Climate change is making us mean, ugly and racist

Don’t turn on the air conditioner. You might make someone a racist:

Climate change is spawning injustice, racism, intolerance and wars, according to author and political activist Naomi Klein. 

Got moral decay? High Priestess Naomi Klein, expert psychoanalyst, says blame the weather. John Vidal, writer for The Guardian, believes her:

“It is not about things getting hotter and wetter but things getting meaner and uglier, unless we change the corrosive values that are pitting people against each other,”…

See, some people think mums and dads are supposed to teach values, but really it’s a humidity thing.

(Obviously, the way to fight racism is with biogas.

…and maybe ethanol.)

Naomi’s thesis reminds us that when the weather was ideal — like in 1915, there were no wars and everyone liked everyone.

She urged people to make the links between climate change and conflict. “Anti-austerity people rarely talk about climate change. And climate change people rarely talk about war. Overcoming these disconnections is the most pressing task for anyone occupied with social justice.

Yes, stop ISIS now — send in the windmills!

“There is no clean, safe way to run an economy built on fossil fuels. There is no peaceful way to do it…

Because seven billion people would be at peace if they used horses, carts, ate bark and razed the tropics for the firewood.

“We are running out of cheap ways to get to fossil fuels. This sees the rise of fracking which is now threatening some of the prettiest places in Britain.”

And the prettiest places in Britain used to be 300 meters under the North Sea.  They’re gone now.

Soon frakking may ruin the rocks under Lancashire.

What we really need is colder weather. It made Napolean a lot nicer.

“Fossil fuels, which are the principal driver of climate change, require the sacrifice of whole regions and people. Sacrificial zones like the Niger delta and the tar sands in Alberta, Canada, dot the world.

If we could only pave Niger with solar panels we could spare the Niger delta.

“These zones require the shredding of treaties that enable peoples to live on their land. Indigenous rights are meaningless when the land is being [destroyed] and the rivers are polluted. Resource extraction is a form of violence because it does so much damage and kills cultures,” she said.

Paleolithic people ate treaties for breakfast and burned indigenous rights to keep warm. The violence of resource extraction destroyed the Bronze Age culture and brought the horrors of ballet.

——————–

Marvel that John Vidal of  The Guardian can write up the bible according to Naomi as if it were news? 

9 out of 10 based on 65 ratings

150 comments to Climate change is making us mean, ugly and racist

  • #
    Spetzer86

    I marvel that Naomi has to fly all over the world to tell us not to use fossil fuels.

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    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      I always assumed that Naomi used a birch broomstick — they are renewable, and very traditional, after all.

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      • #
        Peter Miller

        I am not sure Jo meant to do this, but as a result of this post Naomi Klein has now received more attention from thinking people than she has ever had before.

        While the general prognosis on Naomi’s odd beliefs lies somewhere between ridicule and disbelief, the only exception being the fantasy world of Guardianspeak where a strict regime of politically correct thoughts are rigidly enforced.

        So when the coming La Niña is at its most intense in 12 months from now and the Earth has cooled, does that bring with it a welcome respite from her concept of injustice, racism, intolerance and wars? That, of course, will be welcome news to the good citizens of California, as they watch their dams and rivers dry up.

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  • #
    Pat Frank

    It’s quite clear that Naomi Klein suffers from a tragic psychophysiology that is acutely sensitive to ambient CO2 levels.

    As the latter have increased, one observes an corresponding increase of fatuity in her statements, indicating that her IQ has steadily diminished. This is called a negative CO2 feedback. 🙂

    It appears, perhaps, that John Vidal suffers from the same trait.

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    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      Psychology of Propaganda 101:

      “Tell a big enough lie, often enough, and everyone will believe it to be the truth. Once a person fully accepts the lie to be the truth, they will actively promulgate it, and in doing so will reinforce their belief and acceptance of the lie.” — Joseph Goebbels

      I am sure that I am not qualified to have a professional opinion, but does Naomi Klein conform to this conditioning, I wonder?

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      • #
        Robert Austin

        It is akin to the “big lie” but it is actually the big idiocy. The technique is to spew ideas so utterly idiotic that a certain audience laps it up with credulous zeal because the idea appeals to some subconscious desire. There is this yearning for man to reap the product of his/her sins that is endemic to the effete academic and leftist classes. And needless to say, these Chicken Littles assume that after the predicted climate holocaust, they will inherit the mantle of power because the great unwashed will finally recognize their wisdom and prescience. Hence the dichotomy of Joe average thinking that CAGW is BS and the “intellectual elite” swallowing the dogma whole and undigested. As a Canadian, I am embarrassed that Klein is a compatriot, but at least we have Steve McIntyre as a counterbalance.

        10

  • #
    James Murphy

    As much as I support the freedom of people like Naomi Klein to express such ignorant, emotive, manipulative, and erroneous views, I very much wish that no one would take them seriously.

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    • #
      Leonard Lane

      Yes James I agree she has her right to free speech.
      But what she says is so tedious, depressing, and discouraging.
      Oh well, sometimes one does get tired of inane, and insane propaganda and baseless cries of racism. Sigh

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  • #
    John Robertson

    Priceless.
    News Flash;” Naomi smells moral decay”
    Possibly for the reason the first to smell flatulence is usually the source.

    I see a fine JOSH cartoon, Naomi who has had her head firmly inserted in her rectum for years, smells something rotten.
    She is a truly magnificent spokesthing for Gang Green.

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  • #
    Greg

    It’s embarrassing that she is seen as one of the better known Canadian intellectuals. I’d rather they quoted Justin Beiber, less embarrassing to me as a Canadian

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    • #
      James Murphy

      It’s OK Greg, I don’t see her as an ‘intellectual’, or as a typical Canadian (not compared to the many I have worked with, anyway!), she’s just another proselytising, sanctimonious, regressive, fact-free, human-hating mouthpiece.

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      • #
        Rereke Whakaaro

        She is The Joke, formally known as “Naomi”.

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        • #
          OriginalSteve

          She is a “desk thumper” akin to the nonsense you see on the “current affairs” shows normally seen around 6:30pm on weeknights….

          I decided to rename those “current affairs” shows to “How dare they, those mongrels…”…cue tabbny cat haircut of host and camera pans back to show host in ad breaks yakking to her mate Johhno on her phone, with feet up on desk while flicking off a ciggie into an ash tray…have I missed anything?

          30

    • #
      Greg Cavanagh

      How come your icon is happy and mine is grumpy. I want to swap.

      —-
      REPLY: Go to Gravatar and set whatever icon you want. :- )- Jo

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      • #
        What Class?

        you pays your money and take what’s given.

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      • #
        Greg Cavanagh

        Thanks Jo, I didn’t know that. But I think I’ve been with this avatar too long now. I wouldn’t be the same person if I changed.

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  • #
    Reed Coray

    Theorem: CO2 causes stupidity.

    Proof: Naomi Klein

    QED

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    • #
      What Class?

      You could have a point there. My indoor plants thrive on it and their intellects aren’t the greatest; haven’t written a decent paper in ages. Maybe there’s a link between CO2 and ‘Naomi’. There’s that unfortunate Oreskes woman who’s also terminally stupid.

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      • #
        gnome

        I’m sure when I drop the “g” I’ll be just as bad as they are. The Gnaomis were probably alright in their younger days.

        The still retain the rights to Gnaomi McGnomeface.

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  • #

    Naomi Klein should read my book: The Academic Ape: Instinctive aggression and boundary enforcing behaviour in academia available to idiots like her from Amazon … but free to sceptics.

    (Now please don’t ask “where” … because real sceptics will have no problems finding it).

    00

  • #
    David S

    I do think that global warming alarmism indeed could lead to greater racism ugliness and wars. Warmists show the intolerances and ignorance that are the precursors to conflicts and prejudice. They show such a hatred of the human race I despair at the level of influence they have and the future consequences if they are allowed to dominate global politics.

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    • #
      James Murphy

      They are already dominating global politics, or we wouldn’t be here talking about it.

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    • #
      Greg Cavanagh

      You are right David. I get the impression they’d go to war to bring peace to their opponents.
      And they’d completely miss the dichotomy within that statement (that they have opponents).

      They rail at their own people for not believing their every word, yet say nothing regarding India, China or Russia completely ignoring the whole fiasco.

      They want us to believe them at any cost. Even our own lives. It’s a small price to pay for their peace.

      The politicians are either bought and sold for a price, or they have their own strongly held beliefs (right or wrong) and will get those policies through come hell or high water.

      The world is truly a messed up place. Not in the Green Peace way of thinking, but in the social and authority structure world. No wonder we get grumpier as we get older.

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      • #
        mike restin

        “The politicians are either bought and sold for a price, or they have their own strongly held beliefs (right or wrong) and will get those policies through come hell or high water.
        How did you ever come up with a second option suggesting politicians have moral standards?

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  • #

    Just a comment – under the normal definition of “racist”, it racist to falsely ascribe something to “race” – but that surely means Naomi is being a racist by falsely seeing a racial motive where none exists.

