The Climate Scare (and our Govt) is so ripe for mocking, a cartooning giant comes out of retirement

Pickering has it in a picture 🙂

Let’s applaud the brilliant Larry Pickering.

It says a lot about the state of our nation, that after retiring 30 years ago, the esteemed cartoonist felt the inescapable urge to come back now.

The Australian government and the Big Climate Scare are both achieving once-in-a-generation status. They are both ideas so preposterously absurd, they are Fertilizer for Funnies.

Pickering cartoon

When a government is so bad, that it brings long retired cartoonists out of retirement, you know this era is the end-game stage of a historic low.

Cartoons like this are exactly why the Big Scare Campaign is scared to death of free speech.

Pickering uses comedic exaggeration to the full, but people don’t need to take this literally. It cuts through.  This captures a dangerous idea. What if the government was milking the scientific system? Imagine if they treated some scientists different (what, you mean like calling them names?).

Gillard may control the Army but we skeptics have the best cartoonists. It’s no match. The Tax is temporary.

——————-

Background

“On Pickering’s return” (Aug 28 2011):

THE distinctive signature has not changed, nor the wit. More than 30 years after retiring from political cartooning, Larry Pickering has picked up his tools again, inspired by the lunacy of Australian politics.

”I’ve got itchy fingers,” he says.

”I thought nothing could be more absurd than Canberra in the ’70s, then I wake up and here it is. It’s such fertile material, it’s hard to stay away from it.”  [Source Sydney Morning Herald]

H/t to Cohenite, Ian B, GrazingGoat and  Andrew Bolt.

Thanks of course, to Larry Pickering, who gave permission (and do see more of his cartoons at his own site). 🙂

9.4 out of 10 based on 36 ratings

110 comments to The Climate Scare (and our Govt) is so ripe for mocking, a cartooning giant comes out of retirement

  • #
    Jaymez

    While saving the planet from climate catastrophe, the planned carbon tax is being hailed as progressive taxation reform too. Now that we have such a brilliant model, I expect it will be used to rid the Earth of other ills.

    For instance no-one could argue there isn’t too much crime in the world at present.

    In order to reduce it to a ‘safe’ level, lets introduce a tax on our biggest criminals, letting a few select criminals, and the smaller criminals go untaxed. This will send a pricing signal to those targeted largest criminals who will either find new, more legal ways to make a living, or they will keep their criminal activity down to a more socially acceptable level.

    Revenue raised by the Government will be used to compensate some selected criminals whose revenues will suffer under the Criminal Activity Tax. However the bulk of the revenue will go to households who will now be forced to pay full retail for goods which used to fall off the back of trucks, or to criminals who have to give up their way of life.

    Later we can enter a ‘Criminal Activity Trading Scheme’ (CATS). This is where a Government appointed body will grant certain criminals who are competing with international crime syndicates free criminal activity credits to continue their activities unhindered in Australia. There will also be credits for criminals who are big employers in regional areas. All other criminals will either need to reduce their activity to an acceptable level, or purchase criminal activity credits from organisations in developing countries who promise to reduce criminal activity in their country. Thus overall global average criminal activity will be reduced even if criminal activity doesn’t reduce in Australia. Something we could all be proud of.

    Just like the ‘Clean Energy Future’ legislation. There will be prison sentences and/or fines for those criminals who fail to meet the required criminal activity reductions.

    Perhaps if this brilliant model of taxation reform had been devised many years ago we could have reduced child prostitution, human trafficking, or arms dealing to more acceptable levels?

    And why shouldn’t those who can afford to buy criminal activity credits be allowed to to enjoy breaking the law with impunity, at least the Government will have all that extra revenue to distribute.

    It is all starting to make sense now.

    10

  • #
    Juliette Curtis

    Oh yes, he’s got every detail right. I especially like the barbed wire around the swimming pool area. Is it there to prevent people getting in, or getting out, or both?

    Congratulations to Larry Pickering. He certainly has not lost his touch.

    10

    • #
      Twodogs

      Clearly it is to keep the riff-raff (sceptics) off the climate science gravy train. Can we get Lord Monckton to do like Danny Glover did in Lethal Weapon 2 and ask for a government grant into researching climate non-AGW change?

      10

  • #
    Lionell Griffith

    The only problem with the cartoon is that it is almost factual rather than merely metaphorical. If you hold to the party line, you get to dig deeply into the pockets of the taxpayers and are permitted to do an say as you wish. If you don’t, you are rudely shown the exit door and forced to become an involuntary pocket to be picked.

    This is worse than mere corruption. At least the corrupt accept what they are doing is immoral. The political elite pretend to be above and beyond morality and even reality itself. They pretend they live in a reason and logic free universe in which assertion creates reality simply BECAUSE they assert.

    We common mortals are simply to be the means by which they intend to accomplish their presumptive noble goals. Our natural right to life,liberty, and pursuit of our own happiness is not a consideration for them. We are to accept their dictums without complaint or resistance as if they were true and just. We are to pretend they hold the force of law rather than being nothing but a fraud enforced by thugs holding the guns we paid for.

    This madness will die because reality is what it is no matter how many try to pretend otherwise. We must complain however and whenever we can. We must resist until this madness dies.

    10

    • #
      Roy Hogue

      Yes, it will die. The questions are: How long will it take? And how bad will things get before it happens?

      10

    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      Helen Clark, when she was Prime Minister of New Zealand, was known to use the phrase, “The Little People”, when referring to the general population. That is, those not within the political and diplomatic bubbles.

