Warning this gets a bit heavy, but fuck it!
Today Is a historic day here in Australia.. The government introduced a Tax on Carbon emissions, at $23 a tonne..
And I fear this day!
Don't get me wrong here, I'm not the most pro environmental person in the world, but I do my bit.. Planted a few trees on the grandfolks farm, recycle where I can, try not to use the car too much and turn the lights off..
What this Tax does is puts environmental policy back about 100 years.. Why sure, it adresses the problem of Global Warming and carbon related waste gases... It does nothing about any other industrial by-product gas.. Sulphur Dioxide for instance is one of the nastiest common pollutants.. and It gets a break.. not charged a cent, because there is no carbon in it! and everyday voters will bawk at the next remotely environment related policy!
They have failed to address the problem of De-forestation, Water Management, Introduced species, Radioactive waste storage, Dryland Salinity, Heavy metal pollution (not the music- it ain't polllution lol!), and every other environmental issue in the country..
If dryland salinity isn't sorted out, soon we will have nice clean air but nothing to eat...
So what we basically have is a knee-jerk reaction tax.. Just so the government can deliver a budget in surplus by 2013.. It's no surprise.. They tried introduced a Minerals Resource Rent Tax on new mining sites.. so a new mine would pay like close to 55% of it's profits in royalties to various tiers of the government just to operrate.. The rate got lowered quite significantly when all the big players just threatened to pull out their exploration and go to Africa.. The cynic in me here links the 2 taxes... so when they couldn't get the metal miners they went after the coal miners..
Australia has 4 types of power- Coal is the most common and afforable, Wind is next,then hydro-electric and finally solar.. Cause of my geographical location I have coal power.. With this new tax, I will now be paying 27% more for my electricity than last year and nearly 40% than the year before.. oh and 10% Goods and Services tax on that too!
So I hope my visions of a dire future are wrong... but I can see us paying $2 a litre for petrol (That would be about $8 a gallon), The bottom falling out of the coal industry, Minerals industry slowing down and with that will come another recession for Australia.. Our biggest exports are coal, iron and metals.. We survived the last recession, more a mere 'technical recession' but it was the gold price that kept us alive and nothing elde but!
And all 'for the environment'.. The Government is not investing this money into renewable resources, environmental programs etc, I feel it is merely a cash grab!
I Might have to immigrate over to your part of the world! I know I'd love the adventure!!
Peace and Love people,
Chris