Kowabunga

Global Warming: Loons Gone Wild #11

The “man caused global warming” zealots are really showing their (lack of) brain power. This time, from Australian Barry Walters, who claims to be a doctor (of what, I don’t know) is pushing a plan to apply a birth levy of $5000 (Ausie) for each child a couple has after the first two, and then the couple would be taxed an additional $800 per year for the lifetime of the child. I’m not joking, this guy is serious about it. His letter was published in the online version of the Medical Journal of Australia.

What then should we do as environmentally responsible medical practitioners? We should point out the consequences to all who fail to see them, including, if necessary, the ministers for health. Far from showering financial booty on new mothers and thereby rewarding greenhouse-unfriendly behaviour, a “Baby Levy” in the form of a carbon tax should apply, in line with the “polluter pays” principle.2 Every family choosing to have more than a defined number of children (Sustainable Population Australia suggests a maximum of two3) should be charged a carbon tax that would fund the planting of enough trees to offset the carbon cost generated by a new human being. The average annual CO2 emission by an Australian individual is about 17 metric tons,4 including energy usage. As the biomass of trees in a mature forest sequesters about 6 metric tons of CO2 per hectare (104 m2) per year,4,5 each child born should be offset by planting 4 hectares of trees, to allow for the time they take to reach maturity, and attrition through crop losses, bushfires, dieback and so on. This infers a levy per child of at least $5000 at birth (to purchase the land needed and plant trees) and an annual tax of $400-$800 thereafter for the life of the child (for maintenance of the afforestation project) (based on 1990 figures,4 and probably much more now).

First off, CO2 has not been proven to be the main contributor of the current warming trend of the Earth. It’s a theory, and, unlike evolution, it is a bad theory at best. Clearly, this is yet one more attempt to take money from people, their hard earned dollars, in order to push a social agenda based on BAD science.

But this champion moonbat of the left gets even better by suggesting that the use of a variety of contraceptives and even sterilization should be rewarded with carbon credits.

By the same reasoning, contraceptives, intrauterine devices, diaphragms, condoms and sterilisation procedures should attract carbon credits for the user and the prescriber that would offset their income taxes, and lead to rewards for family planning clinics and hospitals that provide such greenhouse-friendly services.

I noticed he left out granting carbon credits for getting an abortion. Must be an oversight on his part.

He closes his piece in the MJA by pushing the “citizen of the world” line (I am not a citizen of the world, but a citizen of the U.S. of A.!) and that Australia (and assumedly the rest of the world) should adapt the same population controls of India and communist China.

A response to the piece published on News.com has this:

Australian Family Association spokeswoman Angela Conway said it was ridiculous to blame babies for global warming.

“I think self-important professors with silly ideas should have to pay carbon tax for all the hot air they create,” she said. “There’s masses of evidence to say that child-rich families have much lower resource consumption per head than other styles of households.

Sounds like a plan to me. Can we add Al “Carbon Bigfoot” Gore to the list?

Tags:

Loons Gone Wild Walters Carbon Dioxide Baby Tax

Tags: Global Warming