      A useful metaphor, perhaps? But one that also carries a certain amount of distain and dismissal.

      It also extends further than the politicians. It is a shorthand oft used by other members of the Labour Party, both in Wellington and in Canberra, and those who like to imagine themselves, “within the circle” of public determination, such as some (but not all) ministry and departmental chief executives.

      It is ironic that Socialists, who profess to desire an egalitarian state, make this sort of distinction.

      10

      • #
        Twodogs

        That inbred! Sorry, but talk about delusional. Never have I seen so few outward signs of genetic superiority in an individual. Where do they get off on thinking they have some natural ability not available to the populace? Power corrupts I suppose.

        10

    • #
      Tim

      “… Reality is what it is…’ So true, Lionell.
      I believe the inherent decency in the human psyche is the default that eventually brings things back to the natural equilibrium. Sociopathic dictators will forever try to create a slave race. That concept is obviously against the natural order that humans aspire to: (and these guys don’t ever seem to get it). Things like caring for others, philanthropy, governments that genuinely look after the interests of their constituents – and are not influenced by corporate greed or global power-dictates. I think fairness and equality is the nature of all peoples, and as societies become more sophisticated, they learn to see behind the spin of the power-hungry, no matter how much money they throw at it.

      10

  • #

    I wonder what sort of cartoons Gillray would have done about the climate scam.

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

    10

  • #
    Roy Hogue

    Why do I have the nagging feeling that this is too true to be funny?

    10

    • #
      Sean McHugh

      The problem is, to illustrate the absurdity of something, a cartoonist will amplify that absurdity. The global warming industry leaves little room for further embellishment.

      10

  • #
    Joe V.

    I belive theres more satire hidden in the detail. What intricate details.
    He must surely have drawn this on a bigger canvas. Is there a higher resolution available ? The sign at the pool entrance & the serving wench, are they only for another audience ?

    10

    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      Joe

      OK, I did it.

      I extracted the picture; and I blew it up so I could see the detail. The receptionist looks like Gillard, but topless. The two maids in the second room also look like Gillard, but naked. The waitress at the pool-side cocktail bar also looks like a topless Gillard … why did I do it? I am going to have trouble sleeping tonight, and possibly for the rest of my life!

      To misquote “The Matrix”, “… now why didn’t I take the left-hand door”.

      10

  • #
    The_Borg

    That’s really very funny. But what’s wrong with it? Like it’s not like sceptics ever make a positive contribution to science is it?

    10

  • #

    If I were a weak and sinful sceptic I think I might be sorely tempted to lie, especially if it was Saturday and I had nothing better to do.

    10

  • #
    Jon-Anders Grannes

    27 million years ago the global temperature started to fall from aprox 23 deg C too todays 14-15 deg C.

    The real problem to the Earth and mankind is that the 14-15 deg C, the last 2 million years, has mostly been in 18 warmperiods(lasting around 10.000 years) in between 18 ice ages lasting abpot 100.000 years.

    The biggest problem facing mankind and future generations is the next ice age.

    The leftist say that we control climate(with capitalism and consumption and growth society) and that we should not so that the next ice age can come along as the previous 18.
    If capitalism with the consumption and growth society is the only thing that is going to bring the Earth out of the Iceages, why kill the cure?

    10

  • #
    Joe V.

    Blimey. From their attire in the yucky ‘kissing scene’ , this charming image would appear to be Julia’s salute to the nation, after passing the Carbon Tax.

    I didn’t think Prime Ministers could do that.

    10

    • #
      Joe V.

      A better quality version of the image here

      10

    • #
      Andrew McRae

      I’m amazed that an organisation with the political astuteness of Menzies House would fail to recognise the credibility implications of permitting a faked scandalous picture of the Prime Minister to be published on their web site, regardless of party. Their disclaimer is laughable, as though there is any possibility of any PM raising the finger in Parliament, not to mention the extreme ease with which similar images can be found using modern image search tools if only they had lifted a finger to try (pun intended).

      The original untouched photo is here.

      So there you have it, Menzies House are certainly not above smearing, but they don’t even have the guts to admit when they are smearing. “I was only joking” is a cop-out of passive aggressive ignoramuses once they realise they’ve got nothing.

      10

      • #
        Rereke Whakaaro

        It is an old adage in journalistic circles … “Never let the facts interfere with a good story”.

        Perhaps Joe is a journalist, doing what they do best … 🙂

        10

  • #
    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      Hmm, Nice silence …

      10

      • #
        Joe V.

        Just a failed attempt to post the image itself, 5 minutes after mentioning the link.
        Image posting doesn’t seem to be working though, which is perhaps just as well with the benefit of Andrew’s insight. I was gobsmacked seeing it a Just Grounds. Thanks to Andrew for the correction. What is that gesture though ?

        10

  • #
    Evil Denier

    Science is, by its nature, sceptical. (vide Popper, Kuhn et al)

    10

  • #

    I posted that cartoon the other day, thanks to a reader tip.
    I had no idea he’d been retired that long. That speaks volumes…far more than 1,000 words.

    10

  • #
    klem

    I don’t think this tax is temporary. If Gillard falls in the next election, the party which wins will merely say they can’t replace that revenue with another tax so this tax will stay. This is what happened in Canada in the early 1990’s with a much hated GST tax. And besides, the money generated by this tax will be used to buy votes from the voting public through carbon offset payments. Once the next election is over, the tax offsets will dry up. This tax is here to stay. Sorry to say.

