Carbon

The Editor
Letters to the Editor
Herald Sun
24 June 2011

Open Response to Eminent Persons and Others

Carbon is a dirty grimy substance that pollutes the atmosphere and for this reason is presented to you as the Government's target to tax.

However the substance the Government intends to tax is carbon dioxide[CO2] which is neither a pollutant or a poison , but a colourless tasteless, odourless gas that as my agricultural science master taught me is nature's greatest fertiliser necessary for the life of all trees plants, pastures and crops. Then through photosynthesis those same trees, plants, pastures and
crops turn CO2 into oxygen the very substance we breathe to live and that sustains all human, animal and bird life on earth.

It is intellectually dishonest for Prime Minister Gillard, Minister Combet, and advisors Garnaut and Flannery to mislead people by using the term carbon pollution.

The people of Australia deserve honesty in a debate that seeks to raise billions of dollars in a new tax.

Peter Nixon
Fmr Minister for Primary Industry