Polluters Should Pay

“would hurt the economy, threatening private backing for $100 billion in energy infrastructure needed in the next 20 years.”

The only thing it is going to hurt Mr TRUenergy and his friends, are the pissed off consumers as you pass on the cost of these carbon credits to them and their hip pockets. It will also hurt investment in dirty coal power generation and coal mining. The rest of the planet would benefit from the scheme. And as for the private backing of energy infrastructure, bollocks, I say. Reflect on my argument below.

With a national renewable feed-in tariff and diversion of subsidies from the coal power industry to renewable energy industries, the renewable energy infrastructure in this country will boom, as it has in places like Germany. Every person and their dog with a decent north facing roof space will be installing solar PV a huge way as it will make the punters lots of money, which would be a better investment than the share market at the moment!

So who is going to install all this PV and other renewable energy sources, I hear you ask? Well, lets retrain the current energy and coal industry workers to do this massive installation task! Sounds feasible to me and would probably pay a lot more than working in a coal mine. Heck, I might even get into the act, if the training is free.

Once again, we see the actions reported in the Age article, as just another effort of Big Coal and Dirty Power to scuttle and delay any plans of action to avert catastrophic climate change. If you think about it long enough, those companies with vested interests by not helping humanity get out of this self made pickle, and who are major contributors to the problem, will only continue to use deceit and delaying tactics to halt the implementation of any carbon trading scheme that the Federal Government attempts to implement.

Now is the time for strong and determined leadership, and the time for our elected leaders to have the courage to stand up to corporations and start looking after those of us who might of voted for them. We are the generation that will be looked upon in the future as either those who took the moral high ground for future generations, or the generation who kills the planet for the rest of life on earth. Which is to be Kevin Rudd? I know which part of this generation I am, but do you know who you are? Signing Kyoto was only the start.

Here is hoping you, our elected leaders of this great nation, have the courage to implement a scheme, whereby those Australians who pollute the most, pay the most. This will in turn create investments in the right energy technologies and change behaviours, which will help bring us all back from the brink. I have the courage to invest in renewable energy, do you, our State Premiers and Mr Rudd?

I believe you do, so show the intestinal fortitude (i.e.guts), and get on with it. We are all tired of waiting.