Greens — rich educated inner city folk

How the political landscape has changed.

The Labor Party is just waking up to the new demographics. Greens in the inner city are more like the profile of some former Liberal (conservative) voters 30 years ago. Greens in the outer suburbs are more the sustainability hippies.

One ALP source said the ALP had identified a big split in the profile of Greens in the inner city and those on the urban fringes, with the outer-suburban Greens more like the earthy, environmental ­activist-style Greens of the Bob Brown generation rather than the wealthy careerists of the inner city.

Inner city Greens are wealthy, educated types:

In Victoria, the ALP has pushed back the preselection of its candidate in the federal seat of Melbourne, now in the hands of the Greens’ Adam Bandt, to ensure it adopts the right candidate and the right campaign strategy. “There is a lot of institutionalised prejudice about how we have to be more Green than the Greens. In reality a lot of these Greens come from Liberal voting backgrounds,’’ the source said. “The Greens vote in Hawthorn was north of 20 per cent — that’s a blue-ribbon Liberal seat. These Green voters are earning more than $80,000 per annum, are tertiary educated and almost two-thirds are working in the private sector, the ALP believes.

The Labor source is halfway there, but thinks Green voters have social consciences:

“They all think we are terrible on refugees and terrible on climate change but the biggest single issue in terms of their vote is job security. They are like wet Libs, but they have social consciences,” the source said.

Evidence shows many Greens have social consciences only in the weakest, most superficial way. The inner city Greens say they care about the planet and the poor, but it’s a moral-vanity-badge type of care. They don’t change plans, admit failure, or apologize when their policies cause death and suffering or harm animals. Where are the protests? They might say they “care” about asylum seekers, but they don’t complain when soft policies mean a thousand drown at sea, and they don’t offer to settle them in their suburbs. They don’t care when the most desperate asylum seekers get left in UN camps because the asylum seekers with money have paid smugglers and “jumped the queue”.

The Greens social conscience is limited to being conscious of their social standing. If I wear this fashionable idea will it impress my friends at dinner parties? It’s not a social conscious, it’s more a conscious social.

 

9.4 out of 10 based on 94 ratings

178 comments to Greens — rich educated inner city folk

  • #
    Peter Carabot

    A new Audi in the parking lot, aircon full blast, kids at private school, once upon a time I would have called them hypocrites, now I will limit myself in saying that they are just politically correct luvvie!
    Pew! The stench of manure!

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    bemused

    By doing so, they hope that no one will notice their avarice. Much like all well to do Greens supporters.

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  • #
    Winston

    Poseurs of the world unite!

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      GregS

      My old High School has a Latin motto on their school badge/logo. Many of the kids I went to school with always glossed over it or never really looked it up but my Father was a stickler for knowing what a Latin phrase meant and when at his urging I enquired from a teacher it stuck in my head as something to aspire to.

      The phrase “Esse quam videri” which translates to “To be, rather than to seem (to be)”

      I think that one describes my view on this fairly well. As a conservative I have always aspired to be rather than to seem to be, unlike our modern inner city Greens.

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  • #
    Otter (ClimateOtter on Twitter)

    I find it hard to believe they are ‘educated,’ at least when it comes to what is actually going on with the climate!

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    • #
      aussieguy

      One shouldn’t be too surprised that “rich, educated, inner-city” folk are Greenies. All one has to do is look at who taught/lectured/tutored them in university. Check their backgrounds. Modern universities are the Church of the Left. Simply because they have no where else to go! They have lost the economic argument. They have lost common sense. The only area left is education and “social issues”…Your kids go in with common sense; they come out indoctrinated, time wasted (if doing worthless degree), and in debt.

      The most important thing to understand is that indoctrination is not education and education is not wisdom.

      Have you ever seen any Greens supporter display wisdom of any form through their actions?

      Have you seen them display common sense?

      What about integrity?

      Be honest and upfront of their agenda?

      Consistency with what they preach?

      Nothing about them is consistent. Why? Because they are driven by emotion. Not by sound principles or values.


      The most obvious example of this inconsistency is regarding the value of human life.

      => They are against the death penality for the two guys in Indonesia.
      => They are for abortion.
      => They are for open borders…That result in the death (drowning) of illegal immigrants and detention of children.
      => They are against children in detention. (The very children they put there!)

      Just think about it:
      => They are for saving criminals on death row…But have no problem terminating someone who’s crime is that they exist in a womb.
      => They are for saving children from detention…But have no problem with children they let drown or let into detention through their own policies.

      And you know what was Sarah Hansen-Young’s response to boat people drowning because of their policies? => ‘tragedies happen, accidents happen’

      ie: They simply refuse to acknowledge they were wrong! They NEVER apologise for what they’ve done! Not a peep from them when blood is clearly on their hands!


      Have you noticed when they “care for the poor” and chant words like “fair share”, they never actually help those get out of being poor and define what exactly “fair share” is?
      (This is deliberate so they can keep their charade going. Because to define something means you set a line where an initiative must end…And they don’t want their initiatives to end in order to justify their existence!)

      When push comes to shove, anyone would vote for a strong, stable economy. Even Green voters from Liberal backgrounds and areas.

      For Conservatives and Libertarians, its really simple. Stand by your time-tested, real-world-proven principles. Unlike emotion, it doesn’t bend, flex, and constantly change in trends like the fashion industry…And speak up about the principles. Don’t be afraid to call out on the BS like I’ve done above. You can change tactics to suit a situation. But NEVER compromise your principles. ie: If Conservatives and Libertarians don’t practice their principles in order to “win the Centre”, they aren’t Conservatives and Libertarians and will lose their own base!

      The more one observes, the less I trust anyone who is purely driven by emotion and NOT by common sense and time-tested/proven principles. No matter how “educated” they think they are. The lack of wisdom and common sense in the “educated” crowd is astounding.

      Fundamentally, its about them, their ego, and how “moral superior” they are for online hash-tag campaigns or on TV.

      => I care about the poor!
      => I care about women!
      => I care about boat people!
      => I care about children in detention!
      => I care about the indigenous!
      => I care about equality!
      => I care about gay marriage!
      => I care about human rights
      => I care about the planet!
      => I care! I care! I care!

      …The endless trendy things that will come and ago. While they ignore all the consequences they cause to others. Those who claim they “care” are often the very same people who care the least. In fact, those who most preach about “tolerance” is the least tolerant of other people’s opinions!



      Side note:

      To really take on these Left leaning political groups and their followers, Thomas Sowell proposes three questions to all the issues they bring up:
      The first is: ‘Compared to what?’
      The second is: ‘At what cost?’
      And the third is: ‘What hard evidence do you have?’

      For those who don’t know, Thomas Sowell is an American intellectual who used to be a hard-core Leftie. (Marxist)…Then he worked for US Govt and he grew up. He has a number of books that explains things quite well. While it is from an American perspective, you’ll find the Australian Left take their queues from the American Left. (The patterns and characteristics are the same.) …In fact, Rudd (2nd time around) flew in Obama’s campaign people to help him back in 2013! Check this yourselves!

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      • #
        Spotted Reptile

        I was going to reply myself but you said it all so beautifully there is nothing more for me to add.

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      • #
        Allen Ford

        Ian Plimer has their number!

        100

      • #
        Len

        How often do you hear that someone is “passionate” about a subject? How about some wisdom or discernment on a subject?

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      • #
        Rereke Whakaaro

        To be concise – many of the “trendy, rich, educated, inner-city” folk are Greenies, because it is currently fashionable to be concerned about the environment, in which future generations of as-yet non-existent “children-as-fashion-items” will finally grow up. It is a fluffy pink clouds, and singing bluebirds, view of life.

        The Greenies world-view probably all comes down to what their parents were smoking, just prior to conception.

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      • #
        Robert

        Quite so. When I was younger and more reckless I was easily swayed by what is now called the “green movement.” A child of the 70’s much of my youth was very much like “That 70’s show.” Been through the drugs, been through the booze, managed to survive it and quit them both which was pretty damned lucky really.

        While it took more time than it does for some I “grew up.” I don’t have a rich mommy and daddy, the things I have are because I stopped blaming everyone else for my problems, realized life isn’t fair, and as much as possible stopped doing the stupid s–t I used to do that was taking me no where.

        Some people never get there because reality never impacts their life. I care about a lot of things but I don’t make it a statement or wave it in people’s faces. I do what I can for the things that matter but I also realize that a lot of the problems people seem to think they need to fix are the fault of the people experiencing them and treating them like victims and trying to solve their problems for them only creates more problems.

        Short version, if someone cares about something and wants to do something about it, they should shut the hell up and do it. Lead by example, anyone can claim to care and make token gestures to try and prove they do. That to me is what this thread is talking about and I’m just thankful that somewhere along the way my eyes were opened so I didn’t become one of them.

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    • #
      John Of Cloverdale WA

      Educated, with an Arts Degree. I met many of these fools at University. I am glad I don’t have to mix with them now.

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      • #
        Ted O'Brien.

        “Educated” is the key word.

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      • #
        Hasbeen

        Yes John, it says a great deal about our education system.

        It was the same for us back in the Vietnam days. All those stupid arts, & other non subject students going off on their moratorium marches, chanting in time with some clown with a loud hailer. It made us think of the typical English soccer crowd of the day.

        I suppose I should be ashamed of it, but we engineering lot used to lob over ripe tomatoes at the throng, as they went. The only problem was finding enough tomatoes ripe enough, & red enough to paint the marchers the colour they represented.

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      • #
        Rereke Whakaaro

        How about an Arts Degree in “Social Science”?

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    • #
      RB

      I find it hard to believe they are ‘educated,’

      The senior research officer when I was doing my PhD was well educated but very superficially. The sort that highlighted key lines in a paper and recited it. He moved to another lab in Holland and when I sent a social email to someone over there, I got back an essay on how useless this guy was.

      I also had a boss at a company who would pretty much recite everything that he new when he contributed to discussions on projects. Almost said the exact same thing every time in a droning voice that had people switch off until he finished. Then they would switch on and say good point. He didn’t make one!

      These sort of people do well in universities and large companies. They are the ones who need to pay some sort of indulgences and are too shallow to do anything but recite propaganda.

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    • #
      Mac551

      Don’t get educated or high IQ mixed up with intelligence,they are not mutually inclusive.

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  • #
    pat

    speaking of poseurs:

    24 Jan: Daily Mail: James Chapman: Green Party say they don’t want Russell Brand’s help amid speculation comedian-turned-anarchist would be unveiled as their answer to Nigel Farage
    Russell Brand has worked with leaders of the party in recent years
    There have been rumours comedian would become ‘Green Nigel Farage’
    But senior party sources say his reputation would be ‘toxic’ to voters
    ‘It might seem like a good idea for two or three days but I suspect it would quickly turn into a nightmare,’ the source added.
    Last year Green leader Natalie Bennett joined Mr Brand to address 1,200 people at an anti-austerity rally in London.
    He has also worked with Green MP Caroline Lucas, to get the Commons to debate drug policy…
    Two separate polls this week confirmed a dramatic surge in support for the Greens. A YouGov poll showed them securing 10 per cent of the vote, with Labour support at its lowest since 2010…
    Australian-born Miss Bennett has taken the Greens to new heights since Miss Lucas, previously the most high profile figure in the party, stepped down from the role in 2012.
    Polling suggests Labour and the Lib Dems risk being engulfed by a ‘Green Tide’ which pollsters could cost Ed Miliband up to 17 seats at the election…
    The Greens appear to be doing particularly well among students and other younger voters, as well as peeling off some of the disaffected ex-Lib Dems who switched to Labour when their former party entered coalition with the Conservatives…
    He (Ben Page, head of polling firm Ipsos Mori) said a Green tide in crucial university cities and towns could pose ‘a real problem for Labour’…
    Last week Mr Miliband made a direct pitch to Green voters vowing to build more wind farms and saying that environmental issues were ‘at the heart’ of his beliefs.
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2924335/Green-Party-say-don-t-want-Russell-Brand-s-help-amid-speculation-comedian-turned-anarchist-unveiled-answer-Nigel-Farage.html

    if u can bear it, greens, greenpeace, Peter Tatchell, etc tweeting on TimeToAct2015 about the Climate Change protest. still no pics of the alleged “thousands”, tho the word is used liberally, but some fun, especially if u click “edit” “find on this page” “libertarian” to get to the following, with pic of Russell Brand getting out of what looks like a private jet & into a waiting SUV, plus another of him behind the wheel:

    Twitter: TimeToAct2015
    A Libertarian Rebel: Hard to find anyone more eco-committed to lead tomorrow’s
    Climate March than Russell Brand, isn’t it? #TimetoAct2015
    PIC
    https://twitter.com/hashtag/TimetoAct2015?src=hash

    LOL.

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  • #
    Sceptical Sam

    If I wear this fashionable idea will it impress my friends at dinner parties? It’s not a social conscious, it’s more a conscious social.”

    It’s a vanity; egocentrism; narcissism.

    They are in many cases displaying clear symptoms of Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD).

    They display an unquenchable need to be admired. They lack empathy.

    Once upon a time we’d just say “they’re up themselves”. And, tell them.

    I still do.

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      • #
        Mac551

        It would appear that Tim Minchen and Storm were kindred spirits,his arguments were identical to hers,no validity , ad hominem and hyperbole.
        When you don’t know the answer don’t give one!

        00

      • #
        Peter C

        Good one!

        Does anyone know Tim Minchin’s views on Anthoprogenic Global Warming (I almost wrote Climate Change)?

        20

        • #
          Peter C

          The idea that many Australians – including our new PM and my distant cousin Nick Minchin – believe that the science of anthropogenic global is controversial, is a powerful indicator of the extent of our failure to communicate.

          Tim Minchin, at his award of an Honorary Doctorate from the Uni of WA 2013.

