The article states;
“Bankrupt power generators, regular blackouts, abandoned cement and steel factories, a 10c a litre jump in petrol prices, spiralling electricity bills and unaffordable air travel – welcome to Australia in 2010. An emissions trading scheme has just been introduced and the worst fears of Australian businesses have been realised.”
Now this is of course the worst case scenario, but with typical media flare and sensationalism, I believe it paints an overly grim view of the upcoming Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS). Petrol jumping 10c a litre? Well its not like that doesn’t happen every week anyway due to the end of cheap oil!
The article goes on to say that;
“The introduction of a carbon price will affect every company in Australia, boosting the cost of electricity, transport and fuel. It has been likened to the GST and globalisation in terms of the impact it will have on the economy.”
Of course it will have an effect on every company, and tell me again, why this is a bad thing? The big emitters of Carbon Dioxide and other greenhouse gasses will have to pay more because they pollute more. So, inversely that means that companies that reduce their carbon footprint or are based on sustainable and renewable practices will be the big winners because their bottom line will be lower. The public will win, if he or she purchases products that have a low carbon impact, which will encourage people to find alternatives in their lifestyle, hopefully for the better. And what is this rubbish about the cost of electricity soaring. Maybe, just maybe, it will spur electricity generators or investors to start building more wind and solar farms which will benefit by the ETS because they are basically carbon free investments once the cost of the embedded carbon used to build them is generated by the system itself. Renewable energy should drop in price and Fossil Fool based energy will rise. Well, that is what I am hoping will happen. Whatever the outcome, my PV system continues to chug away, reducing my energy bills even further. Maybe more people (including governments) will understand that home power generation is also a good thing for them as well as the human race and is not a case of who can or cannot afford a system!
The SMH article was typically one sided, with comments from the CEO of Cement Australia, who, funnily enough has a vested interest in the ETS and the way it is constructed. The process of making cement is a large emitter of CO2, so why wouldn’t they want articles like this one in the press, used to confuse and place fear into the minds of the average Australian. I have also noticed the same sort of stories in other newspapers that have comments from Coal companies, Coal fired Electricity companies, and of course Oil companies, but little in the form of a balanced view by looking at what good will come from an ETS. It reminds me of the Tobacco industry all over again. All these companies are losers in a low carbon economy. These type of smear tactics make me sick to the core, as does the lobbying by these companies towards every government on the planet. The future of the human race as we know it is at stake, not the planets, for gods sake! The planet still will be here long after we have killed ourselves off, or at least a considerable number of us. Profits should not come before people and their ultimate survival on this planet! Nero fiddles, whilst Rome burns, literally.
So get your act together, all you polluters, stop whinging and lobbying, and actually show us your green credentials by determined actions, and make us and future inhabitants of this wonderful planet proud. You can do it, I know you can, because companies have souls, and the souls are the people that work there. When enough people have the courage to stand up for what is the right thing to do, then good stuff happens.
Change happens. There is that scary C word again, I love it. So much self inflicted change (for the better) has happened to me and my family in the last two years, and the musings of this blog is testament to that, so what is another one? Bring on the low carbon economy. I am ready for it, and so are many others like me. We must all remember that we only have one place to live in this big wide universe, so lets treat our tiny blue green marble with the respect it deserves, and stop stuffing it up for our grandchildren and future generations.
BRING IT ON!
Hear, hear!
What I really don’t understand is why so many people here in the UK (not sure how Australians feel) are against wind farms because “they’re ugly”. All I can say is that it’s going to be a much uglier world if we don’t accept them and quite honest, partly because of their use I suppose, I find them quite beautiful. There’s something very calming about watching a wind turbine turn, knowing that it’s doing a good job for the environment.