    10

    • #
      Streetcred

      If the tax is to stay then I’d favour identifying the ALP/Green bludgers that voted for it and let them pay sans any welfare support 🙂

      Sick and tired of paying for everybody else for little value in return.

      10

    • #
      jl

      I have to agree with Klem. The opposition have yet to oppose any warmist theology. All that they offer is just as much taxpayers money spent in different ways.
      The only difference will be the title.
      When is a tax not a tax? When it is a levy, excise, or a non-core-promise contribution…call it what you will.
      History tells us that once a new tax has been established, no government has EVER been able to detach itself from that teat.

      10

  • #
    AbysmalSpectator

    The above cartoon isn’t satire; ’tis a statement of fact.

    As Tom Lehrer asserted upon Kissinger being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, “political satire is now obsolete.”

    10

  • #

    I love the cartoon, which far from being simply funny, shows a reasonable picture of the ‘real world’ of Climate Nonsense.

    10

  • #
    barking toad

    Pickering is brilliant

    I’ve kept nearly all his calendars from past years

    This piece beautifully summarises the obscenity of the gravy train

    10

  • #
    val majkus

    Great cartoon

    and this article shows the end result of all that shovelling of grant money into the ‘settled’ coffers
    http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/tide-of-anger-at-flawed-facts-on-water-levels/story-e6frg6nf-1226167996520

    AT 73, former CSIRO engineer Denis Whitnall has seen many things — but rising sea levels isn’t one of them.
    Looking out over the Pacific Ocean from the back of his waterfront property at Avoca, on the NSW central coast, Mr Whitnall shakes his head as he talks about a grim report commissioned by his local council in 1995 that predicted some houses along the beachfront, including his own, would be subject to flood risk. “The council had a town meeting and told everyone properties along the waterfront were going to be under threat,” Mr Whitnall said. “Everyone was aghast. Twenty feet (6m) of water is supposed to be covering my land (by 2015).”

    Hazard lines included in Gosford City Council’s 1995 coastal management plan, obtained by The Australian, forecast a threat of flood for some waterfront homes by 2015, due to a combination of shoreline movement from a rise in the sea level and major storm events.

    “The Avoca beach unit as a whole has been assessed as losing sand in the long term. This, together with sea level rise, will lead to shoreline retreat over time. Thus, the extent of severe storm erosion will move landward progressively over time,” the 1995 report says. However, 16 years after the release of the council’s warning, the shoreline remains about 100m from Mr Whitnall’s back door, where it was when his family acquired the property in 1951.

    Mr Whitnall said while the 1995 report had been discredited, Gosford was among 55 coastal NSW councils “at it again” by using “flawed” data to warn of possible floods. “The data council is using from the 2007 IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) [snip … essentially — lots of councils are issuing warnings]

    “People are having trouble insuring their homes because insurance companies are scared off,” Mr Whitnall said.

    [snip – try not to post too much of article without getting permission– JN]

    10

  • #
    MaryFJohnston

    This is an interesting cartoon if only for the fact that it is so complex and has so many features.

    Most cartoons just hit you with one or two points.

    This one has to be read.

    What I wanted to mention was communication. Cartoons communicate and this one is a true represnntation of the Global Warming problem in that its message has to be won from the mass of material presnted.

    What brought this rant on is the feeling that communication of global warming issues is being kept at a very low level by uninformed and biased comment.

    The particular thing that has set me off is an article in the Sunday Telegraph by an attractive young lady by the name of Claire. The article relies solely on the concept that people who want to get at the truth of The Global Warming Phenomenon are rude, sexist misinformed cantankerous old farts who should shut up and let the young set the pace.

    There is no attempt at addressing the obvious point that Green Groups have behaved outrageously in harassing shipping and rail carrying coal and in doing so have endangered workers and police.

    In reading the article and looking at its construction and the amount of effort that has been put into researching the issues there is only one word that comes to mind.

    AIRHEAD.

    10

    • #
      Robert

      Oh I can think of a few other words too. But they generally aren’t considered polite in mixed company.

      10

    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      … people who want to get at the truth of The Global Warming Phenomenon are rude, sexist misinformed cantankerous old farts who should shut up and let the young set the pace.

      That pretty much sums up my youngest daughter’s view of me. Her name is Claire. Perhaps she wrote it?

      It is not entirely correct though. I am rarely rude.

      10

    • #
      Streetcred

      Looks like the teenagers do the research at IPCC already … quote from “The Delinquent Teenager
      who was mistaken for the world’s top climate expert”, Donna Laframboise, 2011

      … selects individuals to help write the Climate Bible:
      These are people who have been chosen on the basis of their track record, on their record of
      publications, on the research that they have done…They are people who are at the top of their
      profession…

      One group consists of graduate students. Typically these are individuals in their twenties. Their
      experience of the world is neither broad nor deep. If they were merely performing administrative tasks
      that would be one thing. But the IPCC has long relied on their expert judgment.

      10

  • #
    val majkus

    here’s that article
    http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/climate/anger-rises-ahead-of-the-sea/story-e6frg6xf-1226103792941
    final paras

    Many of the families directly affected by the new rules that spoke to Inquirer are quick to criticise the scientific assumptions behind the projections. This does not mean councils are wrong to take precautionary steps. But until the science of projecting future sea rise becomes more settled and more widely accepted, the nation’s coast will be a battleground for those who resent their lifestyles being curtailed by what they see as tomorrow’s problem.

