Blame Climate Change for stupid British Voters choosing Brexit says ABC

If only we had built more windmills, and changed more light-globes we could have prevented the British voting to control their own nation. It all makes sense — if you are insane, or a broadcaster paid one billion a year to promote Big Government.

What a disaster — the fifth largest economy choose to trade more with the rest of the world and be less under the thumb of Germany and Brussels. Such madness needs an explanification. So here it is: Our coal plants caused a terrible drought in Syria which made lots of nice people seek refuge in rich countries, I mean “globally”, and that made people talk about a refugee problem in the UK (which wasn’t really a problem, see) and that made scared, selfish and small minded populist voters choose fear and Brexit over the glorious wonder of the EU.

 This is the genius analysis we pay Sabra Lane and the ABC for:

SABRA LANE: Could it be that Brexit, the UK voting to leave the EU, is the result of a cascading series of events due in part to climate change?

ROBERT GLASSER: Yeah, so there was a persistent drought that effected the region, probably the worst drought in something like 900 years and as a result of that drought there were major failures of crops and literally millions of people moved from rural areas into the cities and when they arrived they were exacerbating existing social tensions.

So this wasn’t by any means the cause of the Syrian civil war, but it was certainty a factor and that migration, the increased instability resulted in this cascading, really profound cascading impacts.

You had a refugee crisis in the region that became a refugee crisis in Europe, actually a global refugee crisis.

There was quite a lot of discussion at the time about the refugee problem in the UK and it was a major feature of the discussions around Brexit. And so you had the Brexit, this contributing to Brexit and you had it also contributing at the same time to the rise of right wing populist governments in Europe that further undermined the EU as an institution.

Let’s just isolate the hard-hitting deep questioning and great research by Sabra Lane

Below are all her words in the entire interview where “climate change” is made out to be a political force. Among his ambitious claims, Robert Glasser says the worst-in-900-year drought was “a factor” in the Syrian War, caused crop failures, migration to the cities of the Middle East, increased social tensions, which led to mass emigration, and caused the rise of right wing populist governments in Europe. Furthermore it will cause the collapse of coral reefs, shrink fish supplies 10%, have a huge impact on 130 million people living near Australia. Our defense force needs to strategize. Moreso, the fish will move south  so that will decrease our fish stocks (because Australian boats apparently don’t go south, and we can’t eat the extra tropical fish we’ll get). And onwards brother, climate change will also cause more bush fires and El Ninos, more crop plagues, more hot days where crop-pickers need to rest, and make grains harder to get (despite grain crops rising practically every year in this “peak heat”).

So what does Lane say when faced with abject nonsense?

“All right”.

If Sabra Lane was a hired Informercial talk-face for Big-Government advertising, she would sound… just like this:

SABRA LANE: Could it be that Brexit, the UK voting to leave the EU, is the result of a cascading series of events due in part to climate change?

Robert Glasser, a visiting fellow at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, thinks a case can be argued that it might well have had an impact, and that it could be an example of the disruptive side-effects of a warming planet.

He’s warning in a new report out this morning, that Australia needs to be better prepared to deal with an ‘era of disasters’, which will have a profound effect on our economy and way of life.

Dr Glasser previously served as the special representative to the UN Secretary-General on risk reduction and he joins us now.

Good morning and welcome.

Let’s get to that Brexit argument first….

SABRA LANE: Can you concisely explain your thinking on how climate change played a role there?

SABRA LANE: All right, and you think cascading effects around drought, food security and people movement are risks that Australia and our neighbours should be prepared for – how big a risk is it?

SABRA LANE: So Dr Glasser, sorry you argue that senior military and security leaders need to be aware of this and preparing for this – how?

SABRA LANE: All right, Dr Glasser from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, thanks for joining AM this morning.

I nominate this one for Big Gov Ad-Queen of 2019

Has there been a more patronizing, condescending, less informed interview on their ABC?

Buried between the lines is the message that right wing voters are fooled by weather events and couldn’t possibly have any rational reason to vote for Brexit or oppose mass immigration. (This study shows the opposite). Obvious in every word Sabra says is that she has done no research, and read no opposing views, possibly because she knows she is smarter than the 17 million people that live in the UK and voted for Brexit. Oh the burden of being so gifted!

Hello Sabra: Cold kills and warming will save lives. Crops love CO2 and warm weather.The worst droughts were 1,000 years ago and had nothing to do with CO2, and the models are hopelessly broken, unverified and failing, which suggests the latest droughts were entirely natural. There is no respectable evidence that “climate change”, whatever that distorted abused term means, has anything to do with El Ninos, which no expert in the world can predict a year in advance (or sometimes even 3 months out). Likewise bushfires have always happened, and coral bleaching too. For the last hundred thousand years humans have over-populated areas, suffered famine and war and emigrated in waves to better places.

What is really remarkable is that for the last hundred years, finally, there are a few civilized nations where almost no one starves, and war-lords don’t rape, pillage, murder and enslave people. In these, the most precious islands of peace and prosperity, we are so wealthy, beyond the imaginings of billions of people, that we can afford to pay *possibly as much as* a quarter of a million dollars a year to lazy, self serving, incompetent people like Sabra Lane.

To all the people who are fed up with that and help support me to say so, Thank You.

More info that Sabra could have found for free:

 

*Edited to reflect that those figures are speculative, not definitive (and why aren’t their salaries officially published?)

9.5 out of 10 based on 84 ratings

241 comments to Blame Climate Change for stupid British Voters choosing Brexit says ABC

  • #
    Phoenix 44

    Like small children unable to see beyond the confines of their own tiny world. The UK has been Eurosceptic since we joined, with polling showing often quite large majorities wanting to leave (60%) many times. That all predates the war in Syria.

    551

    • #
      Yonniestone

      How about people voted to leave because they want to maintain a successful proven political system and lifestyle that will be deconstructed under a globalist dictatorship?

      Oh and its also their bloody right to do so!

      560

    • #
      geeaye

      Interesting the lack of down thumbs to this post given the number of brexit supporters who must have read this?

      Maybe they were being polite.

      Just to help them out Phoenix says the British people who don’t want to be in the EU have a limited world view like small children. Hope that helps

      223

      • #
        AndyG55

        Oh look,

        geegee is off to North Korea to get a first hand experience of what he wishes on everyone else in the world.

        No-one will miss you, leaf-of-little-brain.

        No, that is not what Phoenix is saying.

        In his first sentence he was referring to the ABC.

        Your deliberate lack of comprehension, is down there with pfitz’s

        123

      • #
        MudCrab

        Only partly correct there, Geeaye.

        He also said War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.

        Apart from that you have been very observant.

        30

      • #
        Annie

        Yes, we Brexiteers are polite GA, which is more than some of the speech and behaviour of a lot of the remainers. Just to keep you happy though, a red thumb, there you go. Phoenix can keep his/her/its opinion; best of luck trying to diminish those of us who value freedom.

        82

        • #
          Annie

          Sorry Phoenix…misinterpreted your viewpoint thanks to GA. Just gone back to reread and I was one of your green thumbers.

          20

      • #
        jack

        There you go Sunshine, plenty of thumb downs.
        Just have to twist what someone says to suit you own agenda.
        Simples.

        10

      • #
        Kinky Keith

        He said:

        The AaBbCc are “like little children”.

        Perhaps in this post reconstructed, egalitarian, gender neutral world it might have been better expressed:

        “as” little children.

        KK

        00

      • #
        Roger

        Geeaye, to respond using good old cockney rhyming slang you are a total “merchant banker”. Work it out.

        30

    • #
      Roger

      The key reason that people voted to LEAVE the EU was to restore democracy and sovereignty.

      As I have often written, when the people you elect cannot make all of your laws because most are dictated by the EU THEN you have neither Democracy nor Sovereignty.

      When the people you elect cannot unmake, alter or reject laws dictated to your nation by the EU the you are nothing more than a subservient vassal state.

      That is why we voted for Brexit, we want our democracy and sovereignty back and to once again be Free Nation.

      301

      • #
        Annie

        +1,000 to infinity Roger. Can’t find an infinity sign on my tablet!

        60

      • #
        jack

        Hi Roger

        Is there now turmoil, because nether party expected the result, and your conservatives, with some semblance of the acceptance of “the will of the people” have accepted the result, without a clearly defined plan of the exit; whereas the labour movement, not bound to such notions, are rubbing their hands together, thinking, ‘lets kick the hell out of this can’?

        30

        • #
          Roger

          No the true problem is that the majority of Mps, including the Prime Minister, are Remainers who have been doing their utmost to keep us in the EU.

          Having sidelined genuinely Brexit ministers by sending her ultra-remain europhile assistant to Brussels to “negotiate” separately to the minister and his department she rejected the offer of a Canada style free trade agreement with the EU. Her negotiator came back with an agreement that would leave the UK having to adopt and implement every single piece of EU legislation for the future….

          BRINO Brexit In Name Only ….. best and most accurate assessments are from very senior lawyers : http://lawyersforbritain.org

          Politicians are now held in absolute contempt by percentages of people never before dreamed of – some aspects up to 80%. It’s simply that our politicians have either never understood or prefer to ignore what democracy is and how it must work, and as for sovereignty they are content to be ruled from afar!

          If Brexit is fudged or not delivered in a way that fully restores democracy and sovereignty I think politicians may get a rude awakening as “the little people” are getting “restless”.

          100

          • #
            jack

            Thanks Roger,
            Sounds like your stuck between a rock and a hard place.
            Hope the lawyers for Brittan come through.

            20

  • #
    OriginalSteve

    Let me see…..people exercise common sense, by intelligently removing Britain from under the communist yoke of the European Soviet. Good so far….

    Then, the Brexiters are then labelled “mad” by the carpetbaggers, rent seekers, thieves and Establishment “mafioso” who are pedaling the Climate Change(tm) nonsense. Ok, predictable….

    I just cant imagine why the brave Bretixeers would want to get out…..maybe the climate clowns after a while of believing their own nonsense, have finally lost the plot and gone mad.

    Bring on the Climate Nuremberg Trials…..

    460

  • #
    Peter C

    Brilliant expose of the mentality of Sabra Lane (ABC Journo)

    So wrong and hypocritical it should almost defy belief (if it wasn’t that we hear it every day!)

    Can the ABC be saved? I think not.

    430

    • #
      ColA

      I wonder if there is any way you can get Ita to read this??

      Would she believe the criticism that 80% of HER ABC is just a tad leftard … of left HARD!!

      Is there any way to focus attention on ABC Climate bias?

      30 – 40% of Australians question the Climate gods why don’t we get a fail suck of the sav??

      100

  • #
    TdeF

    Brilliant. The expression is that you could not make this stuff up. So are these comedy script writers?
    Is it some sort of challenge like the Cambridge Footlights where you have to make stuff up impromptu? (The most famous was the Cheese Shop sketch, explaining
    why you could not fill the customer’s request for cheese without revealing that you had no cheese at all)

    So the challenge starts now.

    Your task: “Find some way to explain the popularity of Brexit with Climate Change.”. You have sixty seconds.

    330

    • #
      TdeF

      Also I have to make a minor correction. The cost of the ABC is at least $1.2Billion a year.

      What’s a lousy $200,000,000?

      Also the ‘ethnic’ broadcaster SBS is another $300,000,000 a year to reach largely Italian,Greek and Vietnamese communities from 1986 and still continues despite the fact that everyone can watch and listen their own ethnic media in their own language all day on the internet or by satellite. At their own minor expense, but we still all pay. Why?

      Combined the government spends $30Million a week of our money to fund independent broadcasters for reasons which no one remembers and with a combined size and coverage which is not legal for any private enterprise to reach because of valid fears that they would influence voters and so threaten governments. Radio, television, internet. The ABC even had a web site to assist people smugglers, at our expense.

      Sell the lot. Why should everyone have to pay? Then if they are worthless, why do we keep paying?

      400

      • #
        TdeF

        Also 33 years have passed, 1/3 of a century since the creation of the SBS. Who are we entertaining
        at our expense? The original people are retired and holiday in Athens and Lebanon or the Gold Coast
        on Australian pensions. Their children speak English and probably don’t watch SBS.

        270

        • #
          GD

          There is only one reason to keep SBS. Its programming is far superior to the ABC.
          SBS is worth keeping. The ABC is long overdue for the garbage dump.

          240

          • #
            TdeF

            Yes, but the question is whether we the taxpayers should pay for it, regardless of whether we watch it or even whether it is good. This is other people’s money.

            In a world where people pay for what they watch, being forced to pay for what you do not watch is absurd. The reason for its existence is long gone with Al Grassby and his generation.

            Companies are accountable to their owners, shareholders. Publicly taxpayer funded businesses which are not even directly accountable to parliament are a ripoff. The concept that you could force strict neutrality in politics with a ‘charter’ has been utterly trashed by the ABC. The idea that you could trust any news service to be strictly neutral, unbiased and accurate is long gone. The left of politics are openly and utterly against free speech and that includes the press. Listen to the rantings about the Murdoch press.

            The only choice we have is to stop paying $30million a week for the opinion of the ABC staff and their friends and that includes the SBS.

            With the growing monster which is Canberra, we must get them out of the internet (ABC/NBN), power distribution (National Grid, Snowy II) and public broadcasting (ABC/SBS), just to name a few massively expensive exercises in National Socialism.

            Canberra and their unnecessary National Grid and RET have tripled electricity prices and forced the building of thousands of windmills with other people’s money. The ABC/SBS trashed media independence. The CSIRO and BOM cannot be trusted even in science. Then who ever needed an NBN, another $60Bn government legislated behemoth being forced on a nominally free democratic country? The $444Million to friends of Lucy Turnbull in advance for nothing at all is just an example of politicians largesse with our money. No one even knows what is going to happen to the money.

            Sell them all including the NBN. Get the governments out of our pockets. 5G will obsolete the NBN anyway, a blatant attempt by the Unionist Stephen Conroy and Labor party and Canberra to control all communications. Control of the media, electricity, communications are just some of the power plays the swamp in Canberra, Brussells and Washington is using to control your life with your own money while they get richer and more powerful. No conspiracy theories required. It’s all about power.

            Sell the lot.

            280

            • #
              GD

              “Yes, but the question is whether we the taxpayers should pay for it, regardless of whether we watch it or even whether it is good. This is other people’s money,”

              Of course it is. And we shouldn’t be paying for either channels, or their subsidiaries. However, the reality is that people have been brought up to believe in the public broadcaster, particularly if they are in their 70s, 80s and beyond, my Mum is one, or they are young socialists who will scream blue murder if any government attempts to dismantle the ABC/SBS oligarchy.

