Kyoto II is dead. EU bails out (as Australia tries to “save Earth”)

The End Game of the Great Global Warming Myth draws closer

With impeccable timing the Australian Government is snatching defeat from the jaws of what could have been a glorious victory. Just as Goreactivists and then Hansen admit they lost, the infighting among the big scare campaign begins, the EU pulls the pin on Kyoto, and UK news outlets are asking if a Little Ice Age is on the way…

No one in officialdom is admitting the science has changed, or that they got it wrong, but the world is behaving as though it no longer believes.

What are the odds? Today the Australian Government is voting on the “Clean Energy Bill” (which will henceforth be known as the “Costly Energy Bill”) and at the same time the EU is saying: Enough! The big boys have to play or we are out. Which means the impossible trio of USA, China and India need to sign up to Kyoto II.

They might as well have said: “It’s all over for us. Kyoto II is dead”.

EU sets conditions for signing up to Kyoto II

LUXEMBOURG – European Union environment ministers — responsible for only 11 percent of global carbon emissions — said they would commit to a new phase of the Kyoto climate change pact, on the condition that nations blamed for the rest join up too.

“What’s the point of keeping something alive if you’re alone there? There must be more from the 89 percent,” EU Environment Commissioner Connie Hedegaard told Reuters.

The European Union stated the need for a road map that would indicate when the biggest emitters — led by the United States, China and India — would sign up. The milestones on the way, however, were imprecise.

A first commitment phase of the Kyoto Protocol — the only global, legally-binding contract on tackling climate change — ends at the end of next year and analysts say time has run out to get a new world-wide deal in place before then.

[Source: Reuters]

Five years late to the Party, and yet paying for everyone…

The new Australian legislation will cost Australians $390 pa compared to the EU’s per capita contribution of $1.50 each (over five years!). And Australia is cementing in the laws property right clauses like no other land on Earth.

 

Everyone knows that solo action won’t help the environment (and now everyone knows that everyone knows it too):

It is in agreement with environmentalists and analysts that unless everyone joins in, it cannot solve global warming.

“If we do that (agree to a second commitment period) without any conditions attached, some would say we have saved Durban, but Durban would not result in one less tonne of carbon dioxide,” Hedegaard told reporters.

[Source: Reuters]

Tom Nelson gets the message in Australia:  The Australian CO2 swindle: It’ll be painful, and involve heavy lifting; it’ll also allegedly be painless, and will allegedly result in most households being overcompensated…

 Meanwhile the news in the UK is warning that a Little Ice Age might be coming

The timing! It’s like the Gore Effect has gone Global (or could it be the Gillard effect?)

(thanks to Global Warming Policy Foundation, and WUWT)

BRITAIN is set to suffer a mini ice age that could last for decades and bring with it a series of bitterly cold winters. And it could all begin within weeks as experts said last night that the mercury may soon plunge below the record -20C endured last year. Latest evidence shows La Nina, linked to extreme winter weather in America and with a knock-on effect on Britain, is in force and will gradually strengthen as the year ends. It coincides with research from the Met Office indicating the nation could be facing a repeat of the “little ice age” that gripped the country 300 years ago, causing decades of harsh winters. –Laura Caroe, Daily Express, 10 October 2011

Some scientists predict that the Sun is heading for a long slump in solar activity known as a Grand Solar Minimum. If this happens, it is possible that Britain could return to conditions similar to those 350 years ago when sunspots vanished during “the Little Ice Age”, when ice fairs were often held on the frozen Thames in London. –Paul Simons, The Times, 10 October 2011

Follow the money…

And for those that keep pretending that the skeptics have the money, note this paragraph in a related story on European Voice on fast track financing for developing countries. Imagine what kind of influence you could hold over poor countries with a pot of gold like this one? Too bad it isn’t being used to help the people or the environment.

The EU has agreed to provide €7.2 billion in fast-track financing in 2010-12, out of a total of $30bn (€22.7bn) from developed countries. The EU and national governments provided €2.34bn in 2010. The EU has also committed itself to contributing to the $100bn (€75bn) in financing that developed countries will give to developing countries from 2020.

Ahead of its time

Can I just say, this beautiful banner was from December 2007 at the UNFCCC.

That is Monckton, Balle, Nova, McShane, Evans, Gray, and Leyland. Click for the flashback to see more photos.

It’s taken nearly 4 years…. 😉

Bali UNFCCC, The Kyoto II is not needed banner
H/t Stefan in Switzerland, and Climate Depot

9.2 out of 10 based on 11 ratings

198 comments to Kyoto II is dead. EU bails out (as Australia tries to “save Earth”)

  • #
    Joe V.

    ” With impeccable timing the Australian Government is snatching defeat from the jaws of what could have been a glorious victory. ”

    Clearly they don’t see it that way, as they make the last smash & grab of the great Carbon Swindle. They must be feeling pretty pleased with themselves.

    20

  • #
    Rereke Whakaaro

    The end game is now that the UN (and associated agencies) are looking where to apportion the blame.

    Of course, China and India have always been on the list, because they didn’t even bring their boots to the park, but the arguing in not centred around them, but around the US and the EU.

    Those countries with left-leaning governments (which includes most of the EU and the Middle East) want to blame the US (same-as same-as) . Those countries with right-leaning governments want to blame the EU for setting up their own top-heavy trading scheme, rather than adopt the UN AAU trading (the fact that AAU’s were open to all sorts of rorts is not mentioned).

    Only one thing is for sure, no blame will stick to the UN or its agencies. They have an army of people working to apply another coat of Teflon.

    It is typical of Australia to spend so much time buying a trailer-load of beer, that they miss the entire beach party.

    “Oh well, I guess we better crack some of these open before taking them back, eh fella’s?”

    20

    • #
      Ross

      Rereke

      The irony here is that Ban-ki Moon was persuded to visit Australia and NZ recently partly , we presume, to beat the drums for the ALP/Greens position but he let slip that he did not think that a global agreement would be made in Durban and he thought regional initiatives were the best way forward.
      Maybe it was not a slip afterall and it was a planned “first stage withdrawl”.

      20

      • #
        Rereke Whakaaro

        Ross,

        Maybe it was not a slip afterall and it was a planned “first stage withdrawl”.

        Yes, I think you are right. Ban does not say anything that is not well considered.

        My view is that a deal has been done. I don’t know what it is, but all of the circumstantial evidence is there. This is match fixing on a grand scale.

        10

  • #
    Owen Morgan

    Here in the UK, the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, Chris Huhne, who is under police investigation and has just been caught out smearing coalition colleagues, appears determined to maintain the lunatic through-the-looking-glass mindset which he has espoused (rather more faithfully than he has espoused his wife, as it happens) over recent years. Northern England sits on a huge deposit of shale. The greens (representation in the UK House of Commons: one) insist that exploitation of shale must be blocked. Huhne agrees.

    There is a mad resistance to facing reality on this issue. I can understand, in a manner of speaking, the way Caroline Lucas, the sole green MP at Westminster, refuses to accept the truth; after all, her entire political life has been exposed as completely delusional. Huhne is no more receptive to hard facts, however, and his party, unlike that of Lucas, is not supposed to be single-issue. Furthermore, there is no sign that PM Cameron, who seems to think that “pig-headed” is a compliment, has wavered in his devotion to the global-warming creed.

    Good luck with your set of maniacs, Australia. Believe me: I know exactly how you feel.

    10

    • #
      Ross

      Owen

      If you have another hard ,cold winter this year, the windmills don’t turn again at the right time ( like last year) and you have to import nuclear generated energy from France again maybe the “penny will drop” with more people.
      Also I think the general poor financial position of Europe is on your side for this issue.

      10

      • #
        Gnome

        Sadly, importing electricity from France will mean reduced electricity costs and so postpone the date with reality.

        10

        • #
          Ross

          Supply and demand Gnome. If Germany also needs that French power the price will go up. (Maybe not this winter but the time will not far away with the closure of German nuke plants)

          10

    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      Owen,

      The water supply in Westminster Palace used to run through lead piping. There was a plan to remove it all, but there were some architectural difficulties, I seem remember. Perhaps they never finished the job? That would explain a few things …

      10

    • #
      old44

      Until your country is run by un-representative swill you don’t. Julia, twice selected, never elected.

      10

    • #
      J Knowles

      My views of the Bufhuhne come mostly from your press but I used to think it was my odd perspective which painted him as a raving lunatic. It appears you and other respondents here are of the same disposition.
      Subliminal instruction is well documented at the US Patents and Trademarks Office. Some patents go back 25 years. Using amplitude modulated carrier signals of particular brain-friendly frequencies one can superimpose a simple verbal message and this by-passes the normal conscious filtering gate of the brain. The message becomes part of the brain’s sub-conscious operating system. Later I’ll look out the Pat. Nos. for you as the site is not always easy to navigate.

      I’d question whether the UK could survive without exploiting that Lancs Shale Gas. Your wind turbine program looks like one of those feeble Python sketches and some of those in positions of power really do appear to have heavy metal problems but I wonder if it is something more precise and calculated.

      10

  • #

    Shared on FB, see link;

    Now with the Carbon Tax literally around the corner, one has to wonder what ‘officially UN sanctioned’ schemes will be left for them to spend/waste OUR money on…. I’m quite sure the money will result in yet more hair brained schemes showing up to attract the money; they will find a way even if it means redefining what sanctioned means..

    I’m going to so love busting this lot out of parliament at the next election. I’m game to leaflet drop at marginal seats if so required. Labor and the Greens need to be busted back to the stone age an then some.

    10

  • #

    Is it possible that our political class see reality? It would require humility, that I think is not inherent, nor could it be manufactured. Any clear thinker knows that the science is not settled, the models are flawed, the propaganda is obvious and evidence keeps getting stronger against the alarmists.

    There are clearly two groups formed:

    Those who continue to sell the lies, and their ideological dreamland followers. To this group belong all those who think they will benefit financially and politically, thinking that increased legislation, increased taxation, increased government, increased bureacracy, increased social welfare and increased dependance on government. This group have dodged debate, hiding behind manipulated evidence, and paid for opinion science.

    Then there is the clear thinkers, who do not believe the lies and see the future reality. To this group systemic interdependance is not a prefered choice. These people prefer to believe the evidence that has been discovered by non-governmental scientists and their own real observations. These people believe in hard work without governmental interference in every aspect of their lives, prefering free choice over mandated lives. This group have asked for debate, come out in the open in rallies, public meetings and have no paid for scientific opinion.

    As frustrated as I am. My thoughts are with the scientists that have made submissions, and been ignored the tireless campaign workers whose petitions are ignored and the millions of common people who have done what they can to stop this invasive taxation system.

    There is a clear allagory to the story of William Wilberforce in his fight against slavery. As England moved towards democracy: “In the months after the 1791 defeat of abolition, 517 petitions for abolition (and only four against) arrived in Parliament…covered with thousands of signatures of British subjects who had bnever before known that their names or opinions could possibly matter in any real way…” Amazing Grace p148. As Wilberforce argued for the people, the Lords scoffed: “the peeooplle..”

    The reverse is now taking place. As Britain learnt to listen to the people, developing democracy. Australia is ignoring its people, moving away from democracy.One thing this series of events has showed us all. Australia is no longer a democracy.

    10

  • #

    BTW I have noticed on FB that the pro ‘censorship team’ is in full force – some of my posts referencing this post have in a matter of minutes been consigned to the ‘spam/inappropriate’ bin; i.e. see it one minute and it disappears when you come back. They are desperate!

    I suggest if you have a facebook account to go on and like anything you want to see staying around..

    10

  • #
    Brendan H

    “Meanwhile the news in the UK is warning that a Little Ice Age might be coming”

    Well, that may be what the “news” says, but neither the article by the Global Warming Policy Foundation nor the UK Met Office press release on UV research mentions a little ice age.

    http://thegwpf.org/the-observatory/4063-the-sun-and-the-winter-of-2011.html

    http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/news/solar-variability

    So it’s not clear where the journalists are getting their information from.

    The Daily Express journalist makes the comment: “It [La Nina] coincides with research from the Met Office indicating the nation could be facing a repeat of the “little ice age” that gripped the country 300 years ago, causing decades of harsh winters”.

    However, this comment is not attributed to any scientist.

    Also, Joanne, you still seem to be having trouble with those pesky apostrophes: “Ahead of it’s time”. No it’s not.

    10

    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      Hmm, predicting a new “Little Ice Age” is just as problematic as predicting run-away temperatures.

      It is just floss to grab headlines.

      10

      • #
        J.H.

        Yep… Benny Peiser said this about it…. “I would strongly advise not to rely on any 20-30 year winter forecasts,” he said. “The point is that nobody really understands the basic feedbacks and climate dynamics that drive annual winter variability, let alone that long in advance.”

        The Warmists would love to get skeptical scientists making guesses at what could happen…. Hot or cold guesses on what the climate may do in 20 years will not do…Scientific rigor only.

        10

        • #
          Brendan H

          JH: “Benny Peiser said this about it…. “I would strongly advise not to rely on any 20-30 year winter forecasts…”

          Wise man. It’s a bit of a puzzle, then, how this little ice age story got around. Perhaps even more puzzling is that astute people such as Joanne and Anthony Watts were both taken in by the claim.

          It can’t be because of poor critical thinking skills, since both are at the top of their game. I can only assume that they were too busy to properly check the sources, and that’s understandable given the demands on their time.

          Fortunately, I am currently time-rich, and was able to do a sort of “net review”. Which is what it’s all about really, communicating and sharing our knowledge to our mutual advantage.

          10

  • #
    Bruce of Newcastle

    This government is disgusting and childish. Sophie Mirabella, Opposition spokesperson for Science, was chucked out for 24 hours just after attempting to table a petition in support of her case against the carbon tax. The minister refused to allow it to be tabled. What is the harm of tabling a petition? Why are they so scared of a few signatures?

    And this is after Dennnis Jensen attempted to table the 11 scientific papers – again prevented by the minister at the time. What harm would those have had (aside from lifting the tone of Hansard with some science)?

    Well, they have justified any action by the LNP to overturn the ALP’s disreputable leavings when they get into government. A more dishonest and slimy piece of politics I have never seen – worse even than the NSW ALP before they were dumped out of office this year. And the scientific data still shows no warming for a decade, and that AGW is small and harmless.

    Sorry no link to the Sophie Mirabella story as it was on the radio news this morning, but both the ABC website and the AAP report have decided not to mention the petition for some strange reason – MSM again decides in its infinite wisdom to fail to report a relevant fact.

    And yes I have voted for the ALP in the past, but I will not do so again. Ever.

    10

    • #
      Tel

      I did some research and it seems that petitions are only allowed to be tabled after question time on a Monday. However, Sophie Mirabella’s petition was directly relevant to the debate at hand, and it would have taken no more than 5 minutes to go through the procedure of reading it into Hansard. Pretty unreasonable and ungracious to deny her even the chance to read it. Then again, this government seems to have given up any hope of reelection, just a question of how badly they lose and whether the party ever recovers.

      By the way, I put a not of support on http://www.sophiemirabella.com.au/ which you guys might consider doing (follow the contacts link and fill in the form).

      10

    • #
      catamon

      Mirabella’s stunt with the petition was just that and tabling it was rightly refused. There is a procedure for submitting petitions to a committee of Parliament. I believe they do it on a Monday first thing. Mirabella as an MP would know that, and if she really wanted to put that petition in and on the record she would have done it properly.

      Instead, she went for pointless theater, lost her rag, and got chucked at a time when they needed every vote on the floor they could muster. If anyone was disgusting and childish it was Mirabella. Maybe the MSM didn’t report the petition aspect of this to save her further emabarrasment??

      10

  • #
    Bob Malloy

    With whats happening in Canberra, THE COUNTRY’S IN THE VERY BEST OF HANDS
    After all we have JUBILATION T CORNPONE AKA Julia Gillard to lead the way.

    10

  • #
    Lawrie

    Wow Jo. I hadn’t started my own epiphany when you and the sceptics went to Bali. What a gutsy effort. How proud you should be that from such humble beginings such big things would grow.

    I wonder just what it would take to have Julia and her rag tag bunch of incompetents recognise the error of their ways. Her scientific advisors should all be sacked at the bare minimum and some should be jailed for misleading Parliament.

    Today we get a CO2 tax.

    Today is the saddest day in my 66 years of being an Australian

    10

    • #
      J.H.

      Cheer up Lawrie, Australian democracy isn’t dead yet, bruised and blooded by the lies of a Labor party in crisis…. But Abbott hasn’t given up. Actually he has barely begun. Some of the things that he and the Coalition said in Question time are quite inspiring.

      They called it “Socialism dressed up as environmentalism”…. A dark day in Australian democracy… If tyranny is oppression of the many by the few, then Australia is in the grip of tyranny…. They likened this abuse of power to Libya’s Gaddafi regime… Pledged in blood to repeal the carbon tax legislation and dismantle the bureaucracy… and much more… Plus a hearty demonstration of anti Carbon tax support from the Public Galleries.

      Abbott has really drawn some battle lines with that rhetoric….. He is calling Julia Gillard a liar for lying to the Australian Voters with her,”There will be no Carbon Tax under a Government I lead.” pledge…. and he can plainly see the anger in the community over this Carbon Tax, not to mention he understands the economic idiocy of it.

      So Tony Abbott’s “pledge in Blood” to repeal this legislation AND to DISMANTLE the bureaucracy associated with it…. Is indeed a defining promise to the Australian people….. As long as Tony Abbott is leader of the Coalition, the Coalition is bound to this promise.

      I think Labor will rue the day that it tried to tax the Australian people for the air that they breathe.

      10

  • #
    Mark

    Bruce:

    Agree with the general thrust of your comment but I heard that it was the Lib deputy Speaker (Peter Slipper) who expelled Mirabella.

    10

    • #
      Bruce of Newcastle

      Mark – You have to read what I wrote, you’ll find it is entirely accurate. I never mentioned who threw her out of Parliament or what the reason was.

      The pertinent matter is that she was not allowed to table the petition by the minister. What is the harm of tabling a simple petition? What is the harm of tabling 11 peer reviewed scientific papers?

      If the ALP wants to put a bag over their head and ignore the science then that is their prerogative. We voters will get to take their bags off them at the next election.

      10

      • #
        Mark

        Bruce:

        Don’t know why you interpreted my comment as an attack, it was not intended as such. Maybe I should have replaced “but” with “and incidentally”.

        Anyway, matter closed as far as I’m concerned.

        10

        • #
          Bruce of Newcastle

          Mark – sure, no worries. I didn’t take it as an attack, but did I think you were correcting me for something which didn’t need to be corrected, and you also seemed to be implying LNP’s Peter Slipper was the culprit for Ms Mirabella’s not being allowed to table the petition. Which was not the case, although he was a bit over the top censuring Ms Mirabella for going on about 5 seconds longer than she should have – Newsradio played a grab of the incident: it was wham bang and out the door for Sophie.

          10

  • #
    Bulldust

    Unfortunately this Federal Government has shown time and again that it does not listen to the voice of reason, so there is no reason it will now, with Joooooolya poised to claim her infamous Pyhrric victory.

    To her it is far more important to score this illusory run on the board, to get some legislation of significance up, even if it is damaging to the country.

    She can then safely be dumped by her party in the next year and an early election called with a fresh face at the helm. How about Craig Thompson for PM? Could it be any worse?

    10

    • #
      Bulldust

      Just to follow up – quote from Combet on Channel 9 news interview:

      “Tony will not be able to repeal the tax*.”

