Bubble popped. :- )
The Leader of the free world leads the way out of the hollow bureaucratic pointless puffery of an agreement that was never going to change the weather.
The people of the free world never voted to join the Paris agreement. Trump has just said the obvious — he’ll look after US citizens first, and renegotiate a deal that helps the environment and doesn’t punish the leading polluters.
The members of the climate cult reacted the way cult members do. A Greens MP in Australia called the President of our greatest military ally a “climate criminal“. Al Gore said it’s reckless, and indefensible, and apparently the “planet has suffered” sayth the spokesperson for the Third Rock from the Sun, Leonardo Di Caprio.
Tom Steyer says Trump is “committing a traitorous act of war against the American people.”
MSNBC’s Donny Deutsch… said the president “is a sociopath.“
Excerpt from the transcript
As the Wall Street Journal wrote this morning: “The reality is that withdrawing is in America’s economic interest and won’t matter much to the climate.”
One by one, we are keeping the promises I made to the American people during my campaign for President –- whether it’s cutting job-killing regulations; appointing and confirming a tremendous Supreme Court justice; putting in place tough new ethics rules; achieving a record reduction in illegal immigration on our southern border; or bringing jobs, plants, and factories back into the United States at numbers which no one until this point thought even possible. And believe me, we’ve just begun. The fruits of our labor will be seen very shortly even more so.
On these issues and so many more, we’re following through on our commitments. And I don’t want anything to get in our way. I am fighting every day for the great people of this country. Therefore, in order to fulfill my solemn duty to protect America and its citizens, the United States will withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord — (applause) — thank you, thank you — but begin negotiations to reenter either the Paris Accord or a really entirely new transaction on terms that are fair to the United States, its businesses, its workers, its people, its taxpayers. So we’re getting out. But we will start to negotiate, and we will see if we can make a deal that’s fair. And if we can, that’s great. And if we can’t, that’s fine. (Applause.)
As President, I can put no other consideration before the wellbeing of American citizens. The Paris Climate Accord is simply the latest example of Washington entering into an agreement that disadvantages the United States to the exclusive benefit of other countries, leaving American workers — who I love — and taxpayers to absorb the cost in terms of lost jobs, lower wages, shuttered factories, and vastly diminished economic production.
Thus, as of today, the United States will cease all implementation of the non-binding Paris Accord and the draconian financial and economic burdens the agreement imposes on our country. This includes ending the implementation of the nationally determined contribution and, very importantly, the Green Climate Fund which is costing the United States a vast fortune.
“…could cost America as much as 2.7 million lost jobs by 2025 according to the National Economic Research Associates. This includes 440,000 fewer manufacturing jobs”
Compliance with the terms of the Paris Accord and the onerous energy restrictions it has placed on the United States could cost America as much as 2.7 million lost jobs by 2025 according to the National Economic Research Associates. This includes 440,000 fewer manufacturing jobs — not what we need — believe me, this is not what we need — including automobile jobs, and the further decimation of vital American industries on which countless communities rely. They rely for so much, and we would be giving them so little.
According to this same study, by 2040, compliance with the commitments put into place by the previous administration would cut production for the following sectors: paper down 12 percent; cement down 23 percent; iron and steel down 38 percent; coal — and I happen to love the coal miners — down 86 percent; natural gas down 31 percent. The cost to the economy at this time would be close to $3 trillion in lost GDP and 6.5 million industrial jobs, while households would have $7,000 less income and, in many cases, much worse than that.
“It fails to live up to our environmental ideals. …, I cannot in good conscience support a deal that punishes the United States … the world’s leader in environmental protection, while imposing no meaningful obligations on the world’s leading polluters.”
Not only does this deal subject our citizens to harsh economic restrictions, it fails to live up to our environmental ideals. As someone who cares deeply about the environment, which I do, I cannot in good conscience support a deal that punishes the United States — which is what it does -– the world’s leader in environmental protection, while imposing no meaningful obligations on the world’s leading polluters.
For example, under the agreement, China will be able to increase these emissions by a staggering number of years — 13. They can do whatever they want for 13 years. Not us. India makes its participation contingent on receiving billions and billions and billions of dollars in foreign aid from developed countries. There are many other examples. But the bottom line is that the Paris Accord is very unfair, at the highest level, to the United States.
Further, while the current agreement effectively blocks the development of clean coal in America — which it does, and the mines are starting to open up. We’re having a big opening in two weeks. Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, so many places. A big opening of a brand-new mine. It’s unheard of. For many, many years, that hasn’t happened. They asked me if I’d go. I’m going to try.
China will be allowed to build hundreds of additional coal plants. So we can’t build the plants, but they can, according to this agreement. India will be allowed to double its coal production by 2020. Think of it: India can double their coal production. We’re supposed to get rid of ours. Even Europe is allowed to continue construction of coal plants.
In short, the agreement doesn’t eliminate coal jobs, it just transfers thse jobs out of America and the United States, and ships them to foreign countries.
“The rest of the world applauded when we signed the Paris Agreement — they went wild; they were so happy — for the simple reason that it put our country, …at a very, very big economic disadvantage.”
This agreement is less about the climate and more about other countries gaining a financial advantage over the United States. The rest of the world applauded when we signed the Paris Agreement — they went wild; they were so happy — for the simple reason that it put our country, the United States of America, which we all love, at a very, very big economic disadvantage. A cynic would say the obvious reason for economic competitors and their wish to see us remain in the agreement is so that we continue to suffer this self-inflicted major economic wound. We would find it very hard to compete with other countries from other parts of the world.
We have among the most abundant energy reserves on the planet, sufficient to lift millions of America’s poorest workers out of poverty. Yet, under this agreement, we are effectively putting these reserves under lock and key, taking away the great wealth of our nation — it’s great wealth, it’s phenomenal wealth; not so long ago, we had no idea we had such wealth — and leaving millions and millions of families trapped in poverty and joblessness.
The agreement is a massive redistribution of United States wealth to other countries. At 1 percent growth, renewable sources of energy can meet some of our domestic demand, but at 3 or 4 percent growth, which I expect, we need all forms of available American energy, or our country — (applause) — will be at grave risk of brownouts and blackouts, our businesses will come to a halt in many cases, and the American family will suffer the consequences in the form of lost jobs and a very diminished quality of life.
Even if the Paris Agreement were implemented in full, with total compliance from all nations, it is estimated it would only produce a two-tenths of one degree — think of that; this much — Celsius reduction in global temperature by the year 2100. Tiny, tiny amount. In fact, 14 days of carbon emissions from China alone would wipe out the gains from America — and this is an incredible statistic — would totally wipe out the gains from America’s expected reductions in the year 2030, after we have had to spend billions and billions of dollars, lost jobs, closed factories, and suffered much higher energy costs for our businesses and for our homes.
As the Wall Street Journal wrote this morning: “The reality is that withdrawing is in America’s economic interest and won’t matter much to the climate.” The United States, under the Trump administration, will continue to be the cleanest and most environmentally friendly country on Earth. We’ll be the cleanest. We’re going to have the cleanest air. We’re going to have the cleanest water. We will be environmentally friendly, but we’re not going to put our businesses out of work and we’re not going to lose our jobs. We’re going to grow; we’re going to grow rapidly. (Applause.)
And I think you just read — it just came out minutes ago, the small business report — small businesses as of just now are booming, hiring people. One of the best reports they’ve seen in many years.
I’m willing to immediately work with Democratic leaders to either negotiate our way back into Paris, under the terms that are fair to the United States and its workers, or to negotiate a new deal that protects our country and its taxpayers. (Applause.)
So if the obstructionists want to get together with me, let’s make them non-obstructionists. We will all sit down, and we will get back into the deal. And we’ll make it good, and we won’t be closing up our factories, and we won’t be losing our jobs. And we’ll sit down with the Democrats and all of the people that represent either the Paris Accord or something that we can do that’s much better than the Paris Accord. And I think the people of our country will be thrilled, and I think then the people of the world will be thrilled. But until we do that, we’re out of the agreement.
I will work to ensure that America remains the world’s leader on environmental issues, but under a framework that is fair and where the burdens and responsibilities are equally shared among the many nations all around the world.
No responsible leader can put the workers — and the people — of their country at this debilitating and tremendous disadvantage. The fact that the Paris deal hamstrings the United States, while empowering some of the world’s top polluting countries, should dispel any doubt as to the real reason why foreign lobbyists wish to keep our magnificent country tied up and bound down by this agreement: It’s to give their country an economic edge over the United States. That’s not going to happen while I’m President. I’m sorry. (Applause.)
My job as President is to do everything within my power to give America a level playing field and to create the economic, regulatory and tax structures that make America the most prosperous and productive country on Earth, and with the highest standard of living and the highest standard of environmental protection.
Our tax bill is moving along in Congress, and I believe it’s doing very well. I think a lot of people will be very pleasantly surprised. The Republicans are working very, very hard. We’d love to have support from the Democrats, but we may have to go it alone. But it’s going very well.
The Paris Agreement handicaps the United States economy in order to win praise from the very foreign capitals and global activists that have long sought to gain wealth at our country’s expense. They don’t put America first. I do, and I always will. (Applause.)
The same nations asking us to stay in the agreement are the countries that have collectively cost America trillions of dollars through tough trade practices and, in many cases, lax contributions to our critical military alliance. You see what’s happening. It’s pretty obvious to those that want to keep an open mind.
At what point does America get demeaned? At what point do they start laughing at us as a country? We want fair treatment for its citizens, and we want fair treatment for our taxpayers. We don’t want other leaders and other countries laughing at us anymore. And they won’t be. They won’t be.
I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris.
I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris. (Applause.) I promised I would exit or renegotiate any deal which fails to serve America’s interests. Many trade deals will soon be under renegotiation. Very rarely do we have a deal that works for this country, but they’ll soon be under renegotiation. The process has begun from day one. But now we’re down to business.
Beyond the severe energy restrictions inflicted by the Paris Accord, it includes yet another scheme to redistribute wealth out of the United States through the so-called Green Climate Fund — nice name — which calls for developed countries to send $100 billion to developing countries all on top of America’s existing and massive foreign aid payments. So we’re going to be paying billions and billions and billions of dollars, and we’re already way ahead of anybody else. Many of the other countries haven’t spent anything, and many of them will never pay one dime.
The Green Fund would likely obligate the United States to commit potentially tens of billions of dollars of which the United States has already handed over $1 billion — nobody else is even close; most of them haven’t even paid anything — including funds raided out of America’s budget for the war against terrorism. That’s where they came. Believe me, they didn’t come from me. They came just before I came into office. Not good. And not good the way they took the money.
In 2015, the United Nation’s departing top climate officials reportedly described the $100 billion per year as “peanuts,” and stated that “the $100 billion is the tail that wags the dog.” In 2015, the Green Climate Fund’s executive director reportedly stated that estimated funding needed would increase to $450 billion per year after 2020. And nobody even knows where the money is going to. Nobody has been able to say, where is it going to?
Of course, the world’s top polluters have no affirmative obligations under the Green Fund, which we terminated. America is $20 trillion in debt. Cash-strapped cities cannot hire enough police officers or fix vital infrastructure. Millions of our citizens are out of work. And yet, under the Paris Accord, billions of dollars that ought to be invested right here in America will be sent to the very countries that have taken our factories and our jobs away from us. So think of that.
There are serious legal and constitutional issues as well. Foreign leaders in Europe, Asia, and across the world should not have more to say with respect to the U.S. economy than our own citizens and their elected representatives. Thus, our withdrawal from the agreement represents a reassertion of America’s sovereignty. (Applause.) Our Constitution is unique among all the nations of the world, and it is my highest obligation and greatest honor to protect it. And I will.
Staying in the agreement could also pose serious obstacles for the United States as we begin the process of unlocking the restrictions on America’s abundant energy reserves, which we have started very strongly. It would once have been unthinkable that an international agreement could prevent the United States from conducting its own domestic economic affairs, but this is the new reality we face if we do not leave the agreement or if we do not negotiate a far better deal.
The risks grow as historically these agreements only tend to become more and more ambitious over time. In other words, the Paris framework is a starting point — as bad as it is — not an end point. And exiting the agreement protects the United States from future intrusions on the United States’ sovereignty and massive future legal liability. Believe me, we have massive legal liability if we stay in.
As President, I have one obligation, and that obligation is to the American people. The Paris Accord would undermine our economy, hamstring our workers, weaken our sovereignty, impose unacceptable legal risks, and put us at a permanent disadvantage to the other countries of the world. It is time to exit the Paris Accord — (applause) — and time to pursue a new deal that protects the environment, our companies, our citizens, and our country.
It is time to put Youngstown, Ohio, Detroit, Michigan, and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania — along with many, many other locations within our great country — before Paris, France. It is time to make America great again. (Applause.) Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much.
I’m not the partying type, but when & where is the party?
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GregS said:
Anywhere you like! Organise one! 🙂
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Well there is a party at my place, but we can accept no more guests. Supplies of that dangerous radiative gas N2O are running critically low.
But the price of admission was already set. Single malt. 18 years. You know the drill …
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This is absolutey *BEUTIFUL!*
Snark galore!
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/06/01/top-7-worst-reasons-keep-paris-climate-accord/
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This is absolutey *BEAUTIFUL!*
Snark galore!
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/06/01/top-7-worst-reasons-keep-paris-climate-accord/
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In the USA! Party, Battalion Style!
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I tag this very sound warning from Clive James in today’s Oz to #1.
“I speak as one who knows nothing about the mathematics involved in modelling non-linear systems. But I do know quite a lot about the mass media, and far too much about the abuse of language. So I feel qualified to advise against any triumphalist urge to compare the apparently imminent disintegration of the alarmist cause to the collapse of a house of cards.”
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/inquirer/western-climate-change-alarmists-wont-admit-they-are-wrong/news-story/892c0088ec01f9186e068f55f2ca6794
Stop the cheering and get on with the fighting! My recommendation is to shift the emphasis to education on atmospheric CO2, not warming directly.
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I tag this very sound warning from Clive James in today’s Oz to #1.
“I speak as one who knows nothing about the mathematics involved in modelling non-linear systems. But I do know quite a lot about the mass media, and far too much about the abuse of language. So I feel qualified to advise against any triumphalist urge to compare the apparently imminent disintegration of the alarmist cause to the collapse of a house of cards.”
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/inquirer/western-climate-change-alarmists-wont-admit-they-are-wrong/news-story/892c0088ec01f9186e068f55f2ca6794
Stop the cheering and get on with the fighting! My recommendation is to shift the emphasis to education on atmospheric CO2, not warming directly.
32
I’m not so sure, Ted. The first step, surely, is to call out the “climate problem” for what it really is – not a scientific one but a political one, designed to redistribute the wealth of the West, particularly the US to the third world. Various UN figures have already admitted this, see Our Jo caling out Ottmar Edenhoffer, IPCC leader. Also the notorious Christiana Figueres –
also:
We are not going to win the war if we choose the wrong target(s). I think the Pres’ move is probably the first real attempt to come to terms with the real problem.
Trump makes our limp-wristed pollies look ignorant and foolish by comparison.
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Allen its not good enough, the pseudo Marxists sympathisers I talk to say Trump is only concerned about the redistribution of wealth from a first world country to the third world.
He doesn’t have a clue on the science and he doesn’t care what happens to the planet or our grandkids.
So I propose we do everything in our power to split the Liberal Party, using science as a wedge. Cory Bernardi has been in NSW drumming up support for AC amongst disgruntled Liberals who hate what the ‘moderates’ have done to the Party.
So the best outcome would be a split and all those votes going to AC, but we must feed Cory short sound bites like CO2 does not cause global warming. Otherwise he may struggle.
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Sorry, don’t know how I did the double post.
I finished the article and recommend it highly, worth buying the Weekend Oz if necessary to read it. Page 15.
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It was worth posting twice!
31
Tahiti looks nice!
21
As long as the overall affect is not creating an equivelent Paris style agreement on CAGW, all good.
Also, Trump had the opportunity to kill off NAFTA, but wimped out. NAFTA is just as dangerous to national soverignty as the Paris agreement ever was….
