It’s another meaningless Reachtel climate poll. Fergus Hunter at the Sydney Morning Herald has been fooled like Turnbull and Shorten, and Rudd and Gillard before them.
It’s the same old Polling Trap. Junk questions produce junk answers.
ReachTel asks motherhood questions about whether people would like to change the weather for free, and get free clean energy too. Who could say no? Without asking “what are you willing to pay?” the question is giving away coffee and cake at the side of road. Better survey’s show 80% of Australians don’t donate to environmental causes or vote for it. How committed are they? Answer, not even ten bucks a year. On flights, not even two bucks a trip. Survey after survey shows that when people rank issues, climate concerns are flat at the bottom of the barrel. Only 3% of US people think climate is most important issue.
Let’s translate that apathy to votes. Tony Abbott ran the 2013 election on the costs of making the weather nice and the people said No. No thanks, and No Way. He won in a landslide. What do people want? Cheaper electricity.
Strong climate change policy is a vote-changing matter for a majority of Australians, a new poll shows, establishing the issue as an important battleground one week into the election campaign.
According to the ReachTEL survey of 2400 people, conducted for a coalition of environmental groups, 64 per cent of respondents said they would be more likely to vote for a party seeking 100 per cent renewable energy in 20 years and 48 per cent said they would be more likely to support a party reducing Australia’s net carbon emissions to zero by 2050.
Climate change is not a battleground — it’s a fantasy land. The Great Barrier Reef is an icon that half of Australia never visits. When it comes to ranking issues, Climate change is about as scary as “litter”. Can we imagine the two main parties promising billions to clean paper and cans off the street?
It’s a survey conducted for green activists – no wonder they don’t mention the money
According to the ReachTEL survey of 2400 people, conducted for a coalition of environmental groups, 64 per cent of respondents said they would be more likely to vote for a party seeking 100 per cent renewable energy in 20 years and 48 per cent said they would be more likely to support a party reducing Australia’s net carbon emissions to zero by 2050.
So how strong is “seeking”? Everyone wants a party that “seeks” the holy grail. Would you turn down 100% free energy. No!
If only it were free. If only it was clean.
When the voters go to the polls very few will put the climate ahead of jobs, health, education and the economy.
The Greens want a 63-82 per cent equivalent cut to emissions and 90 per cent renewable energy by 2030.
Fine, and let the Greens pay for it. If it’s so cheap, if the world is moving to it anyway, who needs government policy to force us to buy “cheap wind”?
From comments : – )
Much climate-change polling today,
Will likely let Greens have their say,
To express their pipe dreams,
On ‘cheap’ energy schemes,
For which they’re unwilling to pay.
— Ruairi
Jo – to quote from the article:
“conducted for a coalition of environmental groups”
Says it all really.
Cheers,
311
1.
Are you concerned about chemical waste?
Do you think dumping waste gas into the atmosphere is the same as dumping waste liquid into a river?
Do you think polluters should pay the cost of clean-ups?
Would you support a tax on carbon pollution?
2.
Do you think your energy costs (including transport costs) have increased in the last 5 years?
Do you think your energy suppliers should be obliged to source energy at the lowest possible cost?
Do you think you already pay sufficient taxes?
Would you oppose a tax that increased your energy costs?
It’s all in the questions, innit?
20
Not often do you see a good set of poll questions. While some sets of questions clearly indicate a biased or rigged poll, I think most of the unsatisfactory sets of questions are set by incompetent pollsters.
This kind of thing also appears in multiple choice examination papers and their electronic equivalents. e.g. In the early days of the computer tests for driving licences there were too many ambiguous questions, and too many questions where more than one choice was a reasonable answer. They upped their game somewhat since.
10
Renewable energy cannot provide 24/7 industrial power, and carbon abatement will hardly change the global temperature an iota, so its just hyperbole that most do not understand, but combatting climate change sounds great as a manifesto.
302
Rather than trying to convert Australia into a version of North Korea, for those who want to emulate that enlightened country, why not just emigrate and enjoy the love?
371
Renewable is a fantasy word.
The only real renewable energy is hydro and Australia doesn’t have the rainfall or the mountains or the rivers. Even the mighty Snowy would run dry in a few days just supplying Melbourne. This is what has just happened to Tasmania. A disaster. Besides, you need to build dams for new hydro and that is not allowed.
We have sunshine, but conversion is so inefficient that you would have to cover all of Victoria in solar panels just to match current needs and then where would we live? Obviously this is also for less than half a day and there is no storage and dark cold nights. We could live underground perhaps, but then we need more lights.
As complex expensive machinery windmills have a very short lifespan, perhaps 20 years. Disposable. So the energy might be there sometimes and you have achieved nothing, invested in nothing. Thrown billions to the wind.
So what they are asking is whether you would like free, endless energy. Yes, please.
Now who is offering that? No one. It doesn’t exist. This polling is to reinforce a Green fantasy by asking you if you would like to have something which does not exist. That is pure deception.
521
You make some good points, TdeF (as usual), but you fail to mention the integrity (or lack thereof) of the polling company.
They must have been engaged through some sort of process – it may have been by tender, or it may have been through a mate of a mate, but there was some point in that process where the polling company should have asked a whole lot of questions about the quality and defensibility of the outcome.
Were the questions to be published? If not, how likely would it be that they would get into the print media, or blogs such as this one? Were the questions to be loaded, or phrased in neutral terms? How robust did the results need to be – are they destined to be published into the public domain? If not, how can any conclusions be substantiated? Is there likely to be a request for a judicial review, where discovery of these points might be an issue?
If policy is to be formed on the basis of polls, such as this, then they must be defensible. If I were a principle of this polling company, and I felt that there was a chance that I might end up in court, then I would be more than a little worried about how the results were being used to justify policy statements.
310
Agreed. It would be nice if the polling company was not just paid to follow instructions, but it certainly looks like it. As for ending up in court, what is the crime in asking a lot of leading questions? Or even questions which are designed to create a credibility for a proposition which is preposterous or totally unrealistic, like 100% renewables/disposables.
I used to love Sir Humphrey Applebee in Yes Minister explain how to conduct a poll and how to get the result you wanted. What is really annoying is that polls are now used to direct politicians who were supposed to listen to their own voters, not a polling company. Polls are often now conducted like advertising, to get an effect in themselves, not to ascertain a position.
190
The Opposition can request a judicial review of the process, and the formulaton of the questions posed.
This usually is conducted by a Senior Judge, who can appoint other parties to assist. As you point out, it is not a case of going to court.
The Judge will review the evidence presented, or unearthed by the assisting parties, and reach a conclusion, regarding whether the poll was biased or not. If the Judge finds that there was an unwarranted bias in the results, the opposition can then use that finding, in Parliament, to counter the Government using the survey as “evidence”, and a rationale for action.
10
Brilliant Rereke,
I do hope that some one asks the pollsters those questions. It would be fantastic if they were required to actually answer them!
70
Brilliant Reneke. +1,000,000,000. The hidden unknown about polling is how the questions asked influence the outcome of the polls. You can get any result (?) you want by carefully framing the questions.
