It’s the name and shame campaign: Australia, you are the weakest link!

Does anyone care about actual carbon emissions anymore? (I mean, apart from our coalition government?)

What matters is not whether you emit or suck the CO2. It’s not even about whether you are seen to be doing something. Doing something is irrelevant.  It’s about joining the club and obeying the rules. And the rules are complex: Carbon trading is good. Planting trees is bad. Carbon taxes are good, but carbon soil storage is bad. And nuclear, of course, is awful — unless you are a large communist power, in which case, it’s a landmark agreement.

More efficient coal power is bad,  even if they reduce emissions, but inefficient wind towers are good, even if they don’t.

If there is a rule underlying the rules, it appears to be that any solution is a good solution if it makes big government bigger. If governments are already as big as they can get (e.g. China) then any solution is a good solution.

We can see the rules at work in the current name and shame campaign. Australia might meet those targets but who cares — it’ s now at the bottom of the Climate Oscars.

Oh no. The pain and humiliation. Australia can’t win the The Climate Change Performance Index – an award that has existed since lunch.

Australia at the bottom of list on climate change action

The AustralianSCRAPPING the carbon tax and reviewing the renewable energy target pushed Australia to the bottom of an international list on climate change action rather than the country’s actual performance on cutting carbon dioxide emissions.

Based largely on advice from “climate change experts” from non-government organisations, Australia fell 21 positions for policy performance, replacing Canada as the worst performing industrial country and putting it ahead only of Saudi Arabia.

It’s a questionnaire wish list of NGO’s and they really don’t like governments that cancel taxes:

Commenting on Australia, the report said: “The new conservative government has apparently made good on last year’s announcement and reversed the climate policies previously in effect … the country lost a further 21 positions in the policy evaluation, compared to last year, thus replacing Canada as the worst performing industrial country.”

9.2 out of 10 based on 139 ratings

180 comments to It’s the name and shame campaign: Australia, you are the weakest link!

  • #
    gai

    If you want to SHAME Australia, at least shame Australian politicians this story will break your heart:
    http://pickeringpost.com/story/bastard-banks/4237

    181

    • #
      gai

      Note the media has not said one word aboutthe fact the banks are foreclosing on these people who have never missed a payment!

      Where are all the ‘Social Justice’ protesters?

      191

      • #
        Ron Cook

        Gai,

        Just posted the story on my FB

        R-COO- K+

        40

        • #
          gai

          Thanks Ron,

          I was very surprised this story was buried while the headlines screamed about (the nonexistent) Gore Bull Warbling.

          80

          • #
            Robert

            One of the purposes of “global warming” in the media is to focus the public attention on it so they aren’t thinking of or made aware of things like this. Whatever is taking place in your nation, regardless of which nation it is, the media is complicit. After all, they no longer consider it their purpose to inform our thinking, rather they consider it their purpose to shape our thinking.

            Someone should see if this benefits them financially, it would not surprise me if it does.

            100

      • #
        gbees

        “Note the media has not said one word about the fact the banks are foreclosing on these people who have never missed a payment!”

        You’re wrong … Alan Jones has been all over it daily …

        Alan talks to Dr David Pascoe and Kate Stuart about the devastating impact of drought and the bastardry of the banks

        70

    • #
      aussieguy

      If you want to associate the Australian Farmer’s plight with Banks AND Climate Change, here’s one that would piss you off even more!

      Carbon credits have no value. I’m going to say it again: Carbon credits have no value.

      How so? Ask any Australian farmer who has lost their farm to the bank due to prolonged drought. Banks don’t regard carbon credits as an asset.

      ie: There is no REAL economic value in carbon credits!

      That’s right folks! Another Left-wing create economic horse manure that offers NOTHING tangible to humanity! So what the farmers thought they had invested in something of value (Carbon Credits), actually was a total waste of money and added to their economic suffering!

      This should confirm one’s suspicion that Economic Illiteracy is a characteristic of the Left. It really is a real world demonstrated fact that they don’t have a damn clue when it comes to anything related to economics and the consequences upon others!




      Now, back on Jo’s topic…

      This is how you logically deconstruct Left-wing, eco-nut BS. (naming and shaming).



      (1) What the flying fire truck is the Climate Change Performance Index?

      According to wikipedia: The Climate Change Performance Index (CCPI) is an annual publication by Germanwatch and Climate Action Network Europe. It evaluates the climate protection performance of 58 countries, responsible for over 90% of global energy-related CO2 emissions.



      (2) Where do I get access to this so-called “report”?

      The Climate Change Performance Index: Results 2015
      => https://germanwatch.org/en/download/10407.pdf



      (3) What is the REAL PURPOSE of the CCPI?

      According to the report, page 7…
      —————–
      The Climate Change Performance Index is an instrument designed to enhance transparency in international climate politics. Its aim is to put political and social pressure on those countries that have, up until now, failed to take ambitious action on climate protection. It also aims to highlight those countries with best-practice climate policies.
      —————–

      Basically, they admit this report is an activist oriented document. You thought Climate Change was about the planet? Its NOT! Its politics! They even say so by calling it “climate politics“! This is NOT about actual analysis! This is about (in their own words), creating propaganda (“instrument“) in order to apply “political and social pressure” upon others.


      (4)(a) Who is Germanwatch? What do they do?
      —————–
      Last page of report => Germanwatch: Following the motto “Observing, Analysing, Acting”, Germanwatch has been actively promoting global equity and the preservation of livelihoods since 1991. In doing so, we focus on the politics and economics of the North and their worldwide consequences. The situation of marginalised people in the South is the starting point of our work. Together with our members and supporters as well as with other actors in civil society, we intend to represent a strong lobby for sustainable development. We attempt to approach our goals by advocating for the prevention of dangerous climate change, food security and compliance of companies with human rights.
      —————–

      Can you say Left-wing activist group? *rolls eyes* …The key words that gave them away? “global equity”, “lobby for sustainable development”, and “dangerous climate change”.


      (4)(b) Who is Climate Action Network Europe? What do they do?

      —————–
      Last page of report => Climate Action Network Europe (CAN-E) is recognised as Europe’s leading network working on climate and energy issues. With over 100 members in 25 European countries, CAN-E unites to work to prevent dangerous climate change and promote sustainable energy and environment policy in Europe.

      The Climate Action Network (CAN) is a worldwide network of over 700 Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) working to promote government, private sector and individual action to limit human-induced climate change to ecologically sustainable levels.

      The vision of CAN is a world striving actively towards and achieving the protection of the global climate in a manner that promotes equity and social justice between peoples, sustainable development of all communities, and protection of the global environment. CAN unites to work towards this vision.

      CAN’s mission is to support and empower civil society organisations to influence the design and development of an effective global strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and ensure its implementation at international, national and local levels in the promotion of equity and sustainable development.
      —————–

      Another Leftie activist group! And there are those words again! “Social Justice”, “Equity”, and “Sustainable development”…Its like Left-wing word bingo!


      (4)(c) How did they calculate this “Climate Change Performance Index”? (Criteria, etc)

      The Climate Change Performance Index: Background and Methodology
      => https://germanwatch.org/en/download/8579.pdf

      Things to note about it…
      —————–
      Page 4: Climate Action Network (CAN)-Europe and Germanwatch present the CCPI every year at the UN Climate Change Conference, thus creating as much attention as possible in the observed countries and pushing forward the discussion on climate change.
      —————–
      So really, its a bunch of Leftist activists who are officially a part of the annual UN Climate Change circle jerk. The standard behaviour of activist is to, wait for it, “raise awareness”! LOL!

      They begin discussing their methodology on page 5.

      Things to note:
      * They don’t account for livestock, agricultural tilling and fertilizing.

      * This part is suspicious: …qualitative data on the climate policy of evaluated countries is compiled through surveys of local climate change experts. These experts, usually representatives of non-governmental organisations, outline the most important policy measures to promote renewable energies…
      (They don’t actually look at the results produced by policies! They are surveys from “climate change experts”!)

      * They have made an unproven assumption! => The CO2 emissions of each country are what ultimately influence the climate.
      (Has it been scientifically proven in the REAL WORLD that CO2 affects climate? Not computer models, but actual data collected from sensors over time.)

      * This is how they calculate aviation emissions: Calculate the aviation fuel storage and assume it will be used up. They don’t actually bother with sticking a sensor behind a jet engine and actually measure emissions of airliners before take off. (Airliners do engine test runs before passengers even see the plane). So they don’t really know if Qantas emits more or less than, say, Lufthansa).

      * They don’t account for International shipping…Because they don’t know who to blame for big-ass container ships travelling in and out of ports around the world.

      * They include hydropower, regardless if its unsustainable or not. They admit their numbers cannot account if a hydropower project negative impacts downstream. But they still count it any way!

      * This is how they calculate policy: Performance rating by climate change experts from nongovernmental organisations within the countries that are evaluated. By means of a questionnaire, they give a judgement and ‘rating’ on the most important measures of their governments. The questionnaire covers the promotion of renewable energies, the increase of efficiency and other measures to reduce CO2 emission in the electricity and heat production sector, the manufacturing and construction industries, or transport and residential sectors. Beyond that, current climate policy is evaluated with regard to reduction of deforestation and forest degradation on the basis of support and protection of forest ecosystem biodiversity.
      (Basically, if you don’t put your hand down the pants of a “Climate Change Expert” (like Tim Flannery) and aggressively satisfy them with taxpayer’s money and what they believe in, they’ll give you a crappy rating!)

      …I can’t read any more. This is up and up BULL$HIT created by eco-con-artist-activists.


      Notice how media outlets don’t even ask these things?

      Check it out…(All you have to do is search for “Climate Change Performance Index” and select the “News” tab in Google).