          I am not sure about his critical thinking anymore.

          00

    • #
      TimiBoy

      Me too. I have two older Brothers who fit well. One is a Magistrate, the other an MBA + PhD Environmental Scientist. Both about as Green as you can get. Awfully smart people, but stupifyingly dumb at the same time. This young buck (me) went and studied Business instead, and I make a dickload more money than either of them and they are SOOOOO JEALOUS of my boat, cars, big house, they’d like nothing better than to shut me down. I speak to neither of them any more, and they avoid me like the plague because I don’t take their bullshit for a second!

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  • #
    Sunray

    Thank you Jo, but The Liberal Party has far too many liberals in it, and nowhere near enough conservatives.

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  • #

    The damage done to rural towns by the migration of tree change Greens is staggering. What they want of their new home is at first innocuous. How they change the towns and how they are run destroys the historic thread of people working the land to produce plenty for the people in the cities and suburbs.

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    • #
      bemused

      I can certainly concur and attest to that happening. None of them ever form the brains or backbone of a rural community, just the mouth and rectum (noisy and off putting at both ends).

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    • #
      Glen Michel

      Same here.No more practical people left- even if those older ones were insular- the modern ones are pretentious and, largely, unbearable.Anything that you may disagree with these tree- changers is met by screeching and loathing.Abyssmal!

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    • #
      Ted O'Brien.

      They have been in many areas the principal source of income for rural areas. If they have proved toxic this is not they who have been the primary cause, but the other product of those same universities, the politicians who took away the legitimate earnings of rural industries.

      Australian agriculture’s own lobby, The National Farmers’ Federation, 30 years ago established a policy platform which has put half of Australia’s farmers out of business. To do this they employed a couple of supposedly smart, well educated young blokes, Andrew Robb and Andy Stoeckel. Top scholars!

      Along the way they gave the leading component of this platform a name – Unilateral Trade Reform. Another component they call Economic Rationalism. These bizarre products of our education system are suicidal lunacy, but have been NFF policy for nearly 30 years.

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    • #
      Spotted Reptile

      I used to live in the semi-rural north eastern fringe of Melbourne and heard tell of a city lawyer who moved out there some years ago and wanted all the sheep removed from the property next door as they used to smell and baaa and were driven past his roadway once a week to new paddocks. He took it to court, but wanted the case heard in the CDB by a city magistrate and not the local area. He was refused. He lost.

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  • #
    RoHa

    “Are tertiary educated ”

    Well, they went to university. “Educated ” is a differnt matter.

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    • #
      RoHa

      Educated people can spell “different “.

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      • #
        Turtle of WA

        I hate it wen I do that.

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      • #
        Yonniestone

        It’s not education but indoctrination, how else could so many with a higher learning have equally lower standards in fact or content?

        Don’t worry about poor grammar, the luvvie’s wouldn’t notice as they’re indoctrinated dumb Canute’s…….

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        • #
          Turtle of WA

          I agree wholeheartedly. The march through the institutions is insidious.

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        • #
          Greg Cavanagh

          Universities can easily be indoctrination, I whole heartedly agree. You won’t pass the subject unless you can not only regurgitate back to the teacher what he taught you, but on some assignments you have to rationalise it and put it in your own words. Doesn’t matter that you don’t believe it, or know it to be wrong/faulty logic. You want to pass the subject, so read it and study you must = indoctrination.

          The one that really upset me was called “Australia Asia and the Pacific”; I gave up on that one and failed on purpose.

          30

      • #
        NielsZoo

        No they can’t. They were given a “participation” trophy at the spelling bee for spelling it wrong and were advanced in grade whether they could spell it or not… being “educated” means 12 to 16 years of brainwashing in government schools staffed with incompetent teachers that can’t be fired due to the unions. The pinnacle of “education” today is not having your feelings hurt and getting out of school without enough knowledge of the real world to be able to dig a decent ditch. But you’ll vote how the 6-o-clock news tells you to… and that’s the goal.

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      • #
        Skeptik

        After working with university graduates for 30 years I wouldn’t bet my balls on it.

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      • #
        Mac551

        Educated people know how to turn the spellcheck on!

        00

  • #
    Yonniestone

    30 years ago the Green/Hippy types were referred to as ‘Ferals’ due to their avoidance of using anything not considered organic, this sadly included personal hygiene products that actually worked. 🙁 , times have changed but the stench of rotting watermelon still lingers.

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  • #
    Turtle of WA

    A very important topic, the conspicuously compassionate.

    Nick Cater’s The Lucky Culture goes some way to investigating it.

    I would like to see the word ‘gruppy‘ used more to describe these people. ‘Gruppy’ means ‘green yuppy’, and captures the hypocrisy and superficiality of these people perfectly.

    The 1980s yuppy was known for conspicuous consumption, the modern gruppy is known for conspicuous compassion. The consumption level hasn’t changed, apart from token gestures (like electronic Christmas holiday cards).

    The reason this is an important topic is that these people, these gruppies, have enormous clout in the media (many journos are gruppies) and in politics (the only green seat in the HOR is held by Adam Bandt, who is The Gruppy par excellence).

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    • #
      Yonniestone

      This is a good idea, as a child of the 80’s I recall that ‘Yuppie’ or ‘Yuppy’ was distinctly used for describing people of conservative or Republican views in a negative way to the point of becoming a cliché in popular culture, the reversing of this term to ‘Gruppy’ would hopefully create another cliché of this inner city set that many people in rural areas already hold.

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      • #
        Turtle of WA

        That’s right. It’s a stereotype, but a valid one, that people already know. People just need a label to put on it.

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    • #
      me@home

      Turtle I am reading The Lucky Culture and this arvo just finished the chapter on universities. Having worked at a senior level in them for 20 years I can identify with what Cater writes. I can recommend the book strongly.

      20

  • #
    Dennis

    I was told in Tasmania that many extreme Greens supporters there are retired former mainland people who do not want the economy impacting adversely on their neighbourhood amenity. In other words no logging operations and related trucks on THEIR roads. But these people do not seem to car that mainland taxpayers support their age pensions and their new State Government with subsidies.

    How pathetic.

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    • #
      Ted O'Brien.

      Before they bought their houses they trashed the values by destroying industry!

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    • #
      Greg Cavanagh

      We get a lot of that in Council’s too. People move into a rural area and within a month demand that Council fix the roads, fix the bridge, stop the dust, put in bus shelters etc.

      The opposite also happens; Council comes along to fix a bad intersection, fix the sight distance, stabilise a bank, replace an old wooden bridge about to collapse, seal a road and suddenly the community raises hell about their precious rural setting.

      Can’t win either way. Thankfully most Councillors are sensible people and take the brunt of the abuse from the residence.

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  • #
    Dennis

    The inner city folk, the younger generations, they brag about credit card limits, they drive the socially correct vehicles, they live in another world, they are the NOW generations who want 4 bedroom homes, study, home theatre, double garage and complain that the cost of housing is far too high. How could they live in a post-war WW2 2-bedroom cottage with one bathroom and maybe no garage.

    I do not want the day of reckoning to arrive but I think that until it does these air heads will continue to live in a fantasy world.

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  • #
    pat

    7 March: UK Telegraph: Matthew Holehouse: Rodents to be given human rights under Green Party plans
    Environmentalist party will also propose creating a fleet of hospital ships to serve the developing world, cutting the size of National Lottery prizes and banning the Grand National
    Animals would be protected under human rights laws and new taxes imposed on nappies under plans to be considered by the Green Party…
    In a sign of the party’s growing appeal, Lily Cole, the Cambridge graduate and model, will on Sunday night appear alongside Ms Bennett during a panel debate on “Latin American experiments in direct democracy.” …
    The plans would impose the same prison sentences for the killing, torture or “kidnapping” of dolphins, whales, apes and elephants as would occur for equivalent crimes committed against humans…
    Under plans to rewrite the rules of global trade, goods would be banned from entering the UK if they are made in factories that do not comply with British health and safety standards or do not pay a living wage…
    However, fresh questions were raised about the leadership of Ms Bennett, a former journalist from Australia, after yet another faltering interview performance…
    She appeared confused when asked in which nations of the United Kingdom the £9 billion a year pledge for social care would apply.
    Ross Hawkins, the BBC’s political correspondent, asked: “In which nations of the UK would this apply?”
    She replied: “That would be in England.”
    Mr Hawkins: “So just England? And not Wales?”
    Ms Bennett said: “No. Well, what we would have to do is look at where this is going. We are setting out the details of this.”
    Mr Hawkins: “Why would the Green Party of England and Wales exclude Wales?”
    Ms Bennett: “We would look at the whole pattern.” …
    Ten days ago Ms Bennett apologised to Green Party members after she was unable to explain how she would fund 500,000 new homes on LBC Radio, becoming lost for words before breaking into a coughing fit…
    ( comment of one member on the party’s online forum) “She really has to resign and let someone take over who has the intellect to think on their feet and handle the media.”
    Many others echoed the comment, and called for Caroline Lucas, the party’s MP, to take over…
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/green-party/11456572/Rodents-to-be-given-human-rights-under-Green-Party-plans.html

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    • #
      Robert

      Okay, I can’t read something like that without making the observation that it is no surprise the Greens would want to give rodents human rights when one considers that many of the Greens behave like rodents.

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      • #
        NielsZoo

        Sorry, I disagree. Rodents are warm, caring, intelligent and sensible social creatures who understand how Nature works and their place in it. Greens… not so much.

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      • #

        I think you are insulting actual rodents. Rodents are what they are without pretense. The greens are all pretense all the time. They even pretend to believe the things they say. To know this, compare what they say with what they do and with what they actually accomplish.

        You will find a total disconnect. They have a mirror like facade built specifically to reflect the like facade of others. Behind the facade is nothing but fear and loathing of the good BECAUSE it is good.

        Beneath that is a secret knowledge that they have abdicated the prime responsibility of being human: staying in touch with reality through the use of reason and logic and acting accordingly. This is why it is not so much that they want to live in a certain way, it is that they don’t want others to live.

        Failure is their goal. Failure is what they achieve.

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      • #
        James Bradley

        Robert,

        The difference between rats and Greenies is that you can become emotionally attached to rats.

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      • #
        Mac551

        I grew up on a farm,there is nothing nice about mice(hey I’m a poet and I don’t even know it),and rats will eat anything even plastic and pee and crap everywhere,they stink and if you have ever had to live through a plague of the little bas****s,it aint pleasant.

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        • #
          ROM

          I have lived through about three of these and a few more that weren’t very bad and were somewhat localised.

          The stench and the cannibalistic traits of plague mice turn the strongest stomach but hey they should get equal rights according to the completely ignorant green do gooder imbeciles who haven’t a clue as to how the real world outside of their nice little “selfie” as in the most selfish, , congratulatory conclaves actually works.

          The 1920’s and 30’s plagues were as bad or much worse;

          So to quote from Pat’s post # 14 the above ;

          7 March: UK Telegraph: Matthew Holehouse: Rodents to be given human rights under Green Party plans

          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkTBPk1kunA

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  • #
    Catamon

    [ they don’t complain when soft policies mean a thousand drown at sea, ]

    But then again the nastier of the countries RWNJobbies fail to complain when a detainee is murdered while in detention or kids are getting abused dont they?

    Still, glad to see you have this outlet for your pent up bile and your uglier attitudes Jo. Vomiting forth the OP here must have made you feel much better, and was probably easier than logging into one of the more widely read RWNJobbie sites like Bolts or Ackermans?

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    • #

      Why would I feel better? I used to be a green. I left because I care about good outcomes, not just good “intentions”.

      Does the namecalling work for you?

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        Catamon

        I used to be a green.

        I’ll bet they are as relieved you left as you are. But with better reason.

        And exactly who is murdering the detainees

        A guard and a Salvos worker are to go to trial for it. So, no, its actually the animals (your term) we employ not the people we imprison.

        The sexual abuse accusations have been made against both guards and detainees. Again, the animals (your term) we employ and in this case the people we have brutalized.

        You truly display a horrid public demeanour.

        What, calling a nasty example of pointlessly pure politics pontification on right wing site for what it is? You have a strange definition of horrid Greg.

        Anyhow, you lot had better crank up the letters to Liberal MP’s again. Tony’s further down in the polls……again….so #libspill will be coming back dont cha know. Hit the Malcolm Panic Button!!!

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        • #
          Winston

          in this case the people we have brutalized

          Rubbish, “we” have brutalised no one. Perhaps in your muddled configuration of world affairs you were confusing us with ISIS?

          Those detainees sexually abusing minors in Manus- good idea to import as many of them as possible, don’t you think. I mean we don’t have enough paedophiles and rapists in Australia already, by all means lets expedite their cases. The more the merrier.

          If you were genuinely in fear of your life, fleeing an unjust regime that was going to murder or persecute you, why would you riot in peaceful detention in Australia with free medical care, food and shelter? I will tell you why. In order to create as much publicity and trouble as possible, which the ABC and Fairfax will gladly and cynically publish as it makes good click fodder for them, and in order to run roughshod over the process to get what they want, asylum here for the social benefits they can accrue that would not be available to them whence they came.

          It has nothing to do with brutality at all- that is a complete furphy, a wedge to get what they want, nothing more or less. We even have “counsellors” telling children in detention to feign sexual abuse in order to bypass the system, how disgusting. But of course nothing is too low for a leftist. Nothing.

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            Catamon

            http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/iranian-asylum-seeker-hamid-kehazaei-died-from-rare-bacterial-infection-from-manus-island-report-20141004-10qa9h.html

            Yup Winston. The “free medical care” they get on Manus is just great.

            Still, all fodder for the mor patheticly stupid of the RWangryNJobbies demographic i suppose.

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            • #
              Winston

              Do you read, Catamon?

