It started on Monday on ABC AM when energy minister Josh Frydenberg was asked about the review about climate policies.
If you listen to the full AM program from 9 – 10:30mins he absolutely rules out an economy wide approach, but when asked about an electricity sector “emissions intensity scheme” he does say “wait and see”. Was it a bizarre slip of the tongue, or was he fishing to find out the strength of the opposition to bringing in a carbon price on electricity?
9 mins: He is asked about an energy “emission intensity scheme”.
Josh rejects any “economy wide approach”. “”What this review has indicated is we will look at a sector-by-sector approach. The electricity sector is the one which produces the most emissions — around a third of Australia’s emissions come from that sector.”
OhOH:
Frydenberg: We know that a large number of bodies have recommended an emissions intensity scheme a baseline and credit scheme.
Any chance of that happening?
10 minutes Frydenberg “Wait and see… we want to hear from the experts on the lowest cost of abatement… thats what we owe the Australian households and businesses.”
FairFax and the ABC promptly amplified that to “Carbon price for power generators back on the table “.
To which Liberal members and skeptics unleashed their scorn. This is the exact issue that got Turnbull chucked out as leader of the opposition in 2009, and the backlash is stronger now:
Tony Abbott’s former chief of staff Peta Credlin claimed she had never seen such a reaction from backbenchers on an issue like she had yesterday.
“My phone has not stopped all day. People are really angry that they sense the party will re-litigate those issues which they had considered closed and dealt with,” she told Sky News last night.
Fairfax Media spoke to 10 Coalition MPs on Monday about the prospect of an emissions intensity scheme for the electricity sector and all of them were scathing at the prospect of what is, in effect, a carbon price being re-introduced in Australia, regardless of the relative cost.
Liberal Senator Cory Bernardi, said it was “one of the dumbest things I’ve ever heard. … To get back on the right economic track, we need the cheapest electricity in the world.”
West Australian MP Andrew Hastie said his overriding concern was the cost of living for families and asked: “Why would we unilaterally, economically disarm [by adopting a price on carbon]?”
So the Turnbull government had to come out and say “No way”.
The Turnbull government will maintain its blanket ban on the introduction of an emissions trading scheme and has ruled out an increase to the renewable energy target ahead of its long-awaited review of its climate change policy next year.
Environment and Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg will today announce the government’s terms of reference for its review, which will look at how Australia can meet and expand on its target to reduce emissions by 26 per cent to 28 per cent on 2005 levels by 2030.
We could believe this might be a slip and a Love Media beat up, but then Barnaby Joyce appears to confirm the Coalition was thinking of putting a carbon price on electricity, saying “He said there was potential for a scheme where power generators could pay for emissions above a particular level.” Which is all a bit bizarre, since there already is a scheme that does this kind of cap N trade. It’s called the Safeguard Mechanism, and applies to our biggest 150 corporate emitters, though at a very low level (which could always be ramped up).
Which is, of course, just another kind of tax, though it only applies to people who use electricity.
Homes with candles and Coolgardie safes will be exempt.
h/t Pat. Andrew Bolt.
UPDATE: Chris Kenny calls it Kryptonite for Turnbull
In US politics they talk about “third rail” issues, based on the extra rail that supplies electricity to New York subway trains; touch it and you are zapped.
Carbon pricing is Malcolm Turnbull’s third rail and this week he voluntarily grasped it, again.
Seven years ago last Thursday Turnbull lost the leadership of the Liberal Party because he wanted to put a price on carbon and Tony Abbott organised a revolt.
In the biggest shock since the election we returned to this divisive debate for a crazy 24 hours.
This was unfathomable for Turnbull — resistance within the Coalition was so strong it brought a similar fallout into the realms of possibility (although with a one-seat majority Turnbull has in-built insurance against insurgency). But he did — knowingly — reignite the Coalition’s most inflammatory debate.
Help!
Near my old property that my family use to farm is this new wind farm project!
http://www.mailtimes.com.au/story/4340627/murra-warra-wind-farm-approved/
Makes me very sad that my old neighbour’s have been bribed to fund more debt on their farms with this boondoggle! This is very vibrant broad acre farm land, and it can produce very high quality produce, (yes when it rains enough!) But Even though I can’t stop these business men and women to make their own decisions, it make me mad that they will get my tax dollars, to subsidizes their venture! Its just wrong! 🙁 There is just no principles anymore, as these farmers could get anywhere between $15000, and $20000 per turbine! Great if they get selected to have these monstrosity on their land!
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I hope our former neighbours have taken out very large indemnity insurance to cover themselves when the government subsidies run out say by about a decade from now when the world will know by then that it was all just a gigantic scam.
Once the renewable subsidies are removed and the legislated requirement that the Grid operators have to take the power from the Renewables before taking power from anybody else regardless of cost and reliability of output is removed, then the turbine owners and landlords i.e.; our former neighbours, might find out that they are suddenly the focus of a whole range of legal cases against them for compensation for mental and physical illnesses arising from the infrasound effects of the turbines as well as the flicker patters from sunlight being reflected i.e. strobing into houses and etc wherever there are turbines installed.
Last year at a conference in Germany it emerged that over one hundred research papers world wide were written in 2015 on the health destroying effects of turbine infrasound.
One prominent German and former wind turbine promoting engineer has since stated that after reading the research results on the health destroying impact of turbine infrasound, he would not want to live within 5 kilometres of any turbines.
As Landlords for the turbines and as financial recipients of income from the turbines, our former neighbours are very, very vulnerable to copping the entire legal responsibility if and when the whole renewable energy thing crashes as it most surely will possibly within less than another decade.
The scamming “owners” [ ? ]of those Kalkee Plains wind turbines will be long gone with all the tax payer loot if there is any sign at all of the whole renewable energy scam falling over leaving our former neighbours as the landlord bunnies with their farms on the line to pay legally allocated compensation to those who sue for health and metal problems arising from being forced to live near the turbines.
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Fake news outlets, like Time, and phony science sites, like the RS and the US NAS, will awaken to a new reality on 1 Jan 2017:
http://www.breitbart.com/2016-presidential-race/2016/12/07/time-donald-trump-person-year/
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Nail on the head ROM. When the lawsuits come flooding in, the least likely to afford the cost of litigation will be clapped in irons – actual harm caused or not being irrelevant. If we were taught any lessons from MABO, only the lawyers win.
Money
Available
Barristers
Only
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And who will be responsible for rehabilitating the land once the eco-crucifixes are decommissioned (as they will be). Each monument to alarmist folly is supported by many hundreds of tonnes of concrete that damages future grazing and farming use of the land. Further the concrete bases prevent rain soaking in and as a result, can cause damaging erosion.
Far from being an environmental benefit, their capacity to damage the natural environment is boundless.
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Yes, removing and disposing the concrete bases will be a nightmare. I wouldn’t be surprised if it uses as much energy as the windmill made over its lifetime!
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There’s a joke in here somewhere about equating those concrete bases to mill stones while noting windmills as the common theme . . but I’m damned if I can find it.
More coffee . .
30
And you can bet you bottom dollar that the people who scammed all the subsidies, will be long gone with their ill-gotten gains locked in some safe haven.
Thus it will fall to the tax-payers to do the tidy-up.
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Not to mention all the native birds/bats that were chopped up at the altar of the new religion! Small price to pay when you are ‘doing something for the environment’ I suppose.
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Stop these things!
https://youtu.be/zr3z_7iQ35s
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That ‘Turn’bull, he’s all over the kitchen.
… Happen’s when yer find yerself in the wrong kitchen
– or party.
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Hey Hey, Ho Ho
This mans gotta go!
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There will be no carbon tax under a government that keeps me in check.
According to the cartoon in The Australian today.
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Malcolm in the middle?
31
Turnbull’s your archetypal snollygoster.
10
Heh, how come lately I come up with el numero
one or two? )
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGoEmhQP774
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The rest of us are just having a bad hair day.
00
‘…which will look at how Australia can meet and expand on its target to reduce emissions by 26 per cent to 28 per cent on 2005 levels by 2030.’
Idjits, somebody needs to tell Josh and Mal that CO2 doesn’t cause global warming.
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I now believe Turnbull is worse than Rudd; he literally appears to be flailing about mindlessly putting up or recycling ideas to bolster his popularity; and then when the idea is ridiculed retreating. The guy has no policy integrity; like Rudd he appears to be entirely concerned with image.
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Where does one start with this vacillating PM? frydenberg? Turnball is in a squeeze from his conservative wing – and rightly so.Gritting his teeth you know his philosophic outlook is at odds with large numbers of his party.I personally wish him grief and hell.
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It’s going to be interesting to see how this pans out.
When Donald Trump takes the reins in January, I expect we’ll see some fairly swift action on their EPA.
Malcolm’s 24-hour “emissions intensity scheme” will be seen as going against the tide and the Delcons will feel more emboldened than ever. Even now, we see the likes of Christopher Pyne coming straight out and said “no’. That’s quite uncharacteristic for Pyne and I think does lend credence to the internal LNP disunity rumours.