      But Australia is the bad guy because the so-called taxpayer funded “Climate experts”
      => http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2014/12/09/australia-second-worst-climate-change-report
      => http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/dec/08/australia-named-worst-performing-industrial-country-on-climate-change
      => http://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-30389737
      => http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-12-09/greens-question-bishops-call-for-legally-binding-carbon-targets/5955194
      => http://thenewdaily.com.au/news/2014/12/09/australia-saudi-arabia-worst-performing-climate/
      => http://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2014/12/09/environment/japan-falls-to-53rd-in-climate-change-index-denmark-on-top/
      => http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/new-zealand-rated-poor-in-climate-change-report-ranked-just-above-china-6198022
      => http://www.rttnews.com/2428228/australia-worst-c02-emitter-among-industrialized-countries.aspx


      Funny how the authors of the report expressly target Australian Govt because they are CONSERVATIVE! (Gee, no bias there folks!)

      Page 6 of the linked “Results 2015” report…

      The new conservative Australian government has apparently made good on last year’s announcement and reversed the climate policies previously in effect. As a result, the country lost a further 21 positions in the policy evaluation compared to last year, thus replacing Canada as the worst performing industrial country.


      See page 5 and 6 for other countries.

      China: On the downside, China continues to invest in unsustainable large-scale waterpower projects and plans to build many new nuclear power stations.


      USA: Although the policy grade for the transport sector is relatively poor, emissions have been decreasing since 2008. National experts criticise the small number of new significant advancements made at federal level in regulating emissions from the transport sector and the continued extreme underdevelopment of public transportation. Since the Obama administration in its second term made climate issues a focus of its foreign policy, the tendencies in international policies are promising. But with an anti-climate majority in congress, it remains to be seen which positive developments will make it on the ground.

      Notice how they don’t even mention fracking as the main reason for USA’s reduction in emissions! Note also, their distinct anti-Right tones. => “anti-climate majority in congress”.

      Canada: …nothing has changed and nothing is going forward at state level. Canada is about to miss its 2020 emissions reduction target by about 20% and the only effective policies in place are provincial initiatives.

      Turkey: According to Turkey’s national climate experts, the country has no national strategic planning policy to explicitly address climate change. The fossil fuel industry is increasing rapidly and, at least in the energy sector, most policies that are in place lack implementation. As a result, the country ranks 51st in the overall table.


      But Australia gets a PR grilling because a Conservative Govt is running the show and defying the Climate narrative! This report is really a Leftie’s tool to put political pressure and punish Right leaning or countries who are giving the Climate Change activists the finger. It has nothing to do with the environment. As they themselves said, its “climate politics”. Only Left-wingers can come up with a report that contains surveys (where they can ask questions to mold the results to suit their agenda), instead of actually measuring and finding out emissions. Really, these folks are a pack of academic ivory tower, Left-wing think-tanks. They don’t actually go outside and measure anything in the real world! Assumptions, surveys and questionaires! Not facts, data, evidence, scientific experiments to prove/confirm things things!

      It is intentionally using mathematics (statistical analysis) in a way to mask themselves as some sort of scientific authority, in order to help push their political agenda.

      You can smell their BS from a mile away. That’s how stinky it is!

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      • #
        scaper...

        In fact, banks look down on the gaining of carbon credits because the land to achieve such has to be locked up for a hundred years.

        Listen to this link. Especially at the 12 minute mark. A comrade in arms, Kate Stuart lost everything and now such a strong person is an emotional wreck! Kate was one of the organisers of the CONVOY OF NO CONFIDENCE. Anyone here remember that?

        I’m beginning to feel ashamed to be Australian. When the salt of the Earth is terrorised no Australian should hold their head high.

        100

      • #
        Bobl

        Of dourse as I continuw to point out the 6% increase in sinking capacity due to the rise of CO2 from 360 PPM to 400 PPM has increased the CO2 Australia sinks by a factor of 1.2 times our emissions (at least). We have zero emission compared to 1990 already – thanks to CO2 fertilisation. This report doesn’t do CO2 accounting very well.

        80

    • #
      Ted O'Brien.

      Why, oh why? Why can so few people understand the problem?

      The sequence of events which led to this terrible Winton situation was this.

      1. Since the second world war, countries which had suffered severe famine subsidised food production heavily. Notably mainland Europe, Japan and Korea. They still do. This means that the price of food in those countries is a lot less than the cost of production.

      2. In the mid 1980s, when Europe collectively had become self sufficient in food production and set about dumping its surplus which depressed world food prices, Australia’s National Farmers’ Federation adopted an insane policy they later named Unilateral Trade Reform, promising us that if we took the moral high ground in economics and did away with government assistance, the rest of the world would follow our example. The rest of the world didn’t, but the NFF and all parties have maintained that policy in the face of failure now for almost 30 years. During all of that time Australia’s farmers, selling at the subsidised world price, i.e. below the cost of production, but receiving very little subsidies themselves, have steadily been going broke.

      3. In June 2011, just as the Northern Australia dry season muster for live cattle exports to Indonesia was getting under way, the ABC’s 4 Corners program ran a video which had been prepared by a group of Marxist misfits calling themselves Animals Australia, purporting to show cruel treatment in Indonesia of cattle which had been sold live by Australia to Indonesia.

      This video included such things as an Indonesian abattoir worker kicking at a cow’s head. Now in the real world nobody kicks a cow in the head. All that will get you is a broken foot, and that without causing the cow any great discomfort. Cows’ heads are heavy and hard. Yet the ABC ran this program.

      4. The Gillard government responded to this supposedly outrageous activity by immediately banning exports to the abattoirs nominated in the AA complaint. However, after discussion of the matter with the Greens, they banned all live exports to Indonesia for a period of several months. It being possible only to work this tropical trade in the dry season, exports were greatly reduced that year. This left northern Australia with too many livestock for the coming year.

      5. Enter another drought. Always on the cards, but a horror situation when you are overstocked. It isn’t just the surplus cattle that fail to perform. All the livestock do. Add to this the forced selling which severely depresses prices across the board, and businesses which would otherwise have coped with the drought become unviable.

      There are sound grounds for criticising the banks. But the main problem was the actions of the Gillard/Brown government in disrupting the marketing of cattle in 2011. The backlog is only now being cleared. If the current government doesn’t wake up in the very near future and stop this bankrupting, it will stand guilty of delivering the Marxist fringe dwellers a massive victory in the program they put in place in 2011.

      In all of this, the NFF stood just as insane as it did with Unilateral Trade Reform.

      Overseas people, note that Brown was the leader of the Greens.

      60

      • #
        Ted O'Brien.

        Note that the original proposal for an ETS, which intended to tax very poorly researched supposed emissions by agricultural activities but studiously refused to allow credits for the sequestration side of ag’s carbon cycle, would have quickly bankrupted all grazing in Australia. This would have enabled the government to transfer the 60% of Australia’s land area which is used for grazing to new ownership without compensating current owners.

        60

  • #

    Being at the top or bottom of any list depends completely on your perspective. As Oz sits fairly far down in the southern hemisphere, one could say you are actually leading the way on climate change. Congratulations on your leadership. Perhaps we here in the US will figure out how to follow your lead in the not so distant future. Cheers –

    390

  • #
    Leonard Lane

    Far from the insane dreams and schemes of the far leftists pushing CAGW, the majority of Americans appreciate Australia for having the knowledge and courage to say enough of this madness is enough.
    Suggest you nurture and support those factions in your National Government who have taken a bold and correct stance on the global warming sickness. They are the world leaders. How I wish the USA could develop courageous and rational public servants as our political leaders. Sadly, we are heading in the wrong direction.
    Keep leading the way and good on you!

    450

    • #
      Colin Henderson

      “global warming sickness” – great phrase, love it!

      120

    • #
      Bobl

      It’s not the politicians leading, it’s the public! Australians hate seeing their hard earned pi**ed up against a wall, regardless of whether the scabs are living it up in Rio, Copenhagen or Lima.

      50

      • #
        gai

        No it is not the public. It is the brain washing propaganda from the socialist MSM that relentlessly drives home the message day in and day out for decades.

        If the public hears nothing but one side how can they make an informed decision? That is why they hate people like Jo Nova, Anthony Watts, Steve McIntyre and the rest of the vocal skeptics. We draw back the curtain so people have a chance to see they have been Grubered.

        10

  • #
    Doug Proctor

    My experiences in California this summer of heatwave and drought are on point here.

    The eco-green doesn’t give a damn about heat, water or CO2. There is no movement to reduce water or energy usage per se. The entire drive is to reduce the power of free market capitalism FOR OTHER PEOPLE.

    Tax and control those who do not share our position.

    280

  • #
    the Griss

    Aussie, Aussie , Aussie.. Oi, Oi, Oi.

    Leading the pack in the REALITY stakes !! 🙂

    I suspect that several NH countries will get nasty WAKE-UP calls this winter !

    272

    • #
      James Bradley

      “We are the champions,

      We are the champions,

      Of the world.”

      190

    • #
      gai

      I am hoping. Jeff Masters site is way off on the forecast for today. And that was the forcast from this afternoon. It was supposed to be mid fifties (F) and instead it is mid forties. It was supposed to be partly cloudy. Instead a deluge is about to hit. His Jet Stream amp for the USA appears to be way off too. The actual weather is moving from the north to the south as shown by http://earth.nullschool.net/#2014/03/04/0600Z/wind/isobaric/10hPa/orthographic=24.65,108.15,482

      Wunderground does not show anything like that map.

      60

      • #
        Robert

        Wunderground is firmly entrenched in supporting the entire CO2 causes global warming bit. When I was looking into mirroring the data from my weather station on their site I found too many articles/comments by their founder indicating he is a serious warmist. That being the case I chose not to include my weather data among the other personal weather stations that mirror their data there.