    00

  • #
    Casey

    Next to come:

    “Climate change supports terrorism”

    Followed by

    “Climate change supports paedophiles”

    ANY lie to support THE lie..

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    • #
      Yonniestone

      Climate change turned me into a Newt…….I got better.

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      • #
        Rereke Whakaaro

        Seriously? I mean, really seriously? Like being seriously, serious?

        I never knew you got better …

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        • #
          Graeme No.3

          But what does ‘better’ mean in the Newt language?

          After all ‘sustainable’ means cold and misery in Naomi speak.

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          • #
            Rereke Whakaaro

            Good point!

            If each of us had our own private language, that only we understood, as individuals, it would avoid all of the misunderstanding, and confusion, and argument, that is the inevitable byproduct of civilisation.

            Ye Gods! That is brilliant, Graeme.

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          • #
            Greg Cavanagh

            I always thought Humpty Dumpty was an out of place character in the story of Alice and Wonderland. He was too silly, and added nothing to the story. Yet he embodies the very essence of some people’s world.

            I am amazed at Lewis Carroll and his insights into the human condition, and with people who conform to the stereotypes he portrayed.

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            • #
              sophocles

              I love the Red Queen. 🙂 … the solution to every problem is unapproachable.

              20

            • #
              OriginalSteve

              Well given the current thread, I know someone who would play the Queen quite well “off with their heads”….

              Actually, I recall ‘Queenie’ from Black Adder…which is probably more accurate….”Hands up , who likes me???”

              20

    • #
      AndyG55

      ““Climate change supports terrorism””

      Actually, the climate change agenda is very much a form of terrorism.

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      • #
        AndyG55

        And Klein is one of the major terrorisers…

        Always trying to spark up some imagined horror.

        Its is not climate change that is spawning all these horrors she talks of…..

        it is the CLIMATE CHANGE AGENDA.

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        • #
          Analitik

          Actually, she is behind The Leap Manifesto which is a very thinly disguised presentation of Agenda 21 (updated the The 30 Agenda) aimed at galvinising public opinion. Climate Change is merely a tool to try and gain control so that the Agendas can be implemented.

          https://leapmanifesto.org/en/the-leap-manifesto/#manifesto-content

          As an aside, I find any policy or document labelled as a “manifesto” creates a negative reaction in me – this is why I have real trouble regarding the ALA as a serious political option.

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        • #
          OriginalSteve

          Actually, people criticize Alex Jones, but she is no different…all she’d need would be a chewed off cigar sticking out the side of her mouth like the mythical Sgt Rock and you’d be spot on…..

          20

    • #

      Climate change is spawning injustice, racism, intolerance and wars, according to author and political activist Naomi Klein.

      The only ones that I’ve noted who fit this bill are the climate change worriers. They are the ones who seem to be unjust, intolerant and violent towards anyone that doesn’t follow their beliefs, even racist if the person is a sceptic.

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      • #
        Greg Cavanagh

        My thoughts exactly. It’s classic Projection, all the way down.

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        • #
          ROM

          bemused & Greg Cavanagh @ # 8.3

          Jo’s headline

          Climate change is making us mean, ugly and racist

          My immediate thoughts also are the parallel with your comments above.

          The mean, the ugly, the racist, examples being increasing left / green / AGW cultists rising anti semitism, increasing denigration of anybody who is held to be of a white skin, no leftard criticism of daesh and etc and etc.

          The really, really ugly is the exclusive preserve of Naomi Klein’s side of hard left ideology with its demands for the beheading of leading skeptics, a demand made by a Greenpeace activist never refuted by the Greenpeace or the greens or any of the global warming catastrophe cult.
          Plus the video of the blowing up of kids who failed to immediately toe the totalitarian line on global warming.
          Plus the numerous calls from CAGW fanatics including from CAGW cult believing politicians, to goal skeptics.
          Plus the firing and disgraceful denigration of a number of skeptical academics and researchers by ivory towered academic ideologists, who dared to question, to be publicly somewhat skeptical of the entire basis behind the CAGW catastrophe claims.
          Plus the endless funding of deliberately science corrupting and poll fabricating outfits like SkS.
          Plus the US Democrat politicians attempts to both force dissenting skeptics to make public ALL of their private communications and then to bring criminal charges against them for daring to question the CAGW cult’s beliefs.

          Plus plus many, many more similar hate filled attempts to muzzle anybody who dares to even doubt let alone question the CAGW cult ideology.

          Naomi Klein is right!

          In her’s and her fellow political traveller’s and believer’s case, “climate change” has brought out and exposed to the full glare of the populace, the truly ugly, the truly vicious, the truly mean, the truly anti Semitic, anti-white man bigotry and racism, the truly corrupt and much more that is evil, they are all right there for all to see, right along side of Naomi Klein on her side of the political fence.

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    • #
      Horace Jason Oxboggle

      Has no one other than me noticed that wind turbines are almost always white, and tall? Surely there’s a racist element that she can exploit?

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  • #
    sophocles

    Well, well, well. Now the Duke of Wellington has a new excuse: “The Climate made me do it.” I’m sure Napoleon will appreciate it. He thought it was because of the Bourbons

    , but really it’s a humidity thing.

    Oh dear. If we thought war was all about theft of the `enemy’ resources then we must be wrong. It’s all about bad humours from Fossil Fuels. Thus spake the Great Klein. Has anyone surveyed the mosquitoes?

    How come the French and English fought so many wars over the Middle Ages? Was it the kerosene? Or was that for burning witches? I know! It must have been because of the higher humidity from the higher temperatures from the Medieval Warming! Remember, it was Warm then.

    And of course, commercial rivalry couldn’t possibly have sparked the first three of the four Anglo-Dutch wars of the 17th and 18 centuries, the French Revolution and The American Revolution. That was the worst part of the Little Ice Age when a bit of humidity would have been very welcome, instead of high-speed advancing glaciers.

    The fourth Anglo-Dutch war one couldn’t possibly have been caused by Dutch aid to the American Revolution. I would like to see the causes of the French and American Revolutions expressed in such terms. Liberty, Fraternity and Equality along with No Taxation without Representation would have to be binned.

    They must all have been triggered by all the CO2 and nitrates in the gunpowder they burnt just trying to get out.

    At least The Great Klein has given us a decent metric by which we can measure the accuracy of her claims: keep a close eye on Lancashire. When it starts sinking, we will know Klein (On Frakking) was right.

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    • #

      Who can ferget, on the eve of the
      French Revolution, those long winters,
      and delayed Spring plantings of the 1780’s?
      The coldest winter of a the decade,1789, 57
      days straight of frost, killing fruit trees
      and stored grain and vegetables, sure made
      the serfs restless, angry and mean even!

      Thank heavens the planet’s been greening
      of late.

      50

  • #
    AZ1971

    War is a response to a difference of values, primarily aggression or oppression. It exists irrespective of climate. Only a complete nutter could stretch such psychoanalytical trollop into proof of theory.

    Thankfully, Naomi Klein fits the definition of “complete nutter” to a tee.

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    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      The first world war started, when the Archduke Ferdinand was shot by a man who was mentally ill, due to the effects of climate change, brought on by the decomposition of horse manure in the streets.

      That makes about the same amount of sense, as anything else that Ms Klein spouts, regarding the climate debate.

      180

      • #
        OriginalSteve

        Ironically, as horse manure decomposes it releases heat…..if we buy lots of her books we can stay warm….

        30

  • #
    Yonniestone

    In recent times my wife and I have been publicly abused for opposing the acceptance of a misogynistic, pedophillic, violent, oppressive backwards cult in this country while standing under our national flag so you can throw in ‘climate change denial’ as well, thanks Naomi for giving frightened dullards another excuse to project their limited grasp on reality onto those trying to protect them, really f&^%$ng appreciate it.

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  • #
    Ruairi

    The climate can also unhinge,
    Many warmists who endlessly whinge,
    That climate-change dread,
    Caused from A to Z,
    And many a skeptic to cringe.

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  • #
    Pauly

    So many intellectuals in the intelligensia! So little understanding.

    There are so many metrics that can be used to show, as a civilisation, how things have been improving for mankind over the centuries: increasing lifespan, increasing levels of education, decreasing rates of violence, decreasing crime rates, increasing wealth, increasing happiness, increasing knowledge, increasing freedoms, increasing gender equality, … The list goes on.

    Sure, there is “injustice”, because the rates of improvement around the world are not the same. And there is intolerance, because we are still tribal by nature – just watch any team sport!

    But to suggest that climate change is the causal factor indicates that Naomi Klein should be nominated as a lead author for a new chapter in the IPCC’s next assessment report.

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    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      You forget to mention that our current level of civilisation is required, to support the nonproductive intelligensia.

      They will be the canaries in the coal mine, when civilisation really starts to collapse.

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      • #
        AndyG55

        ” the nonproductive intelligensia. ”

        Klein could certainly be classed a “non-productive”

        … but as “intelligentsia”… only in her own fantasy world.!

