Aussie Carbon Tax

I'm impressed that the Aussie government has actually decided to press ahead with a carbon tax. In response to complaints that it was too complicated to explain, I think they've done a good job in summing it up in two minutes: Less impressive was the near unanimous opposition to it at the lunch table from all my colleagues in work. A lot of people just seemed it was just creating more bureaucracy. And the idea of paying for pollution didn't seem to come in to it. Nobody seemed to think that climate change was much of a pressing problem, if at all. Which kind of comes back to the main point. If you don't think climate change is a problem then of course you're going to think any carbon tax is completely unjust. Debating about it's implementation, who's going to be affected and who's going to be compensated is a distraction. If the government were introducing a new tax to pay for some universally recognised impending catastrophe then people wouldn't be outraged to the same degree at all. How much of a chance it has of sticking is unclear. The present government has record low support and the prime minister even said initially they wouldn't introduce a tax. But if it can actually be passed, and not get repealed by an opposition bent on doing just that as soon as they can force an election, then maybe there's some glimmer of hope for reform in the US. Actually, that's probably a bit optimistic.