Pop in on Australian Climate Madness and enjoy Simon’s parody “Escalating Hysteria”. John Cook pretends that skeptics “deny” the warming trend, and see the world as a series of flat segments. (Who’s in denial of the “halting”?)
Only an unscrupulous fan of global warming could explain why the last decade “has warmed” by blending that data from last ten years into graphs from the last hundred.
We are over the peak. Years late, the IPCC concedes some territory and wears headlines they must hate (“Global warming is just HALF what we said“, “We got it wrong on warming“), but PR still rules, and in the big game, this will quickly spin to a minor bump. It’s a classic technique to release “the bad news” before the main report, to clear the air for the messages the agents want to stick.
Since 2007 they’ve burned through their credibility in so many ways: think Climategate, and getting caught pretending activist material was science, being busted for 300-year-typos like the Himalayan Glaciers, plus 15 years of no warming, no hot spot, models being wrong, droughts ending, and ice returning, all the while pouring scorn and derision on anyone who questioned them. The IPCC were being hammered and they had to change tacks. Now, for the first time, the IPCC is making a serious retreat, presumably in the hope of being able to still paint itself as “scientific” and to fight from a different trench. Anything to continue the yearly junkets and to save face. What they hope is that no one will notice that the deniers were right and the experts were wrong, and the “government panel” has helped governments waste billions of your dollars.
They were 90% certain in 2007, which was never a scientific probability, but a hands-up vote. Now, in the most meaningless of ways, they are 95% certain of something more vague: the range has gone from 2°C to 4.5°C, to 1°C to 6°C. (See Matt Ridley in the Wall St Journal). They just made the barn door even wider. In years to come this allows them more room to pretend they hit the target, without acknowledging that they missed it for 23 years. And even that new supersize barn door may still not be wide enough.
They offer no credit to those who were right, and leave themselves room to issue alarming messages: the world might not get as technically warm but look out, now one degree will become a disaster. They will still be issuing bumper stickers saying “Things are worse than we thought”. Emissions will still be higher than expected, but now floods, snow, and the all purpose “variability” will be beyond expectations. The Hydra lives on. Expect press releases saying “we were too optimistic thinking that two degrees was safe”.
The IPCC’s lowest estimate is still too high
According to the papers Anthony Cox and I reviewed, they are still too high — climate sensitivity from empirical evidence is more likely about 0.4°C. Though the skeptics have been right for years that the IPCC models were exaggerating the warming, the IPCC will still call us deniers. The Joe Romm’s and alarmist commenters will attack the IPCC for being too conservative and careful, but this is exactly what the IPCC needs. The protest fog will help cast a veil of “scientificy-ness” that the IPCC so desperately needs. What is better for it than to be seen to be attacked from both sides? It will feed the idea of a poor but honest agency that is (ha ha) “in no way alarmist” — despite the evidence that they’ve denied the radiosonde data on model feedbacks since at least 2006, denied the importance of the higher resolution ice core data from 1999- 2003, denied that their 1990 predictions were completely and utterly wrong.
David Evans predicted that they would have to do this four years ago
Dr David Evans (my other half) predicted the IPCC would have to turn down their “climate sensitivity knob” in March 2009 at the Heartland Conference. Here is his slide number 18.
Reducing climate sensitivity solves many issues with the models
Way back then, looking at the evidence for the missing hot spot, it was clear that the IPCC had only two choices 1: Turn back the climate sensitivity knob (whereupon lots of missing pieces would fall into place) or 2: Go full on delusional, rage-against-the-data and go double or nothing.
In a sense they’ve done both. One degree is sensible, six degrees of warming is delusional. They’ve gone double and nothing. By painting a broad canvas over their festering wounds they can crop and edit the picture in future “memorabilia” to highlight opposite conclusions on different days of the week, and simultaneously pretend they hit their target, while never acknowledging the failure of earlier shots.
Bjorn Lomborg covers up for dodgy science
Bjorn Lomborg is doing his best to help the IPCC by (as usual) knowing nothing about the science, pretending to be a critic, but half his message is just saying exactly what the IPCC would want him to say. He ought stick to discussing the economics (which he does so well) and stay right out of the science debate, where he helps to protect and ensure funding to corrupt, low standard institutions that have been captured by lobbyists.
