attempt a letter to the editor (carbon tax in Australia)

[mr friendly guy]

There has been recent furore in Australia with the PM planning to introduce a carbon tax. The climate change deniers are of course out in force, but I want to counter one particular insidious argument. That is what we do won't matter, because China and India aren't doing it, therefore we shouldn't. I suspect the letter becomes too long if I list my sources, but unlike those idiots I will actually at least try to back up some of my claims, although it most probably will make it look too intellectual for a right wing hack like our local newspaper.

When I was a child, I use to hear Aussies making fun of the English as a bunch of whingers. Of course back then we would routinely beat them in cricket. Nowadays the shoe is on the other foot, and I am not just talking about the misfortunes of Ricky Ponting’s men.

I now see Australians regularly whining about the big bad carbon tax. One would think the world is ending. These arguments are usually buttressed with large doses of ignorance. Take for example the claim (twice in this paper) that it won’t matter what we do unless the big polluters, China and India do their bit. Funny that. According to the United Nations 2007 figures (I am unable to find more recent figures) our bestest buddy the United States is the second largest carbon emitter after China, at 5838381 (thousand of metric tons of CO2) compared to India’s 1612362, which is less than 30% what the US produces. 1 Guys, I know we are angry at them for beating us at cricket, but this is no excuse for being too lazy to even research the basic facts.

To go on, lets see what China and India are doing to combat their carbon emissions. John Howard’s favourite method was to plant trees. Well China has put intense effort into reversing the desertification of the Loess Plateau with promising results, 2 converting 276 million hectares of farmland to forests, 3 and plans to plant 202-km long and 5- to 15-km wide stripe of vegetation between the country's third and fourth largest deserts to stop them converging. 4

How about wind power? Well guess which country has the most wind power installation. Yep, its China. 5 At 41.8 gigawatts installation, with the potential to replace 90 million tons of carbon dioxide. Did I also mention that Chinese grid companies are required to purchase all available electricity generated by wind farms, although they still need to work on the infrastructure connecting the wind farms to the grid. 5 Contrast to Australia’s wind power capacity at 2.2 gigawatts, while India has 13.06 gigawatts of wind capacity.6 By the way, depending on which sources you look at, China may end up with 120 -200 gigawatt capacity by 2020. 7,8

But what about solar? I could point to the city of Rizhao and its successful solar energy implementation. 9 Or maybe reports by World Business stating that China is number one producer of solar hot water heater and one of the biggest makers of solar cells. 10 Bet you a lot of the solar panels installed by Australian companies are made in China.

I could also point out that according to Bloomberg, as of late 2010 China is the most attractive country for renewable energy projects.11 Or how about their attempts to increase energy efficiency, 12,16 replacing inefficient old style coal plants with more efficient ones, 13 coal conversion technology, 14 and their nuclear plans 15 which are temporary on hold pending review after the disaster in Japan etc.

By the way, in addition to several European countries having a carbon tax, India introduced one last year on coal producers 17 and rumour has it that China will also introduce one from 2012 18, but don’t worry, the whiners will put their hands over their ears and continue to say “I can’t hear you.”

Oh, and before the climate change deniers try and attack me using their favoured ad hominem tu quoque, I should point that in my latest power bill, Synergy owes me money. All due to feed in tariffs from my newly installed solar panels. Made in China of course.

1. http://mdgs.un.org/unsd/mdg/SeriesDetai ... =749&crid=

2. The World Bank - http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNA ... 54,00.html

3. Xinhua - http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/i ... 478692.htm

4. Xinhua - http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/c ... 464240.htm

5. United Press International - http://www.upi.com/Science_News/Resourc ... 294946635/

6. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power ... ite_note-5

7. Xinhua - http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/c ... 543481.htm

8. http://www.offshorewind.biz/2011/01/17/ ... in-fujian/

9. 2008-05-01.China — the rise of the green city", ScienceAlert Australia and New Zealand
http://www.sciencealert.com.au/features ... 17263.html

10. World Business has a youtube channel - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6o-QigIIgQ8

11. Bloomberg - http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-09-0 ... nergy.html

12. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpUCecLMxIc

13. New York Times - http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/11/world ... .html?_r=1

14. http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/c ... 518712.htm

15. World Nuclear Association - http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf63.html

16. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNTx_zLs5Sk

17. Business Week http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-0 ... -coal.html

18. http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/18 ... n-tax-2012

[Akhlut]

I've seldom seen anything outside of a quote or two actually sourced in a letter to the editor, and that is usually something like "'Blah blah blah,' as Mr. Dude said," style of 'sourcing'. So, I don't know if you necessarily need to source all your figures and stuff. I'd keep them around in case someone wants them, but I'd cut them out for the version you send to the editors. Unless Australian letters to the editor are radically different from US ones.

All-in-all, though, it looks to be a rather good letter. Good luck on having them actually publish it.