21
I think Tasmania had the water in its dams, the problem was it ran them down to 25% by Dec. 2015 (the beginning of usual dryer Summer months) to garner a profit by selling peak hydro power and buying off peak coal electricity over the undersea cable, then it mis-functioned and repairs haven’t been completed and weather in Bass St. has been stormy too boot. They are going to have an inquiry later (Sir Humphrey style), but the costs of installing diesel generators and restarting the gas turbine at Bell Bay would far outweigh that profit.
Probably won’t be anymore dams built, but apart from the Gordon stage 2, there would be some scope on the New R., the Picton R., and the Arthur R., all with catchments in higher rainfall regions, mostly “World Heritage” these days.
90
Sorry to be a nit-picker Robert, as I am generally in agreement with this and all your posts.
How much was that? What was entailed? And there are eight gas turbines at TVPS. Only one was laid up in storage. How would you allocate these costs? Were any of these costs accrued from previous “savings”?
10
You are correct, not much, but other costs include the loss of production from the Al. smelter, Temco, and the Newsprint Mill at Boyer, plus the intangible cost due to loss of credibility of its clean green credentials.
30
The other turbines were not laid up because they are peaking plants.
The laid up turbine is the CCGT (baseload usage) one that was to be sold. So all restart costs should be allocated against this single unit.
The figure I saw for the profit made by Hydro Tasmania in pure sales and arbitraging since the Carbon Tax was introduced is A$300 million. Yes, I know the Carbon Tax was repealed but arbitraging has continued largely due to the increased volatility in the SE Aust wholesale electricity market due to increased penetration of intermittent generation.
20
Due to significant rainfall and a good amount of wind Tasmania is back to 100% renewable energy after 6 months of gas turbine and diesel generation to keep the lights on. Actually the wind input had to be substantial, 305 MW averaging 60-80% C.F. for a fortnight. Instead of hanging their heads in shame due to mis-management they are now making a PR exercise out of the fiasco; see the CEO’s statement on the Hydro Lake levels.
72
Oh No! Is beauracracy ever accountable?
Link please!
30
hydro.com.au\water\lake levels should work, otherwise google hydro lake levels. I was looking at the rainfall for the past week, from 150 to 400 mm. for the main catchments and you will see a lot of the river dams are spilling which is why they switched-off the gas and diesel. The big ones are Lake Gordon – 40 m. odd and the Great lake – 18 m. which have a long way to go to fill.
The old operation (before BassLink) was to use the river catchments over the winter leaving lake Gordon and the Great Lake for the Summer months. So when the cable is repaired I guess they will import off-peak Yallourn power over night, use the rivers day and night while they are spilling, and let the other dams recuperate.
20
Looking at the Hydro site the water levels have risen to 20% on the 16th. May, up from 16.1% on the 9th. May and equivalent to the levels on 18th. January. The lowest it dropped to was 12.8% on the 25th. April.
20
Dogma rules over reason…meanwhile, the whole “hey, I know Science and you’re not him” world does not realize there is great new knowledge to be faced, and the whole of modern science to be reconsidered in its light:
The Holy Grail (It’s a metaphor, but what a metaphor) has been found, in the “Great Design of the ‘gods’ “.
74
Follow the Greens “RE Plan” and that will result in a similar outcome as the EU, ie a “Basket Case Economy”. If the Brits have any sense they will vote “Out of the EU!!!” in next month’s referendum.
261
But what a scare campaign is being mounted against it.
The reality is that the UK is the only actual contributor to the EU budget, so they need the UK far worse than the UK needs them. In any case the EU is going to split anyway.
What puzzles me is that Dave Cameron is throwing away his position as PM to try and stay in. It doesn’t matter if he wins or not, his party has split and he will be gone by Christmas. ( Of course no connection should be made with conditions in Australia).
260
He has been guaranteed a plush job in a senior position in the EU bureaucracy. He will get that job, whatever the outcome, if he goes through the motions of trying to keep the Brits in. Tilting the playing field is one to the first strategies, taught to Eurocrats.
241
He probably has been bought off by a significant number of large UK companies. One of the points in the Martin Durkin video that Jo linked to a few threads back was how the large companies like the EU because it generates masses of regulation there by providing a huge barrier to entry for newcomers into the market. I had not thought of that before but it fits a large company mentality.
151
You are on a roll Reneke! +1,000,000,000 more!
20
Here is a good poll done by the un this shows how the populace think of climate change, phone and internet are more important.
http://data.myworld2015.org/
60
A recipe for disaster in the coming election…..a hung parliament where the Greens would indeed ensure that Pro Climate change policy would be a costly no-hoper bomb fooling both major parties.
The leader of the greens said this week quote “You’ve got a government that has been the only government in the world to repeal strong laws on tackling global warming.” He said “You’ve got a government that is taking massive corporate donations, and continues to prop up the fossil fuel lobby. He said “You’ll see both sides of politics, after the election, talk to the greens and independents and hopefully what we will end up with then with is an outcome where we get a multiparty government, which will be the future of Australia.”
Imagine what a hung parliament after the next election would be like with the Greens propping up labor telling them what to do on climate change and the fossil fuel industry.
180
The greens are often admirable people, safe with children, kind to dogs and completely insane. Probably two thirds of their support comes from those upset at the 2 major parties (and who isn’t?).
The true believers keep issuing propaganda claims with no basis in reality but they believe them because they keep hearing them, or because they believe that if they wish hard enough then it will happen.
You cannot have 100% renewables for technical reasons the Greens are unable to grasp.The last thing they should really want is for it to happen and prove a disaster and wipe out their support.
210
I dont think they like dogs because dogs are not native to Australia. I am positive they wouldnt like my Beagle for example. He will not vote Greens as he doesnt want to be deported……
190
There was an item on Radio New Zealand, a few weeks ago, about one of the electricity lines companies charging connection fees for solar panels. The reporter was up in arms about people being charged for the privilege of providing “free” energy to the grid.
The company who supplied the panels are also up in arms, because the “network fees” make the panels uneconomic, which is impacting their sales.
Almost everybody I have mentioned this to, has responded, “well the lines company should just disconnect them from the network, and then stop billing them”. It will be interesting to follow events during the winter.
180
A takeoff on one of my favorite American football teams. Roll, Reneke, roll tide!!!!!
10
Election promises…the art of the impossible.
60
“The Greens want a 63-82 per cent equivalent cut to emissions and 90 per cent renewable energy by 2030.”
Translates to:
The Greens would like mankind to largely remove itself from the earth’s carbon cycle and only have reliable energy for the ruling elite.
220
Then they, the ruling green elite would have a real problem with mankind largely removed form the earth.
They might have to get off their fat ar**and out of their salubrious central city surrounds and do some real work themselves if nobody else is left to cater for their every whim and demand!
Oh! the Horror to even contemplate that!
170
Maybe this is why they push so hard for schools to spend so much time on ‘organic/sustainable farming’ and the like? This way they will have a group of well trained and indoctrinated workers to keep food on the tables of the select few who are deemed to be worthy of it.