      * I think he said tax, the legislation… whichever. Does not change the meaning of what he said. Arrogance writ large.

      10

      • #
        Ross

        Bulldust

        This continual repetition of not being able repeal the Tax is just admitting defeat in the next election already !!

        10

      • #
        Tel

        There’s strangeness afoot. The reason most cited that the ETS cannot be repealed is that property rights are created, so the property owner can claim compensation if their magic certificates become worthless.

        I might point though, that worst case these property owners could be compensated for the price that they paid for the certificates, and the ALP has run up something like $200 billion in government debt, so we are already heading off into “who cares” territory regarding throwing away more taxpayer’s money.

        More than that though, the ETS itself already damages existing property rights, in terms of detracting from the value of everyone who owns infrastructure. It doesn’t really create new property rights, it merely moves existing ownership around somewhat.

        Finally, given that these certificates have a fixed value (for the initial period anyhow), it makes sense for the big steel producers, etc, to insist on buying direct from government at the nominated value (not from banks or speculators). If the speculators buy at the nominated value, then all they can do is hold the paper and hope that either the price goes up, or they can face down Tony Abbot for compensation in a few years. Should the government either sell cheaper certs to the banks and speculators, or outright refuse to sell directly to the steel producers, there’s almost certainly a court case cooking in terms of unfair and dishonest dealing.

        10

  • #
    Patrick

    Labor and the Greens will bear the opprobium for this for decades to come. Unfortunately the legacy will be destruction of our economy.

    10

  • #
    pat

    on ABC Breakfast this morning, i listened long enough to hear that Bob Brown and General Electric would be coming on next and how GE wants the CO2/ETS legislation to go through.
    after receiving taxpayer $$$ in the US for wind, we had this:

    10 Sept: Forbes: GE Guts Offshore Wind-Power Plans
    General Electric, the U.S.-based industrial giant and leading manufacturer of wind-power turbines, is scaling back efforts to expand its presence in the offshore wind power market.
    The rationale: there is no meaningful offshore wind market to speak of – at least not yet.
    Given slower-than-expected industry growth, the offshore market may not mature as rapidly as many wind boosters once believed…
    GE is considering laying off about 40 employees in Norway as it scales-back its offshore operations there, according to reports in Recharge. The company has also suspended plans to construct a manufacturing facility in the United Kingdom indefinitely…
    http://www.forbes.com/sites/williampentland/2011/09/10/ge-guts-offshore-wind-power-plans/

    of course, GE has many eggs in their energy basket:

    20 Sept: Businessweek: GE Sees Energy Sales Doubling to $100 Billion Amid ‘Inflection’
    General Electric Co. is targeting annual sales of $100 billion from its energy unit, whose equipment provides more than a quarter of the world’s power, within the next decade…
    Should the global economy deteriorate, GE Energy’s customers are among the most stable because they include sovereign clients and utilities used to operating in difficult times, Krenicki said.
    “In an ugly scenario we have a terrific set of customers,” he said…
    GE plans to invest 4 percent to 5 percent of sales in new products, as the company seeks to tap demand equaling five times Saudi Arabia’s oil production and four times Russia’s natural- gas production in the next decade…
    “We’re very good at taking businesses out of sick bay,” Krenicki said, citing the company’s acquisition of Enron Corp.’s wind-turbine unit out of bankruptcy in 2002…
    http://news.businessweek.com/article.asp?documentKey=1376-LRTXWD6VDKHY01-2R5H0F586OF090F7DLRG9LHKED

    no doubt they are at the front of the line for plenty of aussie taxpayer “Clean Energy” $$$:

    GE Australia: Imaginanation at Work
    The reach of GE’s businesses in Australia is reflected in the expansive line of products and services that span many industries and customers across the country…
    http://www.ge.com/au/products_services/index.html

    10

    • #
      Madjak

      G.E.,

      Didn’t the make heaps of cash in the past by making parts for landmines and cluster bombs – many of which remain in places like Laos?

      Just ready for some kids to throw around like a ball?

      Yeah, sure, they reeally care about the environment, I’m sure.

      10

      • #
        Madjak

        Correction, they want to save our children from the derdy polluders. They don’t give a stuff about anyone elses. My bad.

        Otherwise they would have cleaned up Laos by now.

        10

        • #
          Gee Aye

          no offence but no I am not offended… entertainment is not science but entertainment can teach much about science. Sit with a child while it is on, be critical or skeptical or whatever word you choose to describe active discussion) and the learning is phenomenal.

          the mythbusters format allows for very open discussion in my experience.

          10

      • #
        MudCrab

        Greens are very protective about what is allowed to be ‘Green’

        About 4 years ago BAE Systems (massive defence company) came up with the idea of ‘green’ bullets. The idea was since small arms bullets are mainly lead, the butts (the big earth mounds at the rear of firing ranges) ended up becoming so full of lead that when a range was decommissioned a massive and expensive clean up was required.

        So, by making bullets out of ‘not lead’ you would remove the environmental damage that the bullets lying in the soil would cause.

        Of course they would still do that massive soft tissue damage thing and KILL PEOPLE but that is why you have bullets.

        So, since these bullets still did what bullets were designed to do (kill and main) they CLEARLY couldn’t be ‘green’ and the idea did the media mocking cycle before never been heard of again.

        My point? Sometimes you are not allowed to take resonsibility for your actions as the masses find it more useful to keep you cast as the unfeeling villian.

        10

  • #
    Joe Lalonde

    Jo,

    You would think new science was the cause of mind changing and not the frigid temperatures being predicted.

    Who’s looking into where science took the wrong turn?

    Any climate model will always be incorrect until scientists realize that our Universe developed a uniqueness system. Every moment of everyday is never being exactly repeated.
    Where scientists use a stiff linear calculation or a circular calculation that is looped. These calculations do NOT account for expansions, slowdowns or how the Universe does not do exact circles. They are always slightly expanding which keep every parameter slightly changed and not an exact replica.
    Everything and everyone is slightly different, just look at the DNA. From trees to grasses to planets and suns. Never an exact duplicate.
    And our climate in science is the only exception?

    10

  • #
    pat

    the ABC GE interview audio has just gone up in case anyone wants to listen. ABC continues to pretend “big business” in general doesn’t want a price on CO2. they obviously ignore BP, Shell, all the Investment Banks, etc., in order to keep that fantasy alive:

    12 Oct: ABC Breakfast: Business coalition in support of carbon tax
    Generally, big business has opposed the carbon tax. But not all in the corporate world are resisting the scheme. Steve Sargent is founding member of a coalition of business which support the introduction of a carbon price in Australia.
    Guest:
    Steve Sargent
    President and CEO of GE Australia and New Zealand
    http://www.abc.net.au/rn/breakfast/stories/2011/3337556.htm

    10

    • #
      Gnome

      What exactly is your point Pat? We all know that the carbon traders, wind farmers and general rent seekers support being given opportunities to grab some loose money. The ABC has finally admitted (since the start of this week) that real business is standing up to the intimidation. Just as BHP Billiton have had the courage to reverse their public position (in the light of resounding public support) so the country’s productive businesses are making their real interests known.

      The ABC doesn’t need to tell us that investment banks and wind farmers want a CO2 price. Like Julia weighing “CSIRO/Alan Jones” I weigh “investment banks/ productive industries”. The big difference is what else is in the balance. Rather than “continuing to pretend” the ABC has ceased to pretend the contrary. We can only hope the change to real reporting lasts.

      10

  • #
    Louis Hissink

    Kyoto Mark II is irrelevant – the same goal is being implemented by the more locally focussed UN Agenda 21 that is moving unimpeded through our society and institutions. Latest implementation is the Depart of Mines of WA focus on mental health in the WA mining industry. The goal is to implement the micro-regulation of our activities, including energy usage.

    And for what purpose?

    If you have not worked this out by now then it doesn’t really matter, since it’s beyond your ken; after a;; guvmint knows that when it robs the Peters to pay the Pauls that it will always had the support of the Pauls,

    The carbon tax is not about mitigating our effect on the earth’s climate but to set in place a new order based on energy consumption/usage, not the hated capitalistic price mechanism.

    10

    • #
      theRealUniverse

      Exactly

      10

    • #
      Tel

      Thing is that if energy becomes the new money, we still have a price mechanism. The bankers will be worse off because energy currency is a solid commodity backed currency and difficult to scam.

      Capitalism never dies, it just adapts. Capitalism has continued through every Socialist government (sometimes deep in the black market) and through every stage of history. We may end up living in the cold and the dark, but we will still trade that little bit of light we have left with our neighbour and whatever they have left.

      10

  • #
    pat

    welcome to our clean energy future:

    12 Oct: SMH: Lucy Battersby: NBN falls behind schedule
    And an inquiry will be held into the need for large battery units to be installed at all homes and businesses connected to NBN Co’s fibre, following complaints from residents testing the broadband network…
    Meanwhile, NBN Co is reconsidering the need for back-up batteries to be installed in every house with a fibre connection, Mr Quigley revealed.
    Batteries were considered necessary because electricity is needed to send light signals along NBN Co’s fibre. In a blackout, these lights would switch off. The existing copper network can work in a blackout because the metal carries its own current…
    Green groups had also complained about the environmental cost of installing 10 million lead-acid batteries.
    http://www.smh.com.au/it-pro/government-it/nbn-falls-behind-schedule-20111011-1lj8l.html

    12 Oct: CRN: James Hutchinson: NBN users complain about battery backup
    NBN Co CEO Mike Quigley has revealed mandatory back-up batteries as the biggest source of complaints from trial users of the National Broadband Network…
    Even those who planned to use the voice ports on the NBN doubted the battery’s purpose.
    Quigley told attendees of the Commsday Summit in Melbourne that users had complained about the size of the boxes and the requirement to replace the battery after five years…
    “There’s potentially a lot of battery backup units being deployed for little return.”
    The Federal Government planned to consult on the issue but required NBN Co to install the back-up batteries at each fibre-connected premises as an interim measure.
    Representatives of the Department of Broadband told a Senate committee in February that a discussion paper was being prepared.
    A spokesman for communications minister Stephen Conroy could not clarify this week when it would be released.
    The interim measure remained despite concerns from the Greens in February that it would leave landfills full of millions of disposed batteries in several years.
    Should it continue across the full rollout of the network, a backup battery device would be installed at each of the more than 12 million premises NBN Co expects to pass with fibre by 2021.
    Quigley argued that the batteries would still be required in cases where NBN users wished to use a voice-only service through an older telephone…
    http://www.crn.com.au/News/276419,nbn-users-complain-about-battery-backup.aspx

    10

  • #
    Kneel 8250

    It is difficult to accept that Australia has just become a Dictatorship. (After today it sure feels like we are now.)

    Election yesterday if possible thanks.

    Kneel.

    10

  • #
    val majkus

    Just saying, keep on being optimistic and to boost that look at and vote in these polls

    SKY NEWS POLL:-
    Do you agree with Tony Abbott’s stance on repealing carbon tax legislation if in office?
    http://www.skynews.com.au/home/

    ONLINE POLL:
    Will you vote against Labor because of the CARBON DIOXIDE(PLANT FOOD) tax?

    http://ninemsn.com.au/

    10

  • #
    val majkus

    copy of an e mail I just received

    Prior to the 2010 Federal election, Labor leader Julia Gillard stated the following as an election promise – clearly and concisely:
    “There will be no carbon tax under the government I lead.”

    http://www.hotheads.com.au/carbon%20tax%20-%20julia%20gillard%2001.mp3
    Prior to the 2010 Federal election, shadow treasurer Wayne Swan stated the following as an election promise – clearly and concisely:
    “No it’s not possible that we’re bringing in the carbon tax, that is a hysterically inaccurate claim being made by the Coalition.”
    http://www.hotheads.com.au/carbon%20tax%20-%20wayne%20swan%2001.mp3

    GILLARD’S AND SWAN’S BLATANT LIES EXPOSED
    The Labor Party under Julia Gillard was elected in in August 2010 on the basis of the promise not to introduce a carbon tax and other undertakings. But in February 2011, Prime Minister Gillard announced that a carbon tax would be introduced in Australia in June 2012, despite her very plain pre-election promise not to do so.
    So by her own clearly stated and recorded words and her action in announcing a carbon tax in 2012, Gillard is now exposed as a blatant liar and not worthy to be a member of parliament, let alone be prime minister of Australia. If she had lied like this in a job application in either the government or private sector, she could have been prosecuted for fraud and gaining advantage by deception. However this is exactly what Gillard has done to the Australian people – gained the highest job in the land by such fraud and deception.
    THE GREENHOUSE EFFECT IS THE REASON WE ARE ALIVE
    The most preposterous notion involving the theory of human-caused climate change is that the pathetic efforts of humans can somehow affect global climatic conditions and that reduction of human-emitted carbon dioxide will somehow reduce global warming and thus reduce the greenhouse effect.
    What firstly needs to be understood is that the greenhouse effect is responsible for the sustenance of life on Earth. If there was no greenhouse effect trapping heat and keeping temperatures at the current levels, life on this planet would become untenable. The average surface temperature would be around minus four degrees. Water vapour is the most abundant greenhouse gas, so if this dissipated, the surface of the planet would be as dry as Mars.
    In other words, the greenhouse effect is not something bad, as many of these climate change scaremongers are trying to insinuate. It is the most important facet of life on Earth as we know it. Greenhouse gas emissions do not cause any detriment to the planet – they actually help sustain our existence.
    HUMAN EMISSIONS CANNOT COMPETE WITH NATURE
    The other preposterous notion is that human emissions can somehow influence global climate. In fact it is easy to show that one natural occurrence can make human efforts in this regard look like a drop in the ocean.

