Climate Soothsayers: Why your hay fever is a “sign” you should vote for a carbon tax

Image by Ulrich B. from Pixabay

By Jo Nova

Just more junk science to spook those who want to be spooked

Did you sneeze today? It must be “Climate change”. Go forth and buy some solar panels…

Like a continuous propaganda machine, the government pays academics money to find a crisis, so they do, and then the media rephrase the story like a Pavlovian prompt. It’s a form of mass hypnosis. Everything is climate change and only the government can save you:

Is your hay fever getting worse? It could be climate change

by Laura Chung, The Sydney Morning Herald

Did your hay fever start earlier this spring? The coughing, the sneezing, those terrible itching eyes? You are not alone, and it might get worse in coming years as climate change extends the season, experts say.

About 15 per cent of Australians have hay fever, with those between 25 and 44 years old most likely to suffer during spring. Hay fever is an allergic response when substances including pollen from grasses and trees, dust mites or mould come into contact with the nose and eyes.

The only time a climate scientist […]

Rafe Champion guest post. Carbon taxes and RE fails as usual in SA.

Alan Moran published an account of the carbon taxes that both the Coalition and the ALP support. In The Spectator he spelled out the cost of two forms of carbon taxation that we have at present and on top of that the ALP is determined to impose a great deal more.

Read the story here Stoking the fires of energy policy

The existing taxes arise from the RE mandates that increase the amount of wind and solar power in the mix and associated costs that arise from the additional transmission infrastructure required to service dispersed sources of power. Secondly there are taxes to support grants and soft loans dispensed by agencies like the Clean Energy Finance Corporation.

The ALP spelled out their vision for increased power costs in a document called Powering Australia which represents a triumph of aspiration over reality. To quote, it will close the yawning gap between our current Federal Government and our business community, agricultural sector and state governments when it comes to investing in the renewables that will power our future.

Our plan will create 604,000 jobs, with 5 out of 6 new jobs to be created in the regions.

It will spur $76 […]

Australians voted for “No Carbon Tax” but may get Net Zero deal anyhow. Thank China, and US Voters (who probably didn’t vote for it either)

Hello Nuclear Subs means Hello Net Zero Targets?

HMS Ambush

As I suspected, the whole Net Zero witchcraft push is being driven by our defense partners, and has nothing much to do with Australian voters. That explains why the government that won The Climate Election with a skeptical stance are now pushing blindly for “Net Zero targets”. It also explains why the public debate has shifted since the AUKUS deal just in time for Glasgow and has no content, apart from the insistence that we don’t want to be “left behind” in some global fashion race to wreck our electricity infrastructure faster than everyone else. Kudos to The Nationals who are still trying to respond to both The Voters, and the Science. Send them your support.

With this admission from inside Cabinet, we see that the AUKUS sub deal was probably quietly loaded with a climate deal too. If you want our subs, and our protection, you need to obey the carbon cult. Translated — “the Western Alliance” means nuclear subs from the US and UK. The veil is pulled back on the illusion of Democracy.

So now it’s “Build solar farms, and windmills, sign up for carbon […]

What will the carbon tax cost? Bill Shorten says only a lying charlatan would ask.

How much do Australians have to pay to change the global weather?

….

First, Bill Shorten called those who ask “dumb”. Then when that was described as his Hillary “Deplorables” moment he changed the insult from “dumb” to “liar”.

Here’s Bill Shorten in the third leaders debate:

“I accept the cost question is not a dumb question, …it’s a dishonest question.

The idea that you only look at the investment in new energy without looking at the consequences of not acting on climate change is a charlatans argument, it’s a crooked charlatans argument.”

-Bill Shorten, May 8th: iview, 2 mins 30 sec.,

Do you want to discuss the cost benefit ratio of a $500 billion dollar scheme the Labor Party is proposing to stop droughts and hold back the tide? Shorten doesn’t have an answer, instead he claims you shouldn’t even ask the question. You, sir, are a conniving cheat and a liar.

The definition of Charlatan:

A charlatan (also called a swindler or mountebank) is a person practicing quackery or some similar confidence trick or deception in order to obtain money, fame or other advantages via some […]

Labor plan sends $35b in jobs and goods overseas. Carbon Tax is dumbest deal of The Century.