The fact that Josh Frydenberg kinda led the charge is also telling . . only to be cut down by Malcolm riding in on his white charger.
Maybe Frydenberg is just a mug for allowing the ABC to sucker him in, but he happily Tweeted about “our 2017 review of climate change policies”, too.
To be then overruled by the boss must make him livid.
The optics of this shamazzle are just terrible.
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It seems to me that few people in Australia, and none in government, realise the potential impact of the changes on which the US government is about to embark.
Donald Trump maintained throughout the election that he will slash the tax rate to 15%.
This actually raises MORE revenue that the existing tax structure.
But it will leave Canberra looking like absolute clowns with a tax rate of 30% or more.
This is bound to have a huge impact on the domestic economy.
30
His image wasn’t showing up too well on the news tonight.
They really hammered him and he looked about ready to give up.
The reversal of policy in the last 24 hours has been amazing, but very gratifying.
KK
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A few stories re turnbull and goldman sachs………..
Malcolm Turnbull – The Goldman-churian Candidate?
http://barnabyisright.com/2011/07/20/malcolm-turnbull-the-goldman-churian-candidate/
Spread The Word – “Untouchable” Turnbull Is A Goldman-Plated Turd
http://barnabyisright.com/2011/07/14/spread-the-word-untouchable-turnbulls-a-goldman-plated-turd/
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Remind me what bank Turnbull worked for, wasn’t it one that was very heavily into carbon trading and you can’t let down all your old
chumpschums.191
We should try using PET (Plutonium Emission Tax) credits to write down the CO2 tax debits. Australian Plutonium emissions are very low. hehe
71
The coalition is in a position to change and Turnbull is standing in the way. He needs to be removed. After a decade or more of a stagnant world economy where people have been watching Labor and left leaning liberals fritter away billions on feel-good “causes” and individual non-profit and celebrity driven actions, there is a vacuum for leadership. Voters realize that the left agenda has dissolved into worthless drum beating and empty promises. Joyce had an opportunity to drive the agenda for the conservatives, but I think he’s lost it now. There is an opportunity if a group of politicians can find a “champion”. Voters are looking for that person and they aren’t concerned with the media’s impression of that person.
20
Tell the weekday tennis ladies’ choice that Australians can’t afford his “emissions intensity scheme”. They’re already paying into an income intensity scheme and a goods and services intensity scheme. Not to mention payroll intensity schemes and stamp intensity schemes. And other intensity schemes.
I hope Mal’s brain isn’t over-intensified by this explanation. But you know, Mal, there are two things you just can’t avoid: death and intensities.
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Too bad we can’t tax politicians on the intensity of the cr@p flying out of the playpen in Canberra – or can we? We are the ones that supply their nappies after all.
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Dont forget about the “hidden” carbon (DIOXIDE) tax the RET (RENEWABLE ENERGY TARGET) ……….
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Fastest change of policy evah!
Pointman
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Yep, I think this flop-out beats the New Federalism and agile mini-cities. Even the revised GST was around for longer than 24 hours. I guess it depends on when you click the stopwatch.
Sometimes I look at this sly, conniving, dithering, narcissistic, inarticulate oaf and have to remind myself that he actually occupies the office of Lyons, Curtin and Menzies. He actually does.
181
Turnbull, Frydenburg et al protest and swear their main aim is to keep energy prices affordable.
But if you have signed the UN Paris agreement, that is a lie.
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Everything in their bubble is affordable. They play the Monopoly board that we live on.
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If the Australian economy tanks over the next year or so but the likes of the US economy really picks up under Trump due to innovative policies and their implementation and avoidance of the political shackles and constraints of the past along with America’s economic resurgence due to very cheap energy prices due to the American’s technological advances in frakking and now the Microwaving of shale oil deposits and in new and old oil wells thereby releasing humungous quantities of previously untappable oil and gas for very cheap energy generation , then Turnbull and the Liberals along with Turnbull’s fixation on renewable energy aided and abetted by his concrete mind set on renewables, will be very burnt toast indeed.
Some minds are just like concrete;
All mixed up and set hard.
i.e.;Turnbull
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Rom, one comma and a trailing full stop make for painful reading in such a long comment.
82
A green thumb, but the metaphors are nice.
51
He can’t be reading them out loud before posting them 🙂
00
Whats this reading thing that everybody is on about?
10
Correction: Two commas – I counted them in my fingers …
00
Turnbull just doesn’t get it. The cost of our electricity is far too high. Then many wonder why the economy is now going backwards. One sure way to boost the economy is to lower the electricity cost significantly. You don’t do it by introducing some kind of carbon tax, ETS, emissions intensity scheme, or whatever. You do it by making cheap power using the cheapest form of fuel we have, namely coal. Of course it’s not going to happen thanks to the current leaders of both major parties. There’s only one real outcome for Australia after the next election if this does not change; unfortunately it crash and burn. Our only real hope is for a new leader to take over the LNP who is strongly against he AGW hoax, or One Nation somehow gets a strong say in how the nation governs. It’s our last hope.
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Forget about the cost of electricity. Worse than this, electricity is fast becoming UNRELIABLE! For industry, this is death!
Engineers have been captured or are too bloody scared to tell the truth. Bean counters simply look at the idea that centrally positioned base load power stations and distribution networks are old world. They firmly believe it is just a matter of local generation and local storage. A solar panel or a windmill cannot drive a chemical process or a manufacturing industry. As beautiful as this type of power is to the closed leftist mind…it doesn’t drive the tram they sit on or the Cimballi machine for their daily shot of soy cappuccino!
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The Australian today
Long Battle To Keep The Lights On
MEREDITH BOOTH
Low reserves of electricity supply and the potential for blackouts will dog the southeast for the next three summers.
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So how does it feel to be the guinea pigs in the bureaucrats experiments?
No doubt this “emissions intensity scheme” will return and be more expensive
The green mass delusion is deep in Australia, and ensures engineering problems are ‘solved’ by mere bureaucrats, building totally impracticable solutions for imaginary problems.
291
When industry finally leaves this fine country, we’ll be producing nothing but regulatory paperwork. That’s when I too will chuck some floaties on my car, paddle away to better shores and leave the Vogons to their own intergalactic intensity highway and bureaucratic demise.
In any case, I don’t think the green mass delusion here is that deep, it’s just that Canberra’s still desperately trying to convince us that it is.
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The carbon tax is already in place with the RET and LGCs. Not a mention of carbon though’ Eligible power suppliers have to be paid cash by retailers selling non eligible power.
One after the other, Coal power stations are being forced to close. Why? Why did the Victoria Labor government pay hundreds of millions to keep Hazelwood open if it is profitable? If it is not profitable, why doesn’t it increase prices?
Could someone please explain in simple words why Hazelwood, the cheapest producer with the cheapest energy source has to close?
In a normal market the supplier with the lowest cost of production and the lowest retail price grabs the market and make money.
Electricity prices are predicted to rise dramatically after Hazelwood closes? Why then? If it is not profitable, why doesn’t it increase prices instead of closing? Why can’t a cheap brown coal generator compete commercially with wind power? Don’t tell me there is no massive tax on Carbon. Governments do not even pay for windmills.
In passing, the biggest customer for Hazelwood is NSW, not SA or Tas and they will all suffer too, shutting more industries.
Why is Labor closing thousands of jobs? Why is Turnbull anxious to send billions to his friends overseas when coal is being shut down anyway by the RET and our carbon targets are going to be met not least by direct action plus the shut down of car manufacture, aluminium smelting, lead smelting, heavy manufacturing and even abalone farming? As Pauline Hanson said, please explain?
The country is being devastated and Malcolm and Julie want to buy their next jobs, like ex NZ PM Helen Clarke who was so richly rewarded for bringing in a carbon tax.
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If electricity prices are going to rise 25% when Hazelwood closes, why doesn’t Hazelwood charge 25% more today?
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If I remember correctly”Dodgy Dan the CFMEU man”increased the coal price(through a tax)300%,which would make it unviable for Hazelwood to operate.
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Exactly, Clive! Royalty increases literally killed a power industry that didn’t need to rely on efficiency. Need more power? Burn more coal! Sir John Monash saw this truth then, still true today!
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When they are operating the price of electricity is set by the wind turbines being cost of (production + profit) minus REC price. So if wind turbines need $120 per MWh to be profitable then $90 for a REC means they can sell at $30.
Brown coal is profitable at $30 IF they get an uninterrupted go for, say, 90% of the time, but wind turbines disrupt that so their costs have to be spread over a leser amount of electricity. So the more disruption wind turbines cause the higher the price and the higher their profits.
NOTE: that coal fired stations have to run on standby while wind is running, so extra costs for them. Eventually coal fired stations shut down and the demand for RECs disappears, so the wind farmers have to up their prices while only supplying electricity when they feel like it. This is the future for Australia; electricity prices quadrupled (from before wind) and plenty of supply about 1% of the time, some supply (rolling blackouts) around 65% of the time, and for the rest of the time ‘whistle for a wind’.