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        • #
          OriginalSteve

          “The C ship would contain all the people who made things and did things, and the … they were all wiped out by a virulent disease contracted from a dirty telephone. … “

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  • #
    Manfred

    Climate change is spawning injustice, racism, intolerance and wars…

    Naomi Klein, a vibrant cultural marxist, epitomizes the societal destruction engendered by ‘critical theory‘ in action. It frames her miserable, hopeless and inhuman world view.

    Encapsulated beautifully here, by the following:

    “Critical theory is the application of criticisms beyond the what civilized people recognize with the term “constructive criticism.” Therein lies the answer to the question. Critical Theory is the employ of DESTRUCTIVE criticism. The social transformation sought by its adherents is the destruction of happiness, of seeking to make everyone dissatisfied with life. It’s ultimate end is the destruction of human life and a recognisable societal fabric, replacing it with every man at every other man’s throat.

    What I’m suggesting is the Critical Theory serves a definition of evil that I’ve seen but about which I’ve never seen written before. Mortimer Adler once defined love as the emotion wherein another’s happiness is essential to your own. The form of evil we see behind critical theory is the emotion wherein everyone else’s misery is essential to your happiness. Critical Theorists will not rest until everyone else is dead or wishing they were.

    End Goal: All oppression is connected. Cultural marxism offers this end goal, a Desolate form of eternal warfare between ever more narrowly defined groups of offended minorities.

    The only meaningful consequence is the marginalisation of tradition European culture.

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    • #
      Roy Hogue

      The one thing that’s certain is that if all this continues, all happiness will indeed be destroyed. But humans are very adaptable. We don’t mind becoming drones in someone else’s beehive, do we? After all, there are already so many of them. So I think that proves the point. Humans will survive even this present madness.

      Destructive criticism has been practiced for a long time to silence dissenters wherever they pop up. It’s already gone a long way toward its goal.

      I school I was taught that humans are all born with a spine. Whatever do they do with it between birth and adulthood? All it would take to kill off this nonsense is for the people to stop caring what some expert thinks of them, put up with some hardship if it comes and win the day.

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      • #
        Manfred

        We don’t mind becoming drones in someone else’s beehive, do we?

        There are not a few ‘camps’ in N.Korea and China that might indicate otherwise, and as others (Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn – The Gulag Archipelago) before have commented on elsewhere. Human nature is on the whole, and in the long run irrepressible. It is in our nature to continually seek an improvement of circumstances. In the short term, wits may be dulled by a totalitarian regime, but this effect is always temporary, something those that seek to impose such constraints never fail to appreciate (possibly because they perceive their delusion to be an ‘improvement’?)… therein lies the rub.

        I suspect that The Donald, who exemplifies a ‘can do – will do’ disposition, will contrast starkly with the ‘can’t do – won’t do’ leftist cultural iconoclasts. Leadership trumps consensus and it is time for leadership.

        It is evident people sense the presence of hope an change, a semblance or promise of control over their circumstances, and a future other than the promise of Marxist misery, the contrast becomes as obvious as the choice. This contrast perhaps characterised by the discussion of bathroomgate here for example, is likely to become the screech of a constellation of minorities that have been ordained as ‘special’, finding out in fact that their kollectiv delusion is nothing of the sort.

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        • #
          Roy Hogue

          I hope I haven’t misunderstood you.

          ……………..

          And yet the Gulag is now gone. Maybe something else has taken its place or will do so in the future.

          Your example is of rather extreme repression of the human soul and spirit. When it happens more slowly and incrementally, I think people do indeed settle in and become the example I used. It may be an extreme description but observably something like that happens, especially when it’s accompanied by constant patient “teaching” that you need to do it.

          00

          • #
            Roy Hogue

            Bathroom Gate is one of those things we bring on ourselves by doing what I can only call inadvisable, simply because we now can do it.

            Sometimes ability to do doesn’t mean you should. And the problem begins long before anyone saw a need for laws on the subject.

            10

  • #
    AndyG55

    “which is now threatening some of the prettiest places in Britain.””

    The main thing that is DESTROYING the prettiest places in Britain, Scotland, Germany, Holland …. and many, many other countries …

    is those bloody awful WIND TURBINES.

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  • #
    TdeF

    Amazing. Naomi seems to be a person looking for meaning in life while perpetually bewildered by it. Her reasoning is like paint splattered on a canvas randomly, the intellectual equivalent of Jackson Pollock’s Blue Poles. Full of depth and colour and absolutely devoid of logic or meaning or facts. You would wonder if Naomi could survive in an airport let get on the right aircraft. Reading her story in Wikipedia, her family seems quite capable of getting everything wrong, like support for Stalin. As such she is one in a long line of famously outspoken and passionately wrong people.

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    • #
      Another Ian

      TdeF

      Don’t forget Queensland’s answer to Blue Poles – “Red Poles”.

      A reference to the salinity hazard map that Peter Beattie waved. From a suggestion in Qld Country Life that it be framed and hung in the Qld Art Gallery as having cost about as much and caused about the same controversy.

      By the way you’ll notice that dryland salinity seems to have vanished from mention in Qld?

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    • #
      Owen Morgan

      About six years back, the Tate Modern gallery in London held an exhibition of one of those incomprehensible modern art pseuds. After the exhibition had been going a while (with critics duly gushing at the artist’s genius), somebody approached the curator to say:

      “You do know that item #umpteen has been hung upside-down, don’t you?”

      It’s like that with Naomi Klein. You could read anything she writes upside-down, back-to-front, boustrophedon, taking out every other word, or randomly inserting “marmalade”. You could put it through an Internet scrambler translation service into Egyptian hieroglyphics (I bet somebody’s done one) and then back again – and it will be just as coherently argued as in its original form.

      Ultimately, there is no point even trying to read Kleinese, because she is always trying to put the clock back. At the very least, she wants to go back to 9th March, 1944, the day before Hayek’s “The Road to Serfdom” was published. When Hayek died, in 1992, the alarmist juggernaut was only just getting into gear, but he would have seen through its pretensions at a glance. Five decades earlier, he had already demonstrated why the planned society was undesirable and why it was hopelessly impractical, anyway.

      It’s interesting to see how timeless Hayek’s observations are. His characterization of central planning points out that it’s impossible to take into account all of the relevant factors, which means that, in practice, central planning would involve first picking the “winner” and then single-mindedly aiming for the “right” result. I rather doubt if Hayek would have been impressed by climate models. Distortions of the energy market, such as DECC’s backing of wind, or Obama’s war on coal, are exactly the sort of thing against which Hayek was arguing; exactly the sort of activity, in fact, for which government is plainly unsuited.

      Yet Klein wants more of it.

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  • #
    Roy Hogue

    Ouch!

    What a thesis — if it can be given enough credibility to be called that.

    I’m doubtful on that point but let’s give the benefit of the doubt for a few seconds. Its only problem is that it flies in the face of more than a few thousand years of human history in which violence, hatred, racism and everything mentioned in this little screed, were commonplace (take the simple definition, it fits nicely).

    Or were they so commonplace? Think about it. Why did we all misread history so badly? We should have known it was the climate after all.

    Jo, I guess you’ll need to get another job. All mankind’s problems are solved and you’ve no more to do if we just turn everything over to the great Ms. Naomi Klein.

    It only gets worse, doesn’t it? Professionals used to be someone to look up to for their honesty, integrity, knowledge and wisdom, even the psychology profession could do better. What happened??? And it doesn’t seem to be limited to the psychology types either.

    Well, time’s up. Thesis it’s not. It’s just more me cry of, “Me too, me too, me too,” in the wilderness of climate change. 🙁

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    • #
      Roy Hogue

      Jo, are you sure Naomi Klein isn’t a third grader escaped from class with the teacher’s laptop?

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      • #
        Roy Hogue

        Thesis it’s not. It’s just one more cry of…

        Not, “Thesis it’s not. It’s just more me cry of…”

        Never edit what you type the first time. Never!

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  • #
    Farmer Gez

    Naomi Klein and her ilk can only thrive in the highly industrialised polluting western world that she decries. Naomi would be begging for scraps in a pre industrial society. The pointlessness of her own existence never quite strikes her and that is the exquisite naivety of the Eco activist.

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  • #
    pat

    not o/t!

    5 May: ClimateChangeNews: Ed King: Alcoholism, domestic abuse weakens climate resilience
    Communities where alcohol use is rife are at greater risk of disintegration when extreme weather hits, finds study
    Compiled by Practical Action, the Overseas Development Institute and Climate Development Knowledge Network (CDKN), it raises questions over how to help people to adapt to climate impacts.
    “Alcoholism adds to the workload of men, and can lead to them not being able to feed their family,” said Reetu Sogani, an Indian development specialist and one of the report’s authors.
    “Climate change aggravates these impacts, so we cannot really divide alcoholism and climate change… they are all connected.”…
    http://www.climatechangenews.com/2016/05/04/alcoholism-domestic-abuse-weakens-climate-resilience/

    Climate&DevelopmentKnowledgeNetwork: 10 things to know: Gender equality and achieving climate goals
    Click here to download the full reports
    http://cdkn.org/gender-equality-climate-compatible-development/?loclang=en_gb#reports

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  • #
    Roy Hogue

    I noticed that on the same page that Jo linked to there’s a link to Naomi Klein saying she thought it best to write about her own “raw terror“. Her picture is there, a clue as it were to what’s running her life.