Where money goes, jobs follow.

Unbeknowst to 99% of Australians, we already have an emissions trading scheme.

Thank Malcolm Turnbull and Clive Palmer.

Soon, Australians are likely to be sending real money overseas and getting back paper certificates at prices set by the EU.

The legislation was snuck through just before Christmas 2015, buried under the name “Safeguard Mechanism”. It cost about $7m in the first year. But sits ticking, ready to blow-up into a billion-dollar monster any day. If Labor is elected, it won’t matter whether it has Senate control or not, the minister can just “press a button”, change the caps, and lo, the money will flow to foreigners for certificates based on intentions about atmospheric nullities — for emissions they might have made but didn’t. We’re paying to change the global weather. We could be the stupidest rich nation on Earth. But really, we’re just not paying attention.

The 35 billion dollars we will spend on these useless, fraud–prone certificates is $35 billion we are taking out of the Australian labor market, or not spending on medicine, books or holidays in Bali. Angus Taylor, Minister for Energy, has noticed that this means $10b less tax will […]

Kenney wins landslide in Alberta against carbon tax: vows War Room against energy activists

Yet another big win against carbon taxes: Abbott, Trump, Ford and now Kenney

Provinces of Canada.

The first pledge was to get rid of the carbon tax. The victory was a scorching 63 to 24 seats, or 55% to 32%.

Alberta is a conservative province of Canada with 4 million people. It’s wealthy from oil, gas and agriculture. (It’s not that different to Queensland and WA.). Jason Kenney is on a mission to get the province back from environmental zealots: fergoodnesssake, he even vowed to set up a ‘War Room’ against energy activists.

The greens were the main target and the people said “Yes”.

Conservatives win big victory in Alberta, Canada

The right-leaning United Conservative Party (UCP) has taken power in the oil-rich Canadian province of Alberta, routing the left-leaning NDP.

It was a landslide victory:

…Kenney defeated center-left incumbent Rachel Notley, 55, whose New Democratic Party snapped four decades of conservative rule in 2015. His UCP won 63 seats in the provincial legislature, against 24 for Notley’s NDP,

He’s vowed to get stalled pipelines built, scrap the province’s carbon tax, and create a “war room” to hit back at […]

Global Flipping. Manitoba dumps carbon taxes too

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau wanted all the Canadian provinces to do their own carbon tax, and threatened to do a weapons-grade national tax if they didn’t and they aren’t. Ontario, Saskatchewan, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland all said No. Now the Premier of Manitoba has done some spectacular backflipping to join them.

A mere few weeks ago he was Trudeau’s best friend promising to start collecting a $25-a-ton tax on December 1. Brian Pallister was hoping that his smaller tax would stop Trudeau from hitting them with the big one — a tax that started at $10 and added $10 each year until it reached $50 in 2022. But Trudeau said he’d make them pay twice, and now Pallister has said “No thanks” too. Not only has he pulled the pin on his own tax, but he’s going to fight Trudeau next year to stop The Big One as well.

To appreciate how big a flip this was, ponder that Pallister had been planning to bring in his carbon tax for a year, and even had a special scheme for the big six corporates there to dodge his tax with their own private cap-N-trade scheme. Only small companies […]

Canadian former PM says let the others do a carbon tax and conservatives will win every province and the nation

Skeptics are winning

Stephen Harper must have watched the Tony Abbott win, the Trump win, and the Doug Ford win in Ontario. He gets the message. When will Australian conservatives? Fully 48% of Australian’s are happy to pull out of Paris. Plus 14% more are undecided, there for the taking — convince them.

Trudeau’s aggressive climate action plan appears dead Trudeau’s Tough Climate Polices Face a Mounting Backlash

Bloomberg, Christopher Flavelle and Josh Wingrove

As that [carbon] price is about to take effect, growing opposition has put Trudeau on the defensive and has provincial governments rolling back other measures, raising questions about the appetite of this oil-exporting country to tackle climate change.

Ontario, Canada’s most populous province, said Thursday it would join a legal challenge against Trudeau’s carbon pricing. Polls suggest Alberta, the center of Canada’s oil and gas industry, will soon elect a government that opposes the plan. And Trudeau’s own chances of reelection next year have fallen, as his opponents seize on public resistance to carbon pricing.