              Meanwhile , most of the population couldn’t care less. They are too busy earning a living, watching Channel 9, raising their kids and going to the footy.

              Unfortunately, it is the noisy minority, or squeaky wheel, that gets the oil.

              Any suggestion of curtailing the ABC/SBS will be met with howls from minorities so loud that no politician would dare touch it.

              30

            • #
              GD

              “Yes, but the question is whether we the taxpayers should pay for it, regardless of whether we watch it or even whether it is good. This is other people’s money,”

              Of course it is. And we shouldn’t be paying for either channels, or their subsidiaries. However, the reality is that people have been brought up to believe in the public broadcaster, particularly if they are in their 70s, 80s and beyond, my Mum is one, or they are young socialists who will scream blue murder if any government attempts to dismantle the ABC/SBS oligarchy.

              Meanwhile , most of the population couldn’t care less. They are too busy earning a living, watching Channel 9, raising their kids and going to the footy.

              Unfortunately, it is the noisy minority, or squeaky wheel, that gets the oil.

              Any suggestion of curtailing the ABC/SBS will be met with howls from minorities so loud that no politician would dare touch it.

              00

          • #
            Robdel

            I agree that the evening programmes on sbs are much much better than those on the abc. But as for the remainder, scrap the lot.

            100

          • #
            ColA

            Dear old Soccer Before Sex, I like the cooking shows on 33 except when they put those stupid yank shows on! and occasionally I trip onto a good doco or movie.

            I do watch the Arse Before Conscience news and Landline and I like the stress relief of screaming at the RN idiots on the drive home!!

            60

  • #
    Another Ian

    As it was:-

    Old soaks, young soaks, everybody come

    to our little Sunday school and have a tot of rum

    park your toffee apples and sit down upon the floor

    and we’ll tell you bible stories like you’ve never heard before

    As it is now:-

    Old folks, young folks, everybody come

    To our little climate school and we’ll give you the drum

    Grab your cup of cool aid and sit down upon the floor

    and we’ll tell you climate stories like you’ve never heard before

    200

  • #
    el gordo

    Nine hundred years ago we were in the middle of the Medieval Warm Period, drought is a side effect of climate change.

    https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/nasa-finds-drought-in-eastern-mediterranean-worst-of-past-900-years

    80

  • #
    Saighdear

    ugh! choke splutter, d**** muesli sharp bits! “explanification” . The title is bad enough, but when you read words like those, excuse me that muesli went down the wrong way, … as did all the eco lightbulbs and hoovers which don’t hoover the crumbs trodden into the floorboards !
    I think that this would have been more appropriate: British Voters Blame stupid Climate Change for choosing Brexit !
    I was happy to accept the general verdict of joining the EEC Common Market ( no one consulted us by way of referendum, and there was little, as I recall, dissent after joining, but boy o boy, did we writhe with agony , years later as we had to put up with our lazy politicians accepting all and sundry directives “from Brussels” GoldPlating it even.
    All this babble from the soft snowflake generations about costs of sand scarcity of goods….. GROW UP! It’s a GREAT time to cut RedTape. MUGA ( Make us great again )
    NOw that the tears have been wiped dry, whatever is happenning to the english language, using these daft words. Doesn’t say much for the User

    90

  • #
    Another Ian

    A different opinion

    “Delingpole: Watch – the Best Ever Song About Brexit…”

    https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2019/03/06/watch-dominic-frisbys-hilarious-brexit-song/

    Heed warnings those of tender ears

    160

    • #
      Terry

      Absolutely Brilliant!

      “The British told them to F*ck Off! 17 Million F*ck Offs” *everybody sing along*

      Some with “tender ears” might object, but this message has major cut-through.

      It succinctly articulates a position (and will send the socialists bonkers…again).

      If they ever do manage to “engineer” (ie manipulate) a re-vote, this should be Brexit’s campaign song.

      No gloves needed in any re-match.

      61

  • #
    george

    that we can afford to pay a quarter of a million dollars a year to lazy, self serving, incompetent people like Sabra Lane

    and waste $1.64 million on a payout for boss Michelle Guthrie,
    and constantly abuse and insult skeptics in some of their so called comedy shows
    and self righteously witch hunt Cardinal Pell, an innocent man who is now the victim of a gross miscarriage of justice.

    181

  • #
    PeterS

    Study shows conservatives not fooled by “extreme weather” in media but liberals suffer imaginary droughts

    Yes but conservatives in our LNP today have lost their backbones and scared of anyone who blurts out “climate change!”. As far as I’m concerned they have lost a lot of credibility over the past few years. The best thing they can do now is to grow a backbone, stand up and blurt back “CAGW is a scam!”. They have nothing to lose and much to gain.

    200

    • #
      Kinky Keith

      The twelfth of never.

      50

    • #
      TdeF

      Our former Prime Minister Tony Abbott said Climate Change was crap. You could not put it more simply. So he had to go.
      The usual suspects are still very scared that he will return to threaten their long term project to cripple Australia.

      In the US, the project to remove Donald Trump is overwhelming and nasty and supported by leading Republicans and billionaires.

      In the UK, the project to force the UK into vassal state of the EU is well underway and supported by leading Tories and business people.

      The real enemies of democracy and freedom are not Russia and China and religious fanatics. The real enemies are France and Germany and the UN. In their vision there is a single world government, run by France and Germany and their EU/UN. The gilets jaune are one major example of people being ignored by their own democratically elected governments, as in Australia.

      330

      • #
        PeterS

        I would go much closer. Our real enemies are our socialistic MSM, unions, schools and universities. They are SJWs and as the name implies (social justice WARRIORS) they are at war and hate our Western civilisation so much they are prepared to keep propping up the CAGW hoax until our economy collapses. They will not be satisfied until we crash and burn. In any other war situation such people would be rounded up and thrown into prison for treason. Make no mistake about it. If the voters don’t wake up to what’s really happening right under their noses here in Australia it won’t be too long before we suffer a crash and burn. China will then step in and “save” us. As for the UN, etc. they are not at the moment influencing our situation a lot but they will once the rest of the West crashes and burns. Their first target is the US. Once it goes the rest will follow like dominoes.

        200

        • #
          Kinky Keith

          Are you sure “we” aren’t their principal target?
          The Chinese Switzerland of the Pacific?
          They might just run it while leaving the token Aussie Polli in public view.

          Just how much of Australia has been quietly sold or leased by our Political class so that the budget balances and their own monkey business is covered up?

          Auxit. Bring back Australian industry and enterprise.

          Arise.

          KK

          100

          • #
            PeterS

            It’s impossible to know the full true story as we not privy to the meetings of the interested minds, both here and abroad. One thing is for sure. History repeats and those who understand history know with absolute certainty it’s repeating right now before our very eyes. Even past major events are not fully understood in their absolute fine detail for the same reasons as now. All we can do is sense the general direction of things and at the moment it’s clear as day the Western “empire” is in a major decline to collapse. The only way to prevent it is for the masses to revolt in a peaceful way through the ballot box. It won’t happen though as most people will continue to vote for one of the two major parties, either directly or as a result of the preferential voting system. Even if we didn’t have the latter very little would change since some other countries don’t use it yet are suffering similar declines. Western nations have the power to change things in major ways at the ballot box but for various reasons they choose to treat it as a joke. In that case they will get a joke for a government each and every time and it will get more of a joke over time until it finally crashes and burns.

            70

        • #
          el gordo

          Let the climate wars begin.

          ‘Chinese-backed plans to build a massive new coal-fired power plant in New South Wales are reopening hostilities in the so-called climate wars.’ ABC

          80

          • #
            PeterS

            Yes I heard the news today about the support for two 1GW HELE plants for Queensland and some other news about an ultra one for NSW by some other group. It will be interesting to see how Morrison handles or perhaps more appropriately mishandles them.

            160

            • #
              el gordo

              Its a state issue, if Qld and NSW decide to let Beijing build new coal fired power stations, its up to them. That is how Morrison will handle it.

              The Greens and Labor want very fast trains, which cannot happen without baseload power.

              30

              • #
                OriginalSteve

                Whatever electricity they produce, it will not speak mandarin, english or any other languages except a universal language of 240 V

                Bring it on. If the political globalist wimpy forelock tuggers wont actually man-up, stare down the hysterical Leftards and actually govern, it appears the Chinese will happily do the heavy lifting for them.

                Thats gotta hurt…..but objectively speaking from shoring up our reliable baseload power, it could be a good thing.

                60

            • #

              I mean, why oh why, someone please tell me why you would even bother to construct two USC coal fired power plants? Absolute madness.

              Here you have 51 Wind plants spread out across most of Australia, FIFTY ONE of them.

              They have a Nameplate of 5662MW, so that’s 2.8 times the Nameplate of these two proposed 1000MW units, (so just 2000MW all up)

              This stupid idea for those two coal fired plants, just two of them, so what use are they, only two of them.

              Those TWO coal fired power plants will deliver more power across a whole year than all FIFTY ONE of those wind plants added together. (15.8TWH versus 14.8TWH)

              I mean , even those 35 solar power plants spread out across Australia, THIRTY FIVE of them, have a Nameplate higher than these piddling little two coal fired plants. (2532MW versus 2000MW)

              Those TWO coal fired power plants will deliver 4.4 TIMES more power across a whole year than all THIRTY FIVE of those solar power plants added together. (15.8TWH versus 3.6TWH)

              Why would you even bother.

              Tony.

              (Please don’t even begin to try and tell me that two coal fired power plants will cost more than ….. FIFTY ONE wind plants, or even THIRTY FIVE solar power plants)

              200

              • #
                theRealUniverse

                “Why would you even bother.” Because those 51 (useless)Wind plants look good on someones (green)accounts..

                70

          • #
            Peter Fitzroy

            Surprised that the Australian has not picked up on this story.

            53

            • #
              el gordo

              Nor Sky, the Murdocracy is keeping its hands off and powder dry until the fight actually begins.

              61

              • #

                If there’s one thing this might actually do is to finally prompt people to start finding out the real facts, and for a journalist to find out the facts, take his heart in his hands and actually write about it, despite the fear of ridicule from every other journalists, and green leaning politicians.

                Something I have noticed beginning to enter the debate now is the difference between MegaWatts and MegaWattHours, something I have been ‘on about’ for all my time now, the relationship between Nameplate and actual generated power.

                This proposal probably will not go ahead, but at least they will start talking about it.

                Tony.

                150

              • #
                el gordo

                MegaWattHours

                Rohan Dean might be the first to run with it, if you could explain what you mean in a couple of short sentences.

                50

          • #
            Serp

            Adam Bandt has gone straight into lunatic mouth frothing incendiary mode threatening that he will engineer the biggest demonstrations yet seen in this country in order to put a stop to any revival of this coal burning nonsense…as if saying don’t we know that he and the guy who’s the spitting image of a stage Lucifer have coal banning bills pending in the Australian parliaments?

            120

            • #
              AndyG55

              “Adam Bandt has gone straight into lunatic mouth frothing incendiary mode “

              I hadn’t noticed any change 😉

              92

      • #
        Ross

        TdeF

        Your bit about the Republicans/billionaires and Tories/business people is bang on but this is why I really struggle to understand why the leftie MSM and all the SJWs are out there supporting them –cannot the latter groups see the wood for the trees? They are supporting their “traditional enemies” or is it simply they like being controlled by central Government and they do not care how they get to that position.

        90

        • #
          Sceptical Sam

          The enemy of my enemy …..

          60

        • #
          TdeF

          The conservatives and Catholics in Germany ultimately supported Hitler. They made a mistake, but democracy died in an instant. He legislated to eliminate all other parties and they were gone. Other countries have elected communist leaders without realizing that they elected dictatorships and then elections were meaningless, as in Venezuela.

          What we have is a grab for power by both the socialists/communists and the money classes. This also happened in Germany. The Krupps, the biggest company in the world, were solidly behind Hitler and they did very well. Ultimately they too found their world was blown up. Even the most villainous dictators in the world need bankers, money men and talented administrators. These people are not particularly interested in democracy and the good of the people. They are the elites.

          So it is not a conspiracy as such. Simply a congruence of interest between the extreme left of politics and the people who can profit from it. It is interesting how National Socialist leader Hitler has been moved from the extreme left to the extreme right. No one would call him a socialist today as he failed but the end result is identical to communism as practiced.

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        • #

          The belief that Wall Street is somehow a friend to conservative values has long been conditioned into us. And it has always been a completely false belief. The story of the boosting and funding of Bolshevism by the West is too long to tell here, but start by asking why Australia ever had to declare war on Finland.

          Why are the main CIA mouthpieces the Washington Post and CNN, spouters of green/left values in between war-mongering and race/gender-baiting? Because all corporate entities hold common collectivist values, such as that humans can be “economic” or “utilitarian”, subject to “the market” or “the state” or “historical forces” (depending on the flavour of corporatism).

          Conservatives know that free libraries with late fees work and that free beer doesn’t work. They look to what works, not to what fits a dogma. They expect human nature to prevail, and account for human nature first.

          The first French Revolution, like the Russian one, was never popular and was thoroughly manipulated. Human nature was discounted, system was glorified, massacre was the corrective. Let’s hope we’re witnessing something different with Brexiteers and gilets jaunes. Judging by the media slants and snobbish contempt of the elites, I’d say there’s a chance, even though such movements are always confused and quickly infiltrated.

          Me, I’m up for some modest hope.

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  • #
    Kinky Keith

    The more interaction I have with people, the more obvious it becomes that the thinking of those people is related, not to understanding, but to exposure to issues on “Trusted” media like the ABC.

    And switching from humans to radio, while driving, the onslaught from their ABC is like, totally unbelievable.

    Mostly women interviewers, like the beautiful P.K., who literally tears interviewees to shreds in that haranguing, shrill, harping and condescending manner required by her listeners, the mobile eco wise, cafe latte set located close to the local university.

    People, unbelievably, trust government and, by extension, government media.

    Absolutely Tragic.

    KK

    200

    • #
      OriginalSteve

      “When books are burned, so too eventually people are burned too”

      120

    • #
      Yonniestone

      Have a listen to Trevor Chappell from ABC Overnight in Victoria if you can get it, I flick between stations in my early morning commute and will listen to him if I want get the blood going to stay alert, the snarky leftist bias is always just there under the surface of faux niceties with rude out busts of emotive indignation erupting over the menial of disagreements.

      A twerp of the highest order.