    As Budgewoi resident Hannaford says: “They can’t tell us what the weather will be like next week, but they can tell us that in 100 years’ time the water will rise by 1m.”

    10

    • #
      janama

      here’s an extract from Donna’s new book about the climate Bible.

      The former president of a Commission on Sea Level Change, Nils-
      Axel Mörner, also addressed the House of Lords committee. Mörner, who has 40 years experience in his
      field, called attention to the disparity between what genuine sea level specialists think and what those
      who write IPCC reports believe. Those in the second group, he says, lack hands-on expertise. Instead,
      they attempt to predict the future via mathematical formulas that have been fed into computers
      (computer modeling).
      Mörner told the House of Lords that, between 1999 and 2003, genuine sea level experts held five
      international meetings to discuss the available real-world evidence. They concluded that sea levels are
      unlikely to increase by more than 10 cm (4 inches) by the year 2100. Mörner says the claim that sea
      levels are rising quickly – or that entire island nations are in imminent danger of drowning – are simply
      not true.

      It’s part of the section where she shows how the experts are ignored and amateurs are writing the IPCC reports.

      10

  • #
    Crakar24

    Yippee, gone for a week i get a new machine and IE 8 and now my numbers work.

    10

  • #
  • #
    Braddles

    All that is missing is a “taxpayer fleecing machine” off to one side, showing where the money is coming from, and feeding into the grant room. Perhaps based on CSIRO’s other wonder project, the mechanical sheep shearer. I came across one such ($100M?) beast on my travels, rusting away in a wool museum in South Australia somewhere.

    10

  • #
    Manfred

    ‘Serfs’, ‘Little People’, ‘The Great Unwashed’ – the idiotic folk that elect the ruling class who install the bureaucrats who tell us:
    “More than two-thirds of the public believe climate change is a serious problem, and nearly 80 percent say that tackling it will boost the economy and create jobs.” http://www.thenewamerican.com/tech-mainmenu-30/environment/9319-european-poll-fiscal-woes-take-back-seat-to-climate-change-fears

    The article goes on to state that: “Pollsters tallied responses from almost 27,000 residents of the 27 European Union countries. They found that most Europeans view climate change as second only to poverty, hunger, and lack of drinking water (counted as a single concern) in terms of serious problems facing today’s world. The global economic recession placed third on the list. In addition, 68 percent of respondents support the idea of taxing people based on energy use.”

    And now for the dissonance. At the end of this article it is reported:
    “The financial advisory service Money Expert surveyed UK households earlier this year and found that 69 percent believe “the government has not got it right when it comes to affordable energy and ‘going green.'” ‘Ann Robinson, Director of Consumer Policy at uSwitch, warns, “We are now just £207 or 14% away from hitting an affordability ceiling after which consumers will start rationing their usage as though they are living in the third world.” Research by uSwitch, an online price comparison service, found that most people in the UK blame government’s carbon-cutting policies for their huge energy bills’.

    This is a perfect example of Orwellian ‘double think’ – two diametrically opposed views being entertained at the same time in the same article leading to cognitive dissonance. Is it any wonder that we now see folk in cities across the world protesting against the greed of politicians, bankers and bureaucrats, loosely referred to as ‘The Ministry of We Know Best’ aided by the uncritical MSmedia.

    When the wheels finally come off all this dreadful, costly, primitivising, autocratic nonsense, which they will, DO NOT FORGET those that colluded.

    Laughed out loud at the Pickering cartoon. Splendid. It’s rare to find such a laugh these days.

    10

    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      Manfred,

      … the idiotic folk that elect the ruling class who install the bureaucrats who tell us:
      “More than two-thirds of the public believe climate change is a serious problem, and nearly 80 percent say that tackling it will boost the economy and create jobs.”

      You have it in one. It is not the politicians who are the problem, but the bureaucrats who subtly control the politicians. More tax, and more bureaucrats to manage the tax collection and distribution, means more power to the real power brokers at the top.

      10

  • #
    Dave

    Great Cartoon!

    Another great online comic site called Climate Spectator has the latest warning on Climate change.

    Each degree of warming also reduces the body size of fish from 6 to 22 percent!

    These guys are telling us that all living plants and animals are getting smaller due to AGW!

    See the article:

    Climate change spawns the incredible shrinking ant

    10

  • #
    Amr Marzouk

    Here is a photo of the Gillard Governments decision making process.
    Ridicule has to be the next step.
    Amr

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-10-17/fiery-indy-crash-in-las-vegas/3574620

    10

    • #
      Wendy

      I understand the point you are trying to make however linking that photo is in extreme poor taste. The driver Dan Wheldon was killed in that accident today.

      Gillard will and is failing spectacularly….all on her own.

      10

      • #
        Crakar24

        On the contrary Wendy Amr’s photo is quite apt, yes i agree it is unfortunate when someone dies but these drivers, unlike Gillard know the risks.

        They know that they could die whilst driving, Gillard has no foresight of the deaths she will cause through her draconian taxation. When the electrickery rationing cuts in and your cooling and/or heating no longer works how many poor souls will suffer?

        How many people will be driven into poverty by rising costs of living and unemployment as a result of the Bob Brown shirt brigade?

        No sorry Wendy Gillard IS a car crash waiting to happen and many people will suffer not just one.