“As climate scientist Andrew Dessler of Texas A&M University tweeted: “Summary of upcoming IPCC report: ‘Exactly what we told you in 2007, 2001, 1995, 1990 reports'”
Why did Lomborg bother to uncritically repeat this banal falsehood, one that is easily provable to be 100% wrong? The IPCC made predictions in numbers in 1990 that are known to have failed. Their “best estimate” of future warming keeps changing, even as they deceptively pretend to be getting more “certain”. The figure that gets repeated is the number they make up: “95% certain”.
Lomborg the apologist strikes again:
This highlights the fact that the IPCC has always claimed only that more than half of the temperature rise is due to humans, although in public discussion it has usually been interpreted as all.
The obvious implication that Lomborg doesn’t say is that the IPCC have been very happy to allow these misinterpretations to stand uncorrected. It’s their modus operandi. They put out double-fog, and quietly nurture those who feed the public debate with mistakes which the IPCC can hypocritically distance itself from at any time it so chooses. The IPCC has never corrected the alarmist commentariat, and it deserves to wear their mistakes as its own.
Watch this debate become all about “impacts”
The actual number of degrees is neither here nor there — as long as the IPCC can still talk of “impacts”, western governments feed them money, and the media treat them as if they have a skerrick of barest credibility left, they will keep distorting markets and corrupting science. The IPCC is finally acknowledging they can’t defend the science of Working Group I in 2007. They concede that fight but will shift to using Working Group II reports. It is a different front, but just another muddy stinky trench.
*Apologies for the apostrophies. Fixed. (I think).
Dennis Jensen spoke out about the hype around global-warming as long ago as 2004, when there were almost no politicians (or anyone for that matter) daring to publicly mention any skeptical thoughts. It was so risky. What he said then is still largely true.
Jensen obviously knows what science is, can see through the sacred cows, and has the background to foster and filter good science from bad. Science is much more than “climate”, and vested interests pull at it from all directions. We need a science minister who won’t be fooled by slick press releases or activists wearing lab-coats.
Science is broken, web sites are funded to smear senior scientists, namecalling is rife to the highest levels. Government funded work no longer belongs to the public — instead so-called scientists and their universities fight legal battles to hide it from critics, while they run away from public debate. Science has been misused, exploited and corrupted, to justify sweeping changes to the economy, our laws, potentially our way of life. The ARC has lost its way, funding political research disguised as “psychology” that is transparently designed to denigrate voters who disagree with the government. These millions could have gone to medical research instead.
No matter what Jensen says, he will be attacked by the religious acolytes of climate change (see Graham Readfearn) for the most ridiculous of things (like things that he has never said). The country needs to rise above the frivolous and naked attempts to control policies by childish verbal intimidation.
Dennis Jensen has a PhD in Materials Science and Physics, experience at CSIRO and in Defense Science and Technology Organisation. He’s the most highly qualified member of Parliament in any area of science.
He foresaw in 2004 that the theory of man-made global warming was “suspect” and would probably come unstuck — the models were failing, some of the data was being hidden from view, and other data was questionable. This was not a full time research project, nor his specialty, and he held no full time position requiring him to investigate man-made global warming, and yet almost all of what he said then stands the test of time and all the newer results since then has borne out his judgment.
It’s taken a week, but at least one Labor adviser has finally got a better answer as to why the Labor Party suffered a record loss. As long as Labor “spins” its mistakes, not only does it not learn any lessons, but it gives the public no reason to trust that it has changed. Labor suffers so much from not having open ongoing debate. If Kelty (and others) had said this two years ago, they would not be in such a hole now.
…the party’s breach of trust with voters over the carbon tax was a bigger cause of its defeat than the disunity cited by senior ALP figures.
Mr Kelty, who is backing Bill Shorten in the mould of Bob Hawke and Paul Keating to become the next ALP leader, said the seeds for last Saturday’s loss could be traced back to the failure of Labor to explain to voters why Kevin Rudd was dumped in favour of Julia Gillard in 2010.