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How does a free trade agreement threaten sovereignty? A US citizen freely buying something he or she wants is an expression if freedom and individual sovereignty. Being forced to buy lower quality and/or higher priced goods and services is a restrict of freedom.
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Tim, it has to do with conflict resolution. The treaty established a special court for working these issues out, making that outside the purview of the supreme court.
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NAFTA makes the USA lose its national sovereignty. You should research it….
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Jo, to quote Faulkner, you have not only endured but I believe you will prevail. As one of the last surviving daily blogs along with Anthony, (McIntyre having pretty much stopped and Bishop Hill joining GWPF) you have provided me with a lifeline to sanity for years now. I’ve said as much in comments to the NY Times earlier today.
Now to concentrate on the UNFCCC and the Endangerment Finding, which Pruitt seems unaccountably reluctant to work on.
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Lance, thanks! And it’s a Team Effort, I could not have done it without help from people like you — you’re so quick to reply in emails with information, and there are so many others, especially those doing the hard research, which takes so many hours and is so thankless. (Think BOM Audit team, David Evans, there are too many to name here. ) And thanks to all the scientific philanthropists who keep us going with their financial support.
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Allons enfants de la patrie,
Le jour de gloire est arrive,
Quoi! ces cohorts etrangeres
Feraient la loi dans nos foyers?
Ne jamais.
Time to hit the tip jar, support
a forum for liberty for the cost
of a bottle of French champagne.
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BOM Audit team?
Is that Lance Pilgrim and Jennifer Marohasy?
Anyway, when the celebrations are over maybe we can here more about their discoveries. I am sure that the BOM has been up to no good.
Professor Sandland’s review committee is due to meet again soon. I was going to write to him and request a proper review of the ACORN SAT temperature warming homogenisation process which they failed to do over the past two years.
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Don’t forget Paul Homewood.
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Paul Homewood is a good place to go, picking up a lot of the slack from Bishop Hill: https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com
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“the Endangerment Finding, which Pruitt seems unaccountably reluctant to work on.”
That “Endangerment Finding” is no longer available at the US-EPA site!
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I wish Australia had a leader who would put the Australian people first.
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I am concerned that we have leaders on both sides who would happily put the Australian people first, out in front of them and the enemy.
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Would? You mean they already have. Turnbull and the like have already gone a long way to destroying our economy by letting electricity and gas prices go through the roof. It will be complete in a few short years if nothing changes. If Trump were in charge here he would have scolded so many leaders including many business leaders for being so weak and pathetic. Instead we have leaders like Turnbull and Shorten who are fanning the flames of destruction.
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The bottom line is the people either speak or they don’t. Trump was elected because the people spoke. Your problem is that you are allowing the wrong voice of the people to dominate the political conversation. You want a Trump in and a Turnbull out? Out shout the people that support them. Find your candidates that will do what is needed and back them to the hilt. You won’t get new leadership sitting home, not voting, and whining about what you have.
They won’t be perfect. They will have warts and have done things that they probably shouldn’t have, but if you want change, you have to support the people that will cause change. Allowing the “party machinery” to make the choice for you won’t get you change. Look at the Republican party in the US as a perfect example. Had the machinery chose the candidate, we would either have Jeb Bush or Hillary Clinton. The people spoke. Do the same but recognize that no matter how perfect your candidate is, the media will try its best to destroy them. Stand by them until the final vote is cast.
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As I have said many times one has to be an idiot to vote for either major party today. It’s tantamount to someone saying I hate being spanked but then bends over and asks to be spanked even harder.
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I got an email from my local congresswoman today. She has turned into a RINO (Republican in Name Only). She is in her second term. I have donated to her campaign in the past.
Among other topics in the emails was the removal of the US from the Paris agreement. She says that it is a mistake.
I sent her an email requesting that my name be removed from he campaign mailing list. I have informed her that no more donations will be forthcoming towards her campaign. I have also informed her that I will be supporting any primary challenger that may run against her.
We all need to do things like this. It is harder in Australia, as the pre-selections are done internally by the parties, not by elections. We all need to make the effort!
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Not sure where you hail from but the Australian system isn’t like that, the parliamentary party room selects the house leader and the house leader of the majority party becomes the Prime Minister. The best we get to do is select our member, and assuming they stick to their principles hope they choose a conservative leader. The only hope for us is a third choice emerging, enough votes for a third choice and we can get a hung parliament forced into coalition with the third choice. The public is very close to that but not quite there yet.
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Yes it is. I said “party” not “leader”. We all can elect whatever party that is available in our own electorate.
31
I blame smart phones….allows people to be fed be and makes then think they are way smarter than they are….divide and conquer….
31
….should read ” fed bs”….
11
I call them dumbing down phones. You no longer need to learn anything as it can all be looked up on your phone!
31
Agreed….I like saying people these days are often as only as smart as their internet connections….
21
Dennis
Leaders like that G & S duke who “lead his regiment from behind, he found it less exciting”
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We have no such leader. Its partisan politics all the way to oblivion.
A small lift in interest rates will cause house prices to fall in Melbourne and Sydney. Australia’s GDP (measured by debt, otherwise known as money printing) will fall with them.
G’bye AAA.
All the rent seekers have destroyed the trough.
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GDP is not measured by debt. It is the sum if goods and services produced or consumed. And QE is about liquidity, not debt.
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The P in GDP is supposed to be production. Australia doesn’t produce anything yet, so we can only measure debt now.
51
Augh, not anything yet. Anything anymore.
11
If GDP was purely the sum of goods and services produced, and consumed—if that were the real case then there would be no inflation and no regular economic collapses followed by recession. It is the debt-fuelled speculative activity which creates the appearance of growth and triggers the inevitable collapse.
Inflation is caused, they say, “by too much money chasing too few goods.” Actually, it is caused by too much credit which is created out of thin air, speculating in the land market for immediate profit. Land is not a good, as it is not created, but is a natural resource in limited and fixed supply. It is behind most of the apparent growth. Neither is credit. Both are counted as part of GDP. When they become well out of proportion, becoming the significant portion, the inevitable “correction” occurs and lots of people lose their shirts, jobs and even homes.
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QE is money printing pure and simple the USA is really the only player that can truly get away with it because the demand for dollars is able to keep the price up – only because it is a reserve currency. It works like this, the reserve bank buys up debt that is clogging up lending creating the money out of thin air.( printing money without the printing) the purchases take the debt out of the banking system effectively recapitalising the bank. The bank can lend more money, so overall QE allows debt to grow unbounded and increases the money supply by the amount it spends on buying the securities.
This is probably alright if the reserve bank cancels the money that it holds in securities as the debtors repay but it doesn’t, as the economy improves they sell the debt securities back into the market, so the fictitious money they buy them with stays in the economy. So far they have gotten away with this ponzi scam, but it could and might still go very wrong.
11
If you did, would you have an intelligence apparatus that would actively undermine him, or her, like we do here in ‘Merika?
11
If you did, would you have an intelligence apparatus seeking to actively undermine him, or her, like we do here in ‘Merika?
10
sorry for double post, wifi glitch
10
All is forgiven.
00
I wish [list the countries of the World] had leaders that put their people first.
And then there’s the odd, developing exception of New Zealand isn’t there, where the Globalism Cult spans the political spectrum and where destructive cultural identity politics have ensured that there is no such thing as a New Zealander, replaced instead by a legally fractionated populous, each having differing rights and abilities to hold unelected positions of power and influence. The time for push back against ALL UN driven social, environmental and prosperity wrecking policies is now.
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That’s nothing Mr President, Australia, for no logical purpose, is shutting down coal-burning power generation while exporting it in enormous quantities to China South Korea Japan India etc., coal being the second most valuable export behind iron ore that pays for all those cars refrigerators computers etc. imported.
As someone from North America on WUWT commented recently ‘Australians love to sit in a corner and hit themselves over the head with a hammer’.
711
And remain silent while the Greens claim that all the emissions from Coal burnt overseas should be counted in Australia’s emission tally.
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Today I have written to my local Federal MP (Julie Bishop, Member for the electorate of Curtin) requesting that Australia follows the excellent example set by the USA and withdraws from the Paris Climate Accord. Of course she will not take the slightest notice, but at least I put in a little bit of pressure to counteract all the howls of protest from the Green Left and the sanctimonious biased reporting of “Their” ABC.
Go for it, Donald! At least you are working for the future of my grandchildren.
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Good on you John. Ms Bishop is my local member too.
She’s missing in action. Or should that be inaction?
I’ve given up writing to her. At best I get an acknowledgement from one of her staff. Three lines. Zombie prose. They don’t want to know.
In all the years I lived here in Subi I’ve never seen her locally. Never a door knock. Never a Rokeby Road walk. Never a club or bar visit. She’s a ghost in her electorate. A total dead loss. She’s nothing more than a poseur in the local papers.
An exemplar for the Liberal Party in general.
What a pity the Nationals don’t run a candidate in Curtin.
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Thank you Sam. It would be nice to be represented by Barnaby Joyce wouldn’t it?
12
Ah, John.
I note you have been awarded a Badge of Honour by the lurking leftie.
Well done.
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Sceptics need not be worried that the US will renegotiate and re-commit to supporting pseudo-science.
The governments of Italy, France, and Germany Thursday flatly rejected U.S. President Donald Trump’s offer to renegotiate the Paris climate accord:
“We deem the momentum generated in Paris in December 2015 irreversible and we firmly believe that the Paris Agreement cannot be renegotiated, since it is a vital instrument for our planet, societies and economies,”
In their bitter rage they have given Trump exactly what he wanted. He has won bigly.
What a glorious day!
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He said “if we can renegotiate a deal that is fair for America, that’s fine. If we cant negotiate a deal – that’s fine too”. Clearly, he is not expecting to, does not want to and does not care if he doesn’t.
Wonderful to watch!
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The next five years are going to be very interesting to watch, as the Sun does its thing. Will colder, rougher winters become more common? Will HurryCanes and TC’s become bigger and nastier? Will the regular weather become very irregular? Will crop failures fail more often? Will WWIII occur?
Predicting … ahm, projecting is going to become even more fraught with inaccuracy.
Every now and then, some regions will have a warm one and many/some of its residents will run around exclaiming that warming is still there, and the models projected this and the sea ice surrounding Tasmania, NZ, blocking Cape Town’s harbour and burying Drake’s Passage is proof of continuing warming and the sealevel rise hasn’t stopped, it’s just building up out in the middle of the Pacific to come rushing in when all this extra sea ice has melted.
One thing we have learnt: Fruit cakes never change, they just become ever more mouldy.
Trump seems to be keeping his promise.
YAAAAAAAY! Some sanity! Long may it last. May it grow and prosper.
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That popping sound we hear is not applause … it’s exploding melons.
🙂
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WWIII has been under way for some time. This is just one battle that our side has won. Don’t let up for a moment!
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If there is a renegotiation then certain facts will be laid on the table for all to see. Among those facts will be costs/gains differential as highlighted by the likes of Bjorn Longberg, the observed and insignificant ECS of co2 as pointed out by the likes of Dr Curry, the failed models, the failed predictions, the pause, the non accelerated and insignificant rate of sea level rise, the manipulated data, the biased and dishonest papers, the growth of coal power in Asia, the 0% of wind power produced, the disaster of the renewables push in Europe and especially Germany……
They are not going to seek to renegotiate.
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“Konrad
June 2, 2017 at 4:42 pm · Reply
Sceptics need not be worried that the US will renegotiate and re-commit to supporting pseudo-science.”
More importantly, China and India are in the President’s sights and THEY won’t be doing any deals to hurt themselves. He’s on to a sure thing.
60
The turkeys enthusiastically voting for Christmas!
Good luck with that comrades. You richly deserve every travail that is coming your way.
120
And Italy owes the EU Central bank HOW much????
00
I have just listened to the entire 30 minutes of Trump’s speech. Great delivery – he had notes but was able to move away from them at times and be himself. He wasted little time on the “scientific” argument, except to point out that if everybody, including the US, kept to the Paris agreement, temperatures would drop by only 0.2C by 2100, but concentrated instead on the economic and nationalistic arguments, to which there can be no denial. He said that the deal was a bad one for the US, while China and India got away scot free. He said he was looking after American jobs. He said he was elected to look after Pittsburg, not Paris.
You have to love the man.
Now, we all have to go after the Waffler from Wentworth. I don’t remember ever voting to sign up to the Paris agreement.
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My comment #7 is in moderation. Not sure why, perhaps I was rude to our dear PM?
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If you weren’t rude I want to know why not.!
280
Graham, I did call him a Waf*ler – me bad?
120
That’s not how you spell wanker.
110
Umm …
banker?money-lender?pawnbroker,usurer, ah, what the heck. I once worked for one of those institutions. They were all Shylocks.30
PeterPetrum:
Your mistake was to call him ‘dear’. In fact he is bl**dy expensive.
40
denial ! ?
10
Isn’t de Nile in Africa?
10
I lost my patience with ‘moderation’ some time ago. Wound up in it for too long, too often, and for no discernible reason.
20
Also, the preview button has not been working for some time.
30
I’m just very glad that Jo runs this blog and we have the opportunity to communicate with like-minded people.
Good on yer Jo! 😉
40
But I heard the Waffler state loud and clear that “WE” will stick with the Paris Agreement.
But he didn’t ask me either.
80
We, him and Julie Bishop, we! See how it works
40
Not the royal ‘we’ but a republican one, meaning just themselves. They certainly don’t speak for me.
20
Excuse me Peter,
I don’t understand why this nonsense is spouted as indisputable fact, even by POTUS. He may need better writers? The devil always lies in the detail and to have been precise in this regard would have sent an enhanced signal to the goons of the Globalism Cult, the MSM and possibly undermined the audience of the gullible.
40
” He wasted little time on the “scientific” argument, except to point out that if everybody, including the US, kept to the Paris agreement, temperatures would drop by only 0.2C by 2100,”
Even that has absolutely NO scientific validity whatsoever! Now is the time to build Nuclear Power plants like mad; for all electrical power needs including metal refining, that always needs coal , not for power but for the reduction process itself!
No pure carbon; no iron, steel, aluminum, titanium, or magnesium! Only the oxides thereof! All other hydrocarbons need be reserved as lubricants, and the production of insulation, to lessen the effects of Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Stupidity (CAGS). 🙂
80
I forgot silver, zinc, tin, copper, brass, bronze, lead, uranium tungsten and tungsten carbide! The lesser metals. Are useful molybdenum, germanium, silicon, arsenic, metals? Please call out the many oxides I still missed, sorry! 🙂
00
Does Carbon help in reducing the oxides of beryllium, lithium, or the best (most powerful) metal hydrogen? Are carbon electrodes the best for reducing di-hydrogen oxide (hydrogen acid\base)? DC separates, AC provides bestus mixture for ‘plosion! Were you never a kid? 🙂
20
“Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Stupidity (CAGS).”
No need for ‘belief’; but consideration may be wise!
10
Yabba Dabba Do
190
LOL 🙂
90
Jo, maybe David Evans might stand a chance of getting his papers on heat loss to space published now. About time.
310
David Evans should be advising Trump on Climate Science, why not contact his team?, seriously they can only say no and you never know……
131
While you’ve got him on the phone, tell him I’ll be glad to serve as American Ambassador to Gondwanaland for $1/year. I speak all the languages.
30
“:Jo, maybe David Evans might stand a chance of getting his papers on heat loss to space published now. About time.”
Sir David is fine engineer, never a skyintest! Engineers have vast problems of understanding ‘what’; which is never constant, but gleefully leave all of ‘why’ to ignorant arrogant academics!
Engineers do not want publication, as whatever they wrote is no longer correct!
All the best!-will-
20
Could this be the start of a US led economic recovery at home and abroad?
210
You can only ride on the US’s coat tails if you leave it with its coat.
70
I like that!
10
You can only ride on the wealth of the rich if you leave them with enough money to make more wealth.
40
“You can only ride on the wealth of the rich if you leave them with enough money to make more wealth.”
Perhaps! Currently the US population rides on the tiny red wagon pulled by P45 in whatever direction.
You ‘want to get off’; please do!
10
First celebratory beer down the hatch – second one being topped right now.
YAHOO – at LAST someone in a position of power with the cajones to tell it as it is and give a big middle finger to the establishment.
