UN $315 billion CDM carbon market comatose after Warsaw. It may last years

More good news.

Burning carbon credits, dollarsThe CDM is one of the only truly global carbon markets. It’s been the main mechanism for “mitigation” in developing countries, (China says “thank you”). Born with the Kyoto agreement, it was in a sick state last year and was even said to have collapsed. Now however it’s reached a state of “coma”.

Each CDM was worth 20 euros in 2008. Now they are selling for 50c.

Reuters: Investment under the U.N.’s $315 billion Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) has ground to a halt as the value of the credits they generate has plunged 95 percent in five years to around 0.30 euros, crushing profits that investors count on to set up carbon-cutting schemes in the developing world.

“As a tradable commodity, it’s in a coma and will be unless and until a 2015 agreement wakes it up,” said Jorund Buen, co-founder and partner at consultancy and project developer Differ.

A lot of things could be said about the last UNFCCC meeting in Warsaw. Here’s the one that matters:

“…no major nation offered to set or deepen emission targets, while Japan scaled down its 2020 goal.”

The language of death:

“…almost 200 nations “expressed concern” over the state of the CDM market, but measures that could have helped prop up the scheme were removed…”

There’s a paltry rescue effort which only makes it look more sick, and more pointless:

“In the absence of new targets, several European nations firmed up pledges in Warsaw to pay a premium over market rates for a handful of CDM projects in the world’s poorest countries to keep the scheme alive.”

Norway’s government  is sending $30m of taxpayer funds to buy CDM credits. Lucky UK Taxpayers are tossing in 50 million pounds. Do I read this correctly — of the 50 million, only 33 is going to buy of the credits, the other 17million  is going to train people on getting through UN red tape. Those compliance costs… really? And people call this a “free” market.

“The report said 33 million pounds would be spent directly on the credits, with prices negotiated with each developer. Most of the remaining funding will be spent on programmes to help developers get their projects through the complex auditing process required by the UN before credits can be issued.”

But baby carbon markets are starting in places like South Korea and Mexico and there is still hope (apparently). Point Carbon’s Frank Melum said”For the most optimistic, this is the first sign of a life for CDM after 2020.” Which tells you how bad it is doesn’t it? 2020.

If you have the urge to see how big the CDM is compared to the global markets, the graph is here — though like most carbon market things, no one seems to have updated the graphs to show the downturn in the last couple of years.

h/t GWPF

10 out of 10 based on 3 ratings

194 comments to UN $315 billion CDM carbon market comatose after Warsaw. It may last years

  • #
    Rereke Whakaaro

    Hmm,

    The link to the graph appears to be kaput.

    —–
    REPLY: Sorry, fixed. I think. -J

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  • #
    Peter Miller

    The waste, the bureaucracy and the pointlessness of all this is mind boggling.

    Future generations will look back to these times, just as we look back to the black tulip bubble, and ask “What the heck did these guys think they were doing? What did they think they were going to achieve?”

    There are so many problems with today’ climate science and perhaps this one statement sums it up best: “Only the future can be predicted with certainty, while the past is always subject to change.”

    If you think that that sounds like 1984, or a communist system as practiced, then you are right.

    Compare this to today’s climate science, which is adamant that its predictions of imminent Thermageddon are absolutely correct and inviolable, while historic temperature data has been manipulated and changed so much that almost no one seems to know what the original figures looked like.

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    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      If you think that that sounds like 1984, or a communist system as practiced, then you are right.

      I have gotten myself into trouble on this site before, by quoting Joseph Goebbels: “Es git keine Wahrheit, git es keine Wirklichkeit, gibt es nur Meinung und Vorstellung”. There is no truth. There is no reality. There is only opinion and perception.

      A lot of the modern hype, and the angst (another German word), surrounding climate change can be traced back to the ancient German love of nature, and their sense of the Fatherland, as being the provider for, and protector of, the Germanic peoples. This love of nature underpinned the Hitler Youth (which started out as a scouting movement), and also underpinned much of the early Nazi domestic propaganda.

      The Nazi party were the Greens of their day.

      The German connection to “the fatherland” did not go away with the end of the war, and the occupation of East Germany by the Russians. If anything, it increased, because it was not seen as a religeon by the Soviets, and hence it was not suppressed.

      With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the “reunification” of Germany, the propaganda techniques previously used by both the Nazis and the Soviets became available, and socially acceptable, within the wider conservation movement. The end imperitive justifies the means.

      Hence we got the Ten-Ten videos, and the poor drowning doggie bedtime story.

      And in all of this, and at the heart of what Goebbels was implying, is a total lack of factual science. The purpose of science is to ultimately be proven wrong, or be shown to be incomplete. That is how science progresses. But with climate change, we are told that the science is settled, and that 97% of scientists agree. And the unthinking chatterrarti, just accept that statement as fact, exactly as they have been conditioned to do.

      “The carp does not see the water in the stream.” – Japanese saying.

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      • #

        “A decade of Progress in Eugenics”, Proceeds of the 1932 International Eugenics Congress, p30-31

        http://archive.org/stream/decadeofprogress00inte#page/n5/mode/2up

        The outstanding generahzations of my world tour are what may be summed up as the “six overs”; these “six overs” are, in the genetic order of cause and effect

        Over-destruction of natural resources, now actually world-wide;

        Over-mechanization, in the substitution of the machine for animal and human labor, rapidly becoming world-wide;

        Over-construction of warehouses, ships, railroads, wharves and other means of trans- port, replacing primitive transportation;

        Over-production both of the food and of the mechanical wants of mankind, chiefly during the post-war speculative period;

        Over-confidence in future demand and supply, resulting in the too rapid extension of natural resources both in food and in mechanical equipment;

        Over-population beyond the land areas, or the capacity of the natural and scientific resources of the world, with consequent permanent unemployment of the least fitted.

        Modern green philosophy is a complete cut and paste straight out of the old NAZI playbook.

        412

        • #
          Manfred

          Eric, how on earth did you manage to find that reference and citation?

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          • #

            It was Delingpole who put me onto the close links between Green philosophy and NAZI philosophy http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100076404/ .

            I knew the evidence had to be out there somewhere, but it took a lot of digging. Academics seem strangely reluctant to document the last time their mathematical models led the world down the garden path, and caused the death of millions.

            A surprising number of leading academics were behind the whole Eugenics nightmare. Academics would like us to believe that it was an isolated aberration practiced in Germany, that the rest of the world looked on in horror, but the truth is academics across the world were involved in it right up to their necks, pushing politicians to enact policies in accordance with the science, shouting down critics, living fat of the grant money.

            For example, Ronald Fischer, often called the father of modern statistics, invented his mathematical tools as part of an effort to scientifically validate his Eugenic obsession. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Fisher

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      • #
        ROM

        Excellent comment Rereke and spot on in the historical sense

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      • #
        Manfred

        RW, it is more than apparent that JG was a Past Master propaganda. The echoes witnessed today are worryingly more than obvious, irrespective of Godwin’s Law.

        The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly – it must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over.

        That propaganda is good which leads to success, and that is bad which fails to achieve the desired result. It is not propaganda’s task to be intelligent, its task is to lead to success.

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        • #
          Winston

          Godwin is an idiot,

          By invoking Godwin’s “law”, we ensure that the lessons of Nazism are not learned, and history is therefore inevitably destined to repeat itself, since to invoke comparisons between any similar ideology in the future is somehow intellectually lazy or a sign of tin-foil hat psychopathology.

          So, Godwin, by his observation has ironically laid the foundation upon which a Neo-Nazism (re-badged for public consumption) can be fostered without the public scrutiny and rebuke it deserves.

          I repeat, Godwin is an idiot, and laws (especially his) are made to be broken.

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          • #
            Manfred

            No one’s disagreeing.

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          • #
            Greg Cavanagh

            Godwin’s Law says nothing about comparisons, stopping an argument, or winning an argument. In fact, it doesn’t say much at all.

            Godwin’s law (also known as Godwin’s Rule of Nazi Analogies or Godwin’s Law of Nazi Analogies[1][2]) is an assertion made by Mike Godwin in 1990[2] that has become an Internet adage. It states: “As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.”[2][3] In other words, Godwin said that, given enough time, in any online discussion—regardless of topic or scope—someone inevitably makes a comparison to Hitler or the Nazis.

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          • #
            MadJak

            Godwins law is not a law at all. It is merely a subjective opinion.

            40

          • #
            bullocky

            bullocky’s observation;

            Eugenicists, present and future, will be eternally thankful to Adolf Hitler for Godwin’s Law.

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        • #
          ExWarmist

          JG was a fan of Edward Bernays and apparently had his book Propaganda in his personal bookshelf.

          Frankly – the totalitarians are worthy of study – how else will you be able to counter their techniques unless you first understand them?

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          • #
            Peter Miller

            And let us never forget this: In totalitarian organisations, everything, including the science, is settled.

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      • #
        Mark D.

        R.W., to be fair it was his job to say such things. There is iron in irony.

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        • #
          Rereke Whakaaro

          I do not disagree, Mark.

          My intention, was to point out that blaming communism per se, is merely part of the propaganda. We should be much more worried about Fascism, because that is where Agenda 21, in concert with the Eugenics movement, would lead us.

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          • #
            Roy Hogue

            Amen, Rereke. China has been becoming more fascist with time and it’s only being noticed by a few astute observers.

            They cannot continue unmodified communism because it’s an economic disaster and they know it. And they want a functioning economy to bleed for money. So what still allows tightfisted control of the people but allows the economy to (sort of) work? Fascism! Of course it won’t be nationalist but globalist. But a rose cesspool by any other name is still a rose cesspool.

            What’s not to love about fascism if you’re the UN?

            I think you’re right.

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          • #
            Winston

            Am I to to take it that the red thumb for Rereke’s comment is from someone who supports fascism, or doesn’t think fascism is an ever-present potential threat to civilisation, or that eugenics is not an abomination, or that Agenda 21 as it is proposed is not implicitly totalitarian? By all means please explain.

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            • #
              Roy Hogue

              Winston,

              The red thumb has begun to be something I’m proud of. It means I poked something that needed poking. So relax and accept the accolade. They aren’t about to try to explain themselves — I wish they would but they aren’t about to expose themselves by trying it. 🙂

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              • #
                AndyG55

                I like to think of them as pusillanimous little stalkers.

                But I know they actually LUV me, because they always read my comments, thanks guys ! 🙂

                They also NEVER have the guts to actually make a comment, probably because they are incapable of string more than 2 words together.

                20

      • #
        Rick Bradford

        If you don’t want to quote Goebbels, you could quote Allan Bloom instead.

        The study of history and of culture teaches that all the world was mad in the past; men always thought they were right, and that led to wars, persecutions, slavery, xenophobia, racism, and chauvinism. The point is not to correct the mistakes and really be right; rather it is not to think you are right at all.

        The relativity of truth is not a theoretical insight but a moral postulate, the condition of a free society, or so they see it.

        Among ‘progressives’, Bloom is as big a hate figure as Goebbels anyway, ever since he wrote The Closing of the American Mind in 1987.

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      • #
        PeterS

        The Nazi party were the Greens of their day.

        Rereke, that has been my belief for a very long time. Most people confuse the Greens to be communists. They are nothing of the sort. They are very much like Nationalist Socialists (aka Nazis). The Greens only made a temporary alliance with communist socialist ALP to try and gain support (and recently failed). If the Greens were ever to become a strong enough force on their own right, they would dump Labor like a hot potato. Fortunately, the Greens will never reach that level of popularity; at least I hope not.

        As for the German love of nature, there’s an even more sinister characteristic. The Nazi party as we all know were great believers of human engineering and man-made evolution of the human species through various means. The Greens have a similar desire to cull and reform the world’s population in the name of nature.

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      • #
        Alice Thermopolis

        Tomorrow (apparently) belongs to them:

        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29Mg6Gfh9Co

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    • #
      Backslider

      Compare this to today’s climate science, which is adamant that its predictions of imminent Thermageddon are absolutely correct and inviolable,

      Yes, absolutely…. according to the ABC and whatever nutcases they are able to find…..

      20

  • #

    Lucky UK Taxpayers are tossing in 50 million pounds.
    Lucky is right. (Not!) The UK in particular can be singled out for having a bunch of green nutcases running the show. From the French Tribune article Climate Change Plans of Britain are ‘staggeringly costly and excessive’: “Benny Peiser, the foundation’s director, who compiled the report, said, ‘The public has absolutely no idea how staggeringly costly and excessive the Government’s climate initiatives are. Even we were shocked when we discovered the astronomical funding streams and added them up’.” The UK’s obsession with blowing their national wealth on “climate change” is pure lunacy or idiocy. Both actually.

    361

  • #
    AndyG55

    “(China says “thank you”). ”

    Funny that ! 🙂

    Money is borrowed (most probably from China)

    then given back to China because they are developing country

    Then the loan has to be paid back to China. !!

    Why wouldn’t the Chinese be laughing..

    oh and where is Maurice Strong hiding out at the moment ???

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  • #

    It would be better to invest in pitchforks and flaming torches.

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    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      Sorry, but “flaming torches” are not allowed. 97% of scientists agree that they emit smoke and/or carbon dioxide. 🙂

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      • #
        DT

        But the Redhead match company has lodged a protest.

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      • #
        DT

        In return for the Greens supporting the government’s debt action plan they have demanded a regular economic statement be provided setting out the impact of climate change on the economy. That should be an interesting read, based on what data?

        40

  • #
    Cookster

    China says “thank you”. Thanks for subtly reminding us Jo. And the warmists still claim China is doing much to curb growth in CO2 emissions – all the while building new coal fired power stations like they are going out of style.

    Of course any developing country would make relatively token efforts to curb CO2 if fools in the West were clamouring to pay me to do so. The Chinese view of the “threat” of CGW was exposed in Copenhagen 2009. The frustration against the Chinese refusal to play the game there was rather crudely expressed by the Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd at the time. This should not be forgotten every time a warmist says China is making efforts to curb CO2 so we need to do more to tax ourselves into submission.