      Otherwise the shows alright. 🙂

      81

  • #
    Neil Catto

    Since the AGW nonsense started with MBH98, twenty years ago, the UK has had no change of mean pressure, mean temperature, mean relative humidity, mean wind speed, mean sunshine, mean rainfall volume or mean rainfall duration.

    In summary there has been no evidence of climate change in the UK. So Sabra Lane can stick that in her pipe and smoke it.

    200

  • #
    Another Ian

    Must also have been climate change that pushed the Turks to the gates of Vienna then?

    140

    • #
      Yonniestone

      Creating the original 9/11 for that invading empire also.

      30

    • #
      theRealUniverse

      Actually theres some truth to food shortages (in ancient times, due to we would say now, solar downturns or LIA events) causing invasions.

      20

      • #
        el gordo

        A quick google shows the Turks at the gates in 1683 and presumably a deteriorating climate was having an impact on agriculture.

        Across the Channel anecdotal evidence suggests times were miserably cold.

        ‘Frequently it was recorded that milk froze overnight indoors; more rarely ‘it froze beside the fire’, and one readily imagines the housewife or one of her maids coming down in the dark morning hoping that she could blow up the embers, and finding a skim of ice on the pan left ready for the cook beside the hearth. At Oxford in 1684, Wood recorded that his bottle of ink froze at the fireside on 12 January.’

        Manley 1975

        20

        • #
          glen Michel

          And 1529 , possibly an atteempt 1521 but stymied by Croatian (500) troops in early winter. But yeah.. Jan Sobiewski and his winged hussars turned the tide in 1683.

          10

  • #
    Kinky Keith

    A substantial factor in the mindset of the last few decades has been the removal of challenge in many areas of life.

    In particular the broad media finds it easy to entrain and hold listeners/viewers by feeding facts laced with a liberal dosing of high emotion.

    Irresistible but still it’s ultimately manipulation when you fully understand what’s being sold.

    One poor starving baby, we all agree, must be saved. When the other ten million from that country, by association, are welcomed into Europe by munificent politicians, trouble brews.

    We need the sort of change exemplified by Brexit, Francit and Trumpit.

    How do we begin? Disconnect the Media from the Money Tap?

    KK

    70

    • #
      PeterS

      Spot on. We have become lazy and spoilt as a result of our own success as the West grew in the past. Now we have become aloof and lack the desire to progress any further. Instead we have become what is termed “progressive” which really often means the opposite of progress, and in certain cases it means “destroy the West at all costs”.

      Once something is fractured beyond repair it has to be replaced. Crash and burn is our destiny for now.

      70

  • #
    neil

    the EU as a bloc is the largest economy in the world and as far as economies go, big is better. Within the EU the UK has the second biggest economy after Germany so it leaving will seriously weaken it. But the EU severely limits how and who a member country can trade with.

    However if we consider another bloc, The Commonwealth of Nations, it has a combined population of 2.5 billion, an economy twice the size of the USA and 30% of the worlds natural resources and economic growth far greater than the EU.

    Which bloc would you choose to align with?

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  • #
    FrankH

    I know why I voted Leave. I voted Leave because:
    I’m stupid
    I’m racist
    I’m a little Englander
    I believed what was written on the side of a bus
    I don’t like immigrants
    I was misinformed
    I didn’t go to university
    I was having a tantrum

    I think that about covers it. I know all this because remainers have told me.

    I thought I was voting Leave because I don’t like the EU, but hey, what do I know?

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    • #
      PeterS

      You left out two of the most important elements; deplorable and reprehensible. Those who are aware and want to get out of socialist minded regimes such as the EU are considered as as such by the SJWs. I wear those two labels with honour.

      110

    • #
      MudCrab

      How do you tell the difference between a Left and a Right?

      A Right – Oh… you have a different opinion than me? Okay… guess I can deal with that.

      A Left – YOU. ARE. WRONG.

      Lefts at of the belief that ‘They Know Best’. Many of them also mean very well and honestly intend to use this power of ‘Knowing Best’ to make the world ‘A Better Place’. The problem is that because they clearly ‘Know Best’ they struggle with the concept of someone thinking differently. To accept that there may be a ‘Different Best’ suggests that they don’t in face ‘know best’ in which case great parts of their life were in fact a lie. Hence when forced to choose between allowing an opposing viewpoint to exist or reinforcing the entire purpose of their own lives they reject outright the opposing viewpoint. YOU. ARE. WRONG.

      A Right are more open. There is no ‘best’ in the absolute sense, there is just what ‘currently works’. They are more flexible with ideas which paradoxically makes the conservative Right more open to ideas than the progressive Left.

      On the plus side this driven belief by a Left that ‘They Know Best’ normally self regulates before Left power gets too big. They will combine out of mutual hate of Wrong People, but the bigger they grow the more chance they will fracture off into sub groups that think slightly differently. And what are people who think differently? WRONG.

      (plus any group that tries to insult their way into winning new supporters is always amusing)

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      • #
        PeterS

        Difference between left and right? Much but we don’t have a right leaning government. In fact we have a so called LNP government that has banned Milo from coming to Australia while allowing Marxist and left wing revolutionaries to come here for a conference to spread their hatred of the West. As such our government can be classified as a supporter of left wing Marxists ideologies. So the difference between the LNP and ALP is diddly-squat.

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      • #
        Kinky Keith

        Mudcrab, at the level of self interest there’s no difference between the left and right.

        Self Interest aka corruption, is equally the driving force on both sides of politics.

        Serving the constituents is a very minor concern.

        KK

        10

  • #
    pat

    it’s the smugness of the ABC presenter conducting such ridiculous interviews that is most annoying.
    always good to learn more about the interviewee:

    Wikipedia: Robert Glasser
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Glasser

    the Beeb is as bad or worse, if that is possible:

    listen to BBC’s guest Ece Temlkuran from 18 minutes 10 seconds in.

    AUDIO: BBC: The Culture Frontline
    (SEGMENT BEGINS 13MINS 10SEC IN)
    With fears of rising populism across Europe, we hear from the Turkish writer Ece Temelkuran on what it takes for a country to turn from democracy to dictatorship.
    (ALL YOU NEED IS A RUTHLESS MAN TO TELL THE CROWD I WILL MAKE OUR COUNTRY GREAT AGAIN)
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/w3cswp7c

    Ece Temelkuran has also been published by The Guardian:

    14 Feb: Guardian: Ece Temelkuran: From Tahrir to Trump: nationalism has hijacked the hope of the people
    Protesters’ need for recognition has been harnessed to a darker, divisive movement and new heroes promising them greatness.
    It is dangerous and unfortunate that so much public anger is being organised and mobilised by rightwing populists and ruthless autocrats such as Donald Trump, Viktor Orbán, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Turkey and Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil. They point at journalists, scientists and the political establishment and say: they’re the ones who have been messing with people’s dignity…

    These leaders usually emerge from the privileged classes but make people believe that they will bring the elite to their knees and allow them to take back their dignity. This is why at Trump rallies and Brexit demonstrations we see faces shaped by the struggle for survival lit up and filled with a new energy. These are souls rediscovering the ability to say no to a world that has been whipped into submission for decades by the capitalist motto, There Is No Alternative (Tina)…
    By now, even the diehard devotees of capitalism know (as we saw at Davos) that neoliberalism’s economic mechanisms are dysfunctional, its main narrative is collapsing, and that a collapsing story cannot produce inspirational heroes…
    Brexit is threatening free trade, Trump’s protectionism is messing with the first commandment of neoliberal economics, laissez-faire…

    That is why there is so much excitement about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the new star on the left of US politics and the youngest woman ever elected to the House of Representatives. She is a rare voice, and she knows that the fight is not only about material inequality…
    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/feb/14/tahrir-square-trump-nationalists-hope-protesters
    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/feb/14/tahrir-square-trump-nationalists-hope-protesters

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    • #
      OriginalSteve

      The AI revoltion will throw a lot if people out of jobs ( like 20% across the board in a lot of industries )

      . All you need then is another Hitler promising a fix, and peopke will embrace socialism…..

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      • #
        PeterS

        Indeed especially given I suspect you as well as I believe an anti-Christ will come as prophesied. I hope I’m not still around when it happens but if I am I know in advance where I will stand. It won’t be pretty.

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        • #
          el gordo

          The coming of the antichrist is millenarian madness, although I hasten to add that Nostradamus did say the antichrist will come out of the East.

          40

        • #
          OriginalSteve

          Maybe you wont be around, but we need to let the kids know whats coming.

          In the World Phone Congress held in barcelona in Spain just recently, one of the big things was microchipping someone in the right hand, on stage.
          Didnt make the papers generally, but it was touted for use with banking transactions.
          Now what does that sound like?

          Is the conditioning occurring now of the populace to accept the Rev 13:16 the Mark? Maybe.

          Who in their right mind wants to be an extension of a surveillance grid, anyway?

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          • #
            PeterS

            Chipping people and having a cashless society is inevitable. More and more people are in fact wanting it. Interconnection 24×7 is becoming the rage. I can understand why many of the young generation like it. If I was in their shoes I probably would too. I was deep into IT and loving it back in the 80s before most people even knew the Internet existed (Fidonet, UUCP, Usenet, X.25 networks, 10-base5, etc.). 5G is the next step to the evil network. 6G is already on the drawing board. China is already developing 6G. Damn it even 7G is now being touted.

            30

            • #
              OriginalSteve

              Well, you cant bathe peopke in terraherz radiation and not have something go bad eventually. The problem with 5G is it needs transmitters on almist every street corner, and can you imagine every device being IoT and bathing you inside your house with 5G as well?

              I treat IoT devices like the cockroaches they are ….*crunch*

              No thanks…

              30

  • #
    pat

    headline was great in google results:

    Q&A: Robert Glasser on disaster advocacy
    Devex – 23 Nov 2018

    pity it was changed!

    23 Nov 2018: Devex: Q&A: Robert Glasser on advocacy inside and outside the UN
    By Lisa Cornish
    CANBERRA — Robert Glasser served two years as the head of the United Nations Office of Disaster Risk Reduction, before being succeeded in January by Mami Mizutori. Now that he is working from outside the U.N. system, he is taking off the gloves when discussing climate issues.

    “You can’t say how ridiculous some of the Trump policies are — you can say, ‘we would prefer the Americans to consider rejoining the Paris Agreement.’”
    — Robert Glasser, former head of the U.N. Office of Disaster Risk Reduction.

    Glasser is back in Australia supporting grassroots action in the fight against climate, assisting disaster risk reduction programs and sharing his knowledge as honorary associate professor with the Australian National University College of Asia and the Pacific…

    Climate, he says, is the biggest enemy to face in the fight against natural disasters. He feels he can now be frank in providing a real picture of the risks of climate change and the need for the world to do more.
    This conversation has been edited for length and clarity…

    EXAMPLE OF QUESTION FROM LISA: With natural disasters, climate change plays a major factor, but some countries, including Australia, see leaders still in denial. When discussing climate change on behalf of UNISDR, how did you work around this issue?…READ ON

    (AT BOTTOM – THE CORNISH BIO):
    Lisa Cornish is a Devex Reporter based in Canberra, where she focuses on the Australian aid community. Lisa formerly worked with News Corp Australia as a data journalist for the national network and was published throughout Australia in major metropolitan and regional newspapers, including the Daily Telegraph in Melbourne, Herald Sun in Melbourne, Courier-Mail in Brisbane, and online through news.com.au. Lisa additionally consults with Australian government providing data analytics, reporting and visualization services. Lisa was awarded the 2014 Journalist of the Year by the New South Wales Institute of Surveyors.
    https://www.devex.com/news/q-a-robert-glasser-on-advocacy-inside-and-outside-the-un-93885

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  • #
    pat

    what a coincidence:

    5 Mar: The Hill: Obama warns climate change will make global politics more toxic
    By Tal Axelrod
    Former President Obama on Tuesday dismissed climate change skeptics and warned that the world’s inability to effectively tackle the issue will toxify global politics.
    “It is indisputable that although we can’t ascribe any particular kind of weather event to rising temperatures, that at the current pace that we are on, the scale of tragedy that will consume humanity is something we have not seen in perhaps recorded history if we don’t do something about it,” Obama said during a trip to Canada, according to CTV News.

    “Imagine when you have not a few hundred thousand migrants who are escaping poverty or violence or disease, but you now have millions. Imagine if you start seeing monsoon patterns in the Indian subcontinent changing so that half a billion people can’t grow food and are displaced,” he added. “Think about what that does to the politics of the world — not just the economics of it, not just the environment.”

    The former Democratic president on Tuesday told a packed crowd in Calgary, Alberta, home to many struggling oil and gas companies, that nobody can escape the impacts of climate change.
    “All of us are going to have to recognize that there are trade-offs involved with how we live, how our economy is structured, and the world that we’re going to be passing on to our kids and grandkids. Nobody is exempt from that conversation,” Obama said.

    He also noted that rising oceans risk coastal populations and environmental changes have boosted the frequency of insect-borne diseases.
    “Moose right now [have] to deal with tick-borne diseases that they didn’t have to do 10, 15 years ago. I really like moose. I assume, Canadians, you do too,” Obama said. “These are just facts.”
    https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/432773-obama-warns-climate-change-will-make-global-politics-more-toxic

    Updated 6 Mar: CBC: Barack Obama speaks to Calgarians about oil and gas, climate change
    The 44th president of the United States spoke to an almost sold-out crowd at the Scotiabank Saddledome in Calgary today…
    “All of us are going to have to recognize that there are tradeoffs involved with how we live, how our economy is structured and the world we are going to pass onto our kids and grandkids. And nobody is exempt from that conversation,” he said.
    “The fact of the matter is that oil and gas have powered the industrial revolution, they have powered Canada’s economy, the U.S. economy, and powered the world. And it has been an extraordinary run and is still the cheapest means for us to power everything that we do.”

    But Obama says one way or another choices will have to made by the world to deal with climate change.
    “Either we are going to do it intentionally or thoughtfully and seriously, or it will happen to us,” he said. “And by the time it happens to us, it might be too late — and that’s the way we have to think about it.”…

    Without mentioning his successor by name, Obama told a sold-out Winnipeg crowd on Monday he wasn’t sure if his country had the leadership to avoid a period of intense trouble.
    “If we had a crisis today, I’m concerned that we, at least in the United States, may not be in the habit of trying to figure things out in a common sense, practical way,” Obama said in Manitoba…
    https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/barack-obama-calgary-speech-1.5043519

    message of hope and optimism? what?

