Sydney Poetry

A social site for poets in Sydney.

Words about carbon

Carbon is a non-metallic element that makes up less than one per cent of the earth’s crust and 100 per cent of the Australian political debate.

Much of the world’s carbon is contained in coal that was created during the Carboniferous Period from 360 to 300 million years ago. We are forced to burn more and more coal to keep up with the demand for electricity that is needed to run our air conditioners in the summer to escape the effects of global warming. The Australian Government is now asking us to pay a tax on carbon pollution because of global warming.

Although carbon has been known to man since prehistory, the word was coined in the 1780s by the French scientist, Antoine Lavoisier as charbone. It was based on the Latin carbo for glowing coal or charcoal, from the Proto-Indo-European base-word ker for heat, fire, or to burn, which is also seen in our word cremate.

Carbonifeorous is a scientific Latin construction meaning coal producing from carbo for coal and ferous for producing, containing, or bearing.

Coal, which is technically mineralised fossil carbon, comes from old English col and is similar in all the Germanic languages: Dutch kool; German, Kohle; and old Norse kol.

Coal can be classified in quality from the poorest quality brown coal, lignite, to high quality black coal, anthracite.

Lignite still contains the remnants of lignin, the plant material from which coal is formed, and is from the Latin lignum for wood. One form of lignite is jet, which is compact and has a deep black colour from which we get the expression jet black. Jet was carved and polished to make jewellery. Jet gets its name rather classically from Norman French jaiet, via Latin gagates, from the original Greek expression, gagates lithos, meaning stone of Gages, a town in Lycia where it was sometimes washed ashore.

Anthracite gets its name from the Greek word anthrax for charcoal or coal. The bacterial disease anthrax, gets its name from the coal-black-centred boils formed from skin infections. A boil with a red centre was known as a carbuncle, from Latin for little coal!

Carbon might well be disputed as the source of global warming but it is, indisputably, the hottest political word at the moment.

For more words of the week visit the Madrigal Communications blog.

1 member likes this

Comment by Adrian Wiggins on July 11, 2011 at 22:11: CO2-e is a new usage, or construction, based on carbon which has emerged from the climate debate – it's short for 'carbon dioxide equivalent'.

CO2 is just one of (I think) six or so greenhouse gases, but they are aggregated into that single equivalent measure, CO2-e.

The concept of carbon is growing in scope.

Comment by Justin Lowe on July 13, 2011 at 9:29: Much more Sydney, Adrian.

Comment by Justin Lowe on July 13, 2011 at 9:41: Sorry, I think I posted my previous comment in the wrong place, but my opinion still holds....As for the carbon "tax", it is not in fact a tax but a levy on the major emitters of CO2 into the atmosphere. They have been well aware some sort of government-imposed sanction on their 19th century technology was in the offing for years now but chose to do little or nothing, passing the ball back to the parliament where the likes of Abbott and Joyce have only been too happy to bounce it around. I am no great fan of Bob Brown after his hubris in rejecting Rudd's plan. Single issue parties have no place holding the balance of power in a Westminster parliament. But all this belly-aching from industry because for the first time in 30 years a government has dared to pass a major revenue law that is not pro-business is just too much for this crusty old poet to take! The whole point of this legislation is to curb our profligate use of carbon-based sources of power, to learn to live within our means, which runs against the post-war grain, I know, but the chickens were always going to come home to roost. No surprises it is the ageing boomers who are belly-aching the most.

Comment by Tim Entwisle on July 13, 2011 at 11:37: Justin, I agree with you. I try so hard to stay out of the carbon tax debate but I can't (and I have to declare that one of my clients is a major generator).

Environmentalists are very keen to villify the large polluters but most of the coal-powered generators are, as far as I know, state-owned. Our State governments are generating power using coal to feed the economy's need for cheap electricity and the ever increasing need for domestic supply. I made a joke about air-conditioners but peak summer demand is growing because of their increased use. Garnaut's Report in 2008 (I think) suggested that growth in alternative energy would not keep up with increased demand.

What we have to face up to is that it is we, the consumers, that are driving it all. Every business or overseas trip, new air conditioner, new digital flat screen TV, big new 4WD, is just a big carbon dump in the air. We forget that the innocuous Internet is driving demand for power as well. The energy needs of server nests are quite substantial and the bigger Facebook and Google databases get the more energy they need.

Look at what people want: more roads, new cars, cheap petrol, free standing houses; and what they don't want: bike paths, train lines (or even getting on a train or a bus), high density housing. I despair at the number of televisions dumped on the street. I bet 3/4 of them still work quite properly. We shop at Coles and Woolworths because they give us cheap food that is frozen/cold-stored and transported for thousands of miles rather than buy food from the local green-grocer who bought it from Flemington that morning.

My problem with the whole carbon debate is that we are all looking for scapegoats. To find the real villains look no further—turn on the webcam and look him/her in the eye.

It is a nonsense to think that the whole carbon tax thing can be neutral—it is a policy of user-pays—the whole purpose is to make us pay for pollution. If industry pays eventually the consumer pays, it is naive to think otherwise (and that, of course, is not a bad thing).

It is more expensive to generate electricity (in the short-term) from a photo-voltaic cell or a wind-turbine than it is from burning a piece of coal. Abbot knows it and is scaring us with it and Gillard knows it and is in denial about it—neither should be praised for their approach.

Comment by Justin Lowe on July 13, 2011 at 12:10: Spot on, Tim. We are being asked to think and act like grown-ups just when we are becoming increasingly infantilised. Quite a conundrum for anyone purporting to be in charge!

Comment by Tim Entwisle on July 13, 2011 at 12:37: Oops. It is about the words, so an excerpt from Les Murray's The Smell of Coal Smoke to get back on topic:

John Brown, glowing far and down,
wartime Newcastle was a brown town,
handrolled cough and cardigan, rain on paving bricks,
big smoke to a four-year-old from the green sticks.
Train city, mother's city, coming on dark,
Japanese shell holes awesome in a park,
electric light and upstairs, encountered first that day,
sailors and funny ladies in Jerry's Fish Cafe.

Comment by Andy Glenn on July 15, 2011 at 21:20: The Affluent Society & To the New industrial State

The commercial Imperative The only Dictate

The Employed captains Move their Vessels & true

But only retirement escapes their truth to you

For less than the depreciation of 'ya' Lexus

Your CO2 free from your roof

But then are you attractive to the sex's

Or an avaunt guard goof

'Galbraith' comes in Handy...