Tim Flannery in 2007: after a two month crash course in climate change, the man was a prophet

Flannery, Tim, Photo 2004, The West Australian.

Tim Flannery, 2004, The West Australian.

Flannery will be on Q&A tonight (bet you can’t wait, copy your questions and tweets below please!). Let’s check the exact wording of his original 2004 prediction that Perth would become a ghost town. It tells us something, not just about Flannery and a messiah complex (he really does talk of himself as an old testament prophet), but about journalism. Back then journalists interviewed critics too. Flannery was even called “alarmist” in 2004.

The original story had the calm headline: “Perth Will Die, says Top Scientist”. That article has gone beyond the space time continuum, but thankfully, it was preserved by the Wayback Machine.

Perth will become a ghost city within decades as rising global temperatures turn the Wheatbelt into a desert and drive species to the brink of extinction, a leading Australian scientist warns.

–Carmelo Amalfi, The West Australian

Perth in 2018, is wet, cool and productive and 30% larger:

Dams are at their equal highest level at the end of summer since 2002, and Perth has 67 billion litres more than any year of the last seven. The desert seems to be shrinking, arid regions are 11% greener. A record grain crop last year was followed by a bumper one this year. Instead of being abandoned in the decade after Flannery’s prediction, WA had the fastest population growth rate in the nation getting a massive 25% larger from 2006-2016. Perth grew 28% in the same period.

To bring back the rain, Flannery advised windmills to defeat “the enemy”:

In years to come these will be seen as totems to the wind and sun gods:

The South Australian Museum director and author of the best-selling The Future Eaters said a major shift from coal to renewable fuels such as solar and wind energy was needed in WA. “Coal is the enemy,” Dr Flannery said…

In 2007 he was offered the chance to step back but Flannery went double or nothing, practically biblical:

As temperatures around the world warmed by 2 to 7 per cent, [Per cent of what? — asks Jo] Sydney could glimpse its future by looking at the devastating impact that global warming had already had on Perth, which he said was likely to become a “ghost metropolis”.

“There will be conditions not seen in 40 million years…”

–Anne Davies,  Sydney Morning Herald

Perhaps “per cent” was a misprint. But 40 million years was not, and includes the formation of the Antarctic circumpolar current, super volcanoes, asteroid strikes, countless ice ages and millions of years of temperatures higher than present. The end of the last ice age saw a 125m sea level rise.

Still it’s not like the man is a paleontologist…    oh, wait.

And what do we make of this 2007 admission? The man was billed as a “top scientist” in 2004, but in Feb 2007 he tells us he’s just spent two whole months reading about “climate change”.

Dr Flannery said he had spent the past two months reading “everything I can get my hands on” about climate change, and had been horrified by what he had learnt.

After a full nine week crash course, the man is a prophet:

The next line after that:

“I wake up in the morning thinking there are lots of times when people have woken up feeling like this, like the Old Testament prophets,” Dr Flannery said.

“I try to find a way out of it, but I can’t. Its life-changing to realise what is going on.”

–Anne Davies  Sydney Morning Herald

 Flannery, expert on fossil mammals, offers his global geopolitical, physiological, and economic synopsis:

“We are one of the most physically vulnerable people on the Earth,” Dr Flannery told the Herald.

The dryness of the continent made it especially fragile in the face of climate change.

“There may be a few worse places, like Bangladesh. But southern Australia is going to be impacted very severely and very detrimentally by global climate change.”

Somehow a nation which is among the richest, with more square kilometers per person, more resources per capita than possibly anywhere on the planet, and on a stable landmass, and exporting food and coal, are “the most physically vulnerable people on Earth”.  The journalist, Anne Davies, did not even question this or think it might be worth getting a second opinion.

Archaic media: Back in the old days journalists would talk to critics too:

In 2004, in a different era, when Carmelo Amalfi of The West, had the sensationalist headline “Perth Will Die” but still clung to the old fashioned anachronistic habit of getting an alternate view, in this case from Jorg Imberger, who called Flannery’s prediction “alarmist” (even though he seemed to believe the IPCC):

Jorg Imberger, head of the University of WA’s centre for water research, agreed, saying the plant would produce about 30,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year. “Building such a plant is the worst thing we can do when we have Yaragadee, with 1000 years of water in it,” he said from Singapore yesterday.  But Dr Imberger said Dr Flannery was wrong to suggest WA was heading for an arid future when overall the world was getting wetter, not drier. He said his forecast was alarmist.

It’s a simple world. Flannery appears to be a one-variable man:

Hydrologists understand that streamflow and run off is determined by undergrowth, land clearing, evaporation rates, wind speed, etc. Flannery seems to think that only temperature matters. Warming means “less rain” which means “less run off” which means “death to flowers”:

He said a global temperature rise of less than 1C last century had robbed the State of over half its annual rainfall run-off. Global temperature rises of up to 6C would transform Perth into an arid city unable to feed itself.

A 1C rise was enough to wipe out an estimated two-thirds of WA’s native flowering plants.

Another day I’ll do something on the issue of rainfall versus runoff in WA which is a whole ‘nother topic.

For the moment, this  is really about the media. Flannery doesn’t realize it, but he’s been hung out to dry by the failure of the media to ask sensible questions and interview informed critics. With better journalism, his wild, unresearched fantasies would have been ignored, or couched in sane terms with skeptical headlines. But the man has been walking the red carpet for years because he was so uninformed he could say the things that real experts couldn’t. He deserves the mocking he gets.

We heard years ago from an insider at The Australian Greenhouse Office that he appeared to be a dejected man when he walked.

More information:

If anyone knows a link to long term data on water storage in Perth (eg a monthly total for the last few decades) please add that in comments. The WA Water corp seems to prefer to “forget” data more than 4 – 8 years old. It must be there somewhere? Where are the long term graphs?

*Edited – The end of the last ice age the seas rose 125m.

**Edited, Anne Davies was the correct author of the SMH article not Louise Pemble. Apologies. Louise Pemble authored an article in 2007 about Flannery for PerthNow.

9.3 out of 10 based on 116 ratings

220 comments to Tim Flannery in 2007: after a two month crash course in climate change, the man was a prophet

  • #
    Cynic of Ayr

    It’s not only Flannery who is digging a hole for himself. Tony Jones and the entire ABC, Fairfax, and lots of others, are right in there with him, digging away. And the hilarious thing is that, while they’re digging they are saying, “We are the smartest people. You should take notice of us!”
    There are not going to be enough chickens to lay enough eggs for these peopl’s faces!
    The funny thing is, I think Flannery knows this now. But he also knows the hole is too deep to get out of. He has to continue to bluster and spin.
    I’m not sure if Tony Jones realises it yet. But when he does, it will be fun to watch as he sacrifices anything and anyone trying to get out of it.

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    • #
      WXcycles

      You left off BOM, who seem to think he really is an honest to goodness prophet, as they backed his nonsense for many years too.

      Very sciencey it woz.

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      • #
        Leonard Lane

        Flannery said he felt like the Old Testament Prophets? He must have have been a Prophet for Baal.

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        • #
          Graeme No.3

          Baal or Baal Shet?

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        • #
          WXcycles

          They did have ‘false-prophets’ back then. Don’t know how you tested them, ideally I guess you’d check to see if what they prophesied came to pass. “Look! It’s a bleedin’ Miracle!”, etc. You’d want to get at least one of those right, to escape the ‘false’ prefix. Many are called but few are chosen.

          Seems timmy flim-flam is one of the blessed, so if you can fake it, and can leg-it pretty quickly when required, you could still become a fairly successful false-prophet.

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        • #
          Yonniestone

          Tim Flannery is the Fence Post Turtle of scientists.

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          • #
            ColA

            Yonni that’s a classic joke, a definition of most politians

            “An old rancher is talking about politics with a young man from the city. He compares a politician to a “post turtle”. The young man doesn’t understand and asks him what a post turtle is.

            The old man says, “When you’re driving down a country road and you see a fence post with a turtle balanced on top, that’s a post turtle. You know he didn’t get up there by himself. He doesn’t belong there; you wonder who put him there; he can’t get anything done while he’s up there; and you just want to help the poor, dumb thing down.”

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        • #
          Peter C

          Flannery went double or nothing, practically biblical:

          Jo.

          Flannery said he felt like the Old Testament Prophets?

          Jeremiah is my guess:
          JEREMIAH: a person who habitually prophesies doom or denounces contemporary society

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          • #
            Leonard Lane

            Peter C. No it was Elijah in 1 Kings 18:26-38.

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            • #
              OriginalSteve

              Probably an important point to note –

              The Biblical Prophets were usually conveying a message of Godly pending judgement against bad behaviour, or in modern parlance…they had it ( rightly ) coming….

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            • #
              OriginalSteve

              Flannery isnt a Biblical prophet.

              He certainly doesn’t seem to be very accurate in his predictions, whereas the Biblical Prophets had a Divine 100% accuracy hit rate.

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    • #
      Jonesy

      ….last ice age, you do mean 125m of sealevel drop…dont you?

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    • #
      RAH

      Sounds very much like James Hanson and his prediction about the West side Hwy in Manhattan being flooded over by sea level rise. He had nowhere to go and his inflated ego wouldn’t allow it anyway so he has also refused to retract. https://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/10/22/a-little-known-but-failed-20-year-old-climate-change-prediction-by-dr-james-hansen/

      This despite the fact that he and Gavin Schmidt and a couple others recently coauthored a paper stating that warming could take a break for about a 10 year period because natural variation (Decreased solar irradiance) thus masking human caused warming and resulting in what would appear to be a hiatus from warming. http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2018/20180118_Temperature2017.pdf

      So you see, the warming they claim was due to man and had nothing to do with the very active solar cycles 22 and 23, but now that they foresee that cycle 24 has been the least active in 100+ years and that cycle 25 is predicted to also be muted, the cooling that will result is due to natural variation. And never mind that the climate models the IPCC use to project the doom of mankind fail to account for variances in solar activity.

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      • #
        R B

        The excuse used by the journalist for Hansen was rehashed for Flannery. If its not in a peer-reviewed paper then you can tell all the porkies you like.

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    • #
      RAH

      More back peddling. This time from The Scientific American which, until now, had bought totally into the CAGW/Climate Change Meme and screamed it from the roof tops.
      http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2018/03/12/in-startling-reversal-scientific-american-counsels-people-to-chill-out-over-global-warming/

      BTW the sun has been spotless for 10 straight days now according to the SILSO (EISN) and the recent average lies right on the zero line.
      http://sidc.oma.be/silso/eisnplot

      To someone that has monitored solar activity over the years the correlation between the decline in solar activity and papers and articles starting to back away from the catastrophic meme is noticeable even though there is still plenty of alarmist BS being published every day.

      The way I see it with both the PDO negative and the AMO turning negative combined with the very low solar activity we’re in for a period of cooling like the 1970s. All it would make it worse, possibly very much worse, would be a VEI-6 or 7 eruption like that Tambora in 1915 along the equatorial band to push us into a cold period like no one alive has ever experienced. But this is just the musings of a truck driver who happens to take an interest in such things.

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      • #
        sophocles

        RAH wrote:

        The way I see it with both the PDO negative and the AMO turning negative combined with the very low solar activity we’re in for a period of cooling like the 1970s

        I would think it will be colder than that. The 1970s cooled without the sun entering a Grand Minimum. That cooling is well described in Nigel Calder’s book “The Weather Machine and the Threat of Ice [1974]. (ISBN 0 563 12646 9).

        The coming cooling is expected (and predicted) by some to be similar to the weather of the Dalton Minimum of 1790-1820 which was quite a bit colder than the 1970s. That was when the Sun entered a minimum as seen by solar cycles 5 and 6 activity. The weather didn’t return to warmer climes until about 1850 which is the “start” date for most modern (read IPCC sponsored) temperature series. If you want to find out more about that weather, read Charles Dickens’ books. He grew up through that period and began publishing in the 1840s, just before the great Irish Famine.

        However, the coming minimum is predicted to be a Grand Minimum of similar order to the Maunder Minimum. It could be even colder than the Dalton. If you have to wonder about European clothing favoring felted wool as trouser, waistcoat and overcoat material for the men and layers of petticoats over waist to ankle pantaloons for the women and heavy thick woollen materials for their dresses (heavy brocades etc for the upmarket gowns) then it was all the fault of the weather/climate. Fashion follows necessity …

        Yersinia Pestis likes cold times, too. People crowd together for warmth and so created perfect conditions for its spread.