        Cheers

        Crakar24

        PS i find it strange you can claim poor taste over this photo and yet gleefully accept the words “FUCK OFF” in the cartoon.

        10

        • #
          Wendy

          Gleefully??? really?? I think you are projecting a bit there.
          Actually Crakar, Gillard is more akin to an airliner going down in flames (and I shall leave it at that).

          BTW, the cartoon is satire (excellent satire at that) and everyone recognizes it as such (the boobs didn’t phase me either 😉 ).
          The racing accident is real life….many people are affected directly with his loss…his wife, his children, his friends and his fans. They will be forever affected by his loss.

          10

          • #
            Crakar24

            Here you go Wendy

            http://bleacherreport.com/articles/394872-the-top-ten-most-spectacular-non-fatal-formula-one-crashes

            Can we call the Gillard gov a car crash waiting to happen now, please?

            Or do *you* consider something here offensive?

            10

          • #
            Wendy

            geez Crakar, take a chill pill. Gillard is a (insert vehicular choice here) wreck. No doubt about it. She needs to be taken out of the office of PM immediately. I’m not disputing that fact in the least.

            Great F1 race this weekend…..Hamilton and Webber were really the best part of it. We’re also looking forward to live coverage of the next V8 Supercars here…..too often we get just the highlights. 🙁

            Using the picture of the Indy Car crash in which Dan Wheldon died less than 12 hours after the crash is somewhat less than tactful.
            Rather than attacking me, your anger and passion would be better spent refuting JB, MattB, etal.
            cheers Crakar. I’d be glad to buy you a beer if you’re ever in Perth at the same time we are.

            10

        • #
          Rereke Whakaaro

          Crakar,

          I don’t really want to get into this debate – but – when I read Wendy’s first comment, my first thought was that Amr Marzouk’s comment, though well meant, could be exploited, and used against us.

          Something along the lines, “Skeptics like to pretend they are superior when it comes to pointing out things, but they laugh when somebody is killed in an horrendous accident”.

          I’m just sayin’.

          10

          • #
            Robert

            You have a good point. Unfortunately the same people who would try that line of reasoning are the ones we see practically pee themselves in ecstasy over a natural disaster that kills hundreds or thousands using it as “proof” that they were right.

            That people will die is to be expected. It happens to us all eventually. That people will die in situations that could have been prevented (or because they chose to pursue a high risk endeavor) is regrettable. That people will die as a result of “solutions” to imaginary problems is criminal.

            Unfortunately it is the latter we are dealing with regarding all these “solutions” to the climate which in the end will cause more harm than good. As always though the important thing is they are doing something right? Not that they are doing the right thing, just that they are doing something.

            10

          • #
            Rereke Whakaaro

            You are quite right, Robert.

            You are telling it as it is – good on you.

            But I am looking at this from the propaganda perspective – “Truth has no place to lay its head, in the propaganda bed”.

            10

          • #
            Crakar24

            To Wendy,

            Chill pill? OK maybe i should tone it down a bit, in regards to V8 coverage in Perth you do realise that *W.A* stands for Wait Awhile dont you?

            Its a bit like the N.T which does not stand for Northern Territory as folklore suggests but for “Not Today, Not Tomorrow but Next Time”.

            I have never been to Perth (WA yes but not Perth) so you will have to name the pub if that is OK.

            Cheers

            Crakar24

            10

          • #
            Wendy

            LMAO………nope, haven’t heard those before and my husband’s been teaching me the slang as we go. He’ll have to recommend the pub as I am not from WA let alone AUS.

            Here’s another story that should be mocked.
            http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/national/10484852/camel-cull-could-limit-climate-change/
            9 million vs the 92 million cattle in the US alone. good lord are they really that stupid?

            10

  • #
    Ross

    Is this the first of the big boys preparing to make a move as a result of the TAX. Rio Tinto bundling up its aluminium assets
    (ie big electricity consumers ) for sale. (NB. reported in NZ hence the emphasis on the Bluff smelter but the Australian assets will be bigger )

    http://nz.finance.yahoo.com/news/Rio-Tinto-Bluff-smelter-sale-businessdesk-2308418247.html?x=0

    10

    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      The Australian media have been “asked” to play it down. This is not the first time that trans-Tasman news has broken first in New Zealand.

      10

  • #
    kevin Moore

    http://a4cgr.wordpress.com/2009/01/27/davy-crocket-and-public-money/

    Davy Crockett and Public Money

    In the early 1800s Congress was considering a bill to appropriate tax dollars for the widow of a distinguished naval officer. Several beautiful speeches had been made in support of this bill. It seemed that everyone in the House favored it. The Speaker of the House was just about to put the question to a vote, when Davy Crockett, famous frontiersman and then Congressman from Tennessee, rose to his feet.

    Mr. Speaker, I have as much respect for the memory of the deceased and as much sympathy for the suffering of the living as any man in this House, but we must not permit our respect for the dead or our sympathy for a part of the living to lead us into an act of injustice to the balance of the living. I will not go into an argument to prove that Congress has no power to appropriate this money as an act of charity. Every member upon this floor knows it. We have the right, as individuals to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity, but as members of Congress we have no right to so appropriate a dollar of the public money. Some eloquent appeals have been made to us upon the ground that it is a debt due the deceased. Sir, this is no debt. We cannot without the grossest corruption, appropriate this money as the payment of a debt. We have not the semblance of authority to appropriate it as a charity. I cannot vote for this bill, but I will give one weeks pay, and if every member of Congress will do the same, it will amount to more than the bill asks.