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    • #
      Yonniestone

      Cookster spot on, also at Copenhagen 2009 China demonstrated their intentions by asking for a copy of Lord Monckton’s speech from the man himself, speaking of the good lord (great segue Yonnie) here’s some of his assessment of the “Theatre” in 2009 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMxJG-Mu9dc

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      • #
        Tesco Boy

        Dont you think the Chinese delegate was just being polite Yonnie ?
        Theyre quite agreeable that way.

        Anyway, many thanks forthe video link, since we didnt have theGood Lord’s inimitable commentary on proceedings at the time.

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      • #
        Tesco Boy

        Awe Mate, I thoughtit was going to be on Warsaw. WasWarsaw really so worthless that it’s not even worth his commentary in retrospect ?

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        • #
          Yonniestone

          The way that Monckton described the events concerning the Chinese delegates was that they we’re only interested in his information and it was accepted in a quiet business like manner.
          I think anything Lord Monckton comments on is worth attention also. 🙂

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        • #
          Safetyguy66

          The greens walking out was a good sign that at least some sanity was about to prevail. Ok it was a pretty small, sort of nano-sanity if you will, but it was a move in the right direction. Indeed the kind of direction you would expect and hope for from a few hundred bureaucrats in a room, they put it all off to talk about later…

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          • #
            ExWarmist

            nano-sanity?…

            Sounds like the sanity level might be indistinguishable from Zero.

            20

          • #
            Maverick

            Completely off topic, but Safetyguy66 i know you are based in Tasmania, and I assume involved in OH&S in some way. Today in Launceston at an equipment hire business I witnessed first hand our country’s plunge into over-regulated madness.

            I was collecting a brush-cutter for a friend and I requested that the metal cutting blade be replaced by a nylon cord system. As you would know this involves undoing one nut, placing the cord cutter on and tightening said nut. The bloke that did this inside the workshop was wearing almost knee high work boots, yakka style cargo work pants with all the pockets, a full sleeve high viz top, gloves, a helmet, safety glasses and ear-plugs.

            I am all for safety at work, but…

            40

            • #
              Safetyguy66

              Hey Maverick

              I describe myself as a “practical safety professional”.

              I was fortunate early in my career in OHS to be mentored by a man who really put me on the right track in terms of how to be effective and well regarded in a profession that has earned itself a reputation for being the ultimate expression of both useless bureaucracy and condescending patronism.

              His main messages were;

              – Be a service provider, work out how to assist workers to work safer, don’t tell them how to do their jobs
              – Never forget the prime reason your job exists is to participate in the construction of “the project”, the company does not exist to just do OHS
              – Just because you are responsible for communicating regulations, doesn’t mean you are responsible for enforcing them

              Those basic messages have led to try and always respect the knowledge and skills of the people I work with. To assist them to find safer ways to work based on risk assessment rather than mindless adherence to rules. To encourage people to think for themselves, rather than expecting to be controlled by micro management.

              Its pretty amazing (usually to those I work with) that I often seem to be on the “non safety” side of arguments about how work should be done. But when your talking about management wanting you to write a notice to not carry more than 3 jugs of water at a time through the office (this is not a joke), sometimes, someone has to bring things back to common sense.

              So Im with you mate, safety is great and its nice to see everyone go home. But 99% of what I do comes down to the moment by moment decisions of the people actually at risk, I cant be everywhere and I don’t believe in writing rules to try and seem like Im everywhere.

              As a South African HR consultant once said to me…. “Peter, you can lead a horse to water….. but sometimes you have to shoot it”

              I think there is something in that for all of us.

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  • #
    Joe Lalonde

    Jo,

    It has to die off as NOBODY can afford the crappy technology out that is suppose to “cure the planet” from bad carbon.

    The current problem is that ALL of the countries figured that a booming economic system was suppose to last forever…
    Problem is the banking system knew exactly how to make currency and make massive debt for ALL but themselves…

    The US was suppose to buy everyone’s goods…the only problem is that they ran out of money and jobs and incorporated a vast wealth of corruption that was distributed over the whole planet.
    Here is the retail implosion that is occurring due to consumerism.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jO60a9oD2w&feature=c4-overview&list=UUxOQ_BQWMLnw6qMsNJlTflQ

    20

  • #
    Norman

    The NAS has become totally corrupted reminds me of National Socialist Germany
    http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/12/04/report-consequences-of-global-warming-could-occur-soon

    10

  • #
    KinkyKeith

    While driving the other day I listened to a cute young thing from Britain’s National radio provider.

    She was reading a report on “mitigation” of Climate related disaster which discussed efforts to cut back on Human Caused Climate Change.

    There was also a report on the “angst” suffered by a New Zealand Refugee Lawyer who was acting for a family of Climate Refugees who had fled the obviously “unsafe” environment on their original Pacific Island home.

    The total effect was convincing as it had the authority of the Media Aura and I could , in other less educated circumstances, have been made to feel that all of this climate business was something which I had caused as I drove on producing more CO2.

    In both reports the only “science” mentioned was the usual platitudes and junk.

    Disturbing, because this stuff is regularly pushed on young unaware minds and is now part of the “Truth” which must be accepted by all right thinking people with a conscience.

    The deflation of the Carbon Market is very welcome news.

    KK

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    • #
      KinkyKeith

      Thank you to the reader who gave me a thumbs down.

      Complete acceptance is likely to create a lack of critical thinking and a good prod is always useful to someone interested in the Truth.

      KK

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    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      The back story of the, so-called, climate refugee is that a young man from Kiribati came to New Zealand on a tourist visa, met a girl, got her pregnant, and then did not go home, therefore becoming an overstayer.

      He had more children (presumably with the same partner) before the immigration department tracked him down, and started proceedings to have him deported.

      The lawyer appointed to the case, tried to claim that the young man was a climate refugee because the Island of Kiribati only has a mean height above high tide level of about one metre. They will be some of the first to know, if mean sea levels do actually rise because of climate change. Thus, the lawyer argued, the place he was being deported to would be dangerous to his physical and mental well-being.

      The Judge neatly sidestepped the question of whether or not he would be required to consider the fact or otherwise of Anthropogenic Climate Change, by focusing on the international definition of refugee as being a person who is displaced due to persecution by the administrative powers in their home country. Since the defence was unable to demonstrate that the young man would be persecuted upon his return to Kiribati, he could not claim the right to be considered a refugee, and would therefore be deported.

      The facts of the matter speak for themselves, but the vapourous luvvies are still fluttering over the injustice of it all.

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      • #
        KinkyKeith

        Good summary RW.

        The radio report made it sound as though the whole family was fleeing the rising tide back home.

        KK

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      • #
        Sceptical Sam

        I’d appreciate a reference for that RW.

        In return, and paid up front, I offer you this;

        ftp://soest.hawaii.edu/coastal/Climate%20Articles/Atolls%20Growing%20Kench%202010.pdf

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        • #
          Rereke Whakaaro

          The sources I used were two transcripts of Radio Australia news items; one giving the background (broadcast 17 Oct 2013) which includes academic opinion from Jane McAdam at U.NSW, and the other (broadcast 26 Nov 2013) giving the judges written ruling.

          There was also a Radio New Zealand International opinion piece by Annell Husband (broadcast 27 Nov 2013), that contains quotations from the mans’ lawyer (Michael Kidd), the mans’ wife (Angua Erica), and “an environmental lawyer” at AUT Law School (Vernon Rive).

          I also had a few informal (coffee) discussions with “friends” who work within the Parliamentary Campus, here in Wellington, to verify the facts presented in the original Radio Australia items (among other things). I have not bothered verifying the RNZI opinion piece.

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        • #
          Rereke Whakaaro

          Oh, and thank you for the file.

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  • #
    Safetyguy66

    Jo you made the point well in your post about confected markets and “carbon being neither free nor worth anything”. It was a well made argument and one that is now proving predictably prophetic. When you create a market that trades in nothing and is propped up by tax payer funds, what other result would you expect other than more funds being needed to perpetuate the fantasy.

    When this whole carbon trading nonsense started I labelled carbon credits “fantasy tickets” and I have been calling them that ever since. The fact that people like the greens remain utterly deluded on the notion that business will do anything other than default to the cheapest solution is one of the great mysteries of AGW dogma. If you ran a business where you had a choice between reforming your emissions by altering your power inputs or methods of production (very costly changes to established operations) or just buying some fantasy tickets from the EU, which will you do?

    The result is emissions remain the same, Australian money goes overseas and no one bothers to check if the fantasy tickets were attached to any real abatement (whatever that means anyway). Tony Abbott described it perfectly before the election.

    http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/chris-bowen-admits-the-cost-of-an-early-move-to-an-ets-will-be-significant/story-fn59niix-1226679555111

    “It’s more fake change from Kevin Rudd. The one thing he has done is he has admitted that what the Coalition was saying about the carbon tax was right all along,” he told reporters in Sydney.

    “This is not a true market, just ask yourself what an ETS is all about, it’s a so-called market in the non-delivery of an invisible substance to no-one.”

    – See more at: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/chris-bowen-admits-the-cost-of-an-early-move-to-an-ets-will-be-significant/story-fn59niix-1226679555111#sthash.Bj16GRFP.dpuf

    Cory Bernardi (who I am not keen on quoting) made the point in the Senate yesterday regarding the ALP and Gonski, that they were a Government obsessed with “seeming”. They always wanted to “seem” like they were doing something. Thus most of the problems they created or faced were attacked quickly, loudly and with large buckets of money, because “seeming” to do something is always made more credible if you toss cash around while your seeming.

    So it is with air trading and fantasy tickets, its about the art of “seeming”. The general public rarely educates itself on the details of these matters, so they hear terms like “carbon trading” and “emissions markets” and to them it “seems” like something is happening and if something is happening it must be good right?

    Well time is showing that when educated, experienced people stop naval gazing and start refocussing on the basics of markets, they discover they have been sold a pup. Whoda thunk it eh?

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  • #

    The only people that make out like bandits on Carbon Trading are scam artists like Maurice Strong and Al Gore.

    This is another application of the Greater Fool Theory of Wall Street: Create a commodity out if thin air (CO2), run up the price by forcing by government edict utility companies to purchase carbon credits, the scam artists then sell their stock at the top after buying them for pennies at the start of trading, and the electric bill payers wind up holding the bag as the scam bubble collapses to its inevitable flat-line.

    Carbon Trading is a scam, always was, always will be.

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    pat

    5 Dec: Bloomberg: Mike Anderson: Australia’s $10 Billion Climate Fund Fights to Stay in Business
    “We welcome extreme scrutiny of our record,” Jillian Broadbent, chairwoman of the Clean Energy Finance Corp., said in an interview. The fund would be able to work as part of the government’s proposed Direct Action Plan to cut emissions, she said…
    “The odds of the Clean Energy Finance Corp. surviving beyond July are low but improving,” said Nathan Fabian, the Sydney-based chief executive officer for the Investor Group on Climate Change. “The government is finding it more difficult to confuse the carbon tax with broad-based support for the fight against climate change.” …
    The fund is using borrowed funds to make “highly speculative” investments that merely displaces other private sector lending, Environment Minister Greg Hunt said this week at the Climate Expo in Melbourne. “How does that create additional emission reductions,” he asked.
    “Our biggest challenge is to counter the misconceptions that are out there, that we are a green hedge fund, that we take high risks,” Broadbent said yesterday. “Our job is to catalyze private sector investment in emission-reduction projects.” …
    If the fund is allowed to invest the full $10 billion over the next five years, the projects it backs would achieve more than half of what’s needed to meet the bipartisan target for a 5 percent emissions reduction by 2020, he (Chief Executive Officer Oliver Yates, a former Macquarie Group Ltd. banker) said.
    “The government’s decision to close down the Clean Energy Finance Corp. appears to be more about politics than policy,” said Kobad Bhavnagri, head of research in Australia at Bloomberg New Energy Finance. “It’s operating model is consistent with the principles of the Coalition’s Direct Action policy.” …
    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-12-04/australia-s-10-billion-climate-fund-fights-to-stay-in-business.html

    the UN Climate Fund: watch your Super:

    5 Dec: Bloomberg: Matthew Carr: PensionDanmark Sees Bond-Beating Options in UN Climate Fund
    PensionDanmark A/S, the retirement fund that’s invested about $1.8 billion in renewable energy, may consider developing country projects for the first time as the United Nations-linked Green Climate Fund opens today.
    “The Green Climate Fund could be an interesting partner for pension funds” if it reduces the risks from investing in emerging markets, Torben Moger Pedersen, Chief Executive Officer of PensionDanmark in Copenhagen, said by phone. “We are facing the same challenges as other pension funds. Yields on government bonds are very low and not an attractive safe haven.”…
    The GCF is seeking to channel a portion of $100 billion from industrialized nations to emerging countries by 2020, according to its website…
    “Today is an historic day,” Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, said in an e-mailed statement on the fund’s opening. “Governments now have a crucial tool at their disposal to leverage billions in finance for developing counties to green their economies and increase their resilience to the inevitable effects of climate change.”
    PensionDanmark says it has invested $1.8 billion in windfarms, energy grids and other “green” infrastructure. The aim is to spend a further $1.4 billion within the next four years in developed nations, it said.
    The retirement fund, with 642,000 members, is seeking alternative investments to counter low-yielding benchmark government debt…
    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-12-04/green-climate-fund-may-lure-investors-seeking-bond-alternatives.html

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      Safetyguy66

      Eco Loons already have a plan for your retirement funds. They arnt old enough to drive or vote, they have never paid tax, but they know what to do with your hard earned savings. Climate Heroes? More like sponging hippies.

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9TgnkTRFcA

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    • #
      Andrew McRae

      Never mind Danish wind non-power non-farms, Pat, there’s strange things afoot at the Circle-K closer to home…
      Federal funding bid for King Island wind farm:
      http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-12-03/federal-funding-bid-for-king-island-wind-farm/5132738

      It has been revealed Hydro Tasmania wants the Federal Government to help fund its $2 billion King Island wind farm project. The state-owned hydro electricity generator is conducting a feasibility study into its plan to build 200 wind turbines on the Bass Strait island.

      The [State] Energy Minister, Bryan Green, has told a parliamentary hearing Hydro Tasmania will be financially worse off if the [Federal] Coalition succeeds in its bid to abolish the carbon tax. Mr Green says the [Federal] government could offset the losses by helping to fund the King Island project and he will discuss the matter at a meeting with the relevant federal minister next week.