If Malcolm wants a new tax I would suggest a Grid Disruption Tax based on the failure to supply the claimed capacity.
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Why not get out of trying to regulate energy? Why have energy laws anyway? Why not let people buy the cheapest most reliable power, brown coal? Why can’t the governments stay out of this?
Simple, windmills would never be built and Labor desperately needs those Green preferences and the science ignorant Greens want to punish the evil producers of carbon dioxide, humans, cows, sheep, birds, insects, trees, grass, fish. All carbon life forms produce CO2, but somehow the motor car, manufacturing, jet aircraft, ships, pumps, farms are the problem. Get rid of the people and the world will be saved is the cry. For whom?
There is another aspect. Victoria privatized Hazelwood in 1996, sold it for $2.5Bn. The unions were furious and 3/4 of the jobs went. You know, the ones who shut the place down for maintenance. Since then, apart from a burst gas pipe, we have had reliable electricity in Victoria for twenty years. So Hazelwood has to go. Similarly with the NBN and Telstra, a chance to get control of communications. Why else would science ignorant extreme Left Conroy want control, so he could crow that everyone would ‘wear red underpants on their heads’ if he said so.
Electricity and the Telephones are the two backbones of modern society. Without them society closes. Labor and the Greens want control of both. Simple.
We do not need more taxes, for any reason.
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Also Graham, as pointed out yesterday, under the Act the wind generators (eligible power generators) get paid whether they sell their electricity or not. The Act pointedly says that any money they get for actually selling their power is in addition to this income.
“The revenue earned by the power station for the sale of LGCs is additional to that received for the sale of the electricity generated.”
That is a licence to print money. Who said the windmills even have to sell their power? They get get 9c/kwhr for dumping it.
Every time you buy power, you have to pay these people 9c/kwhr of your money.
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There is also the point that the LGCs like the Carbon Credits are a fake ‘market’. That is where one where you are compelled to buy regardless of price.
So if Hazelwood earns more money for electricity, the price for LGCs goes up and of course the price for coal. Andrews can charge what he likes because the threat of closing is nothing. He wants Yallourn closed, to please his friends who gave him his job.
Good old extortion, posing as a free ‘market’, just like the ETS, a fake Trading scheme where free market forces set the price? Nonsense. The third world despots and the merchant banks like Goldmann Sachs are the ones who profit and Malcolm Turnbull was chairman of Goldmann Sachs Australia. No interest then.
81
TdeF: Yes you can dump at 0 cents if your costs are less than 9. Since their costs are around 10-11 they can’t quite afford that, but they can wreck the economics of reliable methods of generation. Expect moves shortly to remove the top limit on the cost of a REC or LGC (currently $90).
In Germany where the subsidies are even more generous they can dump even at negative prices. Further in the UK and in Germany they can be paid more that the market price if their generating would destabilise the grid. And what would destabilise the grid than a surge in wind electricity when the wind starts to blow?
52
So if they sold 1/4 of their output, their costs are 10-11 and their income is 9+4/4 which is break even.
It also depend on how you arrive at the ‘cost’ of running a windmill per kw/hr when wind is free and the Premier does not increase your costs 300% overnight.
32
TdeF:
There are 2 sets of costs to a wind turbine. The cost of building it (Capital cost) and the Running cost. The latter included maintenance, payment to land holders, and ‘overheads’. Maintenance runs between 10-20% of revenue with turbines in Australia at the lower end because of their higher output.
Given that a farmer gets $15,000 per turbine (Fang No.1) for a 2MW machine that is around 0.3¢ per kWh. or $3 per MWh. Over 6 years the sale of Certificates at $90 would only return $2.84 million but with a turbine typically costing $3.5 million, the rest of the capital cost has to be paid out of sale of electricity. That means the operating costs of a wind turbine aren’t less than $110 per MWh just to repay the Capital cost. Compare that to $30 a MWh that a coal fired plant puts out power to sell when it can operate for 90% of the time. But wind disrupts coal by cutting the time it can run profitably, so forcing up its selling price. Once there is enough wind the cost of coal is high enough for wind to be very profitable, hence more turbines are built, leading to collapse of the coal fired business. Then everyone has to get used to no electricity about 1/3 of the time.
52
Graham, I do not follow your arithmetic.
Firstly I cannot convert power(MW) to energy(MWhr) without an estimate of the total time involved at which the windmill is actually producing 2Mwatts.
For example a full year at 2Mw or 2*24*365 hours that would be 17,520 Mwhr or cash or $1.6 Million for LGCs + the sale of the electricity, two $Million per year and the capital cost would be gone.
You must be using a figure for efficiency, say 14% of this, even lower?
If the farmer received $15K per year and the output was 17,000MWhr, he would be receiving only $1 per MWhr or 0.1c per kw/hr.
If however the efficiency was 14%, multiply everything by 7 and the farmer gets 0.7c, close to your 0.3c. Also the return would be only $300K per year but that is still 10% of the capital cost and where can you get 10% these days? Banks would love it.
My point is partly that you do not have to sell the electricity if you can get $90 per Mwhr plus the income from selling it. I doubt the finances of these windmills are stretched or they wouldn’t be off half the time in SA.
10
TdeF: I was using 30% the claimed Capacity Factor for most Australian wind turbines, so I worked on 5256 MWh per annum.
The annual return from selling Certificates would be $473,000 at $90 each. But I was working on a Capital payback time of 6 years.
The farmer gets his money regardless of the amount generated as an annual rent. He gets his money so long as the operator stays solvent regardless of any generation.
Where we differ is you are assuming that they get Certificates based on their claimed capacity whereas I am assuming that they get a certificate for every MWh generated. I assumed that was the case because they have priority access i.e. everything they generate goes onto the grid, even if it disrupts other methods. I thought that was the sane approach but after Weatherill and Andrews I have to admit I may be wrong.
00
My other proposition is that the efficiency may be much higher than 14%. 14% may be the amount of electricity which was useful, sold to retailers. If you can generate lots in the dead of night when no one wants it and still earn LGCs, the profits may be outrageous.
00
Am I correct in understanding that under the current pricing mechanism the shut down of all coal and gas generators is inevitable? We will then have no baseload generators except for a limited amount of hydro.
That means the lights will go out regularly.
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We are behind Germany and the UK.
Germany has seen the lower emission but more expensive CCGT plants shut down (and 2 plants no more than 2 years old being disassembled for relocation elsewhere e.g. Turkey). Other more flexible units such as pumped storage have shut down because their business model was making money when demand was high e.g. peak during daytime but heavily subsidised solar PV works enough days to make them uneconomic. To cope with the variability of wind Germany is doing 2 things; dumping excess wind at a loss onto other countries grids and running all coal fired plants (and building more) to cover when wind doesn’t blow. They are on a knife edge as coal is losing money and any more renewables and they will shut down. At the eleventh hour they have reduced subsidies to discourage any more renewables being built but that may not be enough. Firstly because the new stations aren’t being built as fast as they would like and secondly because some of those countries being dumped on (Poland, Czech Rep. France and Holland) are installing blockers to stop them. Germany will have to dump at an even greater loss to the hydro states Norway & Sweden (via Denmark) and Austria. Norway has been making a mint out of Denmark for years, hundreds of millions or more p.a. , taking electricity at low or being paid to take it (negative pricing) and when they sell it is not anywhere near as low. (I take it you know that the claim Denmark gets 42% of its electricity from wind is nonsense? The real figure is somewhere around 10-13% with the rest sold cheaply so their grids don’t become unstable).
The situation in the UK is …what is the PC term for moronic? They are subsidising wind, PV solar, rubbish burning, wood burning, gas burning, diesel and new nuclear, and trying to get tidal energy going (with subsidy). The only thing they weren’t subsidising was cheap, reliable coal fired which was penalised and is being shut down, but lately they’ve taken to giving money to coal fired plants to keep them operational. Nice place to visit the UK but for your sake don’t go there in winter, unless you like freezing in the dark.
SA is a basket case and Victoria’s Premier wants to follow them. His claim that Hazlewood shutting down won’t matter “because we can get electricity from NSW” is garbage. NSW has been drawing electricity from Vic. so there isn’t a surplus for Victoria to replace their 22% loss of capacity. So the lights in Victoria will be as dim as the Premier.
Also there won’t be any for SA from NSW, either through Victoria or the as yet unbuilt interconnector (on the planning list since 2002).
30
Listen carefully to Climate Council people and fellow travellers, they speak in code about lowering the cost of electricity by taxing suggesting that their agenda is for the good of us all.