    There was silence on the floor of the House as Crockett took his seat. When the bill was put to a vote, instead of passing unanimously as had been expected, it received only a few votes. The next day a friend approached Crockett and asked why he spoken against a bill for such a worthy cause. In reply, Crockett related the following story:

    Just a few years before, he had voted to spend $20,000.00 of public money to help the victims of a terrible fire in Georgetown. When the legislative session was over, Crockett made a trip back home to do some campaigning for his re-election. In his travels he encountered one of his constituents, a man by the name of Horatio Bunce. Mr. Bunce bluntly informed Crockett, I voted for you the last time. I shall not vote for you again.

    Crockett, feeling he had served his constituents well, was stunned. He inquired as to what he had done to so offend Mr. Bunce. Bunce replied, You gave a vote last winter which shows that either you have not capacity to understand the Constitution, or that you are wanting in the honesty and firmness to be guided by it. The Constitution, to be worth anything, must be held sacred, and rigidly observed in all its provisions.I take the papers from Washington and read very carefully all the proceedings of Congress. My papers say that last winter you voted for a bill to appropriate $20,000.00 to some sufferers by a fire. Well, Colonel, where do you find in the Constitution any authority to give away public money in charity? No Colonel, Congress has no right to give charity. Individual members may give as much of their own money as they please, but they have no right to touch a dollar of the public money for that purpose.

    The people have delegated to Congress, by the Constitution, the power to do certain things. To do these, it is authorized to collect and pay moneys, and for nothing else. Everything beyond this is usurpation, and a violation of the Constitution. You have violated the Constitution in what I consider to be a vital point. It is a precedent fraught with danger to the country, for when Congress once begins to stretch its power beyond the limits of the Constitution, there is no limit to it, and no security for the People.

    I could not answer him,said Crockett. I was so fully convinced that he was right.I said to him, Well, my friend, you hit the nail upon the head when you said I had not sense enough to understand the Constitution. If you will forgive me and vote for me again, if I ever vote for another unconstitutional law, I wish I may be shot.

    After finishing the story, Crockett said, Now sir, you know why I made that speech yesterday. There is one thing now to which I will call your attention. You remember that I proposed to give a weeks pay? There are in that House many very wealthy men, men who think nothing of spending a weeks pay, or a dozen of them, for a dinner or a wine party when they have something to accomplish by it. Some of these same men made beautiful speeches upon the debt of gratitude which the country owed the deceased, yet not one of them responded to my proposition. Money with them is nothing but trash when it is to come out of the people. But it is the one great thing for which most of them are striving, and many of them sacrifice honor, integrity, and justice to obtain it.

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    Andrew McRae

    The situation isn’t the same, but substituting the figures of today into this Pickering toon should give you an awful mental image.
    http://lpickering.net/gallery/images/electionbed.jpg

    Under the rules, only Julia can “get an election”, yikes! :-O

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    handjive

    Right on cue for Ms. Jo’s latest blog:

    Labor hands grants to green groups as blow-out is revealed in cost of carbon ad campaign

    Click the link, check the Parasites on Parade and the one way funding fraud…

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    Bulldust

    Going O/T, but this is worthy of note – 4% of installed solar panels were found to be unsafe of the 387 inspected by the Federal Government inspectors to date:

    Some 20 per cent of solar system were found to be “sub-standard” while four per cent were deemed to be “unsafe”.

    Source: http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/national/10483125/four-per-cent-of-solar-panels-unsafe/

    The article also claimed 205,000 systems were installed in 2011 up to the end of September. If the 4% dodginess factor is representative of all installations then that makes 8,200 dodgy installations, just in the 9 months so far this year.

    This is pink batts all over again…

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      ISTM that that analysis is only from an electrical/structural perspective.

      From my observations (not a statistically valid sample), there are many systems that have been installed that cannot possibly deliver the rated power, and hence satisfy the output implied by e.g. RECS granted when the systems were installed. They will result in an increase in nett CO2 emissions, compared to drawing the equivalent electrical energy from a modern, coal-fired power station.

      Moreover, they will have locked up valuable material (derived from natural resources) in a useless appliance while sucking money out of the economy which could have been invested productively.

      Taxpayers are funding this negative productive investment. Even the installation of solar systems on their own and/or their neighbour’s roof, when a subsidy/rebate is claimed.

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    kevin Moore

    Lysander Spooner (1808-1887)

    “But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another,
    this much is certain–
    that it has either authorized such a government as we have had,
    or has been powerless to prevent it.
    In either case, it is unfit to exist. “

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    […] warning: The Climate Scare (and our Govt) is so ripe for mocking, a cartooning giant comes out of retirement – Pickering has it in a picture Let’s applaud the brilliant Larry Pickering. It says a lot […]

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    Love the naked Julia Gillards at the front desk and the entrance to the money bin.

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    Bulldust

    BTW there is a fun poll at the SMH … fill in the blank to best describe Bob Brown (there is a puff piece attached to the poll):

    http://www.smh.com.au/environment/the-most–man-in-australia-20111017-1lsle.html

    BTW the largest response of the six was “dangerous” at 44% as I write.

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    Wow, its a marvellous cartoon 🙂

    I like so much where the sceptics go out, there happens to be this stupid trashcan , cute!!

