Carbon is innocent! New Paper. Plus UPDATE.

Let me outta here!

It is weird that the alarmists refer to carbon instead of carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide is two oxygen atoms bonded to a single carbon atom. Get it? The senior partner is oxygen and the junior partner is carbon. Why then shouldn't the alarmists, if they want simplification, call it oxygen?

How does these sound?

• "There will be no oxygen tax under a government that I lead!"
• Oxygen Tax.
• Oxygen Trading schemes.

Doesn't ring true, does it?

The reason for the use of the word "carbon" is to somehow suggest something, dirty, grimy.

If we use their terminology to refer to H2O or water, we would only refer to the junior partner and ask for a glass of oxygen. See how ridiculous it is?

Anyhow, NCTCS blog has consistently referred to the lack of evidence to "convict" carbon dioxide, we have written of the 800 year lag between temperature rise and rise in CO2, (Link Jo Nova) but we now have a peer reviewed paper as back-up.

The peer reviewed journal Global And Planetary Change have published a paper by Ole Humlum at al : 

The phase relation between atmospheric carbon dioxide and global temperature

(link:  http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.gloplacha.2012.08.008)    (abstract: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921818112001658?v=s5)

The Hockey Schtick writes (Link)

New blockbuster paper finds man-made CO2 is not the driver of global warming

An important new paper published today in Global and Planetary Change finds that changes in CO2 follow rather than lead global air surface temperature and that "CO₂ released from use of fossil fuels have little influence on the observed changes in the amount of atmospheric CO₂" The paper finds the "overall global temperature change sequence of events appears to be from 1) the ocean surface to 2) the land surface to 3) the lower troposphere," in other words, the opposite of claims by global warming alarmists that CO2 in the atmosphere drives land and ocean temperatures. Instead, just as in the ice cores, CO2 levels are found to be a lagging effect of ocean warming, not significantly related to man-made emissions, and not the driver of warming.

Read more at The Hockey Schtick.

UPDATE:

 

Over at the psuedo-science blog of youno, the chief blogger, self-confessed pseudonymous blogger has picked me up on nomenclature. He thinks that I am wrong when I want the tax on carbon to be called a carbon dioxide tax. 

 “let’s name it for what it is and we’ll name the “junior partner” second. Let’s call it aDioxygen carbide tax. Yes yes, that sounds much better. "

I think I get it!  But wait, there’s more! 

Most people learn in about year 8 at school (that might explain it) that there is a convention for chemical nomenclature. It’s not difficult. For the sake of keeping it even simpler I won’t mention the conventions when there is a charge involved. For binary metal/non-metal compounds, the metal goes first and the non-metal has ‘ide’ added e.g Chlorine + sodium becomes Sodium Chloride (NaCl).

But hang on, youno, that’s my argument – put the carbon first and then put di (ie two) before the oxygen therefore carbon dioxide. So are you making my argument for me? Or are you insisting that it is OK to call Carbon dioxide just plain carbon?

 

So according to you, therefore carbon can be used, in nomenclature for any carbon compound, is that right?

So carbon mono-oxide and carbon dioxide can both be called carbon, right? 

Tetrafluoroethylene  C2F2 and acetylene C2H2 can correctly be described as carbon.

 I think that I am getting it.   

Propylene C3H3 and butane C4H10  and benzene C6H6 similarly should be just called carbon.

Youno blogger has picked me up on nomenclature. He thinks that I am wrong when I want the tax on carbon to be called a carbon dioxide tax.

“let’s name it for what it is and we’ll name the “junior partner” second. Let’s call it a Dioxygen carbide tax. Yes yes, that sounds much better."

I think I get it!  But wait, there’s more! 

Most people learn in about year 8 at school (that might explain it) that there is a convention for chemical nomenclature. It’s not difficult. For the sake of keeping it even simpler I won’t mention the conventions when there is a charge involved. For binary metal/non-metal compounds, the metal goes first and the non-metal has ‘ide’ added e.g Chlorine + sodium becomes Sodium Chloride (NaCl).

But hang on, youno, that’s my argument – put the carbon first and then put di (ie two) before the oxygen therefore carbon dioxide. So, are you making my argument for me? Or are you insisting that it is OK to call Carbon dioxide just plain carbon?

Because, if I understand you correctly, according to you, carbon can be used, in nomenclature, for any carbon compound, is that right?

So carbon mono-oxide and carbon dioxide can both be called carbon, right? 

Tetrafluoroethylene  C2F2 and acetylene C2H2 can correctly be described as carbon. 

I think that I am getting it.   

