By Jo Nova
It’s still a cult
The Queensland Environment Minister once made the mistake of saying he was “still to be convinced” of the degree to which humans are influencing climate change. Now, 13 years later, he’s had to backtrack in public for the crime of ever having doubts about the climate-bible.
The ABC accidentally sums up the real reason: “It comes as Mr Powell works with Federal Environment Minister Murray Watt to prevent UNESCO from listing the Great Barrier Reef as “in danger”.” So it’s just extortion then? The UN threatens to slap a naughty sticker on their management of the Great Barrier Reef, which would scare off the tourists, and the Ministers have to pander to please the UN? (Nevermind that “in danger” rating would be absurd given the coral cover is still close to a record high.)
This is not about Mr Powell, so much as a message to every other MP to toe the UN line.
The Science is The Science?
Queensland environment minister concedes humans are influencing climate change
By Jessica van Vonderen, ABC Agitprop Unit*
Queensland’s environment minister has stepped back his previously-stated scepticism over human-induced climate change, saying he is confident the science is correct.
In 2012, as the newly minted environment minister under Campbell Newman, Andrew Powell said he was “still to be convinced” of the degree to which humans are influencing climate change.
“It’s interesting that comment [in 2012] was taken the way it was,” Mr Powell said.
“I very much believe in climate change and am confident the science is right.
“My position has always been that the science is the science.”
Does the ABC realize that this radiates like a religious obsession? If there was overwhelming evidence of man-made climate change, they wouldn’t need to doggedly enforce the permitted litany. They’d just answer his question.
Peter Ridd, Reef Rebels
*The ABC calls this “News”.
Australian politicians can not yet deny scientific reality and expect to be taken seriously. If only the same were true of the US.
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And Scientific reality is empirical evidence. Follow the data………….
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On that we can agree.
Every month, the Reef Authority publishes an update on the health of the GBR.
https://www2.gbrmpa.gov.au/learn/reef-health/reef-health-updates
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‘Reef systems north of 18°S have been impacted by heat stress and coral bleaching during strong El Niño phases and those further south during strong La Niña phases.’ (Gilmour et al 2019)
I don’t believe heat stress is the cause of bleaching during strong El Nino, sea level fall in the Western Pacific exposes corals to radiation.
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Do you have any empirical evidence of your belief?
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I went to search for actual data but got a bunch of propaganda pushing global warming. Almost impossible to wade through the dross and get to the data anymore, ironically.
Sea levels in the western Pacific dropped dramatically in 1998. More recently a paper used data from Fiji, I think, with sea level records starting in the mid 90s to claim that climate change is causing bigger sea level rise than 3 mm per year in some places around the world.
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Read Jennifer Marohasy’s reef research. Or Peter Ridd:
https://jennifermarohasy.com/2019/03/fake-photographs/?fbclid=IwAR2yklbz_B0IIFEGa6Hp1kR6d10aIU8XQorIF_3cOKTpnS2biCRCqkA7TEA
Or Bill Johnson:
http://www.bomwatch.com.au/barrier-reef-climate-gladstone/sea-level-at-cooktown-great-barrier-reef/
Sea level is the main bleaching factor not sea temperature:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/04/05/falling-sea-level-the-critical-factor-in-2016-great-barrier-reef-bleaching/
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This is your weblink. Useless, just like you.
https://www2.gbrmpa.gov.au/learn/reef-health/reef-health-updates
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Using a VPN seems to show up a load of rubbish.
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Simon. We do not agree on very much. You do not follow the Science or the data.
Just like the Climate Alarmists, you probably follow the money.
How much have they given you lately?
I hope that you are missing out.
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Anyone who peddles the man made climate change narrative as “science” either has a vested financial interest or is scientifically illiterate.
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Simon forget the politics and focus on the climate, cause and effect. It has been stated that 2012 was the warmest La Niña year on record.
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Scientific reality, the 2012 event happened in West Australia and not GBR.
‘Mass bleaching events on the Great Barrier Reef have been documented with full-scale surveys in 1998, 2002, 2016, 2017, 2020, 2022, 2024 and 2025.
‘In Western Australia, mass bleaching events were documented in 1998, 2011-2013 and 2016, with many smaller bleaching events around those times.’ (AIMS)
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As in Legal proceedings, you need evidence. Science is no different.
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This is not a good time to be jumping on the wagon of Global Warming. https://i.pinimg.com/originals/fd/60/26/fd6026c848bcfe6111b0440e05169c02.jpg
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The problem was a lack of grease in the hub. The UN runs on grease, stop greasing it and it will collapse too. It does require courage though.