      The proposal for a second Basslink cable is being backed by the Tasmanian Liberals.

      Sounds like Big Green thinks it is too-big-to-fail and needs a bail-out.
      What do we do with companies too-big-to-fail? We should let them fail. How else will a generation of investors, managers, and cling-ons learn how to differentiate a tax-economy green bubble from a market economy productive enterprise?
      “But it wasn’t malinvestment until you pulled the rug out from under us!” will be the predictable cry.
      In other words it’s only wrong if you get caught.
      The words of Mises are lost on these people.

      They say Australia has “a two-speed economy”. Yeah, but the two speeds aren’t the mining and construction versus the rest of us. The two speeds are on the one hand the big business lobbyist cronies with a tax-payer funded safety net, and on the other hand the rest of us. Are we a nation of laws amongst equals or what?

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        Safetyguy66

        12 Months ago when I was at Musselroe, all the locals were asking “what do you think about King Island”.

        My response was and it remains the same. Its a pipe dream, it will never happen.

        I am taking bets if anyone wants to lose some money.

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        Dave

        Andrew,

        Hydro Tasmania are a rabid GREEN mob, Directors:
        1. Saul Eslake – Economist Saul Eslake is describing the latest economic growth data for Tasmania as the best news in two years. BUT, the figures released last week showed Tasmania was the only state to record negative growth last financial year, in its worst result in a decade. And this man wants us to help Hydro Tasmania (owned by the TAS government) with a couple Billion?

        2. Janine Healey: – “In Launceston, where I met Janine Healey in the board room. She handed me a letter outlining the redundancy and I was absolutely stunned to see” as an accountant and redundancy expert. Maybe she should use her skills to sack the board of Hydro.

        3. Stan Kalinko – also on the board for 180 Group which is a subsidiary of FSA Group Limited, a public company listed on the Australian Securities Exchange. They specialise in business cash-flow. Maybe Stan the man can use the 180 Group to put up the $2 Billion.

        4. Tessa Jakszewicz – also Chief Executive Officer at Landcare Australia, now you’d think this girl could stop windmills with thousands of tonnes of concrete wrecking King Island, but no, she’s after the prize, of CASH.

        5. Grant Every-Burns – From 1996 to 2011 he was Chief Executive and Managing Director of Macquarie Generation, the nation’s largest producer of electricity, you’d think he’d know that windmills don’t work?

        Yet this little bunch of experts from power generation, cash flow, the environment, accountancy and law, they should have a better grasp on the situation.

        They are all GANG GREEN parasitic bottom feeders with their greedy mouths in the troughs of taxpayer money. Liquidate the bloody company now, and tell Tasmanian Greens to select better directors for their government owned entities.

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    pat

    i see no text other than the headline…and this sole comment. i’m also wondering how much the HQ cost to build:

    4 Dec: UK Financial Times Blog: Simon Mundy: UN’s Green Climate Fund: much like a pension fund
    ONE COMMENT: by Cantillon
    Given that they have done nothing, nor are likely to for another seven years (and likely never to justify the cost thereafter!), it would be interesting to know how handsomely the members of the global elite are paying themselves and their pack followers for its ‘running costs’
    http://blogs.ft.com/beyond-brics/2013/12/04/uns-green-climate-fund-much-like-a-pension-fund/?Authorised=false

    Reuters’ own headline was: “U.N. launches Green Climate Fund with little in its coffers” but, as it was only the HQ being launched, SMH has changed it to:

    5 Dec: SMH: Reuters: Green climate fund hopes for a change in fortunes
    The Green Climate Fund, designed as the United Nations’ most important funding body in the battle on climate change in developing nations, launched its headquarters in South Korea, but uncertainty over finances clouded the event.
    The launch was largely symbolic, as the Fund, set up by developed nations to channel most of the $US100 billion ($110 billion) they aim to spend each year by 2020, is not expected to be fully operational until the latter half of next year.
    Rich nations, reluctant to stress their already fragile economies, have not paid up as scheduled. Now the Fund has just $US40 million at its disposal, a sum promised by South Korea that must also cover administrative expenses…
    But inflows have fallen far short of expected levels, with new finance even dropping by more than two-thirds in 2013 from 2012, Britain’s Overseas Development Institute says.
    For example, it said in a recent report, “Funding in response to German flood damage in 2013 was four times higher than funding to help developing countries adapt to climate change since 2003.”
    Most of the climate finance that has emerged so far will be distributed by national governments or private funds run by multilateral organisations such as the World Bank…
    “The office opening is both a symbolic and practical demonstration that the Fund is ready for business,” she said in a statement, but added it would become fully operational around the second half of next year…
    “What is wrong with the Global Climate Fund is that there is no money there,” Indian Environment Minister Jayanthi Natarajan told a news conference during last month’s talks in the Polish capital of Warsaw.
    http://www.smh.com.au/business/carbon-economy/green-climate-fund-hopes-for-a-change-in-fortunes-20131205-2yroq.html

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    pat

    4 Dec: World Bank: Speech by World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim at the Green Climate Fund Secretariat Launch
    This is an extremely important day, and the Green Climate Fund is a source of enormous optimism and hope, not only for us at the World Bank Group, but especially for people living in developing countries…
    “Why is the World Bank so concerned with climate change?” First, I want everyone to know, as the first World Bank President who has any training in science, we have been looking carefully at the science around climate change. And the consensus that man-made climate change is real and is having a significant impact – an increasing impact – is overwhelming.
    You know, when the panel announced that 95 percent of climate scientists agree that climate change is real and a threat, as a scientist, I heard about this and I thought, “My goodness, there are very few things in my field of medicine where 95 percent of physicians agree.” This is overwhelming and powerful and we simply have to face the science. If you have doubts about climate change, you are not doubting climate change. You are fundamentally putting into doubt science itself…
    One of the things we have to face is that the costs of tackling climate change are simply staggering…
    What if the Republic of Korea had only started developing now and was facing a 25 to 30 percent premium in addition on the cost of developing the economy? We know that is going to be the cost – and we simply must step up to the challenge and find funding, public finance, precious official development assistance dollars that are available…
    Now we are of course extremely hopeful that in 2015 we can have a binding global agreement. But in the meantime as we prepare for 2015, we have got to find ways of moving foward, whether it be carbon taxes or carbon markets…
    I am very sorry that Christine Lagarde could not be here. We have been working together on this issue and I don’t think you can underestimate the importance of the Managing Director of the IMF, getting up almost every day now, and saying, “We have to have a stable price on carbon and we have got to remove fossil fuel subsidies.”…
    Yesterday I had the opportunity to visit middle school students in Seoul. There is a Climate Change Club at this middle school and they presented to me their own insights, and what they are trying to do to tackle climate change.
    I have two sons, a 13 year old son and a 4 year old son, and as President of the World Bank Group, listening to the way my children already talk to me, my guess is that in 15 or 20 years, they will be saying “Dad, what the hell were you thinking? You were President of the World Bank and you didn’t do enough to tackle climate change. You gave us this world, where Bangkok is underwater, where the coral reefs are gone, where heat spells that were 1 in 100 years, happen every summer. Where poverty has gotten worse and where all hope of development in some of the poorest hottest countries, has gone. Why didn’t you do more, when you knew that this was going to happen?”
    We have an historic opportunity with the Green Climate Fund to be able to look our children and our grandchildren in the eye, in 10, 15, 20 years, and say, “No, no, no, we knew what was happening and we took action, because we cared about you.”
    http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/speech/2013/12/04/speech-world-bank-group-president-jim-yong-kim-launch-green-climate-fund-songdo-korea

    reality:

    UK power squeeze avoided as tougher coal rules rejected
    LONDON, Dec 4 (Reuters) – British lawmakers rejected an amendment on Wednesday that would have forced tougher rules on old coal-fired power plants, sparing the energy market from an even tighter squeeze as ageing nuclear plants shut later this decade…
    http://www.pointcarbon.com/news/reutersnews/1.3211588?&ref=searchlist

    Steel lobby Eurofer urges EU to review energy, climate policy
    LONDON, Dec 3 (Reuters) – Europe needs to urgently review costly energy and climate policies if it wants EU steelmaking to have a future, steel industry lobby Eurofer said on Tuesday…
    http://www.pointcarbon.com/news/reutersnews/1.3207165?&ref=searchlist

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    Apoxonbothyourhouses

    Hello Jo, Nothing directly to do with the topic but hopefully of general interest (besides how else do I get it to you?). Especially if considered in conjunction with the dropping number of hits on Wikipedia re so-called global warming.

    http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2013/08/daily-chart-1

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    crakar24

    OT i know but…………….http://blogs.unicef.org.uk/2013/12/04/climate-change-mongolia-children-extreme-cold/

    Surely the gig is up when they have to resort to this bullshit, even the hard core among us will have to acknowledge this is nothing but a scam.

    Of course GA will mumble some incomprehensible gibberish in its defence whilst the rest will ignore.

    Jesus f&^%king wept

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    crakar24

    Was it the swear word(s)?

    OT i know but…………….http://blogs.unicef.org.uk/2013/12/04/climate-change-mongolia-children-extreme-cold/

    Surely the jig is up when they have to resort to this, even the hard core among us will have to acknowledge this is nothing but a scam.

    Of course GA will mumble some incomprehensible gibberish in its defence whilst the rest will ignore.

    Jesus XXXXXX wept

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  • #
    crakar24

    It must have been when i wrote bovine excrement

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    pat

    1 Dec: UK Financial Times: Mike Scott: Coal holds on while pieces of green puzzle come together
    Meanwhile, things seem good for “Old King Coal” – the amount of high-carbon coal being used to produce electricity in Europe has increased, despite the continent’s ambitions to be a leader in the fight against climate change. Partly, this is because US coal has been displaced by cheap shale gas so US producers are selling cheap coal to Europe.
    Coal-fired power in Germany, for example, makes a profit of €9.16/MWh while generating electricity using gas will lose €19.31/MWh, according to Bloomberg…
    Low carbon prices in Europe are another contributory factor, according to the US Energy Information Agency. “We do not see significant downside risks to coal demand,” said Catherine Raw, portfolio manager for Blackrock’s World Mining Trust. “The demand for baseload power will remain and coal is the best option for that. The only other real option is nuclear and given the costs and the political risk, I don’t really see it happening.”…
    World coal consumption is currently rising at an average rate of 1.3 per cent per year, points out Raphael Juston, head of product management at SuperDerivatives. “This growth is primarily driven by demand from China, India, and other non-OECD countries, and research suggests that coal could potentially challenge oil as the world’s top energy source by the end of the decade,” he adds…
    “Twenty five years ago, coal accounted for 25 per cent of primary energy production and, in 25 years time, the International Energy Agency reckons it will still account for 25-30 per cent of the energy mix, even with all the climate change measures,” says Milton Catelin, chief executive of the World Coal Association.
    Yet a growing number of analysts are questioning the wisdom of investing in the commodity…(I.E. GOLDMAN SACHS, ED DAVEY, WORLD BANK, BLOOMBERG, CHRISTIANA FIGUERES/UNFCC)
    http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/bec69b68-569a-11e3-ab12-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2mY9c6nRF

    2 Dec: Mining.com: Cecilia Jamasmie: Coal industry says UN climate chief ‘ignoring reality’
    It took a few days, but it surely came: the World Coal Association (WCA) has reacted to UN climate chief Christiana Figueres’ call to the industry to stop mining and invest in efficient technologies, saying she is “ignoring reality.”
    In an interview with Responding to Climate Change, WCA’s CEO Milton Catelin said Figueres’ lack of expertise in the mining and energy sectors meant she doesn’t get “some of the fundamentals about the energy sector.”
    He went onto saying that following her call would be like telling Figueres’ home country —Costa Rica— that is not longer allowed to have access to electricity. “To suggest that you can close all subcritical [coal-fired] plants tomorrow totally ignores reality,” Catelin added…
    He said the world simply can’t abandon the black combustible, which generates about 41% of world electricity, especially when studies suggest coal will overtake oil as the main source of energy by 2020…
    http://www.mining.com/coal-industry-says-un-climate-chief-ignoring-reality-44702/

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    crakar24

    (tip for all) Ok so from now on you cant say male cow droppings in its popular alternative

    cheers

    [sure you can say it, it will end up moderated. A certain amount of “seasoning” while writing makes for good reading. As with humor, and cooking, timing and judicious use of these spices makes the difference. However, Jo believes less is more.] ED

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      AndyG55

      “[However, Jo believes less is more.] ED “

      Yes Crakar24, you have to be more subtle… like I am 🙂

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      Rereke Whakaaro

      Guys, you can make interesting points without using expletives. I have seen you do it with my own eyes.

      Jo has an international audience, and not everybody gets, nor appreciates, the more colourful nature of Australian humour.

      You might think it is fun, but it harms her reputation, and detracts from the real conversations that we have here.

      I think the moderators do a pretty good job, without being too obtrusive. I don’t see any upside in forcing them into a corner, where they have to take action.

      I will shut up now.

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        Kevin Lohse

        As a wet-behind-the -ears Acting Pilot Officer, I once had the misfortune to fall foul of an old hairy Warrant Officer. I was invited for an interview without coffee. The resulting dressing down was strictly in accordance with Queen’s Regulations, but I did not have to open the door to leave the room. I agree with Rereke that we should use our superior intellects, education and experience to convey our opinions without resorting to offensive expletives. For example, “Horse Feathers”, conveys disbelief and disgust without profanity.

        00

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    crakar24

    Mods feel free to delete 16 and 17.1 however if this screws with your numbering system just leave them in moderation if you want

    Cheers

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    • #
      MemoryVault

      .
      The other day I learned the hard way that the 1 + 1 = ? legislation of warm activity is also now on the “naughty list”.

      Should make for some interesting posts on any future articles that touch on the science of CAGW.

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    pat

    the CAGW activists pushing for divestment of fossil fuel assets, would appear to be playing right into the hands of the Chinese?