Propylene C3H3 and C4H10 and benzene C6H6 similarly should just be called carbon.

Simple isn't it? Or is it Youno who is the simpleton?

 

 

Combet removes the floor and pulls the carpet on carbon trading.

Image: Larry Pickering

Combet removes the floor and pulls the carpet on carbon trading.

by NCTCS Secretary Anthony Cox 

also published by On Line Opinion

Greg Combet, the minister for climate change [AGW], is the government’s ‘silk purse out of a sow’s ear’ man, and accordingly, was left to announce that the floor price for the 2015 transition from a carbon tax to an emission trading scheme [ETS] was being lowered and tied to the European trading scheme.

Even by the entertaining standards of this current federal government this announcement is remarkable. It follows on from a sustained barrage by most of the senior ministers that the floor price was a good thing and would, in Gillard’s words, provide “stability”.

Combert’s announcement and subsequent media interviews concentrated on the heavily promoted idea that the bulk of the rest of the world is on song with Australia’s carbon tax and that the tax will not be as big a burden as Abbott’s scare tactics have made it out to be. Both of these points are demonstrably fallacious as I have recently shown in the case of the alleged world consensus on the carbon tax and the idea that the effect of the carbon tax will be slight.

Combert also garnished his announcement with the view that the Australian floor price’s connection with the European scheme will give true market bona fides to the Australian ETS when it starts.

Nothing could be further from reality. As Rereke Whaakaro notes the European ETS is not a market based scheme. Each nation within the European Union (EU) has a National Allocation Plan (NAP). These plans are mandated by Brussels, the headquarters of the EU. European Unit Allowances (EUAs), or carbon credits, are allocated to physical installations within the Member State’s NAP. EUAs were intended to be backed by Kyoto carbon units (known as AAU’s), but that was only to permit “currency exchange” between EU and non-EU countries, the EU can operate its ETS without the rest of the world tagging along. The EU maintains a separate registry that holds information in addition to the minimum required by the UNFCCC registry. The major differences are that each allocation is identifiable so the EU knows them by name and every transaction between trading entities is recorded and checked for any irregularities. In effect, a full audit trail of all transactions is kept.

Unlike a market the price of the carbon credits, EUAs, can be manipulated at will by Brussels and the current price of around $8 Australian is due to the arbitrary price setting by the central committee in Brussels.

By tying the Australian carbon price into the European scheme in effect the Australian government will be conceding control of a major element of the Australian economy to the EU.

The world’s only true market trading scheme in carbon credits was run out of Chicago after being started up by Al Gore and Obama among other note-worthies; the Chicago scheme closed in 2010 with the value of the carbon credits having a true market value of 10 cents a tonne.

In fact if the EU ETS scheme was not based on artificial prices it would have collapsed like the rest of the world’s carbon markets.

Despite the artificial price setting member states of the EU scheme like Germany and Ireland have dropped out or closed their carbon bourses and strangled their ETS to prevent criminal activity which abounds in the European system. .

Even California, Combet’s poster state for an ETS, has not implemented its scheme due to complex litigation. And New Zealand has postponed any expansion of its ETS scheme, as has the rest of Europe because, even with non-market price fixing, the price of carbon is still too low to sustain investment in renewable energy.

Which leaves China. China is Combet’s default position; but in every aspect to do with AGW, renewable energy and carbon trading China seems to be playing a classic game of ‘say one thing and do the opposite’ in the national interest.

China’s carbon tax will be on real pollutants not carbon dioxide; China’s production of renewable energy is overwhelmingly for export to other nations such as the EU and Australia and China is investing in nuclear and coal power at an increasing rate. In addition China will continue to import vast amounts of coal none of which will be subject to a carbon tax.

Given this it seems extraordinary that Combet should continually refer to China as an exemplar for Australia’s carbon tax policies.

The real sting in Combet’s announcement about decreasing the floor price for an ETS and aligning with the EU is the impact on the budget revenues. Those revenues depend on an increasing carbon tax and then an ETS floor price of $15. With the current ETS price in Europe around $8 per tonne, a third of the Australian carbon tax, and that amount the product of artificial support, the reliance by Combet on forecast revenue would seem to be overdone by at least 300%.

The government has already spent revenue from the carbon tax before it has come on stream in the form of the various compensations to the Australian electorate. If the future revenue is down by 2/3’s that becomes a very big hole and a very large debt. Debts have to be repaid; so while Combet and the government are currently scornful of Abbott’s fear campaign about the effects of the carbon tax it looks as though they are stage managing those effects so that they are minimised before the election with one giant hangover to be felt after that next federal election.

That is really scary.