By JAMES WOODFORD

I hate to say it but there is one small way Opposition leader Tony Abbott is right. His two most repeated and quoted recent comments on the environment may sound like hyperbole but he is in fact absolutely correct.
Whether it be an emissions trading scheme or a carbon tax the new measure will be a big, new tax on everything.
And it is also true that Abbott is fighting a battle that is about the future of Australia.
There is no point pretending an emissions trading scheme or a carbon tax, as it is ultimately and properly envisaged, is designed merely as a decoration to be hung at the front door of Australia’s tax laws.
Anybody who says any kind of carbon tax or a trading scheme is only as frightening as a sea monkey is being disingenuous. True, it will be introduced slowly and, in its first incarnations, we will only notice the changes at the fringes of the economy. But eventually it will forever alter the way capitalism is currently fuelled and that is scary. I think good scary but scary nonetheless.

Instead of burning the remains of forests and swamps that grew 60 million years ago, industry, governments and individuals will have to come up with smarter ways of boiling a kettle and cooking toast. Already some are predicting that mega bucks are to be made from new energy sectors.

At the end of the day, when all the spin is removed carbon pricing is about putting inefficient, prehistoric energy producers and users into the same category as other social ills that are taxed – cigarettes being the best example.
At the moment it is being made to seem like a classroom theoretical experiment and I think that is why the opposition leader and other sceptics are gaining some traction. People are genuinely wondering if, as federal Labor and green groups are re-assuring us, business will continue as usual and anyone out of pocket will be compensated with taxpayers money, then why bother? Combined with the fact that reading a telephone book is more fun than understanding climate change policy, people are confused about the need for such a momentous change.
In the decades to come carbon pricing will only be judged successful if coal-fired power stations are shut down, if petrol-driven cars are off the road, if public transport is a seamless operation, if our communities are massively more sustainable and energy wastage is simply seen as another form of littering.
Unless environmentalists, politicians and other leaders are prepared to mount this case bravely then fear will prevail.
It will not work for Kevin Rudd to enter the boxing ring doing a confusing, complicated dance of tai chi against an opponent proficient in the art of Scottish street fighting.
Putting a price on carbon must have one simple goal or it is a waste of time – people and corporations who put carbon into the atmosphere need to change their ways or they will go out of business. Any other kind of measure is as meaningless a statement on environmental action as purchasing an annual Wilderness Society calender. That is it costs a few bucks every year but it doesn’t change anyone’s behaviour.
And a lot is at stake. Some, like Abbott, would say the future of Australia is about to be fought for. He will be a part of that fight, though, I would argue on the wrong side.
I am still one of those who believes it cannot be said with certainty what the future holds.
When I hear people talk about the Great Barrier Reef disappearing tomorrow or Kakadu being swamped by the sea I maintain some scepticism. And I am not surprised to learn that some at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are experiencing difficulties because of the way some of their data has been presented.
But one thing is certain about climate change – its impacts, like nearly all of the truly scary things that strike society, are going to be unpredictable. I have no doubt that something bad will come of a world with an extra 3,000 million people all aspiring to have McMansions, jet skis, air conditioners and new four wheel drives.
Where I live on the NSW south coast there is already a frightening water deficit. To talk of an average rainfall here is no longer meaningful. Over the past decade the cumulative total of rainfall that hasn’t fallen is now in the metres.
Of our 50 hectares more than half is paddock and should support somewhere between 20 and 40 head of cattle. Right now we are juggling just to keep four young heifers fed. Dams are near empty or covered in green algal scum and the one guy in town doing a roaring trade is the water carrier.
Yes, it may just be a dry cycle in our local area. After all it’s been bucketing down up north. But a drier south-eastern Australia is the consensus view of the nation’s leading climate scientists.
If they are right then Australia will change irrevocably and the economic consequences will be mindboggling. Putting aside whether farming cattle is part of the problem, just on my one block there’s at least 15 steers that will not be available for someone to eat. Magnify that across the landscape as a permanent fixture of how agriculture in Australia operates and you can see why maybe a fight for Australia really is on the cards.