GetUp! Action For Australia

I am in favor of a carbon tax on polluters. What I am afraid of though
is that the government will not invest sufficiently in renewables and
will instead be putting money into promoting natural gas. We have no
reason to trust this government and can only hope that the Greens get it
happening.

There are more than 570,000 Get Up members, so an Australia-wide turn out of 45,000 is pretty poor -less than 8%.
Considering it was also spruiked to the ACTU, the Greens , the Conservation Foundation and other large organisations,
it was a reflection that the majority of people do not support the carbon tax.
No amount of spin can change that.

Hi Kelsey,

If this rally and campaign was about fighting governments to
release technology in clean energy, which they already have, I would have gone
to the rally and I would have been there right at the front, but it isn’t, it’s
about taxing us on a harmless gas, carbon dioxides. If it was to stop the production
of carbon monoxides for better health, I probably would have been there, but it
wasn’t. I can see the sign in the video it says, cut carbon Pollution and this
is were you lose me, carbon dioxides are not a pollutant, then after that it
says, Unlock clean energy, this is were you win me again, you are playing with
peoples emotions and that is very sneaky and deceitful by constantly using the
words carbon pollution which now your brain washed sheep are using in their
signage.

In regard to the letter to be handed around the PPS at the end says that the letter is being printed on recycled paper with ecofriendly ink – I don’t have either!!

Good point, also how many times do you hear on radio and TV
the words GetUp a Pro Carbon Movement with over 500,000 members, it’s all spin
unfortunately. Has Getup ever held a poll to see how many of their members are pro
and against a carbon tax? Does anyone know? Because I can’t remember one. If
they are supposed to be the voice of the people shouldn’t they at least confirm
that they are fighting for the majority of their members because that is the
democratic way of doing things? What if out of the 570,000 members they are
only voicing the opinions of only 45,000 people.

Ironically, focus on possible manmade climate change and carbon tax, may detract from focus on broad human impacts in nature and cut private base for green projects. It seems ironic that both socialism and monied interests have greatly distorted the green debate. Often “green” isn’t! Corn, which North American interests promote as the prime source of ethanol for fuel, causes major loss of forest and food crops in this context. Corn grows well in North America but sugarcane (in which Africa, Asia and South America have comparative advantage over North America) can yield 5 times more ethanol!  IT devices use power, just sitting. They use energy whenever opened or emailed. An hour of online reading outputs 226 grams of C02.  A 700 page document burnt on CD outputs some 300 grams. It takes only 85 grams (max) to print and can be read repeatedly with no impact (1)!
  
.Ironically, Bob Brown (Greens) and Penny Wong (labour) favored the scheme permitting foreign buy up of water rights along the Murray Darling Basin (another blow to keeping our natural heritage) and governments, both state and federal, are backing away from subsidizing solar panels. Australian scientist, Tim Flannery, says oil and nuclear interests have long diverted public policy off solar energy but the ISO (International Standards Organization) is clearly raising standards (via accreditations) in most Australian industries. There’s potential in expanding ISO requirements further, for major polluters.
 
“There aren’t many industries around that can aspire to becoming genuinely sustainable but the Pulp and Paper industry, however, is one of them” (2). Nearly half of all paper for Australia’s business communications is recycled (3) and 75 percent of newsprint (4). Wood stores carbon via paper or buildings, etc. Industrial forestry cuts a billion tons of atmospheric C02 p.a. (4). The printing industry now uses vegetable inks and offer paper recycled or guaranteed from renewable wood. It has cut production related waste e.g. Computer to Plate proofs replace film. It is recyling more containers and waste.
 
Most Australian paper is imported (an environmental cost) so more local milling is preferable (our timber plantations are up 50 percent in 10 years). Wood is biodegradable and renewable. Developed nations have a quarter more trees than in 1900 (5). Eucalypt farms in Brazil and Indonesia now curb demand on rainforest.
 
Biofuels e.g. via wood pulp now yield half the energy used in papermaking. Natural gas is replacing oil in boilers. Water in papermaking has greatly dropped since 1990. Energy usage in papermaking has dropped over 20 percent since then (5). Removal or reduction of chlorine to bleach paper has cut dioxin output. 
 