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The Wind turbines on those towers need ball bearings and grease/oil to operate.
Oh dear. Hydrocarbons do it again. LOL.
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Things I never bothered to think about before Johnny R. brought it up: bearings. Wind turbines might have a combination of cylindrical roller bearings (CRBs), tapered roller bearings (TRBs), and ball bearings. Who knew? Not me.
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It’s not scientific reality.
“Science” is literally a word for knowledge that has come to mean knowledge attained through the scientific method. Denying that something has been proven beyond doubt is a huge part of the method. Not allowed to deny something because it is “science” is zealotry.
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Wrong spot. Sorry, John
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Opening his mouth to change feet.
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This line – By Jessica van Vonderen, ABC Agitprop Unit.
What’s an Agitprop Unit?
Of course, the Red Army that is the ABC.
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To clarify — the ABC calls this “News”. I added a *footnote.
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Ted
Re “What’s an Agitprop Unit?”
They used to hold up the back yard clothes lines. Then made obsolete by Hills Hoists and found a niche supporting ABC lines.
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A forked stick was useful, before the ABC got hold of it.
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The problem for believers remains the same: no physical evidence to show that their Anthropogenic Global Warming theory is valid!
No published peer reviewed paper exists that establishes the frequently repeated claim that increased atmospheric CO2 levels leads to increased surface temperatures, using the readily available instrument data. Instead, there are over 24 published papers that show causality operates in exactly the opposite direction.
No evidence of any positive feedback processes in the atmosphere to amplify the slight warming effect of CO2 by 300%, again as required by AGW theory and all climate models. Instead, all atmospheric data shows negative feedback processes dominate the atmosphere.
The situation is so bad that Wikipedia no longer has a page explaining AGW theory. So despite a claimed 97% consensus, not one consensus supporting climate scientist is capable of explaining their fundamental theory, with references that show how it works!
In the meantime, the “improved” climate models all run hot, and produce values for ECS that have its mean value increasing, and its range increasing and diverging. Hardly the result expected after 33 years of intensive research.
And no one seems to be bothered that the IPCC changed its methodology for calculating ECS for the first time in its existence with AR6, all on the basis of one paper! What puzzled me was that the timing of this paper appeared highly suspect, and seemed to have happened in a rush after the poor model results from CMIP6 were published.
The paper had a large number of contributing authors as well, which I assumed was meant to indicate some broad agreement to the development of this new methodology. Until you compare the authors to the contributing authors for Chapter 7 of AR6 WG1, and find that more than half of them were responsible for drafting Chapter 7!
A case of serendipity, or IPCC acolytes seeing they had a massive problem with their models, coming up with a solution to say that ECS is still on track?
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Remember when questioning was the bedrock of the West’s Scientific Revolution?
Remember when Nullius in Verba was the modus operandi of the Royal Society?
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FWIW
Beth
One useful thing that has come from The Royal Society in the last 30 or so years is the need to apply “Nullius in Verba” to the likes of Royal Societies
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I guess my understanding of how science works has been wrong now for at least 70 years , as I expected such a significant entity as the ECS would have been determined by some magnificent experiment and then used as an input to any climate model, not “discovered” as an output.
Please forgive my error.
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For the perplexed,
ECS- equilibrium climate sensitivity,
the number that slayer Postma says is zero, climate alarmists say is 4 to 6 percent, and skeptics say is negligible at below 0.5 percent.
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To clarify, ECS is the expected increase in surface temperature resulting from a doubling of atmospheric CO2 concentration. Its units are degrees Celsius.
By the IPCC’s definition, ECS is considered a logarithmic curve. However, that means that temperatures will continuously increase as CO2 levels increase. In reality, what happens is that the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere reaches saturation. Meaning that there is no more radiated energy to absorb, irrespective of further increases in CO2.
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2006.03098
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This is where you see the difference between leadership and go-along-to-get-along managerialism.
An actual leader would tell the UN to pound sand and DARE them to list the reef as ‘in danger’, using the data on record reef coverage to expose their classification as little more than a shakedown. Then he’d remind them that the UN has no enforcement mechanism. To paraphrase America’s 7th president Andrew Jackson … they have made their classification, now let them enforce it.
But sadly, bureaucracies self-select for a lack of leadership. They prefer conformist institutionalists who will ALWAYS prioritize the institution itself over the institution’s mission, and NEVER take risks. If you want to advance in a bureaucracy, the cardinal rule is ‘the nail who sticks out gets hammered’, so never EVER try to lead. Just keep your head down, kiss lots of butts of the bosses above you, and stab your peers in the back to ensure you get the next promotion and they don’t.