    The Puyehue volcano in Chile erupting in June 2011
    For instance, in just four days, the eruption of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland in 2010 negated every single effort by humans to control CO2 emissions for at least five years. The eruption of the Puyehue volcano in Chile in 2011 did much the same. But the killer was Mt Pinatubo in the Philippines that erupted in 1991 for more than one year and spewed out more pollutants than the whole human race managed to emit in 40 billion years of existence on the planet. And there are over 100 active volcanoes on the planet at any one time.
    This is not to say that humans should just continue emitting pollutants. In fact humans should do what they can to ensure that they don’t contribute to a degradation of the environment, but to claim that human emissions can compete with volcanoes, cosmic phenomena, solar activity, oceanic CO2 emissions and other natural phenomena is just ridiculous. But the most ridiculous concept is that a tax on CO2 will somehow stop those emissions.
    WHY THE PUSH FOR A CARBON TAX
    The real reason for this iniquitous carbon tax is that in a world where bankers create and manipulate the money supply and the slow collapse of economic growth in the industrialised world, a new form of trading had to be found. Globalisation, privatisation and the worldwide finance disasters that required massive bailouts of the bankers who caused them meant that industrialised nations are now essentially bankrupt. The creation of money without tangible assets to back it has finally wreaked havoc on nations such as the USA that influence the world economy and creditor nations are slowly reducing their intake of debt.
    So as the world moves from production to consumption, the emphasis has shifted to the creation of a new economy based on taxing that consumption, firstly by means of creating false pretexts such as man-caused global warming or the very open-ended man-caused climate change, then finding a way to raise money by imposing taxes to combat this bogus problem.
    Journalist Richard K Moore has written a fascinating and very detailed analysis of this situation called Prognosis 2012: Towards a New World Social Order that explains why governments around the world have pushed for emissions trading schemes and carbon taxes, even though they all know that such taxes will not reduce emissions. This article is available on the Downloads page.
    The truth is that it would be counterproductive for emissions that are taxed to be reduced or eliminated, simply because that would reduce or eliminate the revenue. Of course if polluters actually do reduce emissions, the tax rate will rise to compensate for the reduced revenue, but if polluters manage to actually reduce their emissions to a marked degree, governments that rely on the rakeoff from carbon taxes and emission trading will collapse. So there is absolutely no incentive for anybody to reduce emissions and the whole scam relies on taxpayers literally paying hefty levies on all goods to ostensibly reduce emissions, but those emissions won’t be reduced at all, not as long as governments need them to be there to be taxed.
    CLIMATE CHANGE MINISTER STATES THERE SHOULD NOT BE A CARBON TAX
    In a speech at an AIG luncheon on 06 February 2008, former Australian Climate Change Minister Penny Wong stated, “The introduction of a carbon price ahead of effective international action can lead to perverse incentives for such industries to relocate or source production offshore. There is no point in imposing a carbon price domestically which results in emissions and production transferring internationally for no environmental gain.”
    Wong admitted that imposing a carbon tax would encourage or force industries to go offshore, losing Australia valuable resources and creating unemployment. This admission exposes the lies of the Gillard Labor regime, who constantly claim that a carbon tax will not cause business losses or unemployment. Wong stated that a carbon tax is “a recipe for abrupt and unpredictable changes as the government would need to adjust the tax frequently to try to meet the emissions reduction target, each time subjecting these adjustments to the inherent uncertainties embedded in the political process.”
    “A carbon tax does not guarantee emissions reductions”
    Former Labor Climate Change Minister Penny Wong
    Yes that’s right – the government’s former Climate Change Minister Penny Wong clearly admitted to The Australian newspaper on 23 February 2009 that “a carbon tax does not guarantee emissions reductions.” In fact anybody with more than half a brain knows that a tax on something does not necessarily prevent it. When did a tax on cigarettes and alcoholic beverages stop everybody smoking and drinking booze? When did a tax on petrol stop people driving?
    Wong’s admissions prove that the government has clearly known for some years that a carbon tax is really not the way to guarantee to reduce emissions, therefore it has only one other purpose – to raise revenue for the government. It is more than obvious that the carbon tax is really a scam to fleece the Australian public of billions of dollars, with no guarantee that emissions will be reduced because of it. The Climate Change Minister confessed to that more than once and she was bumped from that portfolio, most probably for daring to tell the truth about the carbon tax scam.
    RYANAIR BOSS POINTS OUT THE STUPIDITY OF CLIMATE CHANGE PUSHERS
    Michael O’Leary, the head of British airline Ryanair, had a far more blunt and colourful response to the proponents of an ETS or a carbon dioxide tax. He quite rightly pointed out that scientists were pushing the global warming or climate change barrow and had made dire predictions for the world for the next century, based on rather flawed and sometimes deliberately manipulated computer modelling, but were incapable of accurately predicting the weather two weeks in the future.
    “It is absolutely bizarre that the people who can’t tell us what the fucking weather is next Tuesday can predict with absolute precision what the fucking global temperatures will be in 100 year’s time. It’s horseshit!”
    Michael O’Leary, CEO of airline Ryanair
    GILLARD IGNORES THE OBVIOUS SOLUTION
    In April 2011, Prime Minister Julia Gillard stated that half the greenhouse gases and pollution in Australia was being emitted by just 50 companies. So if that were the case, the most obvious way to eradicate half the harmful emissions would be to deal with those 50 companies and legislate to force them to switch from coal-fired energy to gas-fired energy and also monitor their emissions and fine them if they did not ensure that they complied.
    This solution would see a huge and very real reduction in all pollution, not just the theoretical 5% reduction in carbon dioxide that Gillard claims will occur with her $11 billion per year tax. Even if only a 25% reduction in all greenhouse gases was achieved by such a measure, this would be a real achievement, not the bogus reduction of CO2 that Gillard is claiming.
    Actually forcing the biggest polluters to stop polluting would ensure a real reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, but of course it would not raise revenue for the government and its quasi-communist ideology of wealth redistribution, which is the whole idea of the CO2 tax. The problem with a CO2 tax is that it would not stop polluters from emitting CO2, it would merely impose a cost on them for doing so and this cost would merely be passed onto the end-users of their products after the government had reaped the revenue from this tax.
    This is why the Gillard Labor government would not countenance any real measures to reduce greenhouse gas pollution, simply because such measures would actually achieve their goals without ripping off the taxpayers and filling government coffers. In fact, with a CO2 tax, the government would have no incentive in reducing CO2 because that would result in a reduction in revenue. It is the same principle as speed cameras, where a government would lose a fortune if every motorist stopped speeding and the revenue from fines dried up.
    CONCLUSIONS OF RENOWNED CLIMATE EXPERTS
    Around 31,000 top scientists around the world have stated unequivocally that human-caused global warming or climate change is utter nonsense. Here are a few statements from such eminent scholars.
    • “Please remain calm: The Earth will heal itself – climate is beyond our power to control. Earth doesn’t care about governments or their legislation. You can’t find much actual global warming in present-day weather observations. Climate change is a matter of geologic time, something that the earth routinely does on its own without asking anyone’s permission or explaining itself.”
    Nobel Prize-Winning Stanford University Physicist Dr Robert B Laughlin
    • “Since I am no longer affiliated with any organisation nor receiving any funding, I can speak quite frankly. As a scientist I remain skeptical. The main basis of the claim that man’s release of greenhouse gases is the cause of the warming is based almost entirely upon climate models. We all know the frailty of models concerning the air-surface system.”
    Legendary atmospheric scientist the late Dr Joanne Simpson, the first woman in the world to receive a PhD in meteorology and formerly of NASA, who authored more than 190 studies and described as one of the most pre-eminent scientists of the last 100 years
    • “Warming fears are the worst scientific scandal in the history. When people come to know what the truth is, they will feel deceived by science and scientists.”
    Japanese UN IPCC scientist Dr Kiminori Itoh, an award-winning PhD environmental physical chemist
    • “It is a blatant lie put forth in the media that makes it seem there is only a fringe of scientists who don’t buy into anthropogenic global warming.”
    US Government atmospheric scientist Stanley B Goldenberg of the Hurricane Research Division, National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration
    THE ROLE OF ECONOMIST ROSS GARNAUT
    To further its agenda for inflicting a carbon dioxide tax on the Australian public, in 2008, the Labor government appointed Professor Ross Garnaut to study and review the alleged human-caused climate change issue. Firstly, Garnaut is not a climate scientist – in fact he is not a scientist at all, but an economist, so already any opinion directly from him regarding alleged human-caused climate change would be worthless on its own.
    Any reasonable person would also have to question Garnaut’s agenda, simply because if he reported that there was no human-caused climate change, he would be out of a very lucrative job. So it would obviously be in his interest to keep riding the human-caused climate change gravy train. Garnaut used data and graphs from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as the basis of his postulations and guesses, however that data has now been thoroughly disproven to the extent that even the famed Royal Society has shunned it.
    In 2008, out came the Garnaut Climate Change Review, making predictions and guesses – not facts – based on the hypothesis of that discredited IPCC Report of 2007, predictably with the doom and gloom of catastrophe unless something was done about the alleged effects of human-caused climate change. Unfortunately for Garnaut and the Labor government, there has been an avalanche of real climate scientists completely debunking his conclusions, some of which are so obviously wrong, that most experts would be inclined to dismiss the entire report as being a waste of time.
    To demonstrate how completely misleading Garnaut has been, Garnaut issued a report in early 2011 that completely and very seriously misquoted the CO2 levels in the atmosphere. He stated that the current CO2 levels were 465ppm (parts per million), yet the true figure happened to be around 386ppm at the time. That is a whopping 17% error, completely unacceptable by any proper scientist. If Garnaut cannot even obtain and use the correct figures from the sources that accurately measure the composition of the atmosphere, then his so-called data and conclusions are not worth the paper they are printed on.
    Not only that, in a complete refutation of the continuing lies of Prime Minister Julia Gillard, who constantly states that the deliberately misleadingly named carbon tax will be applied to CO2 emitters, Garnaut literally admitted that the alleged CO2 emitters would not pay a single cent of this tax. He stated the following:
    “Australian households will ultimately bear the full cost of the carbon price.”
    Ross Garnaut, Labor Government Appointee and Author of the Climate Change Review
    So here is the architect of this whole debacle, not even a climate scientist but an economist, admitting that those CO2 emitters listed by the Labor government will not pay the tax, but Australian households will pay it. And who better to know this, than the man who literally is the reason that this idiotic and unjustifiable tax exists.
    However, the problem for the Australian public is that the Labor government will continue to push its carbon tax agenda by continuing to trot out these erroneous reports by Garnaut, remembering that at best, they are nothing more than predictions and guesses, fooling some sectors of the voting community into falling for this gigantic carbon tax scam. Many ignorant people in the community will continue to believe that Ross Garnaut is some sort of scientist, not just a bean counter co-opted by the Labor government to drum up their case for this insane cash grab.
    GILLARD ADMITS THAT THE FULL COST OF THE CO2 TAX WILL BE PAID BY END-USERS
    http://www.hotheads.com.au/carbon%20tax%20-%20julia%20gillard%2002.mp3
    “The cost, paid by big polluters, will be passed through to the prices of the goods you buy.”
    So there is Prime Minister Julia Gillard blatantly admitting on the record that the so-called big polluters won’t pay a cent of this CO2 tax, but it will be passed straight onto anybody who buys anything whatsoever, because there is not a single item or service that will not be affected by this tax. So every time that Gillard states that the big polluters will pay the tax, she is lying.
    This serial liar of a Prime Minister has known all along that not one of the alleged polluters will pay anything at all and that’s why this tax is such an obvious scam. If the polluters are not penalised for polluting, then they have no incentive to stop doing this. But of course we all know that CO is not a pollutant anyway, so this merely compounds the massive con-job that Gillard and her regime is trying to perpetrate onto the Australian community.
    Why do the Labor Government and the Greens insist that only big business will pay the carbon tax, when their own Climate Change advisor Ross Garnaut openly states that households will ultimately bear the full cost of the tax and the Prime Minister Julia Gillard admits to this too? Does this not prove that the Labor Government and Greens are constantly lying to the Australian people?
    CLIMATE CHANGE APOLOGIST TIM FLANNERY GETS IT WRONG
    Paleontologist Tim Flannery, another self-professed climate change expert, is being paid around $180,000 to sit on the Climate Commission by the Labor government to push its carbon tax onto Australia, however he has made so many wrong predictions, that nobody could ever take him seriously. Among Flannery’s litany of wrong predictions are these gems:
    In 2005, Flannery predicted Sydney’s dams could be dry in as little as two years because global warming was drying up the rains, leaving the city facing extreme difficulties with water. Sydney’s dam levels in 2011 were 73% full and rising.
    In 2007, Flannery predicted cities such as Brisbane would never again have dam-filling rains, as global warming had caused “a 20% decrease in rainfall in some areas” and made the soil too hot, “so even the rain that falls isn’t actually going to fill our dams and river systems.” In 2011, the Murray-Darling system was in flood. Brisbane’s dam levels were 100% full and according to figures from Wivenhoe Dam’s operator, SEQWater, the dam’s capacity went from 106%full on the morning of 07 January 2011 to 148% on the morning of 10 January 2011, much of this excess water having to be released into the Brisbane River.
    In 2007, Flannery predicted that global warming would so dry our continent that desalination plants were needed to save three of our biggest cities from disaster. He stated, “Over the past 50 years, southern Australia has lost about 20% of its rainfall, and one cause is almost certainly global warming. In Adelaide, Sydney and Brisbane, water supplies are so low they need desalinated water urgently, possibly in as little as 18 months.”
    Queensland Premier Peter Beattie took such predictions so seriously that he spent more than $1 billion of taxpayer money on a desalination plant, saying “it is only prudent to assume at this stage that lower-than-usual rainfalls could eventuate”. That desalination plant is now mothballed indefinitely, now that the rains have returned – not just rains, but the worst flooding in Queensland’s history – and $90 million has gone down the toilet.
    In 2008, Flannery said, “The water problem is so severe for Adelaide that it may run out of water by early 2009.” Adelaide’s water storage levels in 2011 were 77% full. So far, Flannery’s dire predictions of water shortages have been so far off the mark, that anybody who takes this man seriously would have to be insane. His influence on various Labor governments has resulted in the squandering of untold millions of dollars of taxpayer funds.
    For instance, back in 2007, Flannery warned that “the social licence of coal to operate is rapidly being withdrawn globally” by governments worried by the warming allegedly caused by burning the stuff. This was a load of rubbish in itself, as nations such as China are purchasing more coal than ever before to burn for energy. However, Flannery suggested that Australia should switch to “green” power instead and he recommended geothermal – pumping water on to hot rocks deep underground to create steam.
    “There are hot rocks in South Australia that potentially have enough embedded energy in them to run Australia’s economy for the best part of a century,” Flannery said. “The technology to extract that energy and turn it into electricity is relatively straightforward.” Flannery repeatedly promoted this “straightforward” technology and in 2009, the Rudd Labor government awarded $90 million to Geodynamics to build a geothermal power plant in the Cooper Basin, the very area Flannery recommended. It should be known that Flannery has been a Geodynamics shareholder for many years.
    This tip from Flannery turned into disaster. The technology Flannery said was “relatively straightforward” wasn’t. One of Geodynamics’s five wells at Innamincka collapsed in an explosion that damaged two others. All had to be plugged with cement. The project has now been hit by the kind of floods Flannery didn’t predict in an alleged warming world, with Geodynamics announcing work had been further delayed, following extensive local rainfall in the Cooper Basin region.
    With this abysmal track record, how on earth did Flannery land the cushy $180,000 position on the Climate Commission? There’s only one explanation – that the Labor government found itself a tame scientist to push its carbon tax agenda and although Flannery is not a climate scientist by any means, many people will consider him to be some sort of authority because he is a scientist of sorts – although with nothing to do with climatology.
    The fact that federal and state governments, all of them Labor, actually listened to Flannery, took his advice and squandered so much taxpayer money is an indictment on their gullibility and irresponsibility. What is worse is that this insane Labor government is not only still listening to Flannery, but is paying him around $3000 per week for his baloney. But the gross waste of this money will pale into insignificance if a carbon dioxide tax is imposed.
    TIM FLANNERY ADMITS THE FARCE OF THE CARBON TAX
    In March 2011, climate change apologist Tim Flannery was asked that if Australians were going to be taxed for emitting carbon dioxide, surely they should at least be given an idea on how much their tax contribution will help cool the planet. He was told that if the taxes of Australians are going to be used to cool the climate, it would only be fair that Australians should know by how much. Flannery could not answer this question. He thought that a probable amount might be 0.5%, but he could not be sure.
    Flannery was then asked how long would it take before this enforced carbon dioxide tax contribution would start to show signs that it is working. His answer was stunning in the extreme.
    Flannery stated to journalist Andrew Bolt, “If we cut emissions today, global temperatures are not likely to drop for about a thousand years.” But Flannery wasn’t talking about the lousy 1.4% that humans in Australia allegedly emit – he was talking about ALL nations cutting ALL greenhouse gases globally. However, this is merely a guess on his part, because if the truth be known, Flannery doesn’t have the foggiest notion of what will happen to the climate, whether humans keep emitting the same stuff or we close down everything and crawl off to live in caves and eat worms.
    But having admitted this, Flannery is still acting as the federal government’s climate change apologist and travelling around the nation promoting a carbon tax, knowing damn well that it will not reduce CO2 emissions and even if it would succeed, it would only reduce global greenhouse emissions by around one-millionth. It is obvious that Flannery, who is being paid a lot of money for doing this, is prepared to promote this new religion that will have such a detrimental effect on the entire Australian population, knows that it’s a scam.
    Flannery’s admission clearly demonstrates what a gigantic scam the proposed carbon tax really is. This insane tax is not even aiming to eradicate that whole 1.4% of all Australian human-emitted greenhouse gases, but just 5% of the CO2 component, which is 3.6% of the total. But when did a tax actually stop something? Have high taxes stopped people from smoking, drinking alcohol or driving cars? Of course not – in fact, the last thing any government reaping revenue from taxes wants to see is a reduction of that revenue.
    THE SCAM RELIES ON BLATANT DECEPTION
    The government and proponents of this new tax are relying on the ignorance of the general public as to what is really going to be taxed. The very name of this tax is completely false. It is being called the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme because the general public associates carbon with that sooty black stuff that comes out of the chimneys of factories and power stations. Nothing could be further from the truth.
    THE CARBON TAX IS NOT A TAX ON CARBON
    IT IS A TAX ON CARBON DIOXIDE GAS
    IT IS ULTIMATELY A TAX ON THE AIR WE BREATHE
    • It is going to tax the gas on which all life on this planet relies, which is not a pollutant.
    • It is going to tax the gas that all plant life photosynthesises into oxygen that humans breathe.
    • It literally amounts to taxing the air we breathe.
    CLIMATE COMMISSION IS RIGGED BY THE LABOR GOVERNMENT
    In May 2011, the first report by the Government’s Climate Commission (CC) warned that people were to blame for rising temperatures, with the last decade the hottest on record. This report stated that the biological world was changing in response to a warming world. It also stated that human activities, such as the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation were triggering the changes that are being witnessed in the global climate.
    But this is just another government attempt to scam the people of Australia. The Climate Commission members were handpicked by the Gillard Labor government on the basis that they had to believe in climate change. No skeptics or completely independent scientists were permitted to be on this Commission. In other words, it was the same situation as only appointing judges that were sympathetic to the government’s political line and no judge who was totally independent would be considered.
    On top of that, the Climate Commission’s findings are a pile of rubbish. This bunch of government-appointed stooges claimed that people were to blame for rising temperatures, with the past decade being the hottest on record. They very conveniently forgot to mention all the drastic heating that the planet had undergone in the past, with temperatures far higher than anything in the present era. In fact about 800 years ago, icy Greenland was sub-tropical and the Arctic was navigable by ships. There are many more instances of severe global heating, as well as a number of ice ages.
    This Climate Commission also stated that if nothing was done about alleged human-caused pollution, the planet’s temperature would rise by 2º by 2050, less than 40 years away. This completely flies in the face of the statement of the head of the International Panel for Climate Change, who stated that the planet’s temperature would rise by no more than ½º in a century. So who is to be believed? Actually none of them. All the predictions are based on completely flawed computer modelling, no better than a long-range weather forecast or a wild guess.
    One can only be amazed at the depths to which the Gillard Labor government will stoop to try and impose a CO2 tax. This bunch of inept clowns, having already destroyed the Australian economy with a monumental series of blunders and scams, has rigged a Climate Commission that cannot be believed.
    US GOVERNOR WITHDRAWS STATE FROM GREENHOUSE GAS REDUCTION PLAN
    In June 2011, Governor Chris Christie of the US state of New Jersey announced that New Jersey will withdraw from a 10-state Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) program by the end of 2011, saying the program is ineffective at combating global warming. He stated, “The whole system is not working as it was intended to work. It is a failure.”
    “RGGI does nothing more than tax electricity, tax our citizens, tax our businesses, with no discernible or measurable impact upon our environment,” Christie said. Critics of cap-and-trade programs say that they constitute a new form of taxation because they impose additional costs on electric utilities that are then passed on to customers.
    Governor Christie hit the nail right on the head with New Jersey’s withdrawal from this scheme, simply because what he said was quite correct. A carbon cap-and-trade scheme or carbon tax will have no discernible or measurable impact on the environment. And no politician or scientist has yet been able to definitively show that human-caused CO2 emission cause global warming, climate change or any other problem.
    Of course the big problem with any sort of tax or impost on electricity generators is that they will merely pass the additional cost onto their customers and still keep emitting the same CO2 if not more, as demand increases. This is how all businesses operate, by factoring all expenses into their products and setting prices for those products that contain the expenses. In other words, a carbon tax or a cap-and-trade scheme will not reduce pollution by one iota.
    THE SCAM OF HUMAN-CAUSED CLIMATE CHANGE
    This proposed carbon tax is ostensibly a move to reduce human-caused CO2 emissions and thus reduce so-called human-caused climate change, if at all it exists. This is what the government is saying. But what do the figures say? Very simply, the figures say that the government is completely misrepresenting this issue and every concerned person in Australia should be demanding to know the real motivation behind imposing this massive tax on everything, when it has no basis in fact.
    Firstly, climate change has been occurring for millions of years without any human intervention or effect. This planet has been much hotter at many times in its history than now. Back in 1200AD, Greenland was sub-tropical, hence the name, but there were no massive industries that spewed out CO2. So it is a fact that climate does change, regardless of any human activity, because humans cannot even remotely come close to affecting this planet’s climate, when compared to natural phenomena.
    This is why you don’t hear much about “Global Warming” anymore, because this planet has actually cooled in the past 100 years. There were two warming periods in the 20th century followed by cooling periods. The new mantra is “Climate Change” because the climate certainly does change. The problem is that people with vested interests are claiming that humans are changing the climate to an unacceptable degree, which is utter nonsense.
    THE FIGURES PROVE THE SCAM
    CO2 is the new enemy, according to proponents of this theory and human emissions of this gas must be reduced, mainly by imposition of a carbon price. This is just a piece of spin that actually means a carbon tax. But how much CO2 do humans actually produce as a percentage of total global greenhouse gases? Here are the figures.
    Greenhouse gases constitute approximately 1% of the atmosphere. They are:
    • Water vapour – 95%
    • Carbon dioxide – 3.6%
    • Methane and other gases – 1.5%
    Humans can’t do a thing about water vapour – it evaporates from the oceans that cover seven-tenths of the surface of the planet and is very important, because water vapour becomes rain that falls on land. Although it is considered a greenhouse gas, water vapour is essential to all life on earth.
    Methane and other gases are emitted by volcanoes and other natural phenomena that are completely beyond the control of humans, therefore until a way is found to stop the 1500 active volcanoes on the surface of the planet and the tens of thousands of submarine volcanoes erupting at any one time on Earth, there is nothing that can be done about it.
    So this leaves the 3.6% of the 1% of CO2 in the atmosphere. CO2 comprises around 0.0036% of the total atmosphere. In other words, CO2 is nothing more than a trace gas that is less than four-hundredths of 1% of the atmosphere. However, it has to be always remembered that this gas is the pillar on which all life on earth relies and is neither a poison nor a pollutant.
    But how much of this 0.036% CO2 in the atmosphere is caused by humans? The answer – around 3.4% of that 3.6% – 0.001% is emitted by humans. What does this mean?
    Very simply, it means that globally, humans emit around 0.001% of the total CO2 in the atmosphere. Yes, the total human-caused CO2 emissions globally is a whole one-thousandth of 1% – a completely insignificant amount, because it means that 99.999% of all CO2 emissions occur naturally and humans cannot do anything about this.
    So let’s say that all the humans on the entire planet shut down every industry and we all go back to shivering in caves and humans stop emitting that 0.001% carbon dioxide. Subtract it from the total CO2 emitted worldwide by all phenomena.
    99.999% minus 0.001% equals 99.998%. That is virtually no change whatsoever to the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. In fact this is literally unmeasurable.
    AUSTRALIAN CONTRIBUTION TO GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS
    So what percentage of global CO2 is emitted by humans in Australia that could cause the government to want to impose a carbon tax to reduce it?
    The answer – virtually nothing. Here are the facts to prove it.
    ALL THE FACTS AND FIGURES AT GLANCE
    • Total greenhouse gas – 1.00% of total global atmosphere
    • CO2 component of 1.00% – 3.6% = 0.0036% of total global atmosphere
    • Total human-caused CO2 emissions – 3.4% of 0.0036% = 0.001% of total global atmosphere
    • Australia’s total CO2 emissions – 1.00% of 0.001% = 0.00001% of total global atmosphere
    • Target of 5% reduction in Australia’s CO2 emissions – 5% of 0.00001% = 0.0000005% of total global atmosphere
    • Estimated cost of reducing total global greenhouse gases by an unmeasurable 0.0000005% (five-millionths) = UNTOLD BILLIONS OF DOLLARS
    A VERY EASY EXPLANATION OF THE CARBON TAX
    Imagine that the atmosphere is a 1 kilometre long road. All the gases in the atmosphere are lying on that road in their correct proportions. Let’s go for a walk along this 1 kilometre road of atmosphere and see what is on it.
    • The first 770 metres are nitrogen.
    • The next 210 metres are oxygen.
    • That’s 980 metres of the 1 kilometre gone. Only 20 metres to go.
    • The next 10 metres are water vapour. Only 10 metres left.
    • The next 9 metres are argon, a rare gas. Just 1 more metre to go.
    • A few rare gases make up two thirds the first bit of that last metre. Just a few centimetres to go.
    • The last 38 centimetres of the 1 kilometre – that’s carbon dioxide. A bit over one foot in the old measurement.
    • 97% of that is produced by Mother Nature. It’s natural and there’s nothing we can do about that.
    • So out of our journey of one kilometre, there are just 12 millimetres left – just over a centimetre – about half an inch.
    • That’s the amount of carbon dioxide that global human activity puts into the atmosphere. World-wide, not just in Australia.
    • And of those 12 millimetres, Australians emit 0.18 of a millimetre.
    • That is less than the thickness of a hair. Out of a whole 1 kilometre!
    • As a hair is to a kilometre – so is Australia’s contribution to what the PM misleadingly calls Carbon Pollution.
    DEMONSTRATION OF THE STUPIDITY AND FUTILITY OF THIS NEW TAX
    Imagine Brisbane’s new Gateway Bridge is ready to be opened by the Prime Minister.
    • This new 1 kilometre long bridge has been polished by an army of workers until its entire length is surgically clean.
    • Then the Prime Minister says that we have a huge problem – SHOCK HORROR – the bridge is polluted – there’s a human hair on the roadway.
    • We’d laugh ourselves silly.
    • That human hair on the 1 kilometre long bridge would have absolutely no impact on it.
    • But we would be immensely angry if the PM demanded that we paid billions of dollars in a new tax to remove that hair.
    BUT THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT THE LABOR GOVERNMENT IS PROPOSING WITH THIS DISGUSTING AND MISLEADINGLY NAMED CARBON REDUCTION POLLUTION SCHEME – REMOVING THE EQUIVALENT OF A HAIR FROM A KILOMETRE OF ROAD BY INSISTING THAT IT IS POLLUTING THAT ROAD.
    HOW WILL THEY KNOW IF IT WORKS?
    The Australian government is not trying to reduce all CO2 emissions completely with the carbon tax, just around 5% of the CO2 that it claims that humans emit in Australia. So if it actually achieves this target, which is highly unlikely, Australian CO2 reduction of 5% will reduce total global greenhouse gases by a completely unmeasurable, insignificant and unnoticeable amount.
    But how will the government or anybody actually know if this massive carbon tax actually does anything? How on earth can anybody measure an unmeasurable percentage of CO2 in total greenhouse gas emissions? The answer is that they can’t. So nobody will know if anything happens.
    However, one thing is easily predicted. If global temperatures are seen to rise slightly through whatever natural phenomena that has caused such rises since this planet came into existence, the government will state that the CO2 emitted by Australians has not been reduced by the imposition of the carbon tax and the tax will be increased.
    Of course if the planet cools, which it is doing anyway, long before any carbon tax has been imposed, the government will crow about the effectiveness of the carbon tax and how this is causing the world to cool, even when a complete idiot will realise that even if Australia’s human-caused CO2 emissions are reduced unmeasurable amount of total global greenhouse gases, this has absolutely no significance whatsoever.
    EFFECT OF THE CARBON TAX ON AUSTRALIA
    However, if this insane tax is imposed, it will certainly have an effect on the people of Australia. It will make them much poorer by increasing the cost of literally everything and extracting money from them and putting it into the government’s coffers, where like so much of taxpayer’s money, it will be squandered on failed projects or electioneering expenses, so that the government can try and clutch onto power.
    Expert modelling and projections show that a carbon tax will cost around $50 billion for the next 40 years, or around $4550 per taxpayer per year, to achieve absolutely no change to the climate of this planet. One decent sized erupting volcano such as Mt Pinatubo in the Philippines or Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland emits more pollutants in a single day than the total amount of pollution that the entire human race has emitted in 40 million years.
    BUSINESS AS USUAL
    So what will companies that emit this CO2 do in real terms? Will they actually reduce those CO2 emissions? Here is a typical scenario.
    • The Aussie Widget Company (AWC) produces widgets which are sold to the public for $1.00 each.
    • The government imposes a carbon tax on AWC, which now has the following choices:
    1. Absorb the new tax and still make and sell the same number of widgets for $1.00 and suffer a loss in earnings
    2. Reduce the number of widgets it makes to reduce the amount of carbon tax it pays and suffer a loss in earnings
    3. Increase the price of each widget to $1.10 and pass the increased cost of them onto the consumers and still make the same profits as before, but the consumers of the widgets actually pay the tax.
    • Obviously on economic grounds alone, AWC will not choose Option 1 to absorb and pay the tax itself, because that would reduce its earnings. AWC would not choose Option 2 and reduce production just to reduce its CO2 emissions, because that would also reduce its earnings.
    • The only scenario that would ensure the survival of AWC would be to choose Option 3 and continue to manufacture the same number of widgets and just add the carbon tax to the cost of each widget and the public will just have to pay more for them.
    • By doing this, AWC will continue to make the same amount of profit and will emit the same amount of CO2. In other words, the carbon tax will not reduce carbon emissions by companies such as AWC.
    • Statistics show that literally in every case where additional taxes are imposed on manufacturers or service suppliers, those costs are passed on to the end-users, the consumers.
    REDUCE POLLUTION BY ACTUALLY REDUCING EMISSIONS
    There is only one real way to reduce pollution and that is to actually reduce harmful emissions. If the government was really serious about reducing emissions instead of merely trying to create and impose a new tax, it would require that all manufacturers install pollution metering devices and that realistic maximum levels of emissions be set by law. Any company that exceeded those levels would be heavily fined and persistent transgressors would be closed down for periods of time.
    This is how the USA state of California reduced emissions from cars. It didn’t impose a stupid tax that would have merely raised money but not reduced emissions. California legislated that all cars sold in that state by a certain year had to comply with a maximum emission level or they could not be sold. Car makers screamed that it was impossible to meet those reduced emission levels, yet when the deadline was reached, all the car makers managed to meet those reduced levels.
    So in California, a tax on car emissions was not required to reduce those emissions, merely a maximum emission level enforced by law. But of course, governments around the world are always scrabbling to find ways of raising revenue, so scaring the citizenry with dire threats of man-caused global warming, climate change and other nonsense is a good way to soften people up for the imposition of a completely unjustified tax.
    CO2 IS AN ESSENTIAL AND IMPORTANT GAS
    In any case, CO2 is not a pollutant, but a requirement for all life on this planet. All plant life absorbs CO2 and by photosynthesis, converts it to oxygen that humans and all living creatures require to exist. Without CO2, all life on Earth would die. CO2 is odourless, tasteless and non-toxic. CO2 is not a poison. Humans exhale CO2. Humans consume it in carbonated drinks. CO2 released by baking powder or yeast makes bread and cakes rise. CO2 is used in fire extinguishers and has many other applications of benefit to humans.
    To state that CO2 is detrimental to this planet is a colossal lie, designed to scare gullible people into believing that a carbon tax will save them from disaster. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact it is a proven fact that farmers such as tomato growers actually deliberately increase the amount of CO2 in their greenhouses to promote the growth of their produce. The more CO2 in the atmosphere, the better plant life will grow and thus produce more oxygen for us to breathe.
    The other myth about CO2 is that it allegedly affects upper atmosphere in the way that gases such as sulphur dioxide break down the ozone layer in the upper atmosphere. CO2 is heavier than air and it does not rise – it obviously stays at the surface of the planet, which is essential, because that is where the plant life lives and uses CO2 to grow and produce the oxygen that humans breathe. So CO2 has nothing to do with breaking down the ozone layer or being detrimental to the planet in any way.
    Imposing a carbon tax will merely result in increased cost of production that will be passed onto consumers, but will not reduce CO2 emissions by industry. It is nothing more than another rapacious grab for money by government on the basis of deliberate misinformation and scaremongering.
    MORE PROOF OF THE SCAM
    On 18 March 2011, a British investment company sent out an emailed newsletter stating the following:
    SUBJECT: Free Report – Carbon Market expected to double in price by 2013

