The carbon cost of Rudd’s camel cull

A Statement by Mr Viv Forbes, Chairman, The Carbon Sense Coalition, Australia:
The Chairman of the Carbon Sense Coalition, Mr Viv Forbes, today claimed that the plan by Australian PM Rudd to cull one million camels may have unexpected carbon tax consequences.

Forbes explains:

“PM Rudd proposes to spend $19 million shooting one million wild camels.

“A big camel probably weighs about a tonne, so Mr Rudd is going to let a million tonnes of valuable meat rot under the Centralian sun.

“Each camel probably has about 190 kg of carbon sequestered in its body. As it rots and absorbs oxygen, this carbon will increase into about 700 kg of carbon dioxide which will then dissipate into the atmosphere.

“If the Australian Senate is silly enough to pass the Wong carbon dioxide Ration-n-Tax Scheme this shootout will thus trigger a huge carbon tax liability.

“At a carbon emission price of say $40 per tonne of carbon dioxide, the carbon tax on one million rotting camels would be about $28 million.

“If we add to that the actual cull costs of about $19 million and the carbon tax due on helicopter emissions and other activities, the total cost of the cull is about $50 million.

“This illustrates the dangers of costly unexpected consequences resulting from complex poorly designed bills being rushed through both Australian and US Legislatures by Mr Rudd and his buddy Mr Obama. Luckily Senators in both countries will probably reject this nonsense.

“If not, this $50 million invoice for the full costs of the camel shootout should not be presented to the taxpayers, but sent to Cull Commander Senator Garrett.

“This may convince him to chase up a few old Territorian buffalo shooters who could make a tidy profit at no cost to the taxpayer by culling the camels and selling the meat to Taiwan. Or we could sell permits to a few big game hunters. Or sell live camels to the Arabs.”