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That’s not how it works … governments always lust for power, but they don’t want to let the mask slip and be seen in public lusting for power.
Thus, bodies such as the UN can provide a convenient fig leaf … power without responsibility. The government of the day males a show of “fighting” the UNESCO listing but then eventually gracefully give in and “adopt” those “guidelines” to fix the non-problem.
They might have another pantomime public consultation so they can dutifully record the opinions of ordinary Australians and ignore them.
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You know they have drunk the Koolade when the refer to climate manipulation and false models as “the science“.
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Don’t forget that under Australian Apartheid laws all Australian natural features are being systematically rendered inaccessible if you are not of the right race.
Could it be that The Great Barrier Reef (GBR) is to be rendered inaccessible just like the other areas I list below? Doing it under the auspices of supposed “endangerment” and because “we had no choice, the UN told us to do it” would be politically more easy than Apartheid.
The issue is that the areas I listed below are less popular and less accessible and mostly less iconic than the GBR and thus they got away with banning them much more easily.
E.g. places where access is race-specific:
Arapiles / Grampians (climbing certain areas)
Lake Eyre
Ayers Rock (climbing banned and photography restrictions)
Mount Warning
Burrum Heads Foreshore
Olgas (climbing)
Three Sisters in the Blue Mountains (glad I climbed one of them back in the day)
Pajinka, in the Far North Queensland’s Cape York Peninsula (have to now pay)
Horizontal Falls in the Kimberley region
Finniss Rver
St Mary Peak
Mount Gillen
Don’t forget, the Left wants us kept within the confines of the free range prisons known as “15 Minute Cities” by the WEF but rebranded in Australia as “20 Minute Neighbourhoods”. https://www.planning.vic.gov.au/guides-and-resources/strategies-and-initiatives/20-minute-neighbourhoods
And don’t forget also that the Government has introduced a huge tax on cars which mainly applies to popular full size off road vehicles like Toyota Land Cruisers to make off road access even more inaccessible.
Australia started as a free range prison and it looks like how it will end. (Unfortunately the moral philosopher followed by the British Commonwealth was Jeremy Bentham, not the freedom loving John Locke and Baron Montesquieu as for the United States.)
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It was a pleasure to see the first written English cultural names in print. Many of us recognise all of these names instantaneously.
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As Australia’s colonial history and traditional culture is rewritten or erased, it’s important to remember Australia’s former cultural traditions and beliefs.
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I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if it was the Australian Green/Left that lobbied UNESCO to classify the GBR as endangered.
And remind me again why Civilised countries (at least once Civilised but now woke, like Australia) have their convenience products like supermarket plastic bags, plastic drinking straws and disposable table ware banned when disposal was always correct, but they do absolutely nothing in uncivilised Third World countries where rubbish is routinely dumped in rivers and ends up as ocean plastic. Shouldn’t that be a more important priority for the UN / UNESCO? And why aren’t Greens/Leftists going to such countries as unpaid volunteers and picking up rilubbish for them and teaching the locals not to litter? They are hypocrites, but we already knew that.
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I would like to know where the 444 million South Pacific pesos wen to for the GBR.
Malcolm Turn Bull Sh@te gave that Australian Taxpayer/Borrowed money to his
Misssus and her friends.
Just like Snowy 2.0 (Nation Building – lol) and the NBN, which was and is money pi$$ed up the wall.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-08-03/turnbull-defends-cash-to-reef-foundation/10070556
Over to you Mal baby. Mal content indeed. Or even Mal Practice.
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No doubt about it their so called dangerous CC is a religion and a very stupid one at that.
And their mitigation nonsense is even worse.
Here’s a very simple exercise comparing the ABC, CSIRO claims that a big Aussie Nuclear power stn would cost 8.5 billion $
Just change that 8.5 bn $ to 10 bn $ and by 7 = 70 bn $. That’s Dutton’s seven Nuclear stns covered.
Then divide those seven stns into their first cost or waste of W & S of 1500 bn ( 1.5 trillion) $ by 2030 and that = 150 new Nuclear power stns. DUH?
Therefore no need to waste another 5.5 to 7.5 TRILLION $ by 2060.
Can anyone find a fault in these numbers, because this time I can’t dumb it down any further.
And trust me I’m no maths genius and never studied at University as I had to start hard work at seventeen.
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Again here’s their ABC and CSIRO’s cost of 8.5 billion $ for one big Nuclear power stn.
Of course their other claims about toxic, unreliable W & S costs are ridiculous, compared to Nous group + 3 Uni study etc of 7 to 9 TRILLION $.
