I’m not advocating keeping fuel prices low by any means (and they will rise of their own accord anyway), and I think we all agree that rising fuel costs will encourage demand destruction that would have (despite a lot of complaints from the public and business) a lot of positive run-on effects.

I’m not criticising electric buses either, I just think there are far more urgent infrastructure issues to resolve before sidetracking the debate with new technology rather than improving what we already have.

And if you think plants will struggle to breathe with lower levels of Co2 in the air… do you think they were struggling a few thousand, or even a few hundred years ago when we had far lower levels of Co2, but vastly increased forestry levels?

I also never proclaimed GW is established fact (I said climate change every time for one, GW is a bit of a misnomer like the “fart tax” and promotes the wrong kind of discussion - eg: the whole, snow in Baghdad = GW is a myth! claims), I said a number of times that the vast weight of peer-reviewed scientific says it (climate change) is happening, and if you saw any of the recent reports, even faster than thought.

You suggested a Fuel tax - not a Carbon tax. They are hardly the same thing. And slowly increasing tax in one area while reducing it in others is not going to, in my opinion, reduce complexity at all. Nor will it result in a situation where there will be no pain during transition.

As the Deputy PM Michael Cullen said recently: “We are getting to the point where people are arguing we must do something to stop climate change but it must not in any way have any impact on anybody that is in any way negative. That’s not possible.”

The big problem is, we simply do not have the luxury of time to devise a whole new way to attack the problem (let alone a whole new system of taxation), to formulate policy, to get parliament to agree on it, to sell it to the public etc etc. These things take YEARS, and are - as we are seeing with the current ETS - often hampered, or completely watered down by those who prefer business as usual, regardless of the effect on the environment and their ability to do business in the long term.

And as David Parker said in December: “We do not have the luxury of time. If I or this Government mistakenly delay our response to climate change, that will be in the poor interests of New Zealand economically. It will leave our children a legacy of climate change. You know, the Government will have failed its duty.”

Again, while it’s not perfect the ETS (provided the government doesn’t go through with recent backtracking) will encourage the big polluters to clean up their acts, and it will bring in extra revenue that the government can, and should spend on improving infrastructure, health, education, energy efficiency etc etc.

You say the ETS is overly politicised, how do you think changing the tax system isn’t politicised? Do you think those same organisations that heavy the government to water down the ETS will not try to bend any new legislation to their will?

I’m not anti-business or anything like that, or trying to dismiss your suggestion completely. I really just don’t see how it will solve or simplify anything, let alone be painless or timely enough to be worthwhile.

Run this idea up the flag pole and see if it gets shot down and by Whom?

Only by power mongers oil companies and pollititians.

Oil Companies must Love the ETS Scheme. Is assures a new bright future out of the power shadow of the US and Higher oil sales in the develping world.
“I am Exxon I’m not scared of ETS”. The Oil companies are very quiet on this…

Go figure why?

Clearly my main point has escaped you which I tried for 3 messages to make clear. Even if all your views are correct (which I wrote a number of times) the current politically manipulatable approach to this is unnecersary and inefficient when a very clear alternative is Obvious.
It is something I have seen no GW believer entertain which seems to reek of false motive which stokes skepticisim.
Briefly Re the science You clearly still have not reviewed the other side of the story as I suggested.
Do you know about the hockey stick yet enough to show why the complaints about the Data removed from the IPCC model is objected too by scientists?
I have reviewed the posts which quite often talk more on ethics assuming the science.
Such ethics are not the problem we all surely agree on them. I watched Gores rebuttal about the sun linked warming theory. After his short bit of science with 2 graphs which I am still seeking the background of the data used ?? (-night temperetures- and stratospheric temperatures over a short period of time).
Anyway that was interesting of him despite the superficial explanation.

But science need not even be argued as I pointed out.
Lets agree on GW. Though I doubt I can accept that.
What Gore said that was also quite interesting and is exactly what I have been pushing was…..Gore reccommended stop taxing income he said and tax Carbon- pollution!! So why an ETS that is my question?
I clearly dealt with the few drawbacks you seem so keen to find in my suggestions if you read it again.
There is nothing you need so obstinately disagree about, other than my openness to studies that disagree in conclusion with the assumption of GW (you just can not call it established fact),
Because… I was not making suggestions to not take action.
I am not the petrol head wanting cheap fuel for the V8
I was suggesting a far more effective more honest and undisruptive solution.