Not that I really have anything against such things being taught at schools, particularly in ares where children just don’t have back, or front yards. However, I do have a problem with such things taking precedence over various fundamental subjects which, in my opinion, are what schools exist to teach. Top that off with teaching people how to grow the food, but not how to preserve it – and you just end up with vast amounts of wasted potential.
Community gardens are another one – use land which is almost never tested for (genuine) pollutants and toxins, to grow a ‘feel good’ amount of food. Again, nothing wrong with the general concept if people want to do this, but it’s not going to feed the masses.
100
I know people involved in these school garden and cooking programs ,Stephanie Alexander a celebrity cook in Australia has some scheme involving schools and government funding which is going strong. The children for the most part seem to like taking part :Why not get out of class for a couple of hours,get some exercise,learn how food is grown and do some cooking then wash up the dishes. Some instruction on economics is most likely completely lacking,opportunity cost of your labour ,specialisation of labour etc. On balance I think the program is worthwhile,but there is probably a lot of subtle or non subtle indoctrination of the Green Cause going on at the same time.
20
ROM @10.1
But they won’t and don’t. They’re far too deeply submerged in their pet fantasy.
30
Evening Jo,
Welcome to Election 2016.
The Greens are either living in a parallel universe or brain-washed or both.
Labor is channeling “Back to the Future”, and still believe ‘Kevin 07’s’ mantra that global warming/climate change is the greatest moral challenge of our time.
(Of course, it certainly is for them! L.O.L.!)
It is most likely only weeks now and the bankruptcy of China’s largest solar company will be complete…
It will only be six to 12 months and the ‘green darling’ of Silicone Valley/Washington – Elon Musk – will be financially ruined &/or have to divest all his toxic green assets…
It will also only be a few short months and both the UK. and Germany will have to announce major retractions of their economy-shrinking green agendas!!
– And still up to 20% of inner-city chardonnay-socialists look through rose-coloured glasses at the Adam Bandts of this world??!! (Thank heavens this cancer is currently limited to the Bris./Syd./Canb./Melb. clique.)
I hope the A.L.A. whip some ‘serious butt’ in the next few weeks!
All the best, warmest regards,
Reformed Warmist of Logan
260
Adelaide may be backward and going that way as fast as the State government can mismanage, but we still (unfortunately) have Senator Sarah Huff-Huff and quite a few other delusionals.
These latter are calling for the competing parties to promise a solar tower plant to replace the now defunct coal fired station. This is supposed to guarantee employment, continuous electricity, reliability of supply and a cut in emissions.
Quite how a 110MW (maximum) solar plant can replace a 550MW coal type is not stated.
Nor do these dills seem to know that these stations rely on gas to warm up in the morning.
Nor that often (in Spain) that they can shut down over winter.
And noone mentions that it would be cheaper to give everyone of the recently dismissed workers $200,000 AND build a 500MW CCGT plant which would supply electricity when it was wanted.
A recent visitor to Pt. Augusta reported that a lot of locals are buying generators.
130
Why do you need a solar tower to replace Northern? Wind and solar become new “base load” power for South Australia
I knew it was only a matter of time before Giles would start spouting off on the strong wind figures for this month
30
Is he allowed out in public? (off leash I mean).
“as ancillary services as frequency control for the grid” does he think this is an optional extra?
Emissions from Hallett (OCGT) are 1 tonne per MW. So we’ve replaced a reliable source at 1.1 tonnes per MW with a dodgy one at 1 tonne per MW. And the OCGTs are notorious for holding back supply until the price has jumped above $200. Much higher cost, greater risk of blackouts and minimal reduction in emissions. Wow!
We’ve survived a week with windy weather therefore everything will be OK for ever and ever. No wonder people who’ve worked in a power station are buying generators.
30
Now don’t go blaming poor Ladbroke and the other OCGT plants for being everything you’ve said about Hallett. They’re made and installed for rapid start and ramping so you cannot expect them to be as efficient and long serving as a CCGT or boiler plant. Each has their place in a proper generation scheme unlike wind turbines and solar farms.
BTW Hallett is listed by the AEMO as a CCGT plant. Is that incorrect?
10
Looks like AEMO: 0, Graeme: 1
http://www.yokogawa.com/technical-library/resources/references/unified-operator-interface-solution-enables-remote-operation-agl-hallet-power-station-australia/
10
Promises? Bah!
“If the models and the projections and the data are correct, there will be no society in the UK in 2025.” – Prof. Guy McPherson
Futurama: In the Year 252525
50
If there is no society in the UK in 2025, it will NOT be because of climate change..
… but because of the regressively stupid actions of successive governments to combat the non-existent farce that is called “climate change™”.
112
This is a very odd election. Issues such as ‘renewables’ are not even important. We are borrowing $1Billion a week and our overseas interest payments are over $1Billion a month. Our AAA credit rating is under threat, which will increase repayments for nothing a death spiral. So what do pollsters ask about? The economy? The mining crisis? Budget repair? No, whether we can spend more money on new windmills and close electricity generating facilities which are fifty years old and going strong?
We are being manipulated about the major issues. No one is discussing an ETS and no one is asking Malcolm about it. The ABC refuse to criticize Malcolm and as Andrew Bolt points out a Fairfax columnist, would still have Turnbull as PM in his dream cabinet. Doesn’t that tell us something about Malcolm, the ABC and Fairfax. These polls are meant to influence politicians and distract voters from the disaster we are facing in our economy while half the population do not pay any nett tax and want to spend more.
220
No sources of energy in the world are more short term than windmills and solar. They are only renewables in that no more than 20 years from now, we will have to replace them all.
230
It would be great to see politicians retirement pensions reverse linked to the National debt. If it doubles, payments halve. We would soon have some sense.
200
Why should they be insulated from the mess they leave behind. This was the origin of the Gold Pass, so that in retirement they had free travel on our government train system. The hope was that the trains would improve. Now they get free business class travel on private airlines. This is wrong.
No wonder they want to talk about the weather.
220
The politicians want fast electric trains because there will be no airline travel for them when the climate change causing fossil fuel is a thing of the past.
90
It would be wonderful to have fast electric trains (plural).
The Greens are only talking about one inter city train at $100Bn minimum.
Thanks to another Labor/Green government in Victoria, we have had Very Fast Trains in place from December 2006. The average speed of the Fast electric train to Ballarat is 60km/hr, when it runs. Most of this year it has not run and there has been a bus service, which is faster.
It would be better to have trains that were at least as fast as cars on the same route, 110km/hr. However they would have to put back the other track removed so the trains could go faster.
You could always fit windmills to trains. It would not be fast or even move but it would be Green and generate no CO2.
140
Tour de Force.
You have written a lot of good stuff lately.
Really on fire man.
90
Oops. You’ve found the cup hiding the pea.
When are you standing? With great policy like that … 🙂
20
Maybe we should just give the greens what they so dearly want!