    3 Dec: Business Recorder: Reuters: Chinese firms want to buy coal assets overseas, but on the cheap
    Chinese companies are on the hunt to buy overseas coal mines as Beijing’s switch to cleaner fuels stokes demand for higher-quality coal produced in countries such as Australia, according to people familiar with the firms’ strategies. A renewed appetite for acquisitions by the world’s biggest coal consumer will be a big boost for miners who are trying to dispose of assets worth billions of dollars to boost shareholder returns.
    These include Rio Tinto, which has put Australian and Mozambique coal operations on the block, and Linc Energy, which is selling its New Emerald Coal business…
    “We have clients who are interested in taking stakes in coal assets. But the view is the market’s not going to get any better for two years. So why buy something today when it’s going to be a lot cheaper in eight months’ time,” said Sam Farrands, a Hong Kong-based partner at law firm Minter Ellison.
    Plans to curb air pollution have raised the prospect of a long-term decline in China’s need for thermal coal, with Beijing aiming to reduce coal’s share of the energy mix to 65 percent or less by 2017 from 73 percent this year.

    ***The lower share, though, will be within an expanding base and it will take a long time to wean China away from coal as it is the cheapest source of fuel for power…

    Though they declined to name their clients, state-owned Shenhua Group Corp Ltd has looked at assets in Australia, including Whitehaven Coal and Rio Tinto’s stakes in the Clermont Coal mine and Coal & Allied.
    http://www.brecorder.com/fuel-a-energy/193/1260614/

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    Justin Jefferson

    The whole thing’s gob-smackingly unbelievable, isn’t it?

    I think the interesting thing under all this is the psychology. It’s so much a throwback to the dark ages, and to the throwing-virgins-into-the-volcano type deal, that it’s quite remarkable in this day and age. We might have thought we lived in an age of reason, but obviously we don’t. There seems to be a part or function of the human brain that is capable of believing things that are bat-sh!t mad, and driven to believe them. But I believe this is the first time it’s been explicitly done under the banner of “science”. But obviously if it’s based on logical fallacies it’s not rational, and if it’s not rational, it’s not science.

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      Safetyguy66

      Exactly Justin

      Michael Crichton described it as the logic of “Green Dragons and Wiffle Dust”

      Basically if your a government looking to hold power, you scare your populace with tales of green dragons and their impending catastrophic attacks. You convince the populace using arguments like “a scientific consensus” that action must be taken to stop the green dragons and the best solution is to produce wiffle dust, which is known to science as the best control measure for green dragon attacks.

      The beauty of this technique is, it works best on non problems. This is because the Government can divert lots of resources toward wiffle dust production and when the green dragons fail to emerge, they can claim victory and argue that the only thing that saved society from the green dragons was the Governments swift action in producing wiffle dust.

      The best and most recent example of this process in action from start to finish was the GFC and its effect (or complete lack of one) on Australia.

      The Howard Government left office after banking a significant surplus. Rudd/Swan called “GREEN DRAGON ATTACK” shortly after taking office, then used the Howard surplus to ensure the maximum effort was made in producing wiffle dust quickly and in large quantities (pink bats, school improvements, cash for clunkers, $900 for everyone etc). Every credible expert agrees, Australia could have done absolutely nothing in the face of the GFC and the only outcome would have been Labour would have taken slightly longer to blow the Howard era surplus. As it is they continually point to their wiffle dust production days as being the only thing that saved Australia from the green dragons of the GFC. Its pathetic, its dishonest, its unimaginative and it basically says “Australians are morons and we are going to take advantage of that fact”. Pretty much Julia Gillard’s entire management technique as PM. “you kids need to eat your veggies”. The simple fact is no other western economy went into the GFC with a surplus except Australia, our economy was already well shielded from the types of shocks Howard argued for years were ahead and that a surplus was the best insurance against them. Now we are back to square one again with Labour having blown the cash and cooked the books and now wont even vote to help fix it. In a civilized country, elements of the population would have dragged Bill Shorten in to the street and had him tarred and feathered by now.

      The same green dragons and wiffle dust logic is being foisted on the planet with AGW right now. It wont be long before all the people currently running around impersonating chicken little are going to have to admit, the dragons aren’t looking like swooping down any time soon. But watch this space, I bet you London to a brick, they will claim it was the action taken to trade fantasy tickets and build windmills that stopped the dragons. When anyone with even a partially functioning intellect can see, there were never any dragons in the first place.

      Watch this if you haven’t seen it.

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDCCvOv3qZY

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      john robertson

      The comedy here is we invented the scientific method as a counter to the certainty of divine authority imposed upon our forefathers.
      The enlightenment was a breaking of the shackles of the mind, the freedom to ask; What if? Why and How?
      Feynman does a fine quote on this matter.
      The shamen,priests, idolters and witches have been seeking to regain their rightful place in society, they gained the upper hand by destroying public education, creating presstitutes in the media and cloaking themselves in science sounding scienciness.
      There is no interest in science in CAGW, just as long as the suckers assume science is involved.
      Sort of like maths, when you tell progressives that maths is required, they fade away.
      Sort of like Ron Paul in the states; “Never mind your political ideology, can you add?”

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    Bulldust

    For lovers of ABC’s QandA you may enjoy the cartoon on the Oz right now:

    http://www.theaustralian.com.au/

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    Kevin Hearle

    In line with the value of CDM’s the value of a CER on which the New Zealand ETS is tied to has fallen to approx. €0.30 It was expected to be around $NZ25. In April 2013 the value of the CER dropped to €0.01 which made the value of our 29.1 million Units worth zilch as our carbon unit is worth less than a CER for some reason. This makes a farce of the ETS as it sends no economic signal. We should all be cheering and having a quite laugh at the absurdity of it all. The following month the CER was worth €0.41 so for the man in the street if his groceries or his mortgage was $200 in April and it was tied to the price of a CER then in May his groceries or mortgage would have cost him $8000. Looking at it from a different perspective if a parliamentary salary was $200,000 in April 2012 when the CER price was just over $5.00 then if the salary was linked to the price of a CER then in April 2013 it was worth $400 now some might say that’s appropriate!!! but it illustrates the absurdity of the carbon markets and the policies that it has spawned. Our Government publishes all the info on which the above is based but nobody particularly journalist bother to read it and comment. Merry Xmas

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    crakar24

    I am rather bored at the moment just winding down for Xmas so after stuffing up the last comment with swear words (see below) that meant extended moderation i took the time to see what else this UNICEFF blogger has been jibbering on about

    OT i know but…………….http://blogs.unicef.org.uk/2013/12/04/climate-change-mongolia-children-extreme-cold/

    Surely the jig is up when they have to resort to this, even the hard core among us will have to acknowledge this is nothing but a scam.

    Of course GA will mumble some incomprehensible gibberish in its defence whilst the rest will ignore.

    Jesus XXXXXX wept

    I did not need to look to far and found another story about the children of Kiribati, the two stories are remarkable similar.

    With the Mongols they have a lack of drinking water because climate change has frozen it all whilst the Kiribati’s have a lack of drinking water in their wells due to salinity caused by rising oceans. The Mongols have to travel for miles to find unfrozen water whilst the Kiribati’s have to travel all teh way to the next village to get un salted water.

    Do you really think the Mongols are so stupid as to walk over miles of frozen water to get to the unfrozen stuff?

    Do you really think the Kiribati’s are so stupid as to take all the fresh water out of their well only leaving the lower salty water behind?

    The Kiribati story gives us one illogical statement after the other: (My comments in brackets)

    Heavy rain “makes us lose our food, land and things”, the children say (but it will replenish your well)

    (The very next statement is) “The plants we get our food from will die without water”

    Rising temperatures mean “the ground is not good, trees will not grow and animals will die because of lack of water.”

    Back to the Mongols

    A quote apparently from a Mongol child

    “In the last winter dzud, I took turns to herd our livestock… around 40 animals. I needed to dig the snow to help the livestock reach the grass, sometimes by hand. When there is a snow blizzard, I can’t see my way and I’m afraid of getting lost. I’m also afraid of wolves. My cheeks and ears freeze and I get frostbite…This makes my ears very painful by the evening and liquid comes from my ears.”

    How can anyone not shed a tear over this climate change catastrophe and just in case still arent crying Kate follows this up with:

    Climate change is not about a distant future. It is about a 16-year-old girl who uses her hands to reach the grass beneath the snow for her livestock. It is about children now.

    In summary, the global omnipotent force of CO2 knows no bounds, it is making warmer places warmer and colder places colder the temp differential around the world is growing larger its just unfortunate for people like Kate that the theory to be true requires the exact opposite to happen.

    Vent over thanks for listening

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      Yonniestone

      Anytime someone uses over emotive language to sell something the hairs on my neck go up, it’s nothing short of the usual shyster lines given to sell a usual shyster product, I have never, repeat never been sold something over the phone or door knocking simply because I like to do my own research to verify any claims or benefit to me.
      I am harassed everyday at work by telemarketers who don’t know my name (who the F$%k is Mr Bunting?) or even the name of my business even though I’m on “do not dial” or blocked listings, I actually have more respect for industry Reps who front up for the cold sell rather than some parasite who thinks it’s ok to annoy the S&*t out of people for a living because it’s an acceptable job in their country as opposed to some lowlife untouchable job done by myself.
      End rant.

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      Dave

      Craka24,

      I went to the link you provided, and this is the biggest load of garbage I’ve read to date on Climate Change. The author Kate Dentith is nothing but a blogger volunteering for the UNICEF campaign office.

      So she starts lying about children forced to work in snow to find grass for the livestock (notice she didn’t mention which one of the five types the herders generally keep). And then they come inside in the evening with frostbite, liquid oozing from her ears, and she’s so afraid of the wolves and getting lost. This is pharquing bullsheight, to the maximum degree. Were her parents lost and frozen in the snow from the night before?? She is an idiot.

      And then the schoolgirl walks several kilometers to school and has just realised she needs gloves and a coat. Utter bullsheight again. This Kate is the biggest lying little troll I’ve ever come across, even worse than Margot the fool.

      But this is the true Kate Dentith on twitter:
      Kate Dentith ‏@KDentith

      Yummy breakky @GrindCoffeeBar – thanks for the feed!

      And the coffee bar she went to is GRIND shown here in full latte widescreen.

      In other tweets she’s recommended people retweet to win a years supply of womens shoes.

      Why doesn’t she send her money to buy coats & gloves for Mongolian little girls that have to find feed for the animals in the snow??

      THIS KATE Dentith is a fruitloop and totally taken over by the GAIA revolution of wrecking the world.

      The last Mongolian nationwide dzud dates back to 1944, with two milder ones in 1999 and 2000, but so far the winter start in Mongolia is normal. As WE all expected.

      AND this GANG GREEN reckons Global Warming is killing children because of cold weather.

      This report makes my blood boil. GRRRRRRRRRRGRRRR 🙁

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    michael hart

    The carbon markets still have the BBC pension fund on-side.
    From the BBC pension trust Annual voting and engagement report, by Hermes Equity Ownership Services:

    best-practice engagements on the environment included collaborating with the Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change (IIGCC) to support a one-off setting-aside of EU Emissions Allowances to remove over-supply from the EU Emissions Trading Scheme, thereby maintaining a meaningful price aligned with the 2020 reduction target.

    http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/mypension/en/bbc_voting_and_engagement_report_2012.pdf

    So that’s the state broadcaster’s pension fund actively and openly lobbying European politicians to intervene on their behalf in a supposed free market? Who would freely invest in a market subject to such transparent manipulation? No one who wasn’t part of the scam, or who wasn’t forced to buy the non-existent product under legal duress.

    50

  • #
    Graeme No.3

    See previous post but one.

    “Climate money evaporating”

    It says it all. I bet that Hermes Equity Ownership Services reckons the BBC Pension trust has a dud investment.

    10

    • #
      crakar24

      So how many supers are going to get smashed when the whole thing goes from pear shaped to pear rotting?

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      • #
        AndyG55

        Look at post #26..

        Wouldn’t it be just KARMA if the BBC super fund collapsed because of the failure of the green regressive agenda. 🙂 🙂

        I hope the ABC super funds are making similar non-investments. 😉

        41

        • #
          scaper...

          I recall the government of Victoria handing a carpet bag of cash to Gore to invest in the scam around 2007. Wonder how all that is going for the public service superannuation accounts.

          10

  • #
    pat

    Adelaide temp online, at the moment, is 17degrees. Mark Taylor at the cricket, noting how cold it is, says grape growers won’t be happy cos this is the time they bake the grapes. u have to laugh:

    5 Dec: News Ltd: Snow falling. In Australia. In summer. That is all
    THIS is just the beginning. The really cold air and the really heavy snow is due later in the day, but snow is already falling today across the high country of New South Wales and Victoria.
    And yes, it’s December 5. The fifth day of summer. Your calendar is not wrong.
    Snow is not a freak event in southern Australia in the warmer months. A small dusting usually appears on the higher parts of the Australian Alps at least once each summer.
    But today’s system is a little stronger than your typical out-of-season wintry blast, and snow accumulations could reach as much as 20 cm by tonight.
    The weather bringing the snow is the same cold southerly system which has brought unseasonal cold to Adelaide on Day One of the second Ashes Test. The good news is the cricket should be largely unaffected…
    By the way, give Bureau of Meteorology a little credit for once. They spotted this weather system at least seven days ago, and snow has been in the forecast ever since then…
    http://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/snow-falling-in-australia-in-summer-that-is-all/story-e6frflp0-1226775945701

    40

  • #

    Plus 97.2 john robertson fer comment 23.2

    10

  • #
    pat

    not so amusing?

    4 Dec: Courier Mail: AAP: Greens claim win for climate in debt deal
    THE Australian Greens hope a deal struck with the federal government on debt will expose the true cost of paying for the coalition’s direct action plan on climate change.
    As part of the deal secured with the minor party to scrap the national debt ceiling, the government has agreed to report on the impact of climate change policy in future budgets.
    Greens leader Christine Milne said this would highlight the cost of tackling climate change without a market mechanism like an emissions trading scheme (ETS)…
    In his letter to Senator Milne, Treasurer Joe Hockey said a debt statement with details regarding government spending on climate change would be included in future budgets and key economic reports.
    The extent to which this expenditure had contributed to debt would also be included.
    All future Intergenerational Reports will retain an extra section on the environment, including climate change and the effect of these policies and their impact on the economy and budget.
    “I will consult with the Australian Greens on the scope of what could be included within the section,” Mr Hockey wrote.
    http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/breaking-news/greens-claim-win-for-climate-in-debt-deal/story-fnihsfrf-1226775367696

    10

  • #
    steve mcdonald

    Why no critique of the professor’s claim of 4degrees of warming on the world today and breakfast on the abc. It sounded like hysterical desperation to me.