    5 Mar: Calgary Herald: Obama brings message of hope and optimism, asking Calgary to take on climate change
    by Eva Ferguson
    Obama challenged the city’s engineers and scientists to look for new ways to “turn on the lights and get our cars going” by using the same ingenuity they have used in finding new ways to extract oil.
    “You guys can figure it out, but you’ve got to be open to it,” he added, referring to a former chairman of the environment committee in Washington holding up a snowball on the Senate floor and declaring there is no global warming because it’s cold outside.
    “You laugh. This happened. That’s not a good way of approaching problems.”
    He also warned of a potential refugee crisis, brought on by people fleeing severe weather patterns in countries that are no longer livable…

    But as the planet continues to wrestle with hate, ignorance, the rising “far-right” and even the divisive Brexit vote in Europe, he hopes new generations will counter that narrative.
    “These are all expressions of fear and anxiety, fed by changing economies, information flow and demographics.
    “But the next generation will be better equipped than the generation currently in power to change that. But it doesn’t automatically happen.”…
    https://calgaryherald.com/news/local-news/obama-brings-message-of-hope-and-optimism-asking-calgary-to-take-on-climate-change

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  • #
    pat

    from the CTV piece referenced in The Hill:

    5 Mar: CTV: Obama in Calgary: Climate change chaos making politics more toxic
    Lauren Krugel, The Canadian Press; With files from Laura Kane in Vancouver
    ***The crowd also clapped when Obama said there is indisputable science that the planet is getting warmer…

    Globalization, automation, the internet and social media have accelerated the ability of some businesses, such as those in Silicon Valley, to rapidly expand, he said. But at the same time, these innovations have displaced some workers who used to lead secure middle-class lives and led to culture clashes, he said.
    Current U.S. politics, Brexit and the rise of far-right nationalism in Europe can all be seen as responses to these forces, he said…
    “You start getting extreme political movements in reaction,” he said, adding: “These changes are just beginning.”

    Obama said he expects artificial intelligence to revolutionize the job market over the next 25 to 50 years, pushing out many high-skilled workers. He expressed concern that countries are not well-prepared for the shift, although he said Canada is likely better positioned than the United States because it has a more robust social welfare system.

    He also criticized the Republican party for embracing right-wing populism, and he traced it back to the late senator John McCain’s decision to select then-Alaska governor Sarah Palin as his running mate in the 2008 presidential race.
    “That was the moment when the Republican party changed,” he said.
    There has always been a strain of nativism and suspicion of elites in the party, he said, but Palin brought those attitudes to the fore and laid the groundwork for Trump’s presidency…
    https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/obama-in-calgary-climate-change-chaos-making-politics-more-toxic-1.4323650

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    • #
      Bill in Oz

      Pat I wonder how Obama coped with the freezing climate in Calgary.

      It is way cold there and has been for weeks.

      Ohhh but I forgot ; They are freezing in all North America because somebody cooked the planet” !

      The tragedy is that some folks believe this type of ‘reasoning’.

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  • #
    Bill in Oz

    I stopped listening to AM about 20 years ago..
    I just could not cope with the endless dopiness.
    This example this morning is an illustration of why I gave up.
    There are a few odd programs on ABC radio which I try to catch up with via the ABC website.
    But never by radio. It’s so time consuming
    And I have lots of better things to do with my time.

    60

    • #
      RicDre

      “I stopped listening to AM about 20 years ago..”

      Here in the US, I stopped listening to NPR (National Public Radio) and watching PBS (Public Broadcast System) about the same time as you quit listening to AM and for the same reasons. There are a few odd programs on PBS I still watch (such as NOVA), but even these programs are occasionally loaded down with a lot of propaganda which makes them unwatchable.

      100

      • #
        Bill in Oz

        Ric, I think the last PBS program I watched here in Oz was the series about the US Civil War..in the 1990’s

        40

  • #
    pat

    integrity and reason?

    5 Mar: Daily Hive: Former US President Barack Obama brings integrity and reason to Vancouver
    by Darcy Matheson
    On life after presidency, Obama says the transition back to being “regular people” was easy because, unlike young pop stars or actors, he and Michelle didn’t really become national figures until they were in their 40s.
    Giving props to his wife and mother-in-law, he credits the ability to stay grounded as the reason his daughters grew up to be “remarkable women.”
    “We didn’t believe our own hype,” he said…
    https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/barack-obama-vancouver-visit-2019

    4 Mar: Washington Examiner: Obama: There’s hope ‘if we can train a million Baracks and Michelles’
    by Daniel Chaitin
    WINNIPEG, Canada — Former President Barack Obama said Monday these are “challenging times” but he remains hopeful because of the next generation of leaders that he aims to guide.
    Touching on his “third act,” the 44th president spoke of programs that have become a central pillar of his Obama Foundation and its $500 million presidential center project in Chicago.
    He told a packed arena at Bell MTS Place how he plans to create a “university for social change” that will serve as a hub for young people in the U.S. and around the world who are skeptical of the “old institutions.”…

    He then amplified a vision he shared in Japan last year in which the new global class of future leaders are molded in his or his wife Michelle Obama’s image.
    “If we could form a network of those young leaders, not just in the United States, but around the world, then we got something,” he said, adding, “if we can train a million Baracks and Michelles who are running around thinking they can change the world” hope is achievable.
    Loud applause ensued…
    https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/obama-theres-hope-if-we-can-train-a-million-baracks-and-michelles

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    • #
      AndyG55

      “Former President Barack Obama said….. “

      Frankly, who gives a stuff what that crazed, arrogant Kenyan conman has to say. !!

      123

    • #
      AndyG55

      ““We didn’t believe our own hype,” he said…”

      Nobody does, you gormless twit, especially not now. !!

      You are back to being a non-entity, stop making a mockery of yourself.

      123

      • #
        AndyG55

        Obama seems to be even worse that Rudd and Turnbull.

        YOU’RE GONE, nobody is interested.. Get It !!!

        42

    • #
      Kinky Keith

      And in the light of all that you could ask, which President, Obama or Trump, has had the intention of Serving the American people?

      90

  • #
    Carbon500

    Yes, as a ‘leave’ voting Englishman it’s why I voted ‘out’ – as you say, ‘the fifth largest economy choose to trade more with the rest of the world and to be less under the thumb of Germany and Brussels.’

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  • #
    pat

    meanwhile, in the adult world:

    5 Mar: Reuters: Chevron, Exxon take turns wooing investors with shale boasts
    by Jennifer Hiller, John Benny
    NEW YORK (Reuters) – The two biggest U.S. oil companies tried to outdo each other on Tuesday, boasting about their prowess in shale to lure investors to their side…
    Chevron expects shale production from the basin to reach 600,000 barrels per day (bpd) by the end of next year, 59 percent above current production, and 900,000 bpd by the end of 2023, it said at its annual meeting with equity analysts in New York.

    The stakes are such that Exxon on Tuesday forecast shale production of 1 million barrels per day in the Permian as early as 2024, grabbing the spotlight on the day Chevron was making a case in its oil growth.
    “Our investors don’t need to wait several years for the story to come together,” Chevron Chief Executive Mike Wirth said in an apparent dig at Exxon, which has been investing heavily in the Permian to reverse production declines. “We’re delivering now.”
    The Permian Basin pumps around 4 million barrels per day now and IHS Markit expects it to hit 5.4 mbd in 2023, more than the total production of any OPEC country other than Saudi Arabia.

    Wirth said at a press conference that he had been “busy” and had not seen Exxon’s Permian goal, which was released while he was speaking to analysts. He said, however, that Chevron’s production could exceed 900,000 barrels daily if the company decided to increase drilling rigs from the 20 currently in operation…
    The company also raised its estimate of its reserves in the Permian, in Texas and New Mexico, to 16.2 billion barrels of recoverable resources from 9 billion…
    https://www.reuters.com/article/us-chevron-outlook/chevron-exxon-take-turns-wooing-investors-with-shale-boasts-idUSKCN1QM1GD

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  • #
    NB

    Post-reason reasoning. Founded on myth, propelled by non-sequiturs.

    30

  • #

    Have you noticed how not one person on the ABC has said the bleeding obvious about the retiring politicians, how they are doing it to take advantage of the change in their superannuation scheme, and it’s more advantageous to go now than wait until after the election.

    No it’s all about rats and sinking ships, or a perceived female representation problem.

    I hark back to the old days of the Kremlin when those out of favour retired or resigned because of ill health. Nowadays, it’s to be with family.

    Peter Beattie (remember him, where’s that camera?) retired as Premier to be with family, and within weeks was off to a permanent job in the U.S. leaving his wife here.

    We pay these people ….. a huge amount of money. They make rules about the single best superannuation scheme in all Australia, and then take advantage of it when it best suits them, all from the public purse.

    And not one word from a compliant ABC who you think would mention it in their usual anti Coalition biassed manner, because it makes them look even worse, but no, the Labor people are doing it too. Don’t rock the boat.

    Those retiring ministers get a motza.

    All we get is ….. Bill!

    Tony.

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    • #
      Serp

      The best ever, and the true story is yet to be told, was the resignation of Victorian Premier Bracks and his deputy Thwaites on the same afternoon.

      30

    • #
      Destroyer D 69

      . We have what is arguably the most important election in Australian history looming on the horizon. We should all take time to critically read the current version of the Electoral Act to be properly informed as to what is in FACT a FORMAL vote. Sec 239″Marking of votes in Senate election”, Sec 268″Informal ballot papers” 268A”formal votes below the line” and Sec 269″Formal votes above the line” A critical study of these leads me to the conclusion that irrespective of what is printed on the ballot paper it is a VALID vote in the senate if there is either.. A minimum of two squares marked ABOVE the line or a minimum of six squares BELOW the line with in the case of correct marking both above and below the line the markings BELOW the line have precedence. Do your own reading and come to your own conclusion.

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      • #
        Roy Hogue

        I just made time to read more carefully and I think I’ve just read the description of the most complicated ballot I’ve ever heard of.

        This may be a dumb question but I don’t live in Australia so if someone can explain what Destroyer D 69 is talking about I will have learned something.

        00

        • #
          Serp

          Whilst we don’t have the option of writing in the name of an unlisted candidate Roy we do require the winning candidates to have over fifty percent of the valid ballots cast and in order to achieve this end we’re expected exhaustively to list our candidates in preferred order so that the persons counting the votes can effect a series of run off elections using those preference indications from the least successful candidate and then the next least successful candidate and so on until some candidate gets over the majority tally for each of the requisite number of seats in contention. Spoiling the ballot has the benefit that no candidate will receive the less than three dollar funding bonus attached to a valid vote. Plus, should the incumbent not be returned in the seat that defeated member gets go away money akin to a severance payment issued to dismissed employees. New Zealand has an electoral system orders of magnitude more culturally sensitive than ours with many seats simply surrendered to cannibals.

          00

  • #
    Roy Hogue

    I would bet every dime I’m worth that climate change is one of the issues in the minds of UK voters that helped approve Brexit. How could it not be?

    So much for SABRA LANE. But I would bet that every voter had at least one other issue in mind when approving Brexit — the heavy hand of regulation from Brussels.

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  • #
    StephenP

    The UK joined the EEC in 1972, there was a referendum in 1975 asking whether we wanted to join a COMMON MARKET.
    What the politicians did not say was that they were planning a European UNION.
    In fact they lied and said that we would not lose our sovereignty.
    Since then the Maastricht and Lisbon treaties have tied us even closer to the EU.
    The Brexit referendum was a miscalculation by the politicians who thought that the plebs would vote to remain. Big Mistake!
    The plebs wanted to regain sovereignty and stop funding an unelected bureaucracy.
    Climate change had nothing to do with it.
    The emphasis being put on CO2 has resulted in increased costs for everyone, and the CO2 emissions have been exported to the Far East, along with much of our industry.
    Hopefully Brexit will happen in spite of the dogs dinner being made of it by our politicians, many of whom seem to be closet remainders.
    End of rant.
    Thank you Anthony for such a informative, interesting and intelligent website.

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    • #
      StephenP

      Sorry, it should be thank you Joanne.
      Any chance of getting Paypal to accept GBP?

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      • #

        How’s this? I had created four GPB buttons. I still don’t know why the Pound is foiling the paypal buttons.
        Here are two others. I hope one of them works?
        : – )
        Thank you,

        Jo







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  • #
    Gerry, England

    As we are set for a disastrous and unnecessary ‘no deal’ Brexit due to the stupidity of the politicians and the media, there was an article by Macron in the Guardian – where else – extolling the virtues of the EU continuing to march forward. That pile of drivel should be enough to for anyone to see that we have to leave the EU no matter what the cost to the economy. We can only hope that out of the chaos that ensues we might get a democracy to replace our sham system and failed clique of politicians and journalists.

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    • #
      RicDre

      “As we are set for a disastrous and unnecessary ‘no deal’ Brexit…”

      The same people who are now predicting that a ‘no deal’ Brexit will be disastrous for the UK previously predicted that just voting to leave the EU would be disastrous for the UK so it might not be wise to put a lot of credence in their predictions.

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      • #
        bobl

        I’m not a UK citizen but here’s my view as an investor in the UK

        Taking the UK out of the EU on a hard brexit undoubtedly changes things …. well Duh, isn’t this the point? Will it be painfull, well yes, temporarilly, but once out, the EU will have to deal with an independent Britain with Britain in a position of POWER with a lot of European HQs still based in London. The UK will be eating the EU’s lunch so to speak. The EU in a weaker position than now will HAVE TO DEAL rather than obstruct as now, since the aim is still to paint the worst possible scenario to stop the UK departure. There are plenty of other nations (US, Australia) waiting in the wings to do deals with the UK upon their exit, so my view is that the pain will be very, very temporary, and a lot of it is already priced in. By delaying and anguishing over brexit the British government keeps Britain in a position of weakness relative to the EU and is just delaying the recovery.

        I think a no-deal Brexit is absolutely what the UK should do, I think effects would be limited to 2 years and be pretty mild.

        Funilly enough Trump would play this very differently and would be playing up the influence a newly independent britain would have over the EU. He certainly wouldn’t be playing politics and draping his supposedly weak hand all over the tabloids.

        50

  • #
    GD

    Robert Glasser said:

    “The Australian defense forces will be needed to respond to security threats that will arise from climate-induced instability in our region.”

    So what does that mean? The Chinese will attack us during a cyclone in NQ? Perhaps they’ll choose to creep in at night, while we are fighting bushfires in Victoria.

    It’s absurd that this man has a job. It’s even more absurd that we are paying Sabra Lane to report this nonsense.