        We don’t know how the coming Solar Minimum is going to pan out as far as climate is concerned. We know there is going to be one from recent research [Shepherd, Zharkov, Zharkova [2014]. Solar Cycle 25 looks to be marginally stronger than the present, nearly over, Cycle 24. Cycle 26 is … ummm predicted to be very weak.

        When the new Minimum was mentioned as another Maunder Minimum, there was a mass of speculation about it being very cold, another Little Ice Age. <sarc>Of course this proved very popular with the warmistas and really rang their bells. </sarc>

        We don’t have long to wait. We enter the “danger zone” [2020-2050] in just a couple of years …

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        • #
          Rah

          Well let us know when we’re in a “Grand Solar Minimum” because from what I’ve seen there is not a single definition for what one is. Exactly what defines such an event is under dispute. When I asked Isvalgaard over at WUWT for the accepted definition of a “Grand Solar Minimum” his response was “You’ll know it when your in one.”

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        • #
          Rah

          Sophocles
          Please don’t take my reply wrong. Though I disagree with your assessment it is impossible for me to address it in detail on a phone. I’m currently in NY heading for a delivery in snowy Syracuse this morning. PU in Rochester and Buffalo tomorrow before heading home.

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      • #
        OriginalSteve

        RAH, I have mates who are concreters who work outside all the time, who can tell anyone with a PhD that CAGW is pure nonsense.

        Empirical observation and honest assessment will trump academic govt-funded navel gazing any day….

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  • #
    TdeF

    The question which should be asked is how a man whose degree was in English at what was then a new university could present himself as an expert on all science, meteorology, computer science, nuclear power, power generation (hot rocks $90million wasted), hydrology and even the physical equilibrium which determines the concentration of CO2 in the air. Presumably he could not get into a Science degree, even at La Trobe.

    What right has he to quote science and the incredible predictions of ‘computer models’? Does he even understand the mathematical principles of chemical and physical equilibrium which underpin every complex system?

    This man has no hard science at all at undergraduate level but was appointed our Nation’s Climate Commissioner employed on a salary of $180,000 a year for 3 days a week advising the country on Meteorology? This was above 500 full time meteorologists in our Bureau of Meteorology?

    There are so many questions to be answered but the main one is, why does anyone believe him? Why does the ABC showcase someone who has failed to get anything right? Or is it all about the Left?

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    • #
      Chad

      TdF, you are selling Flattery short by overlooking his qualifications gained from studdying the native kangaroo.
      I believe he taught himself their language and he now uses it exclusively to communicate to the rest of the world?
      That is why he sound as if he is talking crap most of the time.

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      • #
        Chad

        ] In 1984, Flannery earned a doctorate at the University of New South Wales in Palaeontology for his work on the evolution of macropods (kangaroos)…

        Ref Wiki..

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        • #
          TdeF

          “According to Wiki, Tim Flannery “completed a Bachelor of Arts degree in English at La Trobe University in 1977, and then took a change of direction to complete a Master of Science degree in Earth Science at Monash University in 1981… In 1984, Flannery earned a doctorate at the University of New South Wales in Palaeontology for his work on the evolution of macropods (kangaroos)”

          The real question is how you get peer review on extinct animals peculiar to Australia? Then again, Flannery is peerless. Expert on economics, investment as well as nuclear, both a long way from dead kangaroos. You can be thankful we (Australians) only blew $90million on his promoted hot rocks scheme.

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          • #

            TdeF I think that Flannery changed direction into climste because there wss published an article in a journal critising some resesrch on fossils in PNG. I read the article nut can not remember where it eas published. I believe he wrongly identified the fossils and his theory about connection with Australia fell flat. He may with resigned from the museum before his tsrnished repution could may presentrd difficulties with his job. Sorry about spelling big figurrs on s small pad.

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            • #
              TdeF

              Also because you can hardly earn a living with a PhD in dead kangaroos. As Michael Mann found, there’s fame and fortune in a single tree ring. 500 TV interviews just in the last year, 2 per calendar day. Who needs facts?

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            • #
              Kinky Keith

              Ignore the red. Was supposed to be a green.

              20

            • #
              Graeme No.3

              cementafriend:

              Not so. He was still Director of the Museum after The Future Eaters was a success. That wasn’t his first move into alarmism, but it made his name internationally.
              On the other hand I was talking about him to an employee of the Museum who came ito contact with him frquently and she dismissed him as “saying whatever would sound good for him.”

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          • #
            ColA

            TdeF, don’t forget all the millions spent on desalination plants built on his scare mongering, all sitting idle costing $1,000,000 plus yearly to produce NOTHING – Hmmm … Sounds like a greens politician!!

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      • #
        Yonniestone

        Whats that skip?, the rains are back and the climates cooled, geez we’d better go tell Al and Leo!

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      • #
        Gregg

        I do believe that you owe the kangaroos an apology for associating them with Flannery the AGW (Anthropogenic Global Warming) charlatan.

        20

      • #
        OriginalSteve

        So Flannery can communicate with 6′ rodents…..now there’s a career….

        A rework of the Australian TV Series “Skippy the Bush Kangaroo”

        “Whats that Skip? CAGW is on the roof and it wont come down?”

        “Go get help, Skip”

        60

  • #
    Alistair

    I believe that somewhere in Australia there is a light bulb powered by geothermal energy, somewhere.

    130

  • #
    Gidi

    Begrudgingly, We have to admit that the prof is a winner.
    Australian of the year – tick
    Star on ABC TV – tick
    Convince the decision makers that Coal is the Enemy – tick.

    I wish Jo was on ABC and, if I could, I would for her to be Aussie of the year 🙁

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  • #
    peter

    “The last ice age saw a 125m sea level rise.”
    Jo, do you mean “the end of the last ice age saw a 125m sea level rise”?

    The facts are all on Jo’s side but alas, the majority of people have their thinking directed by emotion and “feelings” rather than facts or evidence.

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  • #
    Alistair

    Come to think of it – at this very moment, Australia probably derives more power from potato batteries than geothermal energy.
    Now there’s a thought ….

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  • #
    robert rosicka

    Someone should ask him if sea levels are to rise by so much how come you bought sea front property ?

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    • #
      Dennis

      He must charge a fee to go on Q&A because his two waterfront properties would be of little of no real estate value by now.

      sarc

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    • #
      joseph

      Could it be we’re being too hard on Tim? Not many decades have passed since he said decades.

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    • #
      TimiBoy

      Who’s the dick who gives the thumbs down? Doesn’t he think Flummery’s BEHAVIOUR is relevant?

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      • #
        robert rosicka

        Resident trolls no doubt Philpot is one , just remember one red is worth ten green .

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      • #
        sophocles

        Don’t panic TimiBoy, it’s just the Drive-by Disapprovers —anyone who is not RahRahRah IPCC RahRahRah, CO2’s Evil etc etc, is automagically given a red thumb. There’s always one on duty, sometimes there’s two.

        You’ll also notice that they’ve never consulted the plants about rising CO2, probably because they really know they’ll be out-voted.

        But they’re just part of the scenery here—To Be Ignored.

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        • #
          OriginalSteve

          Red thumbs are to encouraged…it means the whinging lefties actually have to do something remotely productive, instead of screaming at the sky….who’ have thunk it?

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    • #
      Graeme#4

      Not seafront. Didn’t film-flam buy two waterfront blocks on the Hawkesbury with his ill-gotten gains from the Govt?

      10

      • #
        Environment Skeptic

        No, mann/flann is an island…..and… hockey sticks float…and kangaroos will evolve so that their pouches become a means of floating when sea levels rise. That covers everything.

        10

  • #
    John F. Hultquist

    A 1C rise was enough to wipe out an estimated two-thirds of WA’s native flowering plants.

    Hard to believe this. Note the word was.

    WA must be a bleak place with so few native flowers.
    I need a grant to come there and investigate this happening.

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    • #
      JLC of Perth

      Come during the wild flower season. It’s quite lovely then.

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    • #
      john karajas

      During September and October Kings Park has truly worthwhile guided walks along the Nature Trail where the wildflowers are in abundance. Amongst the other numerous places worth visiting during these months is Wireless Hill on the other side of the Swan River.

      Jorn Imberger was quite right to invoke the Yarragadee Formation as a source of water: the formation slopes downwards from its catchment area near the Darling Fault in the east and then slopes back up to the west so that it subcrops underneath the Geographe Bay. The hydraulic head between the catchment area and the area of subcrop is substantial and this results in major subterranean freshwater flows into Geographe Bay, water that could validly supply the southwest of WA and Perth. Instead we have plunged full into unnecessary levels of desalination.

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      • #
        john karajas

        I could comment on TomFoolery, Q&A and Tony Jones but, what the heck, my language would be gross!

        Hang on: what happened to Jonesies’ bromance with Clive Palmer?

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    • #
      Tim Hammond

      That illustrates how truly stupid he is. The rise is an average over a year, not every day. So the flowers will have to cope with many days that are identical to those they have seen before, a few more “hot” days than they are used to and slightly higher minimums some days.

      Or he is a liar, and he knows that what he is saying will make people think every day is going to be hotter.

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    • #
      R B

      Or WA once looked like a hospital gift shop?

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  • #
    el gordo

    “There will be conditions not seen in 40 million years…”

    That is a lie, conditions like that were seen around Perth 18,000 years ago.

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  • #
    rollo

    When Mark Steyn appeared on Q&A I was looking forward to a good stoush on climate change, but they avoided the subject entirely.
    I bet they’ll go easy on Flannery and ask a few easy questions about the size and texture of wombat droppings or something. I’ll be really surprised if his many failed predictions get more than the briefest mention.

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    • #

      Yes. That is the pattern. They’ve asked me to go on Q&A, but never for a climate show, even when they were discussing the documentary David were part of.

      I’ve said no thanks for that reason several times.

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    • #
      Bushkid

      Wombat droppings, I’m assured by a friend (who is an amateur person knowledgeable about wombat droppings), are square/cubic in shape, and when crumbled have a sweet smell.

      There, now everyone here knows as much about wombat droppings as Flummery does – and a great deal more about the chaotic workings of our atmosphere, climate and weather.

      Another dedicated student of the wombat (from a truck drivers point of view) assures me that when a wombat is struck by a moving vehicle, the moving vehicle will often come off second best. Apparently, adult wombats are exceptionally solid/dense marsupials.

      There, now we all know even more about wombats that Flummery.

      20

  • #
    destroyer D69

    My question to Dr{?} Flannery in short was.. How many of your predictions have actually eventuated Please name one that has been verified independently as being correct? All readers are given permission to ask the same question. They will not be able to ignore this if enough people submit it on the Q&A question site.

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  • #
    WXcycles

    They need to get on that sincere guy who tore Suzuki apart, and get him to hit the flam with some observations, facts and logic. That’ll would be a bit rude, but bloody good telly.

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    • #
      rollo

      Suzuki must have a thick hide turning up on a national TV show as a climate expert who knows nothing about temperature datasets! Maybe he didn’t expect any unvetted questions and thought he would be able to sit there with a benign smile and just give his blessing to a rapt audience.

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  • #
    WXcycles

    They need to get on that sincere guy who tore Suzuki apart, and get him to hit the flam with some observations, facts and logic. That would be a bit rude for him, but bloody good telly.

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  • #
    ROM

    Flannery is a truly excellent example of today’s academically trained prophets who have had no hard learnt in field experience pertaining to their roles as prophets.

    We are after all today overrun, in fact over run to that of a mouse plague proportions by prophets of every description who after consulting with their computer screens and checking their bank ballances and incoming grants ,continually prophecise all the disasters that are about to befall mankind in climate and finance and in population numbers and in weather and in sea level rises and nuclear armageddons and etc and etc.

    The only difference today being that the modern “prophecising’ [ profiting ? ] participants call themselves climate scientists or scientists at every level of prophecising incompetence as well as climate and financial and “whatever” “experts”.

    They are unfortunately a dime a dozen with unfortunately, unlike those times of 3000 years ago, we have no agreed and acceptable mechanism to permanently remove, to permanently cull all those prophets aka climate scientists / BOM spokespersons and an innumerable number of publicly financed false prophets , er! “experts” who make and continue to make bad prophecies on just about every subject under the Sun and who create distress and enormous social instability by corrupted interpretations of the images as seen on their modern equivalent of crystal balls and sheep turds and chicken entrails, the all powerful computer screens.