    10

    • #
      Graeme No.3

      hysterical desperation is right. The professor’s or the ABC’s? Or both?

      10

    • #
      LevelGaze

      Yup, I heard it too. But didn’t pay very much attention.

      The usual Karoly lies. Yawn. He must be feeling quite lonely now that Flannery is missing in action. Perhaps he’ll be next.

      By the way, has anyone heard of Gergis recently? Or has she been conveniently “disappeared”.

      10

  • #
    pat

    Yonniestone –

    brrrr! nice & warm in SEQ today.

    remember when even carbon-tax-loving CAGW-advocating Business Spectator understood the danger of a carbon bubble in the stock market if that trillion-dollar derivatives market ever got going?

    4 Aug, 2009: Business Spectator Australia: Robert Gottslieben: Our carbon bubble danger
    A decade ago, when the accountants were debating a new set of accounting rules, business was too busy to be active in the discussions. The result is an international mess. We could never have imagined our accountants would get it so wrong. Similarly with sub-prime, who could have imagined American bankers being so stupid?
    When it comes to carbon trading, we are once again too busy running our businesses to realise what is happening…
    The best place to start such an examination process is the Conversation section of Business Spectator where we have been deluged with some wonderful commentaries – including commentaries from people who question whether carbon is the issue. I urge all my readers and all politicians to be updated on how much the carbon facts have moved since the Coalition government first proposed carbon trading…
    And two private emails have added a new dimension: one from Clunies Ross award winner and Cosmos magazine founder Alan Finkel; and a second from a Sydney merchant banker who knows just how much money his sector will make from carbon trading. This merchant banker, who has asked that his name be withheld, gives a new perspective on a carbon tax…
    Finkel in the June issue of Cosmos says that of the $23 billion expected to be raised via carbon permits in the first two years in Australia, ”every dollar will be returned in handouts, with not a cent allocated to technology research or investment in building infrastructure capacity”.
    “Cunning traders” will exploit the scheme’s complexity as they did with the complexity of mortgages and derivatives created over the past 10 years, wreaking havoc on the global financial system.
    Finkel says: “Do we really need to create a whole new market employing hundreds of highly paid lawyers, traders, brokers, analysts, bookkeepers and others just to buy and sell permits – or hoard, speculate or profiteer from them?”…
    http://www.businessspectator.com.au/article/2009/8/4/national-affairs/our-carbon-bubble-danger

    YET NOW, WHEREVER U LOOK, THANX TO INVESTOR-BACKED CARBON TRACKER, “CARBON BUBBLE” MEANS AN EXISTENTIAL THREAT TO THE FINANCIAL MARKETS, IF THEY CONTINUE TO INVEST IN FOSSIL FUELS? THIS CAGW CO-OPTING OF THE LANGUAGE IS ALIVE AND WELL:

    5 Dec: BusinessGreen: Will Nichols: Carbon Tracker to expand ‘carbon bubble’ thinking
    Think tank’s new chief exec reveals NGO will target specific projects in ongoing drive to alert investors to systemic risk of high carbon assets…
    Anthony Hobley, global head of the sustainability and climate change practice at law firm Norton Rose Fulbright, will take on the role from February 1 next year at Carbon Tracker, which aims to highlight the growing risk to financial markets of a “carbon bubble”…
    The group’s methodology has galvanised financial analysts at HSBC, Citi and Standard & Poor’s, while its work on stranded assets has led to partnering with investors to scrutinise fossil fuel capital expenditure plans.
    In October, Generation Investment Management, chaired by former US President and environmental campaigner Al Gore, published a study endorsing the “carbon bubble” analysis, concluding it is “no longer prudent” for mainstream investors to see climate risks as a peripheral issue…
    “The issue has grabbed investor interest in the way [climate change issues] haven’t before,” Hobley told BusinessGreen. “It’s an immediate risk that faces them and makes them think about the future beyond the next few years. The only way they can determine how big the problem and impact is, is by engaging with climate science and the policy response.”…

    ***He added that Carbon Tracker will also up its efforts to convince regulators that the carbon bubble is a real threat to the financial industry…

    We need to demonstrate to [regulators] that there’s a major systemic risk here that needs to be managed,” he added. “The last thing we want is another financial crisis that could make the last one look like a tea party.”…
    http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/feature/2316474/carbon-tracker-to-expand-carbon-bubble-thinking

    THIS IS MORE ORWELLIAN THAN THE CHANGE FROM MMGW TO “CLIMATE CHANGE”, WHICH HERALDED IN “CLIMATE DENIER”!

    30

  • #
    tom0mason

    Surely if the UN bureaucrats truly believe that coal is so evil they have more than enough financial clout to buy all coal concessions worldwide and put a moratorium on there use.
    Come UN if you really believe, grow a pair, and actually do something.
    If you can’t do it sit down and shut the f%$K up.

    10

    • #
      crakar24

      The alternative Tomo is to restrict how much a company can dig up out of the ground per year, each year you allow less and less. The bueaty is there is no carbon tax, no trading schemes required……oh hang on no tax required is not the preferred option……………just forget i said anything OK.

      Cheers

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  • #
    pat

    steve mcdonald –

    if this was abc breakfast today, am very, very glad i wasn’t listening. u just caused me to mute the cricket & listen to some of the spooky mr. field! talk about fact-free yet he’ll co-chair Working Group 2, IPCC?

    5 Dec: ABC Breakfast: Invest early in climate change adaptation: expert
    Fran Kelly with Professor Chris Field, founding Director, Department of Global Ecology, Carnegie Institution for Science; co-chair, Working Group 2, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
    Superstorm Sandy, and more recently, Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines, have put the spotlight on extreme weather events.
    The impacts of climate change and our ability to adapt that will be the focus of the next major report from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, due to be delivered in March next year.
    http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/invest-early-in-climate-change-adaptation-expert/5135758

    5 Dec: ABC Breakfast: Government defends Greens deal on debt ceiling
    The federal government will be able to borrow as much money as it wants after Treasurer Joe Hockey cut a deal with the Greens to abolish the debt ceiling.
    Guest: Arthur Sinodinos, Federal Assistant Treasurer
    http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/government-defends-greens-deal-on-debt-ceiling/5135916

    5 Dec: ABC Breakfast: Clean Energy Finance Corporation fighting for its life
    The Clean Energy Finance Corporation, which encourages private sector investment in renewable energy, is set to be scrapped by the Abbott Government. But Jillian Broadbent, the Chair of the CEFC, has asked the Coalition to look at the financial and environmental benefits of the corporation before it is thrown out, as James Bourne writes.
    The chair of Australia’s Clean Energy Finance Corporation has delivered a desperate appeal to the Coalition government this morning, claiming that recent investment figures from the $10 billion corporation show it is delivering strong returns to tax payers and shouldn’t be scrapped…
    Ms Broadbent said she has asked Mr Abbott to look at the corporation’s bottom line before throwing the CEFC out.
    ‘I think there is a bit of a focus on breaking promises when I think the Australian public really wants good policy and continuity of policy,’ she said.
    ‘A promise to abandon a fund when it hadn’t really been operating and hadn’t demonstrated its effectiveness should be reassessed.’
    But Assistant Treasurer Sinodinos said the government plans to stick to its guns in dismantling the suite of environmental reforms brought in by the Gillard and Rudd governments.
    ‘If the government is having to be involved, and co-financiers see the government as standing behind all of these projects, then essentially they’re getting [money] because the government can borrow more cheaply than anybody else,’ he said.
    ‘The sort of proposition I think Jillian is putting is essentially a proposition that the government could do this across the board and just support all borrowing, or all lending by the private sector in the same way.’
    ***‘We had a look at this before we made commitments during the campaign and it’s funny, after the campaign, everybody seems to be begging us not to go through with our election commitments.’
    ‘I’m always happy to go through the CEFC’s annual report and have another look.’
    http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/cefc-makes-a-pitch-for-its-continued-existence/5135882

    10

  • #
    pat

    fran kelly’s mr. field is “Distinguished Speaker” at Sydney Uni today:

    5 Dec: Sydney Uni Law School: Distinguished Speakers Program: Christopher Field
    Climate Change: Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters
    To coincide with the release of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Fifth Assessment Report, climate scientist Professor Chris Field from Stanford University will be delivering a Sydney Law School 2013 Distinguished Speaker address. This event is co-presented by Sydney Ideas.
    ABOUT THE ADDRESS
    Historically, risks from climate-related events are concentrated in extreme events. In its 2012 Special Report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded that “A changing climate leads to changes in the frequency, intensity, spatial extent, duration, and timing of extreme weather and climate events, and can result in unprecedented extreme weather and climate events.” Existing data indicate increases over the last 50 years in several kinds of climate extremes. Climate models project continuing changes in these extremes. There is a wide range of opportunities for reducing disaster risk and improving disaster response. The most effective options tend to produce both immediate benefits in sustainable development and long-term benefits in reduced vulnerability. Some options may require transformation, including questioning assumptions and paradigms, and stimulating innovation. For the future, the recognition that climate change adaptation, disaster risk reduction, and sustainable development are all aspects of the same grand challenge can open a wide range of important opportunities…
    http://sydney.edu.au/news/law/457.html?eventcategoryid=164&eventid=10344

    Pielke Jr not nearly as impressed by Mr. Field as ABC’s Fran Kelly!

    1 Aug 2012: WUWT: Pielke Jr. demolishes IPCC Lead Author Senate EPW testimony
    Dr. Roger Pielke jr. writes:
    IPCC Lead Author Misleads US Congress
    The politicization of climate science is so complete that the lead author of the IPCC’s Working Group II on climate impacts feels comfortable presenting testimony to the US Congress that fundamentally misrepresents what the IPCC has concluded. I am referring to testimony given today by Christopher Field, a professor at Stanford, to the US Senate.
    This is not a particularly nuanced or complex issue. What Field says the IPCC says is blantantly wrong, often 180 degrees wrong. It is one thing to disagree about scientific questions, but it is altogether different to fundamentally misrepresent an IPCC report to the US Congress. Below are five instances in which Field’s testimony today completely and unambiguously misrepresented IPCC findings to the Senate. Field’s testimony is here in PDF.
    Full story here, well worth a read…
    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/08/01/pielke-jr-demolishes-ipcc-lead-author-senat-epw-testimony/

    10

  • #
    steve mcdonald

    A goldmine of information.intellectually felt thanks.

    10

  • #
    pat

    even if one of these CAGW propagandists gets caught, they don’t really suffer any consequences:

    4 Dec: WUWT: Al Gore’s ‘polarbeargate’ scientist forced to retire
    WUWT readers may recall our coverage of Charles Monnett, whose antics with polar bear sitings and attribution led Al Gore to put this famous animated video clip into An Inconvenient Truth and make wild claims about polar bears drowning for lack of sea ice.
    Monnett’s legal case is over, and he has been forced to resign…

    According to the PEER Union, they claim “vindication”:
    http://www.peer.org/news/news-releases/2013/12/04/vindicated-arctic-scientist-retires-with-cash-settlement/

    Brian356 says in comments:
    The story I just read on Anchorage Daily News says he gets $100,000 plus his fully-vested federal retirement. He cannot seek Interior Department work for five years…
    http://www.adn.com/2013/12/04/3212138/scientist-reprimanded-over-emails.html#storylink=cpy

    Betapug comments:
    I guess he could live on his wife (and “pal” reviewer of his paper) Lisa Rotterman’s NOAA Fisheries salary. Since she lists 350.0rg, Earthjustice, League of Conservation Voters and Union of Concerned Scientists as the “Likes” on her Facebook page (with the link to the PEER announcement of the $100,000 prize) I assume they will both forgo the Alaska Dividend paid to all Alaska residents from each years oil royalties…

    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/12/04/al-gores-polarbeargate-scientist-forced-to-retire/

    10

  • #
    Safetyguy66

    O/T

    Getup has a petition running to save the RED…. oops I mean ABC

    https://www.getup.org.au/campaigns/media/save-the-abc–2/save-the-abc

    In case your wondering how well setup the petition is. I voted as [email protected]

    It accepted my submission, very scientific and robust as usual. They must have got the idea of how to manage it from John Cook.

    50

    • #
      MadJak

      Hmm.. 115,000 signatures. yeah, sure they would all be legit wouldn’t they.

      I think Pol Pot and old Joe stalin just signed tup.

      20

    • #
      Yonniestone

      Safety I LOL’ed good one, I don’t think zealots get much humour when there zoned out.
      I had a warmist online who actually berated me for not leaving a space between Yonnie and stone! and yes they were serious.

      30

  • #
    BrianM

    So if everything is so hunky dory with all our green energy production, why is it that I’ve received a letter from Ausgrid today asking if I’d like to participate in a little trial whereby they give me some gift certificates and they in return get to put a little thingy on my domestic air conditioning unit that can switch it off (at their discretion) for a few hours during high demand events.
    Are we really getting that close to a system failure?

    20

  • #
    Graham Richards

    And the mainstream media [including the Guardian, the ABC] will ignore this.
    I wonder if the Murdoch media in OZ will give it a mention. FAIRFAX will certainly not give it any exposure!!

    20

  • #
    handjive

    No one can say they weren’t warned:

    Indebted governments may soon consider a big one-time levy on capital assets.

    “From New York to London, Paris and beyond, powerful economic players are deciding that with an ever-deteriorating global fiscal outlook, conventional levels and methods of taxation will no longer suffice.

