- There's another built-in flaw in this bill.
And it goes to the parent or it legislation,
the Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage Act
of 2006, OPGGS for short.
This act supports the notion that the right place
for carbon dioxide is buried underground instead
of providing life affirming food for a natural environment.
Are we going nuts in this place?
This absolutely insane.
According to NASA carbon dioxide production
by humans is fertilising the earth.
I'll debunk that in a minute
but I want to show you the power of carbon dioxide
and its significance.
NASA quote "has found a quarter to half
"of the earth's vegetated lands has shown
"significant greening over the last 35 years due largely
"to rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide."
And CSIRO has found the same.
But note, they say "due to rising atmospheric levels
"of carbon dioxide."
They didn't say human production.
Because we cannot claim that carbon dioxide,
including that from burning oil and gas and coal
is making crops grow faster and stronger,
improving yields of food and fibre that feed
and clothe the world
because humans, human carbon dioxide does not
and cannot increase the carbon dioxide levels
in the atmosphere.
And I'll explain why.
The earth's atmosphere contains a certain amount
of carbon dioxide.
The earth's oceans contain 50
to 70 times more carbon dioxide in dissolved form
than in the entire atmosphere.
The United Nations so-called Climate Agency admits this.
The data shows that as the carbon dioxide,
as water temperature rises,
the solubility of carbon dioxide in water decreases
and the oceans liberate carbon dioxide.
And we get a rise in the level of carbon dioxide
in the atmosphere.
When the oceans cool, due to that big ball in the sky,
that you see in the sun, see in the day, the sun,
the oceans cool,
it increases the solubility of carbon dioxide in the oceans
and that takes carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.
Nature itself produces an estimated 32 times
more carbon dioxide every year
than the entire production from humans,
entire production from humans.
So what that means is
that nature overwhelming dominates the level
of carbon dioxide production
and in addition the oceans control that level according
to the temperature of the oceans.
And there are many other factors
to do with the vegetation in the oceans,
the vegetation on the earth, on the land as well.
So let me just give you a few more facts
because this is an absolutely ridiculous proposition
to bury life-giving carbon dioxide in the ground
and worse to do it at enormous cost.
Firstly let's get the term correct.
The Labour Party and the Greens keep referring
to carbon dioxide, essential for all life on earth,
as carbon pollution.
Well I'll ask you all to think about the term pollution
in a minute.
Carbon dioxide is a gas, colourless,
tasteless, odourless, invisible.
It is called a trace gas
because the scientific community recognises
that there's bugger all of it.
There is 0.04,
0.04% in the atmosphere.
That's 4/100ths of 1%.
There's virtually nothing there.
And yet it is essential for life on this planet.
Because every one of us, in this chamber,
every human, every living organism,
contains in every single cell
in their bodies the element carbon.
Now carbon's not very special in the universe.
It's not very common in the universe.
But the beauty of earth, the miracle on earth is
that carbon is concentrated.
That element is concentrated.
And that's what makes life possible on our planet.
Carbon is the source of life.
Every one of us, including the senators now looking down
at the ground,
are making, are based on carbon.
It's in every cell of our bodies.
When we breathe, we take in oxygen.
We also combine that in our lungs and digestive systems
and our blood with carbohydrates.
Carbon and hydrogen.
Elements in our food that we take in.
The carbon in those elements, in the food,
produces carbon dioxide when combined with oxygen.
The hydrogen combines with the oxygen to produce H20, water.
So our basic chemistry is that we take in carbon,
we take in hydrogen
and we produce water and carbon dioxide
which is essential for all the trees on this planet.
How ironic that the Greens demonise carbon pollution
because carbon dioxide, nature's trace element,
trace gas, essential for all life on the earth,
is essential for everything green we see on this planet.
In the oceans and in the land.
So carbon dioxide is essential for life.
The level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is minuscule.
The level of carbon dioxide
in the atmosphere is not effected by human impact
because of the oceans.
If humans produced slightly more, or incredibly more,
then the oceans release slightly less.
If the humans produce less carbon dioxide
then the oceans release more.
And we see that in the fact
that after the global financial crisis in 2008,
the world went into a recession.
Most countries went into a recession.
There was globally a recession.
The level of energy used was less in 2009.
And that means we produced less carbon dioxide from humans.
And yet the level in atmosphere continued to increase.
So what that means, what that means,
if senators stop and pause and think,
in serving the people of Australia,
is that it doesn't matter
if humans cut our carbon dioxide output
because the oceans will dictate the level in the atmosphere.
So, Senator Sterle talked about greenhouse gas storage
and capture, it's a nonsense.
Doesn't matter how much we pump into the ground
and take away from the plants,
it will not effect the level in the atmosphere.
It will cost us, as the explanation I will give you later
in this speech, $1.3 billion as the case,
just for one series of burials for carbon dioxide
from power stations and cement plants in Norway.
Every single person in this chamber right now takes
in air with 0.04% of carbon dioxide.
And we're all breathing out 4 to 5%.
That is, we're increasing the carbon dioxide levels
in our air by 100 times or more.
You according to the Greens, Senators,
are all carbon polluters.
- [Clerk] Order, Senator Roberts, time being.