He is in the process of “draining the swamp” and LOL, the ABC is in MELTDOWN – hahahhahahahahahahhahahaha
Cheers,
360
I’ll assume it’s the celebratory beer talking bad, or let’s say unintended, Spanish…
cajones = drawers
cojones = what you meant
Well, whatever. Go the Donald!
70
Whenever the responsible minister hapless Josh Frydenberg is asked awkward questions about the pointlessness of our energy policy he aways falls back on ‘we have signed on to the Paris Agreement’ excuse, well now is the time to renegotiate it in the light of this event or simply renege and see what happens.
390
Renegotiate? Walk away.
360
What are they going to do? Not invite us to their parties at the UN? Send the European army? Sneer?
These international agreements are rubbish. Besides, as Tony Abbott never fails to point out, we can just grow trees. How hard is that? Especially when the Greens are chopping down forests to put up windmills.
360
TdeF, renegotiate , walk away, yes its straight out of ” The art of the deal ” that’s the brilliance of Trump that they don’t understand , be prepared to walk away from the table so that you are the one that owns the leverage, when negotiations start again they will realise that The Donald holds all the ” TRUMP CARDS ” .
100
Very much enjoyed reading Trump’s speech – thanks for providing the full transcript. I wonder if our ABC or their BBC will provide the whole thing, or will they just emote at full volume? Happy days!
370
Someone should force it down Turnbull’s throat, as h will barely eyeball it.
00
The next Liberal leader will need to be listening very hard…but no longer just to the shill media, the celebritariat, the data torturers, the Holocene deniers, singers, dancers, sword-swallowers, Living National Treasures, inner-urban luvviedom, Whinger of the Year or Pope Junta.
We, the punters, have begun to be heard. And Jo has been one reason for that.
So it’s well done, Jo Nova.
532
It will be very interesting to get Turnbull and Bishop’s take on this announcement. Dear me. Hopefully they are both out of a job by June 30th and warming the back benches, in Abbott’s old spot.
380
I take it you mean warming the benches in the local park!!
170
No, not the park, that’s where many of the 1 in every 8 Australians now live in poverty, thousands homeless including children.
Far less important to look after people in trouble at home than to pretend to be looking after their world.
40
And the prophets of climate catastrophe have come forth, saying that there will be hail, earthquake, flooding downpours, fire and sulfur, lightning, poisoned air, and disease. Can’t wait to document their prophecies – but just watch, they won’t be about 2020, rather about the destiny of our children’s children.
Just perhaps we can now get back to helping the poor of the world improve their well being with no more wars, clean water, low cost energy and abundant crops.
330
“saying that there will be hail, earthquake, flooding downpours, fire and sulfur, lightning, poisoned air, and disease”
Well. it is likely we are heading into a cooling period,
… so some of these will become more likely.
193
If the Northern Hemisphere has more winters like this last one, which wiped out most of the winter crops, then abundancy in the crop department may well be what they will be praying for.
As AndyG55 has pointed out, we are likely heading into a cooling period. Northern spring has been very late, so it will be a short growing period for the summer and maybe an early winter. Again. The cold and hungry may well end up setting fire to the cities to keep warm.
51
We went down to the coast yesterday afternoon (in Cyprus) and I regretted not taking a jacket. There was a cold wind…this is early June in Cyprus, for heaven’s sake! 🙁
10
I do not remember the same vitriol and hatred and murderous intent when the promoters of Global Warming and the politicians conspired to tax the people to death. Apparently that was democracy too, except the people had no say. On many issues, the people increasingly have no say at all and they are told what to believe, what to do and how much to pay by the political classes and their minions in Washington and Canberra and the patronizing journalist cliques.
So the deplorables have spoken. Plus a lot of good, perfectly honest and real scientists. Al Gore is not one of them. So why did he get a Nobel Peace Prize? Peace? Why was Tim Flannery made Australian of the Year? What good did he do for anyone? You can list the harm and immense cost of his errors. So the elites reward their own and they absolutely hate democracy and losing. We should all be like Venezuela or Cuba or China. Perhaps they can migrate?
441
So typical from the left of politics, from Breibart, Kathy Griffin is complaining she has been bullied by the Trump family and has called in the lawyers. Presumably bullied by 10 year old Baron Trump, who was clearly upset by her presentation of his father’s severed head dripping. So she is now claiming she is the victim and upset?
Perhaps Leonardo Di Caprio can justify her action or Alec Baldwin? Especially now that Trump has shown his truly evil nature by keeping his campaign promises. In the days of Reagan, Hollywood people could be admired as fighters for actors’ rights and royalties and democracy and even for their country. Now they live overseas, the mansions are empty and they seem to despise America and democracy.
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Trump is indeed a trump.He has given cogent reasons for his decision to abandon the Paris agreement.The language he uses is his own,and demonstrates love and respect for his own people.This, I hope and pray,is the beginning of the end for the absurd global warming hoax.
511
Obama played the race card.
Hillary played the gender card.
America just played the Trump card.
750
Very clever Konrad – I like your style.
Cheers,
130
I LIKE that – can I use it please?
140
To be fair, it’s not mine. It’s been doing the rounds of the Interwebs since this happened:
2016 election map district level.
100
With honesty like that you’ll never make a Democrat!
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Thanks Conrad. I meant to save that after the election and could not find it again. So much for “Hitlery won the popular vote” – Trump won 95% of the territory. If it had not been for the California coast, Washington, NY, Seattle and Boston, all huge Democrat population centres, he would have romped home on votes as well as Electoral College votes and geographical territories. He won, they hate it.
110
It has been calculated that once the illegals and non naturalised Americans who were allowed and even encouraged to vote particularly in Democrat controlled states are removed from the voting numbers, Trump is likely to or had come very close to winning the US popular vote as well.
80
I hope Trump uses it in his 2020 campaign.
I suspect there might be some electoral reform in the US by then. Trump is moving slowly, methodically and in accordance with his election promises, and voter ID and roll reform will be fundamental to his next win.
I haven’t looked lately but I believe Clinton also won Nevada and New Jersey. She cleaned up in all the mafia strongholds. This might just be a regular characteristic of Democrat wins or an indicator of US demographics, but it isn’t something I would be proud of if I was a pollie.
60
This makes an interesting backdrop to release of the Finkel report on June 9th.
How could USA/Trump get the numbers so wrong about firm targets for intermittents causing job losses when the CSIRO show energy from intermittents costs less and will underpin economic growth! Who is wrong – USA number crunchers or CSIRO? Will the Finkel report provide a dose of reality or promise of more CSIRO fairy dust.
Right now 1640, 2nd June AEST, all the wind turbines in Australia are producing 70MW, about 2% of capacity or 0.3% of NEM demand. Imagine how much installed wind capacity is actually required to power the economy.
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It’s just like a public service research body (a contradiction in terms) to justify doing nothing. Clearly we can all work for the government and have no unemployment. We just need a bigger CSIRO/ABC/SBS/Public Service. We can buy energy and workers, engineers and scientists from overseas, like everything else. I saw a TV advertisement two nights ago where they claimed they invented WiFi. They didn’t.
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It is my understanding that US patent 5487069 was awarded as a result of hardware built for radio astronomy purposes by the CSIRO. This technology was one of the building blocks of ‘wi-fi’ as we know it, so, no, technically, they didn’t invent wi-fi, but they did make a significant contribution to it.
30
I am very pessimistic about what Dr Alan Finkel will have to say in his report on affordability, reliability and sustainability of the national electricity market. In front of a Senate committee he was very clearly pro Paris. The chief scientist said America’s exit from the agreement would be “a blow to the accord” but “not fatal”. “I don’t see any credible competing opinion to the core suppositions of climate science.” So I expect him to support the renewable target, and propose batteries as backup, and project that “soon” it will all come good and reduce electricity prices.
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Finkel will praise Paris. That decision was made when he was given the job. it is a Yes Minister inquiry set up to validate the politicians decisions. South Australia should be a salutary lesson in how bad the results can be, but somehow the ‘market’ will be blamed. Capitalists are always the problem and that is anyone who is not on the Government payroll.
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You are absolutely correct. Finkle is completely unimpressive. Malcolm Roberts asked him to produce the empiricle date to support his contention that anthropogenic CO2 was a driver of warming. He smirked and said he would try, clearly indicating that it was the last thing he would try and do. He should have known before he came to the Senate hearing, but clearly his brand of science does not encompass this subject.
241
Finkle can’t see any credible competing opinion because he has his eyes squeezed shut, his fingers in his ears and is screaming “correlation equals causation” at the top of his lungs.
That a man tasked with the role of Chief Scientist could support the AGW conjecture when there is no empirical evidence to support its foundation claim that “The sun alone could only heat the surface materials of this planet to an average of 255K(-18C) in the absence of radiative gases” is truly shameful.
There is some minor consolation in that Finkles’s shame will burn on the Internet forever.
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Finkle’s not the first one Konrad.
Remember Chubb? The Labor/Green patsy. The “scientist” who didn’t know what they called a cyclone in the Northern Hemisphere, and admitted it in evidence to a Senate Committee.
They have a breeding programme for these boofheads in Canberra.
51
Meanwhile, in the real world, thank goodness we still have coal-fired power stations in Australia. Right now, in South Australia, wind/solar is delivering 5 MW versus demand of 1552 MW, and in Victoria 13 MW versus demand of 6311 MW.
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Ah but the ACT is powered by 100% renewable power!
10
Well how surprising !…and what other states have hydro as their main energy source.?
10
They wish! The ACT takes all the hydro-power it is entitled to, but Victoria and NSW get most of it. That’s why they have to buy power from other sources, and it’s costing them plenty.
If they didn’t have access to fossil fuel power they would be freezing most nights in winter.
20
They should harness the hot air coming from a certain place there!
10
Please consider writing to President Trump to thank him.
[email protected]
Dear Mr. President,
I am writing to thank you for you courage in sticking to your election promise and withdrawing from the Paris Accord. I am not a US citizen, but Australian. However I believe your decision will benefit not just America, but most of the world.
With US money off the table, there is little reason for the majority of mendicant countries that signed this terrible deal to continue to support the failed AGW conjecture. The AGW conjecture has been the greatest scientific mistake in the history of mankind. In almost 200 years, those promoting this scare have never produced a shred of empirical evidence to support their foundation claim that the surface materials of this planet could only be heated to an average of 255K(-18C) in the absence of radiative gases. Without this most basic empirical evidence, acting on the AGW conjecture was shear folly.
I know you will face much criticism from the media who so heavily invested in this hoax. You will also face criticism from politicians, many in your own party, who also carry the shame. But around the world, scientifically literate citizens are cheering your decision. The Paris Accord wasn’t just a bad deal for America, but a bad deal for many industrialised democracies. Thank you for leading the way out.
401
Spelling mistake…
I am writing to thank you for your courage….
40
Dam it! How did that happen???
Spelling mistake…
I am writing to thank you for your courage….
30
Well spotted. Thankfully I spotted it too before I hit send on the email 😉
(the above was just cut and paste from the word processor before grammar check)
30
“Dam[n] it! How did that happen???”
Now you see why I send emails to the President of the United States before opening the celebratory Margaret River Shiraz 😉
100
I have a keyboard which makes those sorts of mistakes too.
I’ve just replaced it with a new one. Today.
Guess what?
The new one makes mistakes too, similar to, but different from, the old one! 🙁 … I thought I had dammed the river of errors thoroughly but it hasn’t damned well worked.
Oh, and sheer (high and steep …&c), not
shearfolly. Shear-ing is how wool is removed from sheep and money from sheeple.Good letter, though, and I share the sentiments expressed.
50
If you have a wireless keyboard/mouse be careful where you place the USB control plug in, too far away or close to other transmitting devices will interrupt the signal.
20
My keyboard also has problems.
Notice how close the “R” key is to the “T” key?
Anyway, suffice to say that I no longer sign off e-mails with “Regards”
Lesson learned . .
10
Ooops . .
Meant to say:
Notice how close the “G” key is to the “T” key?
Keyboards . . .
10
And what did our clown, the member for Goldman Sachs do?
Reaffirmed OUR commitment to the now totally dead Paris Agreement.
Talk about a suicidal ratbag, & the bugger wants to take us with him.
310
It’s not so hard to figure out why Turnbull the man from Goldman Sachs is here to keep us on the path of saving the world from global warming. There has been and still is bucket loads of money to be made.
110
Such actions are not MAKING money, as in wealth, it is only superficially legalized transfer of wealth taken by deception, false claims of scientific cause and effect, and the use of the power of the government gun. It is NOT based upon science, it is only cherry picked sciency sounding words and phrases with no fact, no coherent evidence, nor testable well defined theory behind them. As such, it isn’t even plausible BS nor honest conjecture.
81
Hasbeen
I wonder if this will up the ante on the shunt Malcolm front?
90
As Polyanna put it “I’m glad”, I very glad.
James Delingpole sums up the hysteria –
“We’re dealing not with science – still less with economics – but with a religion of crazed zealots quite incapable of rational thought or reasonable debate.
There can be no treating or compromising with such people, as Cersei understood when dealing with similarly dangerous loons – the Sparrows on Game of Thrones. Give them an inch – as I fear Trump may yet do – and these people will destroy you. And though I’m not suggesting that Trump literally employs the Cersei option against the eco zealots, I certainly think a bit of metaphorical Wildfire wouldn’t go amiss…”
Though promoting wholesale fear IS all about money and making people rich, very rich with little or no difference in the end, whenever that ‘end’ may be.
51
Jo, we all need to catch up for a drink soon.
Wooooooo hooooooo
90
One or more of the minor parties should invite Trump over to give a speech here on the economic and financial dangers of any country following the climate change agreements. It would expose and put to shame both major parties – hopefully so much it would shake them so badly they will completely change their tune on the concerns continuously raised about the risks of CO2 emissions. If not then the people will have to choose between economic suicide by electing either major party or change of direction by electing a completely new party to government.
70
Trump is adopting an “America First” approach. Fair enough. The rest of the free world has been benefitting from USA’s largesse since WW1. We need a factual conversation about real drivers of harmful climate change. For example the Australians, Dr John Nicol who has shown that CO2 cannot do the things IPCC accuses it of and Dr David Evans who has demonstrated severe shortcomings in the modelling that IPCC and most politicians rely upon. Thusfar we have been lead down a path that is emotion based rather than fact based. Unfortunately our decision makers are generally scientifically illiterate and our business leaders just focus on the next short term profit opportunity …we have been the victims of green propaganda and corporate greed. This green/greed combination threatens to destroy our economy. Hopefully Trump’s action injects some common sense back into the mix.
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‘Hopefully Trump’s action injects some common sense back into the mix.’
Only if he puts Happer and Curry to work, otherwise he maybe a one term president.
61
I’ve been watching centre-right new media in America. People were afraid that Trump would back off his election promise.
Now they are cheering their heads off. They love it! Typical comments are claiming that this one decision alone gets their vote in 2020.
210
Okay, but does he get out of Paris in one year?
10
Fun fact: he can do so in one year by just abandoning the UNFCCC as the three year exit limitation on that has already expired, and withdrawal renders all agreements based on that framework instantly null and void.
But Trump doesn’t even need to do that. Even if America sticks with the three year withdrawal period for just the Paris Accord, he can remove all US money from the table effective at the instant of his speech. This is what he has just done.
Originally I thought this guy was just Clive Palmer on steroids. I was so wrong. Bask in the glory of the avenger cannon:
Happy Burrrrrt Day!
110
Alright, what about the rest of the world?
In Australia the dictatorship (the ruling parties) are delusional and because we have a Westminster system there is no chance of a charismatic personality rising to the top.
If only Donald had said CO2 does not cause global warming, then I would raise my glass with our American cousins. As it stands, nothing has changed for us.
10
Delusional, or maybe brainwashed – the electorate, or only the ruling parties? If you don’t like the Westminster system or maybe even Her Majesty, consider voting with your feet, or seriously discussing a new Constitution.
20
‘…consider voting with your feet…’
Australia has a compulsory voting system so an ‘informal’ vote is my only option.
10
A-10 … how could they think of retiring it?