“To be honest, I think they lost the election in two points of history,” Mr Kelty said.
Spin has a price:
“They didn’t ever explain the change of leadership from Rudd to Gillard. Therefore they didn’t lose the next election, but they didn’t win it either. So there goes that first downward trend. People couldn’t understand why it wasn’t explained to them.
Kelty is still mincing words a little. It’s not that people “saw” it as a breach of trust. It was a breach of trust.
Readfearn’s quiz is one of the most trashy-teenage-smears I’ve seen in print. (Where else but The Guardian?). Monckton responds to Graham Readfearn’s vacuous attacks on Dennis Jensen M.P. with his trademark withering style. Readfearn had tried to be withering, in a 12 year old kind of way, but petty snark-by-association only proves how incapable he is. Readfearn (journalist) scorns Dr Jensen — PhD in materials engineering, CSIRO researcher, Analyst – Defence Science and Technology Organisation. But Readfearn has nothing at all on Jensen, not a single tiny point, the best he can do is try to paint Jensen with things other people said. It is scorn by proxy — Readfearn is really attacking Monckton. That the Guardian editors thought this worth reproducing says a lot about the intellectual caliber there. – Jo
A journalist with a grudge is a mere propagandist
By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley
A journalist with a grudge is a mere propagandist. Graham Readfearn, described as “a journalist”, heavily lost a public debate on the climate against me some years ago and has borne a steaming grudge ever since. Readfearn is no seeker after truth. He is an unthinking propagandist for the New Religion of ThermageddonTM.
This sad figure, furious at his fell0w-Socialists’ recent electoral drubbing, now snipes futilely at Dennis Jensen, perhaps the most scientifically-qualified member of either House, and certainly better qualified than the militantly ignorant Readfearn.
Dennis Jensen’s crime, in Readfearn’s eyes, is that “he doesn’t accept the position of the world’s science academies and Australia’s CSIRO that climate change is caused mainly by humans burning fossil fuels and chopping down trees and that this might be bad.”
Stop right there, Graham, baby. Let’s just take a peek at the peer-reviewed literature on this notion that there is some sort of a scientific consensus that Man can claim credit for most of the 0.7° C global warming since 1950.
As Readfearn may know, in May 2013 a comic called Environment Research Letters, which was set up in 2006 precisely to preach the New Religion,published a fairy-tale by five polemical blograts at Queensland Kindergarten and a clutch of their studenty friends at various real universities. These children’s story was that 97.1% of abstracts of almost 12,000 scientific papers published worldwide between 1991 and 2012 endorsed the supposed “scientific consensus” that most post-1950 global warming was down to us. Trouble was, this “once-upon-a-time” fable did not end “happily ever after” for the Queensland kiddiwinks. Legates et al. (2013), in a grown-up, peer-reviewed paper in the long-established Science and Education journal, devastatingly revealed that the Queensland Quixotes themselves had only marked 64 out of 11,944 abstracts as actually saying that most post-1950 warming was manmade. Oops!
One realizes you’re arithmetically challenged, Graham, old fruit, so one’s large and able staff have determined that 64 out of 11,944 is not 97.1%. It’s 0.5%. Oops2!
But Legates et al. went further. They read all 64 abstracts. A third of them – 23, in fact – did not say most post-1950 warming was manmade. Only 41 did so. Oops3!
One’s l. and a. s. have done the math for you again, Grazza. The true length and breadth and with of your imagined “scientific consensus” is not 97.1%. It’s 0.3%. Oops4!
We have discussed this issue at length on The Senate-Rage! post. I’ve taken those thoughts a bit further in an Op-Ed in The Australian today. There are no comments allowed there so here is a thread for further thoughts and feedback on our new Senate and whether we need to revamp the system. This is my first purely political op-Ed. I find it surprising that almost no one, on any side of politics, is speaking out for the little guys and the disaffected voter. Bob Brown (former Greens senator) calls it a “scandal” of “legally induced frauding”, that “must” change, so I know I am onto something. He thinks Liberal voters don’t know the difference between “liberals” and “liberal dems” and that “Stop The Greens” might fool Green supporters. How stupid are the voters. Really? — Jo
UNLEASH the sanctimony! Practically everyone on all sides of mainstream politics is not pleased with the success of the micro-parties in the Senate election. For goodness’ sake, car-loving, sports-crazy Australians may have elected car-loving, sports-mad senators. Is that so bad?