    She’s still wet behind the ears. Raw terror? No! Just failure to think things through, to analyze and above all, failure to realize that lack of experience is dangerous. Half the problem we have with climate change is those who get involved as though they had the experience to be the judge of the whole world when all they can think to talk about is their own raw terror and a screwed up (or no) understanding of history.

    Naomi, go take a good long vacation. Use the time to study the history of the world you live in. If we are indeed in such bad trouble as you think then you are not fit to lead us out of that trouble. You aren’t even fit to talk about it.

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    BobTeach

    Unbelievable to think that broadcasters give Naomi Klein exposure and worse to think that the CBC and the Guardian actually take some of her vapid opinions seriously. It seems that she pulls her theories out of the ether with no need for supporting facts just so long as these beliefs support her socialist agenda. Our modern world has more people living in better health, with longer life spans and more wealth, and with an increasing number of people being pulled out of abject poverty. How does she reconcile this not perfect but improving world with her plan to roll technology back to an earlier ‘utopia’ with everyone living off the land, equally poor and equally miserable?

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  • #
    mikewaite

    Whatever one’s views are of the lady and her scientific acumen I suspect that
    we will be hearing much more of her opinions on climate change and environmental
    politics in the near future.
    Either Klein or Oreskes must be the obvious choice for chief scientific advisor
    to President Hillary Clinton in her first cabinet.

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  • #
    Glen Michel

    Naomi Klein Oreskes Wolf..

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  • #
    handjive

    “If every person in favour of a carbon tax just went to their doctor for an assisted suicide note, the planet could be saved.”
    Anon.

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  • #
    doubtingdave

    Naomi , like her fellow countryman David Suzuki , are followers of Paul Ehrlic and massive Human depopulation to save the planet , so you’d think she would embrace war and famine as a necesssary evil , a means to an end , she probably dreams of a world populated only by pseudo intellectuals like her , apart from a handfull of surfs to grow food so that she does’nt need to get her hands dirty .

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    Glen Michel

    For a follow up.Our ABC will program a discussion between two intellectual heavyweights from the political left.Enter Tim Minchin and Philip Adams.Subject:The meaningless of existence. Says it all.

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    • #
      Bushkid

      That’s almost worth the pain of listening to….. but only almost! Two of the most vacuous beings on the planet in a love-in and mutual (self-snipped, I don’t want to be naughty)

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    • #
      OriginalSteve

      I believe “on the beach” was written to push that nonsense…..

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  • #
    RobertR

    Wealth is caused by climate change. Look at Al Gore.

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  • #
    Ken Stewart

    Jo, that is really funny! Keep it up.

    Ken

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  • #

    If Climate change was causing ‘injustice, racism, intolerance and wars’, as Naomi Klein says, you would think that over the last twenty years there would be some detectable or visible change in the weather or climate. There has been none and therefore the connection is unproven.
    Warmists and Leftists generally show the intolerance and ignorance that actually do cause ‘injustice, racism, intolerance, and wars’. The Leftists show such a hatred of the human race that it is the main danger to the future happiness of humanity.

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    • #
      gnome

      Must you draw attention to the inexorable logic of the woman?

      There’s been no change in climates for the last x +1 years, and there’s been no increase in injustice, racism, intolerance or wars in that same period. Therefore, climate change must cause…

      (Note to self- reset- it’s global warming, not climate change.)

      10

  • #
    pat

    channeling Naomi? talk about skewed!

    4 May: Phys.org: How to talk about climate change so people will act
    (Provided by: University of California – San Diego)
    What can you do about climate change? The better question might be: What can we? University of California San Diego researchers show in a new study that framing the issue collectively is significantly more effective than emphasis on personal responsibility.
    Published in the journal Climatic Change, the study finds that people are willing to donate up to 50 percent more cash to the cause when thinking about the problem in collective terms…
    The study’s findings run contrary to popular wisdom. Pick up a leaflet on global warming or Google around, and chances are you’ll find a “you” message urging action on the environment. Personal appeals are everywhere. Advocacy groups use them, as do the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the United Nations. A marketing campaign run by the European Union, for example, was explicitly focused on reminding people of their personal responsibility. “You Control Climate Change,” it declared. But is that the best way to go?
    “Climate change is arguably the largest collective-action problem the world has ever faced,” said lead author Nick Obradovich, a doctoral candidate in the Department of Political Science in UC San Diego’s Division of Social Sciences. “Yet we’re operating on a lot of baked-in assumptions on how to motivate people.”…
    Working with the National Audubon Society and co-author, fellow political science Ph.D. student Scott Guenther, Obradovich surveyed Audubon members as well as members of the general public…
    A limitation of the study, noted by the authors, is that Audubon members and the MTurk population as a whole believe more strongly in the occurrence of climate change and its human causes than the average U.S. citizen. A useful line of future research would be to investigate if framing the problem of climate change collectively is also more effective with people less inclined to support climate action in the first place…
    http://phys.org/news/2016-05-climate-people.html

    4 May: Phys.org: Skepticism about climate change may be linked to concerns about economy
    Americans may be more likely to accept the scientific evidence of human-caused climate change and its potentially devastating effects ***if they believe the economy is strong and stable, according to new research published by the American Psychological Association.
    The findings may help explain why many Americans haven’t been swayed by public education and advocacy efforts indicating that climate change is being caused by humans. People who are concerned about the economy and who are strong supporters of the free market system may be more skeptical about climate change and downplay its potential effects, the study found. The research was published online in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General.
    “The problem isn’t primarily ignorance about this issue,” said lead researcher Erin Hennes, PhD, an assistant professor of psychological sciences at Purdue University. “Even when people are exposed to the same information, their attitudes about climate change may be polarized because they perceive the information in different ways.”…
    Hennes and her fellow researchers were inspired to study this issue after noticing that belief in human-caused climate change dropped by 11 percent in the United States during the major recession from 2007 to 2009…
    ***”Some reassurances about the stability of the economy may help people take information about human-caused climate change more seriously,” Hennes said. “It might help everyone get on the same page about climate change so we can seek some solutions.”
    http://phys.org/news/2016-05-skepticism-climate-linked-economy.html

    ***MSM constantly states the US economy is strong but, with trust in the media at a low of 6%, guess the public isn’t buying it!

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    Mike

    Not all greens are ‘carbon Greens‘ so it is mindlessly racist/prejudiced to call a carbon green a “green”. something like that.

    Thanks

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    • #
      Mike

      From: http://www.gurdjiefflegacy.org/archives/pdouspensky.htm

      “Ouspensky gave thousands of lectures over many years, and has been quoted as saying:

      If we begin to study ourselves we first of all come up against one word which we use more than any other and that is the word ‘I’. We say ‘I am doing’, ‘I am sitting’, ‘I feel’, ‘I like’, ‘I dislike’, and so on. This is our chief illusion, for the principal mistake we make about ourselves is that we consider ourselves one; we always speak about ourselves as ‘I’ and we suppose that we refer to the same thing all the time when in reality we are divided into hundreds and hundreds of different ‘I’s (my bolding)…. These ‘I’s change all the time; one suppresses another, one replaces another, and all this struggle makes up our inner life.”26 ”

      So if that same logic is applied to greens, left right, democrat, replugminum, it is possible to see that these qualifications are comprised of hundreds if not thousands and millions of various kinds of the same.

      And yet when wiseacring any one of these is taken as a singular, the root cause of racism and the like IMO.

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        Mike

        It is a fascinating perspective, in the main because it highlights the nullity of such statements as, ‘China is doing this…’ or that ‘Australia is going to do that’

        We can take some respite in at least knowing that there are more than one who comprise China or Australia, and that each one is unique and different.

        Propaganda is a trick that attempts to program a single view at the expense of the diverse view.

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          Mike

          ‘our comment is awaiting moderation’ 🙂

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        • #

          “We can take some respite in at least knowing that there are more than one who comprise China or Australia, and that each one is unique and different.”

          Please extend that to “climate, weather, or some aggregate of the complex interaction between atmosphere, land surface, and ocean”. All these fools actually have is that temperature at higher latitudes has a greater variance throughout a year, than at low latitudes! Misusing statistical technique to arrive at some fantasy; such as the trend of anomaly from “single GLOBAL temperature” is but the pinnacle (we hope) of this scam!

          “Propaganda is a trick that attempts to program a single view at the expense of the diverse view.”

          Indeed! The guy skillful at making your shrubs grow well; can certainly make a true mess of your plumbing.