              The infection in question is not an indication of poor or inadequate medical care. It is a pathogen specific issue, can and has occurred in Australia, and can and does occur in spite of the best medical care, and can be fatal in the best of hands. Identifying a pathogen such as this can be difficult- I know because I have to deal with such issues as a GP. Doubtless, your experience amounts to the garbage you read in the Daily Worker, or from Pravda by the Yarra.

              People such as this unfortunate gentleman have died and will continue to do so in such places as Royal North Shore and St Vincent’s from fulminating infections such as this. Are you suggesting that as a reflection of the medical care or expertise available? You insult, I’m sure without thought or conscience, the many diligent nurses and doctors who attend these refugees. I’m sure you could do a better job, right?

              Perhaps they would be receiving more cutting edge medical care in Aleppo or Mosul right now, as we speak. Seriously, Catamon. Do you actually understand anything, or is your ignorance all pervasive?

              I think you seize upon any incident, regardless of fault involved, in order to placate your own guilt at cheerleading a humanitarian crisis instigated by ignorant people just precisely like you.

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              • #
                Winston

                To elaborate further. Chromobacterium violaceum infection begins innocuously as a localised skin infection indistinguishable from any minor infection. Once established, it metastasises like a malignancy to different organs, producing necrotising abscesses. Once this occurs, it is essentially curtains for the affected party. Standard therapy for localised infection with first generation Cephalosporins or Penicillins are ineffective, and those that potentially could have treated Mr Kehazhaei successfully would have been unlikely to be offered first line to him, or in sufficient time to alter the outcome.

                As such, regardless of hearsay evidence that there were delays in him being seen, more likely both he and those in charge of the facility were unaware of the nature or seriousness of the infection he suffered, and blood cultures would likely have taken a couple of days to get the answer, even if suspected at first presentation.

                It is important to realise that no antibiotic is a panacea to all potential pathogens, and if you are unfortunate enough to be infected with such an aggressive pathogen, then it is often more good luck than good management that determines the likely outcome, regardless of where you contract the bacterium.

                In my haste to reply to Catamon’s oversimplified take on the situation, I neglected to be explicit in why I feel his attitude is unwarranted, and unfair to those who attended this case at its outset.

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        • #
          RB

          A guard and a Salvos worker are to go to trial for it. So, no, its actually the animals (your term) we employ not the people we imprison.

          Do mention that the man died while rioting. We wouldn’t want to misinform people in order to win an argument.

          The sexual abuse accusations have been made against both guards and detainees.

          A link would be good because the closest I could find to your accusation is a whistle blower who worked at the Manus Island immigration detention centre in Papua New Guinea claiming that detainees have been raped and abused with the full knowledge of staff; and threats made by guards taunting detainees at Nauru.

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        • #
          Heywood

          I am constantly amused by the fact that whenever the Greens are mentioned, there is always a LWFW to jump in and defend them.

          Without fail.

          It seems that Catamon can’t help himself, with his adoration of Christine Milne and Sarah Hyphen-Young (or is it Adam Bandt he desires?? ) driving his decision making.

          83

        • #
          Mac551

          The killing of that person was a crime and no doubt the Australian govt will do something about it,after all Manus Island is governed by Australia and subject to Australian law is it not?

          00

    • #
      Skeptik

      And exactly who is murdering the detainees and abusing the children? Could it possibly be the animals you want let into this country.

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    • #
      James Bradley

      Catamon,

      The same ‘solid citizen’ detainees have been responsible for the child abuse both inside and outside of detention.

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    • #
      Winston

      A detainee was murdered. He was an economic, not genuine, refugee wanting to study architecture in Australia because there were limited opportunities at home.

      He was in Manus Island detention centre, a centre proposed an instigated by Kevin Rudd. The “murderer” (or it could have been self-defence as the findings of an inquiry are not yet released as far as I am aware, was a PNG national- a guard trying to quell a riot there. The rioters, IMHO, bear the main blame for the death of said detainee, because there is no excuse for rioting when you have been taken in by another country, ostensibly because you are supposedly fleeing danger to life and limb. The blame also needs to be apportioned to those who needlessly created the refugee influx in the first place, those who ignored warnings from RWNJs as you put it like Bolt and Ackerman and Howard and Abbott, that softening border protection laws would inevitably lead to drownings at sea and a huge number of people in detention. No matter what opinion you may have held about John Howard’s border protection policies, only 4 people and no children were in detention when Rudd took office. Undoing that policy not only did not undo any perceived wrong doing by Howard, even if you felt that way, but it instead created a humanitarian crisis, and those who created this policy are culpable completely for the all too obvious repercussions. Stupidity doesn’t get more obvious than that.

      Yet instead of humbly apologising for a mistake of monumental proportions caused by hubris and stupidity, the LWNJs can only bleat that they have had their funding trough cut off ( e.g the egregious Julian Burnside, who could care less about refugees but is wealthy from “advocating” for them), or shrug their shoulders and say “who cares?” (Sarah Hansen Young), or wring their hands and shed crocodile tears about people whose welfare they could care less about in a show of faux concern that makes their conceit and vanity that they are caring individuals more believable. Meanwhile any genuine refugees, like Iraqi Yazhidis for example, were forced to wait longer in line for more affluent people who could afford to pay people smugglers (a despicable trade allied to drug and prostitution rackets- trade in human beings is the lowest form of human endeavour, IMHO), who thus rejoice at a multimillion dollar trade for their enrichment while trading in human misery.

      You are more responsible for that detainees death Catamon, than any member of the Liberal party or any minister or current government official. The fact you cannot understand that fact speaks volumes. You were wrong, the RWNJs were right, and it kills you to acknowledge it.

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    • #
      RB

      WTF is ‘RWNJobbies’? Are you trying to imitate comments on conservative blogs that the kiddies find entertaining? Big fail there.

      Seriously, conservative commentators do comment on atrocities committed and ignore some crimes because there are a lot. Like leftwing commentators, they choose what to write about in order to make a political point but that is what their job is about. Reporters should be the ones writing unbiased articles. How is it possible that someone with an education (probably in journalism) doesn’t realise this.

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    • #
      Greg Cavanagh

      You truly display a horrid public demeanour.

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      Rod Stuart

      LWFB must be a left wing fright bat.

      10

    • #
      Krudd Gillard of the Commondebt of Australia

      Catamoron, I regret that I have but one red thumb to give you for my country.

      20

  • #
    KinkyKeith

    There have been many, well documented, “bush-fires’ over the last few years that have had

    nothing to do with Global Warming but EVERYTHING to do with management of fire RISK by “green” Councillors.

    Allowing access roads to isolated, fire prone LGAs, to become overgrown death traps is just one issue, there are many others.

    Fire is real, it kills people and destroys property and lifetimes of work.

    Unchecked ignorance is even worse than fire mismanagement because the damage can come from the most unexpected places from the apparently, most well meaning people.

    A return to reality would be welcome but as somebody recently quoted Richard Feynman: humanity always seems to get caught up in monumental amounts of CRAP.

    KK

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      AndrewGriff

      I think you are being a bit hard on local Govt and fire management, I have worked for several LGAs around the Sydney area,specifically on fuel and fire management,all of them try to meet their responsibilities from my experience. The procedure was ; an area was prepared for a burn,the Fire Brigade was booked in to light the burn and protect property. The Brigades are often busy and booked up for months in advance, Day of the burn arrives and it turns out to be too windy,or it rained the night before,so no burn and your burn goes down the list sometimes to next year.
      Some remedies could be: train more crews to carry out prescribed burns,some Councils around Sydney have their own crews,others are not so proactive.
      National Parks are another matter, the Warrumbungles Fires are in the Courts and NPS seem to be in for justifiable criticism. However the difficulties in NP fire management are similar to those faced by LGAs,it is very easy to be an armchair expert.

      20

      • #
        KinkyKeith

        Hi Andrew,

        Must agree with the general thrust of what you say but there are about 180 plus people from the last Victorian fires that can’t comment.

        As for being an “arm chair expert” ; true, I am not personally involved in firefighting and wish all firefighters well.

        The problems as I have seen since walking in the Blue Mountains 55 years ago , is that some people do not want to make the bush safe; I think that is beyond dispute, as from the Victorian fires, there are jumped up “armchair experts’ in LGAs who are doing more harm than good.

        Port Stephens recently had fires.

        many property owners blamed the RED TAPE for preventing the necessary safety precautions from being put in place.

        What more can I say.

        There are a lot of hard working people out there; there are also a lot of politicians posing as experts who maybe could shoulder some responsibility next time a fire rips through a community.

        KK

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      Mac551

      I come from a rural background,I was in a Rural fire brigade/CFA and worked with the Forests Commission,please don’t go blaming green policies for bushfires,they have nothing to do with it.
      Fires will come regardless, the severity will be in accordance to how much fuel is on the forest floor,fuel reduction burns do help but unfortunately you can’t burn in Mountain Ash forests,it kills the trees.
      Keeping roadsides clean does help but only in a small way,if you want to make the roadsides safe during fires you need to remove all trees/shrubs and keep the grass mown short,this is a ludicrous suggestion because you live in the country for a reason.
      If a wildfire(firestorm) comes you have left it too late,you either leave an hour before(no-one gets an hours notice of a firestorm) or you have to stay,tis your choice.
      As I said earlier fires will come govts can’t stop them,nor can the CFA or Forests Commission(or whatever it’s called nowdays).
      BTW helecopters are a complete and utter waste of money,they only work on spotfires on a calm day,if there is a wind about forget it,it’s the American disease that caught hold in the 80’s that saw a major increase in aircraft.

      The only thing besides an act of God(rain storm or wind change) that can stop a wildfire is another fire,anyone who says any different is a liar.

      And as a word of advice if you live in a fire prone area under no circumstances ever believe what the CFA tells you,get out and learn about fire from old fireys because it is only your own experience that will keep you and yours alive.(there is a good reason why so many CFA crews get cooked).
      In Finishing, the volunteer fire services have been neutered by the various Sate govts,it happened after Ash Weds there were many thousands of men turned up to fight those fires,hundreds of women cooked and fed the men,not with food from the govt but donations by the people and that terrified the govt ,they fear that many men and women being able to arrive in such a short time after that they introduced new ways of the CFA doing things til now you hear of them going to be paid,now even the charities are controlled during a fire the Red Cross (an arm of international socialism)takes over to the detriment of the Salvos and other church charities,the CFA as true volunteer organisation is now finished within the next few years all emergency services will be combined into one govt run and controlled unit.
      That’s my rant for whatever good it will do.

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      • #
        KinkyKeith

        I agree with you that : ” helecopters are a complete and utter waste of money”.

        KK

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      • #
        KinkyKeith

        Totally, Totally Amazing.

        This afternoon I noticed a bushfire at Dudley bluff while at Bar Beach.

        Being 3:40 pm I could be excused for thinking it was the work of locals going home from school but no, the evening TV news a says it was NPWS doing a burn off.

        No doubt they waited for one of the hottest days of the year and for the wind to be blowing towards local residents before lighting up.

        Well; done NPWS; that’ll teach those rich b##st#rds on the bluff.

        After the massive fires in the area last year when a retirement village full of old aged pensioners nearly went up there was obviously a need for preventative action, but couldn’t there have been a winter burn???????????

        Who says fire management is not political!

        KK

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  • #
    pat

    a roundabout story about Caroline Lucas, Greens MP, who might take over from Natalie Bennett as head of the Greens in the UK:

    remember Richard Black left the BBC to become Director of Communications for the Global Ocean Commission & then set up the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU), which has George Smeeton, formerly WWF-UK, as Head of Communications (see ECIU.net’s Team page).

    ECIU’s Who We Are page states: We gratefully acknowledge the support of the European Climate Foundation, the Grantham Foundation for the Protection of the Environment, and the ***Tellus Mater Foundation.

    ***from Tellus Mater Foundation About Us: Tellus Mater’s Mission:
    Tellus Mater’s mission is to catalyze a shift to sustainable capitalism: ***to change the operating rules for capitalism so that finance can better fulfill
    it’s role in directing the flows of Financial Capital to production systems that preserve and enhance Natural Capital.
    Partners include: Carbon Tracker, Carbon Disclosure Standards Board, Share Action (formerly Fair Pensions), The Environmental Funders Network, The Climate Group, Carbon Leapfrog, Green Alliance, etc.
    from Grants & Funding page: The Foundation’s 2013 focus will be on the ***pension fund industry; specifically on encouraging pension funds to fully
    assess the climate risk in their portfolios and begin to take action to address that risk.

    James Arbib is the founder and trustee of the Tellus Mater Foundation.

    Aug 2014: Brighton&Hove Independent: Revealed: The London multi-millionaire bankrolling Caroline Lucas’s campaign
    A London-based multi-millionaire – whose father is one of the country’s wealthiest financiers – is bankrolling Caroline Lucas in her campaign to secure a second term as Green MP for Brighton Pavilion, Brighton & Hove Independent can reveal.
    James Arbib, 42, has given £20,000 to Ms Lucas and the Green Party – even though he has previously supported Zac Goldsmith, the Conservative MP with a record of supporting environmental causes. And despite the fact that his father, Sir Martyn Arbib, has given nearly £500,000 to the Conservative Party…
    ***Mr Arbib, a Cambridge graduate who is a former investment analyst in the City, is a substantial investor in resource-efficient technologies. He came to wider public attention when it was reported he sold his Chelsea mansion to Hugh Grant and Jemima Khan for £18 million in 2006…
    ***For his part, Mr Arbib runs Tellus Mater Foundation, a grant-making charity whose mission is “to catalyze a shift to sustainable capitalism: to change the operating rules for capitalism so that finance can better fulfill it’s role in directing the flows of Financial Capital to production systems that
    preserve and enhance Natural Capital”.
    According to the Electoral Commission, Mr Arbib gave £10,000 to Caroline Lucas on April 8, the same day as he gave £10,000 to the Green Party
    nationally…
    “Mr Arbib has worked for many years to support important projects in the environmental field; for example his foundation has funded some pioneering work on climate change and the economic system. We’re grateful to him for supporting Caroline and the Green Party and for his emphasising the importance of keeping a Green voice in Parliament.”
    Mr Arbib said: “I think it’s very important for the Green Party to have a voice in parliament. I support the work that Caroline Lucas has done to date
    and want to see it continue in the next parliamentary term. Without a Green voice in parliament, it would be harder to get support across society for the changes that need to happen to move us into a more sustainable and environmentally stable society.”
    http://brightonandhoveindependent.co.uk/revealed-london-multi-millionaire-bankrolling-caroline-lucass-campaign/

    Neo-Greens are in bed with the very global institutions, financiers, etc., they once claimed to loathe, & who INTEND to grab those trillions from the baby boomers’ retirement funds, by any means necessary.

    hopefully, CAGW sceptics will stop them at every turn.