    K.R. Frank

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      It’s where they can dump the Climate Commission’s report “The Critical Decade”, There are lies, damned lies, and CC reports (printed on shiny paper, and totally useless, especially in the dunny)

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    I see there’s no roof on that building. Presumably that means the occupants have swallowed Flannery’s predictions about future drought hook line and sinker?

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      Dave

      MostlyHarmless

      I see there’s no roof on that building!

      Faulty insulation blunder – had to have the whole roof removed & everything checked.

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      Crakar24

      No its part of the new green building code, there is in fact a roof and it is made of glass this way you dont need to cause climate change by turning on your light bulbs, you dont need to have a heater (classic green house affect).

      Also items in your home can be covered by solar panels rather than the roof to generate all your energy requirements.

      See what innovation a crippling tax can drive?

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    kevin Moore

    The Climate Change Scare Machine –

    http://www.sovereignindependent.com/?p=28358

    UPDATE: James Hansen does quite well out of it all.
    ATI obtained Dr. Hansen’s Form SF 278, which is required to be filed annually, also under the Freedom of Information Act. The disclosure revealed that Dr. Hansen received between $236,000 and $1,232,500 in outside income in 2010 relating to his taxpayer-funded employment,

    Read More : joannenova.com

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    Here’s a view of Australia from “across the water” – lots of water, and not rising much, by my analysis. What I see is a microcosm of what’s wrong with the world, and politics today. I see the government of a country which was built on coal, whose prosperity resulted from coal, which currently depends on coal, turning its back on it. This degree of economic and political suicide is arguably unmatched anywhere else.

    I see a government which has abandoned policies which work for policies which demonstrably don’t work, and can’t work. I see a government pandering to a tiny minority in order to retain power. Expensive desalination plants have been, and are being built instead of much cheaper dams which serve not one but two purposes, water storage and flood control. Dams apparently “destroy the environment”, whereas clearly it’s uncontrolled flooding which does that very efficiently, as well as destroying property, livelihoods and lives.

    I see local authorities banning coastal development, or allowing it only if houses are built on piles, because of a projected rise in sea-level which, even if it occurs, will post-date the likely (or useful) lifespan of the buildings.

    I see a government which appears to be considering “controlling” the media, presumably because they don’t like contrary opinions being expressed. Shades of 1984 indeed. That same government is under pressure from luddites who want to see a large coal-fired power station closed down, with no alternative sources of energy in place.

    I see state-funded organisations distributing exaggeration and propaganda, some would say lies (I would), about future climate and sea-level rise, in an obvious attempt to scare the population into submission. This in a country whose instinctive common-sense and aversion to bullshit is (or at least was) legendary worldwide.

    God help Australia.

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      connolly

      MH you have it spot on. Our post-war standard of living has been largely built on relatively cheap energy supplied by bountiful coal resources. We have a government that has imposed, without a democratic mandate a tax on that resource far in excess of anything existing in any other country in the world. And yesterday analysts have slashed their EU carbon price estimates by 23 percent to 12.10 euros for the rest of the year, reflecting growing bearish sentiment and oversupply in Europe’s carbon market and the UN carbon price has crashed.
      http://www.pointcarbon.com/
      And then they kissed and cheered when they rammed through the legislation that will hammer our economy in the middle of the worst global economic crisis since the Great Depression. A government of mendacity, arrogance and towering incompetence.
      Good luck against the frogs.

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    John Brookes

    Is Pickering perhaps mocking the paranoia of the “skeptics”?

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      kevin Moore

      “Larry Pickering has picked up his tools again, inspired by the lunacy of Australian politics.”

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      Robert

      Hmmm… Paranoia?

      Who claims there would be “runaway warming?”

      Who claims catastrophic flooding?

      Who claims an essential trace gas is the root cause of it all?

      I could go on but I believe that adequately illustrates that you are confusing which side of this issue has the real paranoids. But it is what we expected of you.

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      Dave

      If you can draw your bow that long, yeah, could be that.

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    David Cain

    I d enjoyed the article, but being the pedant I am I need to say “differently, not “different”.

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    Ask why is it so?

    MostlyHarmless
    October 17, 2011 at 8:14 pm

    Couldn’t have said it better myself.

    Herald Sun Newspaper, Oct 17 2011 page 8 ‘Caravans rising tide’ The Federal Government is spending $150,000 of our money on a study, not to determine climate impacts of climate change on coastal caravan parks, but to determine the economic impacts of climate change on these parks.

    My jaw dropped in disbelief.

    Final paragraph “The study is part of a $4.5 million federal grant program which the Government said would provide lessons that would be relevant nationwide”

    Pickering’s cartoon sums it up perfectly.

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      “Economic impacts” – presumably the owners will just stand and watch (from the safety of a piled building) as their “mobile homes” float off into the sunset (west coast) or sunrise (east coast- need to be scientifically accurate here).

      Has the option of moving said “mobile homes” (the term’s a dead give-away, isn’t it?) elsewhere occurred to anyone yet?

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      Couldn’t have said it better myself.

      I should have said “thank you” – I always write better when I’m angry.

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    kevin Moore

    It’s our money,we earned it, so why should we give it to our political servants to throw around like confetti and make laws that make us poorer? It doesn’t make sense. A case of Double Think, I think.

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      kevin Moore

      Thomas Hobbes – Leviathan

      OF THE OFFICE OF THE SOVEREIGN REPRESENTATIVE

      “THE office of the sovereign, be it a monarch or an assembly, consisteth in the end for which he was trusted with the sovereign power, namely the procuration of the safety of the people, to which he is obliged by the law of nature, and to render an account thereof to God, the Author of that law, and to none but Him. But by safety here is not meant a bare preservation, but also all other contentments of life, which every man by lawful industry, without danger or hurt to the Commonwealth, shall acquire to himself….”