The not-quite-elected souls have barely uttered a word in public, but apparently this is such a disaster we need to remake the Senate voting system. Not so fast, I say. This is a beautiful representative democracy at work.
There are cries that no one should be elected on 0.22 per cent of first preferences – but if only first preferences count, why do we number the rest?
About 23 per cent of Australians placed a mini or micro-party first in the Senate list. Does it matter that they peppered their first vote across the board, and it gradually coalesced into a quota? Shouldn’t they have some representation?
Amazing how the Agricultural Revolution started 10,000 years ago, yet we still know so little about plant growth. We’ve been tossing bulk carrier loads of fertilizer at plants all over the world, but wasting some of it, and putting up with poorer yields and slower growth by not paying enough attention to the microbiology under the surface.
Obviously good scientific research, real science, can still deliver big improvements. Here’s a study showing that fruit trees, which normally take six years to reach maturity, can get there in three or four with the help of the right bacteria and fungi. This would help us adapt to climate change (of whatever kind is coming), help with reforestation, help feed the starving and improve the ability of these trees to survive during drought conditions too.
It applies to not just one or two species but to many kinds of trees: oaks, pines, mesquites, acacias, citrus and guava. Presumably this would help the “direct action” plan store more carbon in our soils too, not that that will change the weather, but it will help improve our soils:
“…the beneficial bacteria are located in the immediate area surrounding the root or rhizosphere, and among these bacteria are a group classified as “growth promoters,” which fulfill the function of helping the plant development and protect it from the attack of pathogenic microorganisms or by producing phytohormones; these substances allow a supply of nutrients and water.
The fungi that provide benefits, says Olalde Portugal, are the called myccorrhizal. When in contact with the roots a biochemical communication starts that allows the trees to adapt with no problems when transplanted. Besides, the microorganism is responsible for exploring the ground beyond the reach of the roots and brings them useful elements for their development, like phosphorus.
This is not an esoteric minor improvement — they’re talking about more efficient photosynthesis:
…the specialist stresses that the plant with myccorrhizal fungi perform photosynthesis in a more efficient way, using less water than those who don’t have the association. At the same time, all physiological processes change, resulting in rapid developing trees.
An electron micrograph of a mycorrhiza on an evergreen seedling. Mycorrhizal filaments radiate into the soil from the mycorrhiza root tip.
This would have to improve yields of crops as well. Adapting to climate change (when we are so bad at predicting it) is the only policy that makes sense. If funding for efforts to change the weather was sucked dry and fed into research like this we would all be healthier and wealthier. Some people (the poorest of the poor) would be better fed too. These microbes are sophisticated self-replicating nanotechnology (or perhaps “microtechnology”) — we don’t need to reinvent the wheel. Hundreds of millions of years of evolution has already tested and produced tiny chemical factories ready to help us.
Microbes extend plant roots, increasing absorbing area by up to 1000 fold
Mycorrhizal Management describes how these microbes help plants get nutrients out of the soil, and why they may have made it possible for marine plants to colonize land 400 million years ago.
Just enjoy with me the small sweet pleasure of a day when government waste shrinks. There is no joy in axing jobs of workers, albeit ones who should never have been employed in the first place. But there is satisfaction in knowing that hundreds of pointless reports and press releases will not have to be debunked, and millions of dollars in taxes can be put to some other use (or returned to taxpayers – I can dream).
[The Australian] PUBLIC servants are drawing up plans to collapse 33 climate change schemes run by seven departments and eight agencies into just three bodies run by two departments under a substantial rewrite of the administration of carbon abatement schemes under the Coalition.
Looks like DIICCSRTE the Department of Everything is gone forever. (That’s the Department of Industry, Innovation, Climate Change, Science, Research and Tertiary Education). Now the climate change programs will run under the Department of Environment and the Department of Resources and Energy. We are back to sensible acronyms.
