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Hate those deniers — Super tax their backers?

Our PM’s rapid descent is described as due to the failure of the carbon trading scheme tonight on the 7.30 Report. To make it so much more pointed, on top of that, there’s the suggestion that Rudd is driven by anger, and that his latest attack on the Mining Industry (with the massive new tax scheme) is about beating the same forces that succeeded over him on the Emissions Trading Scheme.

Author and journalist David Marr spoke with the 7.30 Report‘s Kerry O’Brien about the psychological make-up of the Prime Minister and his collapse in public approval.

Apparently it all boils down to the carbon trading scheme that failed.

The point he started to unravel was not the Global Financial Crisis, an ongoing war, or the weak outcome of his feted hospital plan, it was about the carbon scheme:

DAVID MARR: Copenhagen means an enormous amount to Rudd. It is of course – the debacle of Copenhagen is the moment at which public affection for Rudd began to fray. Until that time he had been the most-loved political leader for the longest time we’ve ever had in this country. But Copenhagen was a debacle. But it was a debacle that he threw himself into rescuing. Absolutely. He slept for one hour in a 40-hour stretch and his foul language and his disappointment that he was expressing to a group of people in Copenhagen was the result of immense frustration in that time. But he tried his darnedest, and so much failed for him at that point. ‘Cause this is the man who believes he understands China, this is the man who believes in international diplomacy, this is the man who set himself the moral task of addressing global warming and it all collapsed. And at that point, with a new Leader of the Opposition, things began to unravel very seriously for this man.

And what about the mining tax? The new super tax that has caused the stock value of miners based on Australian soil to fall on average nearly 10% in a month. Could it be a payback for the carbon scheme that failed?

I signed off on the essay as the [mining tax] fight began – there’s a little bit about it in there. But this is, I think, a very self-conscious demonstration on Rudd’s part that the forces that in a sense beat him on ETS are not gonna beat him this time. It’s the assertion – it’s a very angry assertion, I think. The angry assertion of a man who wants to demonstrate that he is unassailably running this country.

Could Rudd really hate the climate sceptics so much he wants to hurt those who he thought backed them? It seems too petty for a Prime Minister. Surely not? But read Rudd’s words again from November. This is not a statesman:

… these donothing climate change skeptics are prepared to destroy our children’s future.

Climate change deniers are small in number, but they are too dangerous to be ignored. They are well resourced….

…if they succeed, then it is all of us who will suffer. Our children. And our grandchildren.

[Climate change skeptics] are reckless gamblers who are betting all our futures on their arrogant assumption that their intuitions should triumph over the evidence. The logic of these skeptics belongs in a casino.

Hated, and Despised. Those who would destroy the future of our children. Perhaps he really could believe the country might be better off without the miners and billionaire backers. (It was no secret some of the backers of the Monckton Tour were from the industry).

How arrogant and dismissive can you get?

Today The Australian reported that:

[After] informal drinks in the Prime Minister’s office … the handful of very senior mining executives invited had only come away more depressed at Rudd’s attitude towards their concerns and their industry.

Over the brief gathering in his office, the Prime Minister repeatedly told his astonished guests that his own global experience and knowledge made him the best person to be leader, well placed to understand the industry and to manage the pressures.

Those attending the drinks, organised at the last minute, are hardly unused to global pressures themselves. As well as Smith, they included BHP Billiton chief executive Marius Kloppers, Rio Tinto’s Australian managing director, David Peever, Minerals and Metals Group boss Andrew Michelmore, AngloGold Ashanti chief executive Mark Cutifani and Xstrata Coal’s Peter Freyberg.

Can someone nudge the man and mention “humility”?

The error cascade

The descent into the nightmare of growing government control and irrationality is starkly illustrated. All this because Rudd and co. do not understand that the climate debate is all about the missing feedbacks (Rudd: What? What are “feedbacks?”). They did not take the time to find out, and did not hold a Royal Commission or even a public examination of the AGW theory before embarking on turning the economy inside out to reduce carbon emissions. Did Rudd even read one skeptical book before committing the country to the largest economic change forĀ  a decade. One article?

Even a simple request for evidence and an understanding of what evidence was would have allowed Rudd and co. to see through the AGW theory and realize it did not hold up. You don’t need a science degree to see the hot-spot graphs are ever so slightly (completely) different. But no man is as blind as an ideologue. The postmodern crowd believe that truth is relative, not objective (requesting permission to lie and propagandize outrageously sir!). Too bad. Even a modicum of understanding about truth and how it is arrived at would have saved Rudd from this debacle.

For the sake of a nail…a kingdom does fall. For the sake of being unaware of the powerful role of climate feedbacks in computer models, a Prime Minister will fall.

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