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i will be o/t with my next comment this evening, but this is vitally important. posted two examples of ABC playing the FakeNews game big-time in the past 24 hours on jo’s previous thread, but note:
6 Dec: Wired: Liat Clark: Facebook and Twitter must tackle hate speech or face new laws
Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter and YouTube have been failing to deal with reported hate speech within the 24-hour timeframe they pledged to
PHOTO CAPTION: EU Commissioner for Justice, Consumers and Gender Equality Vera Jourova
If US tech giants do not step up efforts to remove hate speech from their services, laws may be written to force them to do so, the European Commission has warned…
Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter and YouTube each signed up to a voluntary ‘Code of Conduct on Countering Illegal Hate Speech Online’ in May of this year, which was created in response to an increase of racist content proliferating across the web, itself regarded as being propelled by the ongoing refugee crisis and previous terrorist attacks…
That code of conduct avoided the need for new legislation, and was designed to compel the companies to review most “valid notifications for removal of illegal hate speech” in under 24 hours, removing or disabling said content if necessary. According to Jourova, who commissioned a report on compliance with the code of conduct, this is not happening…
“They only reviewed 40 per cent of the recorded cases in less than 24 hours,” an official commenting on the report told Reuters. “After 48 hours, the figure is more than 80 per cent. This shows the target can realistically be achieved, but this will need much stronger efforts by the IT companies.” Speaking to the Financial Times, Jourova hinted laws may have to be enacted in order to compel the companies to comply. “If Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Microsoft want to convince me and the ministers that the non-legislative approach can work, they will have to act quickly and make a strong effort in the coming months.”…
***Twitter has been at the receiving end of possibly the most criticism for not doing enough to tackle the prolific hate speech in its network…
http://www.wired.co.uk/article/us-tech-giants-must-tackle-hate-speech-or-face-legal-action
not unrelated:
6 Dec: UK Daily Mail: Piers Morgan: Twitter helped Trump’s campaign triumph, so we’d better get used to government by 140 characters. And if the press and political elite hate it, then tough Twitty!
‘Twitter helped win me the election,’ President-elect Donald Trump told me when we spoke two weeks ago.
He cited his extraordinary army of 16 million followers on the social media platform as one reason (he has almost as many on Facebook). Each follower represented a potential voter he could talk to directly on a daily, or hourly basis – in exactly the way he wanted.
The second reason, he said, was his ability to set the news cycle for a day with one solitary tweet…
He particularly loved the fact, as a businessman, that it costs him absolutely nothing; Twitter is the ultimate marketing tool…
Each episode followed a familiar 10-part pattern:
1) Trump posts an inflammatory, highly opinionated tweet.
2) The media goes nuts.
3) Trump’s tweet then dominates the news all day.
4) The media demands he stops tweeting because it’s ‘un-presidential.’
5) Trump ignores them.
6) Conventional politicians demand he stops tweeting because it’s un-presidential.’
7) Trump ignores them too.
8) Trump wakes up next morning to every paper and cable news show talking about his tweet.
9) Trump chuckles to himself.
10) Trump tweets again.
Repeat…
I’m also flabbergasted at just how dumb much of the American media has been, and continues to be, in letting Trump play them in such an obvious way…READ ALL
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4002066/PIERS-MORGAN-Twitter-helped-Trump-s-campaign-triumph-d-better-used-government-140-characters-press-political-elite-hate-tough-Twitty.html#ixzz4S08MHcOS Twitter helped win me the election, President-elect D
153
The faster the EU totally disintegtates the better.
They are the moden day equivalent of the old USSR.
112
Well said. The EU is not the Common Market, the 20th century reincarnation of the Hanseatic league which created modern Europe. The European Union is quite independent and later takeover of democratic government by tens of thousands of unelected bureaucrats with no particuilar allegiance and 10,000 of whom earn more than the British Prime Minister, or the Australia Prime Minister or the US President.
Few people even know the three separate EU presidents. The EU, a political Union is a dangerous communist government by stealth. 60% of the new laws governing the UK were written in Brussels. England could not even overrule these laws and 300+ formal objections were ignored. The EU makes the USSR look benign.
With modern banking and credit cards, each country could have its own currency. They could have their own immigration policies,as they do in part. Many of the advantages of the deal could be had without strangers writing your laws, taxing your busiensses and telling you whether you can fish your own waters or whether someone else has the right to get your fish from your own beach.
132
Scary stuff Pat.
42
UPDATE: Chris Kenny calls it Kryptonite for Turnbull
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/columnists/chris-kenny/zap-turnbull-grabs-thirdrail-kryptonite/news-story/6ca28f536176c3ca763544855ee73b6c
241
Badly disappointed when Turnbull replaced Abbott, I nevertheless hoped that Turnbull would be a good leader. His promotion of an ETS dated from the days when only Bob Carter could see “The Pause.” Now just about everybody knows about it. He wouldn’t ignore that.
The last month has shown us that for Malcolm Turnbull CAGW is still the issue. By resurrecting the carbon tax issue he has thrown down the gauntlet to the divisiveness in the Liberal Party. It seems he believes he “has the numbers”, that his chances are as good as they will ever get.
We have a strange situation, which must be resolved, but how? The Liberals are hopelessly divided, but Turnbull seems to believe he still has the numbers. The DelCons have nowhere to go. And the coalition partner, while riding the crest at the recent election, is shut out of the action.
Barnaby Joyce’s equivocation this week suggests to me that he knows a showdown is on, bt it would be very inappropriate for him to play a part at this stage by firing the first shot. But that first shot has to come very soon.
What then if the DelCons lose? Both the DeLCons and the Nationals will go down together, as Turnbull calls a new election in which the ALP will look like the only cohesive force. Perhaps Turnbull thinks he will “do a Trump” and fund his own Twitter campaign.
The Nationals have very foolishly over the years confined themselves to a narrow, rural base, leaving urban representation to the liberals. This leaves them very vulnerable to getting shut out. The needs of rural people are not particularly different to those of urban people. Even on issues such as road funding city people need roads in the bush to transport their produce for consumption.
So, where to for the DelCons? If defeated by Turnbull, they could retain relevance and fix the Nationals’ biggest problem by aligning with The Nationals. This could turn two small, isolated political forces into one powerful party. So, there’s a headache for you, Barnaby!n
111
I have thought for over a year that Barnaby is already aware of the possibility and is just waiting until Turnbull splits the Party and makes himself irrelevant to much of the population and the Nationals take a lot of Liberal seats at the subsequent election.
That way the DelCons DO have somewhere to go. More importantly a large conservative party without the Liberal baggage would be popular with many “Howard voters” because the concerns about roads and services are very alive in outer suburban electorates.
Malcolm might find himself marooned on a desert island with only Bill Shorten to talk to.
101
The Nationals can’t take Liberal seats. They shouldn’t even think of taking Liberal seats. To stay in government the Nationals must take ALP seats.
00
True, but if the Nationals take Liberal seats that were going to be won by Greens or Laba, that’s another thing.
They are , at the moment, the only legitimate focus outside of the Labs and Libs.
00
Two words……
ONE NATION
81
Not well enough organised or supported Australia wide, and cracks appearing in the public image of solidarity.
The fact is that Australia has only two alternatives for government and no third is likely to gain what is needed anytime soon.
Change must come from within, join and make yourself a nuisance.
54
There’s a new kid on the block. In the Orange by election the Shooters’s Party Trumped the coalition after the incomprehensible prohibition of dog racing.
Small party, outlying location, but the CV of the new member suggests he is a man to watch. He might be just what One Nation needs. He doesn’t have to be in the party to work with it. A lot of policies would be held in common. Working together the parties might prove much more effective than the sum of the parts.
00
It’s simple, he lacks judgement.
72
He certainly lacks political judgement, the man’s full of himself and isn’t aware that there is a popular uprising afoot.
Josh doesn’t know what hat he is wearing and mortified by the reaction from his own party.
91
One thing to remember about politicians, bureaucrats and technocrats, perhaps the most important, is that outside of extreme situations, they never admit they are wrong. Also, although they may be forced to backtrack or put an idea on ice, even state it has been abandoned, they will always return to it when they believe the time is right. They will rebrand it, spin it as something else, slip it into the small print of something else, anything.
191
I just want to send Malcolm a lump of coal for Christmas. To celebrate what a wonderful year it’s been around the world for pretend conservatives.
191
Bye bye Malcolm, bye bye. The Bum’s Rush Out is coming for you Malcolm, bye bye!
141
Just thinking!
Turnbull turns all fanatical and inflexible on imposing his carbon tax.
Threatens the Coalition with his departure to the cross benches or worse crossing the floor to side with Shorten’s mob if they guarantee him they will bring in the carbon tax, unless the coalition agrees to bring in a carbon tax first.
That makes for a hung Parliament I think, either way if my summation is right.
A new election is called;
Turnbull doesn’t stand;
He’s got his PM’s stipend for life and his revenge on his former colleagues in the Coalition for not giving him the glory of being suitably extolled as being amongst the Planet’s most important saviours.
Out of power and government he cynically doesn’t give a damn anymore about Australia or Australians or whether there is a carbon tax or no carbon tax.
He’s got the loot anyhow so why should he bother his tiny brain with all that crap anymore.
Any thoughts or comments on this ?
141
No, Turnbull’s pride would never let him walk from the top spot like that. He would go down like Kevin Rudd, trying to drag down as many of his cabal with him as possible (to stand on in the hole he has dug for himself).