The move is forecast to save the government tens of millions of dollars. The Coalition budgeted for savings of $7 million this financial year rising to $13m in each of the next three years for a saving of $45m across the budget period.
Alas that’s only small bucks. There are still too many Agencies to Change the Weather.
The changes will see all carbon abatement schemes run by three bodies: the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, which will be overseen by the Department of Resources and Energy; and the Clean Energy Regulator and Low Carbon Australia, which will be run by the Department of the Environment.
Tony Abbott said then that he “didn’t see the point of paying Professor Tim Flannery about $180,000 a year for views which he considers already public knowledge”…
Unleash the Sanctimony! Practically everyone on all sides of mainstream politics is not pleased. For goodness sake, the car loving land of Australia has elected a car-loving Senator, and the sport-crazy nation will have a sports-mad Senator too. Is that so bad?
Wayne Dropulich, possible new Senator
You’d think so. The not-quite-elected-yet souls have barely uttered a word in public, but apparently this is such a disaster we need to remake the Senate voting system. I was amazed at how media commentators were using the term “representative democracy” as if these new members were somehow not representative, and as if only first preferences count in a preferential voting system where some of us had to write in 110 preferences. How arrogant. Blame the voter.
A guy that rebuilds cars for a hobby is probably better connected to reality than a Monash graduate in Marx and Pashukanis.
Those with God-like insight say ignorant voters “accidentally” voted them in, assuming those people are too stupid to know how preferences work, and that those voters are not happy with the result. Commentators raved about the mere 0.22% of the vote that one new Senator got in first preferences, but they ignored the fact that as many as 12% of Australians voted for a minor or micro party in the House of Reps, and 23% did so in the Senate). Is it not possible that nearly a quarter of voters don’t feel the major parties are representing them that well? Do they not deserve Senate representation? And seven seats out of 40 is a very reasonable result given 23% of the vote. A lot of voters are not happy with what the major parties offer. (By the way, the Australian Sports Party outpolled the Democrats in WA, 966 to 872.)
UPDATE: Truthseeker has done Monte-Carlo modelling of senate results to date. Sports Party 68% chance. Motoring Party 100%. Palmer (Tas) 80%. Family First 88%.
I personally didn’t warm to the title: Motoring Enthusiasts Party, but I read their site last week, and it didn’t look so bad. I guess if you are a Liberal-Party fan, then this sort of talk below looks … well – like competition really.
“With the realisation that the rights and civil liberties of every-day Australians are being eroded at an ever increasing rate, the Party aims to bring focus back to the notion that the Government is there for the people; not, as it increasingly appears, the other way around.”
Minimal Government Interference
“We support the notion that society will be more respectful and dynamic if individuals and businesses assume personal responsibility of their lives and role in society; removing the need for government to waste time on the introduction of nanny-rules to protect ourselves from ourselves.”
A guy that rebuilds cars for a hobby is probably better connected to reality than a Monash graduate in Marx and Pashukanis. Honestly, once upon a time Parliament was full of people without doctorates in international politics, and somehow it worked.
The title of the Sports Party didn’t grab me either. But we could do a lot worse:
“.. we’re all about healthy living through sport, so we’re trying to promote grassroots and junior sorta sports to try to get as many people and young people as we can into sport. With obesity being a big issue in Australia, we feel that sport’s a good avenue to try and get people active and get a healthier society. ” 7:30 report
Scott Ludlum (Greens Senator) was a film-maker and graphic designer, and that was considered quite ok with the commentariat. Wayne Dropulich (Sports Party, likely Senator) is a civil engineer. Does that make him too dumb? (Who are we kidding?) Yet on the news tonight the engineer is being painted as a lucky ring-in that voters would not have chosen if they’d thought about it. Not trendy enough with his political views? (Watch Dropulich answer questions in this video.)
As for Family First, lets not forget that there was only one Senator who tried to investigate man-made climate change in office, calling on experts both for and against the theory to do his duty to serve the public, and that was Steve Fielding (an engineer, like Dropulich).