Every electorate both state and federal, that elects a Green to any State parliament or to the Federal parliament should be made to practice what they preach.
With the smart meters here in Victoria at least, it would relatively easy to program the central smart meter controlling computers to supply the equivalent only of the renewable wind and solar energy being generated at that point in time to the whole of the green electing electorate if and when that renewable power is available and only to the amounts of renewable generated power currently available at the time.
If the renewable power is not being generated or is already allocated then they go without ie ; they are blacked out all over the electorate until some renewable generated power is again available.
No “ifs” and “buts”!
Even better with the Smart meters, and their central controller’s programmability, anybody who is a green and who nominates to only get renewable green energy as generated by the wind turbines and solar could be supplied with such green energy again to the point of when and if such green renewable energy was currently on line and not already allocated.
And supplied only to the limits of the current green energy being generated which would depend on how many other green customers were also sucking on that same green renewable energy at the time.
The corollary to this of course as distinct from a whole of a green electorate being at the whims of wind and sun is that in signing up for green renewable energy , the individual greens and alarmists would have to agree to forego ANY access at all to the other fossil fuel generated power supplied to the grid.
And that would be implemented by the Smart meters just cutting off their power supply [ which the smart meter central controllers can and already do through the individual customer’s smart meters especially if you haven’t paid the power bill within a reasonable time ] whenever the renewable energy demands exceeds the energy being generated by the wind turbines and solar.
Hydro for some other equally stupid green reasons that makes no sense to any rational person, seems to be no longer classified as “renewable energy” by the greens so any power generated by Hydro would not be accessible by those greens and alarmists that demand and sign up for Renewable energy only.
Of course if the individual greens were offered this option which is relatively easy to instigate when smart meters are in universal use, and a goodly percentage, as in no doubt most, refuse to sign up to just getting pure renewable generated power from turbines and solar only then there is the rather fearsome public weapon of the total loss of credibility and the glaring exposure of the utter hypocrisy of the rabid greens collectively right on down to the individual greens.
The opportunity to try this entire renewable energy only for a large scale geographic and economic example would be to put the ACT on renewable energy only in line with the recently passed ACT renewable energy act.
The ACT should NOT be permitted to access ANY fossil fueled generated energy at any time until all of Australia gets the message on the utter stupidity and irrationality of greens and the ACT’s and SA’s and Tasmania’s renewable energy policies.
AND charge them the full cost, no subsidisation, of the renewable energy they use.
Then all would really see what a green energy future would look like both on a whole of State basis and extending to an all of Australia basis.
That would likely to make any politician and bureacrat with even a modicum of intelligence earnestly reconsider his/ her future if he / she kept pushing the elimination of fossil fueled energy and the promotion of renewable energy as the only energy generating option.
As I have suggested in a previous comment on one of Jo’s immediate past posts, we here in Australia seem to be running one or two electoral cycles behind developments in Europe and the USA.
Renewable energy right across Europe is now getting on the nose big time amongst the general populace due to the outright uncaring, casual destruction of much of Europes natural parks and forests with wind turbine infrastructure.
Plus the now increasingly recognised health debilitating infra sound turbine noise [ latest German recommendations from researchers into turbine infra sound is that turbines must be located at least five kilometres from any dwelling or settlement which wipes out turbines in Germany if implemented. And I think one German state is close to implementing this requirement. ] and of course the sheer unaffordable economic and now rapidly escalating social costs from those who no longer can afford to pay the rapidly escalating prices demanded for energy as a direct result of the unaffordability of renewable energy from turbines and solar.
In the USA Trump has acted as the conduit to allow a whole lot of quite disparate groups that are conservative by nature and who hold the greens and everything they promote and stand for in utter contempt.
And to rub salt into the greens wounds I see that from a link supplied by a commenter here on Jo’s forum that Trump has nominated a skeptic as his energy secretary .
The Wheel turns and turns again and the works of man will be but dust under its mighty rim!
————————–
Ref; Smart meter
&
Smart Grid;
A SmartGrid is an electricity network that can intelligently integrate the actions of all users connected to it – generators, consumers and those that do both – in order to efficiently deliver sustainable, economic and secure electricity supplies.
Smart meters may be part of a smart grid, but alone, they do not constitute a smart grid.
180
Only a third of Australians want to stop the export of fossil fuel.
‘However, plans to put a brake on fossil fuel exports, a measure which only the Greens have so-far backed, were far less popular. Just 30.3 per cent of voters said they would be more likely “to vote for a party that has a plan to phase out mining coal, gas and oil in Australia”.
New Matilda
140
Cow dung is a widely used renewable fuel and, golly, does its sustained use in cooking over primitive stoves cause major numbers of premature deaths from lung diseases! Firewood is also another widely used renewable fuel but leads to very widespread environmental degradation around traditional villages in places such as Madagascar. It’s evil fossil fuel using societies that are achieving environmental rehabilitation and the highest per capita life expectancies. Lesson in all that perhaps?
180
Much climate-change polling today,
Will likely let Greens have their say,
To express their pipe dreams,
On ‘cheap’ energy schemes,
For which they’re unwilling to pay.
170
Ruairi, whoever you are, I am guessing you make a crust out of ordering words. If not, the continuing quality of your produce here suggests strongly that you should.
60
Yes, I agree. Brilliant use of words and right on the nail.
50
The Labor and Greens parties are barking mad.
Their fantasy about “fighting climate change” is a joke, just have a look at the May 2016 EIA co2 projections to 2040. This is the Obama govt’s own forecast for the next 25 years and shows that energy related co2 emissions will rise by 34% over that period. ( page 3) Most of the increase will come from non OECD countries. Note most of the Renewable energy is hydro power.
There is nothing we can do to make a difference and these parties will waste tens of billions $ for zero change to the temp or co2 emissions. Why would anyone vote for these donkeys and pay for ever increasing electricity prices?
“Key findings in the IEO2016 Reference case (continued)
•
Among the fossil fuels, natural gas grows the fastest. Coal use plateaus in the mid-term as China shifts from energy-intensive industries to services and worldwide policies to limit coal use intensify. By 2030, natural gas surpasses coal as the world’s second largest energy source.
•
In 2012, coal provided 40% of the world’s total net electricity generation. By 2040, coal, natural gas, and renewable energy sources provide roughly equal shares (28-29%) of world generation.
•
With current policies and regulations, worldwide energy-related carbon dioxide emissions rise from about 32 billion metric tons in 2012 to 36 billion metric tons in 2020 and then to 43 billion metric tons in 2040, a 34% increase.”
https://www.eia.gov/pressroom/presentations/sieminski_05112016.pdf
120
CAGW = BS
Anybody that states otherwise is either incompetent , loony , and/or cashing – in on what is nothing more than a racket.
How stupid are people to believe that a great big new tax is going to save the planet ?
A politician’s dream : to be able to tax us under the illusion that somehow this is good for us !
All the politicians (crooks) flogging this garbage should be in leg – irons , not running around promising how they intend to squander what they steal off us in an attempt to gain our vote .