    Now in the good old days when prophecy was a very respectable albeit self taught trade with the backing and imprimatur of the most superior recognised authority around, prophets were revered for the accuracy and integrity of their prophecies.

    Prophecy in those old days of some 3000 years ago was a self selecting trade as those who messed up their prophecies, most likely pertaining to the number or otherwise of the profitable shekels to be made on the equivalent of the stock market whereas serious losses appeared instead, would likely lead to the aforesaid prophet losing his license to practice prophecy or have his career as a prophet cut short somewhere out the back of the wood shed on a very dark night.

    So a weeding out of unofficial and poorly perfoming prophets for even one off mistaken prophecies likely occurred back those 3000 years plus, something that many believe should have been applied to and would have been a suitable ending to not only Flannery’s own career as a leading prophet of the imminent appearance of the “Four Horse Men of the Apocolyse”, ie War, Famine, Pestilence and Death but also of the careers of innumerable numbers of of other experts who practice as psuedo prophets and predictors of the future..

    Unfortunately in our current hand wringing do gooder elitist crazy, mixed up politically and morally irrational times, such failures in prophecy that affects millions of citizens leads not to loss of license to prophecise by those who made those false prophecies but rather to increases in salaries and elevation in rank.

    However, one thing is very definitely a feature of Flannery’s prophecies;

    He never ever expected to be asked to walk on water!

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    • #
      C. Paul Barreira

      Flannery is no prophet, a fortune-teller maybe, but no prophet (see Abraham J. Heschel, The Prophets [HarperPerennial, 2001, orig. publ. 1962]). Prophets are much more interesting. They knew whereof they spoke.

      “He never ever expected to be asked to walk on water!” It’s amusing to recall the complaint decades ago that if Gough Whitlam walked on water (say, Lake Burley Griffin) the Australian would declaim that he couldn’t swim!

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  • #
    TimiBoy

    I no longer engage with them on Political Social Media. I troll them up, then I’m rude to them, then I block them. It’s just so damned obvious they are wrong they deserve nothing but bile.

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    The trick with salesman Timmy is to buy Tench’s Journal (edited by Timmy, containing detailed description of the early 1790s heat and drought which might have wiped out the new colony), and the odd good Panasonic product.

    You don’t buy a Prius, Geodynamics shares…or any utterance of the Climate Council.

    Timmy is a salesman, pure and simple. Buy, don’t buy. It’s the sizzle not the steak right? And ABC: Always Be Closing. Since man launched upholstery into space Timmy’s flim-flam may seem downright modest, but the guy was great in his day. How was he to know in 2007 that the real future was Mars rather than Geothermia?

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    toorightmate

    Is the photo of Tim at the wailing wall?
    Or is the wall simply wailing because Tim is there?

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  • #
    TedM

    “As temperatures around the world warmed by 2 to 7 per cent,”

    WOW!!! 7% would be about 20.5C. Just where has that actually occurred Timmy?

    Data please, and source as well to boot.

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    pat

    jo, I was trying to check on the writer you excerpt twice, once at The West Australian, the other at SMH – Louise Pemble.

    Pemble doesn’t appear to have worked for Fairfax. the link you have goes to Anne Davies/SMH article.

    2004: Sydney’s future eaten: the Flannery prophecy
    By Anne Davies, Urban Affairs Editor
    As temperatures around the world warmed by 2 to 7 per cent…
    https://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/05/18/1084783517732.html

    as for Pemble, it appears she has joined the Public Service:

    LinkedIn: Louise Pemble, Communication account manager at Department of Agriculture and Water Resources
    Canberra, Australia
    Experience includes:
    Reporter Sunday Times (Perth) June 2003 – February 2008
    https://au.linkedin.com/in/louise-pemble-68694426

    Dec 2015: PS News: PS Social….with Lyn Mills
    Agriculture cultivates a Canberra Christmas
    It’s wind-down time for some parts of the Public Service as Christmas parties and holidays are planned…
    We in the other world of the private sector get confused and wonder why, as those who play with acronyms for departmental shorthand went from DAFF, Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry to DAWR, Department of Agriculture and Water Resources.

    PHOTO CAPTION: Louise Pemble, Tegan McGrath and Stephanie Wellington

    But for all the DAWR Comms team settling under the trees at the Canberra Yacht Club with a spread of sweet treats to outdo any CWA group in the country, it was time to leave ‘work’ back in the office and settle in with hundreds of others with the same idea from Departments all over the national capital…
    http://www.psnews.com.au/aps/485/pssocial

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    pat

    every where I look, this is behind paywall:

    $1.3bn hit as subsidies for solar panels surge by Joe Kelly
    The Australian-18 hours ago
    Energy consumers will be forced to pay more than $1 billion for rooftop solar installation subsidies this year, increasing power costs by up to $100 per household, according to an industry analysis.
    Operators warn of a spike in the number of unscrupulous operators unless the green-power subsidy is wound back…
    Industry analysis obtained by The Australian reveals the cost of small-scale technology certificates — created to increase the incentive to install rooftop solar — shows the value of the subsidies was $500 million last year. The solar industry is expecting the subsidy to increase to about $1.3bn this year, based on an estimate by the Clean Energy Regulator…

    more here:

    CatallaxyFiles: Open Forum: March 10, 2018
    COMMENT: Tom #2658057, posted on March 12, 2018 at 5:23 am
    The Clean Energy Regulator has released figures showing that more than 1057 megawatts of ­capacity was installed last year, equating to 3.5 million solar ­panels being fixed to rooftops.
    Industry analysis obtained by The Australian reveals the cost of small-scale technology certificates — created to increase the incentive to install rooftop solar — shows the value of the sub­sidies was $500 million last year.

    The solar industry is expecting the subsidy to increase to about $1.3bn this year after the regulator estimated in January that 22 million new certificates would be created over the year.
    The certificates are granted to people installing solar panels, and electricity retailers are required to buy them.

    Jeff Bye, founder and owner of Demand Manager in Sydney, a company that creates and trades the certificates, warned that the rebate was “overly generous” in many circumstances. “There are strong reasons to support installation of rooftop solar in Australia; however, it’s a question of the degree of support needed,” he said.
    “The cost increase (this year) is about $800m and there are 8 million households … so there’ll be a cost impact of around $100 per household. The electricity impact might be $40 or $50 per household but businesses will pass through the additional cost too … That subsidy of $500m last year, or $1.2bn to $1.3bn this year, is added on to everyone’s bills.”

    Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg said the Australian Energy Market Commission had found the average cost to households over the past five years was about $29 a year, with the price peaking in 2012 at $44 for the year. “The AEMC forecasts residential electricity prices will fall over the next two years as renewable energy, including small-scale solar supported by the Renewable Energy Target, enters the system,” Mr Frydenberg said.
    In last year’s Residential Electricity Price Trends report, the AEMC acknowledged that “costs incurred in purchasing certificates are assumed to be passed on to consumers through retail prices”.

    Mr Frydenberg celebrated the solar rooftop take-up last year, saying Australia had emerged as a “world leader” and noted that one in five households used solar power.

    NSW Liberal MP Craig Kelly, chairman of the Coalition backbench committee for energy and the environment, warned that the cost of rooftop solar subsidies was being carried by those who could least afford it.
    He said the benefits of lower power prices were going to high-wealth households that installed the panels, while those without solar panels were hit with higher prices passed on by electricity ­retailers.
    “It’s effectively a reverse Robin Hood scheme where we are ­increasing the electricity prices on the poor to reduce electricity ­prices for the rich,” Mr Kelly said.
    “A woman rang me during the week and broke down on the telephone. She just got her electricity bill and it was $800. She was ­expecting a bill of $400 … she’s got no way of paying for it.”…
    http://catallaxyfiles.com/2018/03/10/open-forum-march-10-2018/comment-page-5/

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      RickWill

      “The cost increase (this year) is about $800m and there are 8 million households … so there’ll be a cost impact of around $100 per household. The electricity impact might be $40 or $50 per household but businesses will pass through the additional cost too … That subsidy of $500m last year, or $1.2bn to $1.3bn this year, is added on to everyone’s bills.”

      This statement is only true on an average basis. Those installing the panels will consume less electricity and get paid for whatever they export. That means the cost falls unevenly on the consumers not installing solar so they are hit harder.

      The RET guarantees electricity price rises for those not generating their own.

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        MudCrab

        Was talking about power supply last year with a technical expert who had very little nice to say about solar.

        Small picture? Yes, you cut your personal bills.

        Big picture? You are stuffing it up for everyone else.

        As has been pointed out the sort of people who own solar are the ones who own their own homes, meaning that you find great clumps located in the same location. The example given to me was actually Victor Harbor here in SA. For those who don’t live here in the Blackout State, Victor is a little seaside town about an hour’s drive south of Adelaide. If you ignore ‘Schoolies’ once a year the place is very nice to move to on retirement.

        So? Retirees = Own home = bit of spare cash = solar panels.

        What this means for power supply is that if it suddenly becomes cloudy in Victor hundreds of solar panels stop feeding into the grid at once which is joy and happiness if you are trying to provide a stable baseload.

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  • #
    ROM

    Jo makes mention of the ongoing and continuing gross failure of the media such as the ABC in failing in its totality to ask the hard questions of the so called ‘scientists” and ” experts” who frequently opening their gobs on subjects far, far from their areas of expertise and supposed knowledge base, continue to make these irrational and irresponsible, plucked out of the ether as it goes by, predictions and prophecies on so many subjects today.

    The ABC expert’s very recent example of a complete failure in her understanding on a subject as universal as “profits” and “income” and the clear failure of the recently apppointed ABC expert financial commentator to so blatantly fail to understand the difference backed openly by an almost equally ignorant suite of ABC executives really does highlight the steadily narrowing base of basic knowledge of the ABC’s commentators and executives now encompass.,

    A narrowing base of knowledge which is being replaced by steadily increasing and pathologically bigoted commentary on anybody and anything that dares to question and counter the arrogant and hubris driven, “We are too big to be touched” ABC’s own self styled, self importance and belief that it is no longer responsible to the people or to parliamentary discipline as a publicly legislated for and publicly funded propaganda outlet for an increasing stream of left wing invective and “progressive” propaganda and channel for left wing radicals of every stripe to voice their irrational and spit filled hatred of anything and anybody who dares to differ from them in ideology.

    Now my knowledge of how the ABC is set up legislatively and how it is financed through parliamentary grants and allocations is something I am not particularly knowledgeable about.

    However the funding for the year to year operations in their totality are made in the Budget each year. The ABC for a number of years has been steadily concentrating its resources and its personnel in Sydney, mainly concentrated within the highly paid elitist government and semi-government and academic green and goat cheese circles areas of Sydney.

    From a total Australian national overview of a publicly funded broadcaster who now only has about 15% of the total Australian audience as its base audience, this is a national disgrace and a sewer water level reflection on the executives of the ABC that literally stinks as far as most Australians are concerned when they think of mass communications and how much they have to pay to not listen to or to not watch the ABC.

    Governments at the federal level seem incapable of reforming the ABC as any reforming act is stymied by the left and green political apparartchiks as the ABC is their main propaganda arm .
    Without the ABC, the greens and much of Labor’s programs would be all but extinct if their propaganda arm, the ABC was shut down.
    ———————–
    So thinking sideways a bit.

    The ABC has often used the justification that it only costs so many cents per day per person in Australia to run the ABC.

    The ABC is closing down and / or reducing dramatically most of its state branches in favour of concentrating everything ABC in Sydney.

    The Government [ as opposed to Parliament ] cannot interfere in the ABC ‘s running or governance. Thats the role of the government appointed ABC Board.

    The Federal Government has some sort of legislated obligation to continue to allocate a certain level of annual funding to the ABC..

    I suspect that this funding mecahanism might be a bit more flexible in the manner in which it is allocated to the ABC than is recognised.
    ———————–
    So!
    Retain and pay the level of funding to the ABC from the Federal parliamentary annual budget as per past practice.

    BUT!

    Allocate a proportion of the ABC’s total annual budgetted funding to each state based on a state’s per capita basis.

    Designate the overall fund as a “public communications” fund so that the states have flexibility in both time and areas to reimburse the ABC or perhaps some more worthy broadcasting group with funding from the State’s own controlled part of the overall “public communications” fund.

    The Federal Governments role is thus fulfilled.

    They have allocated the required budgetary amounts to the ABC but have done so by returning some Federal powers over the ABC back to the States.

