Carbon Tax starts tomorrow

The world will continue with the carbon tax, my strawberry farmer neighbour and his sign "families can not afford the carbon tax" will continue to farm and the sign to rust into the ground (yipppeeee) and I will be happy to see a price on carbon. Sure this will see an increase in prices and greedy businesses passing this tax on to their consumers, but there will be a recognition for the environment in the economics of business and we may start to make some realistic decisions about what we should and should not invest in.

The environment should not be an externality but something that is costed within prices and this is what the carbon price is about.

I enjoyed reading "Greening of Gavin" blog's post on this topic. Go and have a read and maybe you might also see some light at the end of the tunnel too! Pin It

Carbon tax, how much will it cost you?

A friend of mine and I were discussing the impacts of the carbon tax on individuals in Australia. In her research she had come across an estimator which calculates what the carbon tax will cost your family each year and what compensation the government will provide to you. This estimator is available on the Cleaner Energy Future website.

The website asks you a number of questions and bases its calculations on some typical scenarios, which the site explains, then providing you with an estimate of the cost to your family on an annual basis after the application of the carbon tax. After filling in the questionnaire I discovered my family will be approximately $700 worse off before compensation and after governmental compensation I will be out of pocket about $350 each year.

To me this isn't the end of the world and I personally believe this financial burden in the short-term will in the long-term be reduced with investment into alternative technologies, etc likely to reduce costs to me over time and if I am also not buying products from the companies that are being taxed I will also reduce the likelihood of my financial burden in this market driven disincentive.

Why don't you try this and see what the impact will be on your family? Let me know how you go and see what we can do together to reduce the impacts of this much-needed measure on our families. Pin It

A short summary on the Australian carbon tax

Get Up's short video providing a great summary of how the Australian government's proposed carbon tax will work.

Share the message and stop big business spreading false rumours! Pin It

Ecofund

No matter what size your car is, it is doing some damage to the environment. The burning of fuel (atmospheric pollution), the use of resources (oil, tyres, etc), use of roads which have a footprint on the earth leading to all sorts of direct and indirect impacts, etc. Often we don't think about these things, particularly the less obvious resources, but recently I thought that I should at least do something about the impact my car was having on the atmosphere.There are a number of companies that can now assist you to do this. Basically they offer to "offset" your emissions by planting trees which will "inhale" the emissions you put into the air when you drive around!

I previously had Greenfleet offset my car's emissions. At the time they were undertaking tree planting in Victoria. This is a good cause, even though I live in Queensland because there are a lot of areas within Victoria that need to be have tree re-planting done because of the significant amount of vegetation that has been cleared from these areas since white settlement. I was happy enough with the service Greenfleet provided, they gave me a sticker and a certificate telling me how many trees they were planting and that I was offsetting my car's emissions for the year. At the time it was a standard fee for your vehicle no matter what size your car was (for example, whether it was a little, economical, zippy car or whether it was a petrol guzzling V8 or large four-wheel drive).

Since I last signed up and paid my dues, there has been a boom in this market and there are a number of companies that will offset your emissions and some of them don't even offer to re-plant trees as your emission compensation process. There is also a significant rise in the price of these private purchase carbon offsets. This time round I decided I would "try-out" the new Ecofund. This is a Queensland government initiative (not sure whether it is going to remain as a government-owned organisation or not). I felt that it would provide me with some "solutions" closer to home. Ecofund offers a carbon offset service by increasing the amount of national park in the Queensland protected area estate. Presently I can't seem to find anything that calculates my offset directly (ie the amount of national park I have basically purchased for the small amount of money that I have contributed to this 'program') and I certainly haven't received any official acknowledgement of them receiving my funds (except for the electronic banking receipt). But I will stick it out at least a year and see if I feel better about using my little car around the suburbs and my assistance in increasing the amount of national park here in Queensland. Pin It