Another likely Senator is David Leyonhjelm, a former vet who runs an agribusiness, and a true libertarian. He’s been in politics for years, and has very defined position on policies (see many articles here too). He drew the lucky first position on the ballot, and it’s sour grapes and bad form to assume most Liberal voters don’t know the difference between a Liberal Democrat and a Liberal. Why shouldn’t he have legitimate appeal to voters? I looked before I voted. I liked what I saw.
How about some respect for citizens who wanted someone in Parliament that is more like them than a suited up lifelong-career political apparatchik?
Blame the media, not the voter
The hatchet job has begun. Ad homs are flying. Old YouTubes of non-election material have been dug out and placed on high rotation. Did you know Senators are not allowed to have been a larrakin in a camp-ground in their former life? A video of Ricky Muir throwing kangaroo droppings was everywhere tonight (which, despite what the ABC thinks, might be earning him more support — who knows, being an ABC target can be a badge of honor for voters who are sick of the Nanny State).
“…the truth is that micro parties and start ups don’t have a chance of getting mainstream attention or funds to run an election campaign, unless they happen to be a billionaire”
The mainstream media wouldn’t give the aspiring Senators five seconds of attention last week when voters were looking for information, but tonight, they get five minutes of prime time and are fast becoming household names. Meanwhile the media complain that the voters couldn’t know who they were voting for. Really? And whose fault is that?
In comparison, the ABC took longer than a day (more like a decade) to find some old taped antics of one Ms Julia Gillard (antics now being investigated by police).
Who else suspects that if the new micro-party senators had views more in line with the commentariat, the commentariat would be chortling and purring about the genius of our democracy and its preferential system?
While wealthy inner city journalists wail that the micro parties are gaming the system, the truth is that micro parties and start ups don’t have a chance of getting mainstream attention or funds to run an election campaign, unless they happen to be a billionaire. Is it so bad they cluster into groups of parties that preference each other? If the media paid micro parties more attention before an election and gave them half a chance, the best ones would rise to the top quickly. Instead the media blackout creates a system where disaffected citizens are willing to take a calculated punt.
It remains to be seen how these Senators perform (if they get elected, and that is not certain*), but let’s judge them by their performance and their popularity. People who call it a “lottery” ignore that voters may well have expected an outcome like this, and they may be quite happy about the result (unlike the voters of Lyne and New England in 2010).
The outrage is totally out of proportion. None of these micro parties will hold the balance of power by themselves, all of them will have to compete, and those two factors will limit the wheeling and dealing.
Shame on you all the Liberal commentators who want to keep out the competition. How unliberal.
Tony Abbott announces Australia is open for business again.
Finally Australia steps back from a porkbarrelling party that stood for nothing more than being in power.
They broke promises to anyone and everyone with Olympian success. And it was not just the usual politician broken promise of failing to solve a problem they promised to solve: they brought in The Carbon Tax after dishonestly guaranteeing they would not. Would they have won the 2010 election if they hadn’t made that promise? (It would only have taken 400 voters in Corangamite to rewrite history.) They’ve taken broken promises to an all new level, where nothing they say can be trusted. It was not a question of them trying and failing, it was a question of being elected through deception. Every single Labor member chose to break that promise; any one of them could have stopped it. This is not a “leadership” question. It’s a question of integrity, and it applies to every member of the party.
The Labor Party also told us Tony Abbott was a misogynist, relentlessly negative, and a denier, and in return the Labor Party received one of the lowest primary votes in history.
I wish I could say it was all blue sky and roses from here. It’s great news to be sure, but there are mountains to overcome. What is amazing is that — even after their lies were made into laws, billions of dollars were squandered, people died because of inept home insulation programs, and their promises to be fiscally conservative delivered deficit after deficit — still about 47% of Australian’s still thought they deserved a vote*. How bad would this government have had to get?
Last night the concession speech Rudd gave was delusional. It was quite unlike Whitlam in 1975 or Keating in 1996, after their heavy defeats. The triumphant, jubilant cries of vindication from Labor were blind to the fact that an incumbent government lost badly, and after only two terms. We know 70% of ABC journalists vote Labor-Green. Which one is trying to bring Labor back to a sensible position? Such a fog of illusion in the minds of the Labor Party can only be kept alive by active support of the media. Bizarrely, the journalist fans do the party no favours by allowing the delusion to pass as is. By ignoring the flaws, the soft media virtually filter for the incompetents to rise to the top.
