We are told that a carbon tax is needed to reduce Australia's production of carbon dioxide in the vain hope of producing a miniscule reduction in global temperature for our great-grandchildren.
There are two options for reducing emissions – use less carbon fuels to create the same product, or reduce the activities that produce carbon dioxide.
Record prices for carbon fuels have ensured that they are used efficiently, so option one is out.
Therefore, to reduce carbon emissions, we must produce less steel and cement, export less minerals, use less motor fuel and avgas, raise fewer cows and sheep and use less carbon based electricity.
Every such reduction MUST be accompanied by jobs losses as industries contract or move overseas.
Sunbeams and sea breezes may sometimes run the lights in a few homes, but can the alchemists in Canberra explain how we can sustain our steel, cement, tourism, mining and agricultural industries without carbon fuels such as coal, diesel, petrol and gas?
They need to tell us, otherwise we know that their "science" is a sham and they are just lusting after the revenue and power that comes with a Big New Tax.
Viv Forbes, Chairman, The Carbon Sense Coalition, has spent his life working in exploration, mining, farming, infrastructure, financial analysis and political commentary. He has worked for government departments, private companies and now works as a private contractor and farmer.
Viv has also been a guest writer for the Asian Wall Street Journal, Business Queensland and mining newspapers. He was awarded the “Australian Adam Smith Award for Services to the Free Society” in 1988, and has written widely on political, technical and economic subjects.