Trudeau’s carbon tax looks pretty much dead now that most provinces are out

Click to enlarge

Financial Post, […]

Turnbull govt proposes carbon tax on new cars to keep old cars on the road and increase pollution

Showing an uncanny knack to do exactly the wrong thing in an expensive way and with prosaic timing, the Turnbull government is apparently considering using Australian cars to control the climate. As a nation of die-hard car heads with the lowest population density in the world and award winning high prices for electricity, we qualify as the last advanced nation on Earth who should go “electric”.

Currently, EV’s are so rare here, we have one for every 1,750 square kilometers. Don’t be fooled by the Australian continent’s map of charging points. Each charging point is scaled up to approx 14,000 times its real size.

The day after Trump was elected on a vow to quash Paris, we signed up, now as the US winds back emissions rules, Turnbull wants to ramp them up:

Carbon laws ‘to drive top cars off the road’

The Australian, Ben Packham and Remy Varga

The car industry has warned that some of Australia’s most popular cars will be taken off the market, or face significant price hikes, under tough carbon-emissions standards being actively considered by the Turnbull government.

The Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries said the Toyota Hilux and Ford Ranger, […]

Australia’s new NEG National Energy Plan hides a carbon tax, international carbon credits

Graham Lloyd points out we are back where started — a national plan involving international carbon credits:

RepuTex analyst Hugh Grossman says the NEG, in effect, ­will establish a de facto price on greenhouse gas emissions from the power sector.

The government already has indicated that the electricity companies may be able to purchase international or domestic carbon credits to cover any overruns. This remains dangerous political territory for the federal government, which was forced to rule out unequivocally a carbon tax or market-based trading scheme when the ­review was first announced. A crucial decision will be how to manage the safeguards mechanism under which big emitter companies will be curtailed in growing their emissions.

This was the point that played a part in destroying two Prime Ministers here, and one opposition leader — Turnbull got tossed out in 2009 for Abbott over his support for the emissions trading scheme. Abbott pandered in too many respects to the carbonistas, but he always said emphatically “no” to international carbon credits. If we funnel money offshore for atmospheric nullities over China, we truly get nothing at all in return, and worse, we feed the crony crooks, the financial […]

Y’think Donald Trump will bring in a carbon tax? (And pigs will knit socks.)

Bob Inglis is a former Republican congressman who lost out to a Tea Partier (you’ll see why). He’s visiting Australia to talk us into doing climate manipulation. I can’t see his reasoning catching on:

Former Republican congressman Bob Inglis says he knows it sounds improbable to say the US president would impose a carbon price, but he thinks reality will force Mr Trump’s hand.

“Donald Trump said climate change is a Chinese hoax and conspiracy – but he couldn’t possibly believe that,” Mr Inglis told the National Press Club in Canberra on Wednesday.

Obviously it’s impossible for Inglis to believe Inglis Could Be Wrong.

In the five stages of grief, he’s stuck at number one…

Watch the contortions to fit that worldview into a round hole:

He laments the tribalism of the debate, saying there’s such fear among conservatives about being seen as weak in the face of the environmental left they refuse to hear anything.

He frames the question to conservatives as not whether they believe in climate change, but if they think free enterprise can solve it.

“We’ve got to build the confidence of the right so that […]

Turnbull killed off the best campaign issue for the Coalition — the carbon tax

It was no accident that Turnbull turned out to be a lousy campaigner. He stood for things the people didn’t want, so he couldn’t mention his “successes” nor point at Labor’s big failures.

Andrew Bolt wonders why Turnbull didn’t run the carbon tax scare, which worked so well for Tony Abbott:

If only Turnbull had followed another critical tip from the shrewd Hunt, to hit Labor with an attack on his planned electricity tax – a new carbon tax. As Labor’s Mediscare has proved, the electorate is highly sensitive to threats to the household budget after several years now of living standards not rising. An attack on Labor’s electricity tax could have been decisive, but that was one more piece of good advice Turnbull ignored.

It was not about good advice. Turnbull couldn’t run the carbon tax scare — because he and Greg Hunt had bought a carbon tax in themselves — the hypocrites would be exposed. Worse, it would remind the electorate of what they voted for so emphatically in 2013 — a mandate to get rid of a carbon tax.