        60

  • #
    TdeF

    We in Australia must be very unpopular with the windmill industry, the solar panel industry, the electric car industry, the lithium battery industry and the real beneficiary of carbon taxes, the United Nations, international retirement home for so many politicians plus the international merchant banks who gave us the GFC based on so many fake mortgages and who love trading billions in fantasy carbon credits.

    Then you get all those hundreds of thousands of public servants at local council level who run the local Climate Change Departments and really wanted to go to Lima, Peru and Paris next year. They enjoyed Rio, Copenhagen, Durban, Dubai and look forward to Paris. Quality hotels, limousines, great restaurants, first class travel and the chance to listen to each other and wonder if Lord Monckton will gatecrash the party. Add the Climate Editors with every newspaper in the world, the Climate Departments at every University and the giant Insurance companies who can increase insurance rates with the incredible risk of local flooding with the rapid sea rise predicted, inundating even previously safe cities like Lima at 5,000 ft.

    The sky is not falling and the seas are not rising and the world is not heating at all and every hot day, every storm, every local weather event are not conclusive proof of terrible climate change. So keep planting those trees and building those dams and acting sensibly while Delingpole’s Quangocrats fume. Australia, we are proud of you. Australians are leading the world in destroying the very unjolly Green Giant. The Climate is changing quickly.

    660

    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      Nicely put.

      90

    • #
      Peter Carabot

      Are you suggesting that all those pubic servants are doing it for themselves? and not out of duty to help these stupid taxpayers?? Naughty Naughty Naughty! You will burn in the CG hell!! Unbeliever!!

      130

    • #
      Robert O

      Well put Ted, mais je voudrais bien aussi faire un sejour a Paris, c’est le probleme, n’est-ce pas?

      40

    • #
      pattoh

      I guess if the Fabian Agenda 21 Leftards ever go into decline & the CSIRO gets a brief to use their time doing something for National Sovereignty again, they might even think about using what we have plenty of & defending our economy & standard of living by promoting home grown independence.
      With all the oil refineries closing ( domestic labour costs, union bastardry etc,) we will soon find ourselves when a couple of tankers is the difference between independence & slavery.
      Perhaps it is time to revisit an exchange on this very site a couple of years ago:-
      http://joannenova.com.au/2010/11/unintended-consequences-greens-protect-coal-deposits-and-destroy-rainforest/
      Richard Courtenay – comment 65
      Richard was once a regular visitor & one of the Giants

      80

  • #
    Sarmange

    Congratulations Australia to your true honourable place at the list !

    120

    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      Indeed.

      It is much better for a Government to think for itself, and do what is best for welfare of its people, than just be one of the sheep who follows the international herd.

      Aussies know a lot about sheep, but we won’t go there.

      170

      • #
        Rereke Whakaaro

        Actually, that should be. “… follows the international flock”, except it doesn’t work as well … hmmm?

        70

      • #
        the Griss

        “Aussies know a lot about sheep, but we won’t go there.”

        That’s funny, especially coming from a kiwi. 😉

        111

      • #
        Peter Carabot

        Kiwis know sheep REALLY well……………..Apparently…..

        60

      • #
        Eddie

        Mixing your metaphorical collectives there Rereke ?

        I think it may be more of a herd than a flock, concerning global initiatives, esp. re. relinquishing sovereignty to a bureaucratic power elite, but I may be wrong.

        50

      • #
        James Bradley

        No, really Rereke,

        I believe you when you say you were only pushing the sheep back through the fence…

        70

      • #
        Robert O

        Lemmings, not sheep would seem a more appropriate metaphor.

        30

      • #
        Robert

        I tried just linking to this earlier but the comment vanished immediately. Too short perhaps.

        So here it is….

        The Consultant.

        A shepherd was herding his flock in a remote pasture when suddenly a brand-new BMW advanced out of a dust cloud towards him.

        The driver, a young man in an Armani suit, Gucci shoes, Ray Ban sunglasses and YSL tie, leans out the window and asks the shepherd, “If I tell you exactly how many sheep you have in your flock, will you give me one?”

        The shepherd looks at the man, obviously a yuppie, then looks at his peacefully grazing flock and calmly answers, “Sure. Why not?”

        The yuppie parks his car, whips out his Dell notebook computer, connects it to his AT&T cell phone, surfs to a NASA page on the internet, where he calls up a GPS satellite navigation system to get an exact fix on his location which he then feeds to another NASA satellite that scans the area in an ultra-high-resolution photo. The young man then opens the digital photo in Adobe Photoshop and exports it to an image processing facility in Hamburg, Germany. Within seconds, he receives an email on his Palm Pilot that the image has been processed and the data stored. He then accesses a MS-SQL database through an ODBC connected Excel spreadsheet with hundreds of complex formulas. He uploads all of this data via an email on his Blackberry and, after a few minutes, receives a response.

        Finally, he prints out a full-color, 150-page report on his hi-tech, miniaturized HP LaserJet printer and finally turns to the shepherd and says, “You have exactly 1,586 sheep.”

        “That’s right. Well, I guess you can take one of my sheep.” says the shepherd. He watches the young man select one of the animals and looks on amused as the young man stuffs it into the trunk of his car.

        Then the shepherd says to the young man, “Hey, if I can tell you exactly what your business is, will you give me back my sheep? “

        The young man thinks about it for a second and then says, “Okay, why not?”

        “You’re a consultant.” says the shepherd.

        “Wow! That’s correct,” says the yuppie, “but how did you guess that?”

        “No guessing required.” answered the shepherd. “You showed up here even though nobody called you; you want to get paid for an answer I already knew, to a question I never asked; and you don’t know crap about my business…”

        “…Now give me back my dog!”

        110

  • #
    Yonniestone

    We might be seen as leading in taking action on Green tape disassembly but until our heavy industries of metals and energy are rebooted this still smacks of softly softly.

    Sorry if I’m impatient and cynical but seeing the rapid erosion of local manufacturing and no for seeable development still gives little hope.

    90

    • #
      TdeF

      Our heavy industry will never recover. Elaborate manufacture collapsed many years ago, pumps, screws, engines, machinery. A lot of what is left is driven only by mining and agriculture. Car manufacturing is leaving, a pattern started by Mitsubishi, Nissan and now General Motors, Ford and even Toyota. Electronics never existed, as we cannot even make a transistor. The only heavy manufacturing are those things too big to fit on a boat or light manufacuring with sheet metal for fittings and kitches.

      Even our windmills are now made in China, our Solar Panels, the Neodymium for the world’s magnets for the Windmills, everything in fact. None of this will return. A few local windmill manufacturers like Keppel Prince are being swamped by far cheaper Chinese windmills anyway. However those countries who have only cheap or highly skilled labour need the people with massive mineral wealth to buy from them, which is not a bad thing. Singapore even has to buy its water. This situation will not change with with the highest mineral wealth per capita in the world, we should not be sending all our wealth overseas buying carbon credits which go to China anyway.

      Like most countries, we should regroup, take government leadership and concentrate on those things which we as a country can do well. Perhaps not Air Warfare Destroyers we cannot finish, unsinkable submarines and expensive motor cars. Rather underground coal mining tractors as at Caterpillar, Burnie or Sugar Harvesters as in Bundaberg, Queensland or high tech Tool sharpeners as at ANCA in Melbourne. World wide vertical markets in which we can shine, not the shotgun approach of the 1950s. Most of all, to coordinate our efforts to market our products, not try to shut everything down as the Greens nearly did, from the meat trade to mining.

      250

      • #
        ianl8888

        … Mitsubishi, Nissan and now General Motors, Ford and even Toyota

        Everyone seems to leave out Chrysler and Leyland from this list … why, I wonder ? Too far back for most people to remember or even know about, maybe

        70

        • #
          the Griss

          The Leyland P76.. very forgettable ! 🙂

          50

          • #
            TdeF

            Ah the Leyland P76, so add Leyland/BMC and Chrysler Actually it was a good car technically well ahead of its time and won car of the year in 1973 but most considered it looked like a pregnant camel, so few sales. Oddly when BMW did the same thing with a US designer and the hump at the back for the US market, nothing was said. Times had changed.

            40

          • #

            Not a bad idea but terrible execution.

            20

        • #
          markx

          There was a magnificent engine in the V8 version of the P76.

          I drove one a couple of times back in the day, and was amazed at how responsive it was and how easily it hauled that big tank up to impressive speeds. The car felt really good on the road too.

          That Aluminium alloy 4.4 litre V8 was way ahead of the old iron V8s of Ford and Holden at the time, and made getting back into my 6 cylinder Holden feel like someone had chained an anchor on the back of it.

          30

          • #
            TdeF

            Yes, but cars were lighter then without all the modern luxury, so with a 230kg advantage from the aluminium engine, the big tank was only 1.32 tons, the same as a Toyota Corolla today.

            20

      • #

        TdeF says it all right here:

        Our heavy industry will never recover.

        And therein lies something that I’ve mentioned a few times here.

        When it comes to electrical power consumption, the (understandable) thinking is that people have no real concept of power consumption, other than what they see on their own Residential power bill. Over the recent years, household power consumption has changed very little, and in fact has risen slightly.

        The really huge consumers of electricity are Industry and some sectors of the Commerce sector, (Coles and the Woolies especially) and nothing ever changes there as these stores are needed.

        However, the really huge consumers of electricity are large Industry.

        As recently as 2008, Australia’s total power consumption was 235TWH.

        It’s now down to around 210TWH, and that is in fact quite a monumental drop.

        If Residential power consumption has stayed relatively steady and Commerce relatively steady, then all the drop is attributed to large industry not consuming as much, and here I mean that large Industry is just closing down, full stop.

        Note the date, because the most recent data (210TWH) is at the end of last year, and during all that time when power consumption fell, well, you tell me who was in Government.

