This tax, however, is just their latest assault in the decades-long war on carbon that is already inflating the cost of everything.

For at least a decade, power companies have been obliged to source 10-15% of their power at inflated prices from costly and unreliable sources like wind and solar. And for every wind or solar plant built, a duplicate backup gas facility is needed, increasing the demand and price for backup gas, hitting other gas consumers. Moreover, the threat of more carbon taxes has deterred the construction of efficient new coal-burning power plants. Rising electricity costs feed into the cost of everything from public transport to building materials.

The climatists are also responsible for numerous policies pushing up the price of food. These include the ethanol/biofuel madness, the restrictions on the fishing industry, the Kyoto scrub clearing bans, the spread of carbon-credit forests over farming and grazing land, the never ending war on irrigators, and the virtual ban on building new water-supply dams.

Then we have all the hidden costs of the climate industry. Thousands of our smartest graduates are lured into well-paid dead-end desk jobs in the overheads industry devoted to climate red tape, while real entrepreneurs are unable to find workers to develop our continent of under-utilised resources. There is an overpaid bureaucracy devoted to climate “research”, alternate energy, international junkets, Kyoto give-aways, and administration, auditing, enforcement, accounting, law and propaganda for their empire of climate taxes and subsidies.

Finally we have income tax implications from all the money being flung around to bribe people to accept their carbon tax? Every Australian will get these bills somewhere, sometime. And who pays for the hundreds of millions poured down subsidy rat-holes like carbon capture, solar panels, pink bats and the IPCC?

Australia’s crippling carbon tax is but the latest symptom of the costly Climate Madness infecting the well-fed elite of the western world.

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Text from Viv Forbes, photograph from Jennifer Marohasy taken near Lithgow, NSW

At that time , many social organizations congratulated and supported these new conventions with hope. Twenty years later, we see the real causes of environmental, economic, and social deterioration continuing without being attacked. Worse still, we are profoundly alarmed that the next meeting in June will serve to deepen neoliberal policies and processes of capitalist expansion, concentration, and exclusion that today have enveloped us in an environmental, economic, and social crisis of grave proportions. Beneath the deceptive and badly intentioned term “green economy”, new forms of environmental contamination and destruction are now rolled out along with new waves of privatization, monopolization, and expulsion from our lands and territories.

La Via Campesina will mobilize for this event, representing the voice of the peasant in the global debate and defending a different path to development that is based on the well being of all, that guarantees food for all, that protects and guarantees that the commons and natural resources are put to use to provide a good life for everyone and not to meet the needs for accumulation of a few.

20 years after the Earth Summit, life on the planet has become dramatically difficult. The number of hungry people has increased to almost a billion, which means that one out of every six people is going hungry, mostly children and women in the countryside.

Expulsion from our lands and territories is accelerating, no longer only due to conditions of disadvantage imposed upon us by trade agreements and the industrial sector, but by new forms of monopoly control over land and water, by the global imposition of intellectual property regimes that steal our seeds, by the invasion of transgenic seeds, and by the advance of monoculture plantations, mega-projects, and mines.

The grand promises of Río ’92 have resulted a farce. The Convention on Biodiversity has not stopped the destruction of biodiversity and has strengthened and generated new mechanisms destined to privatize it and turn it into merchandise…

The great deceit of 1992 was “sustainable development”, which social organizations initially saw as a possibility to confront the root of the problems. However, it was nothing more than a cover-up for the search for new forms of accumulation. Today they look to legitimize a new façade under the name “green economy”…

Governments, business people, and the organizations of the United Nations have spent these last years constructing the myth of the “green economy” and of the “greening of technology”. They present it as a new possibility to bring together environmental stewardship and business, but it is in fact the vehicle to obtain new advances of capitalism, putting the entire planet under the control of big capital. There are various mechanisms that will be advanced by the green economy and all of them will increase the destruction. More specifically,

The green economy does not seek to reduce climate change or environmental deterioration, but to generalize the principle that those who have money can continue polluting. Up to now, they have used the farce of purchasing carbon bonds to continue emitting greenhouse gases. They are now inventing biodiversity bonds. This is to say, businesses can continue destroying forests and ecosystems, as long as they pay someone to supposedly conserve biodiversity somewhere else. Tomorrow they may invent bonds for water, natural “views”, or clean air.