They just cannot wait to bring in a great big new co2 tax …. they being the alp , the greens of course and even some in the coalition , especially under true b’lvers turnbull and hunt.
it is obvious that turnbull has restructured the senate voting system to favor the greens rather than the independent senators ,some of which are conservative, which would make the reintroduction of a co2 tax easily passed through the senate !
Why else would the greens have voted for such senate voting reformations unless it favored their BS CAGW agenda.
so if the alp win we get a great big new co2 tax with a left majority in both houses.
if the coalition wins , the turncoat will claim a mandate to flog the same great big new co2 tax with a probable still left senate ….unless the coalition just scrape through which will leave the turncoat subserviant to the more conservative non true b’lver forces within the coalition and therefore will not commit in order to cling to his egotistical PMship.
Then in Nov when Trump hopefully becomes the US Pres , he will throw out all the Climate Change Crap and that will be the beginning of the end of this global marxist movement and international racket and scam!
If Trump is no threat to the CAGW fiasco , then why are the true b’lvers (the lefties) worried about him .
However if Hitlery Clinton wins , then the cagw BS is here to stay !
150
It all reminds me of the “Leading Questions” scene in the original Yes Prime Minister episode on conscription. Steer the person to the result you’re after.
http://researchmethodsdataanalysis.blogspot.com.au/2014/01/leading-questions-yes-prime-minister.html
70
That’s bollocks, and as long as conservatives perpetuate myths like this then are locked into having learned wrong lessons that actually just dont exist from the Rudd / Gillard /Rudd years. It may make Conservatives feel good to think they won in 2013, but that election was in fact a classic case of the Govt losing, not the Opposition wining. The 2013 win was based on ALP disunity and infighting, not the outrage of climate skeptics.
These kind of almost delusional statements really dont advance the cause in any meaningful way. Conservatives need to get a grip on the actual objective, down and dirty reality of the politics of winning an election or we will LOSE this year. MalPM is failing badly early in the campaign. 🙁
62
You make a point with some substance Phil. Maybe the cost of climate change was not a major issue in the last election. However it was part of the agenda and it can equally be said that the voters did not think it important enough to outweighs the negatives of Labour.
With respect to the upcoming election there are a proportion of Conservatives that wants the Liberals to LOSE this year! In their view the Turnbull Liberals are so bad that only a loss can save the Liberal Party ultimatrely. Either that or it is already too late and starting again with a new Party is the only feasible option.
40
Sober Reading
http://www.essentialvision.com.au/climate-change-policy
This unpalatable situation has come about because the MSM increased the propaganda before the Paris climate juggernaut and with an election coming up they kept it on full bore.
So many people have been brainwashed that it’ll take awhile getting them to see reality.
30
The greenwash want to lead us to a socialist, renewable utopia – like Venezuela
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-05-13/scenes-venezuela-apocalypse-countless-wounded-after-5000-loot-supermarket-looking-fo
http://www.infowars.com/watch-venezuela-because-food-shortages-looting-and-economic-collapse-are-coming-to-america-too/
122
If one nationalises the main industries and loses the expertise to run them, gives a lot of money away to other regimes such as Cuba, combined with the usual corruption and mis management of a S. American economy, the inevitable happens. Perhaps, there is a lesson here for Australia.
101
Welcome back red thumb. We missed your unspoken critique over the weekend.
41
I knew knew it was bad there but not just how bad. Their situation is appalling. Welcome to the communist paradise; poor people.
81
It is more than appalling, people are actually dying in the food riots.
51
Yes. It is a real life third world type tragedy taking place in an (formerly) industrialized nation. So utterly avoidable.
50
I don’t think they have done much about the lack of rainfall, but as regards infrastructure it’s another story. The campesinos are probably OK, but it’s in the cities where it is really bad, and the sad thing is they were quite a rich and reasonably developed country due to their oil.
We have to be careful who we vote for here.
41
IMO, many if not most environmental polls are worded such that based on the respondent’s answers, one of two conclusions can indirectly be reached regarding the character of the respondent. (1) He/she cares about the environment, and is therefore a wonderful person; and (2) He/she obviously doesn’t care about the environment and is, therefore, a horse’s a$$. Since most people don’t want to be considered to be a horse’s a$$, the poll taker accomplishes his goal of showing that most people are in favor of some proposed environmental action.
70
There is an old saying”Never conduct a poll,unless you know what the answer will be”
51
Polling trap? If you ask the wrong question you always get the wrong answer. What else do you need to know?
Pollsters are masters of the art of asking the wrong question then telling you the answer they get is the answer to some other question, one much more important to know the answer to than the one they asked.
I think that about sums up the problem.
By the way — and you’ll have to forgive me for asking — but isn’t looking at the majority public opinion about climate change quite a bit like the fallacious consensus theory of the other camp? 😉 😉 😉 😉
90
Good news from the UK: The leader of our Green Party, Natalie Bennett (originally an Aussie, in case you don’t know) is standing down in August. Her future plans haven’t been made public – but you could put in an enticing bid, I suppose. Here she is best known for an interview in which, among other things, she proposed building 500,000 new homes to cost an average of around AUS$11,000 each – presumably using recycled corn-flake cartons.
140
The CSIRO conducted an annual poll to gauge attitudes about climate change and adaptation. Australians recognise that third world countries will be impacted by climate change (whether human induced or natural) but it won’t have any effect on us.
‘The fifth survey in 2014 allowed the research team to assess the findings across the whole longitudinal survey period of 2010 to 2014. The survey showed that attitudes about climate change remained relatively unchanged over the survey period.
‘A strong majority of Australians think climate change is happening, and support a wide variety of initiatives to both mitigate and adapt to the potential impacts. The data also suggest, however, that there is ongoing disagreement as to whether the causes of climate change are natural fluctuations or are a consequence of human activity.
‘The survey showed a pattern of ‘optimism bias’ – the belief that one is less likely than other people to experience something negative. In general, people felt they themselves would be harmed the least by climate change, and those most unlike them (those in poor, developing nations, and people in the world generally) would be harmed the most.’
62
O/T Optimism Bias
‘Tasmania’s energy crisis has “turned the corner” as dam storages climb to 20 per cent, an increase of almost 4 per cent in seven days, Energy Minister Matthew Grooms says.
‘The increase follows a 3.1 per cent increase the week before.’
Weatherzone
80
In the mean time…. the repair of BassLink has been stalled due to bad weather.
71
This might be off topic, but this “news” by Angela Lavoipierre on ABC.net yesterday my interest you: Electricity boss mistakenly sends climate skeptic handbook to Australia’s elite .
Must have been big news, until someone realised Angela’s news story actually happened in 2009. Not a bad thing for publicity, me think.
80
I don’t have Facebook, but someone ought to post a link to “The Skeptic’s Handbook” on the bottom of that ABC page. 🙂
http://jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/sh1/the_skeptics_handbook_2-3_lq.pdf
91
Oh, and thank the ABC for the publicity. 😉
61
I didn’t think they were allowed to advertise. I hope they make it clear that it was pro-bono.
