How Will Carbon Tax Will Affect Development Costs?

It is World Environment Day this Sunday.  I cannot wait.  Nor could the PCA, as they hosted a Carbon Tax debate this morning in Brisbane.  I was asked to captain the negative side.  My two fellow supporters were Professor Bob Carter and John Humphreys.  We were debating against Matthew Bell, Kellie Caught and Kirby Anderson.  Google them to find out more.

We were all asked to present for 5 minutes, then Mark Ludlow, from the AFR would adjudicate proceedings.  I took some old boxing gloves just in case things got out of hand.  In fact, as you are reading his, I might be well punching myself in the face in order to cool down.

Find below my short spiel.   Some might recall parts of it from earlier this year.  Curiously that missive remains the most blogged entry we have done, both publicly and privately, and gets new hits almost every day.

Here is what I said:

I used to like Cate Blanchett – she played a great Bob Dylan in “I’m Not Here” – which is somewhat ironic as one of my favourite Dylan song lyrics goes something like this “what looks large from a distance, close up is never that big”.

Which sums up perfectly carbon dioxide and its role in global warming, oops I meant climate change.

Note how it was once called global warming, but given the evidence against a warmer world, it is now spun into climate change.  Hmmm.  And as for Cate, well she better play a bloody great role in the Hobbit or she is off my must see list.

And you can tell Michael Clayton that “he is dreaming!”

The Carbon Tax aims to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.  Not pollution – not that black stuff that covers you when you go to Honkers or mainland China, or if you live in the centre of a modern city.  But CO2 in the air.

CO2 is a greenhouse gas.

More CO2 in the air equals a warmer planet.  The issue is not whether carbon dioxide warms the planet, it is by how much.

So what do we really know about carbon dioxide?

Here are 4 questions for you.

1. What % of the atmosphere do you think is CO2?  Most say 20% to 40%.  The correct answer is four 100ths of 1%.  As a decimal it is 0.038% of air.

2. What % of CO2 do humans produce?  Most say between 25% and 75%, with some saying 100%!  The correct answer is 3%.  As a decimal, it is a minuscule 0.001% of air.

3. What share does Australia produce?  Answers range from 5% to 20%.  The right answer is 1%, or in total 0.00001% of air.

Let me put this another way – 0.00001% is the equivalent of 10 people out of the whole population of Brisbane or the people sitting at just one table in this room.

4. Is CO2 a pollutant?  Everyone says yes, but it is a harmless trace gas.  Do you like to drink soft drink, beer, champagne?  Well they all have CO2 in them, so do eskies.  If Australia wants to tax carbon dioxide, get ready for some real pain.   There goes the weekend BBQ, Friday piss-up and midweek soak(s).

Plants, by the way, create 33 times more carbon dioxide than humans do, and most of it is harmlessly dissolved in the ocean.  Yes, plants emit CO2, but their net effect is to absorb more CO2 than they emit…and even then they emit 33 times more CO2 than man does.

But don’t take my word for it, let’s look at the official government climate models, which recently stated that if Australia stopped emitting all CO2 tomorrow – in other words if we went back to the Stone Age – the earth’s temperature could be 0.015 degrees cooler by 2050.

Wow.  All our sacrifices for two 100ths of 1% of a degree.

In a perfect world it might be worth it – it might give a bored race something to achieve – but when millions still starve each year; children are still being used as slave labour or worse; people continue to die from malaria, small pox and dysentery and the simple fact that we will just fritter away whatever money is made out of this new tax ….then I am a very firm NO.

Ross Garnaut might refer to my final statement as being “pissant” but the Carbon Tax is really just another way in which Labor can redistribute wealth to the lowest common dominator – nothing more, nothing less.

At least have the guts to call it what it is.

It will do nothing for the planet.  Nor will any other nation be stupid enough to follow suit.

If you want to keep your comments private and confidential contact me directly on [email protected]

http://matusikmissive.wordpress.com/2011/06/03/a-pissants-view/

"This report is republished with permission of Matusik Property Insights."