        Now if you have a huge electricity consumer, and you have something like, umm, say a CO2 Tax, then their electricity bill becomes even larger, an extra 13 to 17%. You tell me what big industry will do with that added extra cost.

        And please, don’t tell me it’s down to rooftop solar, because that has added barely 1.5TWH, and nearly all of that is consumed in the Residential sector by the homes which actually have those panels on their roofs.

        Big Industry has just shut up shop.

        And what of the largest CO2 emitters, shown on the list at this link. 14 of those top 20 emitters are Companies which operate CO2 emitting power plants. Were they the ones which closed down. Well, no, because they just passed the cost on to their consumers, and big Industry, the largest consumers just shut up shop, not the ‘derdy polluders’ as they were referred to by some long forgotten person, but all those jobs and all that tax coming into Government coffers just gone. They were the ones which closed down.

        An example would be South Australia, (which admittedly only consumes 5.2% of Australia’s total power consumption) where big Industry consumes 22% of that State’s power. Everywhere else in Australia, that Industry total is up around 32 to 35%. So, a State with so much reliance on wind power which only supplies sporadic power has now suffered by having its big Industry driven off, big Industry which requires access to constant reliable large amounts of electricity.

        Will you hear of this anywhere. Well, no.

        Tony.

        180

        • #
          pattoh

          Hey Tony

          I know you may well have sliced & diced this before; but just for fun:-
          http://reneweconomy.com.au/2013/solar-energy-in-the-australian-outback-at-8ckwh-44381

          Now that the subsidies which nurtured this are about as ephemeral as the long lunch brain fart that fertilized it in the first place, it would be fun to re-visit the maths.

          How many orders would 8c be out?

          30

          • #
            Graeme No.3

            Not that far out.
            8¢ per kWh = $80 per MWh. When the Spanish government cut solar subsidies and the guaranteed price for electricity from solar heat plants fell below $280 per MWh, all plans for new plants that had not started construction were cancelled. Figure it out.

            The article lays stress on them using waste heat, presumably from the diesel exhausts, but that idea has been around for 40 years.

            These projects seem to have disappeared into the never-never.

            30

        • #

          Look, I know that sometimes a boring old chart like the one I linked to can look like just a bunch of figures.

          What I went and did after taking that screen copy was to place those small black squares alongside the Companies which operate power plants, and there’s 14 of those 20 names there of power plant operators.

          Now, those figures.

          That right hand column shows how much the company must pay with the CO2 price set at the original $26 per ton.

          The Government wanted the Top 500 emitters on the list, and they almost actually made it to 500 Company names.

          However, this list shows just the top 20.

          Add up the money the Government raked in just from these 20 Companies with that CO2 cost set at $26 per ton.

          That comes in at $6,654,178,460.

          That’s more than six and a half BILLION Dollars.

          Just from 20 of 500 companies.

          Tony.

          50

      • #
        Yonniestone

        I still cannot see why Australia can’t redevelop a strong internal economy, this was how we gained a lot of economic strength early on with farmers co op’s and markets that circulated wealth in smaller communities, what people forget now is the average person was happy to work at the same place for their working life, job security, regular pay, regular hours, opportunity to move up the chain (if they wanted to), the ability to spend locally, house, car, kids schooling.

        Also with a strong local economy it gives opportunities for individuals to make their own way, small business, trades, contract work etc..this is something overlooked in these times of uncertain futures, saying “everything’s going off shore, you’ve got to move around, it’s just the way things are now” is just giving in to the socialist agenda, they want to break people to condition them into accepting there’s no alternative well f#$k them and the red horse they rode in on, it’s time to remind people they still have choices and liberty but they’d better use them before they’re gone.

        40

      • #
        LevelGaze

        Our heavy industry will never recover

        Personally, I blame the eclipsing of Meccano by Lego, sometime around 1970.

        30

  • #
    Manfred

    It’s about joining the club cult and obeying the rules.

    Cult compliance is incompatible with a variety of qualities loosely grouped under the heading of ‘freedom’ including longevity, prosperity, integrity and levity.

    Let’s all begin by having an enormous laugh.

    100

  • #
    Fred

    Don’t be upset – with any luck we in Canada will get a pipeline or two running and we can reclaim last first place again!

    60

  • #
    lance

    thankfully, Canada is near the ‘bottom’ still…but if in 2015 the Liberals gain power…we will be just like Australia was with its taxes…we can only hope that Trudeau will place both feet in his mouth and the LSM show it…not holding breath though.

    100

  • #
    handjive

    Planting trees is bad?

    Lima climate talks: pledge to plant 20m hectares of trees
    http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/dec/08/lima-climate-talks-pledge-to-plant-20m-hectares-of-trees
    . . .
    Guess it depends who plants them, and where.

    100

    • #
      the Griss

      I must admit that I think the Libs plan to plant trees is a bit of a waste.

      2 million or so trees is but a pinprick compared to the number of trees that will plant themselves naturally.

      60

      • #
        Greg Cavanagh

        It’s nothing but a feel good gesture, pretending to do “something”.
        In reality, I seriously doubt anybody actually goes out into a field and plants one. (creative accounting anybody?)

        20

      • #
        gnome

        As a tree-producing rainforest revegetation volunteer, permit me a small comment.

        Once, when I expressed disgust at a poor specimen we were sending out to be planted, our whip-wielding mistress of the volunteers explained that a poor specimen like that was likely to reach maturity earlier than a still healthily growing tree, and would be contributing seed for natural regeneration much sooner.

        It isn’t the trees being planted, so much as the genetic material being reintroduced.

        20

    • #
      gai

      “…. who plants them, and where.”
      Ask the sheep…

      50

    • #

      which raises the question… what did Jo mean by that?

      05

    • #
      Tim

      Whatever happened to Bob Hawke’s initiative to have a million trees planted? Seedlings trump words every time.

      40

  • #

    For whatever it is worth, the vast majority of Americans hold Australians in the highest regards. We especially admire their courage in taking an unpoular yet proper and correct stance on the global warming scam!

    GOD BLESS AUSTRALIA!!!

    230

    • #
      el gordo

      Thanks Eddy, our democracy is working fine, too bad about the rest of the Western World.

      40

      • #
        Un

        Yes, I agree.

        30

        • #

          Not sure that Joe Hockey agrees. It depends on who you ask and about what.

          04

          • #
            Greg Cavanagh

            Why would he disagree? Just because he’s not in power?

            He has equal chance as anyone else does. All he has to do is to have policies that the people of Australia agree with.

            40

            • #

              He is in power – it is the senate that does not agree with him and he is visibly frustrated

              07

              • #
                el gordo

                ‘He is in power – it is the senate that does not agree with him and he is visibly frustrated’

                Democracy is unwieldy and they are all career politicians looking to the next election. So in this instance Robb was going to Lima and Bishop demanded to go with him, it almost came to a blue until Abbott finally agreed.

                Its a long flight and they struck a deal, if the money is directly allocated to remote communities here and in the Pacific, replacing diesel with Australian solar and wind, it would be a win for the government and renewable industry.

                21

              • #

                yeah that follows what I wrote but anyway… Robb was allocated to the trip once Bishop convinced cabinet that a minister was needed and you are right, the reason for the trip was electoral not ideological.

                14

              • #
                el gordo

                ‘Robb was allocated to the trip once Bishop convinced cabinet that a minister was needed …’

                Not according to Ben Eltham.

                ‘….recent reports of unrest in the Abbott cabinet. The cause? A climate change conference in Peru. Bishop wanted to go. Abbott said no. He then insisted Andrew Robb accompany her.

                As Foreign Minister, Bishop has been the standout performer in an underwhelming Abbott front bench. She’s just finished chairing the UN Security Council. This makes it all the more curious that the Prime Minister’s Office would seek to curtail her role in international negotiations.

                But that, reportedly, is what happened. When Bishop asked to go to the conference, Abbott said no. The Prime Minister’s Office didn’t want to send anyone.

                ‘When Bishop was knocked back, she asked again. Abbott’s office reportedly then insisted that Andrew Robb go with her. Robb is a well-known climate hardliner, whose anti-climate party room intervention in 2009 proved the beginning of the end of Malcolm Turnbull’s leadership.

                ‘The story that emerged is that Bishop “went bananas”, demanding an explanation from the powers that be. The rumours of a split between the Liberal deputy and her leader may be overstated, but there’s no doubt that Bishop felt aggrieved enough about the slight to put it on record in an interview with the Australian Financial Review. “I requested and it was refused so I requested again,” Bishop told the AFR’s Joanna Heath. In fact, Bishop took the rejection to a full cabinet meeting, challenging Abbott’s authority in a council of her peers. No-one spoke up against Bishop’s travel request.’

                New Matilda

                10

    • #

      For whatever it is worth, the vast majority of Americans hold Australians in the highest regards. We especially admire their courage in taking an unpoular yet proper and correct stance on the global warming scam!

      GOD BLESS AUSTRALIA!!!

      Hey Eddie
      I’d go in a trench with you any time, but the other 55% of your brethren, especially the “progressives” and that racist president of yours can go to hell.
      God Damn the current US of A. I want the old one back

      21

  • #
    Neville

    But in the real world every year OZ and NZ absorb at least 10 times the co2 that we emit.
    Also over 90% of all the extra co2 emissions until 2040 will come from the non OECD.
    IOW the OECD will nearly flat-line until 2040 while the non OECD emissions co2 growth soars. See the EIA forecasts.
    India has recently announced that they intend to double coal use in the next 5 years.
    So when will the MSM stop lying to their readers, listeners and viewers?