At a cost of just 70 bn $ for seven Nuclear stns we could just save the remaining 1430 billion $ until after 2100. Just kidding.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-22/nuclear-power-double-the-cost-of-renewables/103868728
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The South Koreans can build a Nuclear Power Station for around $6 billion US dollars in 8 and a half years.
They have already done it in the Middle East and at home. Smart capable people.
Australia not so. Just dumb ‘Pollies’ in charge of the Asylum.
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United Arab Emirates Barakah Nuclear Power Station commissioned in recent years and built in ten years has 4 Units and combined Installed Capacity of 5,600MW.
The renewables lobby groups and Labor claimed during the 2025 election campaign it would cost $600 billion for Dutton Plan 7 nuclear power stations.
For that amount of money 12 Barakah could be built here.
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https://scienceofclimatechange.org/wp-content/uploads/SCC-Vol5.3-Grabyan.pdf. “These findings indicate that atmospheric CO₂ does not precede, nor appear to drive, global temperature trends. Rather, CO₂ consistently lags temperature, suggesting it functions as a response variable rather than a primary forcing. In addition, TSI exhibits Strong to Very Strong temporal alignment with temperature, supporting the hypothesis that solar variability plays a significant role in long-term climate change.”
But the cult of climate change derangement syndrome will deny this and dismiss it out of hand, just as they have summarily dismissed (with no scientific basis what so ever) a number of other well researched papers on climate.
– Heating due to particle forcing and planetary electrical circuits – works on Jupiter but couldn’t possibly work on Earth only ‘cos we don’t want it to. There is an acceptance that the global electrical circuit affects clouds, pressure and temperature and proper scientific research shows how high energy particles enter at the poles and the subsequent transfer of this energy towards the equator. The entire Jovian atmosphere is heated this way and it works the same way here on Earth, but this research is just rejected for no reason other than there are too many snouts in the trough of man made climate change to acknowledge this. https//doi.org/10.3389/fspas.2021.738507
– Earth’s magnetic field strength is falling at an estimated 5% per decade and magnetic pole movement is accelerating – now only a complete moron with no scientific integrity what so ever would deny the effect on climate particularly given the energy transfer from poles to equator. But the IPCC refuse to accept this and it is not included in climate models, ‘cos it’s just so hard. Oh, and doesn’t make so much money for us.
– Sun’s effect on rainfall and monsoon patterns – paper after paper, but that can’t be right because the sun has no effect according to the IPCC
MAN MADE CLIMATE CHANGE IS NOT SCIENCE.
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Thanks Bronco,
The 150 year delay is interesting and ties in well with the end of the Little Ice Age. But the UK court found there was a 750 year delay.
I’ve not yet read the paper, so might find the answer there, but has that difference been mentioned/discussed?
My immediate guess is that the larger might be applicable from the peak of a full ice age??
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There is no exit strategy for warmists. Their censorship of alternative viewpoints of their comrades allows for no alternative opinions and severe consequences if someone dare speaks out.
They have to keep promoting catastrophic anthropogenic global warming up until the inevitable economic collapse and supremacy of China that their anti-energy policies will bring about.
As is the plan.
Why do you think China as an advanced military, space, nuclear weapons, nuclear electricity and AI superpower is exempt from the anti-energy policies of the woke West?
These are all policies of the Elite Left to destroy the West. The only major Western power that has extricated itself from this madness is the United States under TRUMP.
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While I guess it’s excluded from your “Western” set, Russia is doing rather well.
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Dress them up in Cardinal red robes & hats and loudly exclaim:
No one expects the Climate Inquisition!
(repeat as often as Eric Idle’s character did).
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Always look on the bright side of life…………………………
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHPOzQzk9Qo
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So what ! Mr Powell was once perhaps a sceptic, now supposedly a believer. At the moment with the sensible administration in the US, far more people are becoming sceptical (or better described as realistic) than those who believe in alarmism. It’s a numbers game and the US population is at least 10x our population. Australia also tends to slavishly follow US trends. The green investment will dry up, sensible politicians will win more elections in more countries and the whole climate fantasy will wither on the vine. But the effect won’t be quick, may even take decades. Science also progresses one funeral at a time and so eventually some younger climate Scientologists will also become realists.
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Nothing will make a public serpent change their stance faster than a threat to their career. Once their precious pension in perpetuity is threatened (especially when their period of service is approaching the next pension increase bracket), they quickly fall into line and support the prevailing narrative. They have no backbone.
This is a paradox- I guess serpents can also be invertebrates…
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‘Ya can’t Torquemada anything’.