    The price of carbon is expected to double by 2013 and double again by 2020 according to research carried out by Sceptre.

    You can find out how to take advantage of this exciting new investment opportunity by simply downloading our FREE Investment Report.

    Comprehensive trading strategies

    Find out why the price of carbon is set to explode

    Discover which credits FTSE 100 companies are buying

    Find out how to profit from a forward contract in the carbon credit market

    Sceptre is a leading specialist carbon trading firm that specialises in premium Gold Standard and CDM emission reduction credits.

    “Anyone going for the ‘dash-for-cash’ approach is in for a rude awakening when the carbon market picks up.”
    Diane Simiu, Carbon Analyst (Carbon Finance)

    “Carbon trading will become the world’s largest commodities market.”
    Louis Redshaw, Barclays Capital (New York Times)
    Now does anybody with more than half a brain think that anybody is going to promote a moneymaking scheme where the basis of it is the alleged REDUCTION of the commodity that drives the scheme? The idea that is being sold to a gullible public is a carbon tax or an emissions trading scheme that will eventually eradicate man-caused pollution and thus save the world. So why would anybody invest in something that is going to be wiped out in the medium to long term?
    Of course not. The moneymaking aspect of any scheme relies on it continuing and growing, therefore the sponsors of this scam are really relying on two things – that the human-caused carbon dioxide emissions will continue and increase, thus increasing the profits from the scam and secondly, that the value of the carbon credits themselves will rise, just like stocks and shares, reaping huge financial rewards for those who trade in them and especially those who control the trading.
    THE CARBON TAX IS A COLOSSAL SCAM
    It is very easy to see from the facts and figures that a carbon tax will not have any effect on climate change and even if it reduced all human CO2 emissions in Australia by the proposed 5%, it will reduce all global greenhouse gas emissions by no more than a completely unmeasurable five-millionths, an amount so insignificant and minuscule that it is preposterous to even try to do this. But of course anybody with more than half a brain can work out why the carbon tax is proposed – it’s just another government money grab that will be achieved by conning the gullible people of Australia into believing the spin.

    http://www.hotheads.com.au/carbon%20tax%20scam.htm

    10

  • #
    Andrew McRae

    This is probably more relevant on the thread from last week, but nobody reads old threads, do they?

    THE CLIMATE CHANGE SCARE MACHINE EXISTS, IT’S REAL, I FOUND A PICTURE OF IT!!
    http://www.businessinsider.com/newspapers-outsourcing-stories-to-online-sweatshop-2010-5

    haha.

    Since weather satellites seem to be the ultimate source of facts that squash climate doom-mongering, one wonders why the green left haven’t labelled weather satellites as “Climate Denial Machines”. The recent demise of the AMSR-E radiometer would then be celebrated as some sort of victory rather than a loss to climate science.

    10

  • #
    MattB

    Well at least I’m happy.

    10

    • #

      I thought you’d be having a few quiet beers, sorry forgot, you guys drink Moselle, with your boss Doctor Smith.

      10

      • #
        Andrew McRae

        I thought the warmist’s favourite drink was Kool-Aid.

        10

      • #
        MattB

        I’ve ignored plenty of insults in my time Tony, but no one has ever stooped so low as to call me a Moselle drinker! You’ve gone too far. Moderator surely this contravenes the site’s rules?

        [Agreed, calling you a moselle drinker when in fact you are a “cask” moselle drinker is well and truly out of line.] mod oggi

        10

        • #

          mod oggi,

          I actually put cask down there and then when reading it in preview, I deleted the cask.

          Mmm! Ben Ean. (in my RAAF days, we referred to it as Benzene)

          Me, well I just stuck with my favourite with the red label, Melbourne Bitter.

          Nyuk nyuk nyuk!

          Tony.

          10

    • #

      I thought they drank their own urine filtered through hair shirts.

      10

    • #
      Bush bunny

      He who laughs last, laughs longer MattB. If those 74 who voted for it, think they will get in again, it will be a lonely parliament for those who scrape in. The Greens might get a few senators in, maybe. Independents, bye, bye.

      10

    • #
      Winston

      Well, that’s OK then. For a minute there I thought it was a bad thing to screw the population with an iniquitous tax. Thanks for reassuring me, now that I know you’re OK….. Pheww. So the patient I have who is tied to an Oxygen machine 24/7 whose power bill went up 300% in the last quarter even before the carbon tax bites, even though she lives with very few appliances one would consider luxuries, shouldn’t worry when she tells me she has to choose between eating and breathing. I suppose a tax that makes you long for a quick death is a good thing then.

      10

    • #
      catamon

      Not least at all. I’m Happy too!

      10

      • #
        Winston

        Well, ain’t that just peachy. Obviously, gloat is the new black in fashion this season. I can’t say it’s a very attractive look on you either, Catamon. Your smug self satisfaction is very ill-conceived as Labor may not live to regret it’s actions today, when the fat lady eventually has sung.

        10

        • #
          catamon

          Pally boy, if you think this is gloating, you ain’t seen nuthin yet.

          Mid November is a pretty good season for it i think??

          And then mid may after the Pokies pre-commitment gets up could bring a repeat?

          Oh, and when the MRRT gets through sound appropriate.

          If Tony Abbott lasts till Xmas as LOTO that may take the shine off a bit, but have to take the ups with the downs in politics huh?

          10

          • #
            Madjak

            And when the first 10 billion has gone offshore to the E.U.
            And when GS has made their first 100 million.
            And when a chinese solar panel manufacturer bulldoses another village so they’ve got more room for their waste biproducts.
            And when the bribes to the people are retracted and those naughty energy consumers make harder choices between paying food, their rent or their power bills.

            Yep, I can see you hardly being able to contain yourself catamon.
            REGIME CHANGE NOW!

            10

  • #
    Tom

    The biggest junk science fraud in human history is now the biggest political and constitutional betrayal in Australian history, equalling the connivance of the Governor-General in installing the Liberal Opposition leader as the caretaker Government in 1975. It is a day of shame that will only confirm that no-one who voted with this government today has a political future. Just watch: the whole lot of them will be damned pariahs. Gillard, Brown and Swan will become reviled figures in history like Sir John Kerr.

    10

  • #
    Fred Allen

    So on one side of the debate, the warmists are predicting continued temperature ascent. Fail! However, just as silly, we have a few papers and prominent people predicting a little ice age. And in the middle once again, seemingly not learning from several past years of failed predictions…the UK Met Office! Someone wake me when this madness is over.

    10

    • #
      John Brookes

      The warmists are likely to be right….

      10

      • #
        Winston

        John
        The warmists are only likely to be “right” if they can reduce the number of thermometers in temperate zones in favour of those in the tropics to “prove” it’s getting warmer. They haven’t been right up to now, so why do you expect they will be in the future…….? Wishful thinking, I’m afraid. Another even colder than average NH winter will not prove the case against CAGW definitively, but certainly should give one pause. But, who am I kidding, nothing would persuade you otherwise.

        10

      • #
        theRealUniverse

        THe warmists are dying out fast

        10

  • #
    pat

    check the picture chosen for this “overwhelming” story:

    11 Oct: LA Times Blog: Australia moves closer to law establishing carbon tax
    The Australian government’s goal of implementing a carbon tax passed its toughest test today as the lower house of Parliament overwhelmingly approved a package of bills that institutes a phased-in carbon tax, to be followed by a carbon-trading system…
    Australia is the largest per-capita carbon polluter, with an economy deeply dependent on coal…
    The Australian law would go well beyond what the California Air Resources Board is considering…
    California’s program would be North America’s biggest carbon market, three times larger than a utility-only system in 10 Northeastern states. By 2016, about $10 billion in carbon allowances are expected to be traded through the California market.
    http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/greenspace/2011/10/australia-climate-change-carbon-tax-cap-and-trade.html

    12 Oct: SMH: AAP: Julian Drape: We were right to block Rudd’s ETS: Brown
    (Brown) “There’s so much more in this legislation – it’s certainly been worth it,” he told reporters in Canberra…
    Senator Brown said billions of dollars were now available for renewable energy projects and a much tougher 80 per cent emissions reduction target by 2050…
    Senator Brown insisted the Greens would stand by the carbon tax legislation in every future Senate and house vote.
    “We’ve promised it, we’ve delivered it, we’re going to stand by it and more,” he said, adding Mr Abbott’s pledge to revoke the tax was making investors nervous…
    http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/we-were-right-to-block-rudds-ets-brown-20111012-1lk8n.html

    i’m reminded of this:

    2009: The Atlantic: The Quiet Coup
    The crash has laid bare many unpleasant truths about the United States. One of the most alarming, says a former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, is that the finance industry has effectively captured our government—a state of affairs that more typically describes emerging markets, and is at the center of many emerging-market crises. If the IMF’s staff could speak freely about the U.S., it would tell us what it tells all countries in this situation: recovery will fail unless we break the financial oligarchy that is blocking essential reform. And if we are to prevent a true depression, we’re running out of time.
    by Simon Johnson
    From 1973 to 1985, the financial sector (in the US) never earned more than 16 percent of domestic corporate profits. In 1986, that figure reached 19 percent. In the 1990s, it oscillated between 21 percent and 30 percent, higher than it had ever been in the postwar period. This decade, it reached 41 percent…
    http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/05/the-quiet-coup/7364/

    now that’s an economic model i would call UNSUSTAINABLE.

    10

    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      … now that’s an economic model i would call UNSUSTAINABLE.

      And none of it is productive use of capital, in fact it is the antithesis of productive use.

      Every time a central bank, anywhere in the world, prints extra money to get itself out of a hole (more “quantitive easing” anyone?), all it is doing is effectively devaluing its own currency.

      10

    • #
      Old woman of the north

      Two votes is overwhelming?

      10

      • #
        catamon

        Two votes is overwhelming?

        In this parliament its absolutely brilliant! Although even i have to humbly admit that effectively, one of those votes was a gimme from Mirabella’s stupidity. Bet she’s not the most popular person in the Party Room at the moment!!

        10

  • #
    pat

    how absolutely fantastic!