20
The US air-force always hated it. They never wanted to be fighting in the mud. It is now operated by the Air National Guard.
But each time the Pentagon tries to get rid of it, a new problem emerges that only the unique Warthog can answer, or a new weapons system is developed for helicopters that the A-10 can use better. (The latest is the laser guided mod of the 70mm hydra rocket. 152 precision laser guided rockets per aircraft plus the Avenger cannon?). Some are now even talking of a 21 century version of the A-10. I doubt the A-10 can now retire without a dedicated replacement.
To those who found the footage unduly militaristic, “Happy burrrt day” is a term used by US ground troops for getting help from above from the A-10. Just like the A-10, Trump may not be good looking, but he hammered the forces of evil from above when we most needed it.
20
So what do the rest of those European Climate Change Cultists do if Trump and America can’t be bothered following the protocols supposedly laid down for the way in which a nation will leave the Paris accord.
Will the European climate change wusses, the ones with the hot air driven fog horn voices, cross the big ditch and invade the USA and wave a big piece of official looking paper with the Eiffel tower figuring prominently on it in front of Trump and demand that he install turbines on the roof top of the White House to “save the planet”?
Nuh!
They will find anything with Made in the USA written on it and throw it out of their pram accompanied by howls of rage and choking on their tears of rage.
Go back a bit later and you will find them scrabbling down in the weeds looking for what they threw out of their pram as they suddenly realise that they need that Made in the USA thing to keep all those Chinese and Russian and Islamic and North Africans and Paki’s and Central Asians and etc out of their hair and off their patch.
61
Technically, all he needs to do is to rewrite the “climate commitments” to remove any commitments and to stop funding the rent seekers in Paris.
30
El Gordo,
a quick update:
Review of Trump’s exit speech has him late in the speech mentioning cancelling US payment into the GCF (green climate fund). This was part of the UN-FCCC, not the Paris Accord.
So it may well be that he is indeed going to use the fast-track method to get the US out of this madness.
I also believe the analysis of Peter Petrum up-thread is correct. While trump offered “re-negotiation” immediately after announcing withdrawal, he knew they would refuse. I no longer think this is a case of “who has Trump’s ear”. I now suspect that after so many years in property development Trump has a highly tuned “Crap Detector” and anything related to AGW has it pegged at 11.
61
‘….he’ll look after US citizens first, and renegotiate a deal that helps the environment and doesn’t punish the leading polluters.’
CO2 is not a pollutant and the Europeans won’t be renegotiating.
China said they would be happy to fill the vacuum, after all they are the biggest emitter.
90
Huffpo spins a yarn.
‘China surpassed the U.S. a decade ago as the top emitter of carbon pollution, and now produces roughly twice the American output. Still, Americans produce more carbon dioxide per person than any other country ― the figure is nearly double that of China, which has four times the population.’
20
Appointees of the EU Politariate would happily deal with China on our behalf unencumbered by the tedious constraints of direct democracy that keep POTUS honest or to a single term.
10
Beijing is the world’s largest producer of renewables, the yuan will soon be king.
20
Yuan who’s army ?
40
LOL 🙂
10
Much amusement, Beijing can’t believe their luck.
You maybe unaware that China is a benevolent dictatorship determined to save the planet for our grandchildren, not just a few white guys in Pittsburgh.
30
el gordo
I guess you need gas to fill a vaccuum
20
SUPERLATIVE NEWS!
He matched his campaign rhetoric with action this time.
This wasn’t meant to happen and it stiffs Goldman Sachs and the other banks and politicians who want a world fiat currency that they can control. (NB We have had a world currency for millennia, namely gold, a commodity currency that is the people’s choice of exchange medium rather than the bankers’ choice.) Climate change was their leading excuse for the coordination of global action.
(Worldwide free markets in goods but not in people or money, I say.)
80
Fifth from last paragraph exposes what lies behind the watermelons and the IPCC agenda:
“There are serious legal and constitutional issues as well. Foreign leaders in Europe, Asia, and across the world should not have more to say with respect to the U.S. economy than our own citizens and their elected representatives. Thus, our withdrawal from the agreement represents a reassertion of America’s sovereignty.”
The UN agenda is all about creating an unelected global government, bringing democracy to an end while leaving voters with the illusion that they live in a democracy, and of course the aim weaken western economies.
Restoring and reinvigorating democracy is what lies behind Brexit and behind Trump’s election – I hope that other sovereign (or once sovereign) nations will follow suit.
210
In the UK Telegraph, “Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein tweets for the first time ever to slam Donald Trump Paris decision”.
So the people who gave us the GFC don’t like it. Nothing could make me happier. Except the end of Turnbull’s Private Green Party.
250
Is Lloyd, Malcom’s boss?
As the head of GS his number one concern will be his companies and his own bottom line.
80
Possibly at some stage. One was head of Australia and the other world CEO. It hardly matters when you know they have the same views. How Turnbull gets away with the idea that he is interested in the welfare of Australians is beyond me. Abbott, clearly. Turnbull shows no interest in Australia and Australians. Like Hollywood, elites never do. Turnbull’s money is overseas.
90
TdeF
Tom Steyer says Trump is “committing a traitorous act of war against the American people.” This is ultra hypocritical as well because it is my understanding Steyer made a large portion of his fortune from the coal industry / trading in Asia.
50
I found it interesting that ABC News on Radio interviewed Tim Flannery on 2 June 2017 about Trump’s decision, after introducing him as “an author and climate change activist”.
No longer introduced as a climate change expert!
Nevertheless, ABC let him preach essentially unchallenged and signed off with a fawning acknowledgement of this climate wisdom.
Irony can’t be beaten when climate change and ABC are involved!
230
ABC nongs and Flannery. Left wing intelligentsia on display. Down the Rabbit hole they go!
50
City halls and landmarks turn green in support of Paris climate deal
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jun/02/city-halls-and-landmarks-turn-green-new-york-washington-montreal
Turning all the fossil-fuelled lights off would be the appropriate response as North Korea signed it.
Starve people and deprive them of energy and you, too, will achieve carbon nirvana.
181
Wonderful news!
I think it’s now essential that scientists who don’t believe in thermic Armageddon are now given a voice.
I sincerely hope that they’ll speak up loudly and clearly and that we’ll see an end to all the doom-mongering.
Congratulations Jo, for maintaining an island of scientific sanity – at last the tide is beginning to turn.
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What a great day. Let’s hope others follow the Donald and get rid of the climate scam and the green crap.
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You have heard of reversed psychology; well we now have reversed schizophrenic psychopathy. Anote Tong, former president of Kirabati who now spends much of his time saving the planet from his first class hotel in Paris has likened lone Donald Trump versus the 195 nations who signed up to the Paris agreement together with their screaming banner towing, Molotov cocktail throwing protesters – “a classroom bully”.
A bit like Anne Frank versus the Third Reich being called a thug?
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195 signed up but only 147 have ratified and are now “participants”.
Let’s hope the number of non-participating signatories keeps increasing.
50
Out of those 147 probably 140 are simply there for the free money, lets hope the US withdrawing starts a domino effect of dissention to bring this beast down.
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Finally a global leader willing to say the emperor has no clothes, and say no to the Paris Accord. Jo Nova, Steve McIntyre, WUWT and all the other skeptic voices which have educated so many on this issue are owed a big debt of gratitude. Watch now as other countries follow suit in some way, now that some leadership has been shown.
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Keith
Don’t forget Canada’s contribution – Kate at Small Dead Animals
” Why this blog?
Until this moment I have been forced to listen while media and politicians alike have told me “what Canadians think”. In all that time they never once asked.
This is just the voice of an ordinary Canadian yelling back at the radio – “You don’t speak for me.” “
50
China may be the biggest beneficiary of this US withdrawal.
28
Which country
waswould have been thev biggest beneficiary of the Paris deal ?50
The Fourth Reich.
50
Well the Third Reich will last 1000 years (mostly due to the efforts of Hollywood and endless BBC documentaries). They may have lost the war, but they won the uniform section. (Did you see what the Brits and the Yanks were wearing? You wouldn’t want to be seen dead it that! And there was a war on!!)
The UN is the fourth Reich. They don’t have snappy uniforms. Once defeated, they won’t fade from history, they’ll be forgotten in days.
20
Thank you Mr President.
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Pop goes the Bubble, pop,pop,pop ! And the ABC goes feral, as their belief system crashes….a thing of beauty.
Too bad for the lefties, no doubt flat out Twittering.
‘The Donald’…..You the man !
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‘John Bolton puts it perfectly. No wonder it’s been compared to Brexit. The underlying issues are identical.
90
Not a stitch from his head to his toes,
Applauded through Paris he goes,
Until Donald the Strong,
Tells the whole world they’re wrong,
Shouting, “that clown is wearing no clothes”.
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Beauti-full, Ruairi.)
50
too good, as usual !
30
You truly surpassed yourself with that one Ruairi! 🙂 🙂 🙂
10
The irony is that even though America (US) withdraws from the Paris Accord, the US will reduce its CO2 emissions, between now and 2030, more than China (the number 1 emitter), India (the number 3 emitter) or Germany (the number 4 emitter).
The US stood outside Kyoto, and yet it reduced its CO2 emissions by more than any other developed country. The same will happen with the Paris Accord since US will further exploit shale which is a proven CO2 reducer and other developed countries will go down the renewable route which does nothing to reduce CO2 emissions (China and India have pledged to increase their emissions).
This will be very embarrassing for Germany, the EU and Australia. But by 2030, hopefully the CAGW scare will all be over, and it will be accepted that CO2 is not a significant climate driver (if any driver at all).
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It is incredible how people around the world are upset that the Americans voted for a President who does what Americans want, not what they want.
It seems Americans are not living up to the expectations of many of the world’s people who are expressing their displeasure and protesting in France, Italy and Germany. Are these countries who love America and Americans? No. Often they despise and ridicule Americans. Still they want Americans to do what they say and damn the cost to America and Americans. Then they act surprised when the Americans go home, taking their tourists, their money, their patronage and perhaps their soldiers?
Americans are largely Europeans who left for very good reason and have created a far better lifestyle, but still the ones who stayed home hold that they are superior, more cultured, more artistic, more clever. It is not much different for Australians and Britain. The only problem is that it is not true and there is hardly a country which is not dependent on America, certainly for defence.
So America should do what Macron and Merkel say? Trump does not agree. The Hollywood stars who spend their time and money in Europe are outraged. So are the elites with their holiday houses in France and Italy. All people whose success in America enables them to pretend they are better than others. Trump has more time for struggling families in the old industrial areas of America, the coal miners and farmers, people who were in fact often French, German and Italian. Trump is right. It is about time to see democracy at work, not rule by the new aristocracy of Europe and even America.
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The next step for President Trump should be to reduce the US’s level of funding to NATO until such time as all the European members meet their financial obligations in full and make good their historical under funding (bludging on the USA taxpayer).
My recommendation to President Trump is: reduce US funding of NATO to a level that equates to the average of all European members, less a 10% penalty for past under funding ie., bludging.
Listen to the froggies croak and the krauts bark if he were to do that.
50
It is the way the humanity works. Greece has been saved from bankruptcy by German taxpayer’s money, and look how grateful they are. Long live the Euro!
40
Pity the Germans don’t pay their NATO bills with such alacrity.
First they had the USA’s Marshal Plan rebuilding their blighted nation. No thanks for that.
Then they had the USA sorting out the partitioning of Berlin. No thanks for that either.
Now after decades of USA funding European security, Merkel gets all uppity because President Trump tells them to pay their way.
And then they want to bucket the USA for pulling out of Paris because he knows a scam when he smells one.
The Germans and Merkel, the East German refugee, are a sad and sorry pack of bludgers.
As is her little French lap-dog, Macron; yap yapping at her side. Showing the world his fetish for the mummy figure.
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The sleeper part of all this was his “willingness to work with the Democrats” to renegotiate the Paris deal. The best case scenario for this is:
1. He put that in to keep Jarad and Invanka mollified
2. The Left (Democrats) will never, ever work with Trump except to dictate surrender.
The downside is that Trump may view the entire issue of climate change as just another deal or part so some bigger deal. Thus, he needs to be reminded that CO2 is not a “negotiable” emission under any scenario.
20
Nobody said it here yet? Okay…
Clexit !
80
Not exiting the climate, just the GW nonsense. Sir Gwexit if he’d been a subject of HM, though Sir Brexit may still be waiting for his.
21
Hearing all those heads exploding was like tap dancing on bubblewrap.
60
Who needs missiles when you can make so many heads explode with an announcement.
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” Bubble popped. :- ) ”
More like a Huge boil has been lanced & there was no politician with the stomach for it, or at least none whose party would allow them to – as Abbott was getting close he was replaced, as Monckton said he’d be.
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Speak of the devil, someone helpfully posted this today. I’d forgotten just how prophetic hevwas. It could have been Oz. leading the way, but instead we must turn to the US to save the World from itself again.
50
I hope the left is serious in considering the withdrawal from Paris an existential threat. I hope they make it the centerpiece of their next US election campaign.
The majority of the US believes in climate change, according to the left. You can easily get this result if you ask “do you think we should conduct our business so as to avoid harming the earth?”. Heck, you can get 97% on that one. But a pragmatic center-right populist can ask “Do you want us to fix our roads and bridges, and keep electricity rates relatively low, or send billions to other countries for no purpose?” Get a plurality there, too. Gaia doesn’t move the needle like greenbacks in local politics. It would be a Republican dream if the Dems nationalize the next by-election around the issue of climate change. It could be even better if they conflate it with the idea of minority rights, the way the ACLU did…”Pulling out of the Paris Agreement would be a massive step back for racial justice, and an assault on communities of color across the U.S.”. Sorry, we can’t help our inner cities, we have to send millions to some Baking-in-the-Sun-Island to build windmills to power their jet-set condos.
In the US, at least, it is important to recognize that “Climate Change” is not really a goal. it is a motivational them to rally the left and guilt trip the right. Causes they adore usually survive only until they contact with reality.
The progression of Civil Rights is an example. (This is not a comment on the millions for who Civil Rights was, and remains, an existential issue). Civil Rights was a convenient flag for the Left to wrap itself in. The fundamental rights of people of color were being abused, so the left had a cause that resonated with most to attach itself to. But we have evolved from a point where a crowning achievement of the early days (Brown vs, Board of Education – Separate is NOT Equal) to Universities imploding over People-of-color only days, or folks depending separate but equal graduation ceremonies. For the elites at the top, the attachable issues are merely levers of power, not real causes. Since the folks figure this out the left has to morph to another causus Belli every decade or so. When civil rights is a “climate” issue, the foolishness is evident.
It is inconvenient that a brash, vulgar person has a bully pulpit to use to point these thing out.
We have different systems in the US, Australia, the UK, and the rest of the world. Climate change is the rare issue the international left can use to cripple working folks in favor of clients of socialist policies across different political systems. Since the failure to “unite the workers of the world” the left has been pining for such an issue. Their angst at its current difficulties is a measure of how successful it has been as a proxy for socialism and global governance in a world where actual leftist governance is not faring well.
Mr. Trump may not be a perfect, or even a good president for the US, the world, and its problems. But he is doing a heck of a service puncturing the climate balloon, not as a Climate skeptic but as an economic realist. And this is reality. No matter how much we argue science here, it is the economic and political freedom issues that matter. He barely mentioned climate is his speech, leaving the left nothing to complain about except the mystical value of “a seat at the table”.
Hell’s Bells, we own the table. These leftist will come sulking back. The need US markets. They need the US to be a the world’s largest energy producer. They need the US to actually show the way….that richer countries are cleaner countries. They like the US military defending them and deterring enemies, and they like the domestic social spending this defense makes possible for them.
Its not polite to say this stuff.
But its the truth.
And away from the echo chambers of the left, most folks know the truth when they hear it.
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Please remember, it was the Democratic Party that was the party of slavery.
Never forget that. Never ever.
Just as you should never forget that it was the Australian Labor Party that was the party of the White Australia Policy.
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I don’t care what colour people are but I do care what they believe and an awful lot of people who want sharia law have entered since that policy ended.
60
I was taught to “treat as you find” saying that I find that particular law to be utterly despicable.