    Each State can then fund or withold funding for the ABC from its allocation as they see fit and according to the service given to that State by the ABC and the interest the citizens of that State have in the ABC’s productions and news programs and etc.

    The fund monies would eventually revert via the States back to the ABC but it would do so with in the States demands that the ABC meet certain quality controls on news and programming that would benefit that State’s citizenery directly rather than being told what that citizenery are allowed to say and do and think by the current Sydney centric ABC.

    The States of course rarely honour any such funding ties in their totality so the ABC would have to promptly front up with programming that would reflect the State citizens demands or some of that annual funding is likely to dissapear to somewhere else in the State’s systems.
    ———————-

    The ABC’s funding obligations by the Feds would have been met.

    The States would once again hold a whip hand over the ABC to present the programming and news casting it was originally set up to promote to and across the whole of the Australian public in the mid 1930’s.

    The Sydney nbased ABC mafia factions would be broken up or the ABC would effectively destroy itself in trying to avoid some control over its activities by the States through the State funding arrangements.

    We might even get an ABC again that is centrist and even handed in its outlooks and interviews and a possible and very much hoped for reduction in inflated self opinionated hubris laden and tottally arrogant overpaid ABC commentors who have never stood for election but believe that they and they alone know how to run the Nation.

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    • #
      Peter C

      Thanks ROM,

      That is an interesting and quite revolutionary idea. Devolve power back to the States!

      I think it is a good idea. You had a red thumb, but no green thumb, when I read your contribution. I won’t give a green right now because I think the red thumb gives some positive emphasis to your contribution.

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    • #
      PeterG

      ROM,

      I like the idea.

      A further constructive consideration would be to transfer all funding from the “talking heads” in the current affairs programming to making local TV productions (for entertainment). This would leave the news department alone, but they would have to cover national and local issues AS NEWS.

      The money saved from the current affairs spend would allow further productions such as Dr Blake or Miss Fischers Mysteries. This also provides wonderful jobs and experience for all of the arty (lefty) actors, writers film and sound staff.

      Also the ABC seems to have s surplus of Radio stations, Web sites and TV stations – a bit of rationalisation there would allow the employ of even more actors, writers…..

      I mean would you rather watch one Tony Jones or an entire cast in a local production, for probably similar money:)

      Further reading https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2014/02/abcs-marxists/

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    pat

    given Flannery is allowed to prophesy…why not David Taylor? time will tell:

    6 Mar: Daily Mail: The map EVERY Australian should see: With the country set to shiver through the coldest ever winter – just how low could the temperature get near you?
    A weather expert has predicted that Australia is in for record breaking icy winter
    Amateur David Taylor has correctly predicted previous major weather events
    His forecasts use a range of cutting-edge information including sun spot activity
    Daily Mail has compiled a map of the lowest July temperatures ever recorded
    By Brett Lackey
    Australia is heading towards it’s coldest winter on record predicts David Taylor, who runs the Brisbane Weather and East Coast Weather Facebook pages.
    If the prediction comes to fruition Australians could be facing winter temperatures chillier than those ever recorded.
    Daily Mail Australia has compiled a map to show the lowest July temperatures ever recorded using the Government’s Bureau of Meteorology climate data search function.
    It shows Canberra could be headed for a freezing -8C…

    Mr Taylor, who has correctly predicted major weather events in the past, said that the icy conditions would impact huge areas of Australia.
    ‘It will be slightly cooler than normal in the north but the real cold will be in the southern states and southeast Queensland,’ he told The Cairns Post.
    ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if there is snow in places where it hasn’t snowed for a long time.’

    Mr Taylor has explained that his forecast formula uses changes in sunspot activity, along with Global Forecast System modelling, and the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecast.
    Mr Taylor said tracking sunspot activity has enabled him to successfully predict weather events in the past.
    He was lauded for correctly predicting that 600mm of rain would fall in Townsville on February 28…
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5466309/The-map-Australian-see.html

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    • #
      C. Paul Barreira

      Looking at the Daily Mail article and especially the map, I don’t see any real difference between this and the fortune-telling of Flannery. What does a table (to the extent that it is a table) of largely undefined numbers actually mean? They seem to be the lowest minimum temperatures recorded in the relevant places. Well, he got Adelaide wrong; he’s out by eight days! See here. And that in a very, very dry year.

      As for sunspots I remember much chatter on that subject around ten years ago—it all came to nothing. It may be different this time. I doubt anyone can know. I find it curious that those who proclaim a coming little ice age or the like, some sort of Maunder Minimum redux, have had no (apparent) communication with the Russian team that has forecast a cool period reaching its nadir in about 2030.

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    mmxx

    The largely unserviceable wrecks of desalination plants around Australia that were rushed into construction by various state governments on the advice of Flannery and his cabal of alarmist cohorts from the Climate Council, are stark testaments to the costs on taxpayers that these irresponsible and unrepentant propagandists have caused.

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    liberator

    We always seem to see these PRO climate change people on the ABC. It’s rare that we see any counter argument. The ABC is supposed to be impartial and unbiased yet they never seem to show both sides of a climate change debate.

    Oh sorry, they did once on Q&A, what 1 against 6? I’d love for the ABC to get Jo, Judith or Anthony Watts. They never will because they can counter the climate change science with science that strongly challenges the “theory”.

    Who really cares what the ABC show? Only a small percentage of viewers even watch it and those that do are already convinced so watch to get their dose of facts. Well last week it was 17% over four channels, 12.8% on the main channel, and the top rating shows over those channels, (1 & 3) Squinters, (2) Peppa the pig, (4) Death in Paradise and (5) Shaun Micallef.

    My 8 cents a day is being well and truly wasted on biased and unbalanced discussions and TV shows that I have no interest in nor do I have kids young enough who want to watch the top rating shows!

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    Bitter&twisted

    Flannery lost it years ago when, by his own words, he became a “prophet”
    He’s verifiable.

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    Peter C

    Off Topic.
    BATMAN by election 17 March 2018.

    I spent some time today helping as a volunteer to prepare signs for the Batman By Election. Kevin Bailey is standing for the Australian Conservatives;

    The former SAS officer emphasised that the Australian Conservatives, “Are not a right wing party but rather we are positioned right in the centre of political debate. We stand for traditional, conservative families.”

    https://www.conservatives.org.au/bailey_for_batman

    I did this because I want to do something, anything, to try to reverse the direction that our body politic is going.

    Next Saturday I will help to man the Fairfield primary school booth in the afternoon.
    Say hello if you are passing or voting.

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    RickWill

    The QandA is only covering population growth. Flannery may drift into the issue of water supply and carbon targets but the topic will primarily be covering immigration.

    I have the impression that the panel is stacked for reduced level of immigration.

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    • #
      robert rosicka

      Four corners tonight is also about our country’s population growth so let’s join the dots and see if we can work out what their trying to tell us , we’re poisoning the planet with Co2 last week and this week there is too many of us ! Nuh still can’t see the link .

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        WXcycles

        They are the schmarties, the enlightened self-appoimted elite, here to school us in right, I mean left, tinkin’. It’s a bonus ‘free’ ABC service which you and your family did not ask for, and don’t even want, but the extremist looney-left Elite has unilaterally decided it’s for the best (i.e. not for you), but it’s not actually free, we lied, hahahaaaa, anyway, you are actually paying for it, involuntarily, like forever,, it’s in the constitution or something, apparently tuey are like those invasive pests in the Aliens movies, you just can’t kill the wretched little bastards, they just spay acid at democracy, so accountability does not apply, so it woz ordained, so it shall be, so pay up sucker, and kiss your overlord’s feet, as we run this society, you are just a voting taxed peon, so know ypur place, and we shall get along just fine.

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    Salome

    On the one hand we have Flannery the Prophet, and on the other Noel Pearson, who, in an article criticising ‘conservatives’ in The Australian on the weekend, wrote:
    “Climate change is the exemplar of obscurantism. Even if aspects of the science are still unclear, climate denialism is now a form of cultish religion for Australian conservatives. Dumb green advocates brought this destructive ideological impasse about, but that does not excuse conservatives abandoning conservatism in relation to the environment.”
    A form of cultish religion? Has Mr Pearson read any of the posts on this site? The cultish religion is the one that feeds insufficient data into its computer, runs a few untested algorithms over it and then changes the story when each of its predictions fails to come true, like a doomsday cult that has to recalculate every time the world doesn’t end as prophesied.

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    dennisambler

    I wonder if Flannery has yet discovered that absorption of CO2 by the oceans does not produce Carbolic acid, (phenol) but the much gentler Carbonic acid:

    http://www.tata.com/article.aspx?artid=tut2YR29NNU=
    This is from an “interview” with Flannery, at a Tata conference in India a few years back.

    “carbon dioxide in the atmosphere produces carbolic acid in the ocean, the ocean becomes acidic and things die.”

    It was also in one of his books.

    More at Quadrant online: https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2016/01/fishy-science-ocean-acidification/

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    pat

    just remember hearing a caller on 2GB raving about this segment of ABC’s Landline. I do like Pip Courtney, who has put this together. haven’t watched it all yet, but it looks very interesting:

    VIDEO: 20mins26secs: 11 Mar: ABC Landline: Pip Courtney: Just Add Water: An oasis in the Pilbara a possible game changer for WA’s pastoral industry
    The owner of a Pilbara cattle station has tapped into the water from a river running underneath his property – transforming the dry, marginal grazing country into what looks like a lush green dairy farm.
    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-03-11/just-add-water:-an-oasis-in-the-pilbara-a-possible/9537146

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      pat

      should have begun the Landline comment with – “just REMEMBERED” not “remember”…

      while the likes of Flim Flam and Michael Mann get maximum media time, unchallenged, AFR gives Adani Australia’s chief executive, Jeyakumar Janakaraj, an Opinion piece, then begins it with video of PM Turnbull defending Adani, plus inserts video of Shorten’s criticisms, pic of anti-Adani protest and anti-Adani cartoons. nice going, AFR:

      11 Mar: AFR: Opinion: Why Adani has stuck with the Carmichael mine for seven years
      by Jeyakumar Janakaraj, chief executive of Adani Australia
      For the past seven years our team at Adani have not wavered in our vision to build the Carmichael mine, rail and port project in Central Queensland. Wherever I travel people ask me, why hasn’t Adani walked away? The hurdles seem so high and the flood of misinformation from opponents of the resources industry has been enough to drown any project.

      The reason is that the Carmichael project is linked to unstoppable global growth that has the potential to benefit Australians by creating jobs for families, opportunities for local businesses and billions of dollars in royalties to fund schools, roads and hospitals for years to come. We have 800 people working with us in Australia and we have invested $3.3 billion to date to help realise this opportunity.

      The International Energy Agency predicts global energy demand will grow by 30 per cent in the next 22 years. To help meet this demand, power generation will increase 370 per cent. Power from coal generation will increase 250 per cent and power via renewables will increase 1750 per cent.

      People in countries such as Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines and India are emerging from poverty. Only a generation ago they washed in a river, walked everywhere and cooked on fuel stoves, now many have motorbikes, mobile phones and are treated in clinics with basic equipment when they are sick.

      In India, my home country where Adani is based, growth is turbo-charged. By 2040, India’s share of global energy use will be 11 per cent The population numbers 1.3 billion; in these people’s lifetimes, India and their standard of living will transform.

      A similar revolution in living standards occurred in America last century. People born in a cabin in the late 1800s were, by the 1950s, living in a suburban home with electricity and their own car. Americans make up only 4.5 per cent of the world’s population, yet consume 20 cent cent of its energy. Indians make up 18 per cent of the world’s population and use only 6 per cent of its energy.

      India will meet increasing power demand by building more renewables, more super-critical and ultra-critical coal-fired power stations. There are 55 of these power stations planned and under construction in India. Installing these power stations, which generate the same amount of electricity using less coal and therefore produce lower emissions, and increasing renewables in the energy mix will help India meet its COP21 Paris Agreement commitments.

      Coal to help fuel growth in the region, along with renewables, will be imported. India’s own mines and railways cannot meet demand in a cost-effective way. As imports grow there is an opportunity for Australian coal to fill the gap, building from a low base of only 1.9 million tonnes of coal exported from Australia to India last year
      Opportunities to create jobs
      Therefore, fears that Carmichael will cost jobs in the Hunter Valley coal industry are unfounded. We will open up new markets for Australian coal.

      In the past Indonesian coal has dominated trade for Asian demand. However, the Oxford Institute and other analysts predict that because of its growing domestic needs, Indonesia is very likely to reduce export volumes, creating an opportunity for Australia to improve its market share.