Mel Brooks’ History of the World, Part 1 (1981) is still a hoot 44 years on, especially The Spanish Inquisition segment (see link below) where Brooks plays Grand Inquisitor Torquemada himself.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnF1OtP2Svk
[8:32 min]
*contains a few naughty words and a gaggle of nuns performing a spectacular synchronised swimming routine: self-parody at its best.
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Genius.
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Sixty years of temperature averages declared at UK Met Office station with only EIGHT YEARS of actual observations
The UK Met Office takes great pride in its public-domain historic station database where 37 selected sites provide average temperature data going back many decades. One of the chosen few is Valley, although it is better known as the Class 3 RAF Valley station on Anglesey. Curiously its ‘historic’ data stretches back to 1930, but this is 11 years before it became an operational military base. But on the separate location temperature database, check out the nearby station of Cwmystradllyn which is recorded to have opened in 1974 and stopped taking manual measurements after just eight years. Yet at this site, monthly averages are claimed back to 1961 and continue to this day. Here the Valley fabrication pales into insignificance compared to around 50 years of imaginary data at Cwmystradllyn.
https://dailysceptic.org/2025/09/01/sixty-years-of-temperature-averages-declared-at-uk-met-office-station-with-only-eight-years-of-actual-observations/
Made-up data are the least of the UK’s problems now. 😆
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The image at thectop of this article is a little reminiscent of the stone head in Zardoz.
It’s purpose is much like the Elites’ promotion and maintenance of the whole global warming scam. Many similarities.
From Goolag AI:
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Yes, it is true. 😱💪🔥
The science in is, and it all true.
People cause all the pollution on the planet and massive overpopulation is the greatest threat and the direct cause of the climate emergency. 👹🔥
The only solution is massive population reduction. Anything else is delusional woke, usually white leftist privilege. 🤡🥴🤮
Renewables divert scarce capital to green Ponzi Schemes which do nothing. 💰🔥💰🔥💰
Mass migration only relocates the carbon threat and even increases it. 😱🔥🔥🔥
Net Zero population growth plus incentives or even force to ensure birth control and the reduction of the world’s population down from its present uncontrolled growth.
Proven Scientific fact is that the world is not big enough by a factor of x10.
Not enough food, not enough water, not enough green living space.
Go visit the slums in the overpopulated cities in Africa or India and tell me there is room enough for more, and more, and more. 🥴💀
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Here in this recent 12 minute video Michael Shellenberger talks about elites and psychopaths, narcissists and Wokeism etc and Michael is always full of new research and new ideas to stop the crazy manipulators from controlling our lives.
Here’s the intro below the video……
98,639 views Aug 19, 2025
“Woke ideology isn’t just a belief system, it’s a magnet for narcissists, psychopaths, and authoritarian personalities. Michael Shellenberger breaks down how these extreme psychological types gain power through language manipulation, institutional control, and false compassion. This eye-opening conversation reveals the hidden dynamics driving modern cultural movements.”
Wokeism Attracts PSYCHOPATHS” — The Chilling Truth No One Wants to Admit… – YouTube
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Link?
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Sorry David that link didn’t work , I’ll try again.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkNSJ_S4b1o&t=1s
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Thanks Neville.
Outstanding.
Thanks for posting.
Highly recommended. It’s worth reading the viewer comments as well.
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Yes David and like Jo working for the Greens years ago and Michael switched from the left and became very rational and thoughtful today.
His book San FranSICKO caused a lot of hostility from the lefties but now even some of the left admit he was on the money.
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For those interested here are Australian Government reports on the Reef published ever 5 years since 2009.
https://www2.gbrmpa.gov.au/our-work/outlook-report-2024
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Also of interest, in 2021, to her credit, Susssssan Ley managed to put off UNESCO from declaring the Reef to be “in danger”
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-07-23/great-barrier-reef-avoids-in-danger-unesco-tag/100319652
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The air in contact with the ocean, long wave radiation does not penetrate water, it causes evaporation in the top couple of millimetres. The ocean is warmed by direct sunlight, short wave radiation down to 100 metres. It’s got nothing to do with climate change.
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I keep coming back to this simple fact.
30 years of climate alarmism and you can’t even detect a decrease in the rate of growth of global CO2 emissions over the period from 1940 to 2025.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/276629/global-co2-emissions/
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Mr Powell was once perhaps a sceptic, true, but now a convenient believer due to him being a minister in the state government. Clearly, he is not a conviction politician but a weather vane easily frightened by the foolish Murray Watt. The fact he cites I believe in the science, is an obvious tell, in order especially not to rock the boat and his gravey train.
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