ETS: emissions trading scheme or energy tax swindle?

“This is extravagance, Sir, this is madness.” This was the reaction of Lord Chancellor Somers when King William III showed him his proposed abdication speech.

William was exasperated with myopic politicians who wanted to run down England’s defences against France. William relented.

But as he feared, the politicians were wrong. France was intent on European domination; war broke out and lasted 13 years.

Now we have foolish politicians, having inherited a rolled gold economy, intent on running it down and burdening future generations with an ideologically based Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS).

And just as a frog put into a cooking pot of cold water is said not to notice if the temperature is increased ever so slowly, the ETS will be designed to be gradually imposed in the hope that the electors will not notice.

That’s why any ETS - in 2010 or 2012 - ought to be opposed.

The only way an ETS can achieve what the taxpayer funded advertisements allege is if the answer to each of the following five questions is “Yes”.

If only one produces a negative response, the ETS is exposed as just another energy tax. The ETS will be nothing more than an Energy Tax Swindle.

The five questions are:

1. Is the world’s climate warming, or still warming?
2. Do man made carbon dioxide emissions significantly affect the weather?
3. Do no other factors beyond human control significantly affect the weather?
4. Will the advent of an Australian ETS persuade China, India and the US to enter into a similar world wide ETS almost immediately?
5. Will an Australian ETS by itself have any significant effect on the weather in Australia?

The answer to most, perhaps all of these is likely to be no.

There is now a serious debate as to whether the world is warming or is still warming. And if it is, there are a large number of disinterested scientists (those without any conflict of interest) who doubt the impact of man-made emissions on the climate.