    12 Oct: Australian: Sue Neales: Emissions trading scheme? Take a leaf out of our book
    Two months ago, Mr O’Connor became one of only 14 farmers in Australia to be issued with verified carbon credits that can be sold on international markets. In the next few weeks, he expects to sell more than 30,000 carbon offset credits, or units, generated on his historic property, Connorville, to global companies looking to offset their greenhouse gas emissions.
    Even more startlingly, the Cressy farmer has discovered he can earn as much by leaving native trees on his property standing and being paid for their carbon content, as he would by cutting them down.
    At the current market rate of an average $15 for every carbon offset credit sold – equivalent to one tonne of emissions saved by not logging his forests and turning them into woodchips, paper or processed timber – it is a welcome cash injection of more than $400,000 annually.
    “Do I now call myself a carbon farmer?” Mr O’Connor asks rhetorically. “Absolutely; and I’m very happy to do so.”
    The switch from being a farmer of trees, sheep and irrigated crops to one with a large focus on carbon trading came over the past few years, as Mr O’Connor observed the changing viability of the Tasmanian timber industry and the emerging global carbon economy…
    “Too few Australians realise that you can already trade carbon and farmers like my family are now being paid to do so,” Mr O’Connor said yesterday.
    “By registering my forests for carbon offsets, I’m getting the same income as if I had harvested the trees, but I’m also delivering outcomes for the environment and for my family’s farming future.”
    Other Tasmanian landholders are choosing to follow the same path as Mr O’Connor.
    Last month, Bothwell’s Peter Downie became the first farmer in Australia to bank hard cash for selling his registered carbon credits. He was paid more than $200,000 when he sold his first 15,000 carbon credits of the 70,000 units he has had assessed, registered and verified to a German property developer and a Japanese wool processor. Both were looking to neutralise their companies’ carbon footprints – the former for marketing reasons and the latter to meet Japanese regulatory requirements…
    Mr Downie admits it has been a long process to go through the rigorous carbon measuring, assessment and verification scheme for the 10,000ha of native forests he has decided to preserve rather than to log, but he emphasises that his decision to become a carbon farmer was one made for economic reasons from “the head”, rather than driven by any environmental or “green” emotions.
    Redd Forests managing director Stephen Dickey admits he is delighted to see the first cash flowing from the campaign to translate standing native forests in Tasmania into valuable carbon credits instead of toilet paper or plywood.
    http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/carbon-plan/emissions-trading-scheme-take-a-leaf-out-of-our-book/story-fn99tjf2-1226164354661

    10

  • #
    pat

    oue future economy:

    12 Oct: Reuters: Price of U.N. CO2 price drops
    U.N. carbon credits fell 4 percent on Tuesday and could fall further as heavy issuance continues to weigh on prices but they are not likely to hit an all-time low of 7.15 euros ($9.76) a tonne this week, traders and analysts told Reuters.
    Benchmark prices for certified emissions reductions (CERs) fell as low as 7.54 euros in afternoon trade, before recovering slightly to 7.57 euros at 1540 GMT.
    They have lost more than 40 percent of their value since the start of June, touching a 32-month low of 7.32 euros on October 4.
    The market has been pressured by an abundance of supply, coupled with slowing economic growth prospects amid debt crises in the United States and European Union.
    “This week, I don’t expect prices to fall to 7.15 but they could go to any value (…),” said Emmanuel Fages, carbon analyst at Societe Generale/orbeo.
    “I don’t expect them to fall to 5 before 2013 but they should go down gradually in the coming year.”
    A record 254 million CERs have been awarded this year so far, well above the 132 million awarded in the whole of 2010 and 123 million in 2009.
    Traders have attributed the increased volume of credits to rule changes and improved efficiency in the U.N.’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), which issues the credits.
    They do not see CER supply decreasing any time soon, even though new issuance has slowed over the past few weeks.
    “We are not sure about demand, so we can expect them (CER prices) to go lower,” said a trader at a financial institution…
    CER demand has been weakened by an EU Commission decision to ban the use of credits from certain industrial gas projects for use in its emissions trading scheme from May 2013 due to criticism of their environmental integrity.
    “The clock is running against CERs because at least 50 percent of them are from industrial gas projects,” said Fages, referring a total of 750 million CERs awarded since the U.N.’s CDM began in 2005.
    “Due to the decision to ban (them), people will have to sell them before they are worth zero,” he added.
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/11/us-carbon-price-idUSTRE79A34L20111011

    10

  • #
    pat

    11 Oct: EnvironmentalLeader: BofA Merrill Enters California Carbon Market
    Bank of America Merrill Lynch is entering the nascent California carbon trading market with an agreed option to buy several million tons of offsets from TerraPass, through 2020.
    The offsets will be generated from a pool of agricultural methane projects located throughout the U.S., and are all expected to be compliant with the forthcoming cap-and-trade regime.
    The system, based on Californian climate legislation AB32, has been held up by lawsuits. In an April decision, a San Francisco Superior Court judge said that the board had failed to sufficiently study alternatives to carbon trading.
    But earlier this month, the California Supreme Court ruled that air-quality regulators may establish a cap-and-trade system while the state appeals the lower court judge’s order.
    If approved, the system is set to become the second-largest carbon market in the world, with its first auction scheduled for mid-2012.
    Abyd Karmali, the global head of carbon markets in BofA Merrill’s global commodities group, said the partnership will provide U.S. clients with an integrated hedging service including power, fuels, and carbon risk management. He said that by acting as a first mover in California, the bank is positioning itself as the offset provider of choice for companies that need to comply with the climate regulations…
    http://www.environmentalleader.com/2011/10/11/bofa-merrill-enters-california-carbon-market/

    10 Oct: Reuters: Trading Emissions culls dividend as carbon prices drop
    British clean-energy projects developer Trading Emissions said on Monday it will scrap its dividend given the continued drop in carbon prices, which had also forced it to abandon sale talks earlier this year…
    “The carbon market requires that counterparties provide cash collateral against forward contracts up until delivery,” the company said. “Accordingly, cash proceeds must be retained to ensure the company can meet working capital requirements.”
    The fall in prevailing carbon prices and, in turn, the value of its portfolio of carbon-related securities, could leave it with insufficient reserves to pay future dividends, Trading Emissions said on Monday.
    The company declared a final dividend of 3.85 pence last year, for a total dividend of 5.5 pence per share…
    “The continuing weakness in the carbon price, dividend suspension and the absence of realization progress means we cut our target price to 55 pence,” Peel Hunt analyst Andrew Shepherd-Barron said.
    Shares in the company were down 4.1 percent at 52.5 pence on Monday. The stock has fallen more than 35 percent in the past three months.
    The company also said it would seek approval from shareholders at its Annual General Meeting in December to re-register under the Isle of Man Companies Act 2006.
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/10/us-tradingemissions-brief-idUSTRE79912320111010

    12 Oct: SMH: Chris Zappone: Carbon tax passage won’t end uncertainty for business
    Companies and investors still have to deal with the uncertainty prompted by Opposition Leader Tony Abbott’s pledge to repeal the laws if he forms government, analysts say…
    (CMC markets chief market strategist Michael McCarthy)
    “The big challenge now facing companies that are directly impacted by this tax is that the opposition has pledged to repeal it,” said Mr McCarthy. “We now enter a period of uncertainty of up to a two-year time horizon (that) the tax will be in place, but could well be repealed after that period.”…
    “Given the finely balanced nature of the parliament, if we do see an election before it’s scheduled, repealing the tax could come earlier,” said Mr McCarthy. “It’s now a very difficult choice for Australian business leaders as to which path they take.”…
    Morningstar Australasia’s head of equity research Peter Warnes echoes the concerns that executives don’t have the certainty they need to make investments should the Liberals return to power and reverse course…
    Mr Warnes said that if the legislation is not “Abbott-proof” it will be repealed. “But how much money are you wasting in the meantime in terms of what corporations have got to do in addressing this situation?”…
    JP Morgan economist Helen Kevans said the worries about future changes to the carbon tax are likely to linger.
    Those doubts may show up, for instance, in National Australia Bank’s October business confidence survey, she said…
    http://www.smh.com.au/business/carbon-tax-passage-wont-end-uncertainty-for-business-20111012-1lkdp.html

    11 Oct: UK Telegraph: Rowena Mason: Billionaires to be given free carbon allowances to offset green tax on private jets
    Corporate jets used by billionaires the Duke of Westminster and Lord Ashcroft are among the aircraft to be allocated free “carbon allowances” to offset the cost of a new green tax.
    Almost 200 corporate jet owners, from oil company ExxonMobil to Starbucks and Iceland Foods, will be awarded free permits to compensate them for the new expense of Europe’s carbon trading scheme for aircraft….
    However, corporate jet owners will also be able to take advantage of these free allowances, potentially selling them on for cash if they don’t use their aircraft as much as in previous years…
    Dozens of corporate jet owners will get free permits, including Iceland Foods, JP Morgan Chase, Procter and Gamble, Hertz Corporation, McDonalds, IBM and Coca-Cola…
    Neil Bentley, the CBI’s deputy director-general, said companies were committed to tackling climate change, “but investors are struggling to understand how to invest against the proposed framework while the resulting costs could damage parts of our manufacturing sector”.
    On Monday, a report from the Environmental Audit Committee blamed the Government for moving goalposts by reviewing the UK’s green targets. It said the “Government’s somewhat schizophrenic attitude to climate change seems to be undermining confidence”.
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/transport/8818995/Billionaires-to-be-given-free-carbon-allowances-to-offset-green-tax-on-private-jets.html

    10

  • #

    Clueless or Conniving.
    It’s either one or the other.
    Well Bob and Christine (et al Greens) are just clueless anyway.

    Conniving – Most definitely, and woven with spin.

    Work this out as to what the end result will be.

    The first thing they have done today is to announce the setting up of energy security.

    We are told that the introduction of this CO2 Tax will gradually lower emissions, hence the income from this legislation will gradually drop. There’s the spin, because it’s not true.

    As I have mentioned, a large scale coal fired power plant burns a set amount of coal to produce its electricity, set amount, because the cost of the steaming coal is such a huge impost for the generating Company. Because of that the amount of CO2 emitted is the same.

    Enter this new legislation, and its child, the ETS born in a few years from now, an ETS that lowers the cap on those emissions each year.

    So, if the cap is lowered it then stands to reason that the CO2 emissions drop, and the income from those emissions lowers.

    Wrong!

    The plant must burn the same amount of coal to produce its electricity.

    So, there’s only one result from that then, isn’t there.

    The plant must produce less electricity.

    Enter electricity security, and what a surprise that Labor sets up a new Committee first thing. This electricity security means that the amount of electricity required to keep the Country running will be secured at the level required to keep everything going.

    The legislation lowers the cap each year – The plant must burn the same coal, hence the same CO2.

    The Govt has effectively covered that base. You see, they lower the cap, and the plant produces the same electricity, then they must exceed that cap. The legislation says that if they exceed the cap, then by whatever amount they exceed that cap, they then have to purchase those extra credits, and, on top of that pay a fine in the amount of 1.5 times the cost of each ton in excess. Then, on top of that, the excess from that year just gone is subtracted from the now already lowered cap. We’re not talking the odd ton here and there because a typical large scale plant burns between 6 Million and 7.5 Million tons of coal each year, and work out the CO2 emissions from that at the average multiplier of 2.86 tons of CO2 for each one ton of coal, and then multiply that by the start price of $23 per ton, so any excess is in the vicinity of 5% which comes in at around $20 Million, plus the fine of $30 Million on top of that, so it’s no small thing. (see now how the money rolls in) That excess and that fine cannot be passed down to consumers. The generating entity has to foot that bill itself.

    See now it’s possible to drive them to the wall in a short period of time. Just cost them out of business. Then there’s no power whatsoever, not just less, but none.

    Then the following year, they produce the same electricity, hence exceeding the cap, now by even more, hence the extra credits, the fine, and the lowering of the cap even further.

    See how the base is so neatly covered.

    It’s not designed to lower emissions, It’s designed to ensure an ever increasing Government income.

    Now, enter electricity security.

    Fact. The Govt knows that the existing coal fired plants have contracts to supply, some out to the mid 30’s. (and yes, that even applies for Hazelwood.) The Govt will not pay out those contracts, as it will just cost too much. It’s easier to just drive them to the wall.

    Fact. They know it will take at least 7 to 10 years for any renewable plant to get to the stage where it is delivering power, and anyway, not very many of them are even in planning at this current time.

    Fact. They know that to replace just the one large scale coal fired plant, they will need a stack of them, so you’re looking at hundreds of them. There’s no way they can afford that, even if they diverted all the money raised from the CO2 Tax – ETS.

    Fact. They know these plants only provide tiny amounts of power on an irregular time basis, and for only some of the time, not on the same scale as a reliable steady coal fired plant which supplies 24/7/365.

    Fact. They know absolutely that it would be absolute political suicide to ALLOW those coal fired plants to produce less electricity, because that would lead to blackouts, not just in the Residential sector as some of you may think, but across every sector of power consumption.

    Enter electricity security.

    Now at Joanne’s site here, there is a core of people who support this legislation, with rose green coloured glasses who think everything’s going to be just fine.

    You lot, you tell me us all what’s going to happen.

    Power cuts if plants comply, or money made hand over fist by a Government who is cunning beyond comprehension, spinning the fact that they are compensating (some of) the people with bribes tax cuts that will be eaten up by bracket creep, hence even more money coming directly to the Government.

    This isn’t about the environment you guys who support this legislation.

    It’s only about the money.

    Waiting waiting.

    Tony.

    10

    • #
      Llew Jones

      Elect a trade union official and a Chinese speaking diplomat to run the country and that’s the only sort of result that one could expect. Add to that the vast number of government advisers all of whom have never done a decent days real work in their lives and it is apparent why this carbon tax is as crazy as you show.

      The Gillard – Rudd kiss on the passing of this job destroying, infantile tax should be featured in the Coalition’s next election campaign. Two years is a very short time.

      10

    • #

      But Tony, they can reduce their generating output as industries move off shore. Toyota is preparing to shut down and move back to Asia.

      The combination of union disputes and the carbon tax have seen to that. The cascading effect will put the component manufacturers out of business and this will flow down through the local communities.

      Intended consequences!

      10

      • #
        Rereke Whakaaro

        … they can reduce their generated output …

        These plants were originally designed (in a much more rational age) for maximum efficiency i.e. producing the maximum amount of electricity for the least amount of coal. There is only one sweet-spot in that equation (or perhaps two), move away from that sweet-spot and you become less economic very quickly.

        To put it another way, a power plant is like the light bulb it supplies, it is either on or off.

        (And before you say that you can put a dimmer in a light switch, you still end up using the same amount of energy, because the dimmer just shunts some if it past the bulb, so it burns less bright, so your power bills don’t appreciably decrease.

        10

        • #

          Let’s look at Hazelwood. It has six generators that produce 1200MW total, six of your ‘lightbulbs’. I’m sure if they needed to generate less output they could turn the required lightbulbs off. They do this also for maintenance.

          I’m not aware of any thermal coal fired power plants on the grid that have only one large lightbulb.

          10

          • #

            scaper makes a good point here where he says:

            Let’s look at Hazelwood. It has six generators that produce 1200MW total, six of your ‘lightbulbs’. I’m sure if they needed to generate less output they could turn the required lightbulbs off. They do this also for maintenance.

            While scaper has a minor fact check problem, because there are in fact 8 generators for 1600MW, the point might be taken that they could just shut one of them down as they do for maintenance.

            Hazelwood provides one quarter of all Victoria’s power consumption.

            Those maintenance periods are very carefully structured, and the planning to close down the units is something that requires a lot of coordination.

            Because, as that one unit closes down for maintenance, then other units that supply the grid have to come on line to provide the power not supplied by that unit undergoing maintenance.

            Those units are the Peaking Power plants, plants that provide their power at Peak times only, the two/three hours in the morning, and for six eight hours in the evening and into the night.

            So, when one unit at Hazelwood closes,, then prior to that, enough replacement power has to be actually on line and delivering power to the grids in Victoria.

            Then they shut the unit at Hazelwood, and do the maintenance, and for the duration of that maintenance, those extra plants remain on line, and do not shut down until the unit at Hazelwood is back on line, run up and delivering power.

            So, to say ‘just shut down’ one, er, ‘light bulb’ is erroneous, as even though shut down, that power now comes from other units that are now turning and burning instead of that unit at Hazelwood, hence emitting CO2.

            Hope this clears up a misapprehension.

            Tony.

            10

          • #

            As usual, you are right, Tony. Should have checked first before writing. Thanks for the clarification.

            10

    • #
      Andrew McRae

      You want to know what will happen when the cryptoecotheocratic warminista government crank up the carbon tax on generators year over year without allowing an emission decrease?

      Invitation to free public lecture “The Future of Carbon Trading in Australia” held on 17 Feb 2010, first topic :

      A key problem facing the world is how to adapt to power system
      based on renewables. The wind doesn’t always blow, and the
      sun can’t provide power at night. How do we integrate baseload
      power and intermittent supplies? How do we modify demand-side
      behaviour to take advantage of a variable supply market?

      There’s your answer.
      Somehow the PR goon contrived a question that was both rhetorical and nonsensical:
      1. There is no advantage to be taken from a variable energy supply compared to constant.
      2. If there is no power, producers don’t produce, customers don’t buy, workers can’t pay mortgages, that’s an inevitable “behaviour change”.
      3. You don’t need to manage the inevitable to fruition – it’s inevitable. When you’ve sabotaged the infrastructure, no further effort to “modify” behaviour will be needed for the obvious to occur.

      If more of us had seen these barely concealed warning signs before, perhaps… well it’s almost pointless discussing the carbon tax now, eh?

      Their answer, just as in the UK and in the USA, is unending brownouts from renewables.
      * Their answer is that production schedules will be weather dependent and services will be available sporadically and some cannot be delivered even when booked a month in advance.
      * Every business will have a list of outstanding orders which decrease only during sunny days, and a list of invoices which are paid in sunny months.
      * Couples will not be able to afford to have only a single income, but someone still has to do the washing during the day while the power is available.
      * The higher energy cost will increase the gap between rich and poor. The gap between big business and small business will increase due to the bulk energy purchasing agreements that only the big players can afford, leading to a higher barrier of entry to small business and many mergers and acquisitions in the energy intensive sectors.
      * Those with crony capitalist favours obtain reserved access to the limited daily power and so become the new oligarchs and elite. Paradoxically, the carbon mafia profit from preventing landowners from using their land for any productive purpose.
      * Being unable to use much of our considerable mineral resources domestically leaves all the more available for export to countries with functioning industry. The Chinese may rub their hands together with glee at this news, knowing the government compensation to ETEIs will keep their purchase costs of Australian iron low. Same for coal, nice one. If paraphrasing the neocons the folks in Beijing might even say ” 矿产那边是我们的. ” (That’s our minerals over there.)
      * The people react to shortages by a combination of hoarding, dying, stealing, and ad hoc communal asset sharing. A depressionary spiral never seems bad at the outset because the acceleration begins with low velocity, but supply shortages will lead to cascading demand destruction far in excess of initial price rises.
      * The Green Police will be one of the few new green jobs, yet even they will be victims of their own nefarious success as they run short of viable businesses and living people to police.

      It’s the low economic productivity of 1980s France without any of that nation’s social benefits.
      It’s the climate vulnerability and poverty of a small pacific island without any of their food and housing self-sufficiency.
      It’s all the disadvantages of the Soviet Union across the spectrum without any of their advantages, and based on recent parliamentary performance I am including free speech in that comparison.