    The ABC is out of control and scaring old ladies. My 88-year old ABC watching Mum is one. She is convinced the Great Barrier Reef is bleached beyond repair. She is certain that the Adani coal mine will pour millions of tonnes of evil black stuff into the ocean that will further kill the reef and poison our drinking water.

    She has voted Liberal her entire adult life, yet trusts the ABC.

    That’s a dichotomy I can’t fathom.

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  • #
    Ruairi

    Alarmists now try to hoodwink,
    Being so ill-informed as to think,
    That a Syrian drought,
    They claim we brought about,
    Has with Brexit a definite link.

    90

  • #
    philthegeek

    Or….we could just acknowledge that people who voted for Brexit were duped/ Theydidn’t think it through, believed the self interested idiots pushing it (lookin at you Boris / Brave Sir Robin ), who had no idea what they were talking about and, actually, had no plan at all to follow through.

    219

    • #
      RicDre

      “…we could just acknowledge that people who voted for Brexit were duped…”

      Perhaps, but another explanation is that the people who were duped are the people who believed Prime Minster May was sincere when she said “no deal for Britain is better than a bad deal for Britain.”

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    • #
      AndyG55

      No, People were duped into thinking that being ruled by gormless, unelected bureaucrats in Brussels would be a good thing.

      I was amazed the Brexit vote wasn’t much higher.

      Perhaps a few movies of Junket staggering onto a stage in deep inebriation would have helped.

      Tell us all, phlip the goop, would you accept Australia being dictated to by some faceless committee in, say, Hong Kong or Djakarta or maybe Pyongyang?

      Would that be ok with you? Really ?

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    • #
      PeterS

      That’s one of the risks of democracy. If you don’t like it then we could go for some kind of totalitarian regime. Good luck with that.

      50

    • #
      el gordo

      Phil the millennials didn’t get out to vote because they couldn’t imagine anyone would be stupid enough to exit Europe. They want another vote and they want it now.

      Pulling out of Europe is a victory for commonsense and the Fourth Reich is not happy.

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      • #
        philthegeek

        eg, the only fair and reasonable is another referendum.

        People now know that they were lied to by the promoters of Brexit as to consequences, AND the complete lack of a plan. Pretty much a situation where the people pushing Brexit never expected to win and have to actually do anything other than keep complaining and keep EU membership / immigration an issue they can leverage off for votes.

        Lol,, almost a bigger act of political self harm than Trump.

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        • #
          AndyG55

          RUBBISH

          They had a referendum

          BREXIT WON

          Your hatred of Trump and your TDS because has put an end to the totalitarian socialist rising is quite understandable, phlip the goop

          He has done more to bring the USA out of the sickness of the Obama era than anyone could have hoped for.

          MORE TO COME.

          Why don’t you move to North Korea where you would be happy, poor little Marxist twerp.

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          • #
            beowulf

            Why stop at 2 referenda? Why not best of 5 or 9?

            The Remainer politicians like Soubry can have their second referendum right after the people get a second election to kick out the traitorous, lying scum like her that have thwarted the democratic process every step of the way.

            30

            • #
              Serp

              Yeah, translated into electorate support it was roughly two to one in favour of Brexit (406 for 242 against) with 63% of constituencies voting leave. It’s as well the vote went to a referendum as a conscience vote by members would have produced some monstrosity of the order of ninety percent support for Remain in absolute defiance of the intentions of the voters –no surprise there eh!

              40

          • #
            glen Michel

            ABC operative is Phil.Probably good friends of Sabra.What a dill.

            10

        • #
          el gordo

          ‘Brexit never expected to win …’

          Maybe, neither did Donald imagine he would become leader of the ‘free world’.

          They don’t need another referendum, the people want Britain to be great again, even to the extent of leaving without a deal.

          41

        • #
          wal1957

          …another referendum Phil???

          Why?

          A referendum was held and voted for. What you are suggesting is that we ignore the will of the people, and keep on having referendums until you get the result that you want!

          You aren’t in kindergarten now Phil…Grow UP!

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        • #

          I was watching the results as they came in, and ‘Remain’ was in front all the way up till the last hour. Then it got close and ‘Leave’ pulled ahead.

          Virtually within minutes of the poll being closed and then declared, there were calls coming in for another vote.

          Despite the biggest voter turnout (72%) since the 1992 (24 years earlier) General election (77%) Brexit won.

          I smiled when I saw the results, because if there was one SINGLE thing which would have GUARANTEED Remain won, it was ….. compulsory voting.

          Remain would have won in a landslide.

          The usual suspects with their usual meme. Just keep holding a vote, until we get the correct result.

          Same with Trump as well. If the U.S. had compulsory voting, then we would have Hillary now, and the media would be happily beside themselves with joy.

          Tony.

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          • #
            philthegeek

            Yup, they shpuld have compulsory voting. If you live in a democracy you have both a right AND a responsibility to vote. If you dont vote, no right to bitch about the result.

            22

            • #
              glen Michel

              Ah but Phil you wouldn’t be out of bed in time to vote.Like all the other vacuous millenials.

              11

    • #
      Annie

      Not duped at all Phil…we knew exactly what we were voting for when we voted Leave. The shenanigans ever since have just proved our feelings on the matter umpteen times over.
      No Deal Brexit NOW…on the 29th March 2019. As far as I’m concerned, it’s goodbye to that unelected, bureaucratic shower in the EUSSR that day and the champagne will be out, but with a yellow vest to hand.

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      • #
        philthegeek

        Hope you get what you deserve from a no-deal Brexit. 🙂 Do you still have a job or are you one of the ones who has already lost it as you employer bails out of the UK??

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        • #
          AndyG55

          “employer bails out of the UK”

          After a few teething issues, the UK will throw of the stifling yoke of the EU and SURGE AHEAD.

          When are you moving to NK, phlip-the-goop, be with your friends.

          73

        • #
          Annie

          Oh, how nice of you Phil! Actually, that comment of yours sounds spiteful to me.

          50

          • #
            philthegeek

            yours sounds spiteful to me

            Sorry…inherent low tolerance for idiots. 🙂

            10

            • #
              Yonniestone

              Couldn’t agree more Phil so watch your manners towards women and p&$$off.

              32

            • #
              AndyG55

              “inherent low tolerance for idiots”

              No wonder you can’t stand being you.

              So much self-hatred in your comments , phlipthegoop.

              32

        • #
          beowulf

          Phil, we can all agree that you haven’t the faintest idea what you are talking about. Just a mouth.

          In recent days there have been multiple examples of big business pushing new investment in Britain in the anticipation of Brexit, such as Aston Martin building another new factory. In the case of Japanese car makers who are shutting up shop, one made that decision back in 2015 long before Brexit was even invented and the other has cited the EU’s recent war on diesel cars as the reason for its departure. Neither had anything to do with Brexit.

          Then we have the good old scare-monger-in-chief, the Bank of England which has just halved its predicted losses to the economy in the case of a hard Brexit, and if they look even closer at their numbers will no doubt be able to reduce it to a negative figure when the time comes.

          Here’s the official British trade stats for 1998-2018:

          https://brexitcentral.com/two-decades-eu-customs-union-membership-not-delivered-clear-benefits-major-uk-sector/

          From the 1st graph you will see that Britain’s annual trade growth over that period within the EU Customs Union where it supposedly is going gangbusters because of the Single Market has been a pathetic 0.2%pa. Contrast that with 3.3%pa growth in trade outside the customs union. That’s right — annual growth outside the EU of not much less than 20 years’ worth of trading growth with the EU.

          Much more to be found at that link.

          There have been scares about pharmaceuticals (which are basically tariff-free anyway). Then there is the scare about lower US food standards, while the EU has been plagued with food scandals of its own like millions of Dutch and Belgian eggs contaminated with pesticide that were knowingly sold throughout the EU for a couple of months before they were caught in the act. Millions of head of poultry now have to be slaughtered as well. Dodgy European pork has caused the majority of 60,000 cases of Hepatitis E in Britain per year. EU horse meat burgers have been sold as beef. The list goes on.

          Then there are the law and order issues with multiple imported child-rape gangs; knife crime in England at unheard of levels — the stabbing capital of the world (school children are now being given lessons in how to treat stab wounds); acid attacks by “refugees” — London is now the acid attack capital of Europe; London’s murder rate now higher than New York’s due to imported crime. Tell me again how “enriched” Europe is due to unbridled migration encouraged and enforced by Mutti Merkel and the EU. Citizens have become minorities in their own towns at the insistence of the EU bureaucrats.

          Then we have the latest May-Merkel scandal that is all over the net at multiple sites. The article originated at the Bruges Group, which is a high-powered think-tank that claims to have reliable sources for the claims made in the article. The post was removed after a couple of hours yesterday, prompting fears it had been censored, but the Group says it was only a draft and a fuller version will be forthcoming very soon.

          I’ll post the whole thing because of its explosive content. Time will tell how accurate it is. Dellingpole has reserved his judgement thus far.

          John Petley
          Tuesday, 05 March 2019

          There is no doubt about the veracity of this account since documents have been seen.
          On Monday July 9th 2018, several leading French, German and Dutch senior managers were called by EU officials to an urgent meeting.
          The meeting was said to be private and those present were informed that Prime Minister May and Chancellor Merkel had reached an Agreement over Brexit. Knowledge of this was attained from the actual transcript of the meeting between May and Merkel.
          1) The Agreement was couched in a way to ‘appease’ the Brexit voters.
          2) The Agreement would enable May to get rid of those people in her party who were against progress and unity in the EU.
          3) Both Merkel and May agreed that the likely course of events would be that UK would re-join the EU in full at some time after the next general election.
          4) May agreed to keep as many EU laws and institutions as she could despite the current groundswell of ‘anti-EU hysteria’ in Britain (May’s own words, apparently.)
          5) Merkel and May agreed that the only realistic future for the UK was within the EU.
          The original Agreement draft was completed in May 2018 in Berlin and then sent to the UK Government Cabinet Office marked ‘Secret’.
          NB This Agreement draft was authored in the German Chancellor’s private office.
          The Cabinet returned the Agreement draft with suggestions, and there was some to-ing and fro-ing during June 5th 2018.
          Private calls between the Prime Minister and Chancellor were made.
          The Agreement’s final draft came out late in June 2018. The German Chancellor told Prime Minister May that this was a deal she would support, though there would need to be some more small concessions by the UK to keep the EU happy.
          The Chancellor and Prime Minister met in Germany. Merkel had this meeting recorded as a ‘private meeting’ though the Prime Minister was probably unaware of that.
          The Chancellor had the transcript of that meeting circulated secretly to EU and key German embassies.
          Conclusions
          Documents make it quite clear that Prime Minister May was negotiating with Germany, not the EU.
          The transcript also makes it clear that the Prime Minister intended to keep all this secret from minsters, especially the Brexit group.
          She wants to keep as many EU institutions in UK as intact as possible in order to facilitate an easy return to the EU after 2020.
          Chancellor Merkel briefed May on tactics to force Cabinet approval.
          The Prime Minister and senior civil servants were working with Germany to stop Brexit or water it down to prevent free trade and the ending of freedom of movement, but to keep cash flowing to the EU.
          David Davis was kept in the dark while key EU premiers in France, Holland and Ireland were briefed in full.
          Key EU heads were actually briefed in full the day before the Cabinet meeting at Chequers.

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          • #
            Serp

            So this is immediately after the Chequers lockup in which to the astonishment of all assembled May blurted out that certain wording could not be changed because she had already agreed it with Mutti; only a conspiracy theorist could not wonder at this behaviour.

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            • #
              beowulf

              The same meeting where she made the ministers hand their phones in; where she locked them in until they agreed to her outrageous proposal; the same meeting after which Boris resigned in disgust.

              One thing I neglected to mention in the post above is that Germany has already taken over command of armed forces from the Czech Republic and Romania, 1 brigade strength from each in the name of the EU army as part of its power grab. Germany is also combining elements of its military with its police to form a paramilitary force to combat terrorists — or as some see it, to put down internal dissent, yellow vest style. These are very worrying developments. If the EU gets its paws on the powerful UK military things could get very nasty. We ain’t seen nuthin’ yet.

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          • #
            Kinky Keith

            An extraordinary outline!

            The only ones to profit from the EEU sham have been the Elites who have squeezed everything possible out of it for themselves while being protected from the ugly consequences.

            Many names are no doubt involved but three epitomize the issue:

            May – how could anyone be so lacking in decency as to dismiss the rights of the British people in the way she has.

            Merkel – hard to fathom. It seems to be revenge on the world from some sort of internal anger.

            Junkers, J.C. – He’s having a great time The King of Europe. Pass the bottle.

            And this is the modern world.

            The Apex of Civilization.

            KK

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        • #
          Mark D.

          GLOBALIST!

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  • #
    Another Ian

    Maybe ABC staff ought to watch

    “New Video : The Imaginary Climate Crisis”

    https://realclimatescience.com/2019/03/new-video-the-imaginary-climate-crisis/

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  • #
    Terry

    SABRA LANE: Could it be that Brexit, the UK voting to leave the EU, is the result of a cascading series of events due in part to climate change?

    Bwahahahaha – Idiot!

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    • #
      geeaye

      you know that she was introducing the story, not offering an opinion?

      58

      • #
        Peter Fitzroy

        don’t bring logic into this. Listen to the experts here

        59

        • #
          AndyG55

          “don’t bring logic into this”

          Geegee is never likely to do that.

          And you would still show a total lack of any comprehension if he accidentally did.

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        • #
          glen Michel

          Who put this guff on in the first place Fitz? More bilge for the clueless mob who engage ABC instead of thinking for themselves.

          11

      • #
        Kinky Keith

        If this woeman is anything like the Beautiful P.K. who infests ABCs award winning RN radio waves, then the Introduction is the story.

        If you don’t comply with the narrative then you will be talked over and forced to address the next question, which as we know, is actually the full statement.

        Too many people have never experienced reality in their lives and are left to trust government sponsored, government paid for and government endorsed award winning propergander on “how to think”.

        Just think about it, your new best friend here appears to be Roy F’Peter.

        KK

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        • #
          Analitik

          woeman

          Love it

          60

          • #
            Kinky Keith

            Analitik, thanks.

            It’s not quite right but it wouldn’t fit to change the “man” bit to “all”.

            Woeall or woet’all just isn’t as good.

            And most women I know are good people.

            KK

            30

    • #

      Yet another reason to ignore the ABC: loopy opinions contorted into questions by practiced shills of the Posh Left.

      To think we pay for the slop dished up by these cheap touts. And pay.