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  • #
    llew Jones

    Notice Abbott told the UN to get stuffed over its claims that Australia was “torturing” illegal boat arrivals.

    That is a good start. Would love to see him adopt the same approach to the IPCC’s attack on the use of fossil fuels, particularly Aussie coal, Abbott’s favourite Australian electrical power source.

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    • #
      Gary in Erko

      Abbott may have started a new trend in language for international diplomacy.

      161

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      Rod Stuart

      Actually, when one puts the facts under the microscope, the UN is probably a bigger threat to Australia at the moment than is ISIS.
      The UN should have been given the big finger a long long time ago.

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      Eddie

      No mincing his words?
      Needs to do same for the birds.

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  • #
    pat

    llew Jones –
    yes, it would be great if the PM told the UN to butt out of Australia’s decisions re energy/climate.

    btw another tale to indicate what we are up against:

    from Julie’s Bicycle Facebook: March with us on Sat for ‪#‎TimetoAct2015‬. We’ll be in the ‪#‎FossilFree‬ bloc

    (Guardian: Alison Tickell established Julie’s Bicycle in 2007 as a not-for-profit company, to unite and lead the music industry in tackling climate change…Alison is Associate Professor at Buckinghamshire New University, a member of the Events Supplement Working Group for the Global Reporting Initiative, and a founder participant on the United Nations Music & Environment Programme, 2010)

    Nov 2010: UK Register: ***Andrew Orlowski: Music biz vows to end CD scandal
    Go digital, save a polar bear’s toenail
    Each year UK record labels send out 25,000 promo CDs. In new research released today it is estimated that the manufacturing, packaging and transportation of these deadly items creates 1,686 tonnes of carbon dioxide…
    Switching all promos to digital delivery would save 240 tonnes.
    Just to put that in perspective, underground wildfires in China produce up to 450 million tonnes of CO2 a year. The amount of CO2 produced by new build coal power stations around the world, which help millions of people out of poverty, is around 500 megatonnes a year. Total CO2 emissions from coal are 5,814 billion tonnes of CO2 , rising to 6,820 in 2035. In other words, we could turn all the world’s coal power stations off for about
    twelve milliseconds…
    ***The research was carried out by Alison Tickell for her music business environmentalist group Julie’s Bicycle. Tickell is a member of a global warming dynasty.
    Her brother Oliver earns royalties from carbon offsetting, while her father, the former diplomat Sir Crispin Charles Cervantes Tickell, is credited with convincing British PM Margaret Thatcher of the hypothesis of catastrophic man-made global warming in the late 1980s. By 2003, Thatcher appears to have recanted – and in her memoir Statecraft doubted the warnings of politically-motivated “doomsters” and described their anti-industrialisation policies as “costly and futile”.
    Tickell Snr is a patron of the Optimal Population Trust and made an ominous prediction to an interviewer last year: “It’s one animal species out of control,” he said – meaning us, “and the awful thing is that if we don’t control it then Mother Nature will do it for us.”…
    http://www.theregister.co.uk/Print/2010/11/01/music_business_promo_discs_cause_global_warming/

    ***pity Andrew Orlowski no longer does CAGW pieces for the UK Register, or so it seems looking at all his recent articles at the website.

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  • #

    You missed out two things:
    1. Public sector
    2. Without a clue about any basic engineering.

    I know, because I was for a while a member of the Scottish green party. But I was the only one who understood what their policies actually meant in practice.

    It was partly that naive gullibility that started me wondering what actual science there was behind this global warming scare.

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  • #

    Greens — rich educated inner city folk

    Perhps not educated in the proper sense, but more like “brains trammelled by training”, as Henry Lawson said.

    There is a huge gap between what passes for education nowadays, especially “higher education”; and the education of the past where original thought was harnessed; not trammelled.

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    john karajas

    WELL!!!! What will they be saying at the Balmain Basket Weaving Eco-Collective now? Luvvies, if only I could be a fly on the wall!

    90

  • #
    Fang

    Nows the time for the National party to hit central Melbourne with a big campaign! Same colours as the greens, baffle them green voters with some cleverly time and implemented facts about food, environment, and social inclusion! That most of them would vote for the National member than the green one!! 😉 (Would have to be a very clever campaign! But I think it could be done!!! 🙂 )

    70

  • #
    TdeF

    The key to the Greens success is to harness the young, aspirational, new family, ambitious and caring to their cause. That is why the communists hijacked the Green movement in 1988, as in Dr Patrick Moore’s Confessions of a Greenpeace dropout. These inner city lefties are nothing of the sort. They actually care about the environment, the polar bears, the future. They are being utterly deceived by professional frauds, the Greens.

    Yes, amazingly these are the successful ambitious children of successful parents and private schools who rebel. What do you expect? They are taught to care. The appeal of the Green is in the name, Green. Court battles have been fought worldwide over control of this name and the rights to the billions which flow from it and as Dr Moore found, it was between money men and lawyers.

    In time, these people will change, but all young people rebel against what they see as the money oriented, success driven culture of their parents and the extreme union driven and also money oriented culture of the Labor Unions, so they vote Green. There has always been a third party, at least in Australia and it has always represented about 14% of the vote. However they have never been communists before and in Australia the DLP and the Democrats were constructive. There is no negotiating with the Greens.

    Senator Lee Rhiannon trained in Moscow. Adam Bandt did his PhD thesis on communism and cares only about political power. The Greens care more about hating Jews and Israel than the forests or windmills. Why else attack ban Jewish chocolate shops?

    None of them have a clue about science, but they could not care less. They are frauds. Their senators are on $200K per year and they just ran the country for six years, bringing in a Carbon tax against official Labor policy and an absolute election promise, a stupid additional tax on our miners in a mining country and a devastating and murderous changes to our control of illegal immigration which killed 1200 peopel. Caring? Hardly. As Green Senator Hanson Young callously said, “accidents happen”. The seas are not becoming acid and the barrier reef is not being destroyed, but the Greens care nothing for the environment and the children. Most do not have them or like Milne, abandoned them. It is all about the swinging votes and leverage in parliament and power and money. It always was. Both Labor and the Coalition have to get the message out. The Greens are fakes. They represent the worst in politics, not the best.

    Until there is a way to steal the Green’s platform of caring, both the Conservatives and Labor will find they have to obey the Greens, Labor in particular as only 8 of their Federal seats were outright victories. Every other seat was won with Green preferences. That is the core problem. Communists who want to wreck the place. They care little for the well meaning inner city types who think they are genuine.

    The Green must be furious with PUP, Jacqui Lambie, the Motorists Enthusiasts Party, the Sex Party and all the other independents around the country who are stealing the protest vote. It is a great development. People are waking up to the Greens.

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    • #
      ianl8888

      Labor in particular as only 8 of their Federal seats were outright victories. Every other seat was won with Green preferences

      This is why the ALP cannot make significant changes to its’ existing “policies”

      50

      • #
        Dennis

        In the last Queensland state election the LNP were comfortably in the lead with 8-seats more than Labor on primary votes.

        00

    • #
      Robert O

      I would tend to agree that the greens haven’t much knowledge about anything scientific. Ms. Milne did a BA in majoring in history but is a stalwart in saving the Tasmanian forests by world heritage listings and stopping logging as much as possible.

      There is a slight problem inasmuch by locking-up the forests will result the demise of the tall eucalypts, (some in the Styx valley more than 90m. high) because eucalypts require disturbance and light to regenerate and this won’t happen unless there is logging or wildfire. You only have to walk from the National Park office to Russell Falls in S. Tas. under the tall eucalypts and you will find there is no regeneration apart from rainforest species. So really it is a classical oxymoron.

      20

  • #
    Robert O

    The greens realised many moons ago that their power base is the city where the good folk enjoy the benefits of modern living, cafe lattes, aircon, hospitals, schools, etc., and at the same time do their little bit to save the planet, save the Barrier Reef, no dams, no nuclear power…. by supporting the greens. And there is little chance that the Greens will ever govern in their own right so they can have a trendy flawed agenda. However, with the preferential voting systems we have they can get numbers in the Senate, and put a lot of others into the lower house with their preferences. Take the federal seat of Griffith; ex PM Rudd did not top the poll, Dr. Glasson did, but was elected on green preferences and in the re-run the same story Dr. Glasson increased his vote but lost out to a Labor lawyer. The Labor party knows this and duly rewards the greens with concessions far in excess of their numbers would warrant.

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    • #
      TdeF

      “rewards the greens with concessions far in excess of their numbers would warrant.”

      Most of the Coalition were elected on first preferences. Most of Labor were not. What Labor lacks is the courage to take on the Greens. Where would the Greens go? They would not preference the coalition anyway.

      The problem is that Labor will not stand up to the Greens and isolte them, but then the Labor vote is at a record low as Union participation is at a record low, 12% in the general community outside the public service where it is 42%. Over 60% of the ABC are Green voters, which explains a great deal.

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      • #
        Robert O

        Australia would solve a lot its problems if we went back to first past the post voting (the Senate, just tick six and the top six win); still good enough for Westminster. Instead we end up with some members that literally the cat dragged in.

        60

        • #
          TdeF

          There are arguments for and against every system. What is absurdly wrong is that the Senate is deliberately unrepresentative but is not restricted to voting on State issues, its sole function. It acts as a totally unrepresentative block on any government with a mandate, as true for Whitlam as it is for Abbott. It is here and only here that the Greens can destroy any concept of representative democracy. In Tasmania’s cast, one man, ten votes.

          62

          • #
            TdeF

            Sorry, in Tasmania’s case.

            There is also the stacking of public servants in tiny Adelaide, Hobart and Darwin, overwhelming the needs and desires of the local population and creating a huge imbalance for the Greens voting on State issues while not financially part of the state finances. In fact they have a real interest in impoverishing their neighbours, as has happened in Tasmania with generations of established farmers being disenfranchised by public servants.

            30

            • #
              Robert O

              Tasmania once had several important industries including apples and forest based enterprises. I would agree that the greens helped in the demise of the forest industry, but there were other culprits both in government and the industries themselves: principally a lack of vision, poor marketing, poor quality control and the reign of politics over professionalism, as well as insularity. An overseas trip in the 1950’s was a visit to Melbourne with its 6 o’clock closing.

              40

  • #
    Andrew McRae

    O/T.
    Jo, here’s a paper saying what you’ve been saying for years.
    http://thelibertarianalliance.com/2015/03/06/causes-and-consequences-of-the-climate-science-boom/

    We note the difficulties in obtaining definitive empirical clarity due to the complex nature of climate, the feedback between the effects of the IPCC’s advocacy and the government’s willingness to fund the science, the ideological and political agendas at play, the dangers to the integrity of scientific procedure in the context of ideological bias…

    h/t to Judith Curry.

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    pat

    the MSM’s new big outrage:

    8 March: Florida Center for Investigative Reporting: In Florida, Officials Ban Term ‘Climate Change’
    By Tristram Korten
    The state of Florida is the region most susceptible to the effects of global warming in this country, according to scientists. Sea-level rise alone threatens 30 percent of the state’s beaches over the next 85 years.
    But you would not know that by talking to officials at the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, the state agency on the front lines of studying and planning for these changes.
    DEP officials have been ordered not to use the term “climate change” or “global warming” in any official communications, emails, or reports, according to former DEP employees, consultants, volunteers and records obtained by the Florida Center for Investigative Reporting.
    The policy goes beyond semantics and has affected reports, educational efforts and public policy in a department that has about 3,200 employees and $1.4 billion budget.
    “We were told not to use the terms ‘climate change,’ ‘global warming’ or ‘sustainability,’ ” said Christopher Byrd, an attorney with the DEP’s Office of General Counsel in Tallahassee from 2008 to 2013. “That message was communicated to me and my colleagues by our superiors in the Office of General Counsel.”
    Kristina Trotta, another former DEP employee who worked in Miami, said her supervisor told her not to use the terms “climate change” and “global warming” in a 2014 staff meeting…
    This unwritten policy went into effect after Gov. Rick Scott took office in 2011 and appointed Herschel Vinyard Jr. as the DEP’s director, according to former DEP employees…
    Jeri Bustamante, a spokesperson with the governor’s office, wrote in an email that “There’s no policy on this.”
    But four former DEP employees from offices around the states say the order was well known and distributed verbally statewide…
    http://fcir.org/2015/03/08/in-florida-officials-ban-term-climate-change/

    Bloomberg already has outraged tweeters; Sky News, MSNBC, Guardian, Time, CNN, etc all have it, & are reporting it as gospel basically. Guardian did something similar last July:

    July 2014: Guardian: Robin McKie: Miami, the great world city, is drowning while the powers that be look away…
    The problem is the city is run by climate change deniers
    “Climate change is no longer viewed as a future threat round here,” says atmosphere expert Professor Ben Kirtman, of the University of Miami. “It is something that we are having to deal with today.”…