20
Funny… When I posted my previous comment, there were 11 comments on that webpage. Now, 20 minutes later, there is none. ABC changing history, again?
80
It was mentioned in the dying throes of the weekend thread. The email was sent back in 2009
The ABC are getting so desperate in trying to defend CAGW that they are sensationalizing stuff from the last decade!
50
O/T Climate Emergency
‘Last month was the hottest April on record globally – and the seventh month in a row to have broken global temperature records.
‘The latest figures smashed the previous record for April by the largest margin ever recorded.’
Guardian
30
Um, no, its not even the warmest in the satellite era
http://realclimatescience.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Screen-Shot-2016-05-15-at-8.43.40-AM.png
And let’s not forget that most of the first 3/4 or more of the Holocene were a degree or two warmer than now.
91
Before the satellite era 1878 was hotter.
http://jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/graphs/australia/nsw/newcastle-raw-temps.gif
70
Yep, there’s than big late 1800’s peak…
then a broad curve down to 1960ish and back up a bit to the same level as 1900.
Pretty similar to a lot of raw Australian data.
In effect, NO WARMING since 1900
51
And as we know from satellite data..
NO WARMING in 20 years.
http://s19.postimg.org/gqalfdnlf/Australia_1996_now.png
51
Yes, yes, the the satellites may well say that, but we all know that the models disagree, so the satellites are obviously wrong.
50
And despite Japan being in the NH where you expect some El Nino signal last year,
There has been NO WARMING in Japan since the 1998 El Nino.
http://s19.postimg.org/hsm77kxpv/Japan_temps.png
(data from http://www.data.jma.go.jp/cpdinfo/temp/list/mon_jpn.html)
And if anyone wants to confirm this…
…have fun extracting and organising the data.
31
Is there any “science” whatsoever in meteorology or climatology? Are there any requirements for having knowledge of the principles of geometry or any mathematics beyond subtraction? Where are these listed?
50
Oh noes!
Electricity boss mistakenly sent climate skeptic handbook to Australia’s elite
“However, in the email that accompanied The Skeptics Handbook, Mr Massy-Greene said “This short piece on global warming by science writer (and scientist) Jo Nova is the best piece I have seen on global warming, and helps to explain what has so far been a very confusing debate.”
http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/programs/hack/electricity-boss-mistakenly-sent-climate-skeptic-handbook/7418740
50
see comment #28 by Bob
30
Today on ABC it’s coal dust killing coral.
50
“is coal dust killing our coral?”
No , but ABC BS is drowning the rest of us !
Time for an ABC cut …. say 100% .
It is long overdue for Privatization , let its advocates pay to keep the wall to wall Marxists in an overpaid job !
There you go , a real budget saving of 1200 million per year .
What a relief that would be : no more taxpayer funded ‘the Dumb , and no more tax payer funded Q & BS !!
60
I know I’m harping on about this Qld 50% Renewables planning thing by the state government but here is another example of questions formulated to lead the respondent to a desired conclusion – in this case, that 50% renewable electricity is a desirable thing for Queensland to target.
Policy options for increasing renewable energy
► What policy options are likely to deliver increased renewables in the most effective and efficient manner under a Queensland renewable energy target, taking into account existing schemes such as the Federal LRET?
► What, if any, are the key policy barriers in Queensland preventing renewable energy investment?
► How might the Queensland Government expedite the delivery of renewable projects (e.g. regulations and development approvals)?
► How can the existing framework better support alternative energy solutions, particularly in fringe-of-grid and isolated locations?
► Are there any other considerations that should be taken into account when defining a renewable energy target for Queensland (e.g., concurrent progress in energy efficiency, hybridisation, the use of renewables in industrial processes)?
Funding renewable energy
► If subsidies for renewables are required, how should they be funded (e.g. paid by electricity consumers, funded from the state budget, funded through social bonds, etc.)?
► Should any consumers be exempt or have their contribution discounted on either efficiency or equity grounds (e.g. trade exposed sectors, low income consumers, etc.)?
Impact on the electricity system
► What factors should the Queensland Government consider when assessing power system reliability and stability outcomes from policy options?
► How might the policy options affect the efficiency of the current NEM design?
► What changes to the NEM design might need to be considered with the implementation of the various policy options?
► What capabilities should be considered as requirements for new renewable generators of different technologies?
Commercial and investment issues
► How might Queensland better leverage existing Federal support schemes, including attracting additional investment under the LRET?
► What role might the Queensland Government play when existing support schemes cease, and how might the Government attract increased private sector investment in renewable energy?
► Are there any key barriers to funding renewable energy projects in Queensland and, if so, how might these be overcome?
Supporting economic development
► What renewable services could Queensland look to specialise in and export from?
► Outside of the energy supply chain, what areas of the economy might need to develop in order to transition to a renewable energy economy?
► How much, if any, Queensland Government assistance might be required to support the development of these other areas in a timely fashion?
► How might Queensland ensure the renewables sector is resilient and sustainable, and avoid boom-bust cycles that typify capital intensive investment programs involving market intervention?
► What policies might need to be developed to support communities and individuals that might suffer losses as a consequence of the transition to greater renewable energy including the potential premature closure of power station facilities?
Summary of consultation questions link at http://www.qldrepanel.com.au/issues-paper
If ignoring things like this in the expectation that they will go away is the correct course of action, then I suggest Jo shut down this site.
40
Not good. Is no one in Qld questioning the basis of all this?
30
The complacency wouldn’t surprise me, Annie. Most Queenslanders are drongos, the proof is that most of them voted to give Parliament fixed 4 year terms. (ref)
/ Yeah, let’s check what the government does less often. /S.
10
I have started work on the submission I will be sending to address this Queensland 50% Renewables pipe dream.
As you might guess, it’s involved, and will take time, many many hours to get it right, but just a couple of points here done speedily for the moment, but will be addressed more thoroughly in the actual submission.
While their own document concentrates (as I expected) on Nameplate, the real thing is actual power being delivered for consumption, and in my submission, I’ll be using their own data.
Queensland is the State with the second highest consumption in Australia, and distance and are of the State is key here.
Actual yearly Queensland power consumption is (around) 60TWH (60,000GWH or 60,000,000MWH) and 93% (56TWH) of that comes from fossil fuel generation. (Coal fired 77%, NG 12% and Oil based 2%) So the coal fired total comes in at 46TWH.
For a 50% renewable, then 50% of existing power needs to be shut down and replaced with renewables for the 50/50 split. So that a closure of 30TWH out of 46TWH, so that’s almost two thirds of all coal fired power.
That’s actually quite laughable, but hey, let’s do the exercise anyway.
Now we have the need to construct renewables able to deliver 30TWH, and all of it by 2030.
30TWH from renewables equates to a Nameplate of 11,500MW, and here I’m using a blanket Capacity Factor of the highest average of 30%, (Wind probably 30% CSP around 28%, and PV around 17%) so even I’m going on best case scenario here. Now consider that the current total Wind power in Australia is just under 4000MW, so over the next 14 years, Queensland hopes to build almost three times the current Australian total for wind, in a State where, using their own data, wind power is marginal at best in comparison with good wind sites in the South.