    *That makes weapons of mass wealth destruction—such as the IMF’s one-off capital levy, Cyprus’s bank deposit confiscation, or outright sovereign defaults—likelier by the day.*”

    The Coming Global Wealth Tax

    50

    • #
      handjive

      09/26/2013:
      Cyprus-Style Wealth Confiscation Is Starting All Over The World
      “Now that “bail-ins” have become accepted practice all over the planet, no bank account and no pension fund will ever be 100% safe again. In fact, Cyprus-style wealth confiscation is already starting to happen all around the world.”
      .
      I know what your thinking.
      Your thinking, “That won’t happen in Australia.”
      .
      27 March 2013:
      But Monday’s agreement, struck hours before a deadline that would have triggered a collapse in Cyprus’ banking system, was much better than the initial proposal, Mr Stevens told a forum.
      Mr Stevens told an ASIC forum on Tuesday that global markets were in a ”better place” now than a few days ago.
      ”The reconstructed deal, as I understand it … is a better one than the initial proposal,” he said.
      ”We’ve had a number of programs now. We’ve had Ireland, Greece, Portugal, Spain, Cyprus, and they’re all actually a bit different. So I’m not sure if any one of them is clearly a template.

      Cypriot deal no blueprint, says Stevens

      20

      • #
        Safetyguy66

        Hayek saw it coming….

        “The word ‘truth’ itself ceases to have its old meaning. It describes no longer something to be found, with the individual conscience as the sole arbiter of whether in any particular instance the evidence (or the standing of those proclaiming it) warrants a belief; it becomes something to be laid down by authority, something which has to believed in the interest of unity of the organized effort and which may have to be altered as the exigencies of this organized effort require it.”
        ― Friedrich A. von Hayek, The Road to Serfdom

        40

  • #
    RoHa

    I wanted to write something funny, or sarcastic, or both. But my powers of sarcasm are overwhelmed by the mind-boggling sums involved.
    The Big Money boys and their poodle governments screw us over and over again.

    10

  • #

    O/T But let’s talk about the weather. 😉

    The UK and Northern Europe is about to be hit by a severe and deepening low causing storm floods on the North Sea coast and severe winds with 140 km/h estimated at landfall in Germany. UK weather forecast isn’t quite so bad but they’re in for more than just a “dusting” of snow, it seems, North of the Midlands.

    Germany is battening down for storms in the North and expecting about 20 cm of snow on Friday/Saturday.

    But I digress and point to those offshore monuments to the modern-day Sisyphean Green Cult. The windmills that’re in the direct path of the storm Xavier and, even if most won’t be damaged by this event (if they’ve been designed properly — we’ve been there before), some will fail. And because at least until mid-winter, the seas are too rough to fix the things, they’ll be offline for a couple of months at least. (More on the predicted 50-year storm at e.g. NoTricksZone)

    Did somebody mention “capacity factor”?

    Indeed, if it gets very cold during the traditional winter lull, repairs may be impossible to most of the ailing behemoths until May; the start of the prime, offshore construction season. When all the crews are out busily harvesting the remaining subsidies for their “industry”, stumbling over the corpses of manufacturers whose orders dried up when other people’s money ran out and the Mafia got caught using it as a laundry, apparently with the help of German wind industry and banks.

    So with thousands of possible points of failure, and fewer than a couple of dozen of capable maintenance and repair vessels (I believe that I’m being generous in the number of vessels), the “fleet” of offshore windmills will show increasing numbers of “standing wounded” by the time autumn weather curtails safe offshore construction. That’s all they have; May to October in a good year. July and August in one that’s not so good.

    Such has been happening every year. They’re slow learners. Maybe they’d learn more quickly if we stopped giving them money. Worth a try?

    60

    • #
      Dave

      Bernd,

      Scottish windmills already down but rest of UK doing a sterling job at 4GW.

      But the problem is that the UK are approaching 82% of total demand peak of 57.5%.
      As of now:
      Coal approx 17GW
      Nuclear approx 8 GW
      CCGT approx 16GW
      Wind approx 4 GW

      Then they have to start buying from Ireland (none available), then France (will want top dollar) which have only 2GW available, then the Dutch who only have 1GW available plus miscellaneous about 1GW.

      If the UK hits 55GW plus, CCGT will be working 24/7. There will be problems if the wind does not keep up to the 4GW. Can CCGT keep up the pace.

      Train wreck on the way, if snow arrives and wind drops?
      Have to agree they are very slow learners.

      30

  • #
    Ceetee

    “Such has been happening every year. They’re slow learners. Maybe they’d learn more quickly if we stopped giving them money. Worth a try?” For starters Bernd, this money is taken from us fraudulently under the implicit threat of force so as things stand it’s not our choice to make. Hopefully one day when our self respect finally forces us to act and reclaim our democracies we can tell these people where to go. That will be a difficult thing to do because we don’t control the message. There is an expression which talks about “the smart money”. Well this is the “dumb money”. Its ours (taxpayers) and it will disappear into various nefarious orifices (orifii?) never to be seen again by the people from whom it was extracted under false pretense. The Chinese and Russians must now wonder why they even bothered to arm themselves, our monumental stupidity is a remarkable weapon of self destruction.

    10

  • #
    pat

    wait for the twist at the end!

    4 Dec: UK Telegraph: Emily Gosden: Consumers to pay 10 per cent too much for solar farms as subsidies ‘too high’
    Energy consumers to pay millions of pounds too much for solar farms after government sets subsidies too high
    Consumers face paying millions of pounds too much for solar farms after ministers handed the industry subsidies 10 per cent higher than it had asked for.
    Industry body the Solar Trade Association said on Wednesday it “can’t understand why” ministers rejected its suggestion to cut subsidies further – reducing the cost of ‘green levies’ on consumer energy bills.
    “From 2016 to 2019 [the subsidies] are actually higher than we asked for,” the Solar Trade Association (STA) said.
    The Department of Energy and Climate Change set out plans to guarantee new solar farms built in 2017-18 a price of £110 for every ‘megawatt-hour’ (MWh) unit of power they generate – about twice the current market price.
    The figure was £5 less than it had initially offered in draft plans, but the industry said it was still unnecessarily generous…

    ****(LOL) The STA said that the subsidies on offer for projects starting up in 2014-15 and 2015-16 were too low, however.
    DECC has set the price at £120/MWh for those years when the industry claims it needs £140 and £133 respectively, because an EU trade war with China is artificially forcing up the cost of solar panels in those years…
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/solarpower/10495136/Consumers-to-pay-10-per-cent-too-much-for-solar-farms-as-subsidies-too-high.html

    have cherry-picked a little, but at least Lomborg is willing to face reality, rather than condemn the developing world to eternal poverty on the altar of CAGW:

    3 Dec: NYT: Bjorn Lomborg: The Poor Need Cheap Fossil Fuels
    There’s no question that burning fossil fuels is leading to a warmer climate and that addressing this problem is important. But doing so is a question of timing and priority. For many parts of the world, fossil fuels are still vital and will be for the next few decades, because they are the only means to lift people out of the smoke and darkness of energy poverty.
    More than 1.2 billion people around the world have no access to electricity, according to the International Energy Agency’s World Energy Outlook for 2012. Most of them live in sub-Saharan Africa and in Asia. That is nearly four times the number of people who live in the United States. In sub-Saharan Africa, for instance, excluding South Africa, the entire electricity-generating capacity available is only 28 gigawatts — equivalent to Arizona’s — for 860 million people. About 6.5 million people live in Arizona…
    But let’s face it. What those living in energy poverty need are reliable, low-cost fossil fuels, at least until we can make a global transition to a greener energy future…
    Over the last 30 years, China moved an estimated 680 million people out of poverty by giving them access to modern energy, mostly powered by coal…
    As China becomes wealthier, it will most likely begin to cut its air pollution problem through regulation, just as the rich world did in the 20th century. But, admittedly, cutting carbon-dioxide emissions will be much harder because these emissions are a byproduct of the cheap energy that makes the world go around.
    Today, 81 percent of the planet’s energy needs are met by fossil fuels, and according to the International Energy Agency, that percentage will be almost as high in 2035 under current policies, when consumption will be much greater. The unfortunate fact is that many people feel uncomfortable facing up to the undeniable need for more cheap and reliable power in the developing world. The Obama administration announced recently, for instance, that it would no longer contribute to the construction of coal-fired power plants financed by the World Bank and other international development banks.
    This should not have been a surprise. The last time the World Bank agreed to help finance construction of a coal-fired power plant, in South Africa in 2010, the United States abstained from a vote approving the deal. The Obama administration expressed concerns that the project would “produce significant greenhouse gas emissions.” But as South Africa’s finance minister, Pravin Gordhan, explained at the time in The Washington Post, “To sustain the growth rates we need to create jobs, we have no choice but to build new generating capacity — relying on what, for now, remains our most abundant and affordable energy source: coal.”…
    At the same time, wealthy Western nations must step up investments into research and development in green energy technologies to ensure that cleaner energy eventually becomes so cheap that everyone will want it.
    But until then they should not stand in the way of poorer nations as they turn to coal and other fossil fuels. This approach will get our priorities right. And perhaps then, people will be able to cook in their own homes without slowly killing themselves.
    http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/04/opinion/the-poor-need-cheap-fossil-fuels.html?ref=opinion&_r=1&

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  • #
    pat

    how could i have missed this until now?

    21 Nov: UK Dailly Mail: by a Staff Reporter: Yakuza gangsters ‘forcing homeless people to work on the Fukushima nuclear plant clear-up… who are fired once they suffer high radiation doses’
    Authorities are facing a desperate shortage of workers for the clear-up
    Subcontractors are said to have reached out to crime bosses
    Undercover reporter claims to have infiltrated the clear-up operation
    He says he has ‘solid evidence’ that people are being forced to work
    Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) which operates the plant have been struggling to recruit workers who are desperately needed to join the hazardous operation dismantling the plant.
    As a result Tepco subcontractors reportedly reached out out to the Yakuza for help. The gangsters are said to often provide workers at short notice for large scale construction projects…
    Japanese police say there are up to 50 yakuza gangs with 1,050 members currently operating in Fukushima prefecture.
    Some of the forced workers are said to owe Yakuza money from gambling debts, others are understood to have family obligations.
    A special task force has been set up in a bid to stop organised crime profiting from the Fukushima clean-up project operation, but the police need people to testify against the gang bosses before they can act…
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2511308/Yakuza-forcing-homeless-people-work-Fukushima-nuclear-plant-clear-up.html

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      Sorry. Too implausible. Especially now that watchdogs, Japanese, local and independent internationals are watching everything closely.

      You don’t get to step onto a nuclear site without having all the right paperwork, qualifications, etc.. The individual dosimeters of workers are independently monitored. Permissible levels of accummulated exposure are so low, that they make, by definition, no significant difference to the risk of e.g. cancers.

      There is cleanup work going on at F.Daiichi and the fuel elements are being removed from the damaged cooling ponds. Slowly. Steadily. Carefully.

      F.Daiichi is far from being dismantled. Years away.

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  • #
    Roy Hogue

    Norway’s government is sending $30m of taxpayer funds to buy CDM credits. Lucky UK Taxpayers are tossing in 50 million pounds. Do I read this correctly — of the 50 million, only 33 is going to buy of the credits, the other 17million is going to train people on getting through UN red tape. Those compliance costs… really? And people call this a “free” market.

    If I may say it: how typical can you get? They’ll try to shore it up until it’s finally laying there in the street like some huge dead carcass that they can’t cover up anymore.

    The same thing is going to happen to Obamacare here. Its problems are already legion and yet they will patch and fix until the thing totally collapses; in the process, hurting no end of people who’re stuck in the middle of it with no way out.

    This is the same thing you always get from politics. Never a solution, always an ever increasing mess.

    Even if global warming were true, the “carbon” trading scam would collapse because there’s nothing of value behind it and they all know that. It was a scam from day 1.

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    PhilJourdan

    50, 33, 17 billion. It is all wasted money down a sink hole. But they have to gussy the pig up with lipstick in order to show they “care”.

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      Roy Hogue

      A pig with lipstick!?

      It’ll take more than that. 😉

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        Yonniestone

        And a blonde wig Roy. 😉

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          Roy Hogue

          A blond wig? Well maybe you’re onto something there. If you add a full formal evening gown, low cut front and back of course, put on some long eyelashes and a lot of mascara… …hey, they just might make it. 😉

          I wonder if a pig could run for political office. I doubt that a pig could do us any more harm than the bunch we have now. 🙂

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            Roy Hogue

            A red wig might work better. Or maybe not.

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            PhilJourdan

            Now you are getting into the silk purse area. 😉

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              Roy Hogue

              Phil,

              I remember being asked once, “What do you get when you give a fool a lot of money and expensive cloths?” I confess I was expecting some twist or turn that made the answer complicated and hard to guess. So I didn’t get it and had to be told that what you get is, “A rich, well dressed fool.”

              Sorta applies to the pig and the 50, 33, 17 billion too, doesn’t it?

              So you can’t cover up the truth. It always comes back to haunt you. A pig is still a pig. A scam is still a scam. And no amount of rationalizing or excusing will ever change that. But they’ll certainly try it for as long as they can.

              Barack Obama is now learning that lesson the hard way. He’ll draw the wrong conclusions almost certainly. But his past five years are now biting him hard.

              I actually used that little riddle several years ago on this blog, addressed I think, to John Brookes. He didn’t get it ether.

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                PhilJourdan

                “A rich, well dressed fool.”

                Sometimes the joke is on us. Or at least our English Cousins in this case. Those rich well dressed fools are smiling broad with all the money they are being given.

                But yes, our time is coming. We have one of those “rich, well dressed fools” leading us. And no he does not get it.

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            Yonniestone

            No need to do the eyes up Roy, they’re Purdy enough.
            A red wig? lets just say I’ve been put off red heads recently for quite a while. 🙁
            Pigs are far too intelligent for politics and there are plenty of “Porkies” thrown about there already. 🙂
            Phil like a silk purse with teeth I’m leaving that one alone. 😉

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    Bulldust

    Western Australia will face death, heat, plagues of tropical insects, fire and brimstone due to climate change says the CSIRO:

    http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/newshome/20179909/heatwave-danger-warning/

    I am surprised they didn’t add raining frogs and black death to the list to be honest… or worse still, will be more likely to lose future Ashes series due to warming!

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    Yonniestone

    Nelson Mandela RIP. 🙁

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    • #
      Mark D.


      🙁

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      • #
        Roy Hogue

        And we need more like him. I wish I knew where to get them.

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          Safetyguy66

          Just send good people to jail for 27 years over their ideology. They seem to generate in there.