[LaCroix]

I'd leave them in. You spare them the work to verify all the facts by themselves, which might help that you don't get thrown out at the account of laziness...

Good one, and hope for the best.

[mr friendly guy]

The other thing I could put in, is their public transport system. We all hear how we can decrease emissions by taking public transport. We also hear about how China has lots and lots of cars, but I bet most Australians don't know they have the most tracks for high speed rail (source Time magazine). High speed track as > 200 km / hour).

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/artic ... -1,00.html

[Sir Sirius]

Might want to add a thousand separator for the CO2 numbers in the second paragraph and perhaps use millions of tonnes instead of thousands of tonnes.

In the fourth paragraph when it says "90 million tons of carbon dioxide" what "ton" are you using? Metric or not?

[mr friendly guy]

I assume its metric tons even though it usually is spelt tonne, because the source took numbers from a Chinese source, and I am pretty sure China uses the metric rather than imperial system.

I think its a good idea to change the thousands of metric tons of carbon dioxide to millions of tons. It a bit easier to take in.

[The_Saint]

I'd probably shorten the reference list a bit, maybe just list the sources' e.g. NYT, Xinhua, Business Week, etc...

I'd also like to think it'd have an impact on climate change deniers but that's somewhat unlikely. The biggest issue I can see with the general public in Australia is the same lack of ability to think in geological time scales that most anyone in the world lacks. Conclusive information isn't widespread, there appears to be little in-your-face-evidence and to most people the voices would appear to be equally loud for and against resulting in a public that's happily deliberately ignorant at worst and indifferent at best.

Good letter though

[mr friendly guy]

Well I submitted it. They definitely received it because I got a standard no not reply to this email reply thanking me for the letter.

Lets see what happens, but I suspect its too intellectual for the West Australian. After all this is the newspaper that accepted twice, letters whose argument boils down to - carbon dioxide is a natural substance required by plants, therefore it can't be a pollutant. Next thing the climate change deniers will tell us is that water is a natural food required for life, therefore drownings are a lie made up by the nanny state to justify surf life savers.

[Twoyboy]

Lets see what happens, but I suspect its too intellectual for the West Australian.

Any letter with an ounce of thought is too intellectual for the West Australian. They seem to prefer letters that generate more letters.

After all this is the newspaper that accepted twice, letters whose argument boils down to - carbon dioxide is a natural substance required by plants, therefore it can't be a pollutant. Next thing the climate change deniers will tell us is that water is a natural food required for life, therefore drownings are a lie made up by the nanny state to justify surf life savers.

They accept far worse. The planet isn't warming because it was cold this winter, evolution isn't real because there are still monkeys, asylum seekers are coming here in droves because we give them free handouts, etc...

I doubt they will publish it. A letter with references is an argument ender. They don't want that, they want sales based on sensationalism. This is why I never write letters to the editor, the only ones they will publish are the ones which will have multiple counter-letters, none of which you'll have the ability to argue against.

But maybe I'm just cynical.

[mr friendly guy]

Well 2 days later and so far it doesn't appear to be in the letters. Meanwhile our government has just met some Chinese officials where they learn.... that China plans to introduce a carbon tax. Are Australian officials incapable of typing in "China carbon tax" into google or something? They would have known last year China was planning to do that.

In fact are our media incapable of pointing this out? I remember when Rudd first floated the tax, we were saying how revolutionary it is because we would be doing it first. Maybe that was true then, but its certainly not true now. Its sad how a guy (yours truely) who works shit long hours, can in a few minutes of googling and using wikipedia know about a specific issue (what China does to combat climate change) than Australian news media. This is really sad indeed. Maybe someone should point out having a free media means jack shit, it they are too goddamn lazy to do a proper job.

[Illuminatus Primus]

The MSM doesn't give a shit. They do not report anything that ruffles established political and economic feathers, or doesn't serve nationalist aims. Take the farcical "national health care debate" in the U.S. a few years ago. Does anyone expect me to believe that the media really couldn't find a focus group of Canadians, Britons, Australians, etc. who could voice the obvious and clear representation of the population, that they love it, and you'd have to pry that "socialized medicine" from their cold, dead fingers? Of course it would be easy. Of course it would also put the far-right and center-right in this country in the position of looking like insane business-proxies. Can't have that. Got to have "balance".

[Ford Prefect]

In fact are our media incapable of pointing this out?

Because the quote unquote real news is in how this couldn't be more mismanaged unless you packaged it with genocide as a policy decision. Which, incidentally, is what any implemented carbon tax would be: hugely mismanaged. I actually don't want it introduced because at this point because I don't trust the current government to tie its own shoelaces, let alone manage something even remotely important.

[mr friendly guy]

In fact are our media incapable of pointing this out?