      Having lied and massacred and failed to run Qatar’s gas through a dismantled Syria, you’d think we might be encouraged to feel some guilt for that. But no. Climate, doncha know. The Posh Left has been persuaded to love a good cleansing war…all the better if it’s a losing war.

      70

    • #
      Sceptical Sam

      due in part to climate change

      The only “climat” that changed in all the cases she mentioned is the political and economic climate.

      People want their freedom back.

      They despise the green/left socialist subversion. They see it. They feel it. They reject it.

      50

  • #
    Bill in Oz

    The EU is weird.
    The UK wants to leave but is being hampered all the way by Eurocrats and piss pot Junckers.
    Meanwhile independent minded Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic want to stay in the EU.
    While Junckers & co hope & wish they would leave..

    50

  • #
    Scientist

    Please note that I will not respond to comments from those who have not watched these two videos in full (15+8 minutes) and asked genuine questions about the content.

    Now at last the riddle relating to surface temperatures has been solved with established physics supported by overwhelming evidence on Earth and throughout the Solar System. This video presents a whole new 21st century paradigm in climate science showing why surface temperatures are not determined by radiative forcing from the cold atmosphere, but rather by gravity forming a stable non-zero temperature gradient in every planetary troposphere, this being the state of thermodynamic equilibrium which thus allows a most surprising heat transfer from cold to hot and yet still in accord with the Second Law of Thermodynamics because entropy is increasing. See my new 15 minute video at: https://youtu.be/bT1iFhGKOI8

    Footnote: Also watch my 8 minute talk to scientists and others outside Parliament House, Canberra…
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ihaY_1KSrE

    [Yeh, please note that we may or may not respond to your comment either. Have you mentioned exactly why these two videos relate to the topic?] ED

    10

    • #
      Kinky Keith

      ??

      40

    • #
      Kinky Keith

      ??

      20

    • #
      AndyG55

      “I will not respond to comments from those who have not watched these two videos”

      So what!!! No-one cares when you take that attitude.

      Great way to make sure people just ignore your post ! DOH !!!

      71

    • #
      MudCrab

      Will you also not respond to any comments replying to EXACTLY the same comment posted over at WUWT?

      Word for word copy/paste, again in reply to a thread that has nothing do to with Parliament House Drive or standing next to it.

      You want to promote your views then this is not the best way of getting followers. You, unfortunately, smell of troll. Change your tactics.

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  • #
    PeterS

    A lot has been said about Brexit and the reasons why UK should exit. They are valid reasons but there is another part that’s as important if not more so. The major reason why Western and European governments are experiencing turbulent times is the over reliance on their respective central banks to borrow huge amounts of money to spend like crazy and go into massive debts with absolutely no prospect of paying it all back. As more and more people around the world realise this they will gradually loose their confidence in the government in handling things. Eventually the confidence will drop to critical levels and then the last straw will very likely break the proverbial camel’s back. A massive lack of trust by the world on the Western and European governments could very likely lead to a financial collapse of the world that would make the GFC look like a picnic. That’s another reason why the UK has to leave the EU to try and divorce themselves from the coming crisis in Europe as much as possible. It probably won’t be enough to save them but at least it gives them a better chance.

    20

  • #
    pat

    top news item on theirABC’s news bulletins last nite. only had multiple quotes from Bandt – not all of them in this piece. threatening stuff. in the bulletin, it was about 2 coal plants in the Hunter Valley. here it is one, and nothing concrete:

    7 Mar: ABC: Plans for Chinese-backed coal-fired plant in NSW’s Hunter Valley could reignite the climate wars
    by political reporters Tom Iggulden and Amy Greenbank
    Posted about 9 hours ago
    Chinese-backed plans to build a massive new coal-fired power plant in New South Wales are reopening hostilities in the so-called climate wars.
    The Greens say a “veritable army” is ready to stop the plant from being built.

    But Coalition backbencher Craig Kelly calls the plan “fantastic” and is urging Prime Minister Scott Morrison to pour taxpayer subsidies into it…

    Greens energy spokesman Adam Bandt says the plan is “madness”.
    “It will make the Franklin Dam campaign look like a Sunday picnic,” Mr Bandt said, referring to the successful movement in 1983 to stop a dam being built in the remote Tasmanian wilderness.
    “We just had our hottest summer on record. If Labor or Liberal [parties] give this project the tick of approval then you will see civil disobedience in Australia on a scale never seen before.”

    The political tensions revolve around revelations the massive Chinese state-owned China Energy Engineering Corporation (CEEC) plans to build 2000MW of new coal generation in the New South Wales Hunter Valley, north of Sydney…

    The Federal Government’s Foreign Investment Review Board is likely to take an interest in the company behind the deal.
    CEEC is reportedly a key investor in one of China’s largest military-civil investment vehicles and recently signed an energy and infrastructure deal with Egypt’s military ministry…
    In more recent times it’s constructed a nuclear power plant for Pakistan and several coal-fired power stations in the India, Indonesia, Ghana and Vietnam…READ ALL
    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-03-07/new-coal-fired-plan-in-nsw-hunter-valley-reignite-climate-wars/10877470

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    • #
      robert rosicka

      He’s basically calling for civil disobedience with right on his side so I’m wondering if all of us can do the same on any topic or issue as long as we believe we’re right .

      20

  • #
    pat

    this, apparently, is front page of Brisbane’s Courier Mail today. as I heard of it, it was about Nationals (not LNP) demanding coal plants, as per Guardian headline below:

    LNP MPs demand coal fired power station and laws to break up state …
    Courier Mail-11 hours ago
    Prime Minister Scott Morrison faces a backlash from regional Queensland MPs over … Six Queensland MPs have backed calls for “immediate action” to … for coal-fired power in return for their support for the National Energy…

    7 Mar: Guardian: Queensland Nationals demand action on energy before federal election
    Six MPs fire internal warning shot with call for new power station construction and ‘big stick’
    by Katharine Murphy
    Six Queensland Nationals have demanded Michael McCormack and Angus Taylor take “immediate action” to underwrite new power station construction in regional Queensland, and pass the “big stick” package in the final sitting week of the 45th parliament.
    George Christensen, Michelle Landry, Ken O’Dowd, Keith Pitt, Llew O’Brien and Barry O’Sullivan have fired an internal warning shot across the bow of the Nationals leader by demanding that McCormack insist the Liberals take concrete action on energy before the coming election.

    Revealing the scope of internal frustration with McCormack and with the Liberals, including Taylor, the energy minister, the six Nationals have told their leader, in a letter seen by Guardian Australia, that they are under siege about high energy prices in their electorates.

    They say “everyday consumers are at their wits’ end” because they cannot afford “such exorbitant energy costs” and the government needs to deliver both new supply and divestiture powers, because “without divestiture powers, in our view, no action can be taken which would cause Queensland Labor to reduce power prices”…

    The resources minister, Matt Canavan, has confirmed the government is currently considering the merits of around 10 coal projects, but it is unclear whether anything can be locked in before the election.
    A recent legal opinion (LINK) suggests the Morrison government will not have the ability to roll out taxpayer support to its controversial coal underwriting plan unless it enacts supporting legislation or amends existing legislation…

    Despite opposing new coal investment, Labor has signalled it would honour contracts the government entered into with proponents to avoid the spectre of sovereign risk, but only if any contract is validly executed…READ ALL
    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/mar/07/queensland-nationals-demand-action-on-energy-before-federal-election

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    • #
      PeterS

      Morrison has just been proven to be a hypocrite. He has banned Milo from coming to Australia while allowing Marxist and left wing revolutionaries to come here for a conference to spread their hatred of the West. As such our government can be classified as a supporter of left wing Marxists extremists. Thanks Morrison, your true colours are now starting to show.

      40

      • #
        glen Michel

        AS I read it the Jewish lobby determined the ministers position.Same with repealing 18c.

        00

  • #
    pat

    7 Mar: 9News: AAP: Calls for vote on ‘big stick’ energy laws
    Labor has welcomed the chance to vote on the federal government’s proposed “big stick” to break up energy companies, so the laws can be shelved…
    But shadow treasurer Chris Bowen told ABC radio Labor is “happy for it to come on for a vote because we’ll be voting against it”…

    “This is an anti-business, anti-investment, Venezuelan-style socialist intervention from a government that believes in nothing,” he said.
    Mr Morrison shelved debate on the legislation after the Greens secured support from Labor and the crossbench to amend the bill and effectively ban the government from underwriting new coal-fired power…

    The Queensland Nationals MPs also want the government to underwrite a new regional power generation project before the election is called.
    Keith Pitt – one of the six MPs – says the new project doesn’t have to be coal-fired, but acknowledges some of his state colleagues do want that form of generation.
    “I don’t care if a power station runs on chook manure, as long as it’s reliable and affordable and helps people get relief with cost of living,” he told ABC radio…

    Meanwhile, a memorandum of understanding has been signed between a Chinese state-owned power provider and a private Australian company to build two 1000MW power stations in the Hunter Valley.
    Greenpeace is calling on the federal and NSW governments to rule out building the coal plants.
    “The fact that an expensive and highly polluting coal project is even being proposed in 2019 shows how completely unhinged from reality the federal climate debate has become,” spokesman Jonathan Moylan said.
    The federal government is not involved with the MOU, a spokesman for Energy Minister Angus Taylor told AAP…
    https://www.9news.com.au/2019/03/07/08/12/calls-for-vote-on-big-stick-energy-laws

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    pat

    7 Mar: SBS: Government urged to reject Chinese-backed Hunter Valley coal-fired power stations
    A Chinese energy company has partnered with a little-known Australian company on a proposal for two coal-fired power plants in the Hunter Valley.
    Updated 1 hour ago By Rosemary Bolger
    A Chinese state-owned company China Energy Engineering Corporation has signed a deal with a little-known Australian company Cavcorp to develop two 1000 megawatt power plants in the disused Hunter Economic Zone…

    Greens MP Adam Bandt said after enduring the hottest summer on record, Australians would fight to stop it.
    “We will raise up a massive movement to ensure that these power-stations never happen,” Mr Bandt said in a statement.
    “We’ll work with the community to build a mountain of opposition to prevent these plants from ever seeing the light of day.”
    “Building new coal-fired power stations is signing a death-warrant for the planet.”
    Greenpeace says the project “makes no sense” and has called on Scott Morrison and Gladys Berejiklian to to rule out any new coal generation…

    The Australian reports six Nationals MP have written a letter to Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormak to fast track taxpayer subsidies for coal to address “unsustainable Queensland electricity costs”.

    The government is currently assessing 66 applications for taxpayer funds to support new power generation projects.
    Ten of the potential energy projects rely on coal.
    Labor has ruled out providing taxpayer funds for new coal fired power plants
    https://www.sbs.com.au/news/government-urged-to-reject-chinese-backed-hunter-valley-coal-fired-power-stations

    40

  • #
    pat

    shock horror – a few million for pro-coal activism!

    7 Mar: Revealed: Glencore bankrolled covert campaign to prop up coal
    The mining company engaged Sir Lynton Crosby’s firm to push anti-renewables message and counter anti-coal activists
    (The Transparency Project, supported by Susan McKinnon Foundation)
    by Christopher Knaus
    The multinational mining giant Glencore spent millions bankrolling a secret, globally coordinated campaign to prop up coal demand by undermining environmental activists, influencing politicians and spreading sophisticated pro-coal messaging on social media.

    An investigation by Guardian Australia can reveal the covert campaign, dubbed “Project Caesar”, was orchestrated by world-renowned political operatives at the C|T Group, the firm founded by Sir Lynton Crosby and Mark Textor…

    Project Caesar began in early 2017 with an annual warchest of between £4m and £7m. Glencore has confirmed the project’s existence but said it moved to shut it down last month to “ensure alignment” with its recent decision to limit coal production for environmental reasons…

    Intelligence was collected about key coal detractors, including Greenpeace and 350.org, detailing their budgets, social media reach, and issues that could be used to embarrass or undermine them…READ ALL
    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/mar/07/revealed-glencore-bankrolled-covert-campaign-to-prop-up-coal?CMP=share_btn_tw

    40

  • #
    pat

    TWEET: Adam Bandt, Greens:
    If Liberal or Labor govs approve a proposed new coal-fired power plant in NSW’s Hunter Valley, a veritable army will rise up, in numbers never before seen, to stop it from being built.
    LINK ABC
    6 Mar 2019

    from replies:
    RYAN:
    Well Adam – we live here in the Hunter Valley and want the jobs and reliable power!
    You and your inner-city weasel #Greens mates had better get ready for one almighty fight. Not that you will be there of course. Back in a Melbourne cafe tossing back a latte or two…

    Donna:
    The loud minority again…
    https://twitter.com/AdamBandt/status/1103417706282278912

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    • #
      AndyG55

      Whenever there is “load shedding”..

      … is there any way to make sure Bandt’s electorate is the very first affected

      EVERY time. !!?

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  • #
    Maptram

    In some ways Climate Science is like Nostradamus predictions, make a prediction, then find and event that nearly matches Nostradamus prediction.

    Except that climate scientists find an event, or events, that happened millions of years ago, then devise a model that predicts that CO2 was the cause of the event, and lo and behold, they believe they have predicted they knew about. At least that’s how it seems to me in the following article:

    https://au.yahoo.com/finance/news/earth-seen-co2-spike-didn-160016231.html

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    Analitik

    The guy may often act unhinged but yoou’ve gotta love Trump for putting his foot down against the “climate change” meme.
    Both the UK and Australia need a politician of his ilk.

    Trump’s proposed rollback of auto emissions standards is part of an ideology-driven resistance to climate change science; the state’s resistance reflects the scientific consensus that greenhouse gas emissions are a mortal threat to the environment

    https://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-california-trump-emissions-20190301-story.html

    40

  • #
    RickWill

    My wife is a regular viewer of Gardening Australia. Last week she watched the 30th anniversary show and I was in the same room while it was on. The program was of interest to me because it featured Heronswood mansion and garden where I have visited a few times:
    https://www.abc.net.au/gardening/factsheets/2019-series-30-episode-03/10816826

    There were a number of glib comments about climate change with ever hotter and dryer Australia. An example is the topic that starts at 1:06 but there were other comments littered through the commentary. It demonstrates how Climate Change (aka Global Warming) has so thoroughly permeated Australian media.

    To me it makes sense to select plants that are adopted to Australia rather than those imported from Europe but that is more to the aspect of maintenance effort and cost of watering than any climate change.

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  • #
    Peter Fitzroy

    In direct contradiction to the oft stated claims about nothing much of consequence has changed in Australia’s climate (cited in the theme for today) the CSIRO in their State of the Climate 2018 show that there are a lot of changes accompanying the 1C temperature rise since 1910.