So, using huge scale wind plants of 500MW (166 Huge towers of 3MW each) they will need to bring on line one of these huge plants every seven and a half WEEKS ….. if they were to start doing that RIGHT NOW. It will be more if they use CSP or PV, considerably more, because these are much smaller plants.
The cost? Ballpark around $50 Billion or around $3.6 Billion a year, starting right now, and costing more because the report is not slated for finalisation until November, taking another year out of the process. It will cost more if the wind plants are smaller, or if they use CSP or PV, so here, I’m even taking the cheapest option.
But who cares. You’re replacing 24/7/365 power with power only available on average for a third of that time. The State will literally stop, full stop.
This 50% renewables is an exercise in futility that will never be achieved.
I’ll make my submission.
It will be laughed at, ignored, and dismissed. It’s not what they want to hear.
Either way, this 50% target will never be achieved.
Tony.
170
As above Tony, they are called renewables as every 20 years they have to be replaced.
So your $50Billion is a constant expense. With a Queensland total revenue of $50Billion, this is a social disaster. It is not like the Snowy Scheme where you build it once or even a coal power station or a dam or a bridge or a freeway. You do not invest in ‘renewables’. You never stop paying for something which used to be free.
In a country blessed with abundant natural energy (yes, coal and oil and gas are natural), this is nuts. We impoverish ourselves while our coal and gas is burned overseas and 98% of fossil fuel CO2 comes from overseas.
80
Don’t forget all the green jobs created by renewables.
But do not mention how many other jobs were lost.
60
Yes, low wage jobs in China building solar panels and windmills. The boom jobs in 20 years will be in dismantling and removing them.
60
“The boom jobs in 20 years will be in dismantling and removing them.”
Taxpayer funded, of course. !!
The solar developers will have either gone under from debt, and/or scarpered with all that subsidy money.
101
And by the time the gullible voters realise that they have been sold out the politicians involved will be long gone from Parliament and will be enjoying their far better than real taxpayers, the people and businesses that provide governments with money, the private sector, retirement benefits of a guaranteed pension amount indexed for inflation for the rest of their life.
50
In the government blurb, there’s a section on page 29 titled:
Basically, it says that it is, blah blah blah, and this is the last sentence: (my bolding here)
The old standby. You know, just around the corner, and on a thousands of MegaWatt basis.
This will be the area of my concentration, and I’ll just base the whole thing around a Load curve, and the requirement that at least 60% (plus) of every watt generated MUST be available for 24 hours of every day, something renewables cannot do.
Tony.
80
Yes, those scientist chaps have a lot of work to do to match reality with need. Actually there are solutions, but the Greens are so fascinated with wind and sun and water, it is all they can see.
So we are doomed to more windmills and solar cells and hydro without dams. The greatest advance in natural energy in the last two decades has been fracking but of course the Greens are dead against it. Good old fashioned medieval windmills with 300kg Neodymium magnets highly polluting and made only in China, thanks to the Greens.
The hard part is that there is no reason for all this massive expense to limit CO2 production in Australia alone. No one even bothers to explain how it will stop Global Warming, which is already stopped.
If you explained that the greatest disaster since WWII was a increase in average temperature of less than one degree, the soldiers who fought and died in their millions for peace would wonder when exactly we went quite mad. They would also wonder why Al Gore won the Nobel Peace prize and they would be flabbergasted at the attempt of democratic parliaments to tax the very air we breathe.
60
The next step, actively being pursued by the monster electrical equipment companies, is Advanced USC, now closer than you think.
This form of power generation will be able to drive generators of 1500 to 1700MW. These new generators are around the same size, probably not all that much larger than 70’s/80’s technology 660MW generators currently in use at Bayswater. Hence turbines to drive that, and all things back from that. A plant of this type with two units will probably even burn less coal than Bayswater.
A single generator of 1700MW, so just ONE plant with 2 units would almost equal the total Nameplate of every wind plant in Australia, and delivering three times as much power to the grid.
And you know, coal fired power is so dead that no one would want to sink money into it any more. (/sarc) Tell that to the huge companies investing many many billions into this technology.
Tony.
60
Giant and efficient generators have a great future in China, India, Malaysia, Africa, South America. In fact everywhere without a nutty Green class of self indulgent science and engineering illiterates. Pyramid and unicorn and joss stick people against everything.
What is annoying is that in Australia both sides of politics now court these extremists and it is almost impossible to tell Labor from the Greens or increasingly Malcolm’s Liberals from the Greens.
In Australia it can all be blamed on the non democratic Green controlled senate. This has gone in a decade from a legitimate house of review for state’s rights to a nutty platform for unqualified political extremists dominated like the UN by the tiny states. A government without control of the senate simply cannot function.
Richard Di Natale was spruiking in Melbourne Ports yesterday. Why? This Port city has been Labor since creation and very safe with Green preferences. In 2013 the results were Liberal first on 41%, Labor second on 31.7% and Green 20.17%. Of course Labor won on preferences 53.5% to 46.4%.
Now who would win if Green preferences went even 50/50 on an open ticket? Liberal 51%, Labor 41.7%. Even mainly Labor 75/25 would be close Liberal 46%, Labor 46%.
This is not mentioned in the popular press, but this ancient Labor stronghold would be Liberal/Green instead of Labor/Green. There are many more. The windmills would cover the landscape like a plague.
30
Atta-boy, Tony! Follow the money – always follow the money. Look at how many “green” organisations, and environmental activists, are investing into new coal technology, albeit via third parties.
60
Coal is black gold. You would think the increased efficiency of the new giant generators would have anti CO2 people demanding increased efficiencies. Plus mechanical drying of brown coal and the new fuel cell combustion, but they just hate coal. Dirty black stuff.
As the Age said on the front page lead item when the Victorian Labor government stopped the pilot study with Monash University, they were going to make the brown coal blacker, as if that was criminal instead of sensible.
There is something about black which really gets the Greens going. If only they understood that all the world’s Green is a long chain hydrocarbon, the precursor to oil and coal and gas.
40
As part and parcel of a 50% renewable goal is the cost of the back-up plant required for that 75% of time the windmills are not turning, or its night. Any provision for this? Over the past 2 1/2 months the SE turbines got down to 200 MW quite a few times, and there was a couple of hours over the weekend when the S. Aust. ones didn’t produce a KW, though production has been high for most of May.
11,500 MW of nameplate is a lot of land, say, 1.5 MW per sq. km., about 7,500 sq. km. of suitable land somewhere.
A couple of other points; it would take a while to even buy 3,800 3 MW turbines, and what about the reams of environmental approvals, objections from neighbours, appeals, and so on.
It’s a pipedream, but that’s the calibre of our politicians.
30
I have started putting together material for my submission to the Victorian government in case they put up a planning proposal like this. Sadly, I think they will just try and sneak in new renewables development “aid” without announcement.
