Antinuclear

But Jon Dee, the founder of Do Something! and a former NSW Australian of the year, says it’s not all bad news.

He says the carbon tax presents an opportunity for businesses to innovate and become more efficient.

“A lot of the worse case scenarios that are being discussed are based around the assumption that businesses are going to do nothing to reduce their energy use.

“Many businesses have at least ten to 20 per cent fat that can easily be cut out and most of that is using too much energy.

“A carbon tax will encourage innovation because if you don’t innovate, it will cost you more money.”

Mr Dee says looking at transportation costs is a good example of businesses becoming more efficient and saving money.

“I literally have spoken to and been in thousands of small businesses.

“I look at the way they run their operations and they drive around in vehicles that use way more fuel than they need to.

Mr Dee say a different choice of car can save thousands of dollars each year in fuel costs.

“Green Vehicle Guide is a government website that… allows you to compare the emissions of all the different vehicles but more importantly from a cost point of view to compare the efficiency of the car itself.

And there’s a flow on effect.

More efficient businesses means a more efficient economy according to Mr Dee.

“If you have an economy that does more with less that’s going to be very important because our population globally has gone up from 2.5 billion people in 1950 to seven billion come Halloween this year.

“So [a carbon tax] has, in my way of thinking, got nothing to do with climate change.

“This is about competition for resources – a lot more people consuming a lot more products which means were going to be competing on the global stage for those resources.

“So it’s really in our interest economically to start becoming more efficient and do more with less.”…

http://www.abc.net.au/rural/content/2011/s3338764.htm