Sugar-coating the carbon | The Australian

The CPRS is meant to place a price on carbon to encourage the nation to switch to cleaner energy sources and production in the long run. Compensation doesn't dull the price signal in an economic sense because energy suppliers will still see prices change from day one. But compensation does send the wrong message politically. It makes households believe the job of reducing greenhouse gases has nothing to do with them changing their own behaviour. Even the most grasping swinging voter will see the rhetoric doesn't match the refund.
...
Rudd's CPRS contains an equivalent double count. He is selling lower emissions from carbon trading and larger family payments from money raised from carbon-emitting permits for industry. So generous is the compensation package that it returns more than the forecast price rises from carbon trading to all families earning up to $120,000 a year with children, depending on the number ofchildren.

Yet this is meant to be the greatest challenge facing this generation. As the Prime Minister said on Monday: "Climate change is nothing less than a threat to our people, our nation and our planet."

So why all the compensation?
...
f Rudd can get his CPRS through the Senate without resorting to more
bribes, he will have defied political precedent. If he can win the
election that will come after voters have tasted the real thing - the
one due in 2013 - he will have made history.

Temperature drop brings frost to Benguet - Philippines

In Kibungan, Mayor Benito Siadto said he hoped the frost that occurred in the last two days would not worsen.

He said newly planted carrots and potatoes are vulnerable to frost.

Teliaken said around 40 percent of newly planted crops were in danger of being wiped out should the frost continue.

“Farmers are groaning but what can we do? It’s a natural calamity,” Teliaken said in a text message.

NASA Alarmists Attempt to Link Severe Storm Increases, Global Warming

PASADENA, Calif. -- The frequency of extremely high clouds in Earth's tropics -- the type associated with severe storms and rainfall -- is increasing as a result of global warming, according to a study by scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.