The last time the Coalition could campaign on getting rid of that great big carbon tax […]

Sydney Storm damage: forget sandbags, stop these waves with a carbon tax

Massive storm across Australia’s East Coast — 3 dead, 3 missing. Nearly half a meter of rain fell on Wooli (469mm) in 24 hours. Record rain and flooding occurred in NSW, Victoria, and Tasmania. Sympathies to victims and their families.

Houses left hanging as gardens and a pool disappear.

ABC 7:30 Report

There is a lot we could say, but for the moment, marvel at the government brain that bans unauthorized sandbags, but taxes people to stop the storms.

The Big-gov solution — fine residents a quarter of a million dollars if they use sandbags.

[The Australian] Families whose multi-million-dollar Sydney homes were last night beginning to break away in another king tide could have faced fines of up to $250,000 if they even used sand bags to try to protect their properties.

Houses at Collaroy have been under threat since at least 1974 but the council has failed to build a sea wall or pump sand on to the beach because of environmental concerns and a belief that it was spending public money for the benefit of private landholders.

Or make that a million dollar fine:

Planning Minister […]

Secret deal: Australia already has an ETS – carbon tax – starts in 5 weeks

Get ready. The legislation was done on the last day Parliament sat in December. The Coalition government knew it would be popular with the voters who all want “carbon action” so they… buried the news. No cheering. No speeches.

It apparently starts on July 1, and applies to 150 companies — about half our emissions. It’s a Cap N Trade system with “Caps” that can be screwed gently down as the climate warms to fill government coffers and raise electricity prices. The Direct Action plan auctions can be phased out and the SneakTax phased in. It could end up being the main game. A blank cheque.

It’s called “Safeguard” — it was safe for politicians and guards them against their failure to meet pointless, symbolic international agreements to slow storms. A Safeguard for politicians but a SneakTax for the people.

What does it mean? It’s time Australia got a new central political party.

Alan Kohler in The Australian

From July 1, coincidentally the day before the election, the Coalition’s “safeguard mechanism” within its Direct Action Plan will come into force.

One-hundred and fifty companies, representing about 50 per cent of Australia’s total carbon emissions, will be […]

Report suggesting new carbon tax for Australia hidden until after election

While Turnbull and the Liberals are attacking Labor for wanting a “massive new carbon tax on electricity,” it turns out that the Climate Change Authority is going to recommend the Liberals do exactly that but not ’til after the election. Allegedly Greg Hunt’s office are “very happy” that the report will be delayed. It would muddy up that scare campaign about Labor’s carbon tax if the punters knew the Libs planned to bring one in too. Labor and the Greens are crying foul, saying the report should be released now.

We are bizarrely reliving 2009. The public don’t want carbon trading. They have voted against it at every opportunity. They don’t want to spend even $2 to neutralize flights, yet both major political parties are now demanding we have one. If the report is suppressed in any way it shows Turnbull and Hunt know the public don’t want a carbon tax, but they’re going to give them one despite that.

The Climate Change Authority was rescued from the Abbott sabre by Al Gore and Clive Palmer. Turnbull and Hunt pointed at it on Sept 22 last year, barely two weeks after the coup, and announced carbon trading and a “cap” […]

Bill Shorten wants a lot of new carbon taxes and to help international bankers

A gift for Turnbull, who doesn’t deserve it.

Welcome to Election-2016 in Australia.

We’ve done this before: Bill Shorten has promised there will be “no carbon tax under Labor”. This almost exactly mirrors the promise made by Julia Gillard on her way to the most pathetic parliamentary win ever recorded in Australian history. Gillard’s barely-there-with-the-help-of-two-turncoats-success was based on this infamous deceit, which Mr Bill Shorten approved of and voted in. Channelling Gillard-2010

At least he is kinda upfront about saying there will be no tax apart from a lot of new taxes he calls trading schemes. What kind of trade are you forced by law to make? A tax…

“There will be no carbon tax under Labor, there will be no fixed price under Labor, what we are doing instead is we are working with the market to create an Emissions Trading Scheme,” Opposition Leader Bill Shorten said.

He is offering a kind of “Cap N Trade”, which is bound to suit all the Aussies who’ve been lining up at protests saying “No Carbon Tax. We want Cap N Trade”. Have you met one ? Me neither.