      Updating George Orwell
      It’s no longer 2 + 2 = 5
      It’s now 8GWe – 1GWe = 2GWe

      Labor told us that even with the carbon tax the world would still go on.
      Yes, the world will go on without us.
      Labor told us that the carbon tax would not be the end of life.
      Yes, just the end of life as we’ve known it.
      Labor tells us over time people will be less apprehensive about the carbon tax.
      Yes, less apprehensive and more angry.

      10

  • #
    kevin Moore

    The Climate Change – Global Warming scare campaign is a crap vehicle used to carry along the Socialist Elites agenda of attaining the rulership and ownership of the World. Ask Bob Brown!

    With at least 75% of the population recognising it as an expensive lemon requiring a lot of money to keep it running, the day can’t come soon enough for them to be able to get rid of it.

    Here’s what some useful idiots have to say –

    We need to get some broad based support,
    to capture the public’s imagination…
    So we have to offer up scary scenarios,
    make simplified, dramatic statements
    and make little mention of any doubts…
    Each of us has to decide what the right balance
    is between being effective and being honest.”
    – Prof. Stephen Schneider,
    Stanford Professor of Climatology,
    lead author of many IPCC reports

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    “We’ve got to ride this global warming issue.
    Even if the theory of global warming is wrong,
    we will be doing the right thing in terms of
    economic and environmental policy.”
    – Timothy Wirth,
    President of the UN Foundation

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    “No matter if the science of global warming is all phony…
    climate change provides the greatest opportunity to
    bring about justice and equality in the world.”
    – Christine Stewart,
    former Canadian Minister of the Environment

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    “The data doesn’t matter. We’re not basing our recommendations
    on the data. We’re basing them on the climate models.”
    – Prof. Chris Folland,
    Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    10

  • #
    Ross

    Despite his repeated efforts on this site to convince us that it is not a tax ,Adam Smith seems to be proved wrong by the PM who is saying today that Tony Abbott will never be able to repeal this TAX.
    When is somebody going to ask her the obvious question –if it cannot be repealed what happens if the global economy goes south ( real possibility now ) and demand for Australia’s minerals reduces significantly (another real posssibilty , maybe not next year but in the near future) how is Australia going to pay for all its committments ( both domestic and international) which it has now inacted into an “unrepealable” Act of Parliament.
    Something tells me these stupid statements by the PM and Brown are going to come home to bite them very hard , one day.

    10

  • #
    Tim

    I have to wonder if there is more to this than simple government ignorance or greed. They can’t be that stupid in the face of their contituents’ overwhelming opposition, credible scientific challenges and emerging world trends.

    Maurice Strong, (Godfather of the New World Order): “Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn’t it our responsibility to bring this about”?

    10

  • #
    val majkus

    copy of an e mail I received today
    Please help if you can; if each of us does something together we can achieve

    Dear val majkus,

    Today is a day that shall live in infamy.

    October 12, 2011 will forever be remembered as the day democracy in Australia died.

    The day that Julia “There shall be no Carbon Tax Under the Government I lead” Gillard and Wayne “it is a hysterical allegation that we are moving to a carbon tax” Swan formally broke their solemn oath to the Australian people, and voted in favour of an unnecessary, destructive, carbon dioxide tax – one that will cost our economy a staggering One Trillion Dollars, will kill tens of thousands of jobs, and will destroy our economic prosperity.

    With the Radical Extremist Puppet Masters in the Australian Greens, like the self-proclaimed Stalinist Lee Rhiannon, supporting this monstrosity, barring a miracle, its passage through the Senate is now all but assured.

    Rather than despair, however, today is a day of hope. As bleak as things may seem, it is always darkest before the dawn.

    Today the Australian people rise up.

    Democracy WILL rise from the grave.

    But we need to take action and move forward and reclaim our great country NOW. And we need YOUR help to do this.

    The Menzies House team has been working full time for the last month to prepare a new project to win back Australia: To establish a grassroots activist body to counter – and surpass – the evils that left wing Astroturf bodies like GetUp! spread. We have been outnumbered and outmaneuvered by the left in terms of public advocacy so far, but now is the time to change all that and to WIN BACK AUSTRALIA!

    val majkus, you and I both know that Australia desperatly needs a grassroots body to represent real Australians, and oppose the radical extremists who have taken over our political system. But for this to work, and for us to repeal the carbon tax and continue this momentum past the next election (and ensure that if Tony Abbott is elected, he will do the right thing), I desperately need your help to make sure this vital project to transform Australian political debate becomes a reality.

    I know we have no chance in receiving 1.3 million dollars from the Unions like GetUp!, or a staggering $10 million like the Climate Institute was given, or the almost unlimited taxpayer dollars given to climate change alarmists.

    But we don’t need that. We don’t need millions to try to bribe our way to success, because we have truth and the Australian people on our side, and all we need is the funds to mobilise them.

    val majkus: Can you spare $50, $100 or $250 to ensure we take back Australia?

    I hate to ask for money, and I know we are all struggling financially because of what our Gillard has done to us, but if we don’t move now now it willbe too late. And it will cost us ten fold more in higher taxes if we don’t act now.

    You can’t change the world if you can’t pay the rent.

    Can you please join me and make a small investment to make an effective opposition force to the left a reality. Australians are crying out for a full-time, grassroots activist organisation that will educate, mobilise them, and lobby for direct change. Change that is sorely needed.

    The Menzies House anti-carbon tax coalition has done what we can so far: lobby politicians, support protests, even arrange for a sky-writer, but we need to take the next step. And we need the resources to do so.

    PLEASE: click here and invest in Australia’s future.

    Now is the time to do this. We can’t wait any longer.

    Can you PLEASE join us and become an investor in Australia’s future?

    Please forward this to all your family and friends, share this with your facebook friends by clicking here: and then post it on twitter by clicking here: The more the message gets out, the more supporters we have, the more we can be sure we will suceed.

    Do anything you can to spread the word. In this dark hour, our future depends on it.

    Timothy Andrews
    Managing Editor
    Menzies House

    PS: This is our last chance to stand up for what we know is right. PLEASE: Help us fight the radical extremists and invest $50, $100 or $200 to reclaim Australia by clicking here

    10

    • #
      Bush bunny

      I’d luv to, but what’s it for? Anyway, I haven’t got a spare $50 I’ve just got my electricity bill in.

      Best of luck though.

      10

      • #
        val majkus

        understood Bush Bunny
        But just remember saying ‘election now’ is getting anti air tax voters nowhere now

        So we have to be prepared to look to the future; sometime there will be an election

        Today is the first day of the next election campaign; that’s the way I look at it

        and I’m going to work towards that ultimate (hoped for) outcome when the tax will be repealed

        So don’t give up

        10

  • #

    Slightly off topic. Wayne Swan warns Australia could face a repeat of the GFC

    What an idiot! Construction, manufacturing, retail and the service industries are going down the toilet and they want to introduce this tax? What a mess!

    10

  • #
    pattoh

    Moments in history like today give fresh understanding to Guy Fawks & the Gunpowder Plot.

    How convenient that the ACT still has legal fireworks (possibly not for long).

    10

  • #
    incoherent rambler

    Today, the behaviour of our parliament makes me both embarassed and ashamed to be an Australian. This is one of the very few times in my life that I have felt this way.

    10

    • #

      I do remember one other time I was this angry with a Government.

      In the early 70’s I was a member of one of the finest fighter squadrons in Australia, 76 Squadron, and we flew the Mirages then, while I was ground crew as an Elecfitt.

      The voting age then was 21, so the first election I got to vote in was Dec 7, when Whitlam got elected.

      Part way through 73, in August, that Labor Govt slashed the Military, and I mean slashed.

      76 Squadron was disbanded, and most of only found out on the morning we turned up for work.

      All flying, in fact all work, was cancelled, on the spot, no correspondence entered into. To say we were stunned is an understatement.

      I’ve never seen anything similar happen in the RAAF before of since. We made banners and hung them up.

      The main one, draped across the street out the front of Squadron HQ said

      76 Sqn. Died from Labor pains.

      For a medium/senior ranking Officer, our CO, a Wing Commander, to allow this blatant political statement was something that actually affected the rest of his career, even if he only had a few years left, but those banners stayed up for a week, and he defied Senior ranking Officers when told to take them down.

      As a group, we vowed to never vote Labor again, again at the urging of our CO in a whole of Squadron meeting. I have never seen a ranking Officer so livid. Messages ran so hot, you could hear him shouting from his office inside HQ from the flight line.

      We parked a Mirage on the street almost under the main banner, and this image shows me standing alongside that Mirage with the sign on it.

      I was already a Conservative voter, even after only one election, but that helped set me in my ways.

      In May of 74, there was another Federal Election, and Whitlam got back in.

      I was at 77 Sqn then, and then in 1975 when Gough got booted, our old CO from 76 got as many of us guys still around, and we had a huge party, and he shelled out for the kegs from his own pocket.

      I’m that angry today, something I thought I would never be like in my life again since that one day.

      Link to Image.

      Tony.

      10

      • #
        rukidding

        76 sqn ah I was in 76 sqn when it swapped from Sabres to Mirages.
        We went up to Evans Head for a bombing exercise with the Sabres came back on the friday and on the monday it was a Mirage Sqn and I went to 2OCU on Vampires.Spent the rest of my time there not being bothered by anyone.What a life all day sleeping in the sun on a Vamp wing.Only time it got busy was on a friday afternoon with all the cross country exercises for the weekend ;-).The busiest people then were the radio techs changing the crystals in the radio sets.

        10

  • #
    Binghi

    Today was a great day for DEMOCRACY!

    10

  • #
    Joe ^

    Having done the dirty , will Julia retire in an attempt to save the ALP , once the Carbon Tax passes the Senate ?

    10

  • #
    theRealUniverse

    CRIMINAL TAX passed..simply criminal.
    The criminal theft of money with no just cause and wantonly knowing that it IS fraudulent.

    embarassed and ashamed to be an Australian.

    Dont be ashamed rambler they (GOV) sucked in by the criminal NWO, bankers of Wall St, UN (One World Gov) and the Globalist elites.

    10

  • #
    val majkus

    the always colourful Barnaby Joyce
    TRANSCRIPT ABC NEWS 24
    12TH October 2011

    TRANSCRIPT
    Subjects: Carbon Tax
    E&OE………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

    LYNDAL CURTIS: Barnaby Joyce welcome to ABC News 24.
    BARNABY JOYCE: Thanks Lyndal. Thanks for having me on.
    LYNDAL CURTIS: The carbon price legislation is in the Senate, do you accept there is no way you can stop it from becoming law?
    BARNABY JOYCE: I accept that it is now obviously very difficult but that does not mean it is the end of the battle that just means it is the start. I am not going to relent and neither is any body else. When this comes in we will continue to fight on because this is a ridiculous proposition, with the economic climate the way it is, we are going forward with a new tax and the bottom line is this, it does nothing to change the temperature of the globe. It is completely and utterly climate irrelevant, it is merely a tax, it is a gesture. It will certainly make you poorer, it is not the wish of the Australian people, they were never told they were going to get it but here it comes.
    And if we just think of a bus analogy. If at the last election you bought a bus ticket which said you were going from Brisbane to the Gold Coast, they ended up at Birdsville and the bus driver says sorry you have got the Birdsville carbon tax.
    LYNDAL CURTIS: But Julia Gillard never promised not to introduce a carbon price, in fact she spoke of introducing a carbon price, and gave a speech about it with the ill fated citizens assembly proposal. This government has always been committed to introducing a carbon price, and at the end of the day, and isn’t this at the end of the fixed price period an emissions trading scheme like the CPRS?
    BARNABY JOYCE: This is absolutely not what they said at the last election they were going to do. They said quite conclusively. We have seen it ad nauseum, the shot of her on the Brisbane River, saying “there will be no carbon tax under a government I lead.
    LYNDAL CURTIS: But she did not say no carbon price?
    BARNABY JOYCE: This is semantics, absolute semantics. We can’t play this sort of game with the Australian people that’s how they lose respect for you. That’s why they end up in the chamber booing and hissing because people lose respect for the office. When you are the Prime Minister you have got to be fair dinkum. If you are going to play this little game of semantics with the Australian people and then bang a carbon tax on them, delivered to them from the powerpoint of every corner of their room, making the price of everything they do dearer, that will have no effect on the climate and then try some weasel words to get out of it. You really will stir them up.
    And she stirred them up today, to the point where she took the Labor party down to 26 per cent. I tell you they will stay there and live there if they carry on like this.
    LYNDAL CURTIS: Just to go to the Senate debate. Will you be trying to talk this debate out, will you do everything you can to try and talk as long as you can delay a vote in the Senate?
    BARNABY JOYCE: Will I work as hard as I can to protect the Australian people from a ridiculous tax? Yes I will. Right at the start, I never agreed with the ETS.
    The other part of this of course is the huge boon to the banks. I hope the Australian people realise this. Big banks get their biggest bonus ever courtesy of Bob Brown, it’s Bob Brown’s “Big Bank Bonus”. They are going to get billions of dollars in commission to trade a permit around the marketplace, ultimately with your Emissions Trading Scheme, because of a colourless, odourless gas, which some housewife, man on the land has to pay. Money does not grow on trees, they are definitely going to pay.
    Then we give, what, $56.9 billion a year, by 2050, to send overseas to buy permits, these bizarre markets where they go to Russia, or to south-east Asia or the west coast of Africa and buy these incredible permits from these incredible permit markets.
    LYNDAL CURTIS: You’ve constantly derided carbon as a colourless, odourless gas …
    BARNABY JOYCE: … it is ….
    LYNDAL CURTIS: … why then is the Coalition committed to spending some billions of dollars to try and bring emissions down.
    BARNABY JOYCE: It is $3.2 billion and it is budgeted, it fits in because increasing the productivity of soil is good, whether you believe in global warming, it is a real outcome. If you develop a more efficient engine, that is going to be a good outcome regardless.
    LYNDAL CURTIS: Isn’t the government doing some of that through its carbon farming initiative?
    BARNABY JOYCE: No, what they are doing is bringing in a tax. They are bringing in a tax and if taxes cooled the planet, the place would be an icebox. It is absurd. Using the same logic, every time you increase income tax the place would get colder, every time you reduce income tax it would warm up a little bit.
    I mean it is just this absurd analysis. Where they always, and the way they go about it, where they create fear and loathing and moral outrage. You will instantaneously combust if you don’t drown, and people say oh that sounds bad. People will die all round the world, there will be droughts, droughts, fire, flood and famine.
    And then people say I feel bad about this, I must do something about this. But then when people ask the logical question, hang on, how does a tax have anything to do with those things you just said then …
    LYNDAL CURTIS: Don’t taxes change behaviour?
    BARNABY JOYCE: Yes, they do. They make you poorer. They make it so you can’t afford things. That is precisely what this is. Yet they’re now saying, well it doesn’t have that much of an effect. Well, if it doesn’t have that much of an effect, why are you doing it?
    But, of course, it does have an effect and you’re dead right. It does make you poorer, it is a pricing mechanism to make you poorer so you can not afford things, you can not buy them and the nasty little pill about this is that the thing that people can’t afford will be their power. And there are people right now Lyndal who can’t afford their power. They don’t need any more motivation to be poor, the government has got them to a poor position quite alright right now.
    LYNDAL CURTIS: You say the tax will make people poorer but the government’s also going to be giving some compensation, some tax cuts and pension rises to people. Are you happy going to the next election saying to people we will take those tax cuts and pension rises away?
    BARNABY JOYCE: This is an absurdity. They must think we are all fools. They’re saying they are going to take all this money of you and then I am going to give you a little bit of your own money back and you will say thank you to me.
    How about we just leave all the money in their pocket, that’s a much better idea. But this idea we can take the money off you, spinning it around a department, for which I hear there are 1,000 people at the moment in the Climate Change Department, I don’t know how they’re going, it was a bit cold this morning, they should have warmed it up this morning. But then the 1,000 people get paid an average of $140,000 per year. Tell that to the lady on the checkout.
    [ENDS]
    Jenny Swan
    Office of Senator Barnaby Joyce
    Leader of The Nationals in the Senate
    Shadow Minister for Regional Development, Local Government and Water
    P: 07 46 251 500
    M: 0438 578 402
    F: 07 46 251 511

    10

  • #
    val majkus

    another e mail today

    SO-called Independent MPs Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott might have been basking in the praise of Labor and Greens MPs after the carbon tax legislation was passed in the lower house today, thanks to their votes.
    But back in the conservative electorates to whom they owe their presence in Canberra, the reaction is quite different.
    A mail-in survey by Nationals MP John Williams has found 89% of respondents in New England and 87% of respondents in Lyne wanted their MPs to vote against the carbon tax, as you can see from this picture of the 10,000 or so survey forms which made their way to Parliament House this morning.

    And despite Greens leader Bob Brown claiming that Australia “in the main” wants the carbon tax, Newspoll shows the opposite.
    The latest Newspoll found that not only had climate change slipped to last place of the ten most important issues, but that for the first time, voters judged the Coalition better able to handle climate change, 31 per cent to 28 per cent.
    But the will of the people means nothing to gloating Greens and GetUp apparatchiks.

    http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/mirandadevine/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/carbon_wednesday_the_view_from_new_england_and_lyne/

    10

  • #
    theRealUniverse

    And this is the sort of thing that shows the influence of International bansksters over the Australian Gov.

    From http://wakeup2thelies.com

    Dr Megan Clark, Chief Executive of the CSIRO is the former DIRECTOR of Rothschild Investment Bank in Australia between 2001-2003. See her resume from the CSIRO’s own website..

    Rothschild Investment Bank Part of the globalist ‘illuminist’ banking system. And and supporter of draconian CO2 taxes.

    10

  • #
    Joe ^

    Imagine a Global currency, who’s value is determined only by the whims of politicians (well so they’d like to think ). Regulated into existence, one day to replace all national currencies, relegating them to become mere ‘soft’ currencies, while UN diktats on Carbon Emissions attempt to give it and control its value.

    A Market based mechanism in all but nature.

    And which no longer electable politician , might seem worthy of the UN’s new role of Carbon diktator ?

    them Carbon Tax passes the Senate,

    10

    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      A currency that is backed by nothing but desire and custom is, by definition, worthless.

      Most currencies were pegged against the US Dollar, at a time when the US Dollar was backed by gold bullion held in Fort Knox.

      To finance the Vietnam War, Nixon took America of of the “Gold Standard”, so he could print more money, and buy more “stuff”. But since that time, the US Dollar has been nothing but a fiat currency, and the whole monetary system is really based on nothing but the perception that the US will continue to be the strongest economy on the planet.

      Times are changing, and we can expect the financial system to collapse at some stage. The ALP has made the mistake that most Socialist organisation make, they see money as being the end game, instead of being a dubious means to an end.

      If you want to invest, do not invest in banks. Invest in tangible assets that provide you with food, clothing, and shelter.

      10

      • #
        NicG.

        Hi Rereke.

        In your second para you observe that Nixon took America off the “Gold Standard”. While I concur with your observation, I think the real damage was done earlier at the Bretton Woods Conference just after WW2, where John Maynard Keynes (representing GB) and Harry Dexter White (representing the US) effectively carved up the Global Economy and introduced the new world order based on their socialist principles and pushed their proposals through by virtue of the fact that they were holding all the finacial ‘aces’ i.e. they still had real wealth in the shape of gold and industry.