30
Great comment Richard, Trump’s speech is straight and to the point, and can be easily understood by all. In time the message will ‘sink in’ and he will get the votes fo a second term.
Regards GeoffW
40
I am mystified by this ‘people of colour’ label. We are all coloured but are very varied. Is ‘white’ or the various gradations of it; (pink at times !) the only one that doesn’t count?
00
I find it both ironic and sad to see the Europeans so concerned about global warming and Trump’s announcement yet the EU is surrounded by a raging fire that’s about to destroy them financially and socially. When they reach that point the last thing they will be concerned about is global warming. Perhaps Trump sees that and has decided there’s no point in staying with the Paris agreement as he has something else in mind once the ashes of the EU have been blown away in the wind. Time will tell.
80
You bet they are. This last winter in the north took out the winter vegetables and the winter wheat right across Europe and beyond. Winter has hung on into the middle of May which is end of spring so this summer is going to be a short growing season.
It’s just as well the last few years have seen bumper crops but with all the uninvited mouths to feed, food prices will climb fast and high.
Cooling makes weather difficult to predict. If next year is a repeat of this one, people might start going hungry soon.
Hungry people riot. This is the calm before the storm. A short summer growing period and a second winter like this one could light the conflagration.
80
If we see a major war develop (God forbid) in Europe, Asia, or the Middle East, then ‘global warming will be the last thing on anyone’s mind’
Regards GeoffW
30
I am delighted that President Trump is doing exactly what he promised to do before I voted for him.
Hopefully some other politicians will follow Trump’s example. I wasn’t certain what Trump would do, but I was certain his opponents were Washington swamp creatures.
Thanks, Trump, for having the courage to drain the Washington swamp!
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It’s a good speech – surprisingly good, seeing that everyone pretends to think the man’s an idiot. But I’ve noticed it’s full of Trumpisms – phrases and sentences that don’t quite make good grammatical sense, unless you unfocus your mind just a little bit. They don’t detract from the meaning of what he’s saying, they just let you know who’s talking.
Does he ad-lib, or do his speechwriters actually put those bits in?
100
Amazing how low our standards sank. Trump was not a good candidate; he was merely not as bad as Hillary. He is certainly not an idiot; his problem is that he is 90% ego and 10% intellect. Still, he is using those 10% – I’ll borrow Uncle’s word – surprisingly well.
40
You could have said the same things about the cowboy actor, Ronald Reagan. Remember his star wars speech in 1984 or his ‘evil empire’? He said it like it was. An unimpressive scholar and actor, he rose to be chairman of the actor’s guild, then governor of California and architect of the end of the destructive and dangerous cold war. Few would disagree that he was a great President but no genius. He was however very successful personally, a motivational speaker and an instinctive economist and risk taker.
It is a myth that educational success and excellence is required or even necessary for business or political success. Often it is an impediment. Success or even genius should be measured by achievements. There are many technically excellent people, exam passers languishing in universities because they cannot get jobs outside them or cope with the real world outside the sheltered workshop in the universities or groups like the CSIRO. You get the Einstein and Marx types who are socially incompetent and fragile. They could not function without substantial support from family and friends or sell ice creams in summer.
We need all types, but people with Trump’s mix of talents are self evidently exceptional and he certainly did not take on the job for the money or even prestige, but because like Reagan, he believes in what he says. He is clearly the right man for the job and the time. Everyone thought so. Now that is confirmed.
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Thanks for a fresh perspective. You might enjoy an eyewitness account of a meeting with the Gipper.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/03/10/in-which-we-kidnap-reagan-and-he-wins-anyway/
20
Put simply, running a successful business is mostly about people skills, having good products, and understanding the difference between revenue and profit.
Or as a US candidate once commented: It’s the economy, stupid.
70
Tight focus, negotiating skills, telling your friends from your enemies, dealing with both, charm, dominance but affability, self confidence, multiple lines of business, steady progress, managing change and multiple projects simultaneously, ability to learn on the job and a lot of cunning. Cunning is not traditional intelligence, something you can learn from books. Maybe from example, a father, a father figure or a machiavelli. You can say that someone successful in one industry can often transition to another. Hard work and cunning. Good products help. Ego is essential especially in contrast to weakness but I would phrase that better as supreme self reliance and confidence. Trump qualifies.
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Gus, I think Trump does ad-lib somewhat and he does use repetitive phrases. Despite this however I believe this to be one of his best speeches. Not only that, it is the best speech by an American President for a very long, long time.
Regards GeoffW
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Agreed, it was a great speech. I love it when he ad libs. At times his grammar is terrible and he massacres the English language (viz “bigly”) and he does repeat himself, sometimes changing the wording slightly. But it is effective and he does get the message over and people do remember what he said. Very effective.
40
Thank you Jo. Back in 2009 your writings and information booklets educated me to become a passionate skeptic. Trump’s ‘Pittsburg-not-Paris’ decision today has rendered the Lefty mob frantic and best of all he did it on my birthday!
150
Happy birthday, Faye! 🙂
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I bet Bob Carter will be shouting and singing from the rooftops of heaven last night that Donald J Trump took the courage (and that’s a lot of courage) to pulled America out of the Paris Agreement, Bob we can hear you loud and clear.
ROBERT M. CARTER (1942-2016)
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🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂
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Ditto!!!
60
The wind turbines in SA and Vic are protesting about Trump’s decision.
They have stopped revolving (they are now simply revolting).
100
Oh, happy days!
Trump has come up trumps, and my Urologist reports my PSA level is zero.
And I’m as happy with the one as I am with the other! 🙂
(While I’m here – get yourselves checked, chaps.)
70
Dave is an unusual name for a beautiful woman. Enjoy.
20
I found Dilbert’s take interesting**:
http://blog.dilbert.com/post/161354048186/betting-on-climate-change
The previous one about 2 movies being seen is a good one.
” the-kathy-griffin-controversy ”
Scott Adams has been providing valuable insight regarding US politics for a long time. Those who have not encountered his posts ought to go back a year or so and start reading. For example, the alternative movies sequence (mentioned re Kathy Griffin) is something he has used a dozen times. So, if you haven’t, – – catch up.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Lance @ #3 Agree. Great comment.
30
So many good replies, yes we all thank Jo and the many others, dedicated to exposing this faux science. Like many I suspect, I started celebrating too early. But just imagine Donald Trump as the pied piper, with all those rats following him, the mind simply boggles, the skinny starved ones will be the first to follow, joined by….. So have some fun, should they be colour coded? The big fat green ones, are unlikely to wake up in time, and if they did, would certainly get lost along the way!
So all have a nice day
40
Once again our politicians are bragging about Australia meeting its Kyoto emissions reduction targets while most other nations have been unable to meet their targets. I understand that Australia’s achievements reflect the common sense approach adopted by the Howard Coalition government that signed but refused to ratify Kyoto.
Recently former PM Howard commented that the RET should never have been raised above the original 2 per cent trial level, and that he is concerned about the energy crisis developing here.
Given that Australia leads the world in reducing emissions how can the politicians hold their heads up high while bragging about it and at the same time proceed with undermining the economy and the cost of living based on lowering emissions?
70
Simple answer Dennis ‘unrelenting green ideology and mainstream politicians without any balls’
Regards GeoffW
40
‘Australian Conservatives senator Cory Bernardi told The Australian: “We should withdraw from the Paris agreement.”
“I think it’s entirely pointless. Nothing Australia does in this space is going to change the temperature or the climate by any measure.
“To enter into agreements which the bulk of other countries are never going to comply with and which excludes the world’s largest economy just doesn’t make any sense.”
Oz
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Their bragging about it reflects two thinks. One, our leaders are the worst kind in the world for a modern nation struggling to stay economically sound. Two, most voters are the worst in the world for being too gullible and too lazy never thinking about how foolish it is to keep voting for one or the other of the two major parties, and then expecting things to change for the better instead of getting worse. We get the government we deserve. Bend over peoples – we are about to be spanked even harder thanks for the above two reasons.
70
Peter we have to persevere and widen the gap within the Liberal Party, here is electricity Bill.
“No less than five of Malcolm Turnbull’s senior backbenchers have said that they don’t want to be part of international action, they want to follow Donald Trump. The Labor Party doesn’t change its views because Donald Trump has got a different opinion. Nor should Malcolm Turnbull,” the Opposition Leader said.
Oz
30
URGENT – buckets of ice water required at all CNN and ABC studios.
80
Paul Kelly in the Australian says Turnbull is correct to reaffirm Australia’s commitments to the Paris Agreement despite urgings from the “deluded right”.
The crux of his argument concerns energy policy decisions already made:
That is an example of the sunk cost fallacy.
Mr Kelly doesn’t have any financial interests in ‘renewable energy’, I know that because being an eminent journalist if he did journalist ethics would compel him to say so in the article.
50
This is a good time to remember that despite the fact that every prudent businessman knew that the activities of Bond, Skase and others promoted by the Hawke government in the 1980s must lead to a crash, three of our “big four” banks joined the party and suffered the consequences in 1987.
Business has already invested very heavily in the AGW scam. They would rather go to Hell next week-month-year than cut their losses today. Worst is that super funds have invested in this government executed scam, and those losses will be political dynamite come the next election.
50
Skase and Bondy are pld hat.
They’ve fizzled. They Lack firepower.
Ah yes. Firepower. I remember that one too.
Firepower International was a fraudulent company. It was advertised as a Hong Kong-based company owned and operated by Global Fuel Technologies Ltd, specializing in technology purporting to reduce the fuel consumption and environmental impact of petrol-operated vehicles – in reality it was a handful of people in an industrial estate in Perth, who were conducting a complex of fraudulent operations. The original entity—Firepower Operations Pty Ltd—was a $1 company, first registered in December 2004, owned by Firepower Holdings Group Ltd, a company with an address in the British Virgin Islands.
Through connections created with Australian Federal Government ministers, trade officials and their networks, the governments of Britain, Russia, Romania and many others were persuaded to believe Firepower offered important solutions to global warming and the peak oil energy crisis.
Governments by and large lack any ability to make judgments of a technical nature. They are influenced by those with the money. In other words, their political supporters. Governments try to pick winners time and again and continue to get the same result. Failure. Their so-called technical experts (CSIRO, Government Scientist and so on) provide policy driven evidence that aligns with the political needs of the government of the day.
The general rule is: if governments say you need what they say you need, you don’t.
40
In Moderation you say?
OK.I can deal with that.
While considering it consider this as well:
Government involvement:
The Australian government became involved in the scam in a number of ways—through defence-force agencies and personnel, through the export agency Austrade[11] and directly through successful lobbying of federal minister for science Julie Bishop and Prime Minister John Howard himself. Johnston reportedly promised significant donations to the Liberal Party and an attempt was made to secure a funding grant from the government’s A$500-million Low Emission Technology Demonstration Fund. A related Firepower entity, TPS Firepower, received almost A$400,000 in export grants from the government.[12]
The fraud could not have continued for so long, or become so large, had it not been for the crucial intervention of Austrade.
Somebody at the trade commission failed to make a rudimentary verification of any of the grandiose claims Johnston was making. Austrade took on Firepower as a client and opened doors to contacts around the world through Australian embassies. Over time, Firepower received $394,000 in grants under the Export Market Development Grants scheme. A senior Austrade manager, John Finnin, was recruited by Johnston as his chief executive. The senior trade commissioner at the Australian Embassy in Moscow, Gregory Klumov, was recruited to run Firepower’s Russian operation. For years, Johnston was able to wrap himself in the credibility of government patronage. Just like CAGW.
Julie Bishop, the dopey non-scientist, who was the minister for science at the time, is still on the front bench. No shame. No brain. Boofhead of the first order.
[You needed a link – I believe this is it? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firepower_International — Jo]
10
Thanks Jo.
But you’ve spiked my tactic.
I was waiting for the lazy red thumber to attack me for making stuff up.
But thanks anyway. I do understand your need to be careful when words like fraud etc are used.
10
How to explain to shareholders that the projected profits were based on government paid taxpayer subsidies.
And that subsidies will be cancelled in the near future leaving the business with stranded assets that cannot compete with fossil fuel fired power stations and hydro.
30
The poster “Latitude” on WUWT provided this list of claimed and purported to be American renewable energy corporations of some sort and the US government / tax payer funded largesse, ie; subsidies, grants and loans to them before they all went bankrupt.
My total of US government handouts to those failed and bankrupt renewable energy based corporations = US$ 7,435,010,000 = Seven billion, Four hundred and Thirty Five million and ten thousand dollars.
————
Evergreen Solar ($25 million)*
SpectraWatt ($500,000)*
Solyndra ($535 million)*
Beacon Power ($43 million)*
Nevada Geothermal ($98.5 million)
SunPower ($1.2 billion)
First Solar ($1.46 billion)
Babcock and Brown ($178 million)
EnerDel’s subsidiary Ener1 ($118.5 million)*
Amonix ($5.9 million)
Fisker Automotive ($529 million)
Abound Solar ($400 million)*
A123 Systems ($279 million)*
Willard and Kelsey Solar Group ($700,981)*
Johnson Controls ($299 million)
Brightsource ($1.6 billion)
ECOtality ($126.2 million)
Raser Technologies ($33 million)*
Energy Conversion Devices ($13.3 million)*
Mountain Plaza, Inc. ($2 million)*
Olsen’s Crop Service and Olsen’s Mills Acquisition Company ($10 million)*
Range Fuels ($80 million)*
Thompson River Power ($6.5 million)*
Stirling Energy Systems ($7 million)*
Azure Dynamics ($5.4 million)*
GreenVolts ($500,000)
Vestas ($50 million)
LG Chem’s subsidiary Compact Power ($151 million)
Nordic Windpower ($16 million)*
Navistar ($39 million)
Satcon ($3 million)*
Konarka Technologies Inc. ($20 million)*
Mascoma Corp. ($100 million)
————
50
ROM
Who was the poor relation that got only ten thousand dollars?
20
Major business groups spoke last night.
All overseas stock markets up with USA at a record high.
Paul Kelly used to be good AND THEN he hitched himself to Malcolm Turnbull.
Paul – don’t back a dead horse (they never win).
50
Especially with saddle bags loaded with green dung.
20
I read this article. He was near apoplectic. Angry. Any pretence of balance and reason or journalistic objectivity had gone out the window. An End of Days article. Amusing. It shows you how the journalistic cliques hang together with their received opinions and utter belief in what they are told by their side. You would think he could not bring himself to listen to what Trump actually said. Meanwhile Malcolm and Bishop are affirming their membership of the elites and preparing to shirtfront Trump, affirming their belief in whatever someone else believes. True believers.
Simple the people on the Left of politics, who get their opinions from each other in a hive mentality cannot understand that real science has nothing to do with politics. So Kelly’s headline “Withdrawal a dangerous delusion to tempt the Right” tells it all. He really thinks the people who call Climate Change crap are simply on the Right of politics. He thinks the science is settled/decided by the Left of politics. Anyone who does not think so is a ‘Deluded’ Conservative.
His closing sentence “This is a frightening event because there is no substitute for the US role”. What Role? Fighting ‘Climate Change’? How’s that going anyway? Then does he mean political will, leadership or just shiploads of cash? There are no constraints on India or China or Russia and they are paying nothing, but he has no problem at all with that as they have signed. I wonder what he thinks of Donald Trump, but perhaps that would not be printable.
50
Anyone else noticed that after 200 comments there are fewer red thumbs than on previous topics!
80
They might be out of a job.
60
Or it’s Saturday morning in Australia and no desktop public servants are working.
100
I got one at 18.2.3.1.
A badge of honour.
31
“Anyone else noticed that after 200 comments there are fewer red thumbs than on previous topics!”
Quite so.
I commented that there was absolutely no empirical evidence for the climastrologist’s foundation claim that “The surface materials of this planet could only heat to an average of 255K(-18C) in the absence of radiative gases”.
Normally this is a “5 alarm fire” requiring full red-thumbing (but no scientific counter argument) from luke-warmers and AGW promoters alike. But it’s “all quiet on the empirical front”.
What’s going on?
32
It’s ok. You now have two!
10
Cannot believe my comment is in moderation. Perhaps it was the word cr*p used by our former Prime Minister in relation to Climate Science.