Let’s not forget the advantages of trading versus taxes: Markets […]

The carbon tax and ETS is right back on the agenda in Australia — thank Gore and Palmer

The political bomb is ticking again. Despite being slayed twice at Australian elections the ETS monster – the emissions trading scheme – has popped back out of the box. This time around, Turnbull and co will not paint it as a big deal grand scheme, nor give it a proper name. It will be eased in under the radar as much as possible (as I predicted) being forced on only the worst “polluters” as a cheaper way to offset carbon emissions.

There’s a strange rush on in Australian politics to force Australian companies (and consumers) to send money to struggling bankers in Europe.

It’s only a few credits… Greg Hunt says overseas emissions credits will ‘probably’ be allowed

The environment minister talks flexibility in emissions targets as Coalition backbenchers mock international deal reached at Paris climate conference.

The Turnbull government will “probably” allow emission reduction permits to be bought from overseas, giving Australia flexibility to increase the targets it pledged at the Paris climate conference, Greg Hunt has predicted.

Right now, to avoid lighting the same fires that got Turnbull ousted in 2009, Turnbull and Hunt are pretending an ETS was a part of the Abbott […]

Carbon tax and Sydney Uni economics, both slugs on the economy

Michael Harris, Senior Fellow in the School of Economics at University of Sydney, has the impossible job of defending the monstrously ineffective carbon tax against the pointless-but-efficient “Direct Action” program. The carbon tax cost $15b, and cut emissions by 12 million tonnes. The Direct Action plan cost $660m, and is projected to save 47 million tonnes.

Having no numbers remotely on his side, Harris goes quantum semantic. Watch the leap. A tax is not a cost, only a transfer. That makes your tax bill so much easier to pay:

There is also a difference between costs to the economy, and transfers within it. The amount of revenue raised through any tax is not a cost; it is simply a transfer from one “pocket” to “another”. The money has not been destroyed, and it remains available to be spent on something.

Now it seems to me that if I buy a beer, it’s a transfer from one “pocket” to another pocket and if that money is destroyed in the process, that would be the end of the bottle shop. The world of economics rather depends on that money not being vaporised and being available for the shop owner […]

The free market wins again – carbon auction price is $14 per ton — up to 300 times cheaper than Carbon Tax

Landfill gas

All the usual suspects declared it could never work. Instead, “Direct Action” is likely to be wildly cheaper and more effective (at reducing CO2). The catch is, it won’t reward friends of big-government and it won’t punish miners, manufacturers and small businesses — which must be why climate activists don’t like it.

Results are just in from the first Abbott government Direct Action carbon auctions. The government offered to pay for carbon reduction, and held a reverse auction (where people who bid the lowest price would win). The average price came in at $14 a ton.

The Numbers: The Australian government will spend $660 million to reduce emissions by 47mT. These projects will run for about 7 years, and mean the government is on track to meet the target of 180mT reduction by 2020. — Details are at the Clean Energy Regulator.

It’s a lot less than the fantasy schemes that use wind and solar power, of which cost estimates vary partly because no one really knows what the lifespan and disposal costs are. One MIT study estimated the cost of abating carbon with wind was about $60 AUD per ton, and the cost of […]

Carbon tax cost $5310 a ton. $15 billion to abate almost nothing and cool the world by even less.

If the Greens cared about the environment, they’d call this scheme “a ghastly waste”.

The “price” of carbon was advertised as $24 (per ton emitted) but real price of reducing emissions by one ton was $5,000. It could only happen when people are playing with other people’s money. That’s the soft left idea of good maths and good business.

That the Labor-Greens boast that this spectacular failure was a success shows the carbon tax was never about the climate, nor about CO2 or the environment. Follow the money. The purpose of the tax was to reward friends and punish competitors. Anyone dependent on Big-Government is a “friend”, and anyone who can stand on their own two feet is a “polluter” or a “denier”.

If the Greens cared about the environment, they’d call this scheme “a ghastly waste”.

The $15 billion price tag is $670 per Australian, or $2,700 per household of four. The real total is much more (when will the government add up the real bill?), because that tally doesn’t include the money wasted on solar panels, windpower, or the whole “Department of Weather Change”. It doesn’t include millions in scientific research money poured down the sinkhole of climate […]