          Come to think of it, probably wont be long before there are laws against being a “denialist”. One of us might get the opportunity to follow in the great man’s footsteps ?

          Bags not me….

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            Roy Hogue

            As I remember, Mandela was convicted of cold blooded murder among other things.

            While in prison the man grew a lot in all respects, even to the point that when he was released and his wife wanted to continue with the violence, he said no to it, she walked away and he let her go. His moral and intellectual growth through his prison years are something we don’t see all that often. He never gave up on the goal he started with but he decided to become a leader of all South Africans instead of the majority, black South Africans. And what a difference he made.

            You cannot create such men. They happen through their own decisions to become leaders of the right kind. That’s why I said, “I wish I knew where to get them.”

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    handjive

    The ‘Return’ of the Drought.

    January 4, 2008, BoM: This drought may never break
    “IT MAY be time to stop describing south-eastern Australia as gripped by drought and instead accept the extreme dry as permanent, one of the nation’s most senior weather experts warned yesterday.

    “Perhaps we should call it our new climate,” said the Bureau of Meteorology’s head of climate analysis, David Jones.”
    .
    6 December 2013. BoM: Drought conditions return to Australia’s eastern states
    .
    How did the drought return if it never went away?

    The BoM’s Annual Australian Climate Statement 2012 has NO mention of the ‘permanent drought’ breaking.
    Anywhere.
    Not in ‘Significant Events.’ Nor in ‘Annual Climate Highlights.’
    Maybe it is reliance on the failed climate science of the UN-IPCC.
    .
    How can the BoM declare a return of a ‘permanent drought that it shows never went away?

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      RoHa

      I seem to recall the odd sprinkling of rain here in Queensland between 2008 and 2013.

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        bobl

        As I recall just last wet season the QLD gov had to let water out of the dams, to reduce flooding. But we did have a dry spring here, I even had to use maybe 10,000 litres of town water, something I rarely do, but a week into December and the tanks are overflowing again, so no drought here. Rains are good, farmers are happy, cows are mooing and the chickens are laying eggs.

        I can recall some inadvertent man-made climate change this year though. The pump on my agricuural dam died, and things were dry fo a couple of weeks out there because of it. Does man change climate?: you bet, we water crops and dig up the land to grow stuff, like coffee, sugar cane and cows for that fluffy milk served in the latte shops of inner city Melbourne

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      AndyG55

      No drought in Newcastle.. We have just had our wettest November on record !!!

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      Reed Coray

      Isn’t it illogical to write: “the return of a permanent anything?

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      Backslider

      Flim Flammery’s long lost brother…….

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    pat

    late at night, the radio is sometimes left on a frequency which broadcasts BBC World Service. in the morning, tho, it has people reading articles from Australian newspapers/magazines, for visually impaired listeners. sensing an attack on “climate deniers” was in the air (LOL), i tuned in precisely & only to hear the complete version of this denial/denial/denial piece by a Robert Kenny in The Monthly. however, it was headlined “The Searing Truth” as per:

    The Monthly (THEMONTHLY) on Twitter
    https://twitter.com/THEMONTHLY‎
    @THEMONTHLY it’s worth subscribing for this: ‘The Searing Truth’ by Robert … Latest issue of @THEMONTHLY – excellent article Robert Kenny ‘We Don’t Want

    the “preview” below sounds reasonably reasonable for an attack on CAGW sceptics, but the remainder of the article – which is what i heard – was full of contradictory, subjective anecdotes, connecting our bushfires to climate change; the use of deny/denial was ratcheted up; & “anthropogenic” & “catastrophic” were dropped in favour of the generic “climate change”. for the finale, presumably to suggest the writer was being objective, while clearly believing in CAGW, was the line (paraphrasing) –

    “there’s a bit of denial in all of us”.

    is anyone a subscriber at The Monthly? does anyone have access to the rest of this? terrible website to navigate, almost no reader involvement:

    Dec: 2013: The Monthly: Robert Kenny: We don’t want to believe in climate change
    Fire, Climate and denial
    PREVIEW: We don’t cause climate change. Other people do. Many of us, perhaps most who believe in anthropogenic climate change, hold this sentiment to be true. Someone with a “Think Globally, Act Locally” sticker on her gas-guzzling wreck once explained to me that it didn’t matter what she drove since it was possible to create clean fuel from water but oil companies were suppressing the technology. They were to blame. This is an extreme case of what many of us do: our diligent recycling or bicycle-riding lets us absolve ourselves of blame even though we consume far more than we need, live in oversized houses and do not believe population growth in Australia contributes to global population growth, or indeed that population growth is in any way related to climate change or species extinction. Similarly, some of us believe Australia’s emissions are so inconsequential compared to those of great polluters like China and the United States that it would be ill-advised to endanger the Australian economy, and jobs, with environmental taxes.
    But how many of us really believe in climate change, anyway? That is, catastrophic climate change, the sort that will devastate life on Earth as we know it? We no more believe in it than most practising Christians now believe in hell. Our recycling, our energy-saving light bulbs, the gesture of Earth Hour – it’s penance we play at, not just to be absolved but to avert Judgement Day itself. We still bank on a prosperous, benign future. We have children and we plan our retirements, even as we baulk at any challenges to climate change science…
    http://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2013/december/1385816400/robert-kenny/we-dont-want-believe-climate-change
    (no comments on the page, terrible website – seems to have very little reader feedback)

    on The Monthly About page, it describes itself – -partly- as:

    “The Monthly is one of Australia’s boldest voices, providing enlightening commentary and vigorous, at times controversial, debate on the issues that affect the nation. Home to our finest thinkers, journalists and critics, the magazine offers a mix of investigative reportage, critical essays and thoughtful reviews.
    The Monthly was named winner of the Current Affairs, Business and Finance category for the second consecutive year at the 2012 Australian Magazine Awards. The Monthly was also a finalist for Magazine of the Year…
    An independent voice in Australian media, the Monthly is essential reading for anyone who is seeking deep engagement with national politics, society and culture.”
    http://www.themonthly.com.au/about

    looking at the authors & topics listed here – it couldn’t be more predictible, superficial, or unenlightening, could it? –

    http://www.themonthly.com.au/blogs

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    pat

    Murdoch’s NY tabloid has this:

    5 Dec: NY Post: Michael Fumento: Global-warming ‘proof’ is evaporating
    (Michael Fumento is a journalist and attorney based in Colombia)
    The 2013 hurricane season just ended as one of the five quietest years since 1960. But don’t expect anyone who pointed to last year’s hurricanes as “proof” of the need to act against global warming to apologize; the warmists don’t work that way.
    Warmist claims of a severe increase in hurricane activity go back to 2005 and Hurricane Katrina. The cover of Al Gore’s 2009 book, “Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis,” even features a satellite image of the globe with four major hurricanes superimposed.
    Yet the evidence to the contrary was there all along. Back in 2005 I and others reviewed the entire hurricane record, which goes back over a century, and found no increase of any kind. Yes, we sometimes get bad storms — but no more frequently now than in the past. The advocates simply ignored that evidence — then repeated their false claims after Hurricane Sandy last year.
    And the media play along. For example, it somehow wasn’t front-page news that committed believers in man-made global warming recently admitted there’s been no surface global warming for well over a decade and maybe none for decades more. Nor did we see warmists conceding that their explanation is essentially a confession that the previous warming may not have been man-made at all…
    That admission came in a new paper by prominent warmists in the peer-reviewed journal Climate Dynamics. They not only conceded that average global surface temperatures stopped warming a full 15 years ago, but that this “pause” could extend into the 2030s.
    Mind you, the term “pause” is misleading in the extreme: Unless and until it resumes again, it’s just a “stop.” You don’t say a bullet-ridden body “paused” breathing.
    Remarkably, that stoppage has practically been a state secret…
    Those who pointed this out, including yours truly, were labeled “denialists.” Yet the IPCC itself finally admitted the “pause” in its latest report…
    If Ma Nature caused the “pause,” can’t this same lady be responsible for the warming observed earlier? You bet! Fact is, the earth was cooling and warming long before so-called GHGs could have been a factor…
    Yet none of this unsettles the rush to kill debate. The Los Angeles Times has even announced that it will no longer print letters to the editor questioning man-made global warming. Had the Times been printing before Columbus, perhaps it would have banned letters saying the Earth was round…
    People have a right to religious and cult beliefs within reason. But the warmists have been proved wrong time and again, each time reacting with little more than pictures of forlorn polar bears on ice floes and trying to shut down the opposition. (More bad timing: Arctic ice increased by almost a third this past year, while that at the South Pole was thicker and wider than it’s been in 35 years.)
    In war and in science, the bloodiest conflicts always seem to be the religious ones. Time for the American public to say it’s no longer going to play the victim in this one.
    http://nypost.com/2013/12/05/global-warming-proof-is-evaporating/

    it might be a tabloid, but it makes more sense, provides more facts, than The Monthly.

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    sophocles

    Good. It will die from neglect. Because: it’s no longer needed.

    Go look at this article on WattsUpWithThat. We may be about to be robbed blind!

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  • #
    pat

    Britain slashes carbon permit revenue forecast by 57 pct
    LONDON, Dec 5 (Reuters) – Britain expects to earn 300 million pounds ($490.29 million) in the next financial year from selling carbon permits, figures in the government’s autumn statement showed on Thursday, 57 percent lower than previously forecast…
    http://www.pointcarbon.com/news/reutersnews/1.3252659

    Backloading to begin by May 2014: UK official
    LONDON, Dec 5 (Reuters) – Intervention in the EU Emissions Trading Scheme will begin next year with the first emissions permits to be removed from the market “certainly by May”, a senior British government official said on Thursday…
    http://www.pointcarbon.com/news/reutersnews/1.3249343

    EU carbon jumps 4 pct on market intervention comments
    LONDON, Dec 5 (Reuters) – European carbon permits rose 4 percent on Thursday after a British government official said intervention to prop up prices in the EU Emissions Trading Scheme would begin by next May…
    http://www.pointcarbon.com/news/reutersnews/1.3255596?&ref=searchlist

    6 Dec: NZ National Business Review: NZ ETS to restrict Kyoto Protocol units from 2015
    From June next year, ETS participants will need to surrender New Zealand Units to meet their obligations after the government decided it will only allow Kyoto Protocol units to be used to account for obligations until May 31, 2015, Acting Climate Change Minister Simon Bridges said in a statement. The affected units are Kyoto Protocol first commitment period Certified Emission Reduction units, Emissions Reduction Units or Removal Units…
    “Decisions in the international climate change negotiations in Doha last year, including restrictions on New Zealand’s ability to trade any international Kyoto units after 2015, and the lack of action on international markets at the recent Warsaw negotiations, have contributed to uncertainties within Kyoto markets,” Bridges said.
    “The government considers international markets an important component of the Emissions Trading Scheme, and intends to review the level of access to international markets within it when international market conditions are better suited to New Zealand’s domestic circumstances,” he said…
    The decision comes the same day Crown accounts for the four months ended Oct. 31 showed the government wore a $210 million loss from the ETS, mainly due to New Zealand Unit carbon prices rising to $3.65 by the end of October from just 24 cents in May…
    http://www.nbr.co.nz/article/nz-ets-restrict-kyoto-protocol-units-2015-bd-149726

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    pat

    pick a number, any number…

    6 Dec: Bloomberg: Joe Carroll: Big Oil Anticipates 10-Fold Surge in Carbon Emission Cost
    Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM), the biggest energy company by market value, is basing plans for future capital investments on the assumption that it will have to pay $60 a metric ton for carbon emissions.
    That’s the most among 11 U.S. and European companies that provided figures in a report released yesterday by CDP, a nonprofit that compiles environmental performance data for investors. Royal Dutch Shell Plc and BP Plc are planning on $40, and Total SA anticipates a carbon cost of $34, according to the New York-based group formerly known as the Carbon Disclosure Project….
    Those estimates compare to European Union carbon credits that closed yesterday at 4.64 euros ($6.34), according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Companies involved in extracting and processing hydrocarbons such as crude oil and natural gas must ensure that multibillion-dollar investments remain profitable for decades under even the strictest environmental rules, said Deborah Gordon, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s energy and climate program…
    Ameren Corp. (AEE), a St. Louis-based electricity and gas distributor, uses a $30 carbon benchmark. ConocoPhillips, the Houston oil explorer that spun off its refineries and chemical plants last year, employs carbon estimates that range from $8 to $46.
    Exxon has been factoring future carbon costs into project planning since 2007, Alan Jeffers, a spokesman for the Irving, Texas-based company, said in an e-mail.
    “Although climate policies remain uncertain today, for the purposes of our business planning we assume that governments will continue to gradually adopt a wide variety of more stringent policies to help stem greenhouse gas emissions,” he said…
    Other companies plugging carbon costs into planning assumptions include Google Inc. and Walt Disney Co., according to CDP. Google, the Mountain View, California-based online search provider, uses a $14 benchmark while Disney ranges from $10 to $20, according to the report…
    Some countries are backtracking on climate-change policies, including Australia, which is debating legislation to repeal a carbon tax.
    Rising Seas
    Carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels are expected to set off a chain reaction of higher temperatures, rising seas and violent weather systems, Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. said in a June note to clients. Among energy producers, BP and Shell are among the most at risk because of the large fuel-producing plants they own in low-lying areas close to oceans, Sanford’s Oswald Clint, Rob West and Iain Pyle said in the note.
    Sea levels may rise as much as 2 meters (6.6 feet), swamping refineries, liquefied natural gas terminals, oil-tanker berths and even Shell’s Pearl gas-to-liquids plant in Qatar, which was built just 3 feet above sea level, the Sanford analysts wrote.
    Sea levels already are on the rise, having climbed 15 to 20 centimeters during the 20th century, the Sanford analysts said, citing research published in the Journal of Geodynamics last year.
    More worrying, the analysts said, is that the rate has been accelerating in the past decade…
    ***“Companies that have international operations are especially astute to carbon pricing as a response to the regulatory environments in which they operate, such as Europe or Australia, where GHG emissions reductions are mandatory and covered by mandatory cap-and-trade programs or carbon taxes,” the CDP said in its report.
    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-12-05/big-oil-braces-for-10-fold-surge-in-carbon-emission-costs.html