      Furthermore, the quality of coal from the Galilee Basin, where Carmichael is situated, is well suited to South-Asian and Indian market requirements.

      As a leader in advanced technology for power generation, renewables, electricity transmission and distribution, Adani is positioned to help meet this demand. We have a significant solar business, including one of the world’s largest solar farms, two solar projects under development in Australia and we are the largest manufacturers of solar cells and modules in India.

      Everyday our business is working to balance the need to provide affordable energy with the need the reduce emissions intensity. We are at the front line helping to solve these global dilemmas.

      Despite being a modest source of future supply to the global market, the Carmichael project has been challenged at each step by anti-fossil fuels activists. Stage one production of 27 million tonnes per year will represent about 10 per cent of Australian thermal coal production, and a tiny fraction of the coal used globally each year.

      The claims against the project are numerous. Each has been disproved by scientific studies, by experts and in court challenges. Yet false information is recycled and gets traction in public discourse. Much commentary ignores the 112 approvals granted, the studies that supported them and the many environmental conditions that the project must, rightly, comply with. This is why I believe Australia is at a crossroads.

      Australia’s prosperity has been built on investment in industries that create jobs, export earnings and government revenue such as agriculture, coal, natural gas and iron ore. That investment has been made possible by a framework of legislation, regulation and a robust legal system all backed by a reliance on fact and science that gives the public confidence and ensures checks and balances are in place to protect the environment.
      I hope Australia chooses to continue on this path rather than on a new path wherein the loudest voices dictate public policy without regard to fact, consistency and robust governance processes.
      http://www.afr.com/opinion/columnists/why-adani-has-stuck-with-the-carmichael-mine-for-seven-years-20180311-h0xb5c

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    pat

    this is being spun all over the MSM, but some interesting facts at Handelsblatt:

    12 Mar: Handelsblatt: E.ON’s billion-euro deal with RWE transforms German energy market
    In the most profound shakeup of the energy industry since the country’s famed shift from nuclear, RWE is selling Innogy to rival E.ON. It creates two European titans: a power generator and an electricity retailer.
    By Jürgen Flauger
    It’s the second time that there has been a sweeping change of the industry virtually overnight, after the country pivoted away from nuclear power in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster.

    Now, a €20-billion deal makes RWE into the country’s biggest provider of electricity while E.ON will be the biggest operator and retailer of power. E.ON is taking control of Germany’s energy grid and customer base. And RWE will generate green energy as well as running conventional power stations fired by coal and gas.

    The corporate reshuffle is good news for E.ON and RWE, which now find focus after years of uncertainty triggered by the energiewende. But it’s unclear whether electricity consumers will benefit with one fewer provider on the market after Innogy is absorbed by E.ON.

    The deal centers partly on the transfer of the Innogy from RWE to E.ON. Innogy was formed in 2015 and listed a year later. It included the renewable as well as distribution activities of RWE but has struggled. Its boss was let go unexpectedly in December, and earlier this month, its chief financial officer was the victim of an acid attack by unknown assailants.

    E.ON is buying a controlling stake in Innogy from RWE for €20 billion ($24.6 billion). In exchange, RWE will get both E.ON’s and Innogy’s renewables businesses – along with a large stake in E.ON…

    ***But the company (E.ON) bids farewell to its renewable energy ambitions and passes wind farms and hydropower plants to RWE. This transfer makes RWE into Europe’s third-largest producer of green energy, according to sources who spoke to Handelsblatt.

    ***Now RWE will run both conventional power plants and green power sources. That’s a more sustainable portfolio and could be more profitable. Its boss, Rolf Martin Schmitz, reckons even as Germany moves to renewables, it needs to backstop wind and solar power which is vulnerable to sudden changes in weather. He bets that the government will remunerate handsomely whoever controls the backup power plants.

    ***Mr. Schmitz is trying to buy more such plants even as you read this: According to Handelsblatt’s industry sources, RWE is negotiating the purchase of coal and gas-fired power stations from rival EnBW. That deal could also run to the billions…

    ***Nonetheless, it could wind up riskier for RWE than E.ON. E.ON can grow simply by adding more networks, whereas RWE has a constant battle ahead on the high-risk, highly competitive renewables sector.
    https://global.handelsblatt.com/companies/e-ons-billion-euro-deal-rwe-shakes-german-energy-market-897036

    12 Mar: CarbonPulse: E.ON to acquire RWE’s Innogy in major shift for EU energy industry
    E.ON has agreed to acquire Innogy from German rival RWE in a €20 billion deal that signals a major shake-up in Europe’s energy ownership and ***further distances E.ON from the EU ETS.

    12 Mar: Reuters: German cartel office says too early to comment on E.ON’s, RWE’s planned Innogy deal
    by Anneli Palmen, writing by Vera Eckert
    A German cartel office spokesman on Monday said it was too early to comment on possible hurdles for the planned asset swap deal that utilities E.ON and RWE plan around their sector peer Innogy.
    The proposed mega deal that rocked the energy and utilities markets at the weekend after a surprise announcement is expected to involve German and European antitrust authorities.

    30

  • #
    pat

    given when this was originally written, a claim re E.ON support for a uniform cross-sectoral CO2 price might be out-dated.
    excerpts minus the spin:

    12 Mar: ClimateChangeNews: Germany’s new government deal fails the Paris climate accord test
    It’s three steps forward and four back as Angela Merkel resumes government in coalition with the social democrats
    By Niklas Höhne
    (This blog is a translation of a blog in German on the NewClimate Institute website, which contains revised extracts from a blog published in German in January 2018)
    The new coalition no longer aims to reach the German 2020 climate target in time. With this announcement, Germany officially steps down as an international climate champion and undermines the Paris Agreement as a whole.
    The coalition agreement fails to provide new ideas for tackling greenhouse gas emissions in industry and buildings, and proposed measures in transport are insufficient to initiate the necessary transition…
    Therefore, German climate policy is not compatible with the Paris climate change agreement, which was made possible in the first place partly by Germany’s outstanding role in international climate diplomacy…

    Despite the success of renewables, coal continues to account for a high share in the electricity mix, with 40%; higher than the EU or global average. The electricity sector accounts for 40% of German emissions. The EU emissions trading scheme should make coal power unprofitable, but the price signal is too weak, partly because too many certificates were issued…

    Coal power in Germany is so cheap that Germany even exports 8% of its electricity production, and thus has also pushed gas power plants in Austria and the Netherlands out of the market. Electricity exports are currently much higher than at the beginning of the decade…

    If Germany actually abandons the climate target for 2020, this would have unforeseeable consequences for the international process surrounding the Paris Agreement. The international process is based on mutual trust that countries comply with their voluntary commitments. If a country like Germany, whose outstanding role in international climate diplomacy made the Paris Agreement possible, does not meet its long-established goal, who will?…

    How will Germany persuade other countries in the future to stick to their goals and take them seriously? And how can Germany bring along the EU, which should submit a new, more ambitious target by 2020 under the Paris Agreement. Instead, it is to be feared that other governments will drop their goals at the last minute with reference to the German “frontrunner”…

    Since 2009, greenhouse gas emissions have been stable at around 900 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent per year. In 2017, emissions were only 28% below 1990 levels, and in 2020 it will be 33%, according to forecasts by the Federal Environmental Agency. This leaves a significant gap of about 90MT of CO2 equivalent per year – or roughly 10% of today’s annual emissions to the 2020 target. Recent unpublished reports even speak of a gap of 100MT due to the lack of positive developments in recent years…

    In Germany, tax credits for company cars continue; company cars account for more than half of new vehicle registrations, with a high proportion of large Sport Utility Vehicles (SUVs) in the past. Trucks still have an economic advantage over railways for freight due to low highway tolls and support for super long trucks; the proportion of greener means of transport, such as inland navigation and railways, are stagnating or losing their share of the road…

    The “climate chancellor” Merkel has not only prevented more ambitious measures in the transport sector within the EU and Germany, but has also been reported to have pressured the Chinese government to weaken its quota for electric vehicles…

    The coalition agreement contains the general declaration of intent to strengthen the EU Emissions Trading Scheme but without identifying measures on how this should be implemented. Instead, an effective cross-sectoral CO2 pricing system is made conditional on “being global if possible, but in any case, encompassing the G20 countries” (literal translation). This leaves a big door open: fulfilling this condition is highly unlikely, as some G20 states, such as Saudi Arabia or Russia, are far from putting in place any climate policy…

    Germany has now officially stepped down from its role as an international climate champion. Dropping the aim to reach the 2020 climate target in time undermines Germany’s integrity in this area and thus the basis of international climate policy, as enshrined in the Paris Agreement…the proposed package is not compatible with the global objective of the Paris Agreement to limit climate change to well below 2C and make efforts not to exceed 1.5C.
    http://www.climatechangenews.com/2018/03/12/germanys-new-government-deal-fails-paris-climate-accord-test/

    30

  • #
    pat

    ***almost anything trumps the NYT, HuffPo. read all if you can bear it. LOL.

    10 Mar: HuffPo: Interior Officials Are Citing Coal Execs And Crank Bloggers To Defend Climate Stances
    At the federal agency in charge of 20 percent of the U.S. landmass, blogs like “Watts Up With That” ***trump The New York Times.
    By Alexander C. Kaufman & Chris D’Angelo
    Top officials at the Department of the Interior cited former coal executives and crank bloggers to challenge the overwhelming evidence of the threat posed by man-made climate change, according to department emails released through a Freedom of Information Act request by former Interior scientist Joel Clement.
    On Sept. 26, Indur Goklany, a science and technology policy analyst at the Interior Department, cited a study briefing from a group called CO2Science, highlighting a selective finding that some plankton communities may benefit from increased levels of carbon dioxide, which causes the oceans to acidify.

    CO2Science is the shortened nickname for the Arizona-based Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, an oil-funded think tank run by former Peabody Energy executive Craig Idso. Rebekah and Robert Mercer, the hedge fund billionaires who bankrolled candidate Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and funded the right-wing news site Breitbart, donated $125,000 to the organization last year.

    On Aug. 14, Goklany ― whose degrees are in electrical engineering, according to his website ― sent an email to Doug Domenech, the assistant secretary for insular areas at Interior, which handles U.S. island territories like Guam. In the email, Goklany rejected data in a New York Times story detailing the threat Guam faces from climate change, claiming it “doesn’t show any acceleration in sea level rise due to man-made global warming or whatever.”

    He then linked to a “very good article” from “Watts Up With That,” a blog run by former television meteorologist Anthony Watts that promotes doubt over the existence and causes of climate change. The article ― a diatribe republished from another climate change denier website and written by Kip Hansen, a blogger whose primary concern appears to be challenging New York Times stories about climate change ― suggests, without evidence, that massive coral reef bleaching is a natural phenomenon, and states that the existence of mountains on Guam makes sea level rise unconcerning.
    “Climate change is no more [a] threat in Guam today than it has ever been,” Hansen concludes…

    “They’re in the bubble of the climate misinformation world and ignoring their own scientists,” Robert Brulle, an environmental sociologist at Drexel University who tracks climate change denial groups, told HuffPost. “Interior has the [U.S. Geological Survey]. Interior has the Park Service. Interior has all these people. They’ve got some really excellent resources inside of the Interior Department.”
    He added with a sigh: “Good grief.”…
    http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/interior-climate-change-crank-blogs_us_5aa2df63e4b086698a9da922#click=https://t.co/sRhfECBoA7

    30

  • #
    Phillthegeek

    So, the thesis is that Tim Flannery is as bad at the “prophet” thing as this lot??

    No news or media since 2016? Facebook page abandoned since 2015??

    47

    • #
      el gordo

      Hmmm … global cooling began in July 2017, David and the team are on a winner.

      90

    • #
      el gordo

      Thanks Phil, learn something new everyday, Australian sceptics are in the blue team according to the hedge fund managers.

      41

    • #

      that’s why they are not publishing the blockbuster paper. If they published it in the public domain, the whole world would know the truth and everyone would switch their investments thus diluting the returns for cool futures.

      32

      • #
        philthegeek

        everyone would switch their investments thus diluting the returns for cool futures.

        What a cunningly Baldrikian plan!! 🙂

        23

        • #
          el gordo

          Baldrikian is not a word, would you like another go?

          Anyway the fund is taking the position that our yellow star is the main driver of climate change, which is a reasonable assumption.