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    observa

    Larry Pickering must be thinking life for a toonist wasn’t meant to be this breezy.

    What else can a humble toonist be expected to do with this camel fart mob in Canberra?

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    Nice article Those Darn Skeptics And Their Communications Professionals by William M. Briggs.

    “Why? I’ll tell you: the skeptics have sneaked behind our back and have employed your actual communications professionals to put forward their vile message that we—even we!—are too sure of ourselves.”

    “Then there’s the Greens, Labor, and even the Liberal in Australia. That enlightened country even, thank the Powers, voted in a new carbon tax!

    I could go on, but any fair counting shows at least half, and in many countries most, of the politicians support our cause, or at least say they do publicly.”

    “What’s the bottom line, boss?”

    “It’s obvious! We must address the glaring discrepancy in media access, which weighs so heavily in the favor of our enemies. We must pass a law banning the use of communications professionals!”

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      The meejah are so biased towards sceptics and big-oil shills everyone here is wasting their time.

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        catamon

        Yes, but then fine documentaries like this make it out into the wild.

        http://www.endgamethemovie.com/

        Gillard may control the Army but we skeptics have the best cartoonists. It’s no match.

        What, the Army are all that stands between the Govt and the legions of brave skeptic cartoonists out there working to bring them down?? I shall flee now in fear of the rapier wit of the the skeptic hordes huh??

        The Tax is temporary.

        Nah, I think your talking out the wrong end there. By mid November it’ll be law. Been there done that with the GST people. In the lead up it was all doom and gloom and the sky will fall. 12 months after it was introduced people wondered what all the fuss was about as gravity still worked and the sky was still overhead.

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    kevin Moore

    http://www.tirnasaor.com/10/05/the-lost-tools/

    “The Trivium and Quadrivium are described by Dorothy Sayers in her article of the same title as: The Lost Tools of Learning although the truth is they were never really ‘lost’ in the first place; rather they have been secreted and kept from the common man.

    You will not hear of this process of learning in the public school systems, where we are not taught how to think but what to think. Public schools; where merit is determined by how much information you can memorise and manage to regurgitate on the day of an exam.

    We are not taught how to think critically, analytically and creatively, we are not taught formal logic or how to recognise fallacies in logic and reason. We allow the State to educate our youth into nothing more than repeaters, trained into perfect little workers, not thinkers, with the sole purpose of serving some function within the system.

    These tools are present in elite private schools, prep schools, Ivy League colleges and the like. In these schools people are taught how to think critically, use their reason, rationalise and recognise fallacies in logic. Without the trivium and quadrivium our cognitive capacity and potential is suppressed.”

    “Literacy is a form of slavery until a systematic form of critical thinking is practiced by the reader.” – Jan Irvin

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      Marky

      That’s a very succinct summary, Kevin, though I myself went to a private school – admittedly, on the lower end of private schools – I often got myself into trouble for thinking critically and independently, not for that reason but because I would ask questions that I knew (or strongly suspected) the teacher couldn’t answer, undermining or disrespecting the teacher. In year 12, I remember my barely-literate English teacher instructing us all to share any insights we developed with the whole class to encourage higher averages, thus reflecting an inordinately high standard of education on the school and, by effect, decreasing the scope of the individual’s recognised excellence for having come up with ideas that others did not.

      It wasn’t until several years later, when seeing a psychologist for unrelated personal/family reasons, that I learned why I did not naturally excel in standardised testing but always received top marks for essays; the “fight-or-flight” response, ingrained in basic human instinct and manifesting in ways most people don’t even realise. This psychological condition, no matter how much I had studied, would effectively shut off access to long-term memory and other faculties that are not critical to ensuring survival. Other things, like peripheral vision, could be integral to knowing one’s surroundings and potential threats to survival, are enhanced in the “fight/flight” condition, which in an exam environment, enhances the individual’s capacity to become distracted. The trigger is distress, and unconscious and subconscious don’t differentiate between different types of stress in the same way that our conscious minds do.

      It is an unfair stress to burden children with while their brains are still developing. A better approach would be to include the standardised testing, but mandate that its percentage in grading must never allow for a situation whereby a student can fail to pass because of test scores alone.

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    Elizabeth (Lizzie) B.

    Funny is the best persuader of the uninformed, the best weaponry against the pompous declaimeers of untruth and the best medicine for the troops fighting the battle against the forces of AGW darkness. Calling all wits and cartoonists – please keep busy. And thanks Jo Nova for making the real science so accessible and keeping our spirits lively.

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    Alice Thermopolis

    WATSON: “On closer inspection, Holmes, there seem to two “statues” – By Jove! naked women – in the Settled Science inner sanctum. Egyptian hieroglyphs on the wall say: FREE MONEY. One shovel and a big pile of $$$ in the second antechamber. Good Lord, there’s something odd going on at the Carbon Cult Club!

    HOLMES: “You’re right, Watson. It’s an ugly business, this climate business. The more I see of it, the less I like it. Too much “business”, and not enough climate!”

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    Holmes would say much the same about what the ombudsman, who has just resigned, was up to: “Too much business. Not enough ombudsing!” Such political science “business” has long been Environmentalism’s central discipline, applicable to everything from climate to boat people.

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