Ironically, carbon tax may hit producers or sellers of renewable resources or energy.  The possibility of articifical boom and bust cycles through carbon speculations, runs high, given proposals for carbon banks and other “independent” (read non-accountable) bodies regulating carbon.
 
Danish Statistician, Bjorn Lomborg, says dollar for dollar, direct spending on green research will be over 20 times better for environmental outcomes than broad carbon tax or trading schemes per se; and for far less bureaucracy. He also warns we are too tempted by population growth to ignore risks of putting urban areas in the natural path of floods or cyclones. In a crisis, environmental costs spiral (5). In any case, the worst pollution is by early, not advanced industrial economies. Manufacturing underpins our service industries. If we drive more industry offshore by a carbon tax, we may also face huge consumer and bank debt by trying to keep prosperity lacking a basis (with carbon tax raising inflation and interest rates, as a triple bind).
 
References
 
1.    Paper Part of Every Day, Printing Industries Association, pg 31
2.    Jonathan Porrit, Ex Chairman, UK Sustainable Development Commission, quoted in preface of  Paper Part of Every Day, Printing Industries Association
3.    Paper Part of Every Day, Printing Industries Association, pgs 13 and 16
4.    Paper …  A Fundamental Part of Daily Living, Australian Paper Industry Association
5.    Radio National (Counterpoint program) interview on 17/3/11 of Bjorn Lomborg, author of The Skeptical Environmentalist

Can we have it without the PSs? They don’t come across as open as the rest of the text – “I figure” etc. is a bit disingenuous for me… Otherwise, great idea… Nigel

Are you sure you’ve got your facts right…….a resounding yes? All the polls say the opposite. Everything I’ve seen and heard says Australian are overwhelmingly opposed to the carbon tax. I think about 70% against was the result. Doesn’t sound like Australians called out a resounding yes unless you are talking about 45000 out of 20+ million.

Btw, did you hear the firemans union spokesman. What a load of lies. Even the CSIRO has said that the claims made were not true. This is one of the reasons why I don’t believe much of what is said by pro carbon tax people. Just out and out lies, there is no question about it in the case of this union leader. Start talking truth someone should tell him and many others that deliberately lie.

Galaxy poll shows 58 per cent of people are opposed to a carbon tax, with 28
per cent in favour. The Australian newspaper, reveals 60 per cent of voters are
opposed to the government’s plan to put a price on carbon next year, compared
with 30 per cent who support it. Of the 60 per cent who are opposed to the tax,
which Ms Gillard plans on introducing from July next year, 39 per cent of the
poll’s participants said they are “strongly against” it. In
comparison, of the 30 per cent who said they supported the carbon tax, only 12
per cent said they were “strongly in favour” of it.

And the lies continue, Why does GetUp continue to support this lie and criminal act by the government, what’s in it for you?

I support a C tax and went to the Adelaide rally. But I get tired of the constant reference to ‘the polluters’ as the embodiment of evil. They are producing stuff (energy, etc) that the community is consuming – stop consuming it and they will stop producing it. I agree that there are often less polluting forms of production and the C tax should encourage this, but consumers must face up to their role ethical consumption – don’t just blame someone else.

Kelseycook,
Can you at least answer one of my questions because your have never responded
to one of my posts. Why do you insist on calling carbon dioxides and essential
and vital gas for the survival of the planet a carbon pollution, carbon
dioxides are consumed by plant life and turned to Oxygen, does that mean that
oxygen is a pollutant to. If you truly believe that it’s a polution why do you
exhale thousands of times a day.

Kelseycook can you please at least do us all a favour can you please immediately
stop exhaling carbon pollution it’s causing AGW and hold your breath until you
pass out, hopefully you don’t regain consciousness, so this way at least we
have one liar out of the way.

I live in a blue ribbon Liberal seat (but a philosphical Laborite
myself) and delivered 120 of the community letters yesterday. Hope it
makes a difference to some people’s thinking.  I’m glad we have an organisation like GetUp to give the grassroots a significant voice.  Thanks GetUp.

Wow a big congratulations and thanks to everyone who attended rallies. I didnt attend as was 600km away from cloysest rally but as a genuinely concerned citizen with no alterior motive, no political alignment and no hidden agenda I say good on you all for your positive attempts to create a better future for our children. Thankfully not everyone is motivated by greed and power.