In regard to your suggesting we are heavily fuel reliant I meant disproportionately fuel reliant industry like a coal fired plants.
Otherwise as I pointed out and you still don’t seem to have taken in, the overall cost of business would NOT increase.
As other tax as Gore even suggested would Decrease.
So that is an irrelavent argument. dispite me showing even if it were relevant further tax rebates could mitigate it.

Also the intention was that it be a international response not a NZ only approach as if our 1 city sized nation could make a differnece except as idealistic leaders.

Then if Logical simple approaches are taken that are more flexible and less disruptive and political Many people would take this whole thing along more seriously. Action here need not result in a reaction at all.

It is hard to trust power addicts like politicians want only the best when they build a system that will reinforce power over people when a perfectly simple option that leaves freedom is at hand.

Do you get that!

A system not guaranteed to work but guaranteed to turn our lives upside down
OR
A System that is guaranteed to work and leaves us free with a changed world.

WHAT is there to agree to disagree about ????!!!!

That said, do you really believe that an organisation such as Greenpeace bases an critical global campaign such as climate change on hearsay and dodgy science? Do you think we throw away vast amounts of money kindly donated by our supporters on tenuous issues?

No, we don’t. We have scientists, researchers, campaigners and more all around the world that spend all day, every day working on the issues we campaign on so we know without a shadow of a doubt that our position is solid. GP isn’t made up of five smelly hippies working out of a hut in Byron Bay. We are a global organisation that is a respected commentator and we know the science back to front and inside out.

We can argue about this all day if you like, but the fact remains that the climate is rapidly changing for the worse, man is the main driver for this change, and we must make a global effort to reduce the long term effects. The ETS, while not perfect by any means, is NZ’s best hope right now to help curb our contribution to the problem. Scrapping it in favour of quazi-tax re-jigging is not a solution if for no other reason than there is simply no time to do it. We have a window of 8 to 10 years (according to respected scientists - not a divination from the Enviro-God) to make real change before it is too late.

To address a few of your points directly…

When I say the weight of scientific opinion is against sceptics/deniers, it’s not that i’m counting the number on each side of the table. Rather that there are more scientists with more peer-reviewed materials, and more substantiated arguments overall than there are on the other side. If there really was so much solid, credible evidence to the contrary then would those that agree with man-made climate change not be in the minority? It’s not like this is a new issue.

To answer your question: “The only business that would leave NZ would be a fuel based business like…..?”

What businesses aren’t fuel based? Everything in our economy is intimately tied to the price of oil and higher prices at the pump are already putting strain on businesses and the general population.

Electric busses aren’t that easy to implement in my opinion. I’ve lived in countries with these systems and unless you’re going to deploy a fleet based on lithium ion technology you need to install overhead power delivery infrastructure, dedicate lanes etc etc. Can you imagine people agreeing to having overhead powerlines installed everywhere?

With the levers of the economy and the bank responses to fiscal crisis… i feel the responses are more akin to blunt instruments than a simplification of process. But we can agree to disagree about that otherwise we’ll be here all month.

Colin Espiner with no reason out of hand mocked it and said he wouldn’t engage the thought.
It is the unexplained illogical obsession with the ETS that will be unequally applied industry by industry and fully open to political manipulation and require thousands of unproductive experts who reduce GDP.
The Tax I suggest would literally require half a dozen experts and perhaps reduce headaches for people at tax time and at the IRD.
It is Bl…dy glaringly obvious how ridiculous the ETS is but no body even touches this just as obvious alternative.
What is more it means it is easy to levy the non compliant nations and relieve developing nations.
Each country just like Kyoto agrees to a fossil fuel levy regime and that is a more simple tax scheme above political interference that the ETS absolutely Reeks of. It needn’t even be levied at the pump but at the Border on imported fuels and at the producer where we produce our own fuel.

