Labour Party of Gordon Brown. They entered the polling booths holding their noses, pleased to get rid of one lot, but with no enthusiasm for the other lot. The “Conservative” Coalition governing Britain is also deep green, and in love with the Climate Change agenda of green taxes, subsidies and mandates.

Read on: http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/press-on.pdf [PDF, 284 KB]

The Carbon Sense Coalition today claimed that the Henry Tax review, designed to provide Australia with a more efficient tax system, had completely failed in the carbon tax area, with three complex carbon taxes now and more being promoted by Climate alarmists.

The Chairman of “Carbon Sense”, Mr Viv Forbes, said that a philosophy of centralisation, a developing budget crisis, electoral considerations and climate alarmism were now driving tax policy…

Other items in this newsletter:

• Re-Paint the Silver Lining?
• Whitewash the Hills?
• Famous Forecasts that Failed.
• The Week That Was – News you will not see or hear on the ABC.

Read in full: http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/more-carbon-taxes.pdf [PDF, 44 KB]

The Australian government has gone one tax too far, with Rudd’s Super Tax on the resource industry. Either this tax, or the government, will go. This was a desperate grab for money to fund all the silly stimulus packages and the continuing handouts to the Climate Change Industry. It is also a grab to centralise more control of resources in Canberra.

While the Super Tax would slash mining jobs and the value of super funds, it is minor compared to the large, insidious and long term damage that is already being done, and could still become far worse in the misguided war on carbon.

More: http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/war-on-carbon.pdf [PDF, 71KB]

“We think that, by 2020, the cost of electricity will be threefold what it is today, given the current policy of large amounts of renewables being forced into the system, un-costed charges for those renewables given the current policy settings and a substantial increase in transmission and distribution costs.”

Grant King, CEO Origin Energy

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/energy-prices-to-triple-says-origin-chief/story-e6frg8zx-1225853385647

Carbon is the most valuable and amazing element on our living planet.

It is the building block of all life on earth, and has provided the food, clothing and most of the energy for every human for all of our history.

Yet carbon is being subjected to an unprecedented campaign of demonization focussed on man’s production of carbon dioxide. The main aim of this campaign is to cripple or eliminate the coal industry because combustion of coal produces carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide the key link in the cycle of life on earth.

Most people understand the biological carbon cycle – plants using solar energy extract carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, converting it to sugars and proteins, and returning oxygen to the atmosphere. Plant material, directly or indirectly, provides food for all animals. In the process of digesting carbon food, animals extract oxygen from the atmosphere to digest their carbon foods, producing carbon dioxide which is then returned to the atmosphere. More carbon dioxide means more plant growth. This is a sustainable self regulating process.

But there is an even bigger, Grand Carbon Cycle, also involving carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide is added to the atmosphere by volcanoes, natural and man-made combustion of carbon fuels such as wood, coal and oil, and out-gassing from oceans during warm climatic eras. This carbon dioxide is removed from the atmosphere by biological and chemical extractions into the oceans to form corals, shell fish and massive deposits of limestone, dolomite and magnesite on the ocean floor. In some eras, large quantities of plant material are also locked away in enormous deposits of lignite and coal. During cool climate eras, oceans also take up huge quantities of carbon dioxide into solution.

Vulcanism and combustion are helpful processes returning valuable carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. Without them, earth’s precious carbon supplies would slowly become interred and locked away in massive buried deposits of carbon bearing materials such as limestone and coal.

The products of combustion of all carbon fuels are normal and natural components of the atmosphere, and essential nutrients for all life.

This paper looks at the compositions of solid carbon fuels, the process of coal combustion, the exhaust products produced, and the benefits and pollution potential of those exhaust products.

The complete article: http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/coal-combustion.pdf [PDF, 791KB]