    ***”There has been a rise of about 10 inches in sea levels since the 19th century – brought about by humanity’s heating of the planet through its industrial practices – and that is now bringing chaos to Miami Beach by regularly flooding places like Alton Road,” says Harold Wanless, a geology professor at the University of Miami. “And it is going to get worse. By the end of this century we could easily have a rise of six feet, possibly 10 feet. Nothing much will survive that. Most of the land here is less than 10 feet above sea level.”…

    Miami and its surroundings are facing a calamity worthy of the Old Testament. It is an astonishing story. Despite its vast wealth, the city might soon be consumed by the waves, for even if all emissions of carbon dioxide were halted tomorrow…
    Most of Florida’s senior politicians – in particular, Senator Marco Rubio, former governor Jeb Bush and current governor Rick Scott, all Republican climate-change deniers – have refused to act or respond to warnings of people like Wanless or Harlem or to give media interviews to explain their stance…
    “The thing about Miami is that when it goes, it will all be gone,” says ***(Mayor of South Miami) Stoddard…
    The problem stems from the top, Kirtman said, from the absolute insistence of influential climate change deniers that global warming is not happening…
    http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/11/miami-drowning-climate-change-deniers-sea-levels-rising

    ***Mayor Stoddard: Jan 2014: Green Party of Florida: Greens Support Re-election of South Miami Mayor Philip Stoddard
    Although the race is nonpartisan and Stoddard is not a registered Green, he has earned the support of local Greens, who have also worked on his two previous mayoral campaigns…

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    pat

    The Florida Center for Investigative Reporting receives funding partly from the Society of Environmental Journalists, which recently found a new Swiss sugar daddy billionaire, Wyss. whilst the money received by SEJ so far is for LA Times & High Country News D.C. positions, the hope is many more Swiss Francs/dollars will be on the way:

    20 Feb: Inside Philanthropy: Tate Williams: Green Journalism Gets a Raise from a Top Environmental Donor
    The Society of Environmental Journalists is a favorite among green funders wanting to kick up some exposure for their issues, but usually gives relatively small amounts. The Wyss Foundation just took things up a notch with $400,000 to significantly expand a grantmaking program…
    It’s been around since 1990, and has drawn notable names in philanthropy as backers, including Keith Campbell, Ford Foundation, Bullitt, Park Foundation, Ted Turner, Grantham, Surdna, Heinz, etc. And a bunch of smaller donors too. Now the Swiss billionaire Hansjorg Wyss has stepped into the ring with a recent $385,000 for an expansion of SEJ’s grantmaking program…
    The grant will support two full-time reporting positions—one for the L.A. Times and another for a High Country News D.C. bureau—and two new rounds of microgrants for $5,000 worth of pavement-pounding at a time…
    There are a lot of rich people worried about the environment, and journalism is one of the best ways to prime ordinary Americans to support big policy changes, as well as to put politicians’ feet to the fire…
    And, in fact, we’ll be interested to see if the Wyss gift is a prelude to bigger things. The guy’s worth $6 billion after all, and he’s a big-time environmental funder…
    But what exactly does it mean for the end product? Conservatives have complained about SEJ for inserting bias into the news…
    http://www.insidephilanthropy.com/home/2015/2/20/green-journalism-gets-a-raise-from-a-top-environmental-donor.html

    the FCIR Report is nicely timed for the “Merchants of Doubt” release, of course, tho so far it’s merely a he said/she said story. anyone who knows how to access relevant public documents to check out if the terms CC/GW were or weren’t ever used could follow up on this.

    of course, i long for the day when no-one uses “climate change” to mean GW, AGW or CAGW, and CAGW alarmist language disappears altogether.

    as for Wyss:

    Wikipedia: Wyss is actively involved in landscape protection by buying up the mineral rights from the mining companies. In 1998, he established the Wyss Foundation, which establishes and sponsors informal partnerships between non-governmental organisations and the United States administration to place large swathes of land under government protection. On account of these efforts, almost 4,400,000 acres (18,000 km2) of land have been declared national park districts.
    Wyss serves on the boards of The Wilderness Society, the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, Rails-to-Trails, and the Grand Canyon Trust…
    On 29 January 2015, it was reported that John Podesta is the driving force inside the White House to block 12 million acres of land in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from oil drilling, and who founded the Center for American Progress (CAP), had been hired by Wyss in 2013 as a “consultant”…
    Podesta worked at Wyss’s HJW Foundation in 2013 and joined the White House in January 2014…
    A Nation article in 2013 accused Podesta’s CAP (Center for American Progress) of being “among the most secretive of all think tanks concerning its donors.” In early January 2015, CAP gave a list of its donors to a Washington Post reporter, Greg Sargent, but any references to Wyss were omitted; the list reported three “anonymous” donors. 2013 tax documents from the HJW Foundation and the Wyss Foundation show that Wyss contributed $1.5 million to CAP that year alone.

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  • #

    Ahh! The Greens. Guaranteed to take you back almost a hundred years.

    I see that greens all across the Planet are rolling around in paroxysms of pure delight as their wonderful new solar plane flies around the World. The longest leg, across the Pacific, well sort of anyway, from China to Hawaii, will take them 5 whole days at around 50KPH.

    Hmm! In 1919, Alcock and Brown flew a Vickers Vimy across the Atlantic in 17 hours, so solar flight is yet to catch up to where powered flight was 96 years ago.

    What is wonderful though is this flight by this magical solar aeroplane is the harbinger of the rollout of the solar powered 747-400 which will be used to ferry delegates to the Paris UNFCCC conference. (/sarc)

    Tony.

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      TdeF

      You have to consider the potential of electric planes powered by windmills. That completes the argument for Green energy.

      Without fossil fuels, we have no jet engines. Without jet engines, no trips to Paris. When will the 30,000 delegates to a conference on minimizing energy use discover the internet? Do they take air sickness and anti hypocrisy tablets?

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      James Murphy

      The wingspan of a 747, yet can only carry, from what I understand, 1 person. If they are keen on unusual forms of air transport, I think they’d be better off looking at refining hybrid airship technology – for cargo at least… but why let some semblance of logic get in the way, I suppose.

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        William

        In thinking about the transport requirements of the Greenies, I have the vision of the perfect system. It has been used for many years, and is carbon neutral.
        You put the Greenie in a large cannon, and aim it in the general direction you want them to go. Then pull the trigger.
        It works even better if they are wearing a clown costume.
        Both the transport system and the costume would be consistent with the Greenie’s mentality.

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      Manfred

      Possibly the single most useless demonstration evvaahhh. The wing loading for the craft is infinitesimal. It ranks in utility along side hydrogen filled dirigibles of yore, with the exception that the latter is the perfect vehicle for the inner city latte swilling green cognoscenti to make their trip to Paris in November.

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    • #

      Hmm! Let’s see now.

      Cessna sized airplane with straight wing planform, wide wings and upper fuselage for the panels. One electric motor driving a carbon fibre prop.

      Great.

      Say, aren’t you going to be flying at night?

      Add some batteries.

      More weight and now some of the generated power diverted from the electric motor engine to charge the batteries.

      Wider wings. longer wings. More panels.

      More weight for the spar.

      OK then two engines.

      Extra weight. More batteries. Less power from the panels now, some diverted from the motors to the batteries.

      Longer wings more panels.

      Extra weight.

      OK four engines then.

      Extra weight.

      Short skinny pilot. Land often. Recharge batteries on the ground. Fly East to West, Follow the Sun.

      Umm, who’s fronting up with the money.

      Who cares. Think of the prestige.

      How do we get it to the start point?

      In the back of a Jumbo. Say, do I have to do all the thinking here?

      Tony.

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        Gary in Erko

        Fly low with the batteries in a kayak with a long extension power lead. Weight problem solved.

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          ROM

          Well it just so happens that the European Airbus industries, the BIG european manufacturer of close to half the worlds latest airliner fleet is a long way into building an electrically powered two seat light aircraft, the E-Fan that will have an initial goal of at least one hour’s flight endurance.

          The two seat electrically powered aircraft is intended to be used for initial flight training which involves a lot of touch and goes, landings that are fully carried out but around half way through the landing roll the throttle is applied and the aircraft takes off again to go around the circuit and do another touch and go.

          This training technique rapidly provides the essential skills that are required to take off and land an aircraft safely each time are thus instilled into the rookie pilot.
          The battery system consists of a couple of large cartridge type batteries easily carried by either of the crew who after an hour’s flying, upon landing ,just remove the battery cartridges from their receptacles and replace them with freshly charged batteries cartridges for the next lot of training flights.

          This information is available on the web but Morgan Sandercock, Pilot and Project Manager at Airbus Perlan Mission II in the fascinating AIRBUS PERLAN project, the project to fly a glider to 90,000 feet plus in the stratospheric wave systems that are triggered in the Polar Vortex winds by the Andes Mountain ranges way down over Patagonia at the southern tip of the South American continent.

          The same group took a German commercially built two seat DG505 glider to over 50,000 feet quite recently in the Californian Sierra Wave systems.
          The aircraft was basically destroyed structurally by the minus 70C cold and will never fly again.

          Morgan has flown at the last couple of our 50 years old [ 2016 ] annual [ started 1967 ] , 8 day long first full week in February “Horsham Week” gliding competitions here in Horsham in western Victoria.
          He gave the 50 odd pilots present a very good outline of the problems and the new technologies they are developing in the Airbus Industry Perlan Project’ which uses a pressurised cabin plus pressure suits for the two pilots.

          They will get a launch to about 8000 feet I think was the figure behind a powered glider tug into the lower level mountain wave system and then climb in the Mountain Lee Waves into the Polar Vortex stratospheric wave systems, and then climb in those stratospheric wave systems to a hoped for 90,000 feet plus altitude.

          The jump from 90,000 feet to over 100,000 feet is as hard as those last 25,000 feet or so to the 90,000 foot height so they are limiting their risks by going for what they believe from all previous data to be achievable.
          If they achieve this it will amongst many other records, be the highest sustained level flight record, about 3000 feet higher than the American Blackbird SR71 record for highest altitude level flight.

          The technologies and the meteorological data from their flights will be of huge benefit to the structural analysis for future airliners which may encounter these wave systems over the .andes, the himalayas, some Siberian mountain chains, the American mountain systems and other similar mountain areas.

          The composite structures being developed for this high altitude flight will feed directly into the design of new airliners as will the composite construction techniques being developed
          . Plus meteorologists world wide are lining up to get access to any very high altitude data on upper air information that will be measured not from a
          highspeed here now, gone in a second aircraft but one plodding along at about 180 knots true airspeed without any power just to hold position in the high speed polar vortex winds.
          Indicated airspeed will be around 60 knots for any aviation people reading this .
          So the flight envelope between stall condition at about 40 knots and VNE at 60 knots indicated is damn narrow and could get REAL exciting for the pilots at those 80 to 90,000 foot altitudes if a stall condition developed.

          On electric aircraft ;
          There are also a number of electrically powered self launching gliders [ example ] coming onto the market that allows the almost silent self launching of the glider to some couple of thousands of metres in total for each charge. Generally the glider pilot will launch to about 700 metres ,[ 2000 feet above ground ] the standard launch height and then all he has to do with the electrically powered and launched glider is pull a small lever or flick a switch and the motor stops, the propeller is braked in the correct position and the whole launch system folds down inside of the glider fuselage and he / she goes gliding.
          If they get low or conditions deteriorate, they flick the lever or switch, the electric motor and propeller rises from it’s recess in the fuselage through the covering doors and fires up and the pilot motors home in comfort on his electrical power.

          So some electrically powered aircraft are already existent and like the Wright Brothers and those other early aviation pioneers and their string and bag aircraft , it will only keep developing from here on in to what level we cannot even guess at.

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      Rod Stuart

      In Europe, from whence the Gruppy culture seems to have spread, Green seems to beco0ming the colour of poop.
      The Swiss have rejected a tax on air 92% to 8%.

      20

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        Eddie

        I think the Swiss population recognised the economic madness of abolishing VAT to replace it with a feel good tax. Viridis ergo non sum. ( Greens don’t do sums).
        I remember sharing a communal living space with a Greens MP in a Swiss chalet once. He was full of ideals but seemed most uncomfortable with all the sharing. His wife was alright though.

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      Wayne Job

      The trade winds still work, let the delegates for paris sail, bring back the clipper ships, many of the greens would be green around the gills.
      No use of the dirty man made canals, around the capes only ,that would bring them to their senses if it did not kill them.

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      Eddie

      While Quantas first 747-400 makes it’s last flight before being decommissioned.

      ” It is a far cry from its record-setting delivery flight in 1989, when OJA completed a nonstop flight from London to Sydney.”

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    Roy Hogue

    The Greens social conscience is limited to being conscious of their social standing. If I wear this fashionable idea will it impress my friends at dinner parties? It’s not a social conscious, it’s more a conscious social.

    When has it ever been other than do as I say, not as I do?

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    pattoh

    This Green/Gaia business is absolutely a religion. ( complete with helpful tax advantages)

    It comes complete with blind belief in dogma, sacred texts, GUILT & Indulgences ( for those who can afford them)

    They go forth into the world with their faith & their renewable promises & Carbon Farming , converting & saving the un-unlighted masses of fossil fuel consumers from damnation & purgatory.

    Halellujah!/sarc.

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    Ruairi

    A party that calls itself green,
    Thinking carbon dioxide unclean,
    When biologists know,
    Plants need it to grow,
    So to join them,I wouldn’t be keen.

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    handjive

    Just a Fact

    12 Nov 2014, thelocal.de: Greens say sorry for past paedophilia ties

    “The Green Party on Wednesday apologized to victims of sexual abuse for its support of paedophilic groups in the 1980s.