    140

    • #
      TdeF

      Did the calculation once, but if we include biomass like Sweden in our CO2 calculations, the end of the long and widespread drought and the consequent greening of so much of huge Australia would have more than cancelled our entire CO2 output and put us in CO2 credit. All plants are made from CO2 and H20. Max Max could not be shot around Bathurst as it just stayed green.

      So we might in fact be the world’s greatest recent CO2 hoarder per capita, but who wants reality and facts? Alternatively we could start printing $1million carbon credits for purchase by other countries for cash, but we might have to give the money back during the next drought or use the cash to build dams and channels and keep the money and the greenery? We could have inland salt water crocodiles as a tourist attraction?

      50

      • #
        ROM

        TdeF @ #14.1

        “We could have inland salt water crocodiles as a tourist attraction?

        ________________

        And make sure just like mothers do, that they eat those “Greens”

        30

      • #
        TdeF

        Sorry, Mad Max, for those who did not understand the reference underneath my typical typo. The cars sat around for six months waiting for the desert to appear. Curse those flooding rains.

        10

  • #
    Lord Jim

    Of course the fact that Australia is only responsible for 1.5% of emissions doesn’t matter.

    It’s all about seeming – and the only good kinds of seeming are those endorsed by the green-left.

    A bit like a modern day version of ‘keeping up with the Joneses’.

    I await the ABC and Fairfax Press going into apoplectic meltdown.

    80

    • #
      Neville

      Actually Jim OZ+ NZ only emit about 1.4% of global emissions and absorb at least 10 times that number their EEZs.

      30

      • #
        Bobl

        It’s more than 20 times, just our declared forests absorb 10 times our emission, now add in farmland and our 200 mile economic ocean zone and you are well over 20 times. The 6 % greening due to Co2 fertilisation can be compared to our 5% of total emission and it can be clearly seen that our extra absorbtion since 1990 is 6/5 = 1.2 times our emission. This is pretty cinchy math, one might think that minister Hunt might even understand it. Can’t wait for the cheque from the chinese for sinking all their CO2 for them, and as a large CO2 sinker, I do hope I’ll get my share

        11

    • #
      handjive

      “A bit like a modern day version of ‘keeping up with the Joneses’.”

      With the 97% consensus, kool-aide drinking Greens, that would be Jim Jones.

      http://tomnelson.blogspot.com.au/2013/11/a-reminder-to-think-for-yourself.html

      40

  • #
    Stephen Richards

    Stand proud you aussies with Two fingers aloft. They will have to follow you eventually. Don’t give in to their blackmail.

    70

  • #
    Sean McHugh

    There is an easy way to deal with this. Tell them to stick it. Then they will . . . . .

    20

  • #
    Gary in Erko

    “Australia fell 21 positions for policy performance, replacing Canada as the worst performing industrial country and putting it ahead only of Saudi Arabia.

    Good. We’re almost there. Only one to go.

    160

  • #

    The way to shame us skeps is to start manufacturing wind towers and solar panels using only power from wind towers and solar panels. Would my face be red!

    Hey, Germans are good at industry, right? Well, Brandenburg has some of the world’s highest uptake of solar on a watts per capita basis. Let’s see them use that solar power to manufacture photovoltaics – at 52 degrees latitude north! It would be the ultimate shaming for people like me. Why don’t they just do that?

    80

    • #
      gai

      “The way to shame us skeps is to start manufacturing wind towers and solar panels using only power from wind towers and solar panels…..”

      Now that is a great idea! I wonder if it would be worth paid ads in major newspapers.

      50

  • #
  • #
    NielsZoo

    Way to go guys! I’m so proud of you. If anyone in the “climate science” community gives you a hard time tell them the list is supposed to be aligned like Mann did the Tijander series… upside down putting Oz almost at the top. (I bet the Saudis bought their spot with oil money anyway so they don’t really count.)

    40

  • #
    ROM

    Well we are at the pits at the bottom of the green popularity polls.

    Our economy is still motoring along although with a hint of the staggers and some rather nasty looking clouds heading our way although they may only consist of a goodly amount of some donna und a blitzen without much substance in them we hop
    Our coal fired generators continue to churn out reliable if no longer cheap power, no longer cheap thanks to Rudd and Gilllard and their green parasites but still reliable if we carefully shield our eyes from South Australia’s stupidity and pathological fixation with wind turbines

    And right at the top, the apex of the green popularity polls, sits the Greens poster child on how to transform a world leading economy from that nasty dirty coal to a clean environmentally enhancing renewable energy economy, Germany, the fourth largest economy in the world, the industrial power house of the Europe with it’s Energiewendeits world leading transition to an all renewable energy economy.

    BUT!

    Except, a decade and a half later since the Germans started on their nation’s transition to the clean, green, renewable solar and wind energy, their “Energiewende”!

    “Energiewende” Takes A Massive Blow…Top Green Energy Proponent Concedes: “Blunder With Ugly Consequences”

    “German national weekly DIE ZEIT writes in its latest hard copy edition that one of Europe’s leading green energy thinkers now concedes Germany’s much ballyhooed Energiewende (transition to renewable energies) has been a “filthy blunder”.

    And then there is this

    Solar Subsidy Sinkhole – Germany’s Solar Debacle Is A “Massive Money Pit” –

    And this

    600,000 Households In Germany Without Power – “Increasing Energy Poverty Is Alarming”

    And this
    [ GWPF ]
    Germany is set to import around 50 million tonnes of hard coal in 2014 which would be just below last year’s record of 51 million tonnes, coal importers’ lobby VDKI said in a statement. With power prices historically low, generators are opting to burn more coal instead of more expensive gas.

    And finally this;

    Der Spiegel

    Merkel’s Switch to Renewables: Rising Energy Prices Endanger German Industry

    111

  • #
    The Backslider

    What are they talking about? Australia has negative emissions.

    50

  • #

    Come on Australia, just a bit more effort and we can get above those Saudi Arabians and be World Champion Climate Deniers.

    50

  • #
    Safetyguy66

    Cant be doing as much damage to our reputation as having Milne at an international conference. The Tasmanian Greens have spent the better part of 20 years talking down Australia and specifically Tasmania to the point that we are regarded as apartheid South Africa with less moral compass and a freezer full of dead thylacines.

    50

  • #
    Kon Dealer

    Australia should wear this rating as a badge of pride.
    If only the useless jerks who run the UK had some common sense, we would be with you.

    Tell the IPCC to take a flying one!

    20

  • #
    Neville

    Magical stuff that co2. OZ was once heading for permanent drought but now we’re heading for more floods.
    http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/forget_those_predictions_of_permanent_drought_latest_warmist_scare_floods/

    Of course that’s according to our resident experts, but they’re good for a giggle.

    20

  • #
    C.J.Richards

    Is it true ? Did Julie Bishop readily just give in to the Green Blob ?

    $200,000,000 of Aus. Tax payers money

    20

    • #
      Matty

      Tony should have her P.45 waiting for her when she gets back. (Do you call them P.45s?).
      Will she come back ?
      Has she gone native?

      20

  • #

    Here we are still deluding ourselves.
    This ‘proud’ Australia just announced a $200m contribution to the climate scam in Lima.
    Since Australias economy is one fifteenth that of the USA which pledged $3b, we can consider Australias contribution to be equal of the US contribution.

    The gutless Conservatives caved in at Lima and will cave in even more at Paris next year which will be all that closer to an election in 2016.

    And if the Conservatives lose, as the polls indicate, we’ll be back to being one of the leading supporters of AGW.

    W.A.K.E. U.P. P.E.O.P.L.E.

    131

    • #
      handjive

      Vote for Tweedle Dee, and get Tweedle Dumb.

      Bye, Bye, Tony.

      31

    • #
      el gordo

      This is a disaster, but no doubt they will give it spin… solar panels in remote communities. Bishop is behaving strangely and needs to be reshuffled.

      30

    • #

      you should probably have told this to Eddy Aruda above.

      14

    • #
      GI

      Geez BH,

      Lighten up.

      Don’t get your panties in a bunch.

      The funds are diverted from foreign aid and is money that would have otherwise been wasted on an even less worthwhile project.

      It will take some pressure off the coalition from those in the msm/ABC who want to prosecute the Government’s qualifications on the basis of an environmental track record.

      Let’s look at this as just another successful skirmish needed to win the battle in order to win the war.

      52

      • #
        el gordo

        ‘Let’s look at this as just another successful skirmish needed to win the battle in order to win the war.’

        Yep, I’ll pay that.

        “That money will be strictly invested in practical projects in our region,” Abbott said.

        21

      • #

        Geez BH,

        Lighten up.

        Geez GI W.A.K.E. U.P.

        At this very minute I’m watching Steven Chu, Obamas recent energy tzar addressing the National Press Club.
        He is stating as fact the many many memes that sceptics had supposedly debunked, such as sea level rise, oceans acidifying by 30% and the biggest whopper of all that renewable energy is CHEAPER THAN FOSSIL FUELS, that renewable companies will pay back their start-up loans in full (without mentioning Solyndra or the other many renewable boondoggles that have gone bust after lining the pockets of rent seekers) and that oil production peaked in 1970.

        It wasn’t enough that the American President came down here for the G20 and insulted us in our own home, he sent his f$%^ng carpetbagging lacky to insult us some more.

        FINE FU&^*NG ALLY WE GOT THERE.

        Then again why should we be surprised, what with the dumb bastards in the MSM lapping it all up in a mist of cringeworthiness and a government that has the spine of an earthworm.