    Three things stand out:
    1. The drop in rainfall in the southwest, which is having major effects on bushfire frequency in that area.
    2. Eucalypts grow more slowly as the temperature increases (which is entirely predictable if you understand any plant biology)
    3. Interval squeeze, where fires are too frequent for plant communities to recover.

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    • #
      AndyG55

      A look at the longer term rainfall, shows that SW WA rainfall started to decrease in the 1970’s and has actually been pretty consistent this century.

      But look at August last year, pfutz

      https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-08-29/perth-august-rain-record-falls-wettest-in-26-years/10178884

      And of course NONE of the change in rainfall can be blamed on human CO2, because, as you are well aware, there is absolutely zero scientific evidence that CO2 affect climate in any way whatsoever.

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      • #
        Peter Fitzroy

        consistent with deforestation.

        35

      • #
        Peter Fitzroy

        Not sure why you included Broken Hill and Maryborough, last time I looked they were not in the south west. For forestry, you have failed to include the actual acreage increase, and for Perth, we were talking about 2018. The trends are consistent, and the south west is the canary in the coal mine.

        26

        • #
          Peter Fitzroy

          should have been for RickWill

          But AndyPandy,

          You are claiming that August is typical? Not buying

          27

          • #
            Kinky Keith

            Ah. But are you paying?

            40

          • #
            AndyG55

            “Not buying”

            Your wilful ignorance and DENIAL goes without saying.

            Yes, Winter (June, July, August) are regularly the wettest month in Perth, by far..

            So its all back to normal.

            The south west is not a canary of any sort whatsoever.

            What a load of mindless, scientifically unsupportable BS you keep coming up with. !

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    • #
      RickWill

      You must have been reading another CSIRO fairy tale. They are good at it.

      Australian forest productivity has never been better:
      http://www.agriculture.gov.au/SiteCollectionDocuments/abares/afwps-overview-sep-dec-2017.pdf

      In contrast to the modest growth in the native production forest hardwood log harvest since 2012–13, the hardwood plantation log harvest more than doubled over the past four years to a record 11.4 million cubic metres in 2016–17, up 16 per cent from the previous year (Figure 2). The pulp log harvest increased to 10.9 million cubic metres (up 13 per cent from the previous year) and the sawlog harvest more than doubled from the previous year to 482,000 cubic metres.

      The increase in forest productivity is an issue and requires improved management practices. So far there is little recognition of the increase in productivity and much blame going around. #1 is Climate Change but this is just an excuse the misses what is really happening..

      Perth Rainfall appears to have little trend over the last century:
      http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/ncc/cdio/weatherData/av?p_display_type=dataGraph&p_stn_num=063005&p_nccObsCode=139&p_month=13

      Nannup in the forest region has no particular trend although the missing data may give that impression:
      http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/ncc/cdio/weatherData/av?p_display_type=dataGraph&p_stn_num=009585&p_nccObsCode=139&p_month=13

      As far as BoM temperature history is concerned the record conveniently starts in 1910 to avoid any of the history of the millennium drought. They also have cooled the past 0.25C in the ACORN data set to arrive at the 1C rise. Take a look at the actual record that has data ranging back to the 1890s and the picture is different to what the BoM portray:
      http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/ncc/cdio/weatherData/av?p_display_type=dataGraph&p_stn_num=047007&p_nccObsCode=36&p_month=13
      http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/ncc/cdio/weatherData/av?p_display_type=dataGraph&p_stn_num=088043&p_nccObsCode=36&p_month=13

      The only locations that show a sustained rising temperature trend are those located in highly developed locations like the centre of Sydney.

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    • #
      Annie

      We had family members living there, SW of WA, until very recently. They said it was very cold and very wet for a long time last year.

      50

    • #
      Dave

      Peter you quote:

      2. Eucalypts grow more slowly as the temperature increases

      This is amazing!
      Eucalypts grow more slowly as temperatures increase! By chance do you have a link to this study?
      ALL Eucalypts?
      All Areas?
      Grow SLOWLY only when it gets hotter!

      So do they only grow FAST in winter Peter?

      You have NO knowledge of plants at all!

      Also do you include ALL Corymbia in this as well?

      Unbelievable RUBBISH statement!

      51

      • #
        Peter Fitzroy

        You have internet, and I’m using my spoon. Instead of insults, do your own reasearch.

        23

        • #
          Dave

          So no paper for your LIE!

          42

        • #
          Dave

          WOW!

          So Eucalyptus grow faster in Cold Weather!

          Link please 4 cents a KWh Peter in Germany!
          Link please 12 cents a KWh Peter in NSW !

          51

          • #
            Kinky Keith

            I hear that the eucalypts in Canadia are so tall that people actually think they are telegraph poles.

            50

        • #
          AndyG55

          POC.. why is it you ALWAYS refuse to produce any EVIDENCE.

          So sad, so EMPTY.

          42

        • #
          AndyG55

          And yes, they do slow down a bit once it gets over about 35ºC, but that is a water saving device.

          Funny how eucalypts survive and grow to great heights in the Murray River area, where temp regularly get above 40ºC but they have access to plenty of groundwater.

          53

      • #
        AndyG55

        “2. Eucalypts grow more slowly as the temperature increases”

        Which explains why they grow so well in California and the East Coast of Australia, both of which are renowned cold climate regions.

        Right, silly POC. !!

        42

    • #
      Bill in Oz

      Peter there are people and organisations which have NO credibility among the well informed. Among them are the ABC, (Ajustocene Broadcasting Corporation) BOM,( the Bureau of Misinformation & and the CSIRO ( the Climate Storytellers Infomedia Research Organisation )

      All three are infested with unthinking Global warming ‘me too’ people

      51

      • #
        Peter Fitzroy

        proove it, I’m not interested in drive by ad homs4

        14

        • #
          AndyG55

          “I’m not interested in drive by ad homs4”

          Yet its all you ever have.

          You have yet to produce ANY EVIDENCE AT ALL that increased atmospheric CO2 causes warming.

          You are nothing but an empty sad sack.

          And yes ABC, BOM and CSIRO are infested with leftist climate change idiotlogs and the “climate” sections are rapidly losing any respect and credibility.

          Only the far-left brain-washed gullibles watch the ABC, probably your only source of mindless propaganda.

          People laugh at BOM’s forecasts, and suggest using a coin instead, don’t you, POC?

          And the CSIRO climate division is a laughing stock among any real scientists in that organisation. I know, because I have friends that work at CSIRO. Mention the climate division, they sort of get this embarrassed look on their faces, and say.. “that not us”.

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    • #

      The reduced rainfall in the SW has become quite the poster-child. Well, since climate has to change may as well pick a bit of the continent where rainfall has lessened a bit in recent decades. (The wetter Top End post-1960s is only to be mentioned in the context of floods etc.)

      As we look back on Perth’s long rainfall history we see what the region’s real problem is. It’s true that a gauge in 2006 finally recorded less annual precip than that gauge in 1914. What matters is that all gauges show SW drought and summer heat coinciding in ways not common even in the summer/dry SE of the continent.

      Extreme summer and early autumn conditions abound in the WA record, starting with the drought year of 1877. Examples really are too numerous, whether you are talking 1800s or right now. When the January average hovers around 8 mms and you can’t move your region to the northern hemisphere…expect fire and take many precautions. If someone from the post-Neville Wran CSIRO tells you otherwise, suggest that he try getting through one day on Perth’s total summer rainfall for 1902-3, and toss in that for the preceding and following months. The thirsty fellow even add the total fall for summer 1910-11.

      And remember, good years are bad when abundant regrowth turns to flame in a dry spell with unfavourable winds. That’s why we get nervous in late winter here on the usually well-watered midcoast of NSW. Never mind the total rain, check the pattern. And bring your commonsense along.

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      • #
        Peter Fitzroy

        Did you look at the link, or is this some sort of knee jerk

        14

        • #
          Kinky Keith

          That’s funny coming from you Roy.

          61

        • #
          AndyG55

          You haven’t posted any links, little child.

          And stop being a jerk, if you know how to.

          Again…. What is your purpose here?

          Another question you refuse to answer.

          All we see from you is juvenile attention-seeking trolling, linked no doubt to your obvious ADD sickness.

          Find a new cis-friend, perhaps that will ease your self-hatred.. geeaye is probably available.

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      • #

        Let me know what part of historic summer rain deficit dating from earliest records (Fremantle 1850s?) you don’t get.

        40

    • #
      glen Michel

      What a gullible fool.

      10

  • #
    EternalOptimist

    I cant help wondering, if Syria has had the worst drought in 900 years, what caused the drought 900 years ago ?

    70

    • #
      MudCrab

      The Crusades.

      Clearly.

      Even 900 years ago Western Europe and ‘The White Man’ was to blame.

      /snark

      70

    • #
      el gordo

      ‘… what caused the drought 900 years ago ?’

      Global warming during this modern climate optimum is exactly the same as experienced during the Medieval Warm Period.

      I’ll spend a little time checking for mechanisms.

      00

  • #
    pat

    WaPo & others carrying this:

    6 Mar: Phys.org: US just sloshed through the wettest winter on record
    The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says that from December to February, what it calls winter, the Lower 48 states got 9.01 inches of rain and snow, which is 2.22 inches more than the 20th century normal. It surpassed the 1997-1998 winter by 0.02 inches.
    Record or almost record rain and snow fell in the West, Tennessee Valley and parts of the Great Lakes. Last month was the second wettest February on record.
    Despite some bone-chilling outbreaks, winter in the Lower 48 was 1.2 degrees warmer than the 20th century average. February was 1.8 degrees cooler than normal.

    ***University of Illinois climate scientist Donald Wuebbles says increasing precipitation is a sign of climate change…
    https://phys.org/news/2019-03-sloshed-wettest-winter.html

    6 Mar: WFTV: Freeze warning in effect for parts of Central Florida; temperatures rebound quick
    By Irene Sans
    The low temperatures will once again drop to the 40s.
    A freeze warning is in effect for Marion County northward as temperatures will once again fall to the freezing mark in this area…
    Average high temperatures for this time of the year for Orlando are in the mid-70s and lows in the mid-50s…

    PM Update: Another very cold night tonight, then slightly less chilly on Thursday
    Washington Post – 3 hours ago
    These are right in the realm of 20 degrees below normal for highs this time of year…

    6 Mar: ColoradoPublicRadio: Blame The Cold For Denver’s Smog This Week
    By Hayley Sanchez
    Scott Landes, a meteorologist with the Colorado Air Pollution Control Division, said the build-up of pollution is because of a strong inversion overhead. That’s when there’s cold air near the surface of the Earth and warmer air above, he said.
    “That means all the air that’s near the surface of the Earth gets trapped,” he said. “So any emissions we have around the area, be it from power plants, automobiles, oil and gas, it all gets trapped near the surface of the Earth and that’s why we get all these fine, high particulate levels.”
    Landes said the inversion is common during winter months but normally Colorado sees pollution like this in January or February when there’s colder weather. He said March temperatures so far have been between 20 and 40 degrees below normal for this time of year…
    https://www.cpr.org/news/story/blame-the-cold-for-denver-s-smog-this-week

    6 Mar: WBUR Boston: Today’s Weather: Cold Through Thursday
    by Dave Goldbaum
    The combination of the recent snowfall and an Arctic air mass over the region will result in temperatures nearly 15 degrees below normal through Thursday. The normal high and low this time of year is 42 and 28, respectively. Our daytime highs will struggle through the 20s today and tomorrow with overnight lows tonight dipping to 10 in some towns by daybreak…

    4 Mar: 9ABC: Monday’s highs are more than 30 degrees below normal
    By Justin Gehrts
    CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (KCRG) – We can be thankful for the sunshine, although it’s not doing much to help our temperatures. Highs will stay in the single digits above zero, more than 30 degrees below normal. Wind chills stay near -10 throughout the afternoon…

    6 Mar: PennLive: You are feeling extra cold: Temperatures are 25 degrees below normal, weather service says
    By Travis Kellar
    Temperatures across central Pennsylvania are 20 to 25 degrees below normal across central Pennsylvania, according to the National Weather Service in State College.
    Here’s how much colder than normal temperatures are across the region: LIST ETC
    https://www.pennlive.com/news/2019/03/you-are-feeling-extra-cold-temperatures-are-25-degrees-below-normal-weather-service-says.html

    20

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    pat

    Darwall is author of “Green Tyranny: Exposing the Totalitarian Roots of the Climate Industrial Complex”:

    6 Mar: WashingtonExaminer: Virtue-signaling corporations are lying to you about using green energy
    by Rupert Darwall
    https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/virtue-signaling-corporations-are-lying-to-you-about-using-green-energy

    novel length – insane:

    27 Feb: Vice: Paper So Depressing It’s Sending People to Therapy
    On average, three people read an academic paper. At least 100,000 have read this — and a lot of them haven’t taken it very well.
    by Zing Tsjeng
    What if I told you there was a paper on climate change that was so uniquely catastrophic, so perspective-altering, and so absolutely depressing that it’s sent people to support groups and encouraged them to quit their jobs and move to the countryside?

    Good news: there is. It’s called “Deep Adaptation: A Map for Navigating Climate Tragedy” (LINK). I was introduced to it via an unlikely source — a guy formerly in advertising who had left his job to become a full-time environmental campaigner…
    https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/vbwpdb/the-climate-change-paper-so-depressing-its-sending-people-to-therapy

    20

  • #
    Dennis

    It intrigues me that our rising cost of living issues have political roots such as …

    “22nd November, 2006 – Turnbull releases a report that effectively rules out building new dams, even predicting some will be completely dry by 2008 due to so-called “anthropogenic global warming”. The report cites the “Wentworth Group” as an authoritative source, even though the group was founded and funded by the radical green World Wildlife Fund (WWF).

    Further, Turnbull again says people must pay far higher prices for water so that the necessary capital can be raised to construct expensive desalination plants and recycling facilities, which aren’t dependent on so-called ”anthropogenic global warming”.

    Turnbull also pushes household water rationing with tradability, yet another regulation that would push up the cost of water.”

    Recent news that the Sydney Desalination Plant will be operating led me to check a few facts, Veolia Water Pty Ltd owns it and to offset electricity cost and impact on electricity grid the Capital Wind Farm at Bungendore NSW, near Goulburn, was established and is owned by Infigen Energy (remember “Born Lucky”?).

    20

    • #
    • #
      Serp

      Water eh, the Sinodinos Obeid connection springs to mind; the Yorkshire expression “there’s money in muck” comes to mind immediately afterwards notwithstanding its seeming irrelevance.

