Peter Gallagher

Dear Sen­a­tor,

As a Vic­to­rian con­sti­tu­tent, I urge you to oppose the waste­ful, inef­fec­tive “Car­bon Pol­lu­tion Reduc­tion Scheme” leg­is­la­tion. There is no plau­si­ble case for con­cern about global warm­ing which has been mild (0.5 deg per cen­tury since 1850s) and has presently stopped. The pre­dic­tions of the the­ory that radia­tive forc­ing of tem­per­a­ture is dri­ven by human-caused car­bon emis­sions have failed ordi­nary sci­en­tific validation.

It would be irre­spon­si­ble for the Aus­tralian Par­lia­ment, in these cir­cum­stances, to adopt an expen­sive, poorly eval­u­ated and obscure ‘car­bon tax’ that promises gains only for per­mit rent-seekers at the expense of the rest of the econ­omy. It would be mad­ness to rush into a uni­lat­eral car­bon restric­tion in the absence of the global con­sen­sus nec­es­sary to make it work at all.

I urge you to use com­mon sense and show a care for the wel­fare of Vic­to­ri­ans by vot­ing against this bill.

Quad­rant mag­a­zine has gath­ered a dis­tin­guished line-up of the usual sus­pects to con­tribute well-written and briefly-reasoned argu­ments that—like my email, no doubt—will be val­ued by the phar­isees as pearls by the proverbial.