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    pat

    17 Apr: AP: CAROLE FELDMAN/EMILY SWANSON: Poll: Getting facts right key to Americans’ trust in media
    WASHINGTON — Trust in the news media is being eroded by perceptions of inaccuracy and bias, fueled in part by Americans’ skepticism about what they read on social media.
    Just 6 percent of people say they have a lot of confidence in the media, putting the news industry about equal to Congress and well below the public’s view of other institutions. In this presidential campaign year, Democrats were more likely to trust the news media than Republicans or independents…
    Faced with ever-increasing sources of information, Americans also are more likely to rely on news that is up-to-date, concise and cites expert sources or documents, according to a study by the Media Insight Project, a partnership of The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and the American Press Institute…
    Nearly 90 percent of Americans say it’s extremely or very important that the media get their facts correct, according to the study. About 4 in 10 say they can remember a specific incident that eroded their confidence in the media, most often one that dealt with accuracy or a perception that it was one-sided…
    “The most important thing that news organizations can do is be accurate, and while we know that is a high value, this study reinforces that,” said Margaret Sullivan, public editor of The New York Times.
    Even if it goes against the competitive push to be first, she said, “perhaps there has to be a willingness to wait a little bit to be right.”
    Readers also are looking for balance: Are there enough sources so they can get a rounded picture of what they are reading? They want transparency, too…
    http://bigstory.ap.org/article/35c595900e0a4ffd99fbdc48a336a6d8/poll-vast-majority-americans-dont-trust-news-media

    Revkin touts a solution? lol:

    3 May: NYT Dot Earth: Scientists Build a Hype Detector for Online Climate News and Commentary
    As longtime readers know, a prime focus on Dot Earth has been testing ways to clarify disputes over consequential science — a need that’s amplified in complex arenas laden by persistent uncertainty. It’s not quite a law of physics yet, but a there’s a consistent pattern in such cases in which a paucity of evidence leads to an overabundance of assertion.
    Lately, I’ve come to frame the challenge as a question: Can we foster an online (and real-life) culture in which veracity is cool? You’ll see more on this here in the coming months…READ ON
    http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/05/03/scientists-build-a-hype-detector-for-online-climate-news-and-commentary/?_r=0

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    pat

    5 May: CarbonPulse: Stian Reklev: Chinese banks face $1.26 trillion carbon risk -report
    The natural capital cost of carbon emissions associated with Chinese commercial banks’ outstanding credit to 35 sectors of the economy in 2014 totalled $1.26 trillion, according to a report by environmental consultancy Trucost.
    That figure is derived from an overall environmental risk amounting to 11 trillion yuan, with emissions accounting for nearly 75% of the total, the report said.
    “This significant impact should raise immediate concerns for lenders as the Chinese government has implemented various policies to internalise unpaid natural capital costs,” it said.
    “Many of the sectors included in this study will either be directly regulated in the national carbon trading scheme from 2017, or face more stringent energy efficiency requirements, for example, ultra-low emission retrofits for all coal-fired plants by 2020 to support China’s pledge to cap national emissions by around 2030.”…
    “The coal power generation sector alone contributed 26.1% to the overall natural capital cost of the Chinese commercial banks. This sector has the highest natural capital cost among the 35 sectors analysed in this study, as such should therefore be a priority for risk management,” the report said…
    ***To determine the risk associated with carbon emissions, the report used $117 (2014 dollars) per tonne as the social cost of carbon, as applied by the landmark 2006 Stern report into the economic costs of action on climate change…
    Prices in the Chinese national ETS are expected to open well below those levels…READ ON
    http://carbon-pulse.com/19397/

    ***how about 15 cents per tonne?

    3 May: CarbonPulse: Stian Reklev: Carbon Markets: Hubei spot CO2 permits fall to record lows even as speculators drive up forward prices
    ***But after dipping slightly below the 20-yuan level last week, spot HBEAs plummeted to 17.14 yuan (US 0.15cents) in Tuesday’s trade, setting a new record low for China’s most liquid carbon market…
    “We are not active in Hubei at the moment. If the forward price is that high, forwards should be sold and spots bought. We’re just staying away,” one trader said.
    “I’m confused too,” added an analyst who expected the spot price to rebound eventually.
    “Let’s give Hubei a little more time. If the spread remains or even widens, then the forwards would be ***just another joke in the market,” he told Carbon Pulse, asking not to be named
    http://carbon-pulse.com/19263/

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      handjive

      May 5, 2016: Australia’s Clean Energy Regulator bought 50.47 million tonnes of CO2e reductions at an average cost of A$10.23 ($7.66) each in last week’s Emissions Reductions Fund (ERF) auction, which was heavily dominated by vegetation projects, it said Thursday.

      http://carbon-pulse.com/19376/

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      • #

        handjive mentions this:

        Australia’s Clean Energy Regulator bought 50.47 million tonnes of CO2e reductions…..

        Purely on a political basis, people scoff at this policy from the Coalition, saying that it in effect does very little.

        That amount of 50.47 million tonnes is the equivalent of two and a half years of emissions from Bayswater, one of the largest emitters in Australia.

        Oddly, looking at it now, this is probably one of the better schemes going around for abating CO2 emissions, umm, if it really needs to be done at all in the first place.

        Tony.

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    Joanne writes this in the main text: (my bolding here)

    …..send in the windmills!

    “There is no clean, safe way to run an economy built on fossil fuels. There is no peaceful way to do it…

    Then just turn them all off and run it all on wind power.

    Umm, then you’ll really see what mean and ugly is, and that will most definitely not be peaceful!

    Tony.

    PostScript – (Picky, picky, Tony I know) The Niger River Delta is in Nigeria, and not Niger, which is the Country immediately to the north of Nigeria.

    Incidentally, the Country of Niger used to be pronounced to sound like nye ju, as did the River itself. Now it’s pronounced as two syllables sounding like Knee zhair, a sort of political correctness gone mad, on the grand scale, and we all know why it was changed ….. by the Americans. They only changed the pronunciation of that Country, and left Nigeria to be pronounced as it always was.

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    • #

      No Tony, Niger was a former French colony hence “Knee zhair”, a much softer g sound, and Nigeria was British.

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      • #

        Thanks Robert O.

        Ever since I first heard it, it was always referred to as the one I mentioned, and it was only in the last ten years or so that secondary pronunciation has come into vogue.

        I’ll accede to your correcting me on this.

        Still, it’s happened a lot in those last ten to twenty years as so many place names, especially in India and China have dropped the English naming procedures, and here think of just a few of them, Peking, Bombay, Madras, Calcutta, and many many more.

        Huh! Maybe soon Australia might revert to Gondwanaland. Matthew Flinders would roll over in his grave.

        Tony.

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    • #

      Looking at the March data for wind energy on the AEMO site the wind turbines averaged 15% capacity for 70% of the time, that is 550 MW out of 3669 MW.

      So to provide 12,000 MW of renewable energy on this basis one is looking at 12,000 x 3669/550 or about 80,000 MW of turbines.

      There is the proviso that there will be days when there is little wind and back-up fossil fuel back-up will still be required.

      But more importantly how much land is required? At 2 MW per sq. km. it’s 40,000 sq. km., at 1.4 MW it’s 57,000 sq. km. I can’t imagine a conga line of 20,000 four MW turbines spaced 650m. apart, or 13,000 km long!

      But this is little more than a thought bubble that a lot of people believe in who have little understanding of reality.

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      • #
        dean

        Robert, could you give a link to where you got that data on the AEMO website, i have tried to find it and can’t. Thanks

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      • #
        Analitik

        Lets see how the wind/renewables lobby try to spin the high capacity for SE Australian wind farms at the start of the month
        28 hours at 85% capacity so we only need 15% coverage from other sources

        I’m certain Diesendorf will present this at the 100% Renewables for SA discussion that he will be leading in Adelaide next month

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        • #

          The wind has certainly been blowing; there was a figure at Smithton ( NW Tas) of 75 kph, and many in the range of 40-50 kph. Anyhow back to 80,000 MW of wind turbines at 85% capacity, what happens to the 68,000 MW of electricity as you only need 25,000 MW at most? Switch all the gas turbines off, no hydro either and cut back on coal perhaps but you still burn the same amount. Pumped storage is the only answer methinks but I don’t know if there is any capacity for it. Probably could do something in Tas., but you need the water for it.

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        • #

          It’s quiet again with the turbines at 20% CF, but it’s going to get windy again tomorrow and go through to Tuesday morning. Could be an impressive month for wind energy.

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          • #

            “?It’s quiet again with the turbines at 20% CF, but it’s going to get windy again tomorrow and go through to Tuesday morning. Could be an impressive month for wind energy.”

            Since any WIND power (Watts) you may get (at ridiculously low efficiency),
            is from local atmospheric momentum. Such must come at the expense of atmospheric mass motion (inertia). How can this possibly be green or renewable power?
            Our primary (The Sun) provides much (power flux), most going into quite ‘interesting weather’, hurricanes, tornadoes, and much other weather AW-S**T!
            Where is the learned analysis of what even one 5MW bird chopper may do to local, regional, and global wind patterns?

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      • #

        Robert O mention this:

        But more importantly how much land is required? At 2 MW per sq. km. it’s 40,000 sq. km., at 1.4 MW it’s 57,000 sq. km. I can’t imagine a conga line of 20,000 four MW turbines spaced 650m. apart, or 13,000 km long!