30
I read this article. He was beside himself. Any pretence of balance and reason or journalistic objectivity had gone out the window. An End of Days article. Amusing. It shows you how the journalistic cliques hang together with their received opinions and utter belief in what they are told by their side. You would think he could not bring himself to listen to what Trump actually said. Meanwhile Malcolm and Bishop are affirming their membership of the elites and preparing to shirtfront Trump, affirming their belief in whatever someone else believes. True believers.
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His closing sentence “This is a frightening event because there is no substitute for the US role”. What Role? Fighting ‘Climate Change’? How’s that going anyway? Then does he mean political will, leadership or just shiploads of cash? There are no constraints on India or China or Russia and they are paying nothing, but he has no problem at all with that as they have signed. I wonder what he thinks of Donald Trump, but perhaps that would not be printable.
50
You haven’t contributed sufficient chocolate, perhaps!
20
So Kelly’s headline “Withdrawal a dangerous delusion to tempt the Right” tells it all. He really thinks the people who call Climate Change crap are simply on the Right of politics. He thinks the science is settled/decided by the Left of politics. Anyone who does not think so is a ‘Deluded’ Conservative
80
Kelly’s headline “Withdrawal a dangerous delusion to tempt the Right” tells it all. He really thinks the people who call Climate Change crap are simply on the Right of politics. He thinks the science is settled/decided by the Left of politics. Anyone who does not think so is a ‘Deluded’ Conservative.
40
My general problem with the commentary is that Science has become the plaything of politics. Al Gore is no scientist. He understands no science. Nor Obama. Merkel and Macron. No. However when real scientists, engineers, mathematicians and even meterologists and NASA employess stand up, they are ‘deluded conservatives’. So Kelly has both ears firmly shut. Mind like a steel trap. Shut with great force.
50
Then Trump did not say Climate Change was crap. He did not mention science except in the word conscience.
Trump said the Paris accord was a lousy deal. On that basis alone it was his job, his duty to remove his country from an oppressive agreement and the US is the one country at which this is aimed, the world’s richest country designated to ship its jobs, its economy and all its cash to a myriad of other countries, like Mugabe’s destroyed Zimbabwe and cede power to the UN, the EU and their unelected and unaccountable hordes of bureaucrats.
Trump did not talk science. He talked sense. Real scientists agree.
70
‘Real scientists agree.’ Link?
In the meantime Vlad is sitting on his hands waiting for global cooling to kick in.
‘Speaking at an economic forum in St Petersburg, Mr Putin said the 2015 Paris accord was a good document, but that Russia had not yet ratified it because it was waiting for certain technical details to be settled.’
ABC
50
Completion of the large nuclear powered ice breakers under construction with colder conditions predicted resulting in vital river transport links being iced over for longer periods.
40
Vlad quipped “Don’t worry… be happy.”
He knows something and not letting on, Russian scientists have briefed him.
30
“Russian scientists have briefed him”
Yes, solar cooling to 2040. The Russians are not fools.
Remember Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky? Wrote all foundation maths for manned rocket flight by reaction engine before anything was even an engineering possibility.
00
If not already linked
http://catallaxyfiles.com/2017/06/02/well-never-have-paris/
10
last nite BBC World Sce radio was pushing the Silicon Valley are unanimous in their criticism of Trump’s Paris withdrawal meme.
kept quoting tech guys saying they will continue to uphold Paris commitments etc.
I kept thinking good, let them start by handing over the extra 2 or 2.5 billion dollars outstanding from what Obama promised the Green Climate Fund.
then I thought why doesn’t Apple offer to provide the entire $100 billion per year being promised from 2020?
woke up to DrudgeReport carrying NPR link as: “BLOOMBERG: I’LL PAY USA SHARE OF DEAL”.
wow, I thought…Bloomberg is coughing up the billions! not quite.
2 Jun: NPR: Bill Chappell: Bloomberg Promises $15 Million To Help Make Up For U.S. Withdrawal From Climate Deal
Michael Bloomberg is pledging to fill a funding gap created by President Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris climate accord, offering up to $15 million to support the U.N. agency that helps countries implement the agreement.
“Americans will honor and fulfill the Paris Agreement by leading from the bottom up — and there isn’t anything Washington can do to stop us,” said Bloomberg, the former New York City mayor who now serves as the U.N.’s special envoy on cities and climate change…
Under the Paris accord, the U.S. sent some $1 billion to the Green Climate Fund that is guided by the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change — the body that coordinates international climate policy. The U.S. was supposed to provide an additional $2 billion, but Trump has balked at that idea…
Bloomberg’s plan calls for his foundation to work with other groups, from governments to philanthropies, that want to support the U.N.’s climate change agency.
“We are grateful to Bloomberg Philanthropies for this generous contribution,” UNFCCC Executive Secretary Patricia Espinosa said in a news release about the funding pledge…
The architects of the Paris Agreement included Christiana Figueres, who until recently led the UNFCCC.
TWEET: Christiana Figueres: Thank you Trump. You have provoked an unparalleled wave of support for Paris and determined resolve on climate action. Deeply grateful.
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/06/02/531238185/bloomberg-promises-15-million-to-help-make-up-for-u-s-withdrawal-from-climate-de
indeed, even the measly “up to” $15million won’t be paid by Bloomberg himself:
UK Telegraph: Bloomberg Philanthropies, in partnership with others, “will make up the approximately $15 million in funding that the UN’s Climate Secretariat stands to lose from Washington…
10
And I’ll believe it when I see their money (in cash) in the bank of the Green Climate Fund.
Don’t hold your breath.
00
2 Jun: BBC: Tech leaders defy Trump on climate deal
By Chris Baraniuk
The chief executives of Apple, Google, Microsoft and Facebook have all criticised the president’s decision.
Elon Musk, who had been a member of Mr Trump’s business panel, announced he would leave the post…
Many firms, including IBM and Amazon, said they would continue to try to meet the goals of the climate deal.
“IBM supported – and still supports – US participation in the Paris Agreement,” the technology company said in a statement (LINK).
TWEETS: APPLE, GOOGLE, FACEBOOK, MUSK
Microsoft remained “committed” to doing its part for the agreement, its president and chief legal officer Brad Smith said.
Many tech firms have faced scrutiny from environmentalists, thanks to the huge energy demands of their data centres.
US data centres consumed roughly as much energy as six-and-a-half million US homes, according to one report – 70 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity.
Google, for example, says it is on track to hit its own goal of offsetting 100% of its data centres’ energy use against renewable power.
And Apple has said that 96% of its energy comes from renewable sources – the company is now pushing its suppliers to follow its example.
“A lot of these firms have already invested in renewables and [leaving the Paris deal] counters what they’re currently invested in,” explains analyst Matthew Ball at Canalys.
The implication is that, should it becomes less cost-effective to rely largely on renewables, then that investment could soon look like a mistake…
But there’s another downside for the tech giants.
“It kind of gives a sign that the US is not going to be at the forefront of the technology innovation that’s going to be required to meet the agreement’s goals,” says Mr Ball.
“It gives the edge to the European and Chinese firms.”
Getting a slice of the renewable energy market has certainly been an objective for many of America’s tech firms.
Tesla, for instance, recently announced a new product – solar panels for your roof that look uncannily like ordinary tiles.
All renewable energy resources combined account for nearly 10% of the US’s demand – but certain resources within that, including solar, have been growing rapidly according to the US Energy Information Administration.
Solar energy actually employs more US workers than Apple, Google and Facebook together, so it is perhaps unsurprising that the tech firms have expressed an interest in remaining part of the “renewable revolution”.
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-40131287
2 Jun: BBC: Paris climate deal: Why is business angry at US withdrawal?
By Simon Atkinson & Leisha Chi
US giants ExxonMobil and Chevron had urged President Trump to stay in the Paris deal. And a tweet from Anglo-Dutch giant Shell said: “Our support for the #ParisAgreement is well known. We will continue to do our part providing more & cleaner energy.”
2) The numbers add up
Business decisions for the most part come down to dollars and cents, costs and benefits. And while fossil fuels such as oil, gas and coal have traditionally been the cheapest form of energy, the cost of harnessing renewable energy sources such as solar, hydro and wind has dropped dramatically over the last decade.
***Granted, they often still receive large government subsidies…
3) Climate change risk
Climate change, or global warming, refers to the damaging effect on the atmosphere of gases, or emissions, released from industry and agriculture.
Whether you’re a tree-hugger, a climate change sceptic or somewhere in between, there is hard and soft data to underscore the financial toll environmental change takes on business and society.
That’s why companies like Kellogg and General Mills, which depend on the weather to grow grains to make cereals for example, are looking for ways to protect their supply chain…
And they’re also mindful that their new and future customers are the millennial generation, which will make up half of the global workforce by 2020. The younger demographic is far more passionate and vocal about social and environmental issues, ***particularly on social media…
(FINALE) Goldman Sachs chief executive Lloyd Blankfein has described the step as a “setback”, not just for the environment but for “the US’s leadership position in the world”.
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-40116301
10
uh-oh, it’s over two years!
NYT: On Friday, Bloomberg Philanthropies, his charitable organization, also pledged to donate approximately $15 million over the next two years to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.
peanuts, considering:
Michael Bloomberg Gives $75 Million to Shed Arts Center
New York Times-24 May 2017
20
Lotsa luck with that ever-so noble ambition: ‘The company signs all its products, “Designed by Apple in California,” but in the U.S., design is as far as Apple is willing to go. The tech giant outsources hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs to countries like Mongolia, China, Korea and Taiwan …’.
40
They are the core business centres of Apple Inc [wink]
10
Ouch!
00
Yairs. When I bought my iMac it shipped from Shanghai.
00
Somewhat o/t
https://thepointman.wordpress.com/2017/06/02/leaks/
10
Jo
Numbering u/s again
This ought to be “70 – #63 and #66 were also entered as last at the time
10
as for States going it alone on Paris:
1 Jun: LA Times: John Myers: With Democrats divided, Assembly rejects a plan to extend California’s cap-and-trade program
Assembly Bill 378 by Assemblywoman Cristina Garcia (D-Bell Gardens) would have added 10 years to the life of the state’s cap-and-trade program, under which greenhouse gas emissions are limited and businesses pay for pollution permits that exceed the limit. The current program’s legal authority runs until 2020.
The bill also would have added something new to the state’s climate change efforts: new restrictions on air pollutants, including possible limits on individual industrial facilities…
But the Assembly’s business-aligned “mod” Democrats refused to support the bill. So too did Republicans who recently embraced a renewal of the cap-and-trade program but disagreed with its linkage to air pollution beyond that strictly linked to greenhouse gases, a move championed by environmental justice groups…
http://www.latimes.com/politics/essential/la-pol-ca-essential-politics-updates-with-democrats-divided-assembly-1496384615-htmlstory.html
1 Jun: CNBC: EXCLUSIVE-California to discuss linking carbon market with China
by Peter Henderson, Reuters
China has launched seven pilot regional trading schemes and plans to roll out a nationwide market this year. However the launch faces delays amid unreliable data and other regulatory problems, a government researcher said recently…
“I think that is a heavy lift to include Chinese provinces but we are definitely taking that possibility very seriously,” Brown said.
We want to make sure it has full integrity and know exactly whats going on. ***And we cant say that today,” he said. “Maybe we dont put it right in the same cap and trade regime, maybe some parallel regime,” he added. “I am going to discuss that with the highest officials in China this week.
http://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/01/reuters-america-exclusive-california-to-discuss-linking-carbon-market-with-china.html
10
Nov 2016: InsideClimateNews: Washington State Voters Reject Nation’s First Carbon Tax
The measure was unpopular with social justice groups and divided environmental activists, many arguing it did not go far enough in promoting clean energy.
By Marianne Lavelle
Washington State voters rejected a proposal for the nation’s first carbon tax Tuesday, defeating a landmark attempt to address climate change that had divided environmental activists. Despite being a major effort to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, some environmental justice advocates argued the measure would work against working people and the poor, a stance that put them uncomfortably aligned with the fossil fuel industry that also opposed the measure.
The carbon tax was expected to raise $2 billion annually through higher prices for gasoline and fossil fuel-fired electricity…
The measure garned about 42 percent of the vote.
Among those who decided not to support the carbon tax were Sierra Club, the Washington Environmental Council, the Union of Concerned Scientists, Climate Solutions, and 350Seattle.org. Of the major environmental groups, only Audubon supported it and raised money for the “yes” campaign, but climate scientists and even the actor and environmentalist Leonardo DiCaprio were vocal supporters…
Although I-732 would give tax rebates to poor working families, there are about 340,000 low-income families who would not be covered by the program, Sightline Institute estimated…
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/09112016/washington-state-carbon-tax-i-732-ballot-measure
Cliff Mass is University of Washington Professor of Atmospheric Sciences. following includes Washington State. would the citizens really want politicians even pretending to try to reduce the temperture?
11 Mar: Cliff Mass Weather Blog: The coldest winter in a generation for the Pacific Northwest
http://cliffmass.blogspot.com.au/2017/03/the-coldest-winter-in-generation-for.html
10
Once Trump made his decision public I swore I would not comment on the subject of “Paris”. But then…
I saw the kind of arguments pro and con on the internet and TV and I ended up yelling at the computer and then my TV.
It was all appeal to authority, appeal to consensus, etc., in support and an abject failure of the other side to ask the one question that counts,
Thus science and the world lose because of their ignorance of what the real issue is. Global warming has been the biggest fraud ever perpetrated on the world and no one is ever told the truth.
Not even people who should do their homework and know better have got it right. Fox News Sunday will feature a debate about the matter with Al Gore and someone whose name I missed because I was laughing so hard I nearly fell off my chair.
Not even Donald Trump understands the issue.
40
comment in moderation on Washington State, which is said to be going along with New York and Calif to uphold the Paris deal!
2 Jun: Russia Today: June snow in Moscow – just as Trump pulls US out of Paris climate deal (PHOTOS, VIDEOS)
While most countries in the northern hemisphere are enjoying warm weather and sunshine, fresh snow has fallen on the Russian capital – just one day after Donald Trump pulled the US out of the Paris climate change accord.
Photos and videos posted on social media resembled the beginning of winter, rather than the second day of June and the second official day of summer…
“Well, where is this global warming?” one person joked, posting a video of large hail stones. She added that she should be wearing shorts and sandals this time of year, but instead was wearing a jacket and boots…
Another video showed a driver on the Moscow roads, bewildered at the snow falling on his windshield…
The confusing weather brought with it temperatures anything but ordinary for June, with a Friday seeing a low of 3C (38F)…
The “summer fail” in Moscow comes just one day after US President Trump – a skeptic of man-made climate change – pulled his country out of the Paris climate change agreement, in a move which shocked and angered world leaders and environmental activists around the globe.
The coincidence wasn’t lost on Russian President Vladimir Putin, who on Friday was in St. Petersburg attending an economic forum.
“In Moscow it’s raining and cold and even, they say, some snow. Now we could blame this all on American imperialism, that it’s all their fault. But we won’t,” he joked…
https://www.rt.com/viral/390647-moscow-snow-climate-change/
3 Jun: Daily Mail: Chris Spargo: Vlad the Entertainer: Putin jokes that Russians are grateful Trump left Paris Accord, saying surprise storm that hit Moscow can now be blamed on US president and ‘American imperialism’
The Russian president later stated that it was not fair to fault President Trump for his decision ti withdraw from the Paris Accord
At another point, Putin said of President Trump’s decision: ‘Don’t worry, be happy’
(ON PARIS WITHDRAWAL)
‘Well I am not amongst the European leaders. At least, the European leaders do not consider me to be among them,’ Putin replied, drawing laughter from the room.
He then got serious, explaining: ‘The Paris Agreement is a very good, correct document to solve one of the global problems of modernity. ***Now the question is, if we are in a position to not allow climate change.
Putin, then went in for another bit of humor, this time opting for an inside-joke with his fellow Russians.
‘It’s about preventing temperature changes of two degrees, but we don’t feel here that the temperature is getting hotter,’ said Putin, breaking into a grin as he neared the end of his comment.
He followed that bit up with yet another joke.