      Our overlords would love to return to the days of such cruel artefacts such as window tax, simple and universal, which is what makes our water so attractive to scoundrels being a commodity virtually no live organism can go without.

      There’s a pestiferous sociopathic type of person always seeking ways to aggrandize itself and it fills institutions such as parliament to the total exclusion of the common man who was intended to be there; it’s no wonder Australia has come to this pass where we face an election and there is no approximately representative major party.

      40

  • #
    pat

    7 Mar: Edie.net: We need to put jobs and poverty at the centre of climate action
    Discussions around climate change are in need of a new narrative that outlines the opportunities of a low-carbon transition, as renowned environmentalist Jeremy Leggett and ***Xynteo’s Chief Operating Officer and Executive Vice President Philip Smith explain.

    At a moment when we need to see investment into clean energy and a green economy accelerate markedly, we instead see investment in clean energy declining. Even modest measures to address climate action are being thwarted. Macron’s proposed fuel tax rises were swiftly extinguished by the ‘gilets jaunes’ protests. In the UK, deep cuts to feed-in-tariffs have frozen growth in an embryonic industry critical to the UK’s energy future, predicting to generate 18,000 job losses as a result. Why?

    At the heart of the challenge is the gap between action to mitigate climate change and the public’s willingness to support such measures. Climate change is downgraded in importance whenever it is perceived to detract from economic growth, jobs, and people’s bank accounts…

    The need for a new narrative
    We recently launched a report (LINK) that aims to mobilise leaders in Europe around a new kind of growth. As part of that report, we commissioned research into narrative and attitudes around four key challenges for growth in Europe: how we shift towards a green economy; how we plan for the future of work in an age of automation; how we reconnect leaders to people; and how Europe can lead toward a more open, collaborative global economy. Using a combination of artificial intelligence and human analysis, we mapped a one-month slice of the digital conversation in 28 countries between 15 September and 15 October – drawing from over 200,000 stories, blogs and essays…

    For the green economy, ***28,000 articles were identified linked to concepts such as “climate change” and the “circular economy”. AI was used to identify key concepts in articles and rank them by the extent to which they were shared on social media…READ ON
    https://www.edie.net/blog/We-need-to-put-jobs-and-poverty-at-the-centre-of-climate-action/6098613

    ***Xynteo:

    29 Nov 2018: Forbes: Hacking Sustainability – Founders, Financiers And Artists Meet In Oslo To Reinvent Growth
    by Trevor Clawson
    “Economic growth has delivered enormous progress, but it has also created problems, such as a growing disconnect between man and nature, short-termism and conflicts between the many and the few,” says Osvald Bjelland. “So how do you reinvent growth?”

    That question sits at the heart of a gathering of entrepreneurs, business leaders, financiers, politicians and artists that is taking place in Oslo this week. Dubbed a Davos for the Nordic region, the aim of the event is bring people together to exchange ideas around a range of themes and concepts – all linked by a need to find new and sustainable economic models for the world.

    Bjelland is the founder of Xynteo, an advisory firm that works with global companies to help them grow sustainably in a world that is increasingly resource constrained. The Xynteo Exchange – the event that is taking place in Oslo this week – could be described as the public face of the organisation’s work. With a guest list that includes Norway’s Prime Minister Erna Solberg, ubiquitous former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis and actress Rose McGowan, the event has its share of policy makers, media celebrities and box office draws, but arguably the real action centers around the businesses – many of them startups – that have (or are seeking to) put sustainability at the heart of their own business models. The goal, says Bjelland, is to create a forum that fosters and drives innovations by allowing “smart people” to connect.

    Xynteo says 500 people and organisations have taken time out to attend the event. So what does the Xynteo Exchange offer to the entrepreneurs and founders who have agreed to take part?…READ ON
    https://www.forbes.com/sites/trevorclawson/2018/11/29/hacking-sustainability-founders-financiers-and-artists-meet-in-oslo-to-reinvent-growth/#22ac19bc6b63

    10

  • #
    Antoine D'Arche

    I think Mark Butler is approaching peak stupid (IKR, we thought he’d already hit it).
    Shadow environment minister Mark Butler voiced opposition to the plans in a statement of his own.
    “All the advice we’ve received says new coal plants are more expensive and can’t compete with firmed renewables to deliver dispatchable power.”
    OMG. Out there like Pluto crazy.

    100

    • #
      wal1957

      “All the advice we’ve received says new coal plants are more expensive and can’t compete with firmed renewables to deliver dispatchable power.”

      I thought that statement was attributed to Adam Bandt? I could have misread though.

      If we had any real journalists in the MSM, the people making these statements would, and should be called out as the liars that they are.

      40

    • #
      robert rosicka

      Morrison was also playing Switzerland on the issue today for whatever reason , he never welcomed the investment or commented favourably , just said it was a state issue .

      20

    • #
      Serp

      Remember he’s a politician and even if he went to the trouble of ascertaining the truth he’d suppress it rather than face disendorsement, after all what’s another lie more or less for that class of being which daily bathes itself in untruth?

      20

  • #
    PeterS

    He is not the only one approaching if not reached peak stupid. Morrison has just been proven to be one. He has banned Milo from coming to Australia while allowing Marxist and left wing revolutionaries to come here for a conference to spread their hatred of the West. As such our government can be classified as a supporter of left wing Marxists extremists. Thanks Morrison, your true colours are now starting to show.

    80

    • #
      Kinky Keith

      It’s all about perception,

      until the elections over and done.

      Then the accounting begins.

      KK

      20

      • #
        PeterS

        Then the accounting begins.

        Correction; then the countdown resumes. No matter who wins it’s all downhill.

        40

  • #
    pat

    5 Mar: BusinessGreen: Leading green banks pledge to bring portfolios in line with Paris Agreement goals
    by Staff
    Global Alliance for Banking on Values announces new Climate Change Commitment as members pledge to curb carbon footprint
    An international group of over 50 green, ethical, and co-operative banks has this week launched a new Climate Change Commitment that will see many of its members pledge to align their carbon footprint and investment portfolios with the goals of the Paris Agreement.
    The Global Alliance for Banking on Values (GABV) held its annual summit in Vancouver late last month and yesterday announced that nearly 30 of its members have signed up to a new Climate Change Commitment, dubbed the 3C initiative…

    6 Mar: BankingExchange: Sunrise Bank and Others Aligning Carbon Footprint with Paris Agreement
    Effort to track and monitor the carbon impact of their portfolio of loans and investments
    by staff
    “Values-based banks and financial institutions from right across the world have come together in recognition of the fact that where we allocate our capital matters for our environment,” says ***Peter Blom, Chair and co-founder of the Global Alliance for Banking on Values (GABV). “The Climate Change Commitment is a powerful, practical example of action the banking industry can take to contribute concretely to efforts to address the climate crisis.
    “By assessing and disclosing their greenhouse gas emissions, banks can see their contribution to greenhouse gas emissions. This enables them to make financial decisions that limit the impact of the emissions of their financed assets so they can keep their contribution within safe environmental levels, helping to safeguard the environment for future generations.”…

    A group of Dutch banks known as the Platform for Carbon Accounting Financials (PCAF) have taken the lead in this area by calculating the greenhouse gas emissions of their loans and investment portfolios…
    Participating banks of GABV have combined assets of $153 billion, and intend to influence the wider banking sector by demonstrating that banks can assess and report on their greenhouse gas emissions…
    Perhaps not surprisingly despite U.S. Banks being a dominant player in the global banking industry, only five US banks are members…LIST
    http://www.bankingexchange.com/customers/item/7806-sunrise-bank-and-others-aligning-carbon-footprint-with-paris-agreement

    ***2010: Triodos: Triodos Bank CEO, Peter Blom, joins the Club of Rome
    Club of Rome Secretary General Ian Johnson said: “Peter Blom has built a successful and growing sustainable banking business over three decades. By doing so, he has proved that another approach to banking is possible, at a time when our financial future needs new thinking more than ever. His achievements in pioneering green investment, social banking, microfinance and sustainability are now recognised on the international stage. His experience will provide a valuable contribution to achieving the Club of Rome’s objectives at a critical time in world affairs.”

    Triodos Bank CEO Peter Blom: “The Club of Rome’s first publication, “The limits to Growth”, is a seminal work, and was an important source of inspiration for me when I started to realise the magnitude of our environmental challenges. I am determined to contribute to the important work of the Club of Rome, with a particular focus on the role of the financial world, to help make much needed changes happen. The financial, poverty and environmental crises are converging. We have to move from an economy with a single focus on maximising profit to new economic models that maximise sustainability. As Triodos Bank we have demonstrated that these models work. Only by changing finance, we will be able to finance change.”

    The Club of Rome engages with the critical area where science and policy come together…
    https://www.triodos.com/press-releases/2010/triodos-bank-ceo-peter-blom-joins-the-club-of-rome

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    pat

    who will stop this nonsense?

    7 Mar: AFR: WA LNG projects threatened by major carbon hit
    by Angela Macdonald-Smith and Brad Thompson
    A bombshell directive from Western Australia’s environmental watchdog that all new emissions-intensive projects should be carbon-neutral has put in jeopardy proposed new LNG projects worth over $45 billion and triggered warnings of threats to the broader resources industry that underpins the state’s economy.

    Federal resources minister Matthew Canavan immediately called on the WA government to rule out following the guidance released by the Environmental Protection Authority on Thursday and effective immediately, which captures any new or expansion project in WA that directly emits more than 100,000 tonnes a year of carbon dioxide and recommends that they fully offset those emissions.
    Senator Canavan called the move “an act of economic self-harm” for WA that would do nothing to protect the environment and could potentially cost thousands of jobs.

    WA environment minister Stephen Dawson said the EPA guidelines were not a government policy and left the door open to consultation on the environmental, social and economic impacts as part of its response.
    “As a responsible state government it is important to ensure that projects have certainty for the long term,” he said…
    The EPA’s decision to set the bar much higher on emissions has ramifications across nearly all industries, including mining and processing, energy production using fossil fuels, infrastructure development, chemical manufacturing and any development that involves land clearing…

    Industry sources also pointed to potential threats to existing alumina plants, power stations and other resource projects whose approvals come up for reassessment, while noting that the state government would have to follow the EPA’s independent advice for there to be an impact…
    Industry is shocked that the guideline has been revised so comprehensively overnight with scant consultation. Sources said only a few stakeholder reference groups held under strict confidentiality conditions that prevented participants discussing the proposals…

    But Wilderness Society WA director Kit Sainsbury described the step as a “brave and historic move”….
    The EPA said large LNG projects could increase WA’s emissions by an additional large margin to 2030, and materially contribute to the country’s total carbon footprint.
    https://www.afr.com/business/energy/gas/wa-lng-projects-threatened-by-major-carbon-hit-20190307-h1c426

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    pat

    i ony heard Cullinan in today’s repeat of this program – all about our destructive industrial society. most disturbing was the applause he got at the end of his presentation:

    AUDIO: 54min05sec: 7 Mar: ABC Big Ideas: Giving legal rights to nature
    Can nature, rivers, mountains or animals, have legal rights – just like people? Legal rights will change the relationship we have with nature and that’s crucial to really protect the environment.
    Recorded at the International Symposium: Exploring our Legal Relationship with the Living World (Griffith Ecocentre, 170 Kessels Road, Nathan, 4111) 25 October 2018
    Speakers:
    Brian J. Preston – Chief Judge of the Land and Environment Court of New South Wales
    Cormac Cullinan – South African lawyer and author of Wild Law
    https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/bigideas/giving-legal-rights-to-nature/10812836

    EarthLaws.org.au: International Symposium: Exploring our legal relationship with the living world
    Thursday 25th and Friday 26th October 2018
    Griffith Ecocentre, 170 Kessels Road, Nathan, 4111
    ISSUES EXPLORED AT THE SYMPOSIUM
    Climate change, biodiversity loss and the global ecological crisis are forcing many people to rethink the legal, economic and governance structures underpinning contemporary industrial societies. People around the world are exploring innovative ways to use the law to better support the health of the living world.

    One area receiving growing attention is the use of western legal constructs, such as legal personhood and rights based approaches, to shift the legal status of nature from being objects, and mere human property, to being recognised as subjects of the law. These legal approaches are seen by many as a way for human-centred western laws to be transformed towards Earth centred law and governance…
    https://www.earthlaws.org.au/events/2018-symposium/

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    JCalvertN(UK)

    It’s just a shame the referendum didn’t happen at the most appropriate time – i.e. at the time of the Maastricht Treaty, when the ‘EC’ morphed into the ‘EU’. (This was during the rule of Thatcher.) The Maastrict Treaty served as an interim de facto constitution for a federalised Europe. An attempt was made to devise a formal constitution, but this failed dismally.
    Later, a fallback new “Baileys” constitution was proposed in the form of the Lisbon Treaty. (This was during the rule of Bliar.) Again, this would have been an appropriate time to conduct a referendum – and some European countries did so – most notably Eire. But Bliar ratified it on behalf of the UK without consulting the people. (Typical, he was only a populist when it suited him.)
    Clearly Bliar feared that a referendum at that stage would risk a Brexit – even back then. Did he and the EU think that, like an arranged marriage to a wealthy spouse, the UK would ‘in time grow to love’ the EU – once it became accustomed its ‘enormous benefits’?
    The EU is a constitutional nonsense. It has the power to impose legislation on the individual sovereign democracies of Europe when it is not itself a democracy. Yes, there is an entity within the EU structure called “The European Parliament” – but this really only functions like the old “Supreme Soviet” of the former USSR – i.e. to ‘just say Yes’ to everything the apparatchiks propose.
    In true democracies (a dying breed) a political party puts itself forward at election time, states its policies and makes certain policy ‘promises’ to the electorate. If they are successful at the election, they form the government, and they (not ‘civil servants’ or ‘commissioners’) are responsible for its policies and producing all the necessary legislation. If they fail to keep their promises, or fail to produce policies or legislation that satisfies the electorate – they get booted out of office.
    This doesn’t happen in the EU. Euro MPs cannot make election promises about policy – because they cannot propose any. They only get to vote on legislation proposed from on-high by the unelected Commissioners. (Neil Kinnock was one such Commissioner – with responsibility for Administrative Reform and the Audit, Linguistics and Logistics Directorates General. Read about it here https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6809163-brussels-laid-bare )
    The EU needs to be completely torn down and rebuilt from the bottom up. If there had been even a glimmer of hope of this happening, I would not have voted to ‘Leave’ the way I did.

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