    The document was brought to light during the election of 2013, as it was one of the party’s key candidates, Jürgen Tritten, then a student
    running for city hall, who had cosigned it.”
    ~ ~ ~
    History of the Australian Greens (Australianpolitics.com)

    “In 1984 the fiery parliamentarian and champion of the West German Greens, Petra Kelly, made her second visit to Australia.

    She urged that the various Greens in Australia develop a national identity.
    Partly as a result of this, just after Christmas of the same year, 50 Greens activists gathered in Tasmania to organise a national conference.
    This ultimately led to the ‘Getting Together’ conference at Sydney University during Easter 1986.”

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    • #
      RB

      Just an anecdote. I’ll not name the former senator because its just hearsay. I did some relief teaching in an inner city school. One of the 14 year old students volunteered that he met him and found him to be very creepy. What worried me was the way he said it sheepishly but I didn’t see the student again so I didn’t press for details.

      01

    • #
      Eddie

      Another fashionable policy from the 60s goes anti-fashionable.( ie. at least as fashionable to dis. now as it was for them to support then).
      That’s because Greens lack any moral compass. They just pursue the latest feel good (about oneself fad).

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    el gordo

    The way ahead is to dilute the Greens with Nats. When global cooling becomes apparent, with 97% of scientists agreeing they got it badly wrong, it will be a disaster for the Greens.

    The Nats and Greens are in unison on Frakking and there maybe other areas worth exploring.

    A continental bullet train system would go a long way in breaking down the differences between country and city.

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  • #
    Neville

    This is out there I know, but can Jo or David or anyone have a look at this article from NASA. Or am I missing something?

    NASA states that co2 acts as a thermostat and sends energy/heat back into space. Here’s a quote below———— and here’s the link— http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sunearth/news/solarstorm-power.html Neville. Is there anyone you can send this to for an appraisal?

    “This was the biggest dose of heat we’ve received from a solar storm since 2005,” says Martin Mlynczak of NASA Langley Research Center. “It was a big event, and shows how solar activity can directly affect our planet.”

    Mlynczak is the associate principal investigator for the SABER instrument onboard NASA’s TIMED satellite. SABER monitors infrared emissions from Earth’s upper atmosphere, in particular from carbon dioxide (CO2) and nitric oxide (NO), two substances that play a key role in the energy balance of air hundreds of km above our planet’s surface.

    “Carbon dioxide and nitric oxide are natural thermostats,” explains James Russell of Hampton University, SABER’s principal investigator. “When the upper atmosphere (or ‘thermosphere’) heats up, these molecules try as hard as they can to shed that heat back into space.”

    That’s what happened on March 8th when a coronal mass ejection (CME) propelled in our direction by an X5-class solar flare hit Earth’s magnetic field. (On the “Richter Scale of Solar Flares,” X-class flares are the most powerful kind.) Energetic particles rained down on the upper atmosphere, depositing their energy where they hit. The action produced spectacular auroras around the poles and significant1 upper atmospheric heating all around the globe.”

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    • #

      Neville mentions this: (my bolds)

      …..infrared emissions from Earth’s upper atmosphere, in particular from carbon dioxide (CO2) and nitric oxide (NO), two substances that play a key role in the energy balance of air hundreds of km above our planet’s surface.

      Nitric Oxide is the by product of interaction between Oxygen in the Atmosphere and Nitrous Oxide (N2O).

      Say, how fortunate was this.

      They can’t regulate Nitric Oxide because it’s just the end result of the interaction, so they, umm, regulate the Nitrous Oxide instead. Nitrous just happens to be one of those gases that the UNFCCC listed as it’s rolly trooly hyper dangerous Greenhouse gases.

      Because it is so bad, they claim it’s 310 times more dangerous than CO2.

      It’s umm also costed at 310 times the cost for CO2 in any ETS as well, as shown at this list of GHG from the Oz legislation, a direct copy from that original UNFCCC list.

      A nice little money earner, eh!

      Tony.

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  • #

    Wow,

    maybe this blog could have a regular thread, like the unthreaded one, called “evidence free assertions”, where everyone just writes whatever pops into their heads. Actually, it would not require a change for 95% of correspondents from their posts on other threads (hey look, I’m joining in).

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    • #
      RB

      Wow, not just evidence free but ignoring the better than 1 in 10 comments above that include a link to the evidence that they based their commentary on. Many of the others are not portrayed as anything other than personal opinion or anecdotes.

      30

      • #
        Greg Cavanagh

        Or personal experience.
        I know, I know, it’s not been peer reviewed and published.

        30

      • #

        that is pretty poor when you consider the links rarely support the assertion (no they are not posed as argument but as fait accomplit) and that of the 9/10 without links, few fit your definition of declaring opinion.

        reading down: comment 2 assertion but sensible left alone. Very long comment 4.1, assertions piled upon each other which engendered more such asserting in response.

        etc etc

        Here is you chance RB

        The problem is that the rest of Australia responds to those who blurt out the blatantly obvious and ignore the more important question, ‘how?’. The former then rise through the ranks and create a culture that hinders progress.

        evidence? Examples?

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        • #
          RB

          Its an opinion. I don’t have minutes to that meeting but everyone over 40 remembers the clever country rhetoric of Labor during the 80s and early 90s. From Hawkes 90 election speech

          a framework of education and science policies to prepare our young people for the challenges of the 21st century;

          He was elected and 25 years later we still have to do it, as the whole country is still living off what we were 25 years ago.

          a strategy to boost exports and replace imports

          is still more digging ore out of the ground and not even doing the flotation here. I was part of the per-feasibility study for the Olympic Dam expansion so I got front row seats on how we advertised that Australians were too stupid to even concentrate the minerals let alone refine it into the metal.

          comment 2

          By doing so, they hope that no one will notice their avarice. Much like all well to do Greens supporters

          .

          The link in the article has the evidence that the opinion was based on. Do I need to link to two Greens senators driving 400km to a protest in an SUV that uses 10L/100km of petrol?

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          • #

            thanks nice answer, although to that Labor government’s credit, they did not ignore the “how”. The how that Keating and Button put in place seems to have faded away to be replaced by rhetoric.

            02

            • #

              rhetoric and hand outs (yes I am talking about Howard’s election bribes and R/G/R “saving us” from the GFC)

              01

            • #
              RB

              Your turn for some evidence for those assertions. Have you any idea how condescending your reply is?

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                Gee Aye

                Yes it sounded so but all I can do is assert that I was not being condescending… but on the other hand you didn’t actually provide evidence for your assertion. I acknowledged that the answer you gave was interesting to me but that does not mean that you provided an evidence based argument.

                The history of Australian federal govt spending is in the public record

                01

              • #
                Dave

                Gee Aye
                Oh!
                2 years of this (do you want links) of just petty criticism

                95% of correspondents from their posts on other threads

                You used to pick up on scientific detail. Over 2 years ago!
                Especially mine, on jellyfish populations, on insurance claims in regard to fire, flood, storm, hail, cyclone, GBR, Soil erosion, Willows etc
                And I would provide you with the data either after your question or during the discussion

                In fact, many of your questions from over 2 years ago were recognized by many here, including MW, Jo and even MattyB as insightful inquiries. But now, your demeanor has changed to one of petty arguing!

                Now you are just becoming a JUDGE:
                “OH – this is my BLOG”

                You’ll probably get the poos with this GeeAye, but go back to your old skeptic self.

                Your last 189 comments contributed ZILCH toward the debate on hand, in fact just side tracked it, which I hope wasn’t your intention.

                Now, you just seem angry & sarcastic?

                The New Dave?
                Ehheee

                AFTER ALL
                The subject is about inner city rich GREEN VOTERS

                Keep on Tack GeeAye, go back to your old self

                I’m a rabid environmentalist, love botany, sustainability & debate.

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                RB

                “the rest of Australia responds to those who blurt out the blatantly obvious”

                I gave you a quote from Hawke’s election winning speech. “a framework of education and science policies to prepare our young people for the challenges of the 21st century;”

                That we still have to do that comes from the Education Revolution rhetoric from the last election. I will not cite a reference because it is well known. Here is a link for the the second assertion that “a strategy to boost exports and replace imports” hasn’t come to fruition, as if nobody was aware of this already.

                “The former then rise through the ranks and create a culture that hinders progress.” is my opinion from my own experiences, as is obvious.

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    • #
      Thomas The Tank Engine

      My, don’t you get touchy when you are nailed……

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    pat

    note how McKibben co-opts words (does he get tutored by director of the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication’s Anthony Leiserowitz, i wonder?)…

    examples:

    the bizarre use of “consensus” in the title

    “climate sanity”? what is that?

    “steadily rising toll of floods and droughts and melting glaciers” means the “relentless climate movement” will suffer losses!

    the “relentless climate movement” is now “conventional wisdom”; there’s a “carbon bubble” composed of “trillions of dollars” of fossil fuels that must stay underground, so that the “investors” can enjoy the desired “trillions of dollars” stock market “carbon bubble”, using the retirement funds of the baby boomer generation!

    10 March: Guardian: Bill McKibben: Pressure is growing. A relentless climate movement is starting to win big, unprecedented victories around the world, victories which are quickly reshaping the consensus view
    In the third piece in the Guardian’s major series on climate change, Bill McKibben describes how relentless climate movements have shifted the advantage towards fossil fuel resistance for the first time in 25 years. But he argues triumph is not certain – we must not rest till the industry is forced to keep the carbon in the ground…
    The actual story: what happens at Paris will be, at best, one small part of the climate story, one more skirmish in the long, hard-fought road to climate sanity…
    In fact, that relentless climate movement is starting to win big, unprecedented victories around the world, victories which are quickly reshaping the consensus view – ***including among investors – about how fast a clean energy future could come…
    Triumph is not certain – in fact, as the steadily rising toll of floods and droughts and melting glaciers makes clear, major losses are guaranteed…
    In Australia, which also boasts massive coal deposits, plans for the world’s largest mine in the Galilee Valley are foundering after the ruling party suffered a massive defeat in Queensland polls, throwing government subsidies for the mine into question. The fight comes with huge international implications – its Indian owners want to ship the coal back to the subcontinent where the new government has planned to double coal consumption…
    The math is so basic and easy that it’s quickly carried the day. What in 2013 was the rallying cry of a few student campaigners has by 2015 become the conventional wisdom: there’s a “carbon bubble,” composed of the trillions of dollars of coal and oil and gas that simply must be left underground…
    As the head of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund put it, “We are quite convinced that if John D Rockefeller were alive today, as an astute businessman looking out to the future, he would be moving out of fossil fuels and investing in clean, renewable energy.” This is the rough equivalent of the Pope appearing at his Vatican window in saffron robes to tell the crowd below he’s now a Hare Krishna, or Richard Dawkins showing up at Lourdes in a bathing suit…
    Increasingly they’ve fallen back on public relations, with some companies funding a PR guru named Rick Berman, who once worked for the tobacco industry and who promised at a secretly videotaped industry meeting to wage “endless war” against environmentalists. But their great offensive has been a damp squib, consisting mostly of lecturing greens that we can’t “turn off fossil fuels overnight”….
    No one thinks, of course, that we will get off fossil fuel overnight; there’s a couple of hundred years worth of infrastructure guaranteeing it will take a while…
    The best news, of course, is that the new renewables make the most sense in the developing world, where whole nations are poised to leapfrog past coal just as they went straight to mobile phones. They’ll need money to make that happen – which is why the most crucial decisions at Paris may be about providing financing for poor nations – but they’ve got the crucial ingredient: sunshine…
    http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/mar/09/climate-fight-wont-wait-for-paris-vive-la-resistance

    Guardian cheekily calls this the “third” in a “major series” on CC – as opposed to the third non-major piece of CC propaganda every day of the year, i guess

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      ianl8888

      … Richard Dawkins showing up at Lourdes in a bathing suit…

      Very good 🙂 🙂 🙂

      As someone or other remarked about the possibility of Mark Latham being tasered by police, I’d pay money to see that

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    TdeF

    Off topic, 2/3 page advertisement Page 12 of the Sun Herald.

    Recently,Dr Karl Kruszelnicki, renowned Australian scientist and author?

    Karl has an unused medical degree, not a Doctorate in science. He has a perfectly good B.Sc and an Masters degree in Biomedical Engineering and apparently lifelong interests in astrophysics and computing. Since when did that make him a renowned Scientist in any country?

    As one of the greatest spruikers of Global Warming leading a huge team of Greens at the ABC and arguing from authority, he has done a Flannery and presented himself as a leading professional scientist expert in meteorology and climate. Now he presents himself as an expert on the future, innovation and business development too when he has found his niche as a secure public servant doing no research.

    Worse, with the Greens having crippled the miners with taxation and removed then tax concessions to big business R&D as if they were handouts, effectively killing large scale R&D in this country, he sees R&D as the bright future to replace mining? Can we all work for the public service? Our children will have no choice, especially when the Greens kill farming too.

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      RB

      They have been yapping about R&D being Australia’s future since the first board meeting of the CSIRO. No computing industry. No rain seeding. Had to sue those who made something of Wi-Fi to get some money.

      The problem is that the rest of Australia responds to those who blurt out the blatantly obvious and ignore the more important question, ‘how?’. The former then rise through the ranks and create a culture that hinders progress.

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        They have been yapping about R&D being Australia’s future since the first board meeting of the CSIRO. No computing industry. No rain seeding.

        Hard to believe that the CSIRO have been doing cloud seeding since the 60’s.

        (Tony thinks to self) On no, Tony, please don’t mention the ‘C’ word. (Try explaining vapour trails to a greenie. Use the words Lapse Rate and just watch for the vacant expression. No one’s at home in there.)

        Tony.

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          A bit earlier than you claim Tony http://www.csiropedia.csiro.au/display/CSIROpedia/Cloud+seeding

          No one in my family are “greenies” but I know they would give you blank looks if you asked them about lapse rate. Are you suggesting that my family is stupid because they don’t know this?