‘By the way, we should be grateful to President Trump. In Moscow it’s raining and cold and even, some snow,’ said Putin, referencing the surprise weather that hit the Russian capital on Friday.
‘We can now blame this all on American imperialism, that it’s all their fault. But we won’t.’
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4566764/Putin-thanks-Trump-withdrawing-Paris-Accord.html
20
Just so everyone knows or maybe, in case you don’t know, the 3 states making up our left coast are among the most liberal in the nation if not the most liberal. Washington, Oregon and California could combine forces and would certainly save the world from political incorrectness, sound science and sound jurisprudence without even straining at it. I’ve no doubt that they could even save you from every disease and malady known to the human race if they put their combined intelligence to work on the task, such is their self righteous attitude about everything.
Add New York and who knows how far they could go. At least they could go far if their grand understanding of the world was even close to correct. But sadly it’s not even close to correct. 🙁
I have never encountered a political environment the way it is now, with comedians holding up heads of Donald Trump and other outrages against common decency apparently now being seen as desirable to use against one man — one single man. But the depth of hatred of President Trump convinces me that we made a good choice because he’s not going to stop in the face of opposition. His career as a real estate developer and his persistence in pursuit of the presidency have proven that beyond a shadow of a doubt.
20
Ya gotta laugh!
Trumpy says he’s abandoned the lying cesspool of freeloaders that is Paris.
The said lying cesspool of freeloaders – led by their ABC – says this is the end of the world, because now the World Emissions are going to increase.
Aside from the fact that even if they do, nothing will happen, Trumpy said he was leaving the con. He didn’t say he was going to increase emissions like China, India and Russia are going to do.
Who knows? Maybe, with sensible and calculated, but certainly not impoverishing, action, he may put them all to shame, and actually reduce emissions.
I don’t care if he does reduce or not. Makes no difference to anything climate wise.
But, he did not say he would just increase them willy nilly.
Jeez, the ABC people can be so bloody stupid, all of the time.
111
Correct. It is not about CO2. It never was. The temperature is not even changing and has not changed for twenty years.
So you have to ask yourself, why is America leaving the agreement such a source of extreme angst from the Left of politics? Why is it a disaster? Trump could put it better. It’s about money, power, control, socialism, shackling America and money and money. Deplorables. Deluded conservatives. It was never about Carbon Dioxide. That was always a myth.
Next the UN could move to Slovenia or Slovakia, except no one would pay for it and no one would go there but it would be far cheaper for everyone. The EU could move to Spain, where the 10,000 unelected bureaucrats from the Common Market, EEC and EU parliaments including their three presidents and all on more than the British PM could be paid much less. Not going to happen. It’s all about money and power, a cabal of international socialism. Just ask Paul Kelly of the Australian. Or their ABC/SBS.
51
The US already has massively reduced its emission – See Tony’s comment #74 below.
00
2 Jun: GWPF: WSJ Editorial: Growth & Innovation Are Better Forms Of Climate Insurance
President Trump announced the U.S. will withdraw from the Paris climate agreement on Thursday, to the horror of green elites world-wide.
If the decision shows he is more mindful of American economic interests than they are, the other virtue of pulling out is to expose the fraudulence of this Potemkin village.
In a Rose Garden ceremony, Mr. Trump broke with the 2015 agreement, starting the formal four-year withdrawal process: “We’re getting out. And we will start to renegotiate and we’ll see if there’s a better deal. If we can, great. If we can’t, that’s fine.”
This nonchalance inspired a predictable political meltdown, with the anticarbon lobby invoking death, planetary disaster and a permanent historical stain. Billionaire Democratic donor Tom Steyer called it “a traitorous act of war against the American people,” while Barack Obama accused his successor of joining “a small handful of nations that reject the future,” whatever that means. Get ready for another march on the White House.
But amid the outrage, the aggrieved still haven’t gotten around to resolving the central Paris contradiction, which is that it promises to be Earth-saving but fails on its own terms. It is a pledge of phony progress…
Paris is thus an exercise in moral and social signaling that is likely to exert little if any influence on atmospheric CO 2 , much less on global temperatures…Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Joint Program conclude that even if every INDC is fulfilled to the letter, the temperature increase will be in the range of 1.9–2.6 degrees Celsius by 2050, and 3.1–5.2 degrees Celsius by 2100.
Such forecasts are highly uncertain, which is inherent when scientists attempt to predict the future behavior of a system as complex as global climate. The best form of climate-change insurance is a large and growing economy so that future generations can afford to adapt to whatever they may confront.
A more prosperous society a century or more from now is a more important goal than asking the world to accept a lower standard of living today in exchange for symbolic benefits. ***Poorer nations in a world where 1.35 billion live without electricity will never accept such a trade in any case, while Mr. Trump is right to decline to lock in U.S. promises that make U.S. industries less competitive…READ ALL
http://www.thegwpf.com/wsj-growth-innovation-are-better-forms-of-climate-insurance/
00
Perhaps the singularly most amusing thing in all of this is that there is NO Country on Planet Earth that has reduced its emissions of CO2 by a greater percentage than the U.S.
So, while all the other (already Developed) Countries waffle on about how the U.S. has abandoned its (yeah right) responsibilities, the U.S. has actually been reducing their CO2 emissions.
Since 2007, the World’s total CO2 emissions have risen by 8.8 BILLION Tonnes.
In the same time, the U.S. total emissions have GONE DOWN by 877 Million Tonnes, and that’s a percentage reduction of 15%.
So while all these other Countries bitch and moan about the U.S. removing itself from an agreement that means virtually nothing, the U.S. has actually been making huge steps towards actually reducing their emissions.
As the biggest (so far and away) contributor in dollar terms, THAT is what they are effectively moaning about, that humungous loss of money.
It’s got nothing to do with the Climate. It was always only about the money. And it’s not like every Country contributes money. Oh no, only 23 Countries have to contribute. The other 172 Countries just have their hands out, saying ….. ‘Please Sir, can I have some more.’
Tony.
Sources
2015 CO2 Emissions by Country
2007 CO2 Emissions by Country
130
Tony, what a valid and important comment. Every one of us on this site needs to commit these facts to memory because your argument, by itself, exposes the whole UN boondoggle for what it is. Purely a way to extract huge amounts of money into UN coffers from whence it will vanish to goodness knows where. Are you listening Julie Bishop?
50
Michael Smith headline
“Julie/Julia watch #3 – Bishop says “Turnbull Government” disappointed in United States, Aust’ns “can trust Turnbull Government”
http://www.michaelsmithnews.com/2017/06/juliejulia-watch-3-bishop-says-turnbull-government-disappointed-in-united-states-austns-can-trust-tu.html
What she omitted is “to likely stuff that up too” – IMO
20
Tony, what a valid and important comment. Every one of us on this site needs to commit these facts to memory because your argument, by itself, exposes the whole UN boondoggle for what it is. Purely a way to extract huge amounts of money into UN coffers from whence it will vanish to goodness knows where. Are you listening Julie Bishop?
10
I dont know how that happened. It wasn’t me, please Sir.
10
Peter
See 73.1.1
The answer seems to be “No”
00
Tony , Thank you for reminding us all of the facts and especially about the point that the U.S. has reduced its C02 so substantially.
Bryson Waddell
00
Might I please impose on the moderators to post my comment which is in moderation. It’s timed at June 3rd at 12.23PM
Tony.
40
This will be on TOP of the RET
Australia has gone MAD!
The low-emissions target (LET) would be separate from the Renewable Energy Target.
50
Another massive tax.
40
How bl00dy st00pid is this: (my bolding here)
I mentioned in the earlier Thread about how lackeys hand their reports to Government Ministers, and they both smile for the cameras as they shake hands while palming off the report. Then the minister goes through the door and drops the report into the nearest trash bin.
The same with this ridiculou$ report from Finkel, (and why I am always reminded of Mad magazine when I hear that guy’s name)
This target of 0.7 tonnes CO2 per MWH. effectively cancels out any coal fired power plant, existing technology or new technology, and forget that phantom called CCS, because that will never be implemented on the scale required.
Old tech (existing) coal fired power consumes (around) 450grams of coal per KWH, which sees an emissions of CO2 of around 1.3Tonnes of CO2 per MWH.
New tech HELE USC coal fired power consumes 282 grams of coal per KWH, hence a CO2 emission of 0.8 tonnes of CO2 per MWH.
There goes around 80 to 85% of Australia’s total power generation.
The inanity of this whole report is that most existing coal fired power plants in Australia have a life expectancy out to 2030 to 2050, and here in Queensland, the Government has stated categorically that they will not be closing ANY coal fired power plants earlier than 2030.
I’m almost certain that the only people giving advice to Finkel et al is Pixie Ann Wheatley.
He sets a target and everyone will just totally ignore it. (Hey, just like Paris, eh!)
Tony.
60
Yes, but what does Ross Garnaut have to say?
[wink]
20
Finkel – “Hey Pixie Ann, can you find out how many tonnes of CO2 one of those new HELE coal fired power plants emits per MegaWattHour of power it generates?”
Pixie Anne – “What’s a tonne?”
Finkel explains, well sort of anyway.
Pixie Anne – “Sure! What’s a MegaWatt Hour?”
Finkel explains, well sort of anyway.
Pixie Ann – “Yeah, got that. Oh! whats a hele?”
Finkel explains, well sort of anyway.
96 hours later
Pixie Anne – “Found that information you asked me for. It’s around 806.4321 Kilograms per megathingie”
Finkel – “Thanks for that. I’ll set it at 0.7 tonnes. That’ll fix those bathplugs who want their HELE’s.
Pixie Ann – “Isn’t that bigger?”
Finkel explains, well sort of anyway.
Pixie Ann – “Can I have the weekend off?”
Finkel – “Sure, the taxpayer’s paying.”
Pixie Ann – “What’s a taxpayer?”
Finkel – “Tell you what Pixie Ann, you go now.”
Tony.
60
TonyfromOz June 3, 2017 at 4:21 pm
Tony,
Can you do, or have done, a rough estimate on the thermodynamic, not nuclear, efficiency of a large power plant over its lifetime, total (kWh out)/(kWh in) for construction, fueling, operating, and decommissioning of the different types of power plant? Is not breeaded'(renewable) nuclear fuel ‘free’? The only discovered ‘renewable’! Thank you!
30
Tony, As always an informative reply.
I am waiting (in vain most likely) for a scientific justification for the 0.7, but from your reply it is blindingly obvious that it is chosen arbitrarily to penalise ANY coal fired generation.
Finkel is definitely straight out of MAD magazine which was also one of my favourite satirical magazine.
20
I just realised what Paul Kelly in his article means, what he fears
“Withdrawal a dangerous delusion to tempt the Right”
He means the popular revolt in the US, the overturning of the obeisance to the UN and EU might be infectious.
His “deluded conservatives” might be tempted to throw out Malcolm Turnbull, remove Australia from the Paris treaty, repeal 18C, repeal the massive Renewables Energy Tax and bring the ABC under control or sell it and close the useless SBS. He is afraid of a revolt by the san cullottes, the deplorables, the delcons, the people! He is afraid his side will lose power, as they have in the US.
He is right. We need to see Tony Abbott back in charge and the real deplorables on the back bench. Now.
70
See Julie Bishop’s latest! Time to clean out the office!
00
I was disappointed to read the editorial in Melbourne’s Herald Sun that there is overwhelming scientific evidence that the health of the planet is at risk. No, there isn’t. There is no evidence that man made CO2 is in the atmosphere anyway. Temperatures have been steady for twenty years despite steadily rising CO2. CO2 is not pollution. The tens of trillions of dollars spent so far have had no impact either CO2 or temperature. There is a threat from the hundreds of millions of Green diesels, pumping out NO2 which becomes nitric acid in your lungs and in the air. Thanks, Greens. Still people talk about overwhelming scientific evidence? Who says? Al Gore?
60
Some who call it how it is: Tucker with Coulter sum up recent Trump Bash and the Paris propagandist’s hypocrisies…..must watch !
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEntgsOia0M
20
He has a good point as has Coulter. Victimhood enables these people. They can be violent, abusive, demanding and utterly ignore the law because they take on this fantasy of being the victim. This explains many attacks. In Australia, the ABC and police campaign against Cardinal George Pell in particular. Always old white men, racism, mysogyny, bullying, sexism.
If anyone was the utterly uncaring bully it was Kathy Griffin, but it seems she is the victim and Barron Trump at 10 years old is just collateral damage to her reaction to her victimhood. At no point does she take responsibility for her actions and it is great to see no one in America agrees, except Jim Carrey who has just been arraigned on a murder charge.
Hollywood and entertainment figures and politicians need to stop thinking they are anything more than actors. They are not America and from what I read, they do not like America anyway.
20
The last third or so sums up the Paris fiasco….Tucker really nails it with Coulter putting some icing on the cake ….some of the best summation I’ve heard !
00
http://morningmail.org/climate-hoax-preview-clive-james/
10
It looks like Lord Monckton is onto again and reckons he has finally nailed it. ( I hope David Evans is a co author for the paper because what is being said sounds familiar)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5f5skrdYe8s (skip the Jones intro )
31
Watched this also, Monckton reckons the math works out in correlation to whats been empirically observed so this is interesting.
You couldn’t get two commentators more different if you tried, it reminded me of the two commentators in Best in Show.
10
I’m glad Trump has pulled the US out of the Paris treaty, but what’s this “Leader of the free world” tripe?
He’s President of the US, and that makes him sort of leader of the bunch of countries subjugated to the US (we are one of those), but that can hardly be called “free”.
00
“subjugated to the US (we are one of those), but that can hardly be called “free”.”
Just who are ‘we’? Got mice in your pockets? 🙂
Why ya’ll tink dat way?
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It seems the moderator software has been hard at work today. Thanks. Still, because of 18C there is no choice. This is a science blog but unfortunately it is not right now about science.
The media firestorm in the US is about overturning an elected government and the alternative rule by plutocrats and bureaucrats who are not even Americans but EU and UN apparatchiks. We in Australia are also told what we should do, by unnamed people overseas and our socialist leaders do exactly as they are told by people we did not elect. So democracy is at stake. As we were warned by Christopher Monckton, the first job was to remove the Australian and Canadian Prime Ministers. The second was to obey totally the dictates of the UN and EU.
As for the idea that it is about science and the planet. That is nonsense. Over the years on Jo’s blog we have tried hard to examine the science but now it is war declared on US President Donald Trump, his family and friends and all those who voted for him. Farcically all in the name of democracy. Of the 8 billion tons of coal burned a year, 1 is in the US and 4 are in China and they are expecting to double this figure but Trump is the villain? Why? It is just a test of strength between the media and the President and Congress.
The Socialists and US plutocrats and UN/EU Autocrats were just waiting for a common cause. Now the abuse is extraordinary and they control the media and they will save the planet when they mean really that they will control the planet. I wonder how long blogs like this can last?
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“The media firestorm in the US is about overturning an elected government and the alternative rule by plutocrats.”
Correct! But only to be expected of the media wimps.
Never those reloading, sharpening pitchforks, oiling torches, just in case the combined forces of the US government fail at restoring lawful order!
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Roy Hogue –
it’s worse than u think. Gore is on 3 channels, it would seem.
2 Jun: Orlando Sentinel: Al Gore, John Kerry, Scott Pruitt: Sunday guests
ABC’s “This Week,” 10 a.m. on WFTV-Channel 9: Pruitt, Gore and Susan Rice, former Obama national security adviser and former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. The panel will be Republican strategist Alex Castellanos; National Review senior editor Jonah Goldberg; CNN contributor Jen Psaki, former Obama communications director; Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor and publisher of The Nation.
NBC’s “Meet the Press,” 9 a.m. on WESH-Channel 2: Pruitt, Gore, Kerry and Megyn Kelly, anchor of NBC’s “Sunday Night.” The panel will be Stephanie Cutter, former deputy campaign manager for Obama; Michael Gerson of The Washington Post; radio host Hugh Hewitt; and Heather McGhee, president of Demos…
“Fox News Sunday,” 10 a.m. on WOFL-Channel 35: Pruitt, Gore, a look at 2017 commencement speakers. The panel will be Brit Hume, Juan Williams, Julie Pace of The Associated Press and Jason Riley of The Wall Street Journal…
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/entertainment/tv/tv-guy/
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Sadly Al Gore remains the face of global warming. You make a lying fact dodging movie, fill it with nonsense and a lot of puffery about yourself and you cement your place in history forever.
