by John Zube, veteran Australian libertarian activist
- No one has ever been able to prove that any kind of tax is rightful, efficient and an economic way to raise funds and to spend or invest them. They are just a continuance of the tribute levies of powerful and exploitative States to help them stay in power. Or is there any compulsory tax left that has not yet been revealed as wrong and harmful by genuine economists, like e.g. Murray N. Rothbard?
- Another wrong assumption that is taken for granted in their articles is that CO2 emissions by man’s activities on Earth are to be blamed for what some have asserted to be an acute and dangerous Earth Warming. But man’s activities on Earth can certainly not be blamed for the repeated Earth Warming periods that did occur to Earth in geological times, nor for whatever warming is now occurring also on other planets of this solar system. The obvious cause here and now are variations in the Sun’s radiation output, whose various irregularities, e.g. via Sun spots and Solar Storms, have often been observed and recorded. Climate and CO2-factor sceptics are usually ridiculed rather than refuted.
- If one would take the term “Carbon Tax” literally and serious — and any tax is a serious attack on individual human rights and liberties, then one would realize, that it is another wrongful tax upon people, one that is as wrongful and senseless as e.g. a tax on oxygen, nitrogen or on rare gases in our atmosphere, e.g. Helium, which would also be a wrongfully imposed burden upon people, for it is not these elements which do pay taxes or can be forced to do so.
- We are already taxed, multiple times, and all too highly on all the carbon compounds and other nourishments that are contained in our food, which makes our survival possible.
- Most of the animal, plant, worm, insect, algae, microbe etc. life on Earth is also based on carbon, e.g. in form of carbohydrates. To tax all this carbon would mean a tax on life. Are we to be taxed on all the carbon in our bodies, in our flesh, our bones, sinews, skin, brains, organs and hair? Or on the carbon dioxide we inhale and on the additional carbon dioxide we exhale when we process our food, together with our air and water intake to make our survival possible? Are the carbon compounds remaining in our excreta also to be taxed? When the son of a Roman emperor once criticized him for taxing even toilets, the emperor replied: “Money does not stink!” — sound money certainly does not — but territorial politics does “stink” and is much worse in many other respects.
- Is the carbon in our lawns, our lawn clippings, in our flowers, shrubs and trees in our gardens also to be subjected to taxation, in a consistent application of a “carbon tax”?
- Is our gas-, oil-, coal- or wood burning, for heating and cooking, bathing and showering, to be additionally burdened by this tax?
- Our fences and houses, or fittings and furniture, are to a large extent still made out of wood. Are we to be taxed on this carbon, in addition to e.g. rates and other charges upon our land titles?
- Would the air atmosphere, the oceans, lakes and rivers, the rain water, which also contain much dissolved CO2, be taxed as well by a universal “carbon tax”?
- Should man be taxed as well for all the carbon that is in fertile humus soil and those quantities of carbon unused by us, still buried deep in the ground?
- Are these tribute collectors aware that man’s survival depends on a minimum contents of CO2 in the air and that the existing percentage of it barely exceeds this minimum?
- Are these tribute collectors aware that vast areas of the Earth are, unfortunately, not yet covered with carbon containing fertile black soil to grow human crops on? More carbon in the air, more warmth and more irrigation, could lead to their greater utilization for mankind. Or are we to develop merely into admirers of infertile wilderness areas?
The absurdly shortened term “carbon tax” suggests all such nonsensical applications and yet it is used dozens of times every day in the mass media and by the politicians, which are thereby revealing themselves, once again, to be uncritical, without sufficient judgement, almost mindless, but at least full of popular errors, dogmas, spleens, prejudices and fashionable “public opinion” statements.
Their supposed cure-all for a supposedly great danger is another great wrong and irrationality, another tax burden laid upon the shoulders of the victims of territorial politicians, all power addicts and power mongers, as their “leadership” struggles illustrate.
The greatest pollution danger for human beings are the laws, programs and institutions of territorialist politicians and bureaucrats. They do senselessly destroy or prevent the production and exchange of much more than is destroyed by storms, floods and earthquakes.
If they taxed themselves and their activities, measures, laws, regulations, judgements etc. out of existence — or at least confined them, exterritorially, to their remaining volunteers, then all the rest of us would have good reasons to cheer.
We could then finally do our diverse own things for ourselves, undisturbed by them. Our productive employment and our savings, investments and living standard would then come to boom, permanently.
As long as such terms are as uncritically, wrongfully, irrationally and carelessly used by journalists and by politicians, as legislators, what good can one expect from their legislation?
Alas, the Dark Ages are with us again.
@lokiverloren
March 9, 2011 @ 10:47 pm
for the most part, the oil, coal and gas we have dug out of the grounds originated in the atmosphere of the earth. there is some carbon under the ground that was there previously but obviously with the turnover of tectonic activity and volcanism etc, most of it is inaccessible to us, save perhaps for some of the deposits deep under the sea, 'abiotic' carbon deposits. anyway. if the issue is greenhouse effect, perhaps these twits need to go inside a greenhouse sometime and observe what are the two defining features of greenhouses: glass/plastic walls and … HUMIDITY.
when you burn methane you have the following chemical reaction:
CH4 + O2 -> 2[H2O] + CO2
that's right, more water than carbon dioxide.
the real and main greenhouse gas is water. and due to its strong hydrogen bonds it has a vast latent heat capacity and in part due to this it has one of the highest refractive indexes of any substance. this leads two several properties that make it vital to life on the planet. as solar radiation rises, it evaporates more, leading to higher humidity. the higher average level of humidity leads to an increase in the atmosphere's refractive index. this increases the amount of solar radiation that is reflected, and conversely in low radiation periods, retains heat for a long time which prevents the whole place freezing over even though it overall reduces the pace of carbon sequestering by plants and thus the overall food supply for animal and fungal/bacterial life is reduced.
when people talk about relative humidity, this is that percentage of water in the atmosphere. it typically gets as high as 90% during a heavy monsoon as the rain is falling. that means the atmospheric gases they talk about, nitrogen, carbon and oxygen, are diminished to a mere 10% of the total atmosphere. carbon dioxide is vital to life on this planet. i didn't realise until i read the subsequent article on this site about how typical levels were 1000ppm for most of prehistory on this planet. i have grown plants in carbon dioxide enriched environments, organically, of course, and they easily bulked out 50-100% above normal atmosphere and this was just by venting a brew vat's CO2 out into a 2sqm chamber, which had ventilation.i would estimate a 10-30% rise in CO2 would increase photosynthetic utilisation. it would not hurt the ecosystem at all.
however, the shortsighted morons who have privilege due to their state granted powers would have their position diminished because people would fail to see the point of government if the economy was flourishing. and consequently also, the social engineers in the State do whatever they can to strangle real economic growth. technology has sidestepped them because they got sucked in by the enormous multiplying power of productivity it has, sword to gun to missile to icbm, for example, in their world. and information technology, to spy and spread lies. but in the end, they can't win, because like in the industrial revolution's early days, they can't cope with the rise in population, that back then was fed by the actions of industrialists and the industrialisation of agriculture.
there is no reason to think that is not possible again, the technology we have now is phenomonally advanced and the level of pollution (as in chemical polution, not carbon dioxide) it creates has steadily dropped as both public demand and technological capability has enabled it to be decreased.
anyway, thankyou for this excellent article. i was so pleased when i discovered that i wasn't the only libertarian in australia, the label has been slapped on by many pretenders who are little more than neoconservatives at best.