    3 Dec: Bloomberg: Sea-Level Rise Too Fast to Reverse Climate Change: Study
    Dangerous rises in the sea level or heat waves that kill crops can arrive quickly and leave little time to put preventative measures in place, according to a study from the National Research Council, a group of scientists providing information for U.S. government decision-makers.
    The report — one of two issued today on climate change — calls for an early warning system to monitor climate conditions and improved models for predicting changes that impact the way people live…
    “It’s important to look down the road and try to identify what are the abrupt changes that we can plan for with some degree of confidence, and then make the best of them rather than having them hit us in the face,” said Anthony Barnosky, professor of integrated biology at the University of California in Berkley and a co-author of the report…
    In a separate report today, James Hansen, who warned of the dangers of global warming as early as 1988, said a United Nations-endorsed target of capping global warming is too high and will ensure future generations suffer “irreparable harm.” …
    The National Research Council acknowledges that there remains uncertainty over how quickly the impacts of climate changes will unfold…
    “We need to prepare for the reals risks that we are heading into a dangerously warming world,” Peter Frumhoff, chief scientist at the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Union of Concerned Scientists, said in an interview. “Whether it’s even more urgent than we thought, which is the point of Jim’s paper, or as urgent as we’ve all realized, the mitigation prescription is the same — swift deep emissions reductions as quickly as possible.” …
    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-12-03/sea-level-rise-too-fast-to-reverse-climate-change-study.html

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    pat

    5 Dec: Bloomberg/Businessweek: Matthew Carr: EU May Extend Aviaton Carbon
    Freeze to 2020, Adviser says (1)
    EU lawmakers will consider the position of nations, including the U.K., that
    are unwilling to have the bloc’s emission limits imposed on flights outside
    the region, Pierre Dechamps, an adviser for energy and climate change at the
    Bureau of European Policy Advisers, said today. The bureau reports to
    European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso…
    “I perfectly understand the point of the U.K. in this,” Dechamps said at the
    Westminster Energy, Environment and Transport Forum in London. “It could
    well be that, in the end, we rather go toward an extension of stop-the-clock
    until 2016 or even maybe 2020. It’s probably still in the right direction.”
    Dechamps said he was speaking in a personal capacity rather than on behalf
    of the commission, the EU’s regulatory arm…
    Nations Horrified
    Some nations that support a global carbon market for airlines are
    “horrified” by the commission’s proposal, Mackenzie said, without
    identifying countries.
    Before Europe suspended carbon curbs on foreign flights, President Barack
    Obama signed a bill shielding U.S. carriers from the rules and Russia
    announced it was considering limits on European flights over Siberia. Airbus
    SAS said in June that orders from China for A330 wide-body jetliners were in
    limbo after the government there froze the contracts.
    ***”People who are on our side are threatening to walk away,” Mackenzie
    said. “I’m not sure sure how we can get the Chinese to buy our products,
    without their agreement. Threatening them all the time isn’t going to work.”
    http://www.businessweek.com/news/2013-12-05/europe-may-extend-aviation-carbon-freeze-to-20-eu-adviser-says

    ***”buy our products” is so appropriate.

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    pat

    Bernd Felsche –

    even for weather-obsessed Brits, this seemingly never-ending Daily Mail piece (great pics btw) is WAY-OVER-THE-TOP. use of 140 mph only in main headline. u need to wade thru most of it to get to Anne Edwards:

    4 Dec/Updated 6 Dec: UK Daily Mail: Mark Duell/Sam WebbSea walls already breached by raging seas more than two hours BEFORE high tide as 140mph Arctic winds batter British coastline
    The Met Office said the Atlantic storm brought severe gales of between 60mph and 80mph across Scotland and northern parts of England, and some mountainous regions in Aberdeenshire and Inverness-shire reported speeds of around 140mph…
    Anne Edwards, editor of the Great Yarmouth Mercury, was one of those told to leave their homes tonight, but is determined to ride out the storm with sandbags and supplies.
    ***She was awoken by an alert call from the Environment Agency at 6.30am, warning of severe flooding in the area of her home, which is a mile from the coast.
    Ms Edwards, who believes hundreds of homes are being evacuated, said: ‘We’re staying put. The house we live in was flooded in 1953 and there’s a four-and-a-half foot-high water line in the dining room from then.
    ‘We always knew we might be at risk of flooding, so there is a camping stove upstairs and we have water and cans of food. If it’s going to happen, it’s going to happen. We can go upstairs, it’s not going to kill us.’
    She said she went into a ‘mad panic’ at receiving the automated call this morning and hunted for her home insurance policy. Her husband has bought sandbags and the couple have containers ready to fill with fresh water.
    She said: ‘I’m going to get the paper out then go home for dinner, but then I’ll be back in the office later. I’ve got my wellies ready.’…
    ***EAST COAST DESTRUCTION: HOW 307 WERE LEFT DEAD BY THE 1953 STORM…
    In 1953 the region was the scene of Britain’s deadliest natural disaster of the 20th century – the Big Flood – which left 307 dead and 40,000 homeless…
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2518340/Sea-walls-breached-raging-seas-hours-BEFORE-high-tide-140mph-Arctic-winds-batter-British-coastline.html

    ***let’s quote that 140 mph only, says reuters!

    5 Dec: Reuters: Erik Kirschbaum/Belinda Goldsmith: Hurricane-force winds wreak havoc in Britain, head to Europe
    Hurricane-force Storm Xaver blasted towards mainland Europe on Thursday after cutting transport and power in northern Britain and killing three people in what meteorologists warned could be the worst storm to hit the continent in years…
    ***Two people were killed in Britain as the nation’s weather office measured winds of up to 225 km per hour (140 mph) when the storm slammed Scotland and parts of England…
    http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/12/05/uk-europe-storm-idUKBRE9B40II20131205

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    pat

    ***JUST A FRINGE MEDIA THING IN THIS STORY(WHICH REQUIRES SUBSCRIPTION TO READ FURTHER):

    5 Dec: New Scientist: Michael Le Page: Climate slowdown: The world won’t stop warming
    Photo Caption: Warming has not peaked. Instead, it looks as if the sea is taking the strain…
    “Global warming on pause”. “Why has global warming stalled?” “Has global warming stopped?”
    IF YOU have been reading the papers of late, you may be under the impression that global warming isn’t proceeding as expected.
    ***While most mainstream media have been careful to point out that the apparent lack of recent warming is probably just a temporary hiatus, a few outlets have suggested there is more to it than that. “The climate may be heating up less in response to greenhouse-gas emissions than was once thought,” one magazine claimed.
    What is going on? Has global warming really slowed or stopped in recent years? If so, why? And does this mean the world won’t warm as …
    http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22029460.500?cmpid=NLC%7CNSNS%7C2013-1205-GLOBAL&utm_medium=NLC&utm_source=NSNS&

    ***BUT A MAJOR MSM STORY, WITH GEOPOLITICAL CONSEQUENCES, IN THE EDITORIAL!

    6 Dec: New Scientist Editorial: Is it time to stop worrying about global warming?
    Surface temperatures may not be rising as quickly as they were, but that’s just one small part of a much bigger and more troubling picture.
    CLIMATE sceptics are finding it ever harder to persuade the public that the climate isn’t changing. So now some are turning to a more last-ditch line of attack: even if climate change is happening, it’s not worth worrying about…
    They have been emboldened by scientists’ acknowledgment that temperatures on the planet’s surface have risen less sharply than expected in recent years. The scientists say that’s down to natural variability; the doubters say it is a sign that climate change amounts to little more than ignorable, or even beneficial, “lukewarming”.
    ***This has been presented as a credible position on television, in newspaper headlines and magazine articles – and it is echoed in public policy. The UK prime minister, keen to reduce winter fuel bills, is rethinking levies and policies aimed at making the country’s energy use more sustainable. Perhaps he thinks the climate can wait.
    But it is misguided to focus only on the temperature of the thin layer of air that we live in…
    http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22029461.600-is-it-time-to-stop-worrying-about-global-warming.html
    (U KNOW THIS ONE GOES TO THE OCEANS)

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      tom0mason

      Note to New Scientist –

      Have you considered that this hiatus, this pause, this stall, or whatever you wish to call it, maybe the calm before the rapid decline in global temperatures?

      Just another option to think about.

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    scaper...

    Just been observing Venus, I believe, through the telescope…one sick planet!

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    Dave

    Is the Guardian turning?

    This article tweeted by Fenbeagle from the Guardian blew me away.

    “Wind turbines trash the landscape for the benefit of billionaires”

    Have they finally realised that these bat poppers and bird munchers are just a con job for the GREEN parasites and the big companies. And this comment by a GREENIE is just an amazing example of hypocrisy where he/she/it says this:

    They are also graceful pieces of engineering. Certainly more interesting to look at than a solitary pine tree. Yes it is a matter of taste but if you think they are ugly demand better design not rule them out completely

    One is a mechanical structure that does nothing, the other is a natural living plant that converts CO2 to O2 with a beauty that defines many landscapes.

    Many of the Green Guardians of GAIA, comments in this post are simply taken over by propaganda, where they even refuse to acknowledge facts.

    Thank FenBeagle for getting this out, The Guardian will probably pull it before they lose all their audience.

    The tide is changing.

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    MurrayA

    Jo, or anyone in the know:
    I had a ding-dong argument with a warming zealot today. Many of his points I rebutted (I cannot credit how tenaciously these people cling to lies and ad hominems!), but he kept appealing to what he claimed were comprehensive datasets from both satellite and ocean buoys, plus deep-sea measurements to prove “beyond doubt” that the globe is warming. The sun’s contribution is merely + or – 3% – from the mean, no more. NO, CO2 was the factor, and appealed to the Arrhenius equations of 1896. Now he claimed to be privy to the data from all the major data centres, particularly those of the US government, and hence it was a simple choice: trust the data (him), or trust my own subjective scepticism.
    He asked also: “How do you explain how the temperatures this year have been so high?” I replied that I have serious doubts that that is the case. I have only in the past few days visited the wheat growing area of country Victoria, and I was rather astonished to see how in late November the wheat crops, which normally would be ripening to a golden colour by this time were still very green. I remarked on this to a couple of locals, who both told me that it has been a late season this year because of a very cold, and wet spring. There just have not been enough warm days to ripen the crops.
    My questions are these: how come these claims of a record warm spring, when the actual pattern in reality seems to have been otherwise? What about these datasets fom satellite and oceans showing clear and irrefutable proof of global warming? It seems to me that the Arrhenius equations for greenhouse gases are simplistic and do not account for the many variables involved. Am I right? Could you, or Dr Evans, or any of the scientifically astute people on this blog respond to these allegations?

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      Roy Hogue

      It seems to me that the Arrhenius equations for greenhouse gases are simplistic and do not account for the many variables involved.

      Murray,

      If it’s any consolation, that is my take on Arrhenius as well. If it held up there would be steadily increasing temperatures because CO2 has been steadily increasing. The world certainly does not follow that equation. The sun’s influence on temperature is so much greater than anything CO2 might be doing that CO2’s influence, if there is one, is lost in the noise.

      You’ll not be able to convince everyone. But keep trying.

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      Rereke Whakaaro

      When people quote the name “Arrhenius”, as a definitive trump card in a “discussion” about cause and effect, I always ask them if they can write down the formulae for me. At the very least, that separates the sheep from the goats.

      Alternatively, I ask them what empirical evidence Arrhenius used in formulating his theory? Did he gather his own empirical evidence? Or was he reliant on the observations of others? If so, was the evidence local or global? Or was he simply working as a theorist, basing his mathematical formulation on the information then available, in the late nineteenth century?

      Somebody who is truly knowledgeable will be able to give you some sort of answer, those who are just trying to be fashionable, will not.

      … he claimed to be privy to the data from all the major data centres …

      Would those datasets happen to be the ones that were “adjusted”, as discussed between the main players in the Climategate emails?

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      AndyG55

      Murray,

      here are the data sets since the last ElNino warming event

      http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/from:1998/plot/rss/from:1998/plot/uah/from:1998/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1998/plot/wti/from:1998

      GISS and HadCrut are land temps and also from the warmist stables.. therefore slightly higher.. but the trends are basically the same..

      ie. NADA, ZIPPO..

      You can play arouns this the graphs , add linear trends etc.

      But that anything Pre-1979 (Giss and HadCrud) has been so savagely manipulated/mutilated by Hansen et al as to have zero basis in reality.

      As for sea temps.. ARGO buoys have been in since 2003. NOTHING before that is worth even bothering with, purely guesswork, especially at depth.

      Keeping that In mind,

      http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/05/26/nodc-provides-1st-quarter-2013-ocean-heat-content-update-alarmist-writes-science-fiction/

      There may be some tiny amount of warming being measured at depth, but the sea surface temperature has actually started to drop.

      **I suspect that any warming picked up by the ARGO buoys at depth is because currents naturally flow from cooler to warmer, and as the buoys flow with the current, they are actually picking up a very slight warming signal from current, possibly emanating from the mantle. The amount of warming quoted by Levitus from the highly scatter ARGO measurements,is about .4w/m2 (about the amount from a single Christmas light globe.) This is like an ant stomping on an elephants foot. This value would also be way inside any realistic error bars !

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    Andrew

    At 50c a tonne, why wouldn’t we simply buy enough to reduce our emissions by 5% over the current term of govt? 22Mt x 3, $33m. Then close down Direct Action, having achieved its objectives. Take the money out of our “Foreign Aid (gifts to corrupt African dictators)” allocation. Everyone is happy. Abbott666 gets his DA, the Greens get to save the planet from CO2s, and Labor gets the “market based solution” they have so craved since trying to find an exit from the World’s Biggest Carbon Tax.

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    MurayA

    Andy,
    Thanks v much for your input. Most appreciated.

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    Richard

    So out of boredom me am my friends hired a gas ballon burner, we went into a large room and turned it on, when it had warmed up we measured the temp, we then started filling lots of balloons with the hot air form the ballon burner and up they floated , we tested the temp, we then filled up an increasing number and then tested the temp, well you no what the temp was no different to just the gas burner by itself.

    Hahaha

    , co2 causes warming, all I want to know is is energy absorbed by co2 the same as energy emitted.
    If not then no extra warming.

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