Ah, the the Kookites turn out on mass. Gentlemen, suggest you start thinking for yourselves, rather than letting that Kook do it for you. Here's a start...

A. Schmittner, N.M. Urban, J.D. Shakun, N.M. Mahowald, P.U. Clark, P.J. Bartlein, A.C. Mix, and A. Rosell-Mele, "Climate Sensitivity Estimated from Temperature Reconstructions of the Last Glacial Maximum", Science, vol. 334, pp. 1385-1388, 2011. http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1203513

Mate you guys can't handle the truth!

Which part of exaggeration don't you?

Hi John,

You have provided far more information on China (some of which I was unaware of) than does the above article. My comment related to the article. It is interesting that my comment, effectively, does not deny climate change, all but defends our carbon tax which the majority of Australian's are still against, criticises nothing other than the suggestion that we are not doing enough when we have only just begun to do something, and suggests nothing other than by Australian's choosing not to purchase products manufactured in the country responsible for the highest emissions of CO2 that CO2 would indeed be reduced directly in line with demand.

I am curious how you have managed, or why you have chosen, to disagree with my comment (as based only on the above article) yet not objected to the article ?? I am also interested to know what part of my comment inspired your retort ;

'You may feel justified to do nothing because you imagine others aren't doing their share but that will be cold comfort to your descendants trying to live with the consequences of our inaction now.'

Thanks. Mark C.

Discrimination Chris ?? Actually, if you read my comment, you'll note that it responds to the Chinese complaining about Australia (and other developed countries) by suggesting ; 'Buy Australian'. Now, whilst I appreciate that you may not be Australian, last I heard, 'Buy Australian' was an act of patriotism not a politically incorrect slur. Yes Chris, I discriminate 'in support of Australia', the question is, why don't you ??

Incidentally, saviour of all things hypocritical, 7 hours prior to my comment was this contribution from you ...

'It's rather ironic that the Chinese are complaining about a lack of action by developed countries when their own sulphate aerosol emissions are causing the rate of global warming to slow down and thus motivate climate science denialism in developed countries.'

"Actually, if you read my comment"

I did, actually. I even quoted you:

"suggests nothing other than by Australian's choosing not to purchase products manufactured in the country responsible for the highest emissions of CO2"

"'Buy Australian'"

So now it's back to being about buying Australian and the CO2 emissions issue is forgotten about. Sorry if I can't keep up with your non-sequiturs.

By the way, it's not the Chinese' fault that climate science denialism is so rampant in developed countries.

I think you're on the money here David. An FFCT sounds pretty sensible - but I'm not an economist. How you go about calculating (and verifying!) the fossil fuel inputs to products though...?

Chris, I don't wish to appear argumentative, I will attempt an explanation, again, but please, if you are going to respond to someone's comment, read all of the sentences.

1. I was responding to the content of this article, not the issue of climate change in general, just as you had done yourself some hours before me.

2. your objection was to my original comment which does state, and I quote ; 'We could pay a bit more and buy locally taxed product instead.' Given that we are in Australia, and talking about Australia, yes, in fact, it actually 'does' say 'Buy Australian'.

3. the sentence which you have quoted comes from my follow up comment which was made for no other reason than to assist you 'alone' in grasping the meaning of my original comment.

If you had an objection somewhere along the way, you have not identified it. Other than to turn a global issue into an excuse to start some kind of racist defence on an attack which never happened, and been completely hypocritical in doing so, you have achieved nothing, therefore, you have not contributed.

Clearly, you use this site purely as a venue to argue, which, doesn't interest me.

Thanks Chris.

Hi David,

Was your reply meant for me or another contributor ?? The concerns which you have addressed I think may have been raised by someone else. I certainly don't disagree with your comment though. I believe that there must be much we can do that is yet to be considered, sometimes a difficult discussion to instigate.

Cheers David.

"Importing goods means burning lots of fossil fuel to get the goods to Australia. "

Moving goods by truck in Australia also means burning lots of fossil fuel, not to mention that the workforce employed in Australia to produce those goods also are responsible for burning far more fossil fuel per person than the workforce in China. Sending things by truck from Sydney to Melbourne most likely uses more fossil fuel than sending them by ship from China to Melbourne.