Because the quote unquote real news is in how this couldn't be more mismanaged unless you packaged it with genocide as a policy decision. Which, incidentally, is what any implemented carbon tax would be: hugely mismanaged. I actually don't want it introduced because at this point because I don't trust the current government to tie its own shoelaces, let alone manage something even remotely important.

That is one of the arguments I have seen against it, but I haven't seen it featured more prominently than other arguments, like climate change isn't real and China + India aren't doing their fair share. Although I am curious as to how you envisaged it to be mismanaged.

[Ford Prefect]

Remember the mining tax? If they don't make all sorts of compromises that makes the exercise totally pointless, I'll be pretty surprised.

[thejester]

At this point it's a tremendously difficult sell for any government, let alone one that is hovering on the precipice of insolvency. In the name of environmental idealism household bills gets a significant hike, even with government subsidies; and whether we like it or not, Australian politics is now dictated by the wants and needs of suburbia. What makes it even worse is that the indepedents have their seats in climate change denier heartland.

The more this goes on the angrier I get with Rudd. Could have accomplished so much and yet came away with virtually nothing - thanks largely to his own personal failings. The current disastrous state of Australian politics basically comes down to him - and NSW Labor Right's inability to find it's arse with a GPS.

[bobalot]

Remember the mining tax? If they don't make all sorts of compromises that makes the exercise totally pointless, I'll be pretty surprised.

Pointless? How? The government is going to get another 6-7 billion dollars per year, most of which would have previously gone to foreigners.

The criticism with the mining tax was that there was no community consultation. Now we are having national dialogue about the carbon tax and people are complaining that there is no detail. There simply no pleasing mindless middle class Australia.

[thejester]

Those two criticisms are hardly mutually exclusive and in any case, the mining tax went well beyond 'no community consultation'. Off memory Rudd didn't consult anyone apart from 'the Gang of Four' and as much as I agree with principle of the tax, it was an obvious political stunt designed to address his dramatic slide in the polls and put some sort of accomplishment on the ledger.

The campaign to put the tax in place was botched from start to finish, in ways that were totally predictable. It hardly inspires confidence in the government's ability to get the job done on carbon.

[oh god I sound like the Parrot]

[The Big I]

On a related note I am having a "discussion"with a friend about the pipeline that Barney wants to build from the Kimberlies to Perth I have pointed out that it would be a lot cheaper to build desal plants then the pipeline. He claims that if we build the desal plants Cockburn sound will become hyper-saline. One thinhg has led to another and he is whining about the GST carve up and how WA is getting shafted by Labor.I would like to know percentage of GST each state has gotten since the inception of the GST becuase I dont know where to look.

[Chris OFarrell]

From what I remember actually, back when the resource boom was still some distance in the future, it was NSW and Victoria that were giving out a whole lot more GST then they were getting back, and so they were the ones whining about it, where as the other states getting more GST then they sent out (including WA) and didn't really appear to have a problem with it.

Of course, now things have switched around a little bit, but WA has always to me seen itself as a lot more...aloof of the rest of Australia, and especially Canberra.

[mr friendly guy]

http://mattcowgill.wordpress.com/2010/0 ... fair-deal/

This debunks some of the myth WA has put out about how boo hoo unfair the rest of Australia is to us, and how we produce more than our fair share. I am glad I am not the only one who thinks Paul Murray is an idiot and a bore. Which explains why I retain a sense that his arguments are retarded, but I don't remember much detail about them since even Creationists can make their arguments entertaining and memorable, albeit by accident. Paul Murray can't even do that.

[bobalot]

Since Federation, NSW and Victoria have nearly always paid more for the less populous states with a fraction of the buttsore whining we hear from WA.

[The Big I]

Hey Friendly did your letter ever get published? I note that in the recent petroleum industry conference in Perth the main speaker again claimed that Àustralia was the only country in the world to be seriously looking at putting in a carbon tax.

[mr friendly guy]

The letter didn't get punished.

Of course people bitch about how we are doing everything, and China and India isn't doing it.

Behold

China, India, Japan, Canada and the US show no signs of embracing an economy-destroying carbon tax any time soon.

China and India are desperate to grow their economies and reduce poverty, Gillard wants to shrink our economy and grow poverty.

Look at the date of the article. Now remember India has a carbon tax since last year. Remember guys, our media is great because its free. Obviously they forgot the part about doing a proper job. Of course China has hinted since last year it was planning to introduce some measures on carbon trading. Well frankly when a government mouth piece mentions China wants to do it, its all but a done deal.

One month later

The same news site admits that

In a boost for Prime Minister Julia Gillard's campaign for a carbon tax in Australia, China is expected to announce within days that it will "gradually" move towards an ETS.

But I bet you won't hear this news being played on the major Australian stations right. Got to keep the masses ignorant. But its ok, its done courtesy of the private sector and not big gubbimitt so its ok.

When China formally announces this, instead of hinting (no doubt I will find this on chinese news sites) I am going to shove the news into the faces of those anti tax people.