        70

  • #
    pat

    and a very smug pic of Ms. Bishop in the Age:

    10 Dec: Age: Lisa Cox: Change of heart: Abbott government commits $200m to Green Climate Fund
    The Abbott government has bowed to international pressure and will commit to a global fund to help developing nations deal with climate change.
    The government has also revealed the first detail of how it will review Australia’s post-2020 emissions reduction targets, with a taskforce to be established in the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet.
    Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said on Wednesday the government would provide $200 million over four years from Australia’s foreign aid budget for the Green Climate Fund…
    Ms Bishop is in Lima for climate talks and issued a statement to say the government would announce its change of heart in Peru on Wednesday…
    Ms Bishop said on Wednesday that Australia’s contribution would take the total international contributions to the fund above the target of $10 billion.
    “The pledge to the Green Climate Fund will facilitate private sector-led economic growth in the Indo-Pacific region with a particular focus on investment in infrastructure, energy, forestry and emissions reduction programmes,” she said.,,
    http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/change-of-heart-abbott-government-commits-200m-to-green-climate-fund-20141209-123x0u.html

    10

  • #
    handjive

    So glad to see the $5 GP tax now going to the UN Climate scam.

    Or maybe the money is from the indexed raise in fuel excise to pay for the next UN-IPCC knees-up?

    Sure, Tony says the $2M+ is coming from Foriegn Aid,, but it is still taxpayer funds, where ever it comes from.

    Either way, Tony, that $2M did’t buy this vote.

    And I can bet you that $2M won’t buy you one Green/LaboUr voter.

    30

    • #
      GI

      HJ,

      Get a grip, you are normally reasonable and logical.

      The $5 voluntary co-payment – this is not a tax or a co-payment to the government it is a $5 fee redcuction in the subsidy paid by the Government to the doctors. The doctors complained about adding $7 originally now they don’t have to add anything unless they want to recoup the $5 reduction in the medical subsidy.

      Fuel excise – OPEC increased production and drove the price of fuel down and with it the fuel excise is also reduced. OPEC seem to be in the game now – partly to interrupt the US becoming fuel self sufficient and partly to ensure that fossil fuels remain a real, cost effective, efficient and viable option against the inefficient and expensive solar and wind alternatives.

      $200 million didn’t buy my vote either, but I’m comfortable with the money going towards replanting rainforests – the lungs of the world.

      “And I can bet you that $2M won’t buy you one Green/LaboUr voter.” Which goes to the subject of this post – same policy, it’s good policy if it is implemented by the prevailing socialist green philosophers and it’s a bad policy if it’s not. Good policy is still good policy.

      Be patient HJ. I’m sure the wisdom of catching monkeys will eventually bear fruit.

      21

      • #
        handjive

        Hola GI.

        I was under the impression this is the age of austerity. That’s what the CINOs said as they gave themselves a pay-rise.

        “$200 million didn’t buy my vote either, but I’m comfortable with the money going towards replanting rainforests – the lungs of the world.”

        History Never Repeats?

        As is my way, some history in links:

        Tue Aug 16, 2011

        Rimba Raya was designed to be part of the U.N’s Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) program
        “It’s a source of unlimited corruption,” said Chandra M. Hamzah, deputy chairman at the KPK.

        The idea is simple: every tonne of carbon locked away in the peat and soaked up by the trees would earn a steady flow of carbon credits.
        Rich countries and big companies can buy the credits to offset their emissions.

        Gazprom, designated as the sole marketer of carbon credits from Rimba Raya, said it had already agreed long-term sales contracts with buyers at between 7 and 8 euros ($10 to $11.40) per tonne.

        Those markets, centered on the European and U.N. carbon trading programs, were valued at $142 billion in 2010, the World Bank says. National carbon trading schemes are planned for Australia and South Korea, while California is planning a state-based scheme from 2013.

        http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/16/us-indonesia-carbon-idUSTRE77F0IK20110816

        Read that article & weep, because that’s where this $200M is going.
        If you care about the ‘lungs of the world’ …

        Not convinced?

        June 10, 2012
        Indonesia’s forests of corruption

        But economically, the drivers of deforestation have not changed. There is big foreign cash to be earned as a coal and timber producer and the world’s largest exporter of palm oil.

        Into this messy context five years ago walked an experienced environment project investor, the American Todd Lemons, wanting to establish a Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) scheme to sell carbon credits to the world.

        Norway has also come into Indonesia with $1 billion to try to fix its institutional problems. So far, those problems are so deep, the Nordic country has only been able to disburse $30 million of its money.

        Money-makers such as Macquarie Bank and Merrill Lynch-Bank of America have not given up.

        http://www.smh.com.au/environment/indonesias-forests-of-corruption-20120609-203sk.html

        30

  • #
    pat

    the lunatics are running the asylum:

    9 Dec: Guardian: Graham Readfearn, Lima: Goal to end fossil fuels by 2050 surfaces in Lima UN climate documents
    Campaigners in Lima are eyeing an ‘inevitable’ end to the fossil fuel industry by mid-century
    It’s a rare thing when you can point to paragraphs in a United Nations climate negotiating text and feel they more or less match what most of the science says should become a reality.
    Yet in Lima on Monday, it happened.
    Our little revolutionary moment comes in a document with the memorable title “ADP 2-7 agenda item 3 Elements for a draft negotiating text” with its climate-busting section D (paragraph 13.2) outlining several possible long-term goals for a new climate change agreement.
    Here’s a taster from the document, as it was at 6.30am in Lima, on 8 December 2014.
    Parties’ efforts to take the form of:

    a. A long-term zero emissions sustainable development pathway:

    Consistent with emissions peaking for developed countries in 2015, with an aim of zero net emissions by 2050; in the context of equitable access to sustainable development

    Consistent with carbon neutrality/net zero emissions by 2050, or full decarbonization by 2050 and/or negative emissions by 2100.

    Those I’ve picked out are just a few of the more ambitious ones. I understand these were pushed into the document by countries, including Norway, the Marshall Islands, Sweden and a grouping of countries consisting of Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Peru and Panama.
    It is a very early version of what, over the course of the next 12 months, will morph into a new global deal to be signed in Paris…
    But if language such as “full decarbonization by 2050” were to become a reality, it basically defines an end point for the fossil fuel energy industry as we know it…
    The campaign group AVAAZ has a petition with more than two million signatories that also asks for decarbonisation by 2050…
    Either the goal survives or the world moves to a riskier and more dangerous future…
    http://www.theguardian.com/environment/planet-oz/2014/dec/08/goal-to-end-fossil-fuels-by-2050-surfaces-in-lima-un-climate-documents

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    Amber

    If Australia is lucky they won’t be invited back to another global warming scam party .

    Australia isn’t going to be the last to tell the UN and other to take a hike .
    Well done Australia !

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    J. R. Ford

    Replacing Canada on the list puts you Aussies right beside them. Pretty good company I think. They are my best neighbor and I just wish the US could join you both at the bottom of that list.

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    pat

    a reality check! WWF doesn’t think so. yet, if anything, Exxon’s report seems to underplay the use of fossil fuels into the future, with their predictions re hybrid cars, for instance:

    9 Dec: Bloomberg: Joe Carroll: Exxon Issues Energy Reality Check as UN Debates Emissions
    The world’s largest oil company sees emissions in the developing world surging 50 percent, a forecast that suggests the diplomatic push to draft an accord to curb global warming stands to fall short.
    The assessment, in a report today from an Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM)team of economists, scientists and engineers, shows how far the world is from cutting pollution blamed for climate disruption…
    Even as the most advanced economies cut energy use by almost one tenth through 2040 and add hundreds of millions of fuel-efficient vehicles, booming growth in places like India,South Africa and Thailand will boost demand for fuels 36 percent, the Irving, Texas-based company said in its annual outlook. Emissions will surge as an expanding middle class in poorer nations demands electricity, schools and hospitals…
    Exxon’s forecast assumes governments will enact policies to limit pollution and encourage energy efficiency. Emissions in India will rise the most among the major economies singled out in the report with a 140 percent increase over the next 26 years. Worldwide, the company expects carbon dioxide emissions to grow 20 percent by 2040, matching a forecast by theInternational Energy Agency.
    “Greater access to energy is fundamental to reducing poverty and advancing standards of living for billions of people,” according to the report.
    To limit the temperature increase to 2 degrees Celsius, a level seen as averting catastrophic climate disruptions, carbon emissions must fall about 39 percent from 2012 levels by 2040, the Paris-based IEA said in a report last month. If current policies remain in place, emissions will soar 58 percent…
    Environmental groups said Exxon was downplaying the impact of cleaner renewable fuels.
    “Exxon Mobil’s outlook is a company wish list fashioned up as a serious energy forecast,” Darek Urbaniak, energy policy officer for the environment group WWF, said in an interview in Lima. “It tells us how the company wants to see the future, rather than a plausible projection of what might happen.” …
    ???Cars powered by hybrid gasoline-electric engines will account for 50 percent of all automobile sales by 2040, up from 1 percent in 2010, Exxon said. As a result, hybrid cars will comprise one-third of the global automobile fleet by then…
    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-12-09/exxon-sees-emissions-surge-as-developing-nations-propser.html

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  • #
    Thumbnail

    #FarmerInDistress. These Climate Crooks devalued farming assets by locking up vegetation, by banning Live Export and by insisting that farmers alone bear our Kyoto liability. The Banks are now throwing farmers off the land during drought. This is criminal. https://m.facebook.com/MountMorrisStation

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    Richard

    As a Canadian I can only hope to regain our lead over you Aussies before Lima is done.

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    spaatch

    This’ll help get us off the bottom of the climate change action list!

    The Federal Government has announced it will contribute $200 million to an international fund designed to help developing nations tackle climate change.