But the crossing of the floor to The Greens and Labour to push his carbon tax is plausible. Again, his hubris could lead him to betray those he is supposedly leading.
131
Turnbull’s trouble is that he still believes CO2 may be a problem.
He, we, have the other problem that tax revenue must be levied somewhere. This need has been made much greater by the reckless spending of ALP governments over the last 30 years.
Believe it or not, consideration of energy as a source of taxation is a very valid issue. Our problem is that the very visible inefficiencies in our economy have been funded to date by cheap electricity. Withdraw that cheap electricity and the whole structure will crash.
The Abbott government was elected In a landslide to eliminate inefficiencies, but were prevented from doing so by Al Gore’s influence over Clive Palmer. I would like to see a Royal Commission into that matter. And it mystifies me as to why Turnbull and others have not raised this issue instead of letting themselves get blamed for the Rudd/Gillard/Gore/Palmer debt.
161
turnbull has form on this global warming crap !
Zero Carbon Australia Sydney Launch Event Video with Bob Carr and Malcolm Turnbull
http://bze.org.au/media/newswire/zero-carbon-australia-sydney-launch-event-video-bob-carr-and-malcolm-turnbull-100912
41
Politicians seldom struggle with The Golden Rule (those with gold rule) even when confronted with The Life Rule (energy is life, cheap energy is prosperity). Nearly all of them are like Midas of yore.
101
Incidentally, we all know Lefists hate volunteers. That’s another reason they hate Abbott, because he is a volunteer fire fighter. That’s also why the communist, Dopey Dan Andrews in VIC has unionised the Country Fire Authority and turned it from a freely given service to a very expensive one.
I happen to know that volunteer organisations that rely on coal such as various historic steam rail and steam engine societies are also suffering because the communist influenced price increase of coal.
183
To a bookworm Marxist, volunteers are scab labour. That is the biggest reason why a
Marxist economy can never be viable.
93
And an annual volunteer lay teacher who has given his time to remote indigenous community children for many years or decades. Also volunteer in charity fund raising, and surf lifesaving.
61
Turnbull’s political antennae are starting to look as bad as Abbott’s. Pricing carbon/emissions etc is not quite Sir Prince Phil the Greek across the political board but within the Coalition it is not far away.
WTF were him and Frydenberg on about?
22
You don’t think it was a pre-christmas ‘slow news week’ effort to distract the public from the fact that this government is not actually doing a lot because no one has any bright ideas?
Much like the South Australian government bring up changing state time zones, or daylight savings, or some other matter just for the sake of short term distraction with no intention of doing anything. Admittedly, discussing a carbon price or tax is not the most sensible topics to be doing this with, but then, who can credit this government with any common sense?
Hey! Look at that shiny thing over there!!
51
No, I think they are incompetent at politics. Why wouldn’t they be, seeing they don’t seem to have learnt anything since they found out how to tie their own shoe laces?
21
You mean the lack of politician acumen as charged by MSM and his Liberal opponents despite his achievements as leader of the opposition and then prime minister. The undermining relentless negativity used against him from 2009 to 2015.
Yet today the Prime Minister has adopted all of Abbott government policies.
41
So many here have already said it but I’ll say it as well – Turnbull and his center left cabal (featuring my local MPs Josh Frydenberg and Kelly O’Dwyer) have just committed political suic1de with their backsliding into the CAGW camp. You would think that with Brexit, the election of Donald Trump and the rejection of Renzi, that a man with such overweening political ambition as Turnbull would see the shift away from the globalist, green, socialist, MSM led hegemony that has been destroying the underpinnings of western economies and even societies.
It is a sign of the utter stup1dity of our energy policies that it has already led to resource rich Australia having electricity almost as expensive as Spain and more expensive than Japan who both import far more fuel. To consider reintroducing carbon taxation in any form is sheer idi0cy.
https://www.ovoenergy.com/guides/energy-guides/average-electricity-prices-kwh.html
But then why should we expect more from Turnbull? His arrogance overrides even his sense of survival – just like the rest of the green blob.
241
Green heads are exploding again over the Donald’s choice of EPA head.
There will be no doubt a huge change in EPA personnel.
51
yet again, ABC makes the false claim that Frydenberg told ABC the Govt was looking at an emissions intensity scheme AS PART OF its policy review.
I’ve gone to great pains on jo’s previous post to show Frydenberg was merely responding to relentless pressure from ABC’s Kim Landers to talk, not about the policy review or what was actually in it, but to respond to her own agenda, namely the suggestion by the Climate Authority that an emissions-intensity scheme be adopted by the Govt.
another hideous piece of ABC CAGW propaganda from start to finish:
VIDEO: 7mins28secs: 7 Dec: ABC 7.30 Report:
On Monday the Energy Minister said the Government was looking at the prospect of an emissions intensity scheme as part of its policy review…(causing uncertainty which will probably send power prices even higher)
http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2016/s4588892.htm
82
You should use block-quoting, pat, to visually separate your statements from the article portions you cut and paste into your comments.
Back to the agenda, Frydenberg has had plenty of opportunity to make categoric statements on renewables and climate change. Instead, he tap dances around whenever questioned about these matters, displaying no commitment to a policies that might give some business certainty (for good or for bad). He has fallen for the populist trap of trying to cater for both sides of the street like his leader, Turnbull, and if he continues on this course, he deserves the same ultimate fate.
Frydenberg backed Abbott against the Turnbull coup – he should reflect on his former stance and leader.
51
It never pays to accept MSM stories without doing some background checking. They are fairy tale creators.
31
Not just in the MSM. We have our own collection of fairy tales in “Apple and The Otter go spamming”.
10
Julie, Penny & co on vacation pretending to believe in CAGW. News journos happy to pretend there are more frequent extreme weather events, which we are to presume are not weather, but part of CAGW!
again, Frydenberg did not backtrack. check video/rough transcript on jo’s previous thread. ABC’s Landers would not let him talk about what was in the policy review. she insisted he talk about what was on her agenda – a Climate Authority suggestion the Govt adopt an emissions-intensity scheme:
7 Dec: Adelaide Advertiser: Julie Bishop refutes Cory Bernardi’s suggestion Australia withdraw from Paris climate change agreement
by Tory Shepherd with Lauren Novak
However, Ms Bishop, who is in the Pacific Islands with a bipartisan delegation to discuss climate change and other issues, said Australia remained committed to its target to reduce emissions by 26 to 28 per cent compared with 2005 levels.
“Over 195 countries signed the Paris agreement. Well over 100 have ratified the agreement and Australia is on track to meet its targets that were determined back in August 2015,” she said.
Her comments came as federal Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg backtracked over suggestions the Commonwealth was considering introducing an emissions intensity scheme…
This prompted Mr Frydenberg on Tuesday night to backtrack, stressing that such a scheme was “not in any document that the Coalition has put out”.
On Wednesday, he told reporters the review had never intended to look at establishing a carbon tax.
“Our position has been clear all along. We will not be adopting an emissions intensity scheme,” he insisted…
Ms Bishop is spending three days visiting three Pacific nations, and is joined by Opposition foreign affairs spokeswoman Penny Wong, Liberal Senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells and Labor Senator Claire Moore.
“Australia is working in partnership with the Pacific island countries — they were all present in Marrakech at the climate change conference when Australia confirmed that we had ratified the climate change agreement,” Ms Bishop said.
Much of the Australian aid budget in the region is directed towards resilience against the effects of climate change and more frequent extreme weather events.
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/julie-bishop-refutes-cory-bernardis-suggestion-australia-withdraw-from-paris-climate-change-agreement/news-story/90e113a573a62fcdc04a998022863890
42
i’ve been defending Frydenberg, who Turnbull has thrown under the bus.
however, I am not defending Turnbull. listen to this one, which is yet another ABC deception – in collaboration with Turnbull? – recorded the day after the Frydenberg interview by Landers.
***whilst the ABC summary says “Turnbull says the consideration of an emissions intensity scheme for the electricity sector won’t amount to a carbon tax”, he says no such thing in the audio.
all Turnbull says is we took it to the election 2013, 2016 & 2010 (with some help from ABC’s Woodley on the dates?). and he says he has never supported a carbon tax.
AUDIO: 6 Dec: ABC The World Today: Reporter Naomi Woodley: Turnbull stares down party critics on climate review
The Prime Minister is reminding his backbench that the review of the Coalition’s climate policies is a long-standing election promise, as some conservative MPs speak out against it.
***Mr Turnbull says the consideration of an emissions intensity scheme for the electricity sector won’t amount to a carbon tax…
Featured:
Malcolm Turnbull, Prime Minister etc
http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2016/s4587752.htm
my opinion is Frydenberg was set up by Landers & was wrongly described by all FakeNewsMSM as having said something he DID NOT SAY.
on the other hand, Turnbull allowed ABC to claim he acknowledged HE WAS going to consider an emissions-intensity scheme in the review, yet he deceptively never actually said a word of it himself.
he’s a snake, and yet he’s now throwing Frydenberg under the bus.
