There are decadal cycles in the global climate, as one would expect on a planet with large and deep oceans. One of the main cycles is on its downward turn at the moment. This has masked the upward trend of the enhanced greenhouse effect, and will continue to do so for ten more years. After that, trend and cycle will both lead to warming. The pause in warming since 1998, perhaps even some cooling, is fully consistent with the data and the models that foresee further warming over the century.

It is unlikely that climate change in the 21st or even 22nd century will lead to deglaciation of East Antarctica. It’s too cold, and will stay so for a long time.

All the above are more scientifically plausible than C warming, sadly.

Innovation from the colonies …..

Perhaps someone should re-publish Drummond: The Englishman’s Food. Very good wartime diet - and they won? - well, they didn’t lose!

WRT global warming and fossil fuels use. The populations of US and EU approx 700m: Pops of China, India and Indonesia are approx 2500m! Now add in Africa + East Asia. If the US + EU actually reduce their consumption of FF by 20l/day: = 14 x 10^9 l. This is approx 5l/day per person for the others. That won’t lift their lifestyles very far. Seems to be a serious logic and math deficit somewhere.

Also, biological processes often follow a lag-log-lag sigmoidal phase. Any bets that we may have moved beyond the lower lag phase and have inflected into the log phase? Hope not. Exponential changes are usually irreversible! Time will tell, but by then it will be too late.

B Peter

@Pat: Now, that WAS a Freudian slip in your 2nd para??? Very imaginative! Who’d have thought?

B Peter

Roughly one turd comes from agriculture, another third from transport and one third from heating industry etc. Get used to the idea that agriculture as a prodigious emitter of CH4, will be next in line for taxes! Yippee!

The need for extra revenue for the last line of bubble blowers is obvious just as was the liklihood of civil aviation in 1944. This is international, and green, so domestically more palatable!

Oil and gas are now agreed not to be fossil fuels and that the Russians were right about abiotic oil. Coal is more problematic and certainly has fossil sources. As bog is compressed it seems to become brown coal the cheapest form of electricity in Australia and maybe the world.

Paul McDonnell gave a succinct precis on how the Irish have been screwed by the system but then complained that what is happening is unreal! Indeed! Ireland has surrendered sovereignty in the name of wealth. How ya likin’ it?
The US has surrendered to the fear of terrorists! Social engineering anyone?

Incidentally I note bank shares moved a little. I suggesteed the possibility of insider trading. Will ISE investigate? I think not and it will recur.

“Where there’s muck there’s brass” but do we have to wallow in filth before we clean up our act?

I can’t see any international agreement on marine and aviation coming about any time soon. Agriculture will be left alone so it’s down to the good old car driver to save the world!

Aviation plus marine sectors cause maybe 6% or 7% of global emissions between them. Chicago Convention was agreed 1944, when there was no civil aviation!

Actually Richard I know I’ll be paying more tax. It would be nice to have a bit of honesty around the whole thing. (Not referring to you). After the budget Brian L will say he didn’t raise taxes but we’ll have the carbon tax, removal or increased PRSI ceiling (not a tax), child care allowance hit some way or other, pension relief at standard rate maybe and a few other things I’ve forgotten or haven’t thought of. In short we’ll be paying more tax. Fed up being treated like an idiot.

Economists have been supporting this for years, it works in other countries and if we keep on ruling out things to tax we will end up taxing windows.
This is the Green moment. They won’t be in government in a strong position for…well, it may never happen again. If I was them I would insist on it in the next budget.

Mention of models put me in mind, again, of the Export-land Model of Fossil Fuel Production and Depletion. If this model does kick-in as forecast, then economic recovery is postponed - or more likely canceled!

ALL economists should be familiar with, and understand the implications of the ELM model.

B Peter

ps. What’s the level of Excise Duty and VAT on Agri and aviation diesel?

Increasing the base tax credit by €100 per person per year would cost the exchequer some €200 million.

Reducing the tax rate in the first band by 0.5% would cost some €300 million.

So you’re right: A carbon tax would allow you to tinker at the margins of labour taxes. However, the costs of a tax are quadratic in its level, so tinkering at the margin is actually quite effective.

It would have to be some carbon tax to allow us to reduce labor tax now in fairness.

That is not going to happen, it would have to be colossal to allow labor tax to fall.

The tree huggers will love this though, another reason to get a rally going.

As to the theory, Ireland is a small open economy where labour is a large input cost and energy is a small input cost. Because of the ETS, a carbon tax primarily hits non-tradables and households, while a labour tax hits tradables as well. The base energy tax is high, but so is the base labour tax. You’d need quite a peculiar model that would find that extra labour taxes do less harm (per euro raised) than a carbon tax.

With apologies to Francis Ford Coppola (Apocalypse Now).

Imposing a carbon tax in this place place is like handing out speeding tickets in the Indy 500.

If this time next year the overall tax take has, despite this new tax, actually fallen, will you be prepared to admit that you were in error in advocating its introduction?

will firewood be subject to a carbon tax?

wood is renewable, but only on a timescale of 40 years or so. isn’t that just too long to avert irreversible climate change? it seems to me it should be taxed. what is the expert opinion?

either way, the carbon tax will be just the stimulus the illegal tree-felling industry needs.

See also my response to Stuart.

To suggest that such a tax will raise revenue implies that you don’t believe that it will reduce carbon emissions but that enough people will be prepared to pay the tax..

There is something inherently contradictory in the argument. If the tax raises a lot of revenue then it will not ‘work’ in reducing emissions and if it ‘works’ in reducing emissions then it will not ‘work’ as a raiser of revenue.

My core objection is not to the tax per se but to the fact that it’s additional and that the government expects to raise money from it.

If this true then it is only true because enough people have no choice about paying it and, since it will not be offset by cuts in tax elsewhere (something which I believe is universally argued for by nearly all proponents of such a tax) then it is a net new tax on income and productivity.

It puts you in a position not of justifying a carbon tax per se but in justifying the decision to raise the overall tax burden as a response to a rapidly shrinking economy.

Under cover of arguing the the ‘environmentally friendly tax’ you are, in fact, providing support for the governments questionable (at least questionable to me) overall fiscal policy.

This latter requires separate justification and discussion.

Hence there is a sleight of hand in your argument.

regards

Paul