        Don’t laugh at this, because this was actually put up around 8 years ago. What they wanted to do was to construct wind towers spaced every hundred metres or so along the whole length of the Great Australian Bight, and then connect the power to ….. the whole of Australia.

        It worked out to around 12,000 of them each with a 3MW turbine, hence a Nameplate of 36,000MW, and the guess was that this could power the whole of Australia.

        Forget the power losses involved with that. The Bight to Cairns???? Good luck with that.

        Tony.

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        • #
          Analitik

          The grid is a copper plate – everyone (who is a renewables proponent) knows that!

          20

    • #
      Analitik

      just turn them all off and run it all on wind power

      That’s Northern’s fate on Mother’s Day. Plus we have the BreakFree 2016 protest at Newcastle this weekend
      http://australia.breakfree2016.org/

      So lets give them a taste their visio of the future and shut down all coal plants this weekend – they can foot the bill for all the damage and costs incurred

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      • #

        So lets give them a taste their visio of the future and shut down all coal plants this weekend – they can foot the bill for all the damage and costs incurred

        It’s such a pity really, because shutting them down, even for just one day, and even on a lower consumption day as a weekend day, this would totally and utterly finish this whole debate once and for all, stone motherless finished. The end.

        Not only here in Oz, but it would send the signal World wide that shutting them down is not even the last option, let alone the first.

        Getting back to the topic of the main Thread, shutting them down, even for just this one day would create chaos, anger, fury, meanness, ugliness, all on a scale unimaginable.

        The whole argument would end on the spot, as people realised that life without them would quite literally cease to function.

        Those advocating their shutting down know this, and those who parrot this from a political point also know it, because what they know is that it will NEVER be allowed to happen.

        Tony.

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        • #

          Good idea, but how many days would it take to re-start them?

          10

          • #
            Analitik

            Just keep the boilers hot without being able to generate and disconnect the plant from the grid. Parasitic loads can be covered with one turbine generating at a low level.

            The greenwash always mistake the condenser tower steam as “coal emissions” so they won’t notice that the plants are still running at such low power.

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            • #
              ianl8888

              Sure you can send the power generated to earth without closing the boilers down.

              But, as some here know, to keep the boilers going at normal temperature does NOT reduce CO2 emissions.

              And yes, Cassandra is very tired of these never-ending circularities. End of it. People deserve absolutely everything they get.

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              • #
                Analitik

                Who is this Cassandra?

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              • #

                Analitik May 6, 2016 at 9:58 pm

                “Who is this Cassandra?”

                Cassandra must be and always has been, one lesser dimensional manifold than that of the current Are we having fun yet orgy!
                Just as GOD must clearly be, grinning from ear to ear, the next higher dimensional manifold!

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    Bushkid

    I recall a saner, more intelligent age when the utterings of Naomi Klein would have seen her roundly ridiculed by all and sundry, if not recommended to a friendly clinic that could help her to calm down, come to terms with her own hysterical idiocy and to see the world in a more realistic perspective.

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    pat

    ***note 1,200 wildfires reported in Alberta each year.

    5 May: CTV: The leading cause of wildfires in Canada? Humans, scientist says
    by Liam Casey, Canadian Press
    Mike Flannigan, a professor of wildland fires at the University of Alberta, says the fire’s proximity to the city, as well as data that shows there were no lightning strikes in the area, lead him to believe the cause of the fire was likely human.
    “And in spring it’s heavily loaded on the side of people-caused fires,” Flannigan said.
    ***An average of 1,200 wildfires are reported in Alberta each year, and half of those fires are caused by humans, according to the National Fire Database. Lightning is the second-leading cause with 47 per cent…
    Scientists, however, are worried about the future.
    Forest fires are a natural phenomenon, Lynham said, and are beneficial ecologically, returning valuable nutrients to the soil that helps a natural rebirth. He said fires naturally occur in forests every 150 to 250 years.
    “But the fires are happening more often so forests might not be able to cope with that and might not be able to regenerate properly,” Lynham said.
    Scientists at Natural Resources Canada predict forest fires will double within 50 to 100 years.
    http://www.ctvnews.ca/sci-tech/the-leading-cause-of-wildfires-in-canada-humans-scientist-says-1.2889588

    it’s first week of May.
    CAGW-obsessed McGrath at BBC says “Alberta has had 330 wildfires already this year, more than double the recent annual average. go figure:

    5 May: BBC: Matt McGrath: ‘Perfect storm’ of El Nino and warming boosted Alberta fires
    El Nino and ongoing climate change have both contributed to the devastating Alberta wildfires according to experts…
    ***Alberta has had 330 wildfires already this year, more than double the recent annual average.
    Global warming has also seen wildfire seasons lengthen considerably since 1979, according to studies…
    Many researchers believe that El Niño was not the only factor increasing the likelihood of a major fire in Alberta.
    They point to the bigger global picture of rising temperatures, which in the first four months of this year are running more than 1C above the long-term average.
    In January a Canadian study suggested that warming would lead to a “higher frequency of extreme fire weather days” across the country.
    The author of that paper, Dr Mike Flannigan from the University of Alberta, seems in little doubt that climate change was at least partly responsible for the outbreak around Fort McMurray.
    “This is consistent with what we expect from human-caused climate change affecting our fire regime,” he told reporters.
    A number of research papers have highlighted the fact that warming is leading to an increase in wildfire risk. Studies have also shown that northern latitudes are feeling those impacts more strongly.
    “Some of the changes can be ascribed to improvements in reporting but there are datasets which show the fire season has lengthened,” said Prof Martin Wooster, from King’s College, London…
    http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-36212145

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    pat

    4 May: Edmonton Journal: David Staples: Alberta’s aging forests increase risk of ‘catastrophic fires’: 2012 report
    In 1971, more than half of Alberta’s boreal forest was deemed to be young, with about a third immature, five per cent mature and a small portion deemed “overmature”.
    By 2011, that had changed to less than 10 per cent young, about a quarter immature, more than 40 per cent mature, and more than 20 per cent overmature.
    “Before major wildfire suppression programs, boreal forests historically burned on an average cycle ranging from 50 to 200 years as a result of lightning and human-caused wildfires,” the panel found in a report released in 2012…
    “Wildfire suppression has significantly reduced the area burned in Alberta’s boreal forest. However, due to reduced wildfire activity, forests of Alberta are aging, which ultimately changes ecosystems and is beginning to increase the risk of large and potentially costly catastrophic wildfires.”…
    The panel reported that Alberta can expect more such dire situations due to humans living closer to the forest, and the aging of the Alberta forest…
    The number of human-caused fires has been rising rapidly, from slightly more than 200 per year in 1993 to more than 1,100 a year by 2011. After human activity, lightning is the next biggest cause of wildfires, responsible for 40 per cent of them…
    http://edmontonjournal.com/news/local-news/albertas-aging-forests-increase-risk-of-catastrophic-fires-2012-report

    CAGW-infested MSM is on fire:

    ‘Of course’ Fort McMurray fire linked to climate change, (Greens leader) Elizabeth May says
    CBC – 4 May 2016

    Fort McMurray and the Fires of Climate Change
    The New Yorker‎ – 6 hours ago

    Climate Change Might Be Causing Massive Canadian Wildfires, Experts Say
    Huffington Post‎ – 1 day ago

    Wildfire in heart of oilsands country serves as latest climate change flashpoint
    CTV News‎ – 1 day ago

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    Analitik

    OT
    Management without a clue statement of the day

    Western Power is a traditional company, and while it’s on the path to change, there are also a lot of engineers valiantly defending the old model, when they should be changing.

    Sean McGoldrick, the head of asset management at the Western Australia network operator Western Power, discussing how high levels of renewable energy pose no great technology challenges to the grid.

    Western Power says high renewable penetration no problem for grid

    ‘cos engineers don’t know $hit, right?

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    • #
      Alan

      Something wrong with your link Analitik.
      But in fact he is quite correct as renewables are providing such a high level into the network at the moment, like Thurs 5th@ 14:40 a whopping 4.5% or this morning @ 08:15 a staggering 1.7%. Gone up a bit know that there are a few holes in the cloud but the last 7-10 days here in Perth have been cloudy and calm. Hang on it’s about to rain again.
      (Do I need to state that some of this comment was sarc)

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      • #

        The lowest figure for the Eastern wind turbines I saw in March and April was 100 MW out of 3669 MW capacity, or 2.7%.

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        • #
          Alan

          Robert these figures are for wind and solar combined. At 13:40 wind is producing 1.3% of the SWIS total

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          • #

            Interesting, but it shows the extent of coverage one would need to get different wind patterns. Most of the time the turbines in the East enjoy the same wind conditions: sometimes the NSW ones are different but generally not.

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              Have no fears at all about any of this because I have seen reports from journalists who confidently predict that battery technology for hundreds and even thousands of MegaWatts of storage is just around the corner, and they implicitly believe it, and what’s more, those batteries are a fraction of the price of current battery technology, and last up to five to ten times longer.