92
There’s nothing wrong with a review of the coalition climate policy so long as I comes up with the right answers.
00
another version of the Woodley interview – not a single mention from Turnbull of an emissions-intensity scheme:
6 Dec: ABC: Malcolm Turnbull dismisses climate change policy review criticisms from colleagues
By political reporter Matthew Doran
“The review of the climate policy which will be undertaken next year has been part of the Coalition’s policy for many years, long before I was Prime Minister,” Mr Turnbull said in Sydney this morning.
“This is absolutely part of our policy; it’s part of the policy we took to the election in 2013 and 2016 and, indeed, we took to the election in 2010.
“This is business as usual.”.
Mr Turnbull said he had never supported a carbon tax.
“There are many distinguished members of the Coalition parties who have supported a carbon tax over the past — I’ve never done,” he said…
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-12-06/turnbull-dismisses-colleagues'-criticisms-of-climate-change/8095096
did I say Turnbull is a snake?
6 Dec: news.com.au: PM Malcolm Turnbull facing internal backlash over climate review
by Claire Bickers, News Corp Australia Network
“In terms of carbon policy, I have never supported a carbon tax,” Mr Turnbull told reporters in Sydney.
“There are many distinguished members of the Coalition parties who have supported a carbon tax over the past — I’ve never done.”
But that wasn’t his stance in 2010 when Kevin Rudd was in power.
While in Opposition, Mr Turnbull said Australia must put a price on carbon while giving a lecture on climate change policy for the Alfred Deakin lecture series presented by the Wheeler Centre.
“Now, the fact is … we cannot cost-effectively achieve a substantial cut in emissions without putting a price on carbon,” Mr Turnbull said.
“We have to put a price on carbon.
“We can do it via a carbon tax if you like; the better approach is via a cap-and-trade emissions trading scheme.
“I think most people who write about this in Australia agree on that.
“But you cannot get away from the fact that there is a cost.”
In the same speech, Mr Turnbull condemned then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd for abandoning an emissions trading scheme, saying it was one of the most remarkable “self destructive” political acts the country had ever seen.
Earlier in 2010, Mr Turnbull had crossed the floor to vote with Labor on the emissions trading scheme but the Coalition never brought the matter to a vote…
http://www.news.com.au/national/pm-malcolm-turnbull-facing-internal-backlash-over-climate-review/news-story/eee06b301a4936b10f2b0ca64b8e2958
another deceptive version of the Landers’ AM interview of 5 Dec.
it has no quote by Frydenberg saying emissions-intensity scheme would be part of the review, because he never said it. in fact, he did not list it when he tried to explain what WAS in the review and Landers interrupted him in order to push her own agenda.
also no mention he was responding to Landers’ Climate Authority questioning when he responded on both issues excerpted below:
5 Dec: ABC: Carbon price for power generators back on the table in Federal Government’s climate policy review
By political reporter Stephanie Anderson
Environment Minister Josh Frydenberg said the review would consider an emissions intensity scheme for electricity generators, but said the Government would take a sector-by-sector approach…
Mr Frydenberg said there had been recommendations for a “baseline and credit scheme”, which could be similar to an emissions trading scheme where emissions are capped by the Government…
52
It is complete and utter BS and LIES from TURNCOAT TURNBULL that he has never supported a carbon tax !!!!!!
He crossed the floor of parliament and voted with the labor party opposition and kevin rudd in support of one in 2010 !!!!
LIAR !!
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/turnbull-crosses-floor-to-vote-with-labor-20100211-nts2.html
How stupid does this mongrel think the public are ?
Does he think we can’t use the internet ?
131
If that is the case,then why did he sneek in a”Carbon Tax”at the last sitting of Parliament in December?That’s the trouble with”Leftys”They forget which lies they tell.
101
Way I see it, they lie, then lie again to cover up the first lie. Then again. And again. So many lies and they are happy to lie about the lies.
Lies come as easy as breathing with this lot.
41
6 Dec: WJBC: Sunday’s snow sets record in several locations
By Cole Lauterbach/Illinois Radio Network
CHICAGO – The first snowfall to hit Illinois this fall was no polite dusting, but a record-breaking event…
Sunday’s 6.4 inches of snowfall at O’Hare blew past the old Chicago record of 4.8 inches in November of ***1940.
Angel said the snow hit hardest near the Quad Cities, with some areas recording more than 9 inches.
“In the Quad Cities, Davenport had 10.2 inches,” Angel said. “Several other sites also had very sizeable amounts all through that area.”
One of the highest measured totals in the state was Morrison, at 9.4 inches…
According to the National Weather Service, the 6.4 inches at O’Hare was only three-tenths of an inch away from the all-time single-day snow total. The previous record for snowfall on Dec. 4 at O’Hare was 4.6 inches in 1964.
http://www.wjbc.com/2016/12/06/sundays-snow-sets-record-in-several-locations/
who else?
Time Magazine: Donald J. Trump: Person of the Year 2016
For those who believe this is all for the better, Trump’s victory represents a long-overdue rebuke to an entrenched and arrogant governing class…
Trump’s assault on truth and logic, far from hurting him, made him stronger…
Perhaps the President-elect will stop tweeting—but only because he will have found some other means to tell the story he wants to tell directly to the audience that wants to hear it…
For reminding America that ***demagoguery feeds on despair and that truth is only as powerful as the trust in those who speak it, for empowering a hidden electorate by mainstreaming its furies and live-streaming its fears, and for framing tomorrow’s political culture by demolishing yesterday’s, Donald Trump is TIME’s 2016 Person of the Year.
http://time.com/time-person-of-the-year-2016-donald-trump-choice/
Time – drop the demagogue equivalence to populist that all MSM have adopted, please.
populist: a member or adherent of a political party seeking to represent the interests of ordinary people.
42
Christiana Figueres from the UN said in Brussels that climate change was about destroying capitalism, not the environment. So the question is why do they want to destroy capitalism and what do they want to replace it with? Carbon tax is just that a tax, so get on with destroying capitalism so we can at least get on with our lives. This continual double speak is VERY annoying!
71
Christiana Figueres the COMMUNIST……..
UN Climate Chief Christiana Figueres laments U.S. democracy is ‘very detrimental’ in war on global warming — Lauds one-party ruled China for ‘doing it right’ on climate change
http://www.climatedepot.com/2014/01/14/un-climate-chief-christiana-figueres-laments-u-s-democracy-is-very-detrimental-in-war-on-global-warming-lauds-china-for-doing-it-right-on-climate-change/
UN Climate Chief Says Communism Is Best To Fight Global Warming
https://climatism.wordpress.com/2014/01/16/un-climate-chief-says-communism-is-best-to-fight-global-warming/
51
The Maurice Strong and other very wealthy people’s aim is to create a China style of controlled and managed capitalism.
31
“Controlled and managed capitalism”.??
They are much more intent on destroying capital than managing capital. Logic says that they surely intend at some stage to manage the capital after they have destroyed free enterprise. I have seen no sign that they might stop short of scorched earth.
Marxism/Communism is a doctrine of hate that grew out of the social horrors of 19tht century Europe. That was 150 years ago. The hatred displayed by today’s Marxists is not rational. They are not rational people.
00
I find it hard to believe that Turnbull is actually trying to move this plan forward. When I moved back to the US from Australia, my average monthly electric bill dropped from ~ A$600 to less than US$100. Do you think that makes a difference in my standard of living? Do you not think that I spend that money elsewhere? Or save it? Why is this man so determined to ruin the Australian economy?
161
Aren’t you making the rather rash assumption that Turnbull actually cares about the economy?
He certainly doesn’t need the Aussie economy to be in working order as long as the Cayman Islands remain a tax haven. He has the top job, and his place in history, that’s all a selfish narcissist like him needs.
121
I think this is deep enough in the comments that you won’t mind my commenting on:
“Coolgardie safes”
As a young thing, I remember the “ice box” and regular deliveries of blocks of ice (also milk in glass bottles). This was in the hills of Western Pennsylvania. I do not think I ever knew what place or town the ice came from but I am sure it was made, rather than cut from a pond during winter. That is another bit of history I learned about much later.
The Coolgardie safe is a type of evaporative cooler that often in the USA is called a swamp cooler. Other terms are used (desert cooler and wet air cooler) but we never said anything other than swamp cooler. People used a fabric bag tied to the front of an auto to help cool the engine: See:
https://img1.etsystatic.com/031/0/8868740/il_340x270.612504613_hlv4.jpg
Search using [ cooling a car with a swamp cooler ]
… with images tag to see how the inside of a car was cooled.
PS: I just learned of Polar Bears in Kaktovik, Alaska and coolers from Coolgardie. Modern technology is amazing — and dependent on electricity. Making it more costly and/or restricting the use of electricity should be considered a prime example of “high crimes and misdemeanors.”
61
John F. Hulquist @ #30.
You just stirred up all the 78 year old mental dust in the long ago archived memory banks of my childhood and youth.
“Coolgardie safes” or in our household and locality just plain “Cool Safes” plus often cellars in a lot of the older original settlers houses were dug well down under the house and were the only way of keeping perishable food items reasonably cool.
