Power without Mercy

Oi luvvies, it's that time of the solstice again when all the ducks line up and the turkeys start gobbling down on some good old fashioned useless debate about matters of inconsequence. Take this piece of trite rubbish lifted directly from our national newspaper: letters to the editor of the Australian. This is classic Mitchell stirring the pot with some so subtle put downs of greenism.

Those of us with a view to the future recognise the need for climate action in the form of a carbon tax. To make it truly effective, the revenue raised also needs to be used to reduce carbon emissions. Two effective ways of doing this are to properly fund public transport and to give incentives, in the form of rebates, for householders installing solar electricity. Joy Ringrose, Pomona, Qld

Hands up those who took this letter seriously? Move to the back of the class and say 100 times, "gor blimey, it aint alf hot eh mum". That should keep you busy forever because you probably can't count to 100. Idiot.

Now it's a fair bet to say that Joy is a lefty without much of a clue about megawatthours, or the costs of public transport or how unpopular it is because, yee gads, it's public, it's australian, and it's next to useless. She has, though, hit on one key word, incentive, then killed it with the next, rebate, and buried it with the the next idea, solar electricity. Joy might have noticed that the sun doesn't run at night and most households are unwilling or unable to give up their microwave, toaster, kettle, hot water service or any other big current sucker. Joy possibly doesn't realise just what batteries are made of, the huge amount of energy that goes into making them or the disposal problem these little toxic chemical factories generate. Go to bed Joy. We'll call you when we want another vacuous lefty statement again. Tomorrow. Nothing like lefties showing their ignorance and emotional imbalance. God bless them. Oh and, by the way, solar panellists aren't the only ones with a view to the future.

Admittedly, I once thought solar panels on every roof, green gridding as it's called, was a good idea. But with a 16% efficiency rating, solar photovoltaic transformation of our power generation won't be a reformation, just a deformation. Forget it. It works for me and my hippie mates in our bush camps but stuff all else. And pubic transport, well it's a great idea once commuters are incentivaterised into using it. I won't hold my breath.

Back to sledging carbon warriors and their silly taxes and schemes. I'm going to go to great lengths to avoid paying any ridiculous, emotive, wasteful carbon tax that won't acheive anything but give the government more money. The same goes for the even more ridiculous half-arsed idea of emissions trading. Duh.

Why do people believe in stupidity. Well the big money wants ETS because it means more big money. For them. Plus it's the ultimate green marketing tool. We trade our emissions! Well so do I but that's a personal thing. Face it, anything that increases costs and hands power and money to any government is doomed to terminal bureaucracy that achieves a lot of consultation, committee meetings, finger food luncheons, adherence to process and flossy reports but no real world results.

There's got to be a better way, ROI for fossil fuel companies notwithstanding.

Now I'm going to digress for a little bit then get back on track, or at least cross it a few times. As much as I despise the U.S. administration, I like that name, administration. Give the people free rein to achieve and just keep tabs on the whole thing, take a tithe and spend it on military hardware. Damn fine idea, but of course, humans are involved so it's not so damn fine. We've seen first hand when the un-regulated U.S. banking and investment sector takes a dive, it takes the whole world down with it.

Take Australia's government. Job is to govern. Run by governors. A governor on a motor limits engine speed, limits power output, generally limits. It's like driving with the handbrake on. A dumb idea. So why would we want to give money to a hand brake? Huh? Why? So it can control us, impose it's ideologies on us? Create a society where it's ok to be stupid but not ok to be clever or creative. If you succeed you are greedy and should pay a higher rate of tax. Hmmm, sounds like socialism. Sounds like, Australia.

Once upon a time, Australia had a Prime Minister who said, Thou shalt invest in research and development and get a 150% tax deduction. Who was that man and why was he evicerated from office? Where would we be now if the 150% tax deductible R&D was being done on clean energy supply or massively increasing the efficiencies of fossil fuel burning? Even those greedy, creative types at car companies and energy companies would go for this. Less tax is less tax after all.

So that's the answer folks. Don't give money to governments. Change governments to administrations and give people free rein to find the answers by letting them pay less tax, not more, for coming up with good ideas. Empowerment, not control. Government, by definition, can't work. So any hair brain idea like carbon tax or ETS won't work either. You know it.