I have seen only one TV “talking head” who got the argument against Paris even close to right. And even she didn’t ask that one critical question. But she’s sharp, does her homework and then isn’t afraid to speak what she thinks. She demolished her guest arguing for staying in the Paris agreement with a challenge anyone could understand,
And the guy could only stick to his appeal to authority and consensus.
Her name is Liz Wheeler and she has a 5-day a week show seen here on at 6:00 PM Pacific Time called Tipping Point. But the news channel she’s on is One America News Network, OANN and http://www.OANN.com, a channel none of the people who most need to see better arguments against the liberal/progressive agenda will ever sit down and watch.
So we have Al Gore as the king of global warming debating opponents no one who fails to understand science will understand, much less believe. And those who fail to understand science are, in my view, 97% of the worlds population.
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And there’s no guarantee that Gore will be opposed by someone who knows his elbow from a hot rock about the subject. So on it goes… …forever.
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Juncker and EU Ministers lambast Trump and America
After the Brexit vote and the final triggering of article 50 the EU leader Juncker and his ministers went all out to intimidate Britain saying its gonna cost 100Billion and then some.
Not surprisingly after Trump declared that the U.S. is leaving the Paris agreement exactly the same thing happened and Juncker and his Ministers now proceed to try and intimidate the U.S. by saying “you cannot leave overnight and it will take 3 to 4 years and cost you.
A pattern is developing from the leaders of the EU and its ministers and that is one of a group of very spiteful and vindictive people.
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“Juncker and EU Ministers lambast Trump and America”
SO WHAT.
Junket is unelected bureaucratic swill.
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They want CONTROL.
And Trump has said.. go walk off a plank !!
The poor little totalitarian twerps.
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Guardian writer, Arthur Neslen, probably thinks this is amusing.
2 Jun: ClimateChangeNews: Club of Rome president: climate sanctions on US ‘a lovely idea’
“I suspect he is a loser president,” says Ernst Ulrich von Weizsäcker. But conceded trade barrier from the EU were unlikely
By Arthur Neslen in Toulon
Americans are going to learn the hard way that Donald Trump is a “loser” but carbon taxes against US goods would be “a lovely idea” in the interim, the head of the influential Club of Rome think tank has said.
Speaking a day after the US left the Paris agreement, Ernst Ulrich von Weizsäcker, a former German SPD MP and chair of the Bundestag’s environment committee, described Trump’s move as a self-inflicted wound that put US industry on the losing side of history.
“He did this stupid act because he believes that coal is good, but it is the game-loser – as you can see from the stock market,” Weizsäcker said. “I suspect he is a loser president and Americans are going to learn it the hard way.”…
The EU climate commissioner, Miguel Arias Canete, yesterday rejected the notion – first raised by the former French president Nicolas Sarkozy – of imposing sanctions against carbon-intensive US goods that undercut the Paris pact. Weizsäcker though was warm to the notion.
“It would, symbolically, be a lovely idea,” he said. “I don’t know if it is WTO-compatible, and it would be seen by the Trump administration and many Americans as a primitive revenge. It could actually make nationalist feeling in America stronger, not weaker. But I find it a lovely idea.”
The Club of Rome brings together former heads of state, government officials, diplomats, scientists and business leaders to ***mull issues of climate change and global economy…
Trump’s withdrawal “is so absurd it creates a pre-revolutionary situation, including in America,” he says. “The Californian hi-tech industries will feel extremely frustrated by a president who honours dinosaurs and punishes innovators…
“The friendship between Europe and Asia will be enhanced by Trump’s lonely decision too, because both will immediately realise that he is a fool, and then seek different alliances,” he added…
“There is a bit of a danger that some ‘fossil governments’ will now feel encouraged to leave the Paris agreement,” Weizsäcker concedes, “but technological trends are moving towards decarbonisation, making the selling of coal from Poland or oil from Saudi Arabia, much less profitable. The rewards such fossil governments expect will be minimal and the penalties will be big. So they will be left behind.”…
http://www.climatechangenews.com/2017/06/02/club-rome-president-climate-sanctions-us-lovely-idea/
Wikipedia: Ernst Ulrich von Weizsäcker
In 1966, he graduated from Hamburg University with a Diploma in physics. In 1968, he obtained his PhD in biology from Freiburg University…
In 1981, he joined the United Nations in New York as director at the UN Center for Science and Technology. From 1984 to 1991 he headed the Institute for European Environmental Policy in Bonn. In 1991, Weizsäcker became founding president of the Wuppertal Institute, soon establishing itself as a leading environmental think tank.
In 1998, he was elected a member of the German Bundestag for the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and re-elected in 2002. As a legislator, he chaired the select committee on globalization (2000-2002) and the environment committee (2002-2005). After his decision not to run in the 2005 election, he became Dean of the Bren School of Environmental Science & Management at the University of California, Santa Barbara.[2] He returned to Germany in 2009 where is his an honorary professor at Freiburg University.
2012: NoTricksZone: P. Gosselin: Warmist Ernst Ulrich Von Weizäcker Describes International Climate Policy As “Bleak”, In Utter Disarray
Solarserver.de quotes von Weizäcker:
“We’ve got to make climate protection really profitable and finally implement energy efficiency techniques, which have been sitting in the drawer already a long time.”
Really? And so what must be done? Weizäcker proposes an economic idea that only a nutty professor could possibly concoct:
“Every year, energy and raw materials have to be made more expensive – to the same extent that efficiency increases.”
Boy, now that’s a great incentive if I ever heard one – punish people for being more efficient! Clearly von Weizäcker’s loony ideas would also lead to energy starvation for the poor in developing countries…
Solarserver.de writes: He citicizes that world events are decided by mainly Brazilians, Indians and Americans – in the countries where climate issues are ranked very low.”
No word on whether or not von Weizäcker hopped into a chauffeured limousine to ferry him to a private jet waiting on the tarmac after the interview. Just another blowhard, pampered European aristocrat who can’t find anything to be happy about.
http://notrickszone.com/2012/07/18/warmist-ernst-ulrich-von-weizacker-describes-international-climate-policy-as-bleak-in-utter-disarray/comment-page-1/#sthash.rVNWLa8O.dpbs
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comment in moderaton re: ” ClimateChangeNews: Club of Rome president: climate sanctions on US ‘a lovely idea’”
2 Jun: Washington Beacon: Susan Crabtree: Conservatives Target Musk Tax Subsidies as ‘Low-hanging Fruit’
Green energy CEO bailing on Trump advisory committee
Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s decision to quit serving as a business adviser to President Trump because of Trump’s exit from the Paris climate accord is spurring additional scrutiny of the billions of dollars in tax subsidies Tesla, SolarCity, and other Musk companies have received over the last decade.
The Heritage Foundation’s Stephen Moore called the “green-energy” tax credits Musk and his companies have benefited from “low-hanging” fruit that could help Republicans offset plans to lower the corporate rate, estimating there could be $150 billion in savings over 10 years by ending them.
“We’re scrounging for offsets so those credits and subsidies are the low-hanging fruit,” he told the Washington Free Beacon Friday.
“Elon Musk has received $4.9 billion” in green tax benefits, Moore said. “He has a vested interest in making sure these subsidies continue so of course he’s mad at Trump.”..
Musk’s decision to leave Trump’s advisory team has only fueled more criticism of the green subsides and how he has made his living.
“Good riddance,” said Benjamin Zycher, an American Enterprise Institute scholar and a vocal critic of the Paris deal. Musk’s entire business model is based on government subsidies, Zycher added.
Freedom Partners launched a six-figure digital ad campaign on Friday aimed at persuading Republicans to back their guiding principles in the upcoming GOP tax overhaul debate. One of their top-line priorities: ending “special-interest tax credits and deductions for businesses and individuals.”
“We want to eliminate all tax carve-outs, special interest giveaways, and corporate welfare—regardless of who benefits—while lowering rates to grow the economy,” spokesman Bill Riggs said in a statement. “Americans deserve a society of mutual benefit where businesses thrive by improving people’s lives, not gaming the system to profit off taxpayers.”
Even before Musk tweeted his intention to stop serving on two of Trump’s business councils, lawmakers on Capitol Hill were zeroing in on the green subsidies for elimination.
The House GOP’s blueprint for tax reform states as a main goal the “elimination of special-interest deductions in favor of providing lower tax rates for all businesses.”
“This will allow business decisions to be based on the economic potential rather than the availability of targeted tax benefits,” it states. “A tax code that is more neutral will be more efficient and will facilitate economic growth.”…READ ALL
http://freebeacon.com/issues/conservatives-target-musk-tax-subsidies/
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Reading the Clive James article one can only be in awe of the mans grasp of common sense and logic. Beautiful article.
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1 Jun: YLE News: Finland endures coldest May in nearly half a century
As many people resident in Finland already know, May was an exceptionally cold month. According to the Finnish Meteorological Institute FMI, the last time May daytime temperatures were this low was in 1969.
Although Thursday is the first day of the summer month of June, there’s no indication of balmy summer weather in sight. Daytime highs for the month are already unusually low, said Yle meteorologist Seija Paasonen…
Meanwhile new data from the Finnish Meteorological Institute indicate that across northern Finland – from Kainuu in the east to northern Ostrobothnia in the west – temperatures in May were nearly three degrees Celsius below the long term average.
The last time Finnish residents experienced a May as cold as this was in 1969 – nearly 50 years ago…
Up north, average temperatures for the month came in at two degrees. Just one year ago, the average for the region was 8.6 degrees Celsius, FMI said Thursday…
The lowest temperatures were registered in Suomussalmi on May 16, when the mercury plunged to -13.1 degrees Celsius.
http://yle.fi/uutiset/osasto/news/finland_endures_coldest_may_in_nearly_half_a_century/9643712
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Revkin does some truth-telling:
2 Jun: ClimateChangeNews: Andrew Revkin: EU-China: New ‘climate leaders’ are also enamoured of fossil fuels
Gas imports to Europe from the US and massive future coal burning in China undermine the rhetoric of the world’s new self-proclaimed climate spearheads
(This article first appeared on Pro Publica)
China, while curbing domestic construction of coal-powered plants, has become a leading lender financing the construction of new coal-burning power plants in developing countries, according to a 2016 study (LINK) by researchers at Boston University and the Institute for World Economics and Politics at the Chinese Academy of Social Science…
And Europe, while generally basking in the glow of the Paris Agreement, has been quietly lobbying the Trump administration since February to fast-track approvals of multi-billion-dollar terminals for exporting America’s abundant shale-drilled natural gas as liquefied natural gas, or LNG, across the Atlantic. Who’s the fossil fuel villain there?…
The hope is to cut European dependence on piped Russian gas – and to provide the flexible power generation needed to balance variable output from solar and wind installations.
Later that month (April 2017), secretary of energy Rick Perry used an appearance at the Bloomberg New Energy Finance meeting in Manhattan to announce the approval of a giant Texas LNG export terminal, owned by Qatar, ExxonMobil and others…
In an onstage discussion with Ethan Zindler of Bloomberg, Perry used a question on Paris to point out the difference between Europe’s climate-focused public statements and its work to gain gas supplies. “We’re out in the public and they’re giving all these speeches about the Paris accord and all the things we’re going to do, and we get into private meetings, it’s like, ‘How do we get that LNG?’,” he said, adding: “Don’t get up on the front end and make all these speeches about how good you’re doing, when the fact of the matter is you’re not.”…
It’s important to note that expanded gas exports to Europe were also a goal of the Obama administration, both for economic and strategic reasons. President Barack Obama had also urged fracking-averse Europe to do its own energy development, as well. Hillary Clinton, too, took heat from environmentalists during her campaign for her longstanding support of natural gas drilling, and natural gas exports.
In an email, Myles R. Allen, a climate scientist and policy analyst at Oxford University, said Trump’s decision hinted at a bigger issue, simmering well beyond the United States, that would continue to hinder progress – the enduring abundance of, and demand for, fossil fuels.
“The proposal to renegotiate the US terms is interesting – is it just a distraction tactic? Perhaps, but if we really want to put the future of the planet first, we do need to think about how to make the agreement both more effective and more acceptable to nations with substantial fossil reserves – or the US won’t be the last one to jump ship,” he said.
It is worth noting that the site of next year’s round of annual climate change negotiations, announced Thursday by the United Nations, will be Katowice, Poland – a city in the heart of the Polish coal belt. Poland signed the Paris Agreement along with the rest of the European Union last October, but only after gaining concessions allowing its coal use to continue.
http://www.climatechangenews.com/2017/06/02/eu-china-new-climate-leaders-also-enamoured-fossil-fuels/
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Amidst all the fluff and noise, the Paris agreement is driven largely by these assumptions:
1. The idea that carbon emissions need to be reduced, due to largely negative climatic effects (very unclear, due to unknown rate and degree of possible longer term, negative effects).
2. The idea that developed nations have gained the most from using fossil fuels, so developing nations should largely be allowed to further develop theirs, but no longer the West and other developed nations (effectively a differential penalty based on social equality and wealth/development re-distribution). This policy is driving the closure of coal power stations and coal mines in Australia, as well as higher electricity prices and subsidized renewables as we speak. It is highly debatable.
3. The idea that the market largely cannot, of its’ own, react sufficiently to longer term threats, therefore massive intervention is required. (Highly debatable). Behind this idea is the assumption that human beings also need a broad-based social bureaucracy in order to decide things, which is essentially undemocratic (also highly debatable, the alternative is the market is not reacting to a longer term threat because it is not likely to occur).
4. The idea that fossil fuels are declining rapidly in supply, and will run out sooner or later anyway, therefore the drive to renewables is both necessary and basic good planning.(Several assumptions here, but fossil fuels are continually being found against the assumptions of declining supply, and the alternative is that the market is able to react sufficiently and with greater innovation if, and when, the need for alternative energies arise. You don’t need to intervene with renewable subsidies, because the market will react once supplies begin to dwindle; the very fact it hasn’t strongly implies supplies are sufficient for some time. To pre-empt this creates various market distortions which can do more harm than good).
5. The idea that renewables are more attractive anyway, because they pollute less (debatable), they are more evenly distributed across nations and continents (not really, they are also often unevenly distributed, eg hydro requires mountains, solar requires lots of sun, geothermal requires volcanic terranes etc), and they do not concentrate power and resources in the hands of a very few, very wealthy (such as major oil companies), but allow more even wealth (possibly, however in the interim they often most benefit bureaucracy, which is the worst kind of ‘benefit’ of all), and are therefore not subject to the ‘resource curse’ (debatable, many major renewable energy projects have been certainly ‘cursed’ to bankruptcy).
There are probably other major assumptions as well, but every one of these ideas behind the Paris agreement rests on assumptions and ideas which are questionable to varying degrees, yet it has been decided by politicians and essentially un-elected bureaucrats and officials. This may not a very good recipe for trying to predict and outwit the future.
It is also entirely possible that with declining fossil fuels and the uncertainties surrounding nuclear safety, humankind might eventually (we are probably talking hundreds or years, rather than decades), revert back to a pre-industrial, 17-18th century mode of existence (e.g. private cars will be a rarity, horse-power will once again become more common etc etc), because in the absence of widespread fossil fuels there may simply be no credible, viable, transportable and economic energy alternative.
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Gotta love populist politics.
Never mind, the rest of the world can still tax the United States CO2 pollution.
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Every bloke in the street, his shieler and the bloody drover’s dog knows that the climate change rubbish is gift wrapped bullshit where Western Nations will be taxed to support third world polluters! The reasoning behind the economic basket cases signing up is to extract increased foreign aid, climate change grants and whatever other fabricated thought bubble comes into their feeble little lefty intellect! As for the first world mob, they are in it to tax the crap out of ordinary working men and women…the cost of electricity speaks for itself!!
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[…] Trump leads the way and pops the Paris bubble: http://joannenova.com.au/2017/06/trump-leads-way-in-popping-symbolic-paris-bubble/ […]
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