Really guys that is something Greenpeace should Be Shouting for and running through its think tanks.
It is far more efficient and effective and doesn’t have un-transparent leaks to particular industries. If an industry really needs protection beyond this you use tax rebates.
Run this around your think tanks…

And as for the Galileo thing being the opposite way around… well you apparently haven’t watched or researched much other than your own vetted propaganda.
The rebuttals I have seen offered from the comments above, have shown how much you guys have not paid attention to the science that supports your passion and the perhaps even anti environmental positions you are taking naively. The name of your organisation doesn’t protect you from errors any more than a priests uniform stops him from sexual desire. There is too much comms consultant spin being regurgitated and not enough truth. Too much very Dodgy data as no few people agree is coming out of the IPCC. The Hockey stick! If you can’t tell me what a denier means if he/she were to mention that and why they think the IPCC has issues with its data, you are not ready to engage in this topic as anything more than a blind religion. As that is just a little of some really poor science from the IPCC. We have got to stop reading our own propaganda which though with good intentions to convince people, was produced, it is not rigorous science but only presentations to convince.
We should first be reading the science not counting the scientists on each side. Truth is not democratic. That has been seen as with Galileo. So far the rebuttals from disbelievers have been met with rhetoric skills and not science. That is why I am much more impressed with the science offered by the sceptics. It seems that since the now intensely discredited information in Gores “Inconvenient Truth” has emerged, only the rhetoric has improved and not much science.

We need diligent investigation of criticism not blanket write offs.
That is mere religion.

Sceptics/deniers are not Gallileos arguing for a round earth, they are the remnants of flat-earth believers trying to twist political opinions into science despite the overwhelming majority of scientific opinion, and vast weight of research being against them.

I’m no economist, but I would think that if the government abolished sales and income tax in favour of a steep tax on fuels then it would not only be committing political suicide, but the economy would plunge like a 747 with its’ wings broken off mid flight.

I would imagine that with a hefty tax on fuel all of the businesses not tied directly to the land would pack up shop overnight and move somewhere else to be more competitive (Did you see Rio Tinto whining that the ETS will force it offshore? image what would happen if every business in this country was suddenly in the same position), the cost of living would rocket well past any extra money one would have due to lower income taxes (removing sales tax would not make food cheaper either, all food outside of what you grow in your own garden is heavily reliant on petrochemical fertilsers, transport, processing, packaging etc etc), after all, you may have an extra few hundred bucks in your pay packet each week, but what point use is that if fuel is $13 a litre, bus trips are $15 each and your supermarket bill goes through the roof?

Emissions trading is not perfect by any means, but if implemented correctly it is an effective way of encouraging polluters to clean up their acts, to increase government revenue which can (and should) be spent on important infrastructure (trains, public transport etc), healthcare and education, and cleaner, more sustainable technologies in general. If implemented correctly, it can also ensure we don’t have to suffer a major economic depression during the transition - which your “simple” suggestion in my mind would be far more likely to trigger than an intelligent ETS. Sounds to me like you’re proposing a flat tax, which as an idea itself has been resoundingly discredited around the world whenever it pops its head out. Modern economies just aren’t that simple.

10 dollars a litre or whatever. Introduce it bit by bit and watch the inginuity flow?
Emissions trading is a decietful Crock! It suits Politicians idelougues and traders. Not people or the earth!
Tax beef to if CH4 farts are too bad.

It would produce the right market reactions simply for NO ADDED COST!

That is a HUGE Mammoth in the living room!

Answers to that!?!?!

Other than you are so naive and don’t understand!
Because so far the ETS shows that it is a naive or deliberately flawed scheme that proponents don’t or sadly do perhaps understand.

Remove it and the whole GW story will look a little less suspicious.
Better than the same fear of big evils used to marshall people generation after generation when not much is actually wrong as from the US and Britain and Germany and before most major wars based on Power over benign happy masses.

Even if we ignore all the science that tears it to shreds in my view. So far all the refutations I have seen presented here have confirmed ignorance and naivity of GW believers not discernment of propoganda and intellect.
Gores own movie tears his own theory to shreds if it is to believed some ice melt will occur he shows it will reult in an ice age if his own case is correct! Desalination and the stopping of ocean currents etc…Watch if you want to know what I mean it is quite an embarrassing portion.

I’ll scan the latest sites offered tonight and see if they are not another temple full of religious zealots burning alive Gallileos proposing a round earth.