And nearly all food was perishable being mostly home grown and home preserved back those 75 or more years ago.
The Coolgardie safe was a hessian enclosed cabinet with a galvanised tin pan sitting on top that was about half filled with water. Flannel strips were hung over the edge of the pan which took up the water in the pan through a capillary action and allowed a slow steady drip feed of water down the sides of the hessian or canvas covered cabinet.
The evaporation of the water from the hessian covered sides cooled the inside of the Safe / cabinet thereby keeping the food cool [er! ]
The short legs of the cabinet / Safe were placed in another pan or in small tins and filled with water to prevent at the ants from finding the food in the Safe.
If the [ homemade ] butter didn’t melt on a hot day you had yourself a good “cool safe”.
The “cool safe” was replaced by that truly marvellous bit of technology and I don’t exaggerate either, the kerosene fridge, in my family’s case around 1946.
For the first time food could be expected to be kept in relatively low temperatures for some time and glory be to this little boy, Mum could even make ice cream, a formerly very rare treat that I only got on a few occasions when we went to the local town.
We used kerosene fridges with its need to trim the wick and fill the kero tank every few days or you didn’t have anything solid left in the fridge, right through until the 240 volt SWER lines came through our locality in 1962 or thereabouts.
In many of the local towns some entrepreneurs had set up Ice Works in the 1920’s and 30’s where large blocks of ice were made which were then either collected by residents for their own Ice Chests or distributed around the town by horse drawn insulated carts to all those who had an” ice chest” for food preservation.
Quoted from Wiki;
Likewise in the towns with milk distribution in bottles which locally was still ongoing around the mid 1960’s or later.
The horses that pulled the milk carts around the town loaded with the full bottles of milk never needed anybody to tell them when to stop and when to go as the milk man ran from place to place placing his full milk bottles on the front step according to the usual order or to the note left by the householders, picked up the money left there for the milk as well as the empty bottles and ran back to the milk cart and onto the next house with the next delivery.
In winter it was a pretty cold and miserable job in the very early hours of a freezing cold morning to be distributing milk around a town that was still a sleep.
In summer there were compensations as a couple of milkies told me at the time.
Sometimes the householders forgot to put the empties out and when the clacking of the milk bottles was heard close next door there was a mad scramble to get the empty milk bottles out to the door and the money for the new bottles of milk.
The end result being that sometimes the door was hurriedly pulled open at the last few seconds by one of the a well enhanced ladies of the household who in warm nights, had the absolute minimum of night attire on which clearly promoted and flaunted their feminine assets more than adequately according to those milkies.
Today they would barely blink at such a scene but all those 60 or so years ago, it brought hot flushes and stirrings to all concerned.
A few of the local magpies and crows were real pests as far as the filled milk bottles left on the front steps were concerned. Some of those damn birds had learnt that they could easily peck and lever off the cap on the top of the bottle to get at the milk inside.
They usually weren’t far behind the milky after he had delivered the bottles so as to get their cut of the milk if the householder didn’t beat them to the bottles first.
Even earlier round 1942 or thereabouts when I was about 4 years old I can just remember the horse drawn butcher’s cart coming into my maternal Grandfather’s yard at his apple orchard on the eastern end of Doncaster road in Melbourne’s east to take orders and deliver the ordered meat to the household.
Ah! The Good Old Days.
Harnessing horses, feeding horses at 4AM. 12 o’clock and 10 pm as I saw my father do for the first 6 years of my life.
At 6 or 7 o’clock my mother would get up to make my father breakfast. He would be asleep in a chair with his feet being warmed by the glowing wood fire from the open door of the wood stove.
Then there was grooming horses and stacking hay for the horses and cutting chaff for the horses
There was food and meat going off in the heat so lots of mustards and etc to hide something just a bit off .
And ferocious dust storms where visibility was down to a couple of hundred metres in hot as hell, howling northerly wind. The dust due to the constant cultivation and the teams of horses and their 20 cm across hooves, four per horse and ten horses in a team which smashed the soil structure into dust when they drew the cultivators across the paddocks, dust which then lifted and blew on the slightest wind.
And rabbits, rabbits, rabbits that ate and destroyed anything that looked green and killed trees as they burrowed down around the roots of the trees anda stripped the bark off the roots to get at the root’s moisture during those terrible 1930 and early 1940’s drought years.
The Good Old Days!
Been there
Done that.
Got the mental scars to prove it.
You can keep those bloody Good Old Days and put them where they fit.
71
Testing the carbon price is like gastric reflux. It leaves a sour reminder sticking in the craw.
71
Off topic, the UK parliament has just passed the BREXIT motion by 448 to 75. Great.
However the entire High court may yet try to interfere in the history of Britain and the choice of the people and demand parliament make this an act of parliament, creating another opportunity for BREXIT opponents.
Also the childish rag news.com.au compares Trump as Time’s man of the year to Putin, Stalin and Mao, although that article is no longer headlined. Will the media ever stop attacking Trump?
It is not just the carbon tax which needs to be removed. The RET. The “Clean Energy Regulator” and all the pyramid of Climate Change dependent public servants from Canberra to councils. Care for the environment is a good thing. Taxing everyone to stop CO2 is madness, utter madness for carbon (dioxide) life forms who are made from the stuff. It is like fish banning water and having water reduction policies, agreed in Paris.
131
REVEALED: Celebrities, Blairites and Big Business Plotting to Thwart Brexit
http://www.breitbart.com/london/2016/11/22/leaked-branson-gives-thousands-blairite-plot-thwart-brexit/
Disgraceful!
They have no respect for democracy.
71
‘Mr Abbott, who was not at all pleased with the re-emergence of talk about carbon pricing, made it abundantly clear he saw a future for the Green Army, criticising the government for “axing your own policy for the Greens policy”.
‘In return for their support of the 15 per cent backpacker tax, the Greens were promised $100 million for Landcare – an amount likely to be funded by the liquidation of the Green Army.’
Heath Aston / The Age
———–
41
The current federal government is a political ruminant
The new bull, is full of that, and has just consumed that old fodder he knew to be toxic.
Constantly chewing the cud and regurgitating crap, and passing copious amounts highly toxic FARTS
31
News – ANY DOUBTS OVER MALCOLM’S AND JULIE’S CARBON TAX ARE NOW DISPELLED – The Pickering Post
http://pickeringpost.com/story/any-doubts-over-malcolm-s-and-julie-s-carbon-tax-are-now-dispelled/6719
41
O/T
A new form of argument
“the argumentum ad puellam pulchram. (aka the Argument from a Pretty Girl)”
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/12/07/weather-channel-attacks-breitbarts-climate-science-fake-news-climate-change/
41
Naother Trump nominee – for EPA
” brians356
December 7, 2016 at 11:40 am
Good news!
From Reuters today:
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump plans to appoint Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, a Trump transition team source said on Wednesday.
Pruitt was elected Oklahoma’s attorney general in November 2010 and has focused on restoring more regulatory oversight to states and limiting federal regulations.
As his state’s top legal official, he sued the agency is he poised to lead multiple times, including a pending lawsuit to topple the EPA’s Clean Power Plan, the centerpiece of Democratic President Barack Obama’s climate change strategy.
Pruitt on Wednesday held his second meeting with Trump, who takes office on Jan. 20.
(Reporting by David Shepardson and Valerie Volcovici; Writing by Susan Heavey; Editing by Chris Reese and Jonathan Oatis)”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/12/07/false-fact-checking-from-factcheck-org-more-false-claims-about-fracking/#comment-2363174
and following
51
Malcolm Turnbull has the political instincts of a turnip. Everything that he touches turns to lead. I hope that this is the last that we ever hear about the pernicious Carbon Price / Carbon Trading idea.
51
This is not the last time Nicholas, some states might try to go it alone.
‘Jay Weatherill warns the states could defy Canberra and introduce carbon prices ‘in the absence of national leadership’.
Rosie Lewis / Oz
31
Link – http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:dPMHtAZZ7AcJ:www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/climate/weatherill-warns-states-could-introduce-carbon-prices/news-story/63ca5a2ead3a0c3ecfa92a87bef04b08+&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=au
I feel really sorry for the South Australians but I hope Weatherill goes ahead with this to further demonstrate to the rest of Australia how disastrous this path is, before the likes of Dan Andrews tries the same.
61
SA and Vic despot governments should be sacked and prosecuted for perpetuation of this climate scam, gross negligence and incompetence in our most basic needs …..’affordable energy’, our country’s main strength, instead of Marxist ratbag economic suicide.
I suspect that much of this is just a taxpayer fleecing racket, under the guise of ‘save the planet’ lunacy!
The so-called self proclaimed ‘Climate Authorities'(closet Marxists and mad Malthusians) should be rounded up and given more appropriate tasks.
Such as breaking rocks with sledge hammers …real jobs for once in their scheming pathetic lives.
Or just lock them up and throw the key away.
I can’t believe that this state,national and global insanity is allowed to fester.
