Showing posts with label elecricity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label elecricity. Show all posts

Surely Australia Could Pay a Little More for a Cleaner Planet

It is so strange how support for Kevin Rudd's Emissions Trading Scheme has totally evaporated. Kevin Rudd rightly claims that his backing down from trying to pass the legislation cost him leadership of his party and the country, so great was public support for it then. Times have changed. With big rises in water charges and electricity charges across the country people just don't want a bar of it anymore.

The proof of global warming is considerable. Ice is disappearing from the North and South Poles. Those who still contend that it is made up just to get money out of the public must be living on another planet - in their minds at least. No one wants to be paying higher prices for essential items than consumers in other countries, but the world is changing. China is making major changes. to reduce pollution. Finland introduced the world's first carbon tax in 1990. That is two decades ago. Sweden followed in 1991. Great Britain brought in a climate change levy in 2001. Boulder in Colorado has had a carbon tax on electricity since 2007. There has been a tax on all fuels in Quebec from 2007. British Columbia initiated the most efficient carbon tax in 2008 with $10 tax per metric ton rising to $30 in 2012. So Australians would not be alone in paying higher prices.

Young Australian families today have never known hard times. Economies go in boom and bust cycles. Australia has been lucky in avoiding the busts due to a small population "owning" a tremendous resources base. It is the only country in the world with this economic advantage. Surely Australia can do it a little tougher and help show the way to a better world.
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Society