ABCDiamond

All it needs is for someone to explain how things would still get paid for, and who knows, it could happen. Just need to magic up about $300billion a year.

Cape Blue

Are you sure that it is CO2 and not methane you read about?

I think you have to be careful when looking at different sources of carbon (or other GHGs). CO2 from livestock (or indeed methane generated by cattle from eating grass etc) is a "current cycle" GHG - i.e. CO2 in the air over the past couple of months or couple of years is taken out of the atmosphere by the growth of the feedstock and then released either by burning it, letting it rot or by cattle converting it.

Fossil fuels are carbon that has been tucked away from 650,000,000 years ago (or around 649,800,000 years before humans arrived), effectively making it "new" carbon into the current system rather than the normal, current, carbon cycle.

ABCDiamond

18 May, 2009
The Australian Government has highlighted a lofty goal - to build four solar farms that generate three times as much power as the world's current largest project based in California. The Rudd Government says it remains .... blah blah...

However, here in QLD, the Windorah Solar farm ... small beginnings...

Amazulu

The government could be made much smaller if they really wanted to. For instance; introduce a low, flat rate tax with no allowances, benefits etc, bring in self-certification and no need to submit tax returns - you could reduce ATO and Centrelink staff by 75%, saving billions.

etc

ABCDiamond

According to a 2006 report by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), our diets and, specifically, the meat in them cause more greenhouse gases carbon dioxide (CO2), methane, nitrous oxide, and the like to spew into the atmosphere than either transportation or industry.

The FAO report found that current production levels of meat contribute between 14 and 22 percent of the 36 billion tons of "CO2-equivalent" greenhouse gases the world produces every year.

That is one reason why the Australian figures, when divided by population, look so very high.

ABCDiamond

The government could be made much smaller if they really wanted to..

Miracles I believe in, the impossible is do-able, but Governments make themselves smaller... I'll believe in leprechauns first

Wol

That's what I'm saying.

I think Steve Forbes was one of the proponents of this when he was running in the USA.

Rebates, allowances, exemptions and so on are what destroys tax systems. They generate thousands of jobs for tax lawyers, invite fraud and make it impossible to enforce the laws.

Not to mention the ludicrous politician-generated anomalies such as for example getting a first homeowners' grant when you have had a house in the UK and are paying tax at the highest rate, or giving handouts for kids when you are trying to cut carbon emissions - the lsit goes on!

Amazulu

One of the biggest problems facing the UK is that their civil service got too big under the previous socialist government. It's now so big, that by cutting it to a lower level, the new government is going to hurt the country by doing it.

UK is a prime example of why really big government is bad.

Cape Blue

I would also include capital gains as income - some people earn their "income" as capital gains through things such as share trading.

I would increase inheritance tax to 50% with no allowance - its a great tax and we should have more of it.

Wol

>>I would also include capital gains as income - some people earn their "income" as capital gains through things such as share trading.<<

That goes without saying: no exemptions or allowances. Income is just that - what you get.

>>I would increase inheritance tax to 50% with no allowance - its a great tax and we should have more of it.<<

I would make it higher - passing on what is effectively your wealth creation to another generation encourages them to spend it and not to earn it.

They say that one generation earns it, the next sits on it and the third pisses it up against the wall.

freebo

So the disabled, disadvantaged, injured, low paid workers etc should be left to starve and die in the street?

Mate, you're on a different plannet - I'm a top rate taxpayer but don't begrudge helping my fellow man. You sound like your ideal society is Nazi Germany - you'd love it until you got sick or old.

Sounds like trolling or genuine ignorance, I can't guess which.

As for the speeding fines paying for police (presumably to pay for protecting you from the great unwashed) you're having a laugh, surely.

Deancm_MKII

I'm not sure because when I went to find the article again I couldn't find it.

Wol

It's both, isn't it?

The carbon equivalent is the amount of carbon emitted when everything's taken into account - the production of fertiliser, transport etc. The methane is farts.

IvanM

Yep and Abbott was talking about a tax rather than trading.

Alan Jones still cannot handle his beloved Johnny being booted out. This is a guy even the liberals deemed too much of a nut to keep in ranks. There are also strange stories from when he was a house master at a private boys boarding school.

Deancm_MKII

It would solve the world's over population problem and that is the biggest challenge facing the planet right now.

Helping our fellow man is one thing. There are far too many people out to rip off the system.

The Police aren't real Police anymore, they're just motorist tax collectors.