"Environmental impact of transport (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_transport)
truck 0.1693 kg CO2/ tonne cargo
ship 0.0403 kg CO2/ tonne cargo"

I don't know what those figures actually refer to, especially since the citation ( http://fluglaerm.de/hamburg/klima.htm ) doesn't actually have the numbers given so they must be derived from the citation in some unspecified way. Also, the figure for train transport on the wikipedia page, 0.1048 kg of CO2 per Ton-Mile, is not as much better than the figure for truck transport as I would have expected. So I will remain skeptical until more definitive figures become available.

Also, some capital cities in Australia are a lot further from Sydney than Melbourne is. So even on the above figures, shipping to those cities from China requires less energy than trucking from Sydney.

Thanks Chris. However rough these figures may be, they suffice as first estimates for our purposes.

Please note that I'm NOT arguing that all Australian manufacturing should be conducted in Sydney; I see no reason why goods for the WA market, for example, should not be manufactured in WA, rather than transported from Sydney (or Shanghai). WA is closer to WA than Sydney (or Shanghai); as we increase the PROPORTION of taxation that is based on consumption of fossil fuel, proximity to market will be an increasingly important factor in choosing location of production.

I capitalised the word proportion to try and make it clear that part of introducing the FFCT would be decreases in other taxes. In fact, in all our discussions, wherever I propose introduction of an FFCT, I am also calling for matching decreases in other taxes.

"However rough these figures may be, they suffice as first estimates for our purposes."

Yes, if your purpose is wishful thinking. The problem is not that the figures may be rough, we have absolutely no idea where they came from.

"as we increase the PROPORTION of taxation that is based on consumption of fossil fuel, proximity to market will be an increasingly important factor in choosing location of production."

That's a strawman argument. Shifting nearly all transport to low carbon emissions doesn't necessarily, and I expect probably won't, overtake other economic considerations.

"ship 0.0403 kg CO2/ tonne cargo"

actually 0.0403 kg CO2/ tonne-mile

Checking the Emma Maersk in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_efficiency_in_transportation , it derives that it uses 1kg of fuel per container to transport it 45 km. The containers can weigh 14 tonnes, so this is equivalent to 0.0026 kg fuel/tonne-mile. If I take 3.14 kg as the CO2 produced by 1kg fuel ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_transport seems to assume a lot less) then the Emma Maersk produces 0.0080 kg CO2/tonne-mile.

So your unknown wikipedia cite seems to be out by a factor of 5, David.

Consequently, shipping from China produces a lot less greenhouse gases than trucking from Sydney to Melbourne.

Of course we could always go back to setting up a complete set of factories for everything in every state capital city but I think economics left that idea behind many, many years ago.

Hi David,

The 'WA manufacturing for WA' theory has a few other considerations, none of which I have investigated as such, but perhaps you might be interested to see if they factor into your ideas here.

Whilst WA is rich in minerals, many of the base products required to manufacture specific items would need to be imported first. (for consumer products, the saying goes; nothing leaves WA) I wonder, should WA import the total of these base products would the combined transport etc create greater CO2 emissions than those created by importing the finished product ???? Certainly, from an economic point of view, importing finished product is a more desirable option.

As you would know, population, amongst other things, is another factor which can often prevent the best of our theories becoming practice, and which may be applicable to this scenario. Would you happen to know if the taxes that an FFCT Tax would replace (in your scenario) are all federal or could there be an overlap which may effect state revenue ... thus resistance by the states ????

Paying a little more now for Australian made product would make a serious difference to its cost 10 years from now. (If only I could have convinced more people of that over past years) It's encouraging to see discussion on various approaches or options, you've made some good points and if we're lucky it may just provoke some further thought.

Cheers David.

Gday Mark, I posted the following comment to Prof Geoffrey Brooks's "The Conversation" piece of 15 May 2012, "Treasure your metal: why we need to respect embedded energy", http://theconversation.edu.au/treasure-your-metal-why-we-need-to-respect-embedded-energy-6802.

"1) The world is going to stop using fossil fuels. This means that Australia's export markets for coal and LNG will cease to exist, as will Australian demand for petroleum imports.