          We know that over the past two decades temperatures have been on hold, because CO2 doesn’t cause global warming, and now we are entering a couple of decades of cooling.

          Its not rocket science, get involved and be amazed.

          20

          • #
            Phillthegeek

            Baldrikian is not a word

            It is now. 🙂

            31

            • #
              el gordo

              Only in your mind, have you been professionally diagnosed?

              20

              • #
                Phillthegeek

                Of course its a word. It functions as a descriptor for a concept that anyone with half a brain can recognise as a reference to the strategic planning ability Blackadder character of Baldrick.

                Ok, so the half a brain thing disqualifies a number of the poster here, but the concept holds.

                And remember what site you are on.

                All rational hope abandon ye who crosseth this hallowed portal of silliness!!!!

                Its all Deep State conspiracy anyhow. Honestly, i’m actually a hot for Vlad Russian tasked with cranking the outrage quotient of certain demographics as assigned. Its all roubles to me…and vlad love. 🙂

                21

              • #
                Environment Skeptic

                We can all be rescued when encountering the unknown like in this case…The polar (half) regions of the brain are the last unknown…Here is a story of hope, charity, and caring about our neighbour.

                “Delingpole: More Climate Scientists Rescued from Polar Ice. This Could Be a Major Trend…”

                http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2018/03/12/delingpole-more-climate-scientists-rescued-from-polar-ice-this-could-be-a-major-trend/

                30

              • #
                el gordo

                ‘Its all Deep State conspiracy anyhow.’

                In relation to all this business it was never an organised conspiracy, AGW developed a life of its own.

                The science is crucial to our understanding of what is happening, forget the politics and focus on the science.

                Key words comrade, polar vortex, PDO, AMO and blank sun.

                10

      • #
        el gordo

        ‘….If they published it in the public domain, the whole world would know the truth ….’

        This is the world wide web, how public do you want it?

        30

    • #

      If only we could have limited Timmy and the climatariat to a prospectus and a bit of punting!

      Never forget: http://www.illawarramercury.com.au/story/2193950/photos-port-wave-generator-removal-in-doubt/

      I know it’s one of the smaller green fiascos brought to us by the Undead, only a fraction of the waste involved in Timmy’s Geothermia, the whirlygigs, the desals, etc.

      But note how this globalist-commie insult to the Living was parked right next to what must be one of the world’s most beautiful and aromatic coal loaders. In the brief period before it was a rusted wreck the Oceanlinx generator was actually painted a sickly green, no doubt to match the complexion of the Undead when they stray too long from their tanning lamps.

      Someone finally floated the insult away last year. And the surf now laps the Port Kembla loader in all its original beauty. Surf and black coal, just the best.

      40

      • #

        Rusting monument
        to hubris,
        like Ozymandias,
        the decay of
        that colossus
        lying boundless
        and bare across
        the desert sands as
        testament,whereas
        our Oz monument
        to foolishness,
        another green
        fiasco, was
        floated
        down
        the
        memory
        whole.

        50

  • #
    pat

    first a little background for those not familiar with the PC-riddled SXSW.

    Wikipedia: SXSW
    South by Southwest (abbreviated as SXSW and colloquially referred to as South By) is an annual conglomerate of film, interactive media, and music festivals and conferences that take place in mid-March in Austin, Texas…
    SXSW 2018 runs from March 9 to 18…
    Guest speakers included U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont); entrepreneur Elon Musk etc…

    9 Mar: Governing: J.B. Wogan: SXSW 2018: Mayors Focus on the Future
    As city leaders from around the country meet at South by Southwest in Austin, they’ll discuss the forces that will shape urbanism for decades to come.
    Nearly 40 mayors, including some from outside the U.S., plan to attend this year, almost double the size of last year’s group…
    The scheduled panel topics include climate change, immigration, social justice, gun violence and artificial intelligence…
    “As the federal government seems to be not be able to move forward with so much gridlock,” Adler says, “I think people are looking to cities to be the incubators of innovation and the drivers of economies.”…
    C40 Cities, an international network of large cities dedicated to fighting climate change, is also sending a delegation and hosting a panel discussion about how public officials can work with their tech communities to improve the environment…
    http://www.governing.com/topics/urban/gov-south-by-southwest-sxsw-mayors-future.html

    12 Mar: Politico: Schwarzenegger to Sue Big Oil for ‘First Degree Murder’
    At SXSW, the former California governor lets loose on climate change, Donald Trump and gives his first in-depth remarks on #MeToo.
    By EDWARD-ISAAC DOVERE
    AUSTIN, Texas — Arnold Schwarzenegger’s next mission: taking oil companies to court “for knowingly killing people all over the world.”
    The former California governor and global environmental activist announced the move Sunday at a live recording of POLITICO’s Off Message podcast, recording here at the SXSW festival, revealing that he’s in talks with several private law firms and preparing a public push around the effort.
    “This is no different from the smoking issue…” blah blah…

    Schwarzenegger said he’s still working on a timeline for filing, but the news comes as he prepares to help host a major environmental conference in May in Vienna…
    “We’re going to go after them, and we’re going to be in there like an Alabama tick. Because to me it’s absolutely irresponsible to know that your product is killing people and not have a warning label on it, like tobacco,” he said. “Every gas station on it, every car should have a warning label on it, every product that has fossil fuels should have a warning label on it.”

    He argues that at the very least, this would raise awareness around fossil fuels and encourage people to look toward alternative fuels and clean cars.
    He added, “I don’t think there’s any difference: If you walk into a room and you know you’re going to kill someone, it’s first degree murder; I think it’s the same thing with the oil companies.”…

    Schwarzenegger took a number of shots at Donald Trump, dismissing the president’s latest attack on him, delivered at a rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday night, for having “failed when he did the show,” a reference to the former governor’s rocky one-season stint as the new host of “The Apprentice” on NBC last year.
    “I never know really why the Russians make him say certain things,” Schwarzenegger said. “It’s beyond me. Why do you think he says those things? He’s supposed to be very busy.”…
    https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/03/12/arnold-schwarzenegger-sxsw-trump-big-oil-me-too-217345

    YET HERE IS ANTI-OIL, CAGW-INFESTED POLITICO, PRETENDING TO BE CONCERNED THAT THE OIL AND GAS COMPANIES HAVE FALLEN OUT OF LOVE WITH TRUMP!!!
    GIVE US – AND TRUMP – A BREAK, POLITICO, YOU ARE SOOOO FAKE:

    11 Mar: Politico: Oil industry falls out of love with Trump
    Steel tariffs, jousting over NAFTA and wariness about regulation rollbacks are making oil and gas executives nervous.
    By Ben Lefebvre and Eric Wolff
    HOUSTON — The oil and gas industry’s relationship with President Donald Trump is cooling off…
    The industry’s top lobby group, the American Petroleum Institute, is sending its executive committee to the White House next week — a rare move by the group as it seeks to help the president “understand what the industry wants,” one source familiar with the meeting told POLITICO…

    Seeking to calm the sector’s nerves, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke and Energy Secretary Rick Perry flew to the conference and reiterated the administration’s support for higher oil and gas production…
    U.S. oil and gas companies are expected to hike their spending on exploration and production in North America by more than 20 percent this year to $116 billion, according to forecasts from Barclays analysts…
    https://www.politico.eu/article/trump-trade-war-oil-industry-falls-out-of-love/

    20

  • #
    pat

    11 Mar: Daily Caller: Michael Bastasch: Trial Lawyers Handling Cities’ Global Warming Lawsuits Stand To Make Billions
    A California federal court will soon hear oral arguments from San Francisco and Oakland that assert five major oil companies should pay huge sums of money for contributing to man-made global warming.
    A ruling against oil companies could not only have tremendous consequences for the U.S. legal system but could also mean a sizable payday for the class action firms representing cities suing over global warming.

    Class action firm Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP is handling lawsuits for San Francisco, Oakland and New York City, on a contingency fee basis. Cities pay law firms no upfront cost in exchange for a percentage of any winnings or settlement.
    Hagens Berman stands to earn millions, possibly billions, of dollars in contingency fees depending on the total winnings, should San Francisco, Oakland or New York City win their global warming suits against oil companies. All told, these three cities are asking oil companies to hand over many billions of dollars.

    The firm is entitled to 23.5 percent of any winnings from its cases with San Francisco and Oakland, according to previous reports. NYC Law Department spokesman Nicholas Paolucci also confirmed Hagens Berman was working on a contingency fee basis.
    “We’re engaging the firm on a contingency fee basis,” Paolucci told TheDCNF regarding Hagens Berman. “We are currently working out all the details in a contract.”…

    The city wants five major oil companies, including Exxon Mobil and BP, to pay for current and future damages from alleged man-made warming allegedly wrought. The “cost of needed resiliency projects runs to many billions of dollars” and currently has plans for $19 billion to mitigate global warming, NYC’s complaint claims.

    The firm is looking at a potential $4.5 billion payout if Hagens Berman strikes a fee deal with NYC that’s comparable to San Francisco and Oakland. Hagens Berman attorneys did not respond to TheDCNF’s requests for comment.
    The firm, Seeger Weiss, is also handling NYC’s suit, but founding partner Christopher Seeger did not return TheDCNF’s request for comment…

    “Sher Edling is representing San Mateo County on a contingency fee basis, as is true for most attorneys in cases like this,” San Mateo County deputy counsel Margaret Tides said.
    The “agreement and its terms are confidential under California law,” Tides told TheDCNF. Tides did not disclose what percentage of any winnings they agreed to hand over to Sher Edling.

    Information on Sher Edling’s contract was covered by attorney client privilege, Santa Cruz told TheDCNF. Three other California municipalities lawyers gave TheDCNF the same canned response when asked about their arrangement with Sher Edling.

    “Sher Edling will be paid the same way most attorneys are paid in cases like these: if and when we are successful,” Richmond mayor’s Chief of Staff Alex Knox told TheDCNF.
    “The defendants in these cases are among the biggest companies in the world, with the largest law firms on their side and virtually unlimited war chests,” Knox said. “Our taxpayers are not being asked to front the costs or bear the risks of this lawsuit. But right now, our taxpayers are on the hook for all the damages being caused by these oil, gas and coal companies. And that’s exactly why the lawsuits were filed.”…READ ALL
    http://dailycaller.com/2018/03/11/exxon-mobil-class-action-lawsuit-california/

    9 Mar: Quartz: TOO MUCH OF A GOOD THING
    California is taking a cooling off period after generating too much energy from the sun
    By Michael J. Coren
    Solar served up an unprecedented 50% of the state’s demand on a sunny day around 1pm PT on March 5. The next day, utility operators reported a second record for total generation from solar which produced 10,411 megawatts, beating out last year’s record by 5%. The state is regularly shunting electricity to Arizona and other states (sometimes paying them to do so) to avoid overloading its own power lines…

    Greentech Media reports (LINK) there’s little prospect of big new purchases of solar, or other renewable energy sources for that matter, by utilities. With investor-owned utilities all well ahead of state targets of 25% renewables by 2020 (and more distributed generation coming online), no new renewable capacity was procured last year and no plans to contract more (although plenty is in the pipeline, and homes and businesses are still adding more). “They’re basically saying, ‘There’s too much going on; we don’t know what to do, so we’re not going to do anything for a while,’” Jan Smutny-Jones of the Independent Energy Producers Association told Greentech…
    https://qz.com/1224296/california-is-taking-a-cooling-off-period-after-generating-too-much-energy-from-the-sun/

    10

  • #
    Marvin

    We should set up a gofundme page for him, to send him to a Scientology course!

    30

  • #
    RAH

    “Perth will die, says top scientist”

    Tim Flannery will die, says top truck driver.

    82

  • #
    Richard Ilfeld

    I think it is important for those of us who gather here to ask ourselves why Dr Flannery has any influence or public attention at all? Why are the media gaga at prophets of doom for climate, yet far less so, today, for those who say we will all die from cell phone radiation, or from eating ‘frankenfoods’, or from trace chemicals in our water supply, or from eathquakes from fracking, or, for that matter, or a darker note the various racial and ethnic criticisms that some make. Why has the nexus between climate and leftist politics captured the public stage, much as the nexus between the border sciences of astrology and racial heritage and national socialism captured a German population in the late 20’s and 30’s?

    If you are a skeptic here, and, as I fancy myself, a layman with a solid grounding in the natural sciences, you consider the predictions of the climate crazies no more reliable than the horoscope in the daily paper. And if you are, like myself, rather horrified when you actually meet someone who believes in astrology and manages their life by same, and think much the same of those who buy into the climate claims significantly enough to squander our tax money on fanciful schemes, then you too are baffled.