I am one of many thousands of Getup members who do not support a carbon tax. When is Getup going to poll its members to see how many actually support this campaign?

3 adult Getup members in my household and we all support a carbon tax.

That’s good we now have some progress, we now know that at least 0.000005263% of 57,000 Members Suport a Carbon Dioxide esential for the survival of our planet Gas TAX.
Anyone else care to vote?, something that GetUp hasn’t given our democratic rights to do.

Another supporter here Nikkoh. Keep calculating mate it appears you have plenty of time on your hands to do so!

What connection does George Soros have to GetUp? Is he dictating your agenda and telling you to support a carbon tax even despite the fact that the majority are against it? If you’re so hell bent on providing us with ‘true Democracy’ then start rallying for a bloody election!!

Hi Get Up!

I attended the Melbourne rally on Sunday.The numbers were large and all in all a great sign of support for the campaign to cut carbon pollution. Unfortunately though,I have to admit that the rally was profoundly disappointing. The large group of friends I was part of that had organised to meet at the State Libarary of Victoria felt thatdisappointed (and a bit ripped off!)  that there was no march.  No sooner had we arrived then it was over. The rally in essence was a cramped gathering. Speaches were impossible to hear and speakers impossible to see.Music was didactic and simplistic in its watered down sense of new age politics. All in all a bit of a let down Get Up!  Should have been a march! Had expected a little bit more from you considering the importance of the issues surrounding a price on carbon

Regards,

GH

Ok Thats good Country girl more progress, it’s now  0.000070175% out of 57,000 Members and yes it does appear that i have plenty time on my hands, like i haven’t already realised this. I have had plenty of time on my hands since since 2007.

The biggest problem with the carbon tax is the government administering it. Would you trust the government who wasted millions on the botched insulation scheme and who wasted millions on the Building Education Revolution to safely administer the carbon tax to actually have any of the effect you mention below? Not likely. Yes let’s reduce waste and let’s use our resources more efficiently but keep this inept govt out of it.

I went to the Melbourne rally and it was great to see so much support for a price on carbon pollution. It was huge! Thanks for organising it GetUp! 

Climate change is the latest left wing battle flag for the greenies and lefties to rally around. The whole idea of carbon dioxide changing climate is built on weak science and propaganda. It’s just a huge money making/wasting scam as shown by the proposed carbon dioxide tax and the biggest scam of all subsidised wind farms that produce little energy and hit our wallets with ever increasing electricity prices. Today the people of Denmark are now demanding their removal as they are tired of paying the highest electricity prices in Europe. 

Latest global warming prediction….by 2013 there will be no Labor Government

And Nate please inform me just what putting a tax on carbon dioxide is going to do to the worlds climate and by how much temperatures would fall. Surely replacing coal burning power stations with nuclear energy would be a better way to go. At least that way we would see a drop in emissions. But a tax …please

so this site is for a voice of the people……yeap we have seen it all before so what is this sites real agenda
Also on climate change 40000 Green and labor supporters does not make a majority of 20 million last time I looked.

The 5 best sentences you will ever read
…. Unfortunately, most voters don’t know this.
These are possibly the 5 best sentences you’ll ever read:  
1.             You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity, by 
legislating the wealth out of prosperity.
 
 2.        What one person receives without working for,
another person must work for without  receiving.
 3.        The government cannot give to anybody anything  that 
the government does not first take from somebody  else.
  4.        You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it.
 
 5.        When half of the people get the idea that they do not 
have to work because the other half is going to take care of  them,
and when the other half gets the idea that it does  no good to work,
because somebody else is going to  get what they work for,…… that is
 the beginning of the end of  any nation.
  

you are so correct cundletown ….. people  are kidding themselves about this web site, it is as left wing as you can get, probably financed by gillard

might just add here….. that the next election will see the Greens fall down a deep hole and the three idiots  will go with them, then just maybe the libs will wake up and hopefully take charge with hopefully some intelligence

Except for Al Gore maybe?  Worlds biggest carbon hog? Al Gore = 474 African people (for energy consumption ALONE).  Who is set to be the world’s first carbon billionaire?  Al Gore.  Who bought a beachfront property 6mths after releasing “An Inconvenient Truth” in which he claimed sea levels were going to rise?  If you guessed Al Gore YOU WIN!!!