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bretton_Woods_Conference

        IMO this is the top of the financial slope that we are still sliding down. The Bretton Woods Accord was probably necessary at the time to kick start the shattered economies of any nation involved in WW2 but, once in place, it became a gravy train for power hungry and greedy politico’s. This arrangement should have been dismantled as soon as various sovreign economies stabilized but it wasn’t. Too many vested interests. To unwind all of this will take another world war or some other globally catastrophic event (and I don’t mean CAGW).

        Incidentally the title of the Wikipedia article may be of interest – “United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference” (emphasis is mine).

        Cheers.
        NicG.

        10

        • #
          theRealUniverse

          I think THIS mayb what you mean NicG, Towards WW3.

          10

        • #
          Rereke Whakaaro

          No, I disagree.

          Bretton Woods was all about how to manage the recovery of the world economy. Remember that the United Nations was formed after WW2, to replace the discredited League of Nations, so few of the protocols had been established, and none of the modern mechanisms were in place. What was discussed, was having a single currency for exchange (much as the Euro is today). Delegates shied away from creating a new UN currency (the organisation was unproven) which in retrospect was probably a good thing. The US being the largest “victor” in the war, offered the US Dollar as that currency, which was a very smart move as it turned out. Nixon simply blew it.

          10

          • #
            theRealUniverse

            The UN was established to usher in the attempt at World Gov then agreed apon at the secretive Bildeberg meetings. Its on record. Now the same (some of descndent “Street” bankers) are destroying the EU USA aided and abetted by London bankers, hedgefund ‘hyenas’ with credit default swaps hedgefunds and austerity measures.

            10

  • #
    Tom

    Darren Cheeseman is a special person with a special place in history. I sent this letter to the federal Labor member for Corangamite today after the House of Representatives voted to introduce a carbon tax:

    As the holder of Australia’s most marginal seat, as a cheerleader for the carbon dioxide tax and as a member of the Senate inquiry which flagrantly ignored anyone who opposed the legislation, you have guaranteed that you will be the first federal MP in Australia to find out you don’t have a job on the day when we are next allowed to vote.
    You have also guaranteed that I will devote all of my energy to your defeat, even though, until now, I have never voted for any party other than Labor.
    For the record, after almost two years of independent research, I have concluded that not only does CO2 not drive global temperature (even though it contributes), it is now being used by your government to perpetrate the biggest economic fraud ever perpetrated by a government.
    Yours sincerely,
    (real name)

    10

  • #
    Mervyn Sullivan

    The carbon tax… a greater policy debacle there could not be. And it’s all because of the political dogma of the watermelons!

    The saddest thing about this act of economic terrorism is that in years to come, Gillard will simply say she acted on the advice of scientists and economists. And they never cop any blame. Such is the craziness of this insanity that has befallen Australia.

    10

  • #
    Darren

    Proud to be Australian today. Well done to the ALP for sticking to their guns and delivering the Clean Energy legislation. Now to get the Mining Tax through.

    10

    • #
      allen mcmahon

      A comment fueled by cask methonal no doubt.

      10

    • #
      theRealUniverse

      Your a troll! and a sockpuppet for the Govt and the globalists!

      10

      • #
        Darren

        And you can’t spell. Believe it or not, I’m just an average Australian with a family and a mortgage happy to see the ETS come through the House.

        BTW – I use my name not a monicker, which is a common practice of sock puppets.

        10

    • #
      catamon

      Concur most heartily. It was a good day in Parliament today.

      10

    • #
      Marky

      Darren, this is rank childishness. If you want to praise the passage of your carbon crap, go visit a proctologist [snip inflammatory] We don’t want an echo chamber here, but you’re not adding anything to the discussion on the opposing view, [snip]

      10

    • #
      Klingon

      So are volunteering to pay our household’s ENORMOUS INCREASE IN COST OF LIVING because of this TREASONOUS carbon DIOXIDE ( PLANT FOOD) tax????????

      DON’T EXPECT OTHER AUSTRALIANS TO PAY FOR YOUR GAIA RELIGION !

      Fool!

      Clearly from your PUREILE statements you have never had to pay for anything in your sad little sheltered life!

      Words cannot describe my LOATHING for you and your ilk !!!!!!!!

      There will be CONSEQUENCES for this COMMUNIST gillard’s TREASON.

      10

    • #
      Tel

      Hate to be the one to tell you, but it was Bob Brown’s policy.

      10

  • #
    Bush bunny

    Darren unfortunately this clean energy act etc., is based on
    carbon pollution that influences global climate change. This is a lie, it is unscientific. You are supporting organisations, bankers, and investors who think if we can con the majority into switching into clean energy, (even if it is inefficient, we’ll make billions) we can con people believing they have the power to change the weather and climate! Cum on King Canute and his followers. You are a fraud, and will die wishing you didn’t follow this ideology that lied to people. You are an idiot and I don’t wish you well.

    10

    • #
      Darren

      I’m a fraud and an idiot? For having a different point of view? Very sad to see I’m being judged on a single post.

      And yes it’s true I support bankers. I have a bank account, a mortgage and I invest money. From this, the banks make a profit by skimming it from my returns. In fact, unless you get paid cash in hand and save it under the pillow, I suspect you are too.

      10

      • #
        theRealUniverse

        Darren, your naive, go and read the net about WHO and WHAT is really running the world economy and why the EU is going down fast along with America and soon Australia!

        10

    • #
      theRealUniverse

      They are very cunning calling it a “clean energy bill” so to repeal it means that you believe in “dirty energy”!..It also detracts from any mention of its real “dirty” evil purpose.

      10

  • #
    Another Ian

    Jo, vet and snip if beyond the pale.

    There is that toast that goes “May the skin of your arse never cover the head of a banjo”

    Seems likely that the skins of the arses of a lot of today’s cheer squad might not be covering seats in Canbera come the next election.

    Or might, depending on level of anger.

    10

  • #
    rukidding

    Well it only remains to see what my fellow Australians will do at the next election.Will they punish this government for its deception or will they just adopt the She’ll be right approach.Time will tell.

    10

  • #
    theRealUniverse

    Can this legislation be declared illegal and fraudulent by the supreme/high court? Who runs this place anyway..Oh we know that..its all from thousands of km away.

    10

  • #

    #1 – The adage “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time. But you cannot fool all the people all of the time.” seems to be appropriate here. Some are still fooled. Not all, and that is the problem that the CRU folks and Gore forgot.
    #2 – A “mini-ice age” by definition will last decades! Climate changes do not last a few years – that is weather.
    #3 – In ancient Sparta, leaders would serve one year only. After that year, they were put on trial for their leadership. So a bad leader could face severe penalties. We learned a lot from the ancient greeks. A shame that lesson was not brought forward to this day.

    10

  • #
    Beth Cooper

    Now, for Abbott and the majority against the carbon tax, the issue is no longer about AIMS but has become a question of MEANS. How does a Liberal Government set about dismantling this unpopular and iniquitous tax? That is the question.

    10

  • #
    Tim

    http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=uk-researchers-to-test-
    artificial-volcano-for-geoengineering-the-climate

    The Little Ice Age commeth. This can only help reduce populations. Happenstance?

    10

  • #
    RCS

    You have my deepest sympathy from the UK. In my limited experience, Australians can only be pushed so far.

    [snip.]

    10

  • #
    Lionell Griffith

    You all have my deepest sympathy. I fear that we in the US are not far behind.

    Can the next election save either of us? Will there even be another election? Answers to both questions seem to be heading rapidly to NO.

    Reality and therefore the Science is on our side. So far that has not been enough. The intellectual and philosophical rot within the political class has taken on a life of its own. Just as it did in every other civilization that collapsed in all of man’s history. They are fixed on achieving their mad dreams in spite of reality pointing out that failure and collapse is the only possible outcome. Unless the ideas driving this madness are changed, the collapse is certain. You can change the names and people all you want but the result will remain the same.

    Hang on, it is going to be a very rough ride. Do not go quietly into that long cold dark night.

    10

    • #
      catamon

      Will there even be another election?

      Well, yes, we here are going to have one in the latter part of 2013.

      Any reason you think we shouldn’t??

      10

      • #
        Rereke Whakaaro

        Dictatorships don’t have elections.

        I’m just sayin’.

        10

        • #
          catamon

          Good thing we dont have one in Australia isn’t it?

          I mean the closest we have come to it was when the Howard Govt had a majority in both houses and rammed SerfChoices through.

          10

    • #
      pattoh

      Dictatorships don’t have elections.

      You do not have to live in the Middle East to enjoy spring.

      10

    • #
      Robert

      I am with Lionell on this, many of us here in the states wish you the strength you need to rid yourself of the cancer that calls itself your government.

      I wish I could say we all wish that for you but we have many here who support the cancer we now have in our own government who I have no doubt are tickled pink over your suffering.

      The next couple of years are going to be interesting. As the ancient curse “May you live in interesting times” seems to be upon us I’m not sure how much “interesting” I can take.

      10

    • #
      theRealUniverse

      Lionell, maybe all will change when that criminal Obama gets thrown out of office. DONT vote for Romney either hes hes another patsie globalist.

      10

    • #
      Tel

      Come on Lionel, you know there will be another election. You will have two identical Corporatist candidates to choose from and whichever gets chosen will ignore whatever they promised before they got there.

      10

  • #
    Hasbeen

    Val at 20, I know you meant well, but it really was very unkind of you, to post a link to a photograph of that disgusting pair, actually kissing.

    I am now so sick to my stomach, that I doubt I will be able to eat for a week.

    I am very proud that by holding my breath, I could control my gaging reflex long enough to cast my vote.

    10

  • #
    Fred Allen

    Well done Australian political leaders! (sarc) In a great, green experiment to save the world and ensure political notoriety, you have caved to the idealistic market (mis)understanding and hijacking practices of the minority greens. Despite rehashing the tired phrases that it is a market based solution, a carbon tax is doomed to failure. It’s a global economy…money goes where it can grow. The faster, the better. Capitalism might not be held in high regard by the greens or the Labor party, but it is very, very effective at finding out what works and what doesn’t. It promotes considered risk and adventure and rewards not always appropriately, but in general…effectively. And yes, it isn’t kind to non-participants, lackeys and ideas that don’t work. By comparison, the socialist economic model came down with the Berlin wall.
    So we will see relatively quickly how a capitalist investment community will accept or reject a carbon tax. Forget the banks, the schools, the state governments and the tourism industry…they don’t value add to products or they are services that cannot relocate. Look to the manufacturers, the primary producers and the mines. Of the three, investment in manufacturing is most easily an exportable product. I’m sure the C level executives have plans in place for moving offshore. I can imagine already that many companies are pestering their suppliers for the impact of the carbon tax on their products or services for five years or longer in advance. I wonder what impact the realisations are having in the boardrooms around the country. I wonder when the overseas investment will dry up. When unemployment goes past 10%, it won’t matter what ideology the greens want to embrace. When people have hungry kids, a huge mortgage and no job prospects, CO2 emissions will be the least of their concerns.

    10

  • #

    “you really did it, you maniacs…”

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gb4eZ7Z5yk8

    Pointman

    10

  • #
    kevin Moore

    The carbon tax – it’s your money. You’re going to pay for it –

    Big Moron’s Nonsense Speak: [supposedly from an Orwell manuscript]

    “Well, I think if you say you’re going to do something and don’t do it, that’s trustworthiness.” [Gillard turned this around]

    “I promise you I will listen to what has been said here, even though I wasn’t here.” [Her mind was somewhere else]

    “One of the common denominators I have found is that expectations rise above that which is expected.” [Oakeshott’s version of democracy]

    “I hope the ambitious realize that they are more likely to succeed with success as opposed to failure.”

    “They want the Federal government controlling Social Security like it’s some kind of Federal program.”

    “If you don’t stand for anything, you don’t stand for anything!”

    “It’s your money. You paid for it.”

    “I think we agree, the past is over.”

    10

  • #
    kevin Moore

    “We’re going to sign scientific imperatives into law” says Julia. 12 Oct 2011

    http://abc.com.au/environment/video.html?t=home@s=video

    10

  • #
    connolly

    Judas kissed Judas. And every dog has its day. Theirs was yesterday. Ours will come with a ballot box.

    10

  • #
    val majkus

    wise words by Kathleen Linger http://www.menzieshouse.com.au/2011/10/taking-a-deep-breath-.html#comments
    the last few paras:

    Julia’s evil deed is about to awaken a great sleeping giant in Australia. This will be the proverbial straw that will break the back of apathy among the electorate.

    The corks are popping in Canberra tonight. Julia’s the toast of the town. But soon she’ll be toast of a different kind. Kevin’s Judas-kiss following today’s vote didn’t fool anyone. And arrogantly, Julia says the Carbon Tax is permanent, but we won’t be fooled by that rhetoric. She’s just lying again – surprise, surprise.

    Some people are saying democracy is dead in Australia. It’s not dead. It’s been kicked, mugged, abused, violated, and it may be in a coma and on life support. But as long as there are elections, it’s not dead. So go have your drink or a lie down or both. Then let’s get busy…

    Because we have a country to save.

    10

    • #

      val majkus @ 63

      This is one of the saddest days of my life. I love this country and had the view, incorrectly, that people in this country cared for each other and believed we lived in the best country on this planet.

      I was wrong some ignoble person in Canberra decided that my voice was inconseqential, and that my submission relating to the Carbon Tax was correspondence, that Senators and Members in our Parliament are being gagged from speaking, that I should pay a Carbon tax and that we should send 3 billion overseas to buy Carbon Credits and the Labor Party are now gloating over a circumstance that should never have happened if they honoured their agreement to the People.

      But …this is the first victory, for them, in a battle which has not concluded but has only just started. Sure they may have won a small victory but as Kathleen linger says “we have a country to save.”

      My Soul may have been temporarily removed yesterday but another day brings yet another hopeful outcome we can retake this country for the Australian People but we need to fight for it and it won’t be easy.

      Say YES to an election now !!

      10

      • #
        val majkus

        rjm don’t despair – there will be an election on the air tax in the future

        and the always colourful Barnaby (speech in the Senate yesterday)

        Senator Joyce, (Queensland – Leader of the Nationals in the Senate) (10:40): It is a disgusting day when the Greens, who were the paragons of virtue and were allowing open and transparent debate to enable all sections of the chamber to take part in the carbon tax debate, become part of a guillotine process so that one political party in Australia and the Independents cannot be part of the debate—no-one can be part of the debate because the Greens have changed. It is a new paradigm. The paragons of virtue have now descended down the greasy pole to be just like everybody else. I will bet there are a few Democrat voters out there who have wondered where they have ended up in supporting the Greens. There used to be a sense of honour in here but they have taken it and trashed it.
        Just like the deceit with the carbon tax, they are saying one thing while being something else. The Greens today have shown that they say one thing out there but they are entirely something else. When leave was sought for the making of a brief statement, even that was denied. That is where this whole debate has got to. They are running and hiding because this whole tax is such a debacle, such a fiasco. It is disturbing that, because the Greens have chosen to adopt this attitude, we are denying not just political parties but the people of Australia the chance to be involved in and hear the debate in all its complexity, with all its nuances. The Greens exude this almost nauseating faux nobility but when you put them to the test it is the same party that denied Annette Harding the chance to have an inquiry into her rape and it is the same party that is now denying opportunity for debate. That is the Greens; that is who we have; that is what they have become.
        The Australian people are very uneasy about this carbon tax. We had a demonstration in support of the tax out the front of Parliament House, but there were more placards than people—no-one turns up; the support is all contrived. In a couple of weeks time I am going to sell a mob of cattle and I am going to tell the truck driver to take them to Dubbo. I expect the cattle to end up in Dubbo. I will certainly be disappointed if he decides instead to take them to Weabonga and just let them go in the hills. It is exactly the same thing—when you have a contract with the Australian people, their expectation is that you will take them to a certain position, and the position this government said it would take them to was that there would be no carbon tax under the government this Prime Minister led. Instead, the government took the people to the hills and just let them go. Then Graham Perrett goes out and says they will not change the truck driver. It does not matter about the truck driver; it is the destination that matters—in this case the destination that those opposite are taking this nation.
        This is why it is so vital that we turn this around. In these times of uncertainty, with what we are seeing in Europe and what we are seeing America, what the government is doing to this nation is culpable. Those opposite know that and that is why they are guillotining; that is why they are shutting down debate; that is why they are not allowing the Australian people to have their proper say. It is ludicrous to say that we have had a chance to look at this legislation. We have not. The government has wrapped it and stacked it and brought it in here in a bundle. If we asked those opposite to quote sections of it or to go to the pertinent parts of it, they would not know it themselves—they would not have a clue. It is going to come in here because they have wanted out—they have other things to deal with. They have to work out whether Mr Rudd is coming back and whether he is going to take out the Prime Minister. This is the whole soap opera that our nation has become under these people. It is a disgusting, hopeless approach to government. Every facet of this government is now a total and utter debacle.
        What about regional Australia? The government inquiry went to Melbourne and to Sydney and to Canberra, but who did they talk to? They talked to their mates. The big banks are going to be happy—soon they are going to get this massive commission stream which the Greens will bring into place. The Greens are supporters of big banks and big banks’ commissions.
        I am surprised to see Senator Rhiannon is going to be supporting the big banks in getting billions of dollars of commissions out of struggling working families, out of people who currently cannot afford their power and out of people who currently cannot afford the daily necessities of life.
        This is where the nation is going. Is it going to change the climate? No. We have asked Minister Wong this question 600 times and never once have we got an answer. How much will this change the temperature of the globe? The answer is absolutely not at all. It is merely a gesture and in the cruelest form will be delivered to people who cannot afford it. They are going to be lumbered with it for life, and the absolute insult is they listen to you now and they are hearing you shut down the debate because you are scared. You are running, but you are not going to hide—we are going to flush you out.

        10

  • #
    cohenite

    For those who are interested, a poll in a fairfax paper about the CARBON TAX; vote in the top 2 polls:

    http://www.theherald.com.au/polls/?page=

    10

  • #

    As expected, the transparency of the ABC is patently obvious when it comes to their Current Affairs flagship 7.30.

    I expected them to have Combet on last night, and in fact that was probably pencilled in weeks ago.

    However, what I really wanted to see was another of their blatantly obvious stories, scheduled for the same night, and gee, wasn’t that lucky to be able to run with that story on the same night as the ‘Clean Energy Future’ legislation got passed through The House.

    The story was (ostensibly) about fine merino wool, and a new Wind Energy Project, Macarthur Wind.

    As expected, the ABC beat up the good points, and in their own special way, ridiculed the family who are opposing it.

    What I am doing however is some analysis of the project, and that will be ready and Posted at my site at 2PM Queensland time. As usual, it’s a matter of deception as the real truth is not stated, just the wonderful environmental advantages of something as ‘wonderful’ as this project ‘seems’.

    Below is a link to the 7.30 article, and it runs for 7.46, but is worth watching.

    Note towards the end the sinister (but oh so innocent) reference to how animal rights people may be interested in the way the sheep are being kept so that the wool reaches its best for the people who pay an absolute fortune for it.

    I can just see those animal rights people right now arriving at that farm, while the ABC gloats over another victory, a la live cattle exports.

    Link to 7.30 article.

    Link to Macarthur Wind Home Page.

    Be aware that all is not as it seems with this project.

    Tony.

    10

    • #
      rukidding

      Hmm I wonder how much CO2 is emitted to provide
      56,000m3 of concrete
      8,400 tonne of reinforcing
      20,000 odd retaining bolts
      90km of 3 phase copper wire

      Not to mention the amount of CO2 for the generating unit construction.
      So how many years of the life of the system (25 years) are taken up in the CO2 emitted in its construction.
      How does the amount of materials used in the construction of this wind farm compare with the amount of materials used in the construction of a 2,000Mw coal fired power station.?

