If you thought global warming hysteria couldn’t get any worse, think again:
A WEST Australian medical expert wants families to pay a $5000-plus “baby levy” at birth and an annual carbon tax of up to $800 a child.
Writing in today’s Medical Journal of Australia, Associate Professor Barry Walters said every couple with more than two children should be taxed to pay for enough trees to offset the carbon emissions generated over each child’s lifetime.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Misanthropy never lurks far behind some folks’ environmental rhetoric.
Of course, The “experts” could just go and jump off a cliff and save some resources.
It’s stuff like this that kicks in my instinctive desire to put on a pair of doc martins and go stomp hippies. I am an adult now and do not wish to go to jail, so I won’t actually do it…but that instinct is still there. I am all for smart conservation and more $ going into alternative energy, but this is just silly.
Environmental protesters don’t usually go to jail, unfortunately.
Luke should welcome that proposal, if for no other reason, because such left-wing global warming approaches would keep me and every aware conservative from ever considering a move to Australia.
Woody – the proposal has been welcomed widely in Australia – Kevin Rudd has appointed a taskforce to consider immediate implementation. I’m personally disappointed that it’s so low – I think $20,000 would be more appropriate and the parents should be made plant the trees themselves.
Right wing gimps like you will have it applied to yourself retrospectively with interest. It’s highly likely to be law very soon, so if were you Woody definitely don’t consider visiting over here. Sepo stay home !
Most taxation schemes have the effect of reducing CO2 output. They’re a drag on the economy, and a reduction of economic activity reduces the use of fossil fuels.
This taxation scheme is stupid, though. It would tend to reduce the number of taxpayers, which, in the end, would result in lower tax income.
James, how well you illustrate that misanthropy is the instinctive human reaction to misanthropists. LOL
Nobody seems to have noticed the obvious error in the article. The professor wrote “the average annual carbon dioxide emission by an Australian individual was about 17 metric tons, including energy use”.
This amount seems unusually high. You can get an accurate CO2 measure from the household geenhouse calculator at
http://www.greenhouse.gov.au/gwci/calculator.html
I would suggest that 17 tonnes of CO2 is what a family of four would produce. Probably the professor is confusing per capita consumption including industry with actual household consumption.
I’m with you IceClass — sounds awfully like a master race / Untermenschen scenario to me.
But such inferences are unworthy , unfair , shallow and simplistic so we’re told.
If the good professor ( and any others of similar mind ) truly believe the world is overpopulated then they’re most welcome to do their bit as individuals to address the problem.
‘sounds awfully like a master race / Untermenschen scenario to me.” Bit of a straw man there, Jim. The baby bonus and family tax initatives have amounted to a fat lot of middle-class welfare for people that probably would have had children anyway.
According to Dr Craig Emmerson, last finanical year $100 million dollars was redirected to Australia’s wealthiest households with children at the expense of households without children. That is 1000 hospital bed nights or 100km of highway (or a LOT of bicycle paths if greenhouse gas emmissions are The Issue[tm]).
Families with children are not always struggling. The real hysteria comes from the middle-class entitlement-poisoned “breeders” that claim that without family benefits their children will be starving in the streets which is laughable in the face of record childhood obesity rates. The truth is, without bonuses and entitlements, such children may have to be deprived of the latest I-pod.
The earth can only sustain a limited number of people. A Western child born today gobbles up far too large a proportion of the planet’s resources. Stabilising and reducing the human population is just one of the risk management strategies that can present a sustainable future for the next generation.
Luke and SJT are invited to make a retroactive voluntary carbon contribution because of their births.
As a parent, I would say, “Fine. But, these people who tax us for our kids will now have to pay us royalties for any technological advances which they enjoy that are made by our kids–in whom WE made an investment and not “those other people. Also, you can’t use their taxes for your government retirement. It’s a business because of you. Sorry.”
I think we need to select a nucleus of suitable breeders.
Australia’s fertility rate (like most developed countries) is already at, or below replacement.
What surprised me (particularly in light of a previous thread) is that China is also in the lowest rank and India in the second lowest rank.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Fertility_rate_world_map.PNG
The humanitarian answer for a future sustainable and peaceful planet is economic development, not the continuation of poverty and misery implicit in the futile, even insane, endeavor of ‘fighting climate change’.
Further to my last post, the site ‘Gapminder’ provides a convenient way to trace the progress of world fertility rates over the past 40 years as well as other interesting comparisons.
http://www.gapminder.org/world/#$majorMode=map$is;shi=t;ly=2003;lb=f;il=t;fs=11;al=30;stl=f;st=f;nsl=t;se=t$wst;tts=C$ts;sp=6;ti=1960$zpv;v=1$inc_x;mmid=XCOORDS;iid=NY.GDP.PCAP.PP.KD;by=const$inc_y;mmid=YCOORDS;iid=SP.DYN.LE00.IN;by=const$inc_s;uniValue=20;iid=SP.DYN.TFRT.IN;by=ind$inc_c;uniValue=255;gid=1004;iid=SP.POP.DPND;by=grp$map_s;sma=50;smi=1.2$inds=
Hey, you have all missed the best bit. Professor Walters is clinical associate professor of obsetetric medicine.
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/
Just as well you capitalised the WEST in the topic. Lets just be clear, I’m from the EAST.