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            Rereke Whakaaro

            Anybody who has run around a race track and measured the time taken, knows what a laps rate is. 🙂
            [Spelling with me is usually optional, but this time I was careful]

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              either that or something to do with the comparative attractiveness of regional Finns (which in turn has its own set hilarious homophones).

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          Eddie

          Isn’t lapse rate the uncanny ability of Greens to forget about their demonstrated unworkable Policy failures ?

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          RB

          Is ‘contrails’ the ‘c’ word? I saw that once. All the stuff that was used for cloud seeding were recited as stuff in contrails to control our minds. Weird.

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          ROM

          Tony;
          1967 drought here in western Victoria, the CSIRO did some of it’s first research on cloud seeding using silver iodide crystals spread from a big twin engined aircraft while it flew through the target clouds.

          A short story.
          One of the young guys I was teaching to fly gliders at the time was an Ag student at our local Longerenong agricultural college which is located a few kilometres NE of Horsham.
          He turned up one saturday at the gliding field very excited. He had just had a phone call on the previous day, friday, from Melbourne, the guts of which amounted to;
          You are one of our Ag students so we know that you have a background in Agriculture. The CSIRO are looking for somebody to train in cloud seeding over agricultural regions and we also know you are a glider pilot .
          So with your Ag background and your gliding experience we think you might fit the bill.
          Would you like to be a part of the CSIRO’s experimental cloud seeding team that is beginning operations in the Wimmera during this [ 1967 ] drought?

          Well here was a young unattached guy who was going to probably spend the rest of his working walking farmer’s paddocks and giving agronomic advice to farmers or the rest of his working life and literally out of the blue comes a single phone call that changed his whole life.

          According to the Cloud seeding pilots over the next few months Ian became the most experienced, unlicensed twin engine instrument [ blind flying ] pilot in Australia as they frequently flew into cloud for seeding with silver iodide crystals whenever cloud conditions were suitable.

          I had a trip or two while they cloud seeded over designated ground truthing areas where rainfall was measured and then compared to rainfall in areas outside of the target area. I flew the big twin engined aircraft for a while [ obviously under strong supervision on a couple of occassions.

          Ian went on to get his doctorate in cloud physics and then went on to head Tasmania’s Hydro cloud seeding division for quite a number of years.
          He told me many years later that from the Cloud seeders data they achieved about a 10% increase in rainfall over the western Tasmanian Reservoir catchment areas over a period of many years.

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    Leonard Lane

    Jo, I got a real chuckle from this, “The inner city Greens say they care about the planet and the poor, but it’s a moral-vanity-badge type of care.”
    In the US, anarchists in 19 century. communists in the 20th + beatniks, hippies, yuppies leftist greens, and no a return to know nothings, in the 21st.
    ACBHYLGKN I don’t know how to pronounce it, but, it does have nine letters. All these groups have several import concepts in common, but the most common one seems to be “Kill them if they disagree”. And the kill is seldom just rhetorical.

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    John Watt

    Political parties analysing other political parties. What a waste of space. Just like the Abbott/Turnbull festival of pop-analysis we were subjected to a week or so ago. Get rid of the pollies and the parties. Instead of media companies engaging a few selected people in opinion polls let’s all engage in nationwide decision polls. Enable all of us to contribute to the running of the country in a meaningful and useful way. Athens claims to have invented this system a couple of millennia ago…this time we should however, in deference to Greer and Pankhurst, give everyone a say.
    The out-of-a-job politicians, party apparatchiks and political journalists can do some useful analysis. Devise a range of real solutions for the nation’s problems.
    Let’s get free of the “going around in circles, going nowhere” management style we see Federally and soon to take effect in Queensland as each new government deletes the previous party’s efforts. If we as a nation select a solution to a problem , hopefully it will be an enduring solution needing just a little tweaking as the world around us changes.

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    Ian Bryce

    I suspect a lot of young people like my daughter, (A DINKS – Double Income No Kids), iwere fed up with the Labor Party, but found the Liberal polices too harsh, and too uncaring. Many don’t warm to Tony Abbott either, and his old fashioned conservative ideas. I suspect they would warm to Malcolm Turnbull on the other hand.

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      ianl8888

      I suspect they would warm to Malcolm Turnbull on the other hand

      Perhaps because they are unaware of the import of the Gordon Grech affair. Turnbull’s propensity for rushes of blood to the head needs to be better known before he is annointed again. Perhaps 60% of the current Fed Libs seem to know this, I dare say

      What is not well understood about Turnbull is the nature of his electorate – from the Cross to Watsons Bay, ranging through Paddo, Vaucluse, Bellevue Hill, Edgecliff, Double Bay, Rose Bay and so on. Although he is a self-made man (initially taking on the British Establishment by defending an ex-MI5 in court trying to publish memoirs), risking capital with a start-up email provider etc, his electorate are to some degree typed by the headline of this thread. They would never vote ALP of course, but 1. Lib 2. Green … maybe

      Originally, Turnbull was a non-“CO2 is evil” man but someone in his electorate started circulating a flyer pointing this out – he seems to have changed his mind somewhere around that time. I suspect Goldman-Sachs had not much to do with it till later

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      Bob Malloy

      Many don’t warm to Tony Abbott either, and his old fashioned conservative ideas.

      In case your not aware The Liberals are conservative by choice, so a leader with conservative ideas would fit well with their voter base.

      I suspect they would warm to Malcolm Turnbull on the other hand.

      You must dwell under a rock if you think Malcolm Turnbull would strengthen the Liberal vote by replacing Abbott. They may gain people like your daughter the “DINKS” but at what cost to their base.

      As a side note, I have never to this date voted Liberal, as a younger voter I did vote Labor on many occasions, no more. They no longer offer anything of substance to the voter base that was their strength, without greedy people that know under Labor they will get bigger handouts, without needing to contribute to society they would return similar numbers to the greens. Turnbull would just turn the Liberals into a second Labor, then the nation would really be stuffed.

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      Sceptical Sam

      Kiddies and swings and round-abouts.

      They jump on the round-about with Malthusian Mal and we jump off the swing with all the other Conservatives.

      Let’s see if Mal can do the arithmetic on that lot.

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      scaper...

      Speaking of Turnbull…whatever happened to the spill motion that everyone here was wetting their panties on the leadership thread a couple of weekends ago?

      I note I was attacked by someone because I knew it was crap. Gee, just imagine what the MPs would have thought about the barrage of emails they got over a rumour? I’m sure names have been logged to go into the junk mail bin in the future.

      Well done!

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        Yonniestone

        I don’t think anyone believed the spill was legit, they were outraged that the MSM was so hell bent on beating up the rumor into a pseudo national scoop, after months of publically tarnishing TA over invented flaws and indiscretions this was the last straw.

        I hope they got annoyed over a barrage of emails, it’s the least we could do after watching the piss weak performance of our elected representatives when the PM was being ambushed on a daily basis, the blemishing of my emails is of little concern to me compared to trying to plan a future when ours is being regressed.

        So if I’m to be ignored by my representatives then what?, refuse to pay tax, take to the streets?, these self entitled pricks will learn the true meaning of a democracy soon and they’ll wish for the days of being hassled with emails.

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        el gordo

        ‘I note I was attacked by someone because I knew it was crap.’

        I referred to it as a storm in a teacup, a media beatup, the Nats would never accept Turnbull because it would destroy the Coalition.

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    pat

    the journo bought with Hansjorg Wyss for the tax-exempt non-profit High Country News. funny how many of the CAGW-advocating entities don’t pay tax:

    26 Feb: High Country News DC: Gretchen King: D.C. correspondent to expand HCN’s reach
    At a time when many newsrooms are reducing staff, High Country News is growing –– by hiring a special Washington, D.C., correspondent. Starting in early March, Elizabeth Shogren will take on the task of covering how major Western issues play out on the national stage…
    Shogren worked as an environment correspondent with NPR for 10 years, covering climate change, the drilling boom, endangered species and pollution. Before that, she served as a national correspondent for the Los Angeles Times Washington Bureau…
    Funding for this position was made possible partly by a grant from the Wyss Foundation, through the Society of Environmental Journalists and the Fund for Environmental Journalism…
    http://www.hcn.org/media/2015/dc-correspondent-to-expand-hcns-coverage

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    pat

    don’t know if LA Times has filled this position, but obviously CAGW sceptics wouldn’t stand a chance:

    17 Feb: Poynter: L.A. Times National Energy and Environment Writer
    The Los Angeles Times is looking for an accomplished writer to explore energy and environment in the West…
    This reporter should have a strong familiarity with public lands policy, environmental regulation, energy development and water resource allocation, as well as with the complicated politics and economics that drive decision-making on these often-combative issues. The successful candidate will be able to dig deeply and write memorably on topics that are often dismissed as important but arcane…
    This is a job for an energetic reporter who wants to lead the pack in breaking important news, but who also has the resourcefulness to pursue investigations and the style to craft profiles and narratives that will help shape the public debate…
    This position is funded with a grant from the Society of Environmental Journalists’ Fund for Environmental Journalism, and will most likely be based in Denver…
    http://careers.poynter.org/jobs/6874674/la-times-national-energy-and-environment-writer

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    TedM

    I think the city greens are the leftovers of the old “Liberals for Forests” clowns, that left hundreds unemployed in the SW of WA about three elections ago.

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    pat

    9 March: Guido Fawkes UK: Labour MP Uses War Children in Climate Change Stunt
    Labour MP Barry Gardiner called for action on climate change over the weekend by tweeting a heart-wrenching picture purporting to show the devastation being wrought by global warming. There was just one problem, the children in the moving picture tweeted by Barry weren’t stricken by climate change – they were young Afghans struggling to survive in the rubble of war-torn Kabul. A bit low, even by loony green standards…
    http://order-order.com/2015/03/09/labour-mp-uses-war-children-in-climate-change-stunt/

    VIDEO:
    INTERVIEW WITH RICHARD SEAGER, (COLUMBIA UNI), CO-AUTHOR OF THE SYRIAN WAR/CC REPORT, BEGINS AT 44MINS 50SECS UNTIL 51MINS 13SECS.

    no different to the exploitation of people being killed in Syria to further the aims of the CAGW scam.

    Seager is abominable in the following interview on RT which i caught during the Cricket World Cup lunch break, with Hartmann lapping it up. Seager even places Lebanon in North Africa near the end of his interview.

    Hartmann then goes on a politically-partisan rant on the ALLEGED BAN on the use of the terms CC and GW in Florida, which he takes as gospel truth:

    INTERVIEW WITH RICHARD SEAGER, (COLUMBIA UNI), CO-AUTHOR OF THE SYRIAN WAR/CC REPORT, BEGINS AT 44MINS 50SECS UNTIL 51MINS 13SECS.

    THE ALLEGED BAN ON USING THE WORDS CC & GW IN FLORIDA BEGINS AT 52MINS 30SECS & IS ABOUT 5 MINS LONG.

    10 March: RT The Big Picture with Thom Hartmann: Doomed Florida denies climate change
    Columbia University Prof. Richard Seager talks climate change and its impact on the conflict in Syria. Thom gives his Daily Take – Doomed Florida Denies Climate Change…
    http://rt.com/shows/big-picture/239181-us-iran-syria-climate/

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    pat

    even The Guardian allows some doubt about the Syrian War/CAGW claims. nonetheless, Amy doesn’t doubt CAGW & Guardian has published articles about the study without raising doubt previously:

    9 March: Guardian: Amy Westervelt: Does climate change really cause conflict?
    While researchers agree that climate change can exacerbate human conflict, there are many that caution against using it to explain the root causes of war
    Any attempt by scholars over the past several years to link climate change with conflict has been hotly contested, and not just by climate deniers. Many respected conflict researchers believe that climate change is happening, that humans are contributing to it, and that it’s a big problem, but that focusing on it as a cause of war may be wrongheaded.
    The problem is both scientific and social. “If you want to show that climate change has contributed to an increase in civil violence, then you need to control for other factors,” explains Andrew Solow, senior scientist at the Wood Hollow Oceanographic Institute in Massachusetts. “This is a fundamental scientific principle. But it is difficult to do.”
    Half a dozen or so researchers have attempted to do this, and a few have come close. In 2013, Stanford researchers Sol Hsiang and Marshall Burke, for example, conducted a meta-analysis of 50 studies on conflict and climate change and found that higher temperatures and extreme precipitation tend to correlate with greater incidence of conflict…
    But dig into any particular case and the connection is less clear-cut. “The factors influencing civil violence can be quite complicated and vary in complicated ways from situation to situation,” Solow says. “It’s like what Freud said about unhappy families: they are all unhappy in different ways.”…
    In a statement that accompanied Hsiang and Burke’s study, for example, Hsiang wrote: “There’s no conflict that we think should be wholly attributed to some specific climatic event. Every conflict has roots in interpersonal and intergroup relations. What we’re trying to point out is that climate is one of the critical factors [that] affect how things escalate, and if they escalate to the point of violence.”
    Although some have criticized the pair’s attempts to quantify how climate change impacts the risk of conflict, the bulk of the criticism – both of the Stanford study and the more recent study linking climate change with the conflict in Syria – has been of the media’s oversimplified take on the research…
    ***Each time a study on this connection is released, the majority of headlines tend to be along the lines of “War Linked to Global Warming.” Newspapers might be excused for using such headlines as opposed to the more accurate but unwieldy: “Global Warming Might Exacerbate Some of the Factors that Can Lead to Conflict”. But scientists warn that when discussing these issues, nuance is important…
    Climate as threat multiplier
    It might be more accurate to consider climate change in the way that people at the Pentagon has come to think of it, as a “threat multiplier”…
    “I’ll put this in a crude way: no amount of climate change is going to cause civil violence in the state where I live (Massachusetts), or in Sweden or many other places around the world,” Solow says. “If we want to reduce the level of violence in other places, then it would be more efficient to focus on these factors: to bring people out of abject poverty, to provide them with the technology that loosens the connection between climate and survival, to reduce corruption, and so forth, rather than on preventing climate change. I sometimes have the feeling that some people only care about human suffering if it can be traced to climate change.”
    http://www.theguardian.com/vital-signs/2015/mar/09/climate-change-conflict-syria-global-warming