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-12-10/bishop-200-million-to-green-climate-fund-at-un-climate-summit/5956676

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    Rud Istvan

    All you admirable citizens down under, stand tall under this words rather than sticks assult. Heck, even over in NZ (some of us northern also know that banter, my main (do not answer) question being why east west when the main issue is north south? To which the common northern hemisphere answer is down under, where everything is upside down and reversed, even the rotation of tropical cyclones…). H/t to the Coriolis force….
    Of course the NGO’ s and the UN hate you; you have called their bluff. Would the rest the world were as bold. My own US has made a feeble start in the new midterm election. One touchstone is the KXL pipeline, now punted twice in favor of China by OBummer, where Xi just played Obama globally for the fool he is.
    The more opprobrium heaped on you all by Green Watermelons, aka Warmunists ( see essay Climatastrosophistry in new ebook Blowing Smoke, foreward by Judith Curry, even featuring Rutherglen and Darwin in essay When Data Isn’t), the better positioned you are.
    Highest regards to a ‘frontier’ nation (like the US alas once was).

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    handjive

    $200M doesn’t buy the green vote:

    Greens leader Christine Milne said the about-turn was evidence of the intense international pressure Australia had been under to commit to the fund.

    “$50 million a year is nowhere near enough, when the global target for finance is $100 billion a year by 2020.

    At a press conference later Wednesday, Mr Abbott dismissed suggestions that he had backflipped on the fund, given his previous refusals to provide money.

    “I’ve made various comments some time ago but, as we have seen things develop over the last few months, I think it’s now fair and reasonable for the government to make a modest, prudent and proportionate commitment to this climate mitigation fund,” he (Tony Abbott) said.

    http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/change-of-heart-abbott-government-commits-200m-to-green-climate-fund-20141210-123x0u.html
    . . .

    So, what has “developed over the last few months” that suddenly requires $200M?

    18+ Years of no Global Warming? Better science?

    Come on, Tony, do tell?

    What amazing development has there been that requires you waste $200M tax payer dollars to the biggest crime ever perpetuated?
    CINO: conservative in name only.

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    • #
      the Griss

      “$200M doesn’t buy the green vote:”

      No, but it will lose even more Liberal votes.

      Australia really needs at least one party that is at least a little bit to the right.

      Three left-wing parties is way too many.

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    PeterPetrum

    I have just written to Tony Abbott and told him what I think of his $200,000,000 gift to the wastrels att the UN. Part of that was provided by me, and he never asked me first!

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    • #
      Hasbeen

      Well done. Here we thought we were electing a bloke with gonads in those budgie smugglers, but now we find they are lemons.

      If he doesn’t start doing what he promised he’s gone for me. How can he be so stupid to try to please the left/green mob, who will never vote for him, only to upset those who did.

      Tony, get your priorities right, or you are a just another waste of space, to be dumped.

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    pat

    the lunatics have taken over the asylum part II (includes pic). former CAGW darling Shell now well out of favour!

    9 Dec: RTCC: Shell makes climate pitch as UN targets zero carbon planet
    Oil giant tells hostile delegates at Lima talks it can be part of a solution to global warming
    By Megan Darby in Lima
    The role of fossil fuel lobbyists at UN climate talks came under fire on Monday, as activists mobbed a side event in Lima. In T-shirts emblazoned with “Get the FF out”, protesters descended on a panel discussion held by the Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute. Speakers had to fight their way through the throng, replete with TV cameras, to get to their seats – although the crowd quickly dispersed when the event started…
    Unlike other fossil fuel majors, Shell has signed up to the Trillion Tonne Communique, a statement recognising the need to curb emissions…
    Campaigners say companies like Shell should be barred from the UN talks, because their interest in promoting fuel consumption conflicts with efforts to slash greenhouse gas emissions.
    An audience member challenged (Shell adviser David) Hone to explain Shell’s membership of the American Legislative Exchange Council (Alec), a lobby group with a reputation for denying climate science. Microsoft, Facebook and Google have all quit the group…
    http://www.rtcc.org/2014/12/09/shell-makes-climate-pitch-as-un-targets-zero-carbon-planet/

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    pat

    (behind paywall)
    Paris and Berlin seek to delay cuts in EU car emissions standards
    Financial Times‎ – 2 days ago
    France and Germany have moved to stave off another round of carbon emissions cuts for vehicles sold in the EU, setting the stage for a fresh stand-off with Brussels…

    ***”MOSTLY IN LOANS”…so why call them “beneficiaries of climate funds”, Guardian?

    8 Dec: Guardian: George Arnett: Morocco and Mexico biggest beneficiaries of climate funds
    Morocco gets over $600m in finance over past decade but some countries in need have been missing out, report finds
    Morocco and Mexico have both received over half a billion in finance (***mostly in loans) from some of the world’s major climate funds, according to a new report by the Overseas Development Institute (ODI)…
    http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2014/dec/08/morocco-mexico-biggest-beneficiaries-climate-funds

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  • #
    John F. Hultquist

    About trees being bad – there are at least 2 things (maybe Jo has others):
    Years ago (~30) there were campaigns to plant zillions of trees because it was thought they would (a) take CO2 out of the air, (b) cool the ground and the atmosphere, and (c ?) increase rainfall.
    However, most trees have a dark exterior (bark) and dark green leaves. These absorb solar radiation and give back warmth to the surroundings. Trees also expel some compounds that are radiatively active gases (incorrectly called greenhouse gases). Not good.
    As these issues were investigated and reported, the call to plant zillions of trees faded.
    Hope you can find sources for the above if you want them – I never bothered to keep references.

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    • #
      Peter C

      Maybe the green leaves and bark absorb radiation, but as a glider pilot I don’t fly over them. Bare earth, sand and rocks get much hotter and generate thermal convection. Green vegetation, moist areas and bodies of water are cooler so we stay away from them.

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      Bobl

      Uh no, they absorb solar radiation and either make carbohydrates with it (given some CO2 and water) or they evaporate water, which absorbs energy because the leaf surface area is many times larger than the ground surface area, and the tree can draw moisture from underground. Trees are many more times efficient at evaporatively cooling the atmosphere than bare ground… They have to be, without huge evaporative capabilities they can’t osmotically draw in sufficient nutrients to survive. You are reading propaganda.

      Next time you have a hot day, go sit in the garden among the vegetation under a tree, and then go sit on the road outside your house, tell me where it’s hottest!

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      • #
        Robert O

        Any farmer will tell you that a canopy of trees is good in hotter climes for shade, and warmth in colder climes. Actually, the local climate in the Saharan oases isn’t too bad either.

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    dp

    Congratulations Oz on the occasion of being the weakest link in the chain of global warming insanity. Well done and an inspiration to the US goverment that is coming into to power in 2015.

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    Peter C

    AUSTRALIA is to contribute $200m to the Green Climate Fund designed to offset the adverse affects of climate change which was included in the final statement of G20 summit in Brisbane

    From Andrew Bolt 10/10 2014.

    I dispare of this Government.

    Tony Abbott has totally lost his Mojo. From declaring that “Climate Change is crap” (correct) to this!
    Julie Bishop wants to spend more of our precious dollars at Lima
    Greg Hunt minister for useless Climate Change spending
    Senator Birmingham apologist for the BOM.

    What more can we do?

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  • #
    Eddie

    O/T. Amazing. Clear ice from Sunday, in Slovakia
    http://aplus.com/a/walking-on-ice

    and in Sweden, watch this dog run as if on water where it goes for miles
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUenxli4HJ8

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  • #
    Neville

    Germany’s green energy mess is even worse than they thought. Just vote in Shorten next time and this is the future for OZ as well.

    http://notrickszone.com/2014/12/09/energiewende-takes-a-massive-blow-top-green-energy-proponent-concedes-blunder-with-ugly-consequences-huge-blow-to/

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    Matty

    Too much Kool Aid for Julie ? There’s always the RU Australian party for those who don’t want to desert Tony for the Greens.

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    • #
      Yonniestone

      I think the RUAP is about the only political party in this country with a genuine conservative platform, Monkton’s Victorian party launch speech was a cracker.

      A few years ago on Jonova ‘MemoryVault’ among others were stating that there’s no difference in the two major parties in Australia, it’s all about power, money and who gets a share of it, as time has shown sadly I think it’s true and like many I simply don’t know what we can do about it.

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  • #
    Adam Smith

    Where’s the post about the Abbott government donating $200 million to the U.N. climate fund?

    10

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    pat

    have a laugh:

    6 Dec: National Post: Rex Murphy: Rex Murphy: Has the environmental movement ever seen a collapse it didn’t want to be on the brink of?
    Because the environment is, by definition or tautology, everything that is around us — there will always be something “in” the environment on which to hang an objection, mount a protest or, as Samuel Johnson, ever elegant, put it, “to point a moral, or adorn a tale.”…
    http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2014/12/06/rex-murphy-has-the-environmental-movement-ever-seen-a-collapse-it-didnt-want-to-be-on-the-brink-of/

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    pat

    ***guess who is among the “experts” about where climate money goes. lol.

    10 Dec: Guardian: Lenore Taylor: Green Climate Fund: Abbott’s claim of earmarking spending is questioned
    PM lists areas where Australian funds would go, but experts say no country is able to determine exactly where money is spent
    Tony Abbott said Australia’s funding would be “strictly invested in practical projects”. The environment minister, Greg Hunt, said Australia was providing the money “on the condition it will be spent within the region for our priorities”.
    Asked on Sky News whether Australia would be able to dictate exactly where the money was spent, Hunt said Julie Bishop was going through that process but was “in a very strong position”. He said Australia was “very, very confident we will achieve the outcomes we seek”, having previously been concerned the money would disappear.
    ***But experts said Australia would not be able to determine exactly where the money went under present Green Climate Fund rules.
    http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/dec/10/green-climate-fund-abbotts-claim-of-earmarking-spending-is-questioned

    the entire piece is an attack on the govt, so why bother to pledge the money?

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    Another Ian

    Jo,

    Are you aware of this?

    “The UN Charter does not specifically mention the environment or sustainable development. However, there has been increased activity in the area over the years.”

