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Carbon Tax

By Johnie Jonker

A report from the Nordic website of ICE News stated the following:

Denmark wants to tax cow farts

The latest climate-friendly tax being proposed in the Danish parliament focuses on the methane emissions that come from cattle when they break wind. The agricultural methane tax is certainly one of the more controversial measures currently being considered by the government.

The Tax Commission, which is behind the measure, estimates that each cow releases around four tonnes of methane each year simply by passing gas. In comparison, the average car emits just 2.7 tonnes of unwelcome emissions per year. Naturally, the Agriculture Council and many other groups have been lobbying hard against the new proposal. For the full report visit:

http://www.icenews.is/index.php/2009/03/03/denmark-wants-to-tax-cow-farts/

This goes a long way to explaining why the implementation of carbon tax on motor vehicles worldwide – and recently also here – has been based on a complete misunderstanding, and should be abolished immediately.

The trouble started due to the different ways in which various regions pronounce the same word, e.g. the fact that although still classified as English, the Queen’s version differs considerably from that of the American and Australian versions, to name but two.

The actual event was a speech made by Bruce Wallaby from PATROL (People Against Taxation, Randomly or Otherwise of Litres) – litres of course referring to the displacement of car engines – in the Australian Outback. For those who are not familiar with this organization, they were previously known as FLOB (Four Litres Or Bust), but once again due to their colloquial pronunciation of this acronym in English, this sounded too much like an unsuccessful venture, hence the renaming.

There is also the theory that the new name was chosen because of the organization’s modus operandi.  Small communities in the Outback were targeted initially with their cause. Due to the absence of soapboxes at these venues (all burnt up for fire-wood) Bruce had nothing to stand on to elevate him somewhat above his audience during these speeches, so he stood on the roof-rack of his 1960s vintage large Nissan SUV.

One of these events was attended by a journalist commissioned by the EU – which has its headquarters in Brussels – on a fact-finding mission regarding pollution causes. This is how it came about that while Bruce was emphasizing exactly what the newspaper report above stated – that pollution caused by COWS is a much bigger problem than that of motor vehicles – Roel Aerts (the Belgian journalist) was jotting down what he heard.

Now, prior to coming out to Australia, Roel had studied some of the pronunciation differences pointed out above, and also some key words. For instance, being from the Flemish part of Belgium, a motor vehicle was known to him as a “wagen”, but he knew that Down Under they would use the word “car” instead.

What he also picked up – sharp guy! – was that the Australians tend to not pronounce the “r” at the end of some words, and also stretch short vowels, so when Bruce mentioned the word “Cows”, Roel heard “Caaes” and translated this to mean “Cars”.

Back home, Roel reported his findings to the EU, resulting in – straight away – carbon tax being slapped on motor vehicles throughout Europe, from where it spread worldwide.

So in fact – and actually what Bruce had said – it’s the COWS and not the CARS that is responsible for the major portion of the world’s pollution.

JJJ

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