    Why climate? Why do credentialed and experienced people like JO have so little apparrant influence in this particular area whilst being considered authorities in others where hey are similarly qualified?

    We are going to need answers to these questions, if our free and prosperous societies are to avoid sinking into a carbon sink.

    Its hard to see how a world war could result from this particular madness of the crowd, but one must acknowledge that this has been the outcome of many such delusions in the past.

    One thing that I fear most: simple fact and sensible observation of history are on the side of the skeptics, and seem to have little effect on the true believers. We are pleased when a poll shows a majority of the public is also skeptical, yet should not forget the lessons of history where a committed minority led a nation to ruin.

    One regretful conclusion is that the answer to an emotional argument is emotional; probably the exact opposite of the way most skeptics here approach scientific efforts. “If you people don’t stop this climate idiocy, we’ll wake up one morning without enough energy to power our military bases, and the Chinese will simply come and take over, and we’ll all be their slaves!”.

    Repugnant, isn’t it….but I’m coming around to the idea that it’s the appropriate counter to the climate profiteers, both political and economic, to remove them fro their mass support back to the universe of tinfoil hat kooks blabbing about one thing or another to no effect. Better the emotional appeal, than the real consequence.

    70

    • #
      Kratoklastes

      simple fact and sensible observation of history are on the side of the skeptics, and seem to have little effect on the true believers.

      This has been true forever, but has also been irrelevant forever.

      The market for charlatanry relies on the fact that most human adults are dim and gullible, and always have been. Skepticism has always been a fringe occupation; it’s always been a low-payoff pursuit, since it almost always involves being diametrically opposed to powerful charlatans. That’s why it is usually only undertaken by people with personality attributes that make them incapable of leaving well enough alone.

      When human society first started to eke out a tiny surplus over subsistence, a few high-functioning sociopaths from the 2nd decile (from the top) hit upon the idea of trying to divert the surplus towards themselves – the better to live without having to do anything productive.

      So they invented a series of tropes that placed themselves as sole intermediaries between humanity and some aspect of nature that bewildered the average citizen. Gods were created, with the interesting feature that the local charlatan was the only person who knew how to propitiate the gods… interestingly that usually involved people giving him things (to pass on to the gods, you understand).

      From there it’s just been meme evolution: from

      “I know when the rains will come – chuck us over a bit of antelope, and I’ll tell you”

      ,
      to

      “Yahweh said this is how we all have to behave – now sacrifice that ram for us”

      ,
      to

      “These families get to live in palaces – God wills it”

      to

      “The public will demands that our entire class gets to live high at society’s expense – fill out this form so we can fund our ‘palace of democracy'”

      As surplus productivity rose, so too the the extent of the grift: there was an explosion in the number of people in deciles 2-5 who could be supported by mulcting “excess” productivity… and here we are, where almost 1 employed person in 5 works for the government (and the average government salary is 30% more than the average private sector salary).

      It really does explain everything – including the noticeable features of ‘rulers’: they are generally only half-smart, but they are ruthless and goal-oriented.

      The other thing to note is that megalomaniacal sociopathic parasitic charlatans have never had to worry about a shortage of Court Intellectuals or Spear Carriers – people who will furnish plausible narratives as to why the system is ‘right’, and people who will wield weapons against dissidents. There are always people who will align themselves with power in order to join the gravy train, up to and including setting people on fire for refusing to toe the line.

      This is where we are; it ends when enough people identify the false promises of intercessors, and put a stop to the practice of pretending that moving the water around in a bath can make the bath deeper or warmer. (That’s what politics promises: that redistributing wealth – always upwards, oddly – makes economies larger. It’s the stupidest thing imaginable, but people believe it because Court Economists tell them it’s so).

      80

    • #
      ROM

      .
      Richard Ilfield @ #39

      I suggest a read of an article of only a few days ago on the GWPF site titled Global Warming; Real or Group think? will be very enlightening in describing how and why what seems to be completely rational and intelligent people get caught up in a “Group Think”situation where they are totally convinced they and they alone are correct and everybody else who differs from them in their beliefs and / or claims is wrong .
      And in extreme cases those who differ are so wrong that they must be eliminated before they contaminate the rest of society..
      And that Group Think is not just limited to the believers in global warming but to skeptics and every other form of debate and differences that we as a human society and as individual human beings constantly have to deal with in our everyday lives.

      This article really does put some meat on the skeptics constant questioning as to why when so much evidence against CO2 being the prime driver of any warming let alone the fact that the warming is so insignificant and so far removed from the predictions made now for some three decades past, that both scientists and good section of the public still believe so fervently in the global warming catastrophe meme despite the almost complete lack of any verifiable evidence and data to support their beliefs .

      40

  • #
    Ruairi

    Alarmists predicted a dearth,
    Of water for hot spots on Earth,
    Turning farms to dust-bowls,
    Then to desert hell-holes,
    And one of these places was Perth.

    190

  • #

    Sydney’s desalination farce:

    “In 2017-18, the plant is expected to be shutdown, given current dam storage levels of 94%.4
    SDP went into water security (shutdown) mode after its proving period in June 2012, as dam
    storage levels were 98%. It has remained in water security mode since.

    “The plant is currently in a state of care and maintenance following significant damage from
    a storm event that occurred on 16 December 2015. The damage to the desalination plant is
    fully covered by SDP’s insurance and will not affect prices. We understand from SDP that
    the plant is expected to be reinstated and operable from 13 December 2018.” – IPART report.

    So, that’s what you get for half a million per day.

    Then there are the other desalination farces, like Melbourne’s, costing even more, delayed by floods, for some time equipped with Mick Gatto’s cranes because you never know when you’ll need a wise guy’s cranes in an unused desal.

    This is the future as laid out by Sustainable Development. White elephants erected by watermelon pollies to be plundered by crony capitalists. How do you sell something as bad as the Kembla Wave Gen or the Sydney Desal or SA wind to a supposedly educated public? Easy. You get Skippy of the Year Timmy to tell them the sky is falling. I did say supposedly educated. Actually, a lot of them just watch the ABC.

    101

  • #
    Ve2

    “Warming means “less rain” which means “less run off” which means “death to flowers”:”

    If this is the case then the Amazon is in real trouble.

    40

  • #
    ren

    Tropical storm is approaching the coast of Australia.
    http://images.tinypic.pl/i/00961/auhl5tzgkv6g.png

    30

  • #
    Lance

    Jo asked about Perth water data. For what it is worth, here are a few links:

    Warwick Hughes: http://www.warwickhughes.com/water/

    AU Bureau of Statistics:
    http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/[email protected]/Lookup/by%20Subject/1301.0~2012~Main%20Features~Water~279

    Will look further and post back if anything interesting pops up.
    Cheers.

    50

  • #
    manalive

    In years to come these will be seen as totems to the wind and sun gods …

    And they will laugh their legs off, how could their ancestors be so gullible and stupid.
    The only function the windmills serve is apotropaic symbols of the new religion.
    You will never hear for instance Jay Weatherill say ‘we are building these windmills to protect the GBR and the M-D Basin’ because to any rational person that would sound patently absurd, it’s always couched under the vague meaningless CC™.

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      manalive

      Or to put it another way, when the ABC does its next programme on the supposed destruction of the GBR due to CC™, you will never hear the spokesperson from JCU say the only way to stop the disastrous trend is to build more windmills

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    robert rosicka

    OT but the greens want all fossil fuel cars to go by 2030 , the id10ts even get around the distance thing by saying most people in the country don’t really travel more than 50 kilometres anyway .
    Be afraid be very afraid .

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-03-13/ban-sale-of-cars-and-petrol-by-2030-greens/9541612

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    Another Ian

    O/T

    For when you are wishing for an edit button

    “Maquis says:
    March 12, 2018 at 2:05 pm

    You have to post it to find out what’s in it!”

    Via CTH

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    RickWill

    I tried to watch the QandA on streaming but it locks up about 20 seconds in. Found some comments on Facebook regarding this show:
    https://www.facebook.com/abcqanda/
    Not a lot of interest based on the comments but a significant number are unfavourable to Tim Flimflam.

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      robert rosicka

      From what little I heard it seems that the gist of it is keep up with the migration but catch up with infrastructure to support a big Australia.

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      Chad

      I suffered through most of it !…
      Flannelly made the best contribution of the pannelists…..by keeping quiet most of the time.
      I think he only mentioned Climate change once !
      Bob Carr did a great job of waffleing (and repeating over) constantly about the perils of high immigration , and ignoring TAs requests to shut up !

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    RickWill

    The Victorian desal plant failed to meets its first order for water in 2017:
    http://www.afr.com/business/energy/power-outage-sparks-desalination-claims-20171107-gzgb76
    There has been a claim for compensation from Siemens over the electrical equipment failure.

    I not certain if the plant is up and running again. Also uncertain where the legal battle for compensation stands.

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    Another Ian

    No doubt he’ll quote this study (without using this headline)

    “Another government sponsored climate crapstorm coming our way”

    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/03/12/another-government-sponsored-climate-crapstorm-coming-our-way/

    Check the reviewof the reviewers

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  • #

    Thanks Jo for keeping Perth dam catchments issues in mind.
    I note comments #8.2 and #44.1 –
    Facts are Perth never needed seawater desal in the first place back in the early 2000’s.
    So it would be easily feasible to mothball the existing two desal plants over a few years.
    I have the water sources listed –
    No water shortage forced seawater desal on Perth 27Feb18
    http://www.warwickhughes.com/blog/?p=5608

    Perth is not running out of water – water is running out of Perth.

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    pat

    12 Mar: Breitbart: In Startling Reversal, Scientific American Counsels People to ‘Chill Out’ over Global Warming
    by Thomas D. Williams, Ph.D.
    The essay (LINK), penned by John Horgan, the director of the Center for Science Writings at the Stevens Institute of Technology, analyzes two recent reports by “ecomodernists” who reject climate panic and frame the question of climate change and humanity’s ability to cope with it in radically new terms.

    One of the reports, a work (LINK)called “Enlightened Environmentalism” by Harvard iconoclast Steven Pinker, urges people to regain some much-needed perspective on climate, especially in the context of the overwhelming material benefits of industrialization…

    The second report put forward by Horgan is a recent article (LINK) by Will Boisvert titled “The Conquest of Climate,” which contends that the “consequences for human well-being will be small” even if human greenhouse emissions significantly warm the planet.
    Boisvert, who has been described as a “left-wing environmental expert, is no “climate denier,” yet he calls for climate alarmists to take a deep breath and step back from doomsday forecasts that likely have little to do with what will actually take place in the future.
    As an example, the author pokes fun at a 2016 Newsweek article announcing that “Climate change could cause half a million deaths in 2050 due to reduced food availability.”…

    Like Pinkers, Boisvert tries to factor in what climate alarmists ignore: the capability of human beings to react to changing scenarios in remarkably ingenious ways…

    While climate skeptics will welcome this gust of common sense wafting in from the Scientific American, establishment climate alarmists will undoubtedly seek to quash the news, knowing it could affect not only the funding they depend on, but the ideologically driven political programs they seek to impose on the world.

    After all, if the world is not under imminent peril from climate change, who will listen to—and fund—the prophets of doom?
    http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2018/03/12/in-startling-reversal-scientific-american-counsels-people-to-chill-out-over-global-warming/

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    pat

    8 Mar: Financial Post: I believe in global warming — and even I think carbon taxes are idiotic
    Carbon pricing may create a green paradox — policies meant to reduce emissions that not only eliminate some people’s jobs, but increase global emissions
    by Michael Binnion
    (Michael Binnion is the president of the Quebec Oil and Gas Association and the chairman of the Manning Foundation)
    Theoretically, carbon prices are supposed to reduce regulation. However, in every jurisdiction where carbon pricing has been implemented, it doesn’t reduce regulation — it increases it. Carbon-pricing schemes in Europe, California and Canada are all very complicated. The Canadian government just recently introduced 500 new pages of legislation and regulation. Another example, the Alberta Climate Leadership Plan, has a carbon-tax-credit program, but acknowledges the cost of regulatory compliance is likely too high for all but the largest companies.