    Richard Seager’s long-time pal, Jeffrey Sachs, gets to promote Seager et al at the Guardian again:

    10 March: Guardian: Jeffrey Sachs: ‘By separating nature from economics, we have walked blindly into tragedy’
    Economic policy must be combined with climate and technology if we are to stand any chance of saving ourselves, argues the prominent American economist
    ***My colleagues at the Earth Institute of Columbia University recently detailed how Syria’s disastrous war was triggered in part by a devastating drought that itself was a signal of long-term drying in the eastern Mediterranean. Others have used sophisticated climate models and a deep reading of past climate history to show that California’s extreme drought is a foreshadowing of mega-droughts ahead in the 21st century in the US southwest and mid-plains states, as a result of human-induced climate change…
    A zero-carbon global energy system, for example, is within reach thanks to breakthroughs in renewable energy and efficient energy transmission and use…
    We have entered a new age of sustainable development whether we like it or not, even whether we recognise it widely or not…
    (Jeffrey Sachs is director of The Earth Institute at Columbia University)
    http://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2015/mar/10/jeffrey-sachs-economic-policy-climate-change

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    pat

    ***this is obviously an attempt to stir up controversy as publicity for the documentary “Merchants of Smear”, but must be noted:

    9 March: Environment & Energy Publishing (E&E): ADVOCACY: ‘Merchants of Doubt’ emails spark fiery debate about strategies of climate skeptics
    by Evan Lehmann, Climatewire
    Before the release this Friday of the documentary “Merchants of Doubt,” S. Fred Singer sought the advice of nearly 30 climate skeptics about their chances of halting the movie and whether he should sue Naomi Oreskes, who co-authored the book on which it’s based.
    “Has she finally gone too far?” asked Singer.
    The discussion is outlined in a chain of emails initiated last fall by the 90-year-old physicist, who is featured in the film for his work questioning the amount of influence people have on rising temperatures. His request reached a mix of academics and others who have been mostly antagonistic toward mainstream climate findings. ClimateWire obtained the emails from a source who received them as a forwarded message…
    The wider discussion is viewed by some as a window into the network of skeptical scientists, bloggers and conservative think tank scholars who often raise objections to mainstream climate science. The tactics discussed — like lawsuits and grievances — reflect previous efforts to constrain critics of Singer and others through legal attacks, or the threat of them, several people involved with the movie say…
    “I think there’s a pattern,” Kenner said of Singer’s letter in an interview. “It’s to come after and try to silence critics and to intimidate. And when [Singer] implies litigation is very expensive, I think it’s an attempt to be intimidating.”
    On the other hand, it might be going too far to suggest that Singer’s goal is to stifle his critics if he feels he’s been slandered, said Andrew Hoffman, a professor at the University of Michigan who studies the behavior of climate skeptics.
    Singer says he believes the movie refers to him as a “liar for hire,” though he hasn’t seen it. That’s false, he said, noting that he believes genuinely that humans have little effect on climate change…
    But does the movie say that?
    No, said Kenner, who provided a transcript of the scene with Singer to ClimateWire.
    **He and others say it appears to be a phrase created by a media outlet that reviewed the film.
    Besides, lying isn’t a common tool of skeptical scientists, Oreskes said. These contrarians are generally successful, and trusted by some, in one field or another.
    “This isn’t about lying,” Oreskes said. “This is something much more terrible, in a way. Much more devious. A kind of what we call doubtmongering.”…
    In his October emails, Singer reaches out to some of the most recognizable opponents of mainstream climate science and policies, including Willie Soon, Patrick Michaels, Anthony Watts, Steven Milloy, Joe Bastardi and Joe Bast.
    An English climate change denier, Christopher Monckton, viscount of Brenchley, responded to Singer’s request for advice by saying he would “draft the complaint” for a lawsuit, but Singer never followed up…

    ***The pre-release controversy around the movie provides more than just a glimpse into the stormy messaging strategies on climate change. It also promotes the film. But does it help convey the facts?

    Hoffman, of the University of Michigan, says tit-for-tats between mainstream and contrarian researchers tend to raise the profile of skeptical scientists, despite their relatively small number. He pointed to the recent inquiries undertaken by Democratic members of Congress, who want the identity of donors who help fund skeptical academics, as an advantage for those who challenge climate science.
    “Frankly, this degradation benefits the skeptics,” Hoffman said.
    http://www.eenews.net/stories/1060014671

    **why don’t they declare it was Eric Alterman at The Nation who coined the “Liars for Hire” term?

    15 Oct 2014: The Nation: Eric Alterman: A New Documentary Profiles Liars for Hire
    The New York Film Festival, now in its fifty-second year, is unusual in that it combines big-money extravaganzas like Gone Girl and Birdman with small, worthy films whose publicity budgets would barely cover the cost of Ben Affleck’s body waxings…
    A new documentary shown twice at the festival, and scheduled to be released in March, got my attention. Merchants of Doubt is directed by Robert Kenner and based on the 2010 book by Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway, two esteemed historians of science…
    The pioneers in the field are not only the liars for hire employed by the tobacco industry for so many decades, but also Cold War scientists like Robert Jastrow, Fred Seitz and William Nierenberg, who initially founded the George C. Marshall Institute to promote Ronald Reagan’s Star Wars boondoggle and then switched gears to lie about climate change—a task in which they’ve been joined by scientist/snake-oil salesman Fred Singer, who also cares more about opposing all forms of corporate regulation than he does about truth…
    http://www.thenation.com/article/182209/new-documentary-profiles-liars-hire

    some of the confusion began with Ron Arnold’s guest post at WUWT:

    20 Oct 2014: WUWT: Slimed by Naomi Oreskes – In Defense of Dr. Fred Singer
    Guest opinion by Ron Arnold
    The Oreskes documentary calling Dr. Fred Singer a “Liar for Hire” is a repeat of a nearly identical attack on him twenty years ago…
    Comment: John Whitman: From the main post by Ron Arnold and its links, I cannot find a recent video or a transcript or a document by Naomi Oreskes where she actually has (recently) called Singer a ‘Liar for Hire’.
    Can someone point me to where Oreskes recently said that?
    Comment: Matthew R. Marler: John Whitman, I see what you mean. The phrase seems to be due to the reviewer of the documentary film which is called “Merchants of Doubt”, not due to Oreskes…

    I was in on those emails, and the bizarre childish taunts last months. Fred Singer is an exceptional, excellent man. – Jo

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    pat

    i have a Climatewire “leaked emails” smear of Fred Singer (in reality a promo for the “Merchants of Doubt” docu) in moderation so, if this background comment on E&E/Climatewire goes thru first (i’m off to bed so can’t wait til it’s out of moderation), then refer back to this once the smear piece goes through:

    March 2014: NiemanLab: Caroline O’Donovan: E&E Publishing is spending a lot of money on reporting most people won’t ever see
    Seventy-five journalists and subscription prices that can stretch past $100,000: The energy and environment publisher has built a big content engine for a small community of subscribers.
    There’s a private company based in Washington that employs around 75 journalists. It has reporters in ten cities worldwide, including Houston, Dallas, L.A., San Francisco, Denver, St. Louis, Minneapolis, New York City, and Atlanta. It was founded in 1998 and has been growing steadily ever since. Annual subscriptions cost between $2,000 and $150,000, and subscribers include both Greenpeace and the Heritage Foundation. Somewhere around 70 new stories are published by this organization everyday. It has an in-house television studio, where new digital video content is filmed daily, and it recently expanded its staff…
    E&E used to have a content partnership with The New York Times, but that ended a few years ago. Today, some of their content (mostly ClimateWire) is republished by Scientific American and, occasionally, Accuweather. But with an annual subscription price in the thousands of dollars, it’s obvious that what E&E’s reporters are producing is not meant for the average consumer.
    “Our client base is the usual suspects for people who are dealing with these kind of policy issues,” says Braun. “Law firms, federal agencies, state agencies, governors, Congress, the World Bank, major corporations, particularly energy companies, industrial manufacturers, environmental groups. We have a very large university audience, a very large think tank and foundation audience.”…
    For example, E&E has three reporters based in Texas covering the oil and gas industries, two of whom used to work for Bloomberg…
    http://www.niemanlab.org/2014/03/ee-publishing-is-spending-a-lot-of-money-on-reporting-most-people-wont-ever-see/

    April 2008: Columbia Journalism Review: Curtis Brainard: E&E News Launches ClimateWire
    (Kevin) Braun and his business partner, Michael Witt, founded E&E Publishing in 1998 with seven employees, and have steadily built the company ever since. But the swiftest growth has occurred during the last six months, according to Braun, during which time E&E has climbed from a staff of thirty-five to fifty. Still, the outlet is not very well known among general, mass-market audiences. It has around 40,000 “regular readers,” most of whom come from the slightly less than 2,000 institutional subscribers that comprise local, state, and national governments, embassies, major corporations, universities, think tanks, law firms, consultants, lobbyists, and environmental groups…
    “I was on my way to being a journalism professor when I left The Wall Street Journal,” said veteran journalist John Fialka, whom Braun hired to run ClimateWire after he left his former employer in January…
    “It’s a fairly elite audience,” he told me. “They know the issue. You can write in more detail for them, and they appear to be hungry for that.”…
    http://www.cjr.org/the_observatory/ee_news_launches_climatewire.php?page=all

    whilst hefty subscription fees from CAGW “insiders” allegedly pay for this outlet, it is obviously well-connected in DC. it would therefore, be interesting to know who the source was who leaked the emails:

    Wikipedia: Wikipedia: Environment & Energy Publishing (E&E)
    Based in Washington, D.C., it publishes approximately 70 global energy and environmental news stories each day. Founded in 1998, as of 2014 it employs 75 journalists in ten cities worldwide. Annual subscriptions cost between $2,000 and $150,000…
    Environment & Energy Daily covers the progress of legislation as it works its way from hearings and markups, through the House and Senate floors, to the president’s desk…
    Areas of focus include US state programs, US federal legislation, the development of a post-Kyoto climate regime, Kyoto protocol implementation issues, natural resource effects from a changing climate and how corporations are adapting to a greenhouse gas constrained world. ClimateWire also reports on: alternative energy finance, research and deployment; US federal agency programs, and the science of climate change…

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    pat

    jo, but so typical that the sordid affair is being resurrected to coincide with the release of “Merchants of Doubt”.

    naturally, it is in Scientific American as well, under their arrangement with E&E.

    9 March: Scientific American: Merchants of Doubt about Global Warming Hope to Strike Back
    Climate change deniers look to file lawsuits against those exposing their actions
    By Evan Lehmann and ClimateWire
    http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/merchants-of-doubt-about-global-warming-hope-to-strike-back/

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    pat

    not recommending anyone listen to the following, but i accidentally heard Denniss on radio last nite, but didn’t know what station it was, or who it was (turned out to be a weak signal from a Northern NSW ABC RN on daylight saving time).

    i honestly thought it was a high school graduate &, as there was no audience response until uproarious laughter followed an anti-abbott joke (about him being Minister for Women), i thought the guy was talking to an near empty school-room of his bored peers.

    it’s an hour-long attack on the Coalition Govt/Intergenerational Report, with the Coalition as the “Punishers” (made clear by naming names) vs the “Progressive Enlargers”, (unnamed tho obviously meant to include the audience, who i later figured probably included the Canberra Press Gallery & friends).

    Denniss begins with an attack on economists/Joe Hockey saying, if economists can’t predict what interest rates will be in 3 months, or what inflation will be in a year’s time, then how could they possibly predict what the Austn economy will be like in a hundred years. says if they claim they can, they’re talking crap.

    yet he sprinkles CAGW claims e about the climate in a hundred years’ time as gospel truth all through his talk & ends by saying unless we tackle CAGW, we haven’t grown up…and we’re failing the children, of course.

    AUDIO: 10 March: ABC Big Ideas: The 2015 Manning Clark lecture
    Is it possible to plan 100 years into the future? What are enlargers and punishers and what influence have they had on Australia’s past, present and possible futures? Richard Denniss delivers the 2015 Manning Clark lecture and asks what can economists learn from one of this country’s most influential historians…
    http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/bigideas/what-can-economists-learn-from-manning-clark/6293242

    Sarrah would have been laughing along at the Richard Denniss lecture, no doubt. News Ltd continues its attack on the PM:

    9 March: Herald Sun: Sarrah Le Marquand: It’s time for Tony Abbott to fire himself as the Minister for Women
    Long before he assumed the Prime Ministership, Tony Abbott was seen as having something of an image problem with female voters. So it was with much amusement — and even more scepticism — that his decision to appoint himself as the Minister for Women in September 2013 was met.
    PHOTO CAPTION: Tony Abbott puts on his most ponderous face as he ponders his role as Minister for Women.
    Eighteen months later it would appear Abbott has failed to win many admirers with his performance in the unlikely portfolio, with calls for him to replace himself gaining momentum to the extent that Women’s Agenda has launched a Change.org petition asking him to step aside.
    “Given Tony Abbott’s record on matters relating to women his self-appointment to the women’s portfolio seemed almost comical,” recalls Georgina Dent, editor of Women’s Agenda…
    http://www.heraldsun.com.au/rendezview/its-time-for-tony-abbott-to-fire-himself-as-the-minister-for-women/story-fnpug1je-1227255487555
    2 comments only. first is by [email protected]
    Move on Sarah. An article about pettiness.

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