    More at

    https://hro001.wordpress.com/2014/07/06/unep-sails-on-the-unchartered-waters-of-the-un/

    And

    https://hro001.wordpress.com/2014/11/24/uneps-champions-of-the-earth-10th-anniversary-edition/

    10

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    pat

    Greenpeace & their like may have been useful idiots for the powers that be planning to grab our money in the name of CAGW, but it’s time for the UN & Govts to cut loose from all the NGOs who think they are the ones running the scam:

    9 Dec: MyrtleBeachOnline: Peru riled by Greenpeace stunt at Nazca lines
    By FRANKLIN BRICENO
    Associated Press writer Frank Bajak contributed to this report.
    LIMA, Peru — Peru will seek criminal charges against Greenpeace activists who damaged the world-renowned Nazca lines by leaving footprints in the adjacent desert during a publicity stunt, a senior government official said Tuesday.
    “It’s a true slap in the face at everything Peruvians consider sacred,” Deputy Culture Minister Luis Jaime Castillo said of Monday’s action by the environmental group at the famed drawings etched into Peru’s coastal desert, a U.N. World Heritage site.
    He said the government was seeking to prevent those responsible from leaving the country while it asks prosecutors to file charges of “attacking archaeological monuments,” a crime punishable by up to six years in prison.
    The activists entered a “strictly prohibited” area beside the famed figure of a hummingbird, the Culture Ministry said in a statement. They laid big yellow cloth letters reading: “Time for Change; The Future is Renewable.”…
    Castillo said no one, not even presidents and Cabinet ministers, is allowed without authorization where the activists trod, and those who do have permission must wear special shoes…
    Greenpeace spokeswoman Tina Loeffelbein said that the activists were “absolutely careful to protect the Nazca lines” and that the group is taking the case seriously and investigating.
    She declined to answer further questions, such as whether Greenpeace intends to identify to authorities the people involved. The government has asked people to do so…
    http://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/2014/12/09/4659827/peru-indignant-at-greenpeace-stunt.html

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    gbees

    still …. it’s cost us $200m. I thought Julie Bishop was smarter than that. I was mistaken.

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  • #

    I’ve had enough and sent the following to the Prime Minister at this link https://www.pm.gov.au/contact-your-pm

    Dear PM
    I was one of those thousands of people who railed against Turnbull cozying up to Rudd regards the Global Warming scam, which directly lead to your election as Liberal leader and the rest is history.
    I AM YOUR SUPPORT BASE.
    I also worked voluntarily during the last election from early morning until almost midnight manning booth(s) and scrutineering postal ballots.

    Never did I expect that you would forsake me and others like me in order to cozy up to the crazy left.
    18C was the beginning, then the raising of taxation, then the softly softly approach to the luvvie cauldren that is the ABC who hate you, hate me and will never ever support you. Then your lack of courage in slashing the vast waste in spending and now this pandering to the UN carpetbaggers demand for our cash.

    I’VE HAD ENOUGH. NEVER WILL I SUPPORT YOU AGAIN.

    Just incase the below pic doesn’t come out on this email, it is 3 WHITE FEATHERS. You deserve them.

    https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQti0lnKU-iJkXf9hU9ZXknfTLQw2_baSrb5FRGH2K65d4RTJ-I

    Others may wish to send their sentiments.

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    pat

    10 Dec: UK Telegraph: Emily Gosden: Homes with electric heating face paying £360 a year in green levies
    Green levies will account for more than a quarter of an energy bill by 2030 for those with electric heating, Committee on Climate Change forecasts
    Households with electric heating face paying £360 a year in green levies by 2030 – more than a quarter of their total energy bill, the Government’s official climate change adviser has warned.
    The 7 per cent of UK homes – almost 2 million households – who rely on electricity for their heating will be the hardest hit by the Government’s drive for green energy because subsidies for the technologies are levied solely on electricity bills, a report by the Committee on Climate Change (CCC) shows.
    These households, typically isolated rural homes or urban flats, already paid an estimated £90 – about a tenth of their £925 annual energy bill – to subsidise wind farms, solar and nuclear power in 2013. The figure is double that paid by households who use gas for heating…
    ***The increase is likely to push many such households deeper into fuel poverty unless ministers take action to help them, the CCC warned…
    It suggested these households should be given financial help to install new kinds of efficient renewable heating systems such as heat pumps to replace old electric storage heaters….
    As well as subsidising green power projects, households face additional levies to fund energy efficiency schemes. These schemes are intended to reduce carbon emissions to help tackle climate change, as well as to help households save money by using less energy…
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/energy/11284190/Homes-with-electric-heating-face-paying-360-a-year-in-green-levies.html

    ***so the CCC who are responsible for all these electricity price hikes warn they will lead to more fuel poverty, so even more money needs to be given to those affected, or those affected should use less energy?

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  • #

    Maybe needs a cartoonist:

    Tony Abbott and Julie Bishop on stage holding up a bag labelled $200M.
    Tony Abbott saying: “Australia will give, umm, $200 Million to counter, err, climate change.”
    Behind the curtain, Christine Milne and Sarah Hanson-Young, laughing and giggling.
    Christine Milne whispers: “They still don’t get it!”

    10

  • #
    Robert

    Apparently the “total phasing out of fossil fuels by 2050” is on the agenda at Lima and everyone is agreeing to that?

    One question I have is how will they get to their junkets then? Solar powered gliders?

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    • #
      Yonniestone

      Oh no the leftist elite won’t go without, have you seen ‘The hunger games’? if you survive the culling a lovely district life of serfdom will await you while the great thinkers that saved us from our evil carbon selves will have the best of everything to maintain order and they deserve it to don’t ya know, well you will learn that from what from the indoctrination process.

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        Robert

        No, never watched “The Hunger Games” no plans to do so, refuse to see “Avatar” as well. Though I saw the original “Rollerball” with James Caan when it first came out, planet divided up into regions controlled by corporations and so forth. I also read Clockwork Orange, Brave New world, and 1984 in my early teens. I pretty much expect that it is only “evil” if we use it, but the “elite” will find a way to exempt themselves from their rules. Some animals are more equal than others don’t you know.

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      Robert, fossil fuels will be classified as phased out when they declare it as such.

      When they have reduced the amount of fossil fuel use and the temperatures have “miraculously” dropped they will then claim that fossil fuels are an unfortunate necessity, for the time being, so that they can continue to monitor and keep the climate under control. The work is not over yet – so send more money.

      The whole point at the moment is to get more time at the trough.

      20

  • #
    Ursus Augustus

    I was expelled from my first school after Grade 1 after a year of being locked in dark rooms for daring to ask to go to the toilet (this is the late 50’s). Never felt shame, only contempt for the disconnected, heartless scum who made the sparkling executive decision.

    I strongly suggest that is the appropraite reaction to the antics of the sanctimonious scum who no longer favour convents, cults and ashrams but who still spend their days trying to brown nose their way to whatever heaven or state of perceived grace does it for them by vilifying others over some confected ‘evil’.

    Surely as a species we are just over shamans, druids and witch doctors peddling their packaged favour and other indulgences. Aren’t we?

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      Yonniestone

      Sorry about your experiences Ursus, I had a very similar start in early education too.

      From an early age I learnt about the two types of people in the world and I think we’re seeing the rise of the 2nd type around this CAGW fallacy, it’s drawn out the filthiest flies to the biggest pile of dung not seen for 75 years, we’re gonna need a bigger fly swatter this time.

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      • #
        Another Ian

        At a management training session we were introduced to the “Pyramid Principle” – basically a structure with many indians rising up the tower of power to one chief.

        Comment from one participant

        “Oh! So that’s how it works. I thought it was like a vegetarian’s dunny – the turds float to the top”

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    pat

    somewhat incoherent piece, but worth reading for more detail:

    10 Dec: ABC: Chris O’Brien: Queensland Government will force more councils to remove climate change references from plans, mayor warns
    Mr Seeney said the reference to climate change would have restricted the right of residents to build and develop their properties.
    Mayor Allan Sutherland said the edict meant his council would be out of step with Brisbane, Sunshine Coast and other councils that had incorporated the same assumption of a 0.8 metre sea level rise by 2100 into their plans.
    “The Deputy Premier, I believe, will have to instruct those councils to remove it from their plans also,” Cr Sutherland said.
    “He hasn’t just singled us out, he’s taken to us with a baseball bat because there has been a lot political argument in the Bribie Island area.”…
    Mr Seeney said it was about protecting property rights, not a climate change debate.
    “It’s not an issue for zealots to engage in the sort of emotive language that doesn’t produce any sort of a reasonable outcome,” he said.
    “It’s not a question of whether you’re a believer or a denier, it’s a question of responding appropriately to a risk that can’t be quantified in any firm way, but we need to respond to the risk.”
    Mr Seeney said the reference to climate change would would impact of property owners’ rights to develop…
    Ken Park from Moreton Bay Communities Alliance said the regional plan was drafted with no input from local property owners.
    “There was a lot of alarm and despondency because property values immediately fell, contracts [that had] been signed were cancelled, insurance premiums went through the roof and people perceived that their rights to develop their property further had been lost,” he said.
    “But their main objection was of course that they were never consulted about it.”…
    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-12-10/fear-over-forced-removal-of-climate-change-references-from-plans/5958492

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      Another Ian

      Be bloody interesting to see if Mr Seeney does anything about the effect of the Qld vegetation management act on property owners rights wrt loss of value!!!

      20

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    Roy Hogue

    Australia at the bottom of list on climate change action

    On some lists the bottom is the right place to be.

    I don’t know if you’re actually at the bottom but it doesn’t matter. You are a sovereign nation and you report to no one but yourselves. So do as you think best for Australia, not the UN, some NGO or anyone else.

    00