Please stop calling CO2 “pollution”  CO2 is not pollution it is a necessary element to life.  CO2 makes up a mere 3.618% of greenhouse gasses.  The total human input of CO2 into greenhouse gasses is 0.117%.  If every human on this planet stopped producing CO2 right now, we wouldn’t make even the slightest little dent  in the greenhouse gasses as 96.79% of the total CO2 in greenhouse gasses comes from the ocean.

Get informed.  Get your head out of the sand and stop getting your “facts” from lying politicians.  Start getting some REAL information from the actual scientists!

Huhhhh, i just got an email form Simon Sheikh, I presume we
all got the same one, he is asking us for our help to Pass this criminal TAX at
a higher TAX rate because he is afraid that the

“Government is considering a price on pollution that doesn’t invest any
money in renewable energy”. Well
GetUp, WakeUp, to the real WORLD, this is what we are all talking about it’s
just a money grab, that’s it, Julier and her Government couldn’t give a stuff
about renewable energy or the planet all they care about is the money.

Simon still believes that
this criminal tax is going to fund renewable energy, the technology already exists,
I don’t think that Joooouuuuulier is going to stand up to those Oil Giants and
all the Big Corporations that profit on Fossil Fuels by investing money in renewable
energy, she hasn’t got the Balls to. This Carbon Dioxide TAX is purely for the
MONEY, The majority of the Australian population are starting to wake up to the
fact that it won’t make any difference to the planet, check the polls, You and
your Buddy’s can’t trick us anymore because the majority of us are starting to
think for our selves. Even if we stop Producing that 3%  of carbon dioxide gas, the planet will keep
producing the other 97% no matter how we feel about it. Hey Simon why don’t you
hold a Poll to see how many members of GetUp are on your side before you send
your emails for help to everyone presuming that we are all on your side and
agree to this CRIMINAL TAX.

There is a target in place for 20% renewable energy by 2020.

Direct grants or partnerships like the NBN Fibre optic network are the only certain ways to achieve this.

The proposed carbon tax, if it is effective, will lead to inflation. Inflation will lead the Reserve Bank to raise interest rates. 

Interest rate rises will have two relevant effects:

1. Economic activity in the general economy will slow, leading to another Recession. 

This reduces government tax revenue and gives it higher unemployment costs, leading to further government deficits and interest costs. Housing prices will fall, most Australians will feel poorer and the banks will suffer. 

2. The stock market will fall in value. This reduces the market capitalisation of renewable energy stocks even further, reducing their ability to raise the money necessary to build the electricity generating assets needed to reach the 20% target by 2020. 

Renewable Energy Companies like ENE,GDY, PAX, PTR, HRL, DYE and CWE etc, have all suffered massive share price falls already (up to 90%), despite government grants.  It may be impossible for them to build anything without further government help, even if there are a higher electricity prices.

The Big Polluters will have less cash to do remedial work.

Oh, thanks for the three-decimal-place numbers, Lynda.  I now feel informed, and I can stop listening to actual scientists.
Who said CO2 is an element, and that in its appropriate place and proportion it is “pollution”? 
Pollution is matter out of place.  In too high proportions (and the knife-edge is very fine) CO2 and its many carboniferous cousin compounds in the Earth’s stratosphere is pollution.  And we have it in our power to reduce and eventually reverse the growth in this proportion, whether the growth is due to natural process or human activity. 
To me this seems like the right thing to do.  You can do what you think is right, Linda.  

The community letter is important. We need to stay the course for the progressive work of Labor while pushing them to act further for human and animal rights and environmental sustainability.

Along with se neon out the letter explaining the carbon tax, I want to counter pessimism about the government.

Opinion polls mean little when government is in consultation on: climate change abatement, securing funds from non-renewable resources, water conservation and agricultural sustainability, reducing problem gambling, funding support of people with disabilities, regional response to asylum seekers in a climate of fear, enhancement of quality of life for degraded aboriginal communities and inequities in education.