"2) The world is going to continue using metals; this means that aluminium will be produced without power generated by fossil fuels. It also means that steel production via carbothermic (coke-using blast furnaces) will also cease; steel will also be produced electrolytically with non-fossil fuel power.

"To maintain its economic position in the face of loss of export coal markets, Australia would be wise to stop exporting iron ore, bauxite and alumina, and start exporting steel and aluminium produced in Australia with non-fossil fuel power."

In other words, I am arguing that because exploitation of Eastern State fossil fuel deposits will cease over the next couple of decades, Australia needs to add value to its remaining minerals. This will provide ample opportunity for downstream industries, particularly in WA.

Chris O'Neill and I had a fairly lengthy dialogue in the comments to Prof Brooks's piece, which you may also find interesting.

Hi again David.

You certainly did have a long conversation about it, I'm surprised that you ever want to mention it again :) I won't weigh in on the technical side, you and a few others clearly know more about the manufacturing processes and options than I am likely to ... without wearing out google anyway. Perhaps you won't mind if I comment on the export process instead.

Unless I've misread, I think the stumbling block, certainly initially, is that the best economic practice for industry in Australia must come at the expense of the end user's current supplier. The theory behind export of finished product 'in place of' raw materials needs to assume a number of assumptions, just a few of which include ;

(1) that there is a market for 'imported' finished product (2) that product could be supplied to the end user at a price competitive with supply under current processes (3) support by relevant Australian private enterprise ... and more.

Similarly, some of the things it must ignore would likely include (4) the possibility that current importers could source raw product from other countries (5) competition from other finished product suppliers (6) that importing countries can even the odds by applying their own taxes (we are talking about a reasonable threat to at least one of their industries) (7) possible foreign aid implications in certain circumstances (8) at least 2 major WTO conflicts ... and more.

Domestically, Australia would need to (9) restrict private enterprise (10) take charge of creating the required infrastructure including either pay for, or at the least, finance the process therefore we need the majority of taxpayers to agree ... so now there's a political process. The majority of Australian's (65%+) are yet to warm to the concept of ... warming, let alone a carbon tax. How would a political party touting the virtues of a Manufacturing Tax (for example) go at the next election ?? Unless it was something along the lines of 'there will be no Manufacturing Tax under the government I lead'. On second thoughts, that one might just work :)

I like your concept David, it would certainly be to Australia's benefit if it could overcome the issues which accompany it ... do you think that any of these are the beginnings of a spanner in the works, or have you already considered them ??

Cheers David.

I'm interested to know why we must return to 300 - 350 ppm CO2. Assuming it has an effect on climate, why is this optimum? At a bit less than half this level, life as we know it can't exist. I consider current level a bit low for comfort.

One of the great mysteries is CO2 levels in the past. Some reports show that it's currently at record high level. Others show that it's been magnitudes higher in the past. Direct measurements are even higher within the last 100 years. My conclusion is that no-one has a clue. I have no reason to believe that current level, or higher, is anything to be concerned about.

Gday Mark, thanks for reading further.

I'm not arguing that Australia should be an exporter of finished products, I'm arguing that Australia should value-add its raw material exports to the point of PROCESSED commodities: export iron and steel instead of iron ore, aluminium instead of bauxite, and so on.

I'm not alone in this thinking: I understand that Indonesia has straight-out BANNED exports of unprocessed minerals.

Elsewhere, I have argued that Australia would do well to create some form of value not-added, to account for the loss to the Australian economy of exporting raw materials instead of processed commodities.

Noting that raw material export requires that more tonnage be transported than export of processed material, it follows that increasing the cost of bulk transport will also favour mineral processing closer to the mine. So long as transport of bulk commodites involves fossil fuel use, the FFCT I propose encourages local processing.

The various factors you set out certainly are confoundments. However, Australia needs to start value-adding to make up for the cessation of coal export demand that must occur over the next couple of decades.

In this time, I expect a substantial diminuition in worldwide bulk commodity trade.

Hi David.

I definitely agree with the process you are suggesting, particularly from our own point of view. Perhaps it may be yet one more example of the manufacturing division and the sales department coming to terms with each others goals and just for a change 'working together to actually make them happen'. The fastest way is usually to overcome the objections in advance. I hope you get a seat on the committee which attempts it so your theory can become practice.

Cheers David.