      10

  • #
    Truthseeker

    Sydney Morning Herald poll on the Carbon Tax is here.

    Vote Now!

    10

  • #
    Llew Jones

    That kiss sealed the betrayal of all Australians by two left wing individuals with closed minds who haven’t got a clue about how Earth’s climate system works.

    Both fondly imagine that they are visionaries. The truth is neither understands that there is no sound economic future for Australians without reliable and affordable energy supplies.

    History is likely to judge them both harshly as fools who didn’t understand the science they ignorantly embraced or what are the essential drivers for a robust and hence successful Australian economy.

    We may blame the Greens for the passage of this legislation but Rudd bears as much responsibility as the equally closed mind Gillard (who like a spoilt little brat walks out of the chamber during Abbott’s speeches) as he was the sucker who fell for the UN’s polluted climate science that it uses to effectively impoverish industrialised economies like ours.

    Shame on both of them and the national ALP government.

    10

  • #
    • #
      connolly

      And what of our manufacturing industries? Martin has made a comfortable living shilling for the finance sector. Try this for the other view.
      http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/44884.html
      Or if you are really interested get out of the latte belt and have a look around the real Australia.

      10

    • #

      Hmm!
      I was just wondering where all those projects will be sourcing their electrical power from.

      Keep in mind that because of a distinct ‘lack of any direction’, most States are reaching the point now where their electrical power is almost ‘tapped out’, so with the passage of this Legislation and its intent to lower the availability of electrical power, you can have all the new projects you like, but they’ll be idle if there is no electrical power to run them.

      You reap what you sow, and when the sowers have no idea of the end result of what they are sowing, then the reaping becomes academic.

      Tony.

      10

    • #
      Llew Jones

      Economists? When have any economists got anything right? As a class they are on a par with the alarmist Climate Change “scientists” who have about the same predictive success rates.

      Martin is quoting John Quiggin often referred to as a neo-Marxist economist but thinks of himself as a post-Marxist. Whatever he wouldn’t have a clue about what drives free market systems. Perhaps it’s his sort that has through their advice got the EU into the financial strife it has been enjoying of late.

      He is precisely the sort of economist who has been blowing down the collective ear of the decision makers in this ALP government and along with the alarmist climate change cabal helped to stuff up almost every policy it proudly owns.

      Chill out? The advice of these educated idiots has the opposite effect on those who know what is definitely not required to run a successful national economy.

      10

    • #
      Ross

      Catamon

      I’m not sure how you can keep a straight face linking to this. Part way through I see they are highlighting how much more is being spent on exploring for COAL.
      I thought this was all about so called Clean Energy. Sorry , you cannot have it both ways.

      10

  • #
    janama

    I was listening to Question Time today and decided to suggest to Tony Abbott that he stop asking the PM questions in Question Time. She never answers them and just uses the opportunity to slag off against Tony Abbott and the Coalition, to mention the so called $70 bil black hole, to call Tony a wrecker and being negative, of having no vision for the country etc…. I’m also sick of listening to her whining tone.

    May I suggest instead he gets his party to ask him and his shadow ministers Dorothy Dixers so they can put their alternative ideas for the country to the public.

    10

    • #

      Maybe a pertinent question could be asked of Combet, or even Marn’, and perhaps I might be presumptious to use my submission correspondence as an example.

      My question is addressed to the Mister for ……

      Could the Minister point out just one plant in existence on the whole of Planet Earth, or even a plant that is in planning that can produce the same electrical power for consumption that is currently being generated by one large scale coal fired power plant, of which there are many in existence here in Australia.

      1. Perhaps they might mention how much power will actually be generated for consumption by this one example of any Renewable Plant.
      2. Perhaps they might mention on what time frame a renewable plant of this nature might be delivering its power.
      3. Perhaps they might mention the cost of this equivalent Plant.
      4. Perhaps they might mention how long it will take to construct this plant from the planning stage to the power delivery stage.
      5. Perhaps they might mention how long a plant of this nature might last.
      6. Perhaps they might mention how much Government (taxpayers) money will be given to (a) the construction of this plant, and (b) the subsidising of the generated electricity to the grid in an effort to make it somehow competitive with current power generation from coal fired power.
      7. Perhaps they might mention how much the cost of retail electricity to all consumers will increase with the introduction of a renewable plant of this nature.

      The Minister’s response would be that he would take the question under advisement and get back to The House at a later date.

      Supplementary question in the form of a response.

      There’s really no point in addressing any of the 7 responses mentioned here, because there is no equivalent plant of this nature in existence anywhere in the World, and there is none planned or even contemplated in the near future.

      Tony.

      10

  • #
    Klingon

    Good article and wise words by Barnaby Joyce in the Canberra Times today………

    Mad carbon tax burns hole in Labor’s credibility
    It is a frightening thought that our nation is about to recalibrate its economy on a colourless, odourless gas at a time when the global economy is on the edge of a precipice.
    It is deeply saddening that the warrants, given prior to the last election on the banks of the Brisbane River to national television, that “there will be no Carbon Tax under the Government I lead” mean nothing and that by reason of this the dignity of the office of Prime Minister has been sullied.
    It is a very bad day for democracy when the views of the Australian people as voted for at a federal election, then reinforced in all the polls since, are to be ignored. It is historically momentous that the oldest party in Australia has been dragged so low that they are now the captive to the peripheral extremism of the Greens party who are quite evidently determining substantial sections of the Labor Government’s policy.
    Rudd is obviously on the move against Gillard and there is no love lost between the two or reason for any détente. Australia is suffering all the signs of a government that is in critical and dangerous demise as they fight each other, rather than sail the ship which is now heading toward a rather large economic iceberg.
    Last week we borrowed an extra $2 billion, again, and we are now $212 billion in gross debt. Our manufacturing industry is in real trouble and the final thing our nation needs is a tax that removes the strategic advantage we have, cheap power.
    Industry lobbyists have been literally running around desperately trying to cover the multiple exposures coming down the path to them. Their frustration is palpable.
    The banks are happy, however, they are about to score a ticket to billions of dollars in commissions. This is the new world that the Greens have forced on a capitulated Labor who is now stumbling around making excuses for this complete and dangerous policy fiasco.
    As stated by Dick Warburton, of Manufacturing Australia, the commodity boom will one day end then our economy will be one of services, banks and agriculture. This trio will be trying to pay off a massive debt left by a party that maxed out the credit card when there was a minerals boom.
    May the divine spirit have mercy on us, as our nation tries to pay the debt off when China decides that they do not wish to pay us as much as they used to for our coal and iron ore.
    The key issue is this, whether you are the most fervent supporter of the argument on human induced global warming, or alternatively believe that human capacity to change the climate is vastly overblown, there is one unifying fact; Australia’s action on carbon reduction will have no effect whatsoever on the climate, it is merely a gesture.
    So how much do you wish to pay for this gesture? Labor’s political position is that on the one hand it will have little price effect, which if that is true then the carbon tax as a pricing mechanism is pointless, yet it comes with a multiple $100 million bureaucracy.
    On the other hand, if it does have a bad effect then Labor promise to compensate you. People only get compensated if they have been unjustly hurt. So who by this statement does Labor believe will be hurt? Pensioners, steel production, coal mining, power companies, low income earners all by Labor’s own admission of compensation will be hurt by this pointless gesture to placate the policy desires of the Australian Greens.
    The final lunacy is that Australia signs up to send up to $57.9 billion a year to the very dubious carbon credit market overseas. Your loss of lifestyle will support the most lucrative scam market in the history of the planet.
    So good luck finding the mythical green jobs they promise, good luck paying back the debt and, most importantly, the best of luck finding one Labor member who will say that they will campaign at the next election knowing they are personally responsible for the predicament this mad tax put us in.

    10

  • #
    • #
      Tom

      I predict Labor’s primary vote will break a new record low by the end of the year. Is anyone at the spring carnival offering odds on whether Gillard can get it down into the high teens? Someone so dedicated to bending over the electorate surely wants to put her own special imprimatur on bastardry of historical proportions: a ruling party in a “democratic” system with the support of less than 20% of the people. That would be impressive.

      10

  • #
    pattoh

    Even though it has been cynically used by the BLF (+or- penthouses for Norm) & trotted out for the Howard v Republican debate, to my mind there never has been a more historically appropriate time to drag out the Eureka Flag.

    Particularly if the GG does a tick & flick without considering the will of the people of the Commonwealth

    10

  • #

    Kyoto II is dead, I hope so.

    But, “we” will not really know until after Durban 2011.
    As pointed out on this thread,
    http://www.globalwarmingskeptics.info/forums/thread-1215.html
    “they” did not invite the IPCC along.

    “They” think it is now a political problem, the science is so good it no longer needs questioning,
    nor funding any longer apparently.

    It may well be time to think about celebrating the avoiding a false science global economic disaster,
    that Australia seems to not be avoiding,
    BUT, it is not time yet to think it is over, or to become complacent.

    “They” nearly got away with it in Copenhagen, but Willie Soon spotted the trick,
    I fear “they” will try to do the same type of thing in Durban.

    10

    • #
      Joe ^

      Or the IPCC had made such a name for itself in the mind of the public, perhaps it would be better not to mention it…?

      10

  • #
    Joe ^

    A typically self satisfied piece over at the Drum. That Graham Redfearn writes well. It’s a pity he remains so wide eyed & misinformed though. Much of what hes sayinf is rubbish , but he writes it well…
    http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/3569210.html

    10

    • #
      Tom

      You’re kidding, aren’t you, Joe? Graham Redfearn is a two-bob airhead – an advertisement for everything wrong with the eco-zombie culture that lives in Gen Y. And The Drum is the sealed Green Left echo chamber occupied by the Unsackable Staff Collective at the ABC, which is financed by $1 billion per annum of our taxes – the ultimate insult to the real people of this country with real jobs.

      10

  • #
    Bruce D Scott

    Veerry interesting, but if you keep in mind the fact that our glorious leaders are not concerned about “saving the planet “, but “enslaving the planet” via World Government through the UN, it sort of makes sense.

    10

  • #
    Richard

    As an ex Pom these words came to mind when the Carbon tax was passed.
    Never has so much been ruined for so many by so few.

    10

  • #
    Wayne, s. Job

    I am a small manufacturer of specialised machinery, I have friends that have similar businesses they have moved manufacturing overseas. I have resisted but costs are becoming prohibitive, and I have started the process of off shore manufacturing to be competitive. This dumb tax will cost me dearly if I do not move quickly. Luckily I have friends that have good contacts in China and Thailand. This red headed woman is not doing Australia any favours.

    10

  • #
    Norfolk Dumpling

    An earlier comment spoke of “windfarm/s”.
    Please. Please. Please! They are not “windfarms”. They are industrial WIND POWER STATIONS.
    When did you last hear of someone referring to a coal, oil, gas or diesel “farm”. The correct engineering terminology is “WIND POWER STATION”. The several dictionary definitions of “to farm” is very specific and employs the word “cultivate”, normally the soil. Do you have a word or technical dictionary which gives a meaning for a “windfarm”?
    There is the obvious point that, if we are prepared to call a spade “a spade”, the governmental sleights-of-hand can be forever silenced and we can return to the days of DEMOCRACY from autocratic dictatorships. e.g. David Cameron does not think the UK will benefit by going it alone compared with the EU. Consequently, his dictatorial take is that a referendum putting the situation to the UK electorate has been and will be reneged on. (I did vote against joining the EEC or Common Market, as it was then known, in 1975.)
    Similarly, were you ever asked if you wanted to sign up to Kyoto-1, let alone Kyoto-2, and what say were you ever given on whether it is sensible for mankind to put an investment banking price on carbon, that basic life-giving source?
    There is only one reason for any of this and it is the financial gains which can be made by private and political technically-ignorant, intellectually-loose, “arti” qualified, vested interests.
    Sorry to have wandered on a bit but, as a fully qualified electrical engineer, it was seeing, yet again, a reference to that non-existent toy called a “windfarm” which, like all fantasy, does not do what the box instructions say.
    I much prefer coal [100,000,000 times air] and nuclear [100,000,000,000,000 times air] toys because they possess intrinsically much better energy densities and can service whole world communities into the foreseeable future, rather than a selected few fortunates.

    10

  • #
    Beth Cooper

    Prior to protesting at the Ballot Box,I’m considering a black armband protest and I’ll attach a green kangaroo sticker to the armband. Might catch on!

    10

  • #
    Mogar

    I am truly sorry this has happened in Australia. I don’t know much about how your government works so I don’t know how long it will take to correct this boneheaded act. Here in the U.S. we barely dodged this bullet on a few occasions. My hopes are that you can correct this as soon as possible in order to at least mitigate the damage.

    10

  • #
    val majkus

    Barnaby again
    I must admire his energy in speaking out about this air tax

    http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/An-unaffordable-tax-beyond-all-regional-doubt/
    An unaffordable tax beyond all regional doubt
    When I think of regional Australia, I think of long drives, lots of wildlife and lights in the sky not on the ground. There is another thing that now distinguishes regional Australia: an absolute rejection of the carbon tax.
    Senator John Williams recently conducted a poll in the seats of New England (based around Tamworth) and Lyne (based around Port Macquarie). After receiving over 9,400 responses, 89 per cent of residents are against the carbon tax.
    The reason for this is not that hard to fathom. When it comes to the carbon tax, the greater the distance, the greater the cost.
    From 2014, the carbon tax will apply to transport fuels, making the costs of getting things out to regional Australia more expensive.
    People in regional Australia already pay more for electricity too. Australians in regional NSW spend 25 per cent more on electricity than those in Sydney and Australians in regional Victoria spend 30 per cent more than those in Melbourne. There are already people out there who can’t afford the price of power as it is.
    The carbon tax will make our industries less competitive. That is its whole point. That means some will lose their jobs, even if jobs are created elsewhere.
    What sort of solace is that to the coalminer in the Hunter valley who must tell his wife and kids that they have to move to western Queensland to keep a job? They probably would like to stay in the Hunter where their family, friends and home are.
    Most of the jobs forecast to be lost as a result of the carbon tax will be in regional Australia because that is where the mining, manufacturing and power generation jobs are.
    Economic modelling by the Queensland Labor government found that the carbon tax would see 41,000 fewer Queensland jobs, with the biggest impact in regional areas. The Rockhampton and Gladstone area will see economic activity fall by 8.2 per cent, the Mackay area by 5.7 per cent, double to triple the impact of the carbon tax on the rest of Australia.
    NSW Treasury figures show that the carbon tax will lead to 31,000 lost jobs in NSW but over 26,000 of these jobs would be in regional Australia, including 18,500 in the Hunter, 7000 in the Illawarra and 1000 jobs in the central West.
    Some of Australia’s most competitive manufacturing companies are in the food processing industry located near Australia’s world-class agriculture. The carbon tax will add $3.3 million per year to the costs of just one of JBS Australia’s abattoirs. JBS employs over 4000 people in regional Australia. After the live cattle fiasco, the last thing our beef industry needs is a carbon tax.
    Unemployment in regional Australia is already higher at 6 per cent, compared to 5.1 per cent in the rest of Australia.
    Given all this you would think that a government seeking to introduce a carbon tax would carefully analyse its impact on the smaller towns and communities which may not be able to recover if their local abattoir or mill cannot survive the higher costs of a carbon tax.
    But, no, the government has not released any economic modelling of the impact of the carbon tax on regional areas. That’s despite the Queensland, New South Wales and Victorian governments doing so, although they haven’t had access to the same economic models that Canberra has used because Wayne Swan refuses to release them.
    The Government is treating Australians, particularly regional Australians, with absolute contempt. The people of Rockhampton want to know what the carbon tax means for them, the people of Newcastle want to know what the carbon tax means for them and the people of the La Trobe valley want to know what the carbon tax means for them. The government, though, is refusing to give them any answers.
    When the last Coalition government faced heat over National Competition Policy in the 1990s it asked the Productivity Commission to evaluate what its impact had been on regional Australia. It made these results public, including the finding that employment was lower in 33 out of 57 Australian regions because of national competition policies. Not everyone liked NCP but at least the government was up front about its impacts.
    Another poll released the other day showed that one out of every two Australians think that minority government has been bad for Australia. Is that any wonder when we have a government which goes back on its promises and fails to be up front with the people about its own policies.

    Jenny Swan
    Office of Senator Barnaby Joyce
    Leader of The Nationals in the Senate
    Shadow Minister for Regional Development, Local Government and Water
    P: 07 46 251 500
    M: 0438 578 402
    F: 07 46 251 511

    10

  • #
    Pete H

    Owen Morgan @#3
    October 12, 2011 at 5:45 am · Reply
    “Here in the UK, the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, Chris Huhne, who is under police investigation and has just been caught out smearing coalition colleagues,”

    Today (14th)it just got better Owen! Huhne has just jumped track with a huge u-turn and now stands up for nuclear power stations to be built! A decision that should have been taken 10 years ago now seems to be on the cards and the minister (Huhne) responsible spend his opposition days totally opposing nuclear! He is spouting on about making the generating companies responsible for waste so he has obviously no idea about Thorium reactors! The cracks are coming thick and fast

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2048787/We-learned-past-mistakes-nuclear-power-says-Huhne-Government-commits-new-reactors.html

    My condolences to the Australian people. Then again, when a government does not listen to the majority it has but a short time to live.

    10

  • #
    Norfolk Dumpling

    Commiserations to you democratic Australians.
    Your Labour Lot have sealed your fate by pricing your life with a carbon price. Only death now awaits you and I hope the leader to feel this first is Julia Gillard; she has spearheaded the collapse of your economy. When this latest fiasco is reversed, will all the Members who voted for it be forced to pay back the ill-gotten legislated monies which are going to cripple the Australian economy?
    Labour must learn the lesson and inwardly digest it that there are no free meals on God’s earth. You cannot keep taxing without creating real wealth to pay for those taxes.
    As regards the UK, Ecolooney Hooney has made a U-turn but has vowed there will be no subsidy regime for nuclear whilst continuing to pour our taxation pounds down the dirty subsidy waste water drain which is renewables. We need to stop the renewables (Does not mitigate intrinsic climate change, not sustainable, no gainful employment, destroys the environment, creates fuel poverty, creates starvation and drought, kills wildlife and kills people of the world) and spend those subsidy monies on developing and exploiting Thorium nuclear technology around the world [Fukoshima was a 50-60 year old Uranium technology and, without a tsunami, would still be generating]. Remember that the Thorium technology has been around since the 1950s but never exploited – I wonder why? to the next by a
    When you look around the world you begin to see that it is driven from one catastrophe to the next by increasing numbers of amateur “arti” technically-illiterate politicians and their equally blameable “advisors”. Wish my private industry career had been bank-rolled and sponsored by government largesse with public servants’ taxation. Yes, the point of this argument is that any professional in life knows this last remark is nonsensical because public servants’ taxation is only available if someone else is creating the wealth to pay their wages.
    So, let’s hope any Australian legislation bent on causing your poverty is quickly reversed.
    Suggestion as per JoNova: Look at what is happening economically in Europe especially Greece, Spain, Portugal, Northern ireland, Denmark and now the UK. And then look at why it is happening.
    Why, Oh why do these politicians keep trying to re-invent the wheel? With such devastating destruction.

    10