    Another problem is carbon leakage, which occurs when production and investment simply move to jurisdictions without a carbon tax. In this case, emissions are simply displaced in whole or in part.
    Carbon leakage is worse than you think, as it can actually increase global emissions. Take the case of Canadian aluminum, which produces only two tonnes of carbon per tonne, versus American aluminum at 11 tonnes of carbon per tonne. In practice, no one should have to explain to an aluminum worker that they lost their job because “after all, we all need to do our part,” only to have global emissions increase 550 per cent as a result. (To generalize this example, Canada’s economy is 70 per cent reliant on trade, and 80 per cent of our trade is with the United States, which has not imposed a carbon tax.)

    To try and mitigate carbon leakage, every carbon-pricing scheme uses output-based allocations (OBAs). Industries that are energy intensive and trade exposed (EITE) are given free permits to emit or a carbon-tax rebate to allow them to compete. For example, we would give the aluminum industry a tax exemption for carbon taxes based on its output.

    However, as carbon-tax enthusiasts like to point out, people like to avoid taxes, so everyone will lobby for a tax rebate based on complicated formulas and models. Since government determines who will receive these massive subsidies, and how much they will receive, the process is inevitably politicized.

    The other problem we find in practice: Demand for hydrocarbons is very inelastic. People will pay what it takes to heat their homes and get to work. The Conference Board of Canada found that even a $200/tonne carbon tax would only reduce 12 megatonnes of Canadian emissions before carbon leakage. Global carbon would likely only be reduced by 70 per cent of this amount. Meanwhile, just one large LNG plant could achieve more than that by replacing coal in China with natural gas.

    Canada has a global comparative advantage in carbon in many industries because of our high environmental standards. A global approach to capitalizing on Canada’s environmental advantage would yield a double dividend of a stronger economy and a cleaner global environment. Carbon pricing, on the other hand, may create a green paradox — policies meant to reduce emissions that not only eliminate some people’s jobs, but increase global emissions.

    So why do our left-wing friends love carbon taxes, when they say reducing emissions is their concern? The answer is the epitome of Reagan’s description of government, all wrapped up in one simple, marketable policy: “If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And, if it stops moving, subsidize it.” Even many conservatives have let themselves be convinced that carbon pricing is an efficient, market-based policy. An acceptance of the theory without examining the practice is what got them there.
    http://business.financialpost.com/opinion/i-believe-in-global-warming-and-even-i-think-carbon-taxes-are-idiotic

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    pat

    behind paywall: (heard some quotes from it on radio, with some Nationals MP joining in the call to end the subsidies, but stating something like “while renewables go on forever”…

    Coalition backbenchers urge end to solar subsidies
    The Australian-11 hours ago
    Mr Abbott led a chorus of Coalition backbenchers urging the government to end the small-scale renewable energy scheme, with Liberal MP Craig Kelly declaring the policy was more economically damaging than the Rudd government’s home insulation scheme..
    Former prime minister Tony Abbott is demanding action after revelations that the subsidies could cost consumers more than $1 billion this year.
    Abbott: “Australians are paying far too much for our emissions obsession. Government must end subsidies for new renewables.”…

    another Giles piece drowning in solar ads – written before today’s piece above it seems:

    12 Mar: RenewEconomy: Right wing push to slash incentives for rooftop solar
    By Giles Parkinson
    Federal government incentives for rooftop solar are under threat again, this time from a sustained effort from right-wing politicians and media that is being compared to the “$100 lamb roast” and “Whyalla will be a ghost town” campaigns against the then carbon price.
    The latest campaign against rooftop solar includes grossly inflated estimates of the cost of the federal rooftop solar subsidies, and no mention of the considerable benefits .

    Typically, it is being led by the Murdoch media, which trumpeted a front page “exclusive” (subscription required)(LINK) on Monday that suggested that the cost of rooftop solar subsidies would reach $100 for each and every household in 2018 because of the big increase in rooftop solar installations…

    Ric Brazzale, director of Green Energy Trading, a company that trades certificates and also provides market data, said the article is “another beat up on the solar industry and is using some very spurious analysis.
    “It brings back memories of the $100 lamb roast scare campaign,” he said, in reference to Barnaby Joyce’s infamously absurd and misplaced warnings about the impact of the carbon price.
    Brazzale provides this table above, which sets out his estimates of the cost pass-through impact to customers for the certificates issued to new rooftop solar systems.
    Instead of $100 a household, “the expected cost of $40 per household in 2018 is higher than it would otherwise be as the 2017 Target was exceeded and the surplus is added to the 2018 Target,” he says.
    “The average for the two years is $29 per household – approximately equivalent to the average cost of the scheme according to the AEMC (Australian Energy Market Commission).”

    The scale of the federal government support is also winding back – from 15 years of electricity generation in 2016, to 14 years in 2017 and 13 years in 2018. It will phase out completely in 2030…
    “The renewable energy scheme is one of the most successful greenhouse reduction policies that Australia has in place and has been pivotal in the transition of our energy supply away from fossil fuels,” Brazzale says…

    For now at least, it appears the Coalition is resisting calls from outside and within. A spokesman for federal energy minister Josh Frydenberg said:
    “According to the Australian Energy Market Commission (AEMC) the average cost to households over the last five years of the SRES (small-scale renewable energy scheme) has been around $29 a year. With the price peaking in 2012 at $44 for the year.”
    “The price of small-scale certificates is set by the market, with a maximum of $40 per certificate.”
    (Because of the over-supply last year, the market price of the certificates fell to $30/MWh, leaving some installers who had not prepared for such a fall in some difficulty).

    Frydenberg’s spokesperson continued: “The AEMC forecasts that residential electricity prices will fall over the next two years as renewable energy, including small-scale solar, supported by the Renewable Energy Target enters the system.”…READ ON
    http://reneweconomy.com.au/right-wing-push-slash-incentives-rooftop-solar-15113/

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    David Maddison

    Victoriastan pays $1.8 million dollars PER DAY for its uneeded desal plant even though it produces nothing.

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    Ross

    I heard on NZ radio news earlier that the Aussie Greens want all new cars/trucks sold in Australia from 2030 on wards to be electric.
    I know these guys live in a bubble but even we Kiwis are aware of the electricity/ energy issues Australia has.

    Maybe Tony or one of the engineers on here could roughly workout the electricity requirements to run these electric vehicles say for year one, after 5 yrs and and after 10 years. Then equate that to the extra generation capacity required. Or to make it simpler just take the fuel consumed by Australian vehicle fleet and convert that figure to an electricity energy value and then the extra generation capacity required. I realise there are many variables involved ( fuel/vehicle efficiency etc.) but a “rough” calculation should give them the idea.
    It might wake these idiots up.

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      Dennis

      Hi Ross, the following link explains most of what we need to know about EV recharging.

      The Australian Government agrees with the extreme Greens at this point in history and have already banned sale of new 2-stroke engines from 2019 and have a yet to be confirmed plan to ban diesel engine sales, could be from 2030. I assume that petrol engines will not be banned because of hybrid vehicles.

      And longer term they do not want private ownership of vehicles, we would hire or lease them, but I fail to understand how in Australia that would be workable.

      Regardless, as you pointed out, there is an energy supply and world’s highest pricing situation to consider first. And given that around eighty per cent of electricity is from coal fired power stations, less than five per cent from wind and solar sources and the balance from hydro power stations, gas, diesel and others making up the remaining fifteen per cent our lack of leadership and common sense direction is a major hurdle in my view.

      https://www.solarquotes.com.au/blog/charging-electric-cars/

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        Ross

        Thanks Dennis.
        The link basically says that someone with the average number of panels on their roof will possibly produce enough each day for one car. Forgetting the other car(s) in the household they are effectively saying that they will transfer the cost of fuel for the car to the increase in their electricity bill because the electricity from the grid they were saving with their panels is now “lost” so it has come from the grid. That is, we are back to square one.

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          Dennis

          That’s right Ross.

          EV is an extreme Green dream.

          With some applications where traffic density is a serious problem.

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            Chad

            Unfortunately, those high density areas where EVs would be most beneficial, are also by definition areas where many owners live in apartments with no access to personal solar systems, and often not even a parking facility with a power supply.
            How many city cars are simply parked on the street at night ?
            No,.. A whole new concept and infrastructure of public charging facilities
            …..And that is before you figure out where the additional 3-4 MWh per year for each car is going to be generated.
            For a population of 10 million electric cars that would be approx. 3-4 TWh per year
            Which is about equal to Five times all the output all the solar farms currently in Australia.
            ………but much of it needed at night after the sun has gone to bed !

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    wAY OFF topic but WTH!!:
    Will Janoschka >Troll Hunter • an hour ago

    “We already have public debates on the subject of climate change”
    Please identify even one ‘PUBLIC debate’? The paid ignorant academic ‘meteorologists’ have only scary fantasy; but no scientific evidence! These academics can not define ‘atmosphere’ nor ‘temperature’. What part of speech are each? How do they relate? What debate?

    Troll Hunter >Will Janoschka • an hour ago
    Looks like we’re having a debate now. But since you came out of the gate hurling insults about your “opposition” and spewing leftist talking points, you forced a common outcome: Our debate is now over because no rational, intelligent person is going to engage a zealot on any subject. Especially this one. Thanks ever so much for proving my point. There was a debate and no one’s mind was changed, largely because you misconstrue debate with insults, attacking and aggression. Thanks for playing. I enjoyed it.

    Hi Troll-Hunter: To clarify: The word ‘atmosphere’ is a noun referring to sufficient compressible fluid (mass) surrounding sufficient obital mass to invoke gravitational compression of that fluid such that there exists a static thermal gradient (decreasing with radius FCOM). Such gravitationally induced gradiant completely negates any spontaneous conductive thermal flux in the direction of that increasing radius (decreasing temperature).
    The word ‘temperature’ OTOH can only be the object of the verb “to measure” never a thing but only the result (measurement) of the needed verb; nothing else!
    Can a debate be established on “how” change in some we fraction of atmospheric CO2 may possibly affect the measurement of ‘temperature’? What evidence do you have that such is even possible?
    All the best!-will-

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    David Maddison

    Flim Flammery’s bizarre rant.

    https://youtu.be/SeNDSeknn_c

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    Walbrook

    Could someone here with more knowledge than me check the math in this comment that i saw on the bottom of a newspaper article?
    If this is correct than the effect of CO2 on the climate and the alarmists doom boosting is a total non event.

    Distilling all the modelling and mathematics the bottom line is that the IPCC state (and it is generally agreed) that doubling the CO2 partial pressure will cause a radiative forcing of 3 W/m^2 or some 1% of Earths radiated heat. The strange logic of the IPCC is that this will be 1% of the Earth’s average temperature above absolute zero of 288 degrees Kelvin, or 2 to 3 degrees centigrade. To me this is nonsensical as the effect of the atmosphere is to raise Earth’s temperature from black body radiation level, (255 Kelvin without any atmosphere), to Earth’s average, a rise of 33 degrees centigrade. 1% of 33 degrees is 0.33 Centigrade so doubling atmospheric CO2 would result in 0.3 degrees Celcius increase in average temperature above the varying baseline due to other influences. Explains the minimal warming compared to the large CO2 partial pressure increase. A rise of 0.33 Centigrade is not enough to mitigate the effects of a little ice let alone the onset of cyclical glaciation.

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    The four ‘male’ “tactical virtues”: strength, courage, mastery, and honor., Perhaps the US-SCOTUS has sufficient forgiving female virtue ‘faith’ ”hope’ and most importantly ‘charity’ to comprehend that Hillarity, Obummer’are but pawns in the immense evil in global banksters\banking fiat currency. All is the same SCAM! Wealth is but each Human tickling another and appreciating that well earned SMILE!

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    There is no need for revenge to Obummer the DNC, RNC.nor H. Clinton for America. Such vast treachery is best left to official military firing squad; with bets taken on which solider will be first to pull trigger!

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    James in Perth

    “Perth Will Die!” It would have made a great title for a sci-fi disaster flick.

    This is truly one of the most enjoyably hilarious columns I’ve ever read on this blog. I am only sorry that the prophets of doom have learned from their mistakes and have started pushing back the end date to beyond my expected life’s end. Please keep up the good work and especially focus on this Flannery idiot. He deserves every bit of the attention.

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    Roy Hogue

    So much for the great Flannery. A Prophet he wasn’t, isn’t now nor ever will be.

    Unfortunately his hangers-on will still suck up his every word as gospel truth.

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      Roy Hogue

      He might be Don Quixote jousting at his windmills.

      Hmm! I can’t believe I just likened Tim Flannery to a famous beloved fictional character. It all fits of course. At least all of it but that part about beloved.

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