              Hmm! No wonder they’re journalists!

              You can easily tell a journalist by their response to a simple joke.

              Hey look! A dead bird.

              Journalists always look up and say “where!”

              Tony.

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        Analitik

        My apologies – I left the “http://” off and it seems wordpress makes it a local reference

        Here’s the proper link Western Power says high renewable penetration no problem for grid

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    pat

    minor coverage in regional US newspapers, plus Fox, Daily Mail, but no sign of BBC, ABC Australia, Guardian, Fairfax considering this worth reporting:

    4 May: AP: Matthew Daly: New Federal Rule Would Permit Thousands of Eagle Deaths
    The Obama administration is revising a federal rule that allows wind-energy companies to operate high-speed turbines for up to 30 years, even if means killing or injuring thousands of federally protected bald and golden eagles
    The Obama administration is revising a federal rule that allows wind-energy companies to operate high-speed turbines for up to 30 years, even if means killing or injuring thousands of federally protected bald and golden eagles.
    Under the plan announced Wednesday, companies could kill or injure up to 4,200 bald eagles a year without penalty —nearly four times the current limit. Golden eagles could only be killed if companies take steps to minimize the losses, for instance, by retrofitting power poles to reduce the risk of electrocution.
    Fish and Wildlife Service Director Dan Ashe said the proposal will “provide a path forward” for maintaining eagle populations while also spurring development of a pollution-free energy source that’s intended to ease global warming, a cornerstone of President Barack Obama’s energy plan.
    Ashe said the 162-page proposal would protect eagles and at the same time “help the country reduce its reliance on fossil fuels” such as coal and oil that contribute to global warming…
    “There’s a lot of good news in here,” Ashe said in an interview, calling the plan “a great tool to work with to further conservation of two iconic species.”…
    Wednesday’s announcement kicks off a 60-day comment period. Officials hope to issue a final rule this fall…
    Under the new proposal, companies would pay a $36,000 fee for a long-term permit allowing them to kill or injure eagles. Companies would have to commit to take additional measures if they kill or injure more eagles than estimated, or if new information suggests eagle populations are being affected…
    http://www.usnews.com/news/business/articles/2016-05-04/apnewsbreak-new-rule-would-permit-thousands-of-eagle-deaths

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    pat

    note the headline – the eagles are already flying safely near turbines!!! of course, not so.

    22 Apr: ABC America: Jason Kurtis: Eagles Fly Safely Near Wind Turbines Thanks to Radar
    Using technology originally designed to detect small aircraft in the vicinity of turbines, Eric Laufer, the president of Laufer Wind, had the idea to adapt the technology to detect eagles. Currently, he is working with Boulder Imaging and Res Americas on the technology.
    In 2012, Res Americas and Boulder Imaging began developing a new technology called Identiflight, “a camera based system to detect eagles at distance,” according to Tom Hiester, Senior VP of Development for Res Americas. “The limited shutdown of specific turbines is how Identiflight protects both eagles and the energy production.”
    The goal of this day’s test flights is “to analyze their size, from a radar’s perspective, their speed and their flight patterns…to develop algorithms to track the birds and make sure they’re birds of interest,” said Laufer.
    http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/radar-searched-planes-protect-eagles/story?id=37764563

    again, the headline is totally misleading:

    16 Mar: WindpowerEngineering: How eagles are making wind turbines safer for birds
    Editor’s note: Researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) teamed up with the wind industry at the National Wind Technology Center (NWTC) to study the flight patterns of two eagles. Data collected will lead to the development of systems to better detect birds and prevent collisions with turbines.
    http://www.windpowerengineering.com/certifications-2/eagles-making-wind-turbines-safer-birds/

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    Amber

    Her book sales must be tanking . Made from pulp mill produced paper using fossil fuel and distributed via
    fossil fuel burning trucks . The world is a far better place with a warming cycle and if humans help
    a bit good .
    Whacho’s who push the notion humans can set the temperature are selling complete BS .

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      Mari

      We are lucky to be here – the new finds in China point to cold driving the species that became us south and west – to Africa, where humans developed, and the Philippines, where the tarsiers are still (barely) hanging on. Of course, “Climate Change” rears its little head – in a statement pointing out how us primates are so susceptible to its vagaries. No mention, however, that it was the -drop- in temps that drove this change.

      https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/05/160505144733.htm

      Yeah, we are a bunch of delicate flowers, only able to grow in optimal, unchanging conditions.

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    Analitik

    Giles is going to have to sack this guy, David Leitch, from RenewEconomy. His analyses are actually very good and expose the underlying issues with renewables. His only failing is that he has a fundamental belief in renewables which distorts his conclusions.

    Here is his latest article which finds operating costs wind and solar are not free!

    We all underestimated the operating cost of a wind turbine. Since the wind was free the natural expectation was that the variable operating expenditure [opex] of a wind farm would be very low. In fact it turns out that gearboxes break down and that these big powerful pieces of equipment cost a lot to run. It works out to be about $20/MWh, that’s more than a brown or black coal generator. That’s right, the opex for a wind farm is probably higher than for a coal generator

    plus

    PV solar farms also cost around $20/MWh. It’s a mystery to me where that money goes

    Keep up the good work David (while you’re allowed)
    http://reneweconomy.com.au/2016/infigen-energy-where-to-from-here-79184

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    Yes it seems the people fleeing Syria are not worried about their own government or ISIS slaughtering them, its actually the threat of warmer weather.

    The site called “Science Alert” which I assume is used in the same cynical way as the site “Skeptical Science” uses the language, has the scoop.

    http://www.sciencealert.com/global-warming-may-trigger-a-climate-exodus-in-parts-of-the-middle-east-and-north-africa

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    • #
      el gordo

      ‘To come to this troubling conclusion, the team studied previous climate data and used 26 different climate models to project how conditions in the Middle East would change from 2046 to 2065 and then from 2081 to 2100.’

      Realistically all the climate models are wrong, they make no account for the increasing CO2 making the Middle East greener.

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    pat

    TonyfromOz might like to assess the following:

    3 May: CarbonBrief: Mapped: The global coal trade
    The global coal trade doubled in the decade to 2012 as a coal-fueled boom took hold in Asia. Now, the coal trade seems to have stalled, or even gone into reverse
    A significant discrepancy complicates the picture for India’s coal imports, which could be 20% higher than it reported. India says it imported 195Mt in 2014, whereas others report having exported 237Mt to India. The chart below shows this discrepancy for each year.
    The discrepancies are the largest Carbon Brief has found in the Comtrade coal data…
    http://www.carbonbrief.org/mapped-the-global-coal-trade?utm_content=buffer119d4&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

    3 May: UK DailyMail: Daniel Martin: SIX former energy chiefs take roles for energy firms… even though they must not use ‘privileged information’ picked up in office
    In May 2012, Charles Hendry signed a deal for the UK to get geothermal electricity generated by Iceland.
    A year later he was installed in a £1,000-a-day job as director of Atlantic Superconnection, a firm building a 650-mile undersea cable to carry the electricity.
    The Guernsey-registered operation boasts that he has been ‘instrumental’ to the project…
    He then took a job with Forewind, a consortium of British and Norwegian energy firms building the world’s largest offshore windfarm off Yorkshire.
    The former Tory MP, who owns a castle, landed a £4,000-a-day role as chairman, working one day a month.
    He also earns £3,333 a day – working a day and a half a month – as a consultant for Vitol, an oil trading and energy giant…
    Another energy secretary, Lib Dem Ed Davey, became an energy consultant. In 2013, he struck a deal to guarantee French firm EDF would be paid nearly three times the present wholesale price of electricity to build a nuclear power station at Hinkley Point.
    Now he makes money working for a lobbying firm that has EDF as one of its clients, although he does not work on EDF business.
    Another client of Sir Ed, 50, is law firm Herbert Smith Freehills, which previously acted against his old Whitehall department. He works for two other energy firms…
    Fellow Lib Dem Chris Huhne’s ‘revolving door’ journey went a bit awry, in that he went to prison over dodging speeding points.
    But the disgraced millionaire Lib Dem is now European chairman of green energy firm Zilkha Biomass Energy…
    Greg Barker championed solar power while a Tory minister.
    One of his posts since leaving office was honorary president of the British Photovoltaic Association, a pressure group for solar energy companies.
    He is also a paid adviser to Lightsource Renewable Energy, which sells solar panels…
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3570342/SIX-former-energy-chiefs-roles-energy-firms-not-use-privileged-information-picked-office.html

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    pat

    4 May: Ecowatch: Bill McKibben: It’s Time to Turn Up the Heat on Those Who Are Wrecking Planet Earth
    Not everyone can do it—there are regimes that are too authoritarian for anyone to dare even peaceful civil disobedience of this kind. But for those of us who still live in places theoretically committed to freedom, it’s time to put that privilege to use. The planet is well outside its comfort zone—that’s what it means when whole ecosystems are obliterated in a matter of days. Which means its time for us to be there too.
    https://ecowatch.com/2016/05/04/bill-mckibben-break-free/

    leave Australia alone, Bill, and take on the EU:

    3 May: Business Green: Madeleine Cuff: EU energy-related carbon emissions creep up in 2015
    Energy-related carbon dioxide emissions in the European Union crept up 0.7 per cent compared to a year earlier, threatening the bloc’s reputation as a leader in climate mitigation and clean energy investment.
    According to official estimates (LINK) released today, overall emissions from fossil fuel combustion increased by 0.7 per cent in 2015, based on early estimates of CO2 emissions from energy use…
    In total, eight EU member states reported net reductions in their energy-related CO2 emissions, while 17 countries reported gains…
    http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/2456741/eu-energy-related-carbon-emissions-creep-up-in-2015

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    pat

    6 May: SMH: Peter Hannam: Climate Change Authority report recommending ‘a mandatory carbon price’ held back until after election
    A report that recommends putting a price on emissions from the electricity sector has been held back by the Climate Change Authority until after the election, prompting calls from Labor and the Greens that it be made public to inform debate.
    The independent authority, whose board is now dominated by appointments made last October by Environment Minister Greg Hunt, was to have released its policy options paper for the power industry by the end of April.
    The board, though, decided to withhold the report – along with the large Special Review due out by June 30 – until after the election, “assuming it is called for early July,” the authority said on its website…
    Leaked details of the Climate Change Authority’s electricity industry “policy options” report said “a mandatory carbon price of some form is desirable in the sector”…
    However, it is understood some in the authority were wary that to release the reports so close to the election would inevitably expose the authority – and the validity of the carefully researched reports – to attacks…
    “A lot of people are very much in their bunkers [on this issue],” another source said. “There’s a group of people who are still open to the issue”, who might still be reached by carefully researched reports.
    “Costs can be high but people have to remember that the costs of not doing something [to halt climate change] may be higher,” the source said…ETC
    http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/federal-election-2016/climate-change-authority-report-recommending-a-mandatory-carbon-price-held-back-until-after-election-20160506-gonw88.html

    5 May: CNS News: Penny Starr: Al Gore: Solving ‘Climate Crisis’ Will ‘Save the Future of Civilization’
    Speaking at the Climate Action 2016 summit in Washington, D.C., Gore said the “Number One threat to the global economy is the climate crisis,” which also threatens the U.S. economy, and that turning that around requires investment in the right kind of infrastructure here and abroad.
    In the United States, Gore called for “physical stimulus in a coordinated way aimed at infrastructure that the country needs, which means de-carbonization, renewable energy, batteries, energy storage, sustainable forestry, sustainable agriculture.”…
    Judith Rodin, president of the Rockefeller Foundation, also spoke at the event and called climate change an “urgent issue.”
    She said leaders should look to communities that are tackling climate change, such as New Orleans, which is losing “a football field” of land on an hourly basis…
    Three members of the Obama Cabinet are scheduled to speak on Friday, including Shaun Donovan, director of the Office of Management and Budget, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy, and Tom Vilsack, Agriculture secretary.
    http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/penny-starr/al-gore-solving-climate-crisis-will-save-future-civilization

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      el gordo

      “A lot of people are very much in their bunkers [on this issue],” another source said. “There’s a group of people who are still open to the issue”, who might still be reached by carefully researched reports.’

      Doubt that.

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    pat

    the sheer arrogance!

    6 May: Guardian: Suzanne Goldenberg: Plans for coal-fired power in Asia are ‘disaster for planet’ warns World Bank
    Experts have offered stark warnings that proposed power plants in India, China, Vietnam and Indonesia would blow Paris climate deal if they move ahead
    In an unusually stark warning, the World Bank president, Jim Yong Kim, noted that countries in south and south-east Asia were on track to build hundreds more coal-fired power plants in the next 20 years – despite promises made at Paris to cut greenhouse gas emissions and pivot to a clean energy future…
    “If Vietnam goes forward with 40GW of coal, if the entire region implements the coal-based plans right now, I think we are finished,” Kim told a two-day gathering of government and corporate leaders in Washington, in a departure from his prepared remarks.
    “That would spell disaster for us and our planet.”…
    The UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, is pushing hard for governments to formally join the agreement and bring it into force before Barack Obama leaves office in January 2017.
    That would help protect the agreement from a future president – such as the presumptive Republican nominee, Donald Trump – who denies or doubts that climate change is even occurring…
    “If all of the business-as-usual coal-fired power plants in India, China, Vietnam and Indonesia all came online that would take up a very significant part – in fact almost all – of the carbon budget,” Roome (World Bank) said…
    Jeffrey Sachs, director of Columbia University’s Earth Institute, was even more blunt…
    “Just don’t build more coal-fired power plants, please, because then we blow the carbon budget.”
    http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/may/05/climate-change-coal-power-asia-world-bank-disaster

    Fiona, formerly of Financial Times and Guardian, now pumping out CAGW propaganda for Newsweek:

    5 May: Newsweek: Fiona Harvey: Under a Donald Trump Presidency, the Paris Climate Deal Could Unravel
    The election of Donald Trump would derail the landmark agreement on climate change reached in Paris last December, the architect of the accord has warned…
    Without naming Trump, the former French foreign minister Laurent Fabius told an audience in London: “Think about the impact of the coming U.S. presidential elections. If a climate change denier was to be elected, it would threaten dramatically global action against climate disruption.”
    He said: “We must not think that everything is settled.”…
    Fabius was in London to collect the Green Ribbon award in parliament for the best international environmental achievement of 2015. The Guardian also received a Green Ribbon for the best journalism on the environment, in regard to its “exceptional” coverage of the Paris climate talks and the Keep It in the Ground campaign.
    http://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-paris-climate-deal-global-warming-455701

    5 May: West Virginal Public Radio: ‘Trump Digs Coal’ at Charleston Rally
    Trump received the endorsement of the West Virginia Coal Association shortly before the rally began and was joined on stage by Coal Association Vice President Chris Hamilton who presented him with a hard hat.
    “How’s my hair?” Trump joked after trying the hat on.
    It was his support of the coal industry that drew many of the West Virginians in attendance…
    “If they didn’t have ridiculous regulations that put you out of business and make it impossible for you to compete, I’m going to take that off,” Trump said to loud cheers. “You are going to be proud of me.”…
    http://wvpublic.org/post/trump-digs-coal-charleston-rally

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    This is amusing –
    there’s an article in the so-called “Conversation” saying that “scientists must challenge poor media reporting on climate change”.
    Of course it’s all about one or two articles that have dared to suggest that some climate scares might be a bit exaggerated.

    I drew attention to the Guardian / Naomi Klein article you’re discussing, “Climate change is corroding our values”, which claims that “Climate change is spawning injustice, racism, intolerance and wars”, and asked why climate scientists weren’t challenging this kind of poor media reporting. The reply I got from a climate scientist was that the article isn’t about climate change. LOL. (See the very end of the comment thread, just before the Conv raised the white flag by closing comments.)

    I’m sure Lord Krebs and his colleagues will be writing a strongly worded letter to the Guardian about their misleading reporting on climate change.

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    Mari

    So, despite the fact that we are experiencing one of the longest periods of peace – if not the longest (and aside from all the fractious nose-poking-into-your-crisis and terrorist noise / flare-ups that are standard when less freedom runs up against lots of freedoms) ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pax_Europaea ) and that, according to the warmists much of the period encompassed by this peace has been part of the warming trend (PAUSE TO BREATHE)
    the warming of the planet, the changing of the climate from cold and dry to warm and moist, is making us meaner? Uglier? Maybe she is confusing a hot flash, which is quite irritating, with the temperature of the air, which I find I prefer a bit warm, say 75-85 deg. F (24-30 C) unless I’m mowing the lawn, then a few degrees cooler is better.

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    ScotsmaninUtah

    cranky when it’s cold

    I agree with Naomi Klein about making a link with atittudes and climate. But she, lke most CAGWer’s have it totally backwards 😮

    I have always found that people seem very happy in warmer climates and certainly more animated and upbeat than their fellow Artic dwellers.
    Or could it be that people who’s Governments want to do their thinking for them whilst taking away their freedoms have something to do with it ?

    I do not think we will find the answer from writers and so called analysts such as Naomi Klein.

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    The only “things getting meaner and uglier” are the cultural marxist SJWs as they become more and more desperate that no one wants their whacko agenda. However this is not apparent inside the closed jerk circle that is the Guardian. Just listen and believe then repeat mindlessly. “You are free to do as we tell you.”

    https://youtu.be/rUEgTaM28ls

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    Klem

    “These zones require the shredding of treaties that enable peoples to live on their land. Indigenous rights are meaningless when the land is being [destroyed] and the rivers are polluted.”

    Perhaps it’s time for this Canadian Naomi Klein to review the UNs REDD program if she wants to bring up the topic of shredded treaties. REDD is one of the most sinister and despicable land grabbing programs ever invented, and once the public becomes aware of it, the leftists are going to have to defend it. Good luck with that, Klein.

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    Travis Casey

    This is some of your best and funniest writing, Jo. Bravo.

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