Make it Hot - a rap argument for a global carbon tax by Baba Brinkman

When a global carbon tax is promoted in a rap song, isn't it time to listen?

"Baba" Brinkman is a Canadian rapper and playwright best known for recordings and performances that combine hip hop music with literature, theatre, and science. He draws upon literature and science for his inspiration.

Brinkman's latest series of Rap songs focus on the science, politics and economics of climate change are part of his latest hip-hop theatre show, "Rap Guide to Climate Chaos", which premiered at the 2015 Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

Renewables firmly favoured by Australian Public says poll

It should come as no surprise that the Australian public enormously favours development of renewables. This is seen not only in public opinion polling on the issue, but also the rapid take up of roof top solar presently on 1.4 million Australian homes.

Recent opinion polling (21 July, 2015) by Essential Research on renewables finds that 50 per cent of Australians think that the Federal Government should prioritise support for the renewable energy industry over the coal industry. Ony 6 per cent favoured priotising coal industry, and 28 per cent thought both industries should be treated equally.

Even amoung coalition voters 39 per cent favoured renewables to 14 per cent for coal, and 28 per cent equally.

Global carbon pricing with cross-border tariffs needed to fight climate change says Stiglitz

Nobel award winning economist Joseph Stiglitz has raised the prospect of a global carbon tax lead by a 'coalition of the willing', with cross border taxes on goods from non-participating countries, as one strong measure to transition the planet to low emissions and fight climate change.

Speaking at the plenary of the Our Common Future Conference on climate science in Paris on Friday he outlined that carbon trading and the national voluntary target approach through the UNFCCC process, like we are seeing in current COP21 negotiations, have essentially failed. According to projections by Climate Action Tracker, we are still on track for 3 to 4 degrees Celsius of warming this century, overshooting the 2 degree level that was decided upon at Cancun in 2010.

Instead he argues for a global carbon price with the facility to tax or place tariffs on carbon intensive production or products at national borders as essential to discourage countries that do not have national carbon taxes or capped carbon trading or emissions reduction schemes. He thinks that such tariffs would not breach current World Trade Organisation rules on restriction of trade.

"In fact it changes the incentives, because it provides [countries] incentives to join the agreement. If they don't, effectively carbon taxes are being collected by trading partners. Their trading partners get to collect the revenue from the carbon tax and that provides them with an incentive to go on. I actually think that stronger measures should be undertaken, but this is something that can be done within the current framework." he said.

Opinion Poll: more extreme weather expected, linked to climate change by Australian public

An opinion poll across Australia by Essential media has found that most people expect extreme weather events to get worse, and that this trend is linked to climate change.

Essential media conducted the survey from the 24th to 28th October 2013 based on 1,075 respondents as part of their regular opinion poll surveying releasing the opinion poll data on 4th November. This was part of their regular surveying but two questions in particular in this survey focussed on the frequency of extreme weather events and whether they are linked to climate change. (See Essential Report 4 November 2014 PDF)

Observational data and scientific modelling by both the BOM and CSIRO is pretty clear that the frequency, intensity and seasonal extent of bushfires will all increase due to climate change with this trend already being observed. (See Climate Council report: Climate Change & The Australian Bushfire Threat, December 2013)

Similarly for extreme heat events, we are seeing more frequent hot days with longer heatwaves, and the liklihood of starting earlier in Spring and ending later in Autumn. 2013 was Australia's hottest year on record with Fractional attribution of risk research showing conclusively that the hand of human caused climate change was involved. (See Climate Council report: Heatwaves: Hotter, Longer, More Often, February 2014)

Opinion Surveys: Climate leadership demanded of Australian Government

Climate change action continues to be an issue of concern in national politics and debate with federal politicians being way more conservative than the general public according to several recent public opinion polls. The polls say that nearly 70 per cent of people want companies to pay for their carbon pollution through some sort of carbon pricing and that the Australian Government should take a leadership role in climate mitigation solutions.

It is perhaps one reason why conservative populist politician Clive Palmer had an inconvenient truth moment with Al Gore this week.

Even last year during the 2013 election campaign a substantial majority of people supported action on climate change with 49.2 per cent supporting to some degree the carbon pricing scheme presently in operation according to the ABC Votecompass survey. Read my analysis: Australian Public opinion on carbon pricing and climate change

Australian Public opinion on carbon pricing and climate change

Was Australia's Federal election a referendum on the carbon price and Australia's policies on climate change? Prime Minister Tony Abbott would have us believe that it was. Indeed, he campaigned strongly to 'axe the carbon tax'.

But exit polling by the Climate Institute and results from the ABC's Vote Compass show that Tony Abbott's views on carbon pricing and climate change are sharply at odds with the views of the electorate.

The estimated 60,000 people who rallied for climate action across Australia on November 17 also shows there is substantial support for climate action and for carbon pricing.

Carbon Tax tips the scales for Munmorah coal power station closure

Delta Electricity this afternoon announced the closure of the 45 year old Munmorah coal fired power station at least partly due to the introduction of the carbon tax. The power station is located on the shores of Lake Munmorah on the central coast of NSW between Sydney and Newcastle.

Reasons for the closure being cited by Delta Energy include the reduction in energy demand in NSW resulting in an excess in electricity supply, the aging nature of the infrastructure and the high cost of maintenance, and that "the carbon tax further erodes its viability."

James Hansen at TED: Why I must speak out about climate change

Recorded for TED on Feb. 29 2012 at Long Beach, Cal and posted in March, this video provides a succint account of Dr James Hansen's career as a climate scientist and why he campaigns for action on climate change. He has in recent years engaged in civil disobedience being arrested on a number of occasions campaigning specifically against the highly destructive and polluting practice of mountaintop removal coal mining in West Virgina. He has been arrested at protests in West Virginia and outside the Whitehouse.

The video includes a brief statement on his Fee and Dividend proposal for taxing the carbon emissions of oil, gas and coal at the mine or port of entry and distributing all this money back to citizens in a monthly dividend to allow them to make the energy choices to drive change in the economy. You would think this would make 'free market' sense to Republicans and Libertarians, but many people in the Republican party and the Libertarian Party are too caught up and captive to fossil fuel interests. Many of these people even deny the scientific facts on global warming and climate change as enunciated in peer reviewed journals and every academy of science in the world, including the US National Academy of Sciences.