Our great hope remains in the demise of California in the next few month, though – look for Aliso Canyon in the recent Weekend thread or google it. If it all falls apart there, then maybe, just maybe the normal, media swayed masses will see the house of cards that is being built and it will get blown away before a local disaster occurs (looking at you, South Australia)
20
Retired engineer Peter Harris over at Tallbloke reckons the hiatus is only natural and global cooling will soon be upon us.
‘The hiatus is in fact a stasis. A decline in global temperature to follow declining TSI since 1998 is offset by the AMO rising in anti-phase until 2016.
‘Since 2016 the condition no longer applies as the AMO and TSI begin to decline together in phase. The Atlantic cooling has already commenced.
‘This change in the phase relationship between the AMO and TSI suggests that we face a new climate paradigm with a sudden steep multi decadal decline in global temperature within 2 years. Any contribution from GHG warming would reduce the damaging effect of a climate decline.’
70
I reckon he’s pretty much spot-on..
Won’t it fun to rub the alarmist and luke-warmer faces in it, if temperatures do start dropping significantly 🙂
61
The tragedy is that mankind need warmer, needs more CO2, needs more food. Yes, we will win the argument and lose the battle because of a few latter day Luddites who insist that progress must be stopped. What is very annoying is that the people against everything call themselves Progressives!
40
There is no contradiction between falling temperatures and the lukewarmer position. It simply requires the other natural forces to be stronger than CO2.
The weird part is that the fabled 60 year cycle and the 66 year AMO should have turned the corner by end of 2012. It is not running like clockwork.
00
Surely we could ban mining in Australia, ban everything that the Greens disagree with and all sign onto Centrelink where government money is issued free of charge?
80
Too many are ‘mining’. This is mine and that is mine…..on and on and on…. Mining has to be banned.
40
It is interesting to note how the global warming issue has fallen away in importance to most people.
For example: As usual during a federal election our ABC puts up issues that they like to poll people on in order to rank each topics importance to voters during the election campaign. At the last election they used the term climate change as one of the issues but this time they are using the term environment as a topic.
Now, I’m concerned about dry land salinity, erosion of farm land, control of feral pests etc. you know, real environmental issues, but I also know that when the ABC uses the term environment it is code for global warming. I wonder how many other people would be aware of that before they select the environment as a choice in an ABC poll? Just another trick to manipulate silly politicians into thinking people care about climate change (global warming)?
When enthusiasm for global warming waned they switched to less specific climate change and now that has lost the publics interest are they now trying to move to the even more general term environment to keep their fantasy of death by carbon dioxide going?
Am I just getting too suspicious of our billion dollar government news organisation and it’s motivations?
70
The Electronic Whorehouse written by Paul Sheehan explains how we are all being misled, advertising presented as news, political spin presented as if they are factually accurate, character assassinations broadcast without naming the source of the story, etc.
40
I have attended meetings (as an advisor, not a participant), where people have discussed moving something toxic, “outside of the environment”. Most of the discussion was around: who should be responsible; how it would be funded; and who would manage the selection of a suitable vendor.
Fortunately, nobody asked for my opinion. I occasionally get get carried away, and incur demerit points for calling people, “a pack of loonies”.
50
“Donald Trump’s choice of outspoken climate (change) denier Kevin Cramer to advise him on energy policy is just the latest piece of evidence that letting him get near the White House would put our children’s health and futures at risk,” said Democrat campaign spokesman Jesse Ferguson.’
50
“But Caring About The Planet™ makes you a good person and you want to be a good person, don’t you?” This is all juvenile peer pressure garbage, pure and simple, like it’s junior high school or something. People tell pollsters what they think they want to hear and don’t speak their mind in mixed company because they’d rather not be overheard and possibly have some unhinged, spittle-spewing eco-fascist attack or spread vile rumours about them (or worse). And you know damn well that subtle attempted intimidation from Big Greens’ shock troops is their backup plan if you don’t come along nicely.
40
Great, fantastic thread of comments. Outstanding.
30
Fortunately, anybody with any understanding of surveys will understand that what people claim is politically important to them in surveys, is not.
I refuse to vote, and I refuse to pay the fine, and they refuse to jail me… and of course I don’t really pay attention to the wash of absolute pabulum that the media gushes out during elections (political and finance journalists being the lightest-weight hacks in the entire journosphere), but I actually did some quantitative work on this back in the late 90s.
People from the ACTU claimed that unemployment was an election issue (based on a poll), so the obvious thing to do was establish whether there was a meaningful correlation between changes in unemployment rates and swings to either side of politics at elections.
Turns out there’s no correlation whatsoever – either nationally, or by state (it was impossible to get small-area unemployment rates back then, but I would bet dollars to doughnuts that you could do the same analysis today by LGA, SA2 or SA1 and get the same result).
At the end of the day, people are rational (anyone who says otherwise who claims to be an economist, is invariably a hack who is arbitraging across from psych and doesn’t know what ‘rational’ means in Economics): they vote according to what maximises their expected financial interests.
Given the political class’ propensity to lie, outcomes are usually quite different to voters’ expectations (because there is no cost to the political parties from reneging on promises), so voter’s actual financial interests would be best served by using politicians as fertiliser.
40
Maybe electric cars with wind turbines roof mounted?
20
We could refer to the drivers of such cars as, “The environmental fan club”.
50
The greenwash are going apoplectic over the new Australia 2030 report by the CSIRO.
Mining, agriculture, ‘Digital DNA’ CCS and fossil fuel dependence are emphasized with renewables only mentioned in passing. Coal exports are still seen to be relevant!
http://www.csiro.au/~/media/Do-Business/Files/CSIRO%20Futures/FUTURES_Australia2030_Report_web.pdf?la=en
Check out the comment section if you’re short on entertainment 🙂
CSIRO buries its futures forecast in fossil fuel technologies
61
Good stuff, its a pleasure to see them squirm and bleat.
51
Darn I wanted to post on that renewfarts site..
“Of all the utter stupidity.. why would anyone want to remove CO2 from the atmosphere and bury it !
Idiotic waste of money, especially when aCO2 is currently so low. !!!”
For some reason I have been banned from commenting 😉
32
I told you last time that you needed to pace yourself, there 😉
20
I did. I went as gently as I could. 😉
22
Further Evidence of 97% Stupid:
TWO tourists have been branded “stupid” by authorities after they kidnapped a bison calf at Yellowstone National Park in the US because they thought it looked too cold to be in the wild.
> Obviously they ‘believed’ in Global Warming science:
New research suggests that the icy weather is indeed evidence of change but that, counterintuitively, it reinforces the case for global warming rather than the reverse.
30
A bit OT, but over on RealScience (replaces Steven Goddard site)
Kirye and I have been looking at the Japanese Met data.
While there was a slight rise between 1990 and 1998, there has been NO WARMING in Japan since 1998 despite the El Nino….
http://s19.postimg.org/hsm77kxpv/Japan_temps.png
And even more remarkably,
There was NO WARMING between 1950 and 1990.
http://s19.postimg.org/fdubn5hgz/japan1950_1990.png
32