Where is our Donald ?
41
How’s this for a headline?
“Long hard battle to keep lights on in summer”
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/mining-energy/long-hard-battle-to-keep-lights-on-in-summer/news-story/062fbb0cf040d6aad64e3d28bde83e43
This is now way beyond a joke.
The SA treasurer “said he was encouraging discussions between participants across the energy supply system to provide more competitive gas and electricity prices for all customers.”
What a moron. The high prices are due to the transfer payments to subsidise the expensive and inefficient windmills.
This “green” electricity is destroying the economy all based on the lie of anthropogenic global warming (when we are actually likely entering a cooling phase).
81
Stop Press, Premier Jay Weatherill in SA is suggesting the States set up their own carbon pricing scheme thru COAG. We need to give price signals to investors because all the existing coal fired power stations have shut down haphazardly. Yes they got the price signal first, and took action, what a surprise, but hell it wasn’t the governments fault, was it, governments just funded the competition!!
That should go well , the manage the Murray, but the SA irrigators are now saying that you can have all the water allocated you like, but without power to pump is your paying for an allocation you cant use!!
Yes States managing things will really go well I expect eg, when was is our new Royal Adeliade hospital being opened, it was 2015, no 2016, or maybe 2018, I know its soon! Good Grief!!
91
As per el gordo’s post above
21
The problem with the hospital opening is to somehow distract attention away from the delays, the cost (enormous) and the fact that it will result in LESS beds available, so the suggestion is that it be opened by Brittany Spears. The delay is her schedule (and persuading other States to pay for her).
31
Maenwhile the Premier of South Australia has been speaking to an The Australian newspaper journalist and ABC Radio National talking about the states having to go it alone with a carbon tax if the federal government is not prepared to do it.
31
Not according to the Constitution. Weatherill is merely trying to distract the attention of SA’s voters so he can say “I tried to reduce electricity prices and stop blackouts but Canberra wouldn’t let me”.
A completely stupid, indeed insane, idea that taxing something will make it cheaper. No wonder this time The Australian let my comment Weatherill rhymes with Dill through.
121
Same as the Murray River water allocation diversion.
41
ABC guest was from the Climate Council, that non-govenment organisation of man-made climate change fanatics.
61
Jo, What puzzles me is the complete fixation on CO2 in the public debate. From the IPCC down, no one in climate science says anything stronger about the correlation CO2 with climate than “highly or extremely likely”. ie they are uncertain. Any serious policy maker faced with a long term uncertain problem would put maximum resources into reducing the uncertainty. This is not being done AFAIK. This comment is not original, ref Pielke and many others. Why doesnt it get into the public debate?
111
I’ll come back when Abbot, or someone of Abbot’s ilk, comes back.
61
O/T
$107,000 worth of whirligigs generate $41 per month of electricity.
Great investment!
http://www.peninsuladailynews.com/news/wind-turbines-generating-regret-100000-turbines-to-create-1-50-in-electricity-monthly/
51
When you put it that way.
Even Josh would be able to make sense of it.
41
O/T – on the fake news front
Start with
http://www.couriermail.com.au/technology/scientist-delivers-scathing-response-to-breitbart-article/news-story/fe66304f61f167c6a911e1cf8a51d6a9
Then
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/12/07/weather-channel-attacks-breitbarts-climate-science-fake-news-climate-change/
41
From Andrew Bolt.
Turnbull’s bungled plot to give us another carbon tax
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/blogs/andrew-bolt/turnbulls-bungled-plot-to-give-us-another-carbon-tax/news-story/a5e89d57e1964b62822b6b47947963c2?nk=b6266b78eed4e2acd02d95ed58217ef6-1481159240
31
The greenleft blob think Mal is gutless for giving into the right and we (on this platform) are apparently part of the ‘wingnut fringe’.
30
A DEPLORABLE…..
and proud of it !!!!!!
40
I sent this email to Josh Frydenberg yesterday.
“Minister, considering that Australia only emits about 1.6% of the 4% of CO2 emitted by mankind, can you please advise me as to how much global temperatures will drop if we reduce our CO2 emissions by 26%? If you can not provide a figure, do you believe that reducing our emissions will bring any temperature decrease? If you are unable to answer either of these questions may I enquire as to why this Government seems to be hell bent on destroying our economy by dramatically increasing the cost of power?”
Strangely, I have received no response, but he might be busy.
192
I wonder how long it took our red thumber to get this far down giving everybody a red thumb. I am honoured – thanks!
71
the red thumb is probably turncoat turnbull……….
31
It looks like he got all the way down.
That kind of perseverance takes two bowls of Kellogg’s Corn Flakes . .
51
Does Breitbart know about that?
30
Join the Movement Against Kellogg’s Bigotry
DUMP KELLOGS !
http://www.breitbart.com/dumpkelloggs/
20
Here are some links about removing concrete bases of windmills after they are demolished. Apparently a lot of operators are excused from the requirement of removing the base.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/scotland/10142126/Old-wind-farms-bases-could-be-left-in-countryside.html
http://www.wind-works.org/cms/index.php?id=340&tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=538&cHash=e36d73ebc7d460e5de9cfccf219cb73a
https://windfarmaction.wordpress.com/2011/11/12/concrete-turbine-base/
http://visitwalesnow.org.uk/environment-in-wales.htm
http://www.snh.gov.uk/docs/A1434319.pdf
https://stopthesethings.com/2014/08/16/how-much-co2-gets-emitted-to-build-a-wind-turbine/
22
Near us in Washington State there is a 10 year old facility. The foundation for the towers is described on the company’s web site:
The foundation “… relies on resistance. Buried 25 to 32 feet (depending on bedrock depth) in up to 260 cubic yards of concrete; 120 anchor bolts extend from ground level to the bottom of the 14-foot-diameter
foundation (a single 28-foot-long anchor bolt weighs 150 pounds)>”
Like the Egyptian pyramids, I don’t think moving them was part of the plan.
40
How about B61-11 nuclear bunker busters..According to the Pentagon bunker buster nukes are “safe”..yup …
10
c4 or thermite perhaps?
00
O/T or perhaps not! Mods choice!! From Cliscep
Brad Keyes says: 07 Dec 16 at 1:21 pm
“What cleaner or more perfect proof could there be that what matters is not the Climate War, but the War for the Soul of Science?”
Brad,
Forget the ‘science’, yours or their p-science, please! This is not a war, yet! This is a carefully constructed non-ending distraction for the proletariat (serfs) so that they continue to fight each other, yet do not join and destroy without mercy the ‘self appointed elite’, banksters, academics, and members of the Council on Foreign Relations! Please use your ‘scientific method’ to decide fact from fantasy.
“It is a war between the living and the dead, and it will make the War of Five Kings look like a family-friendly night of exhibition foxy boxing. Winter Is Coming: the winter of our civilization and its discontents.”
This will become “WAR”, only if the ‘self appointed elite’ first decide which part of the distracted, are no longer needed as serfs!!
52
Sort oof fits here too
“When Your Credibility Is Shot, Shrill Claims Sound So … Dumb!”
http://strata-sphere.com/blog/index.php/archives/21719
20
The insanity in VIC just gets greater!
Infrastructure Victoria has just released its plan for the next 30 years.
Among its 137 recommendations it wants to:
– Close all coal fired power stations.
– Build a second desal plant or expand the existing one (even though it is unused)
It has been widely reported yet, I found it on an Adelaide site.
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/national/what-infrastructure-victorias-30year-plan-for-the-city-looks-like/news-story/d5c447a16edf2b9a1f937ded6957f338
60
1) South Australia has the highest level of renewable energy in it’s generation mix;
2) South Australia has the most expensive electricity in the country;
3) Based on recent blackouts, South Australia has the least reliable grid in Australia.
There is a pattern here folks…
40
Surely we need to be proving that CO2 is not causing Climate Change. Until we do the MSM will continue with headings like in today’s papers that the govt. has dismissed an energy intensive scheme which economists can show will cost consu
20
“They”, MSM, idiot politicians etc., DO NOT WANT YOU TO BELIEVE THAT THERE IS NO CO2 WARMING!.
ALL CO2 pricing, so called Carbon (+ 2 oxygens), trading schemes are TOTAL FRAUD..PERIOD! Any other citizen would go to jail for that amount of fraud..Trillions of dollars swindled out of the citizens of the world by total criminals!
20
Correction –will cost consumers less than its present system.
00
Another good one from Andrew Bolt…….
Don’t fall for this mad green scheme :-
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/blogs/andrew-bolt/dont-fall-for-this-mad-green-scheme/news-story/89a90cdf1193693484e4e125ac291f56
10
Cabinet has spun a story about Frydenberg being told to be “low key” but then he unilaterally went off the rails, pushed by his over-ambition.
B/S of course. Note that “low key” means “try to sneak it through so the hoi-polloi don’t realise it until it’s too late to stop”.
Trust none of them – ever. Politicians and bureaucrats prevaricate for a living. That’s what they do. I think they practise this on their grandmothers at Sunday lunch.
00