In a sane world an investigative media would also have doggedly pursued the Craig Thompson affair and never allowed it to drag on in limbo for years. In the proper course of events he would have faced charges far sooner, and the Gillard government would have faced a savage by-election (see the Dobell results below). How many voters even now know that Gillard herself is under police investigation or that two journalists who started to mention it were sacked? If the opposition leader was under police investigation, it would have been a hot-button, high rotation bullet point. But Gillard was only the Prime Minister, right? What universe does this make sense in? The media IS the problem.
The results speak for themselves:
Some issues have become well known, and on these the people have spoken:
Craig Thompson is now facing 173 criminal charges for allegedly misusing union funds to pay for prostitutes and what-not. Thompson stood as an independent, and garnered just 4% of the votes.
The Labor Party relied on Peter Slipper (formerly a Liberal). He stood for re-election, but, in a record low for an incumbent candidate, scored just 1.4% of the vote. (On two party preferred levels, 57% of his electorate didn’t want that Labor government he helped to prop up.)
Robb Oakshott was the turncoat representative who held a conservative seat but voted in a socialist deceitful government in 2010. He knew he could not stand for election. Yesterday 50% of his electorate voted National. Only 25% voted for the Greens or Labor. (After preferences, 65% of his electorate is conservative, 35% left-leaning.)
Tony Windsor was turncoat number two. Yesterday 54% of his electorate voted for the National’s Barnaby Joyce. On two party preferred, 71% of the votes went to the Nationals, 29% to Labor.
If any one of these four electorates had been given the chance to vote between 2010 and now, the Labor government would have fallen much sooner.
Current tally: Labor 46.72% (57 seats), Coalition 53.28% (88 seats)
About a fifth of votes (a record number) were made before the election. These aren’t counted yet, as far as I know, but are likely to lean towards the Coalition.
Will the carbon tax survive the Senate?
Australians want alternatives to the two major parties and the Senate is a churning soup of minor and micro party preferences. It now looks like the Liberals will be doing deals with minor parties to get legislation through, and whether or not the Carbon Tax is removed may boils down to these deals. At the moment the potential senators to vote it out include a Family First senator, possibly two Palmer United candidates, a Liberal Democrat, one Motoring Enthusiast, and a Sports Party man. Nick Xenophon (definitely elected again) has said he opposes the carbon tax. If the Liberals have 33 Senators, and there are 6 sympathetic other senators, the tax will go. We won’t know for another week probably.
So far there are no signs the Labor Party is going to recognize any real lessons from this loss. Shame, we need two good parties in a two-party system.
They’re blaming “the campaign”, as if they could have put better lipstick on the pig that is the current party platform/record. They’re blaming the lack of unity and division and the leadership struggles, but they are not saying they made a mistake in forcing a law on Australians that we didn’t want. They’re not saying they had the wrong policy, no sir. Tanya Plibersek last night gave Labor 9 out of 10 for achievement, but only zero out of 10 for leadership and that’s why they lost. (Who picked those leaders?) They’re not saying they have to deal with union corruption, or that they need to pick better candidates.
And they’re not apologizing to voters for trashing our trust, our money, and our children’s taxes.
We’ll be paying off this debt for years to come.
* only 34% voted Labor on first preference, but 47% preferred Labor to the Coalition.
Treasurer Wayne Swan looks like holding his seat. 30% counted. Swing against him is 2.5%. The Worlds Greatest Treasurer, who proved so adept at spending other people’s money on things like $800,000 tin sheds will keep his seat. Anyone in charge of the national cheque book can accrue $250bn of debt… spending money is the easy part. Paying it back is another thing entirely.
UPDATE: 7:56pm Labor doing better. Greens get their man.
Labor 48; Liberal 73; Green 1: Other 2
Adam Bandt, sole Green member of the house of Reps elected? again (or as good as) in Melbourne
The ALP / ABC have set expectations so low that Labor will claim anything over 50 seats as a “win”. It helps them put a good spin on a bad loss.
UPDATE 