These systems of buying environmental services are being used to take lands and territories away from indigenous peoples and peasants. The mechanisms that are most forcefully promoted by governments and businesses are the systems known as REDD and REDD plus. They say that these are systems to reduce greenhouse gas emissions produced by deforestation and degradation of the forests, but they are being used to impose, for a ridiculous price, management plans that deny families and rural communities access to their own lands, forests, and water sources. In addition, they guarantee businesses unrestricted access to collective forest areas, enabling biopiracy. They also impose contracts that tie communities to these management plans for 20 years or more and that leave indigenous and peasant territories with mortgage liens, that increases the likelihood that these communities will lose their lands. The objectives of these environmental services are to take control of nature reserves and of the territories that are under the control of these communities…

One of the most perverse aspects of the false solutions that are promoted in international negotiations is the restriction of access to and use of water for irrigation. Using the pretext that water for irrigation is scarce, it is suggested that water be concentrated in “high value crops”; meaning that export crops, agrofuels and other industrial crops are irrigated while food crops are left without water.

The promotion of technological solutions that are not solutions at all is also part of the agenda of the discussions in Rio. Among the most dangerous are geoengineering and the acceptance of transgenic crops. Up until now, none of the solutions proposed by geoengineering have demonstrated any real capacity to solve climate problems. On the contrary, some forms of geoengineering (like the fertilization of the seas) are so dangerous that there has been an international moratorium declared aginst them. To accept Genetically modified organism (GMOs), we are told that crops resistant to drought and heat will be created, but the only thing new in GMOs are more herbicide-resistant varieties, which are bringing back to the market highly toxic herbicides like 2,4-D.

The most ambitious plan and the one that some governments identify as “the major challenge” is to put a price on all the goods of nature (like water, biodiversity, the countryside, wildlife, seeds, rain, etc.) to then privatize them (arguing that conservation requires money) and charge us for their use. This is called the Economy of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB). It is the final assault on nature and life, but also on the means of work and the lives of the people whose livelihoods are based on agriculture, hunting, and fishing.

This “green” capitalism has the rural commons, agriculture, land and water particularly in its sights. We are already suffering from its effects in the form of land grabs or monopolization of land, privatization of water, the oceans, of indigenous territories, the national parks and nature reserves; all these processes are being accompanied by the forced expulsions of peasant and indigenous communities.

We, peasants and indigenous peoples, are the ones who are concentrated in the highest levels of poverty because we have been deprived of land and we have been constrained by law or by force so that we cannot cultivate and exchange freely. Nonetheless, we are people who have been resisting expulsion from the countryside, and still we are more than 90% of the rural population. Our forms of agriculture cool the planet, care for ecosystems and secure the food supply for the poorest.

Every real solution happens to impinge upon the unbridled profits of capital, put an end to the complicity of governments and supports forms of production that effectively care for the planet. Food Sovereignty is at the heart of the necessary changes, and is the only real path that can possibly feed all of humanity. Our proposals are clear and introduce real solutions:

We should exchange the industrial agroexport food system for a system based on food sovereignty, that returns the land to its social function as the producer of food and sustainer of life, that puts local production of food at the center, as well as the local markets and local processing. Food sovereignty allows us to put an end to monocultures and agribusiness, to foster systems of peasant production that are characterized by greater intensity and productivity, that provide jobs, care for the soil and produce in a way that is healing and diversified. Peasant and indigenous agriculture also has the ability to cool the planet, with the capacity to absorb or prevent almost 2/3 of the greenhouses gases that are emitted every year.

The land currently in the hands of peasants and indigenous peoples is around 20% of all agricultural land in the world. And yet l, on this land the peasant and indigenous families and communities produce slightly less than half of the world’s food. The most secure and efficient way to overcome hunger around the world is in our hands…

We repudiate and denounce the green economy as a new mask to hide increasing levels of corporate greed and food imperialism in the world, and as a brutal “green washing” of capitalism that only implements false solutions, like carbon trading, REDD, geoengineering, GMOs, agrofuels, bio-char, and all of the market- based solutions to the environmental crisis.

Our goal is to bring back another way of relating to nature and other people. This is also our duty, and our right and so we will continue fighting and calling on others to continue fighting tirelessly for the construction of food sovereignty, for comprehensive agrarian reform and the restoration of indigenous territories, for ending the violence of capital and restoring peasant and indigenous systems of production based on agroecology.

Read more here: http://www.viacampesina.org/en/index.php?option=com_content&view=section&layout=blog&id=4&Itemid=26

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We know that Jennifer does not agree with all of what we have to say. We know that Jennifer is a supporter of transgenic crops and Monsanto. But we thank her for permission to post here and we know that fundamentally she supports our struggle for property rights and dignity.

The Adelaide Advertiser has not published your letter to the editor in response to the very crazy claims it published on Saturday from Minister Paul Caica. It published errors of fact and has not corrected them.[1]

The news today in Adelaide is the new Goyder Institute Report which can be downloaded here:

http://www.goyderinstitute.org/uploads/Expert%20Panel%20Final_020412.pdf

This report has been written by some of our most popular scientists including: Aldridge KT, Jolly ID, Nicol J, Oliver RL, Paton DC and Walker KF. This is the same Dr Walker who told the ABC TV Media Watch team that Lake Alexandrina has always been a freshwater lake.

I know this report is going to be demanding more freshwater for South Australia and more freshwater for the Lower Lakes. It will be very popular in Adelaide.

We lost the Grand Prix to Victoria. Now we want their water.

No one wants to hear your sensible practical solution of restoring the Murray River’s estuary. In South Australia we just want to complain and we want more water and the Adelaide Advertiser wants to sell more newspapers.

Charlotte Ramotswe.

PS Regarding that Media Watch researcher: Xanthe Kleinig. There is a Kleinig’s Hill near the town of Victor Harbour. Should Media Watch have told viewers their chief researcher perhaps had a family interest in more freshwater or told views that this was another Kleinig family? And Kleinig’s Producer at Media Watch Lin Buckfield is a member of a band called Bully Girls.

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[1] http://jennifermarohasy.com/2012/04/south-australian-water-minister’s-foolish-statements-about-murray-river-and-ngarrindjeri-culture/

More recently the South Australian government has been encouraging the subdivision of land around the shores of Lake Alexandrina.   That’s irresponsible.

Now its approved the subdivision of land on the edge of Lake Albert.  Apparently it’s to be a canal development with the canals full of freshwater.

I guess that’s just another vested interest to join all the others around Lake Alexandrina and Albert lobbying for more of the waters from the upper Murray and Darling.

Yep.  On my drive home today on Greenhill Rd., I saw this huge sign advertising lifestyle lots for sale called “Meningie Waters”.  Here’s a description from the local newspaper…

“Coorong District Mayor Roger Strother said plans for the development had been delayed for the past six years because of drought with some adjustments made to the design to cater for a similar situation.

“Originally the canal system was suppose to be connected to the lake but now it won’t be,” he said.  Mayor Strother said developers had taken into consideration the environmental needs of the lakeside
township and had met all protocols.

“This is being developed on a low salty flat area so won’t affect any wildlife in the lake,” he said.

“They plan on using a lot of groundwater to fill the canals and will have to pump some water in.”

From Charlotte R.

http://www.murrayvalleystandard.com.au/news/local/news/general/meningie-set-for-population-explosion/2446288.aspx

http://www.meningiewaters.com.au

http://www.facebook.com/MeningieWaters

Of course the Adelaide Advertiser has never let the facts get in the way of a good story and so, without explaining that there is a local solution to the problem, their journalist Catherine Hockley supports the advertisement organised by the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) with a nonsense story headlined ‘Politicians unite to rescue the Murray’

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/politicians-unite-to-rescue-the-murray/story-e6frea6u-1226080269703

This is parochial politics at its worst and shows a complete disregard for upstream environments and communities.

Of course, during the recent drought the Lower Lakes did suffer, and it was so unnecessary. The South Australian government choose to keep the barrages – build across the bottom of the Lake system – closed keeping out the Southern Ocean. Thus the lakes started to dry-up and acid sulphate soils were exposed.

A new website ‘Myth and the Murray’ corrects some of the many myths spun by the Adelaide Advertiser over many years:

1. Murray’s Mouth first closed in 1981.

The narrow breach in the coastal sand bar-dune system, now officially the Murray River’s mouth, was closed when the first European visited the area in 1830.

Charles Sturt described in detail how his men were unable to maneuver their boat from Lake Alexandrina to the Southern Ocean because they were “blocked by sandbars”.

During the recent drought a sand-dredge worked to keep the narrow inlet open. As soon as the drought broke, the dredge was no longer needed.

2. Lakes will become hypersaline.

There is a fear that without the barrages the lakes would become hypersaline, in reality, without the barrages, the natural tidal prism would facilitate scouring of the Murray’s mouth and flushing of the system.

Robert Bourman and his Adelaide University colleagues describe the dramatic change that occurred with the construction of the barrages:

“Originally a vibrant, highly productive estuarine ecosystem of 75,000 ha, characterized by mixing of brackish and freshwater with highly variable flows, barrage construction has transformed the lakes into freshwater bodies with permanently raised water levels; freshwater discharge has been reduced by 75 percent and the tidal prism by 90 percent.”

3. Lakes will become acidic.

During the recent drought the barrages acted as dykes; water levels dropped and Lake Albert dried-up exposing potential acid sulfate soils. These soils are harmless as long as they remain undisturbed and waterlogged, but when exposed to oxygen sulfuric acid forms.

The development of acid sulfate soils can be avoided by restoring the Murray River’s estuary and letting the area fill with seawater during drought.
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The Lower Lakes can only be saved with seawater; with a return to their natural estuarine state.

If the Adelaide Advertiser, the ACF and South Australia’s politicians really cared about saving the Lower Lakes they would be getting behind The Myth and the Murray Group and their well-researched and practical solutions…

www.mythandthemurray.org

Leading speaker for the motion was Mr. Matthew Bell (Climate Change & Sustainability Services, Ernst & Young), supported by Ms. Kellie Caught (Acting Head of Climate Change, WWF Australia) and Mr. Kirby Anderson (Policy Leader, Energy Infrastructure, General Electric).

Speaking against the motion were Mr. Michael Matusik (Director, Matusik Property Insights), supported by Mr. John Humphreys (Director, Human Capital Project, University of Queensland) and Professor Bob Carter (James Cook University and Institute of Public Affairs).

The audience of about 150 persons were treated to some pointed exchanges, with the team speaking for the motion concentrating rather more on the science, and their opponents almost exclusively on the economics and cost:benefit analysis of the introduction of a carbon tax.

One compelling argument was the observation that to introduce a carbon tax of $25/tonne of carbon dioxide would cost around $100 billion by 2020, for a notional benefit of 0.0002O C (two ten thousandths of a degree) of warming averted.

The opponents of the tax were awarded a clear win, on rendered applause, by debate Chairman Mr Mark Ludlow (Australian Financial Review).

The briefing was provided by the only scientist on the Committee, Professor Will Steffen. A copy of the slide presentation that Steffen used has recently come into the public domain.

Quadrant Online has today posted an analysis by four independent scientists and an economist of Professor Steffen’s presentation, http://www.quadrant.org.au/blogs/doomed-planet/2011/04/government-misadvised .

The analysis demonstrates that Steffen provided the MCCC with only alarmist, inaccurate IPCC advice; no attempt was made to familiarize committee members with the reasons that many independent scientists all around the world view the IPCC as a deeply flawed organisation, whose advice on climate change is almost valueless.

This analysis of Steffen’s advice of last November is the latest in a series of papers critical of IPCC science which go back to 2009. The Australian government and its advisory scientists have failed to respond to any of these critiques, apparently hoping that if they ignore criticism it will go away. Given mainstream media attitudes, this ploy has regrettably proved to be very effective.

Australian citizens – who will be paying the costs of the intended new carbon dioxide tax – should demand that the press and government alike listen to independent scientific assessments of the global warming issue, and undertake critical analyses of the unsatisfactory scientific advice that has been provided by Professor Steffen and the IPCC.

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Other due diligence reports & related commentaries on Australian Government advice on climate change can be found here: http://www.quadrant.org.au/blogs/doomed-planet/2011/04/due-diligence-reports

I feel compelled to alert your readers to the significant property developments occurring in the vicinity of the Lower Lakes in South Australia.

There is the canal development on Hindmarsh Island with pictures at this link:
http://tmhi.com.au/home/

The ‘Wellington Marina’ development occurred during the drought. No water at all on these ‘waterfront’ blocks when the levels are minus 1m AHD. And my guess is that even at sea level, hardly a tinny would float. The Wellington development has houses on it that look maybe 10 years old:
http://www.wellingtonmarina.com.au/index.htm

This other one, ‘Mannum Waters’, was approved by the state government during the height of the drought. It’s a big one and the city of Mannum appears to be welcoming it to boost tourism.
http://www.mannumwaters.com.au/

At ‘Milang Bay’ it’s not canal style, but lake front:
http://www.sarahhomes.com.au/land_dev.php#MILANG

Then there is ‘Pelican Shores Estate’, again not canal style either, but dependent on water at Clayton Bay for water views. No website but a lot of blocks for sale.

There must be a lot of money tied up in these developments!

Of course they depend on the river being at an artificially high height above sea level.

What I mean is that these developments depend on the barrages maintaining what you have correctly described as an artificial freshwater lake system.

Most Sincerely
Charlotte Ramotswe

This link is to a petition urging the Prime Minister to delay the introduction of carbon tax legislation until after an election:

http://www.epetitions.comeonaustralia.com/petition/sign/pid/9

Please sign the petition if you agree with its terms.  Thanks, Case Smit

The Prime Minister explained that by making products that generate carbon emissions more expensive, people will use less of them and this will be a good thing for Australia.

For example, if the carbon tax increases the average Australian family’s electricity bill by $500 and the electricity bill of an average small business by $2,000, families and businesses will use less electricity and this will be a good thing for Australia.

At the same time the Prime Minister announced the tax, she explained that families would be compensated for any increase in electricity charges.   But how will families be compensated?  The Prime Minister must be careful that families are not compensated in a way that would result in them using more electricity.

Indeed, wouldn’t it make more sense if the Prime Minister didn’t compensate anyone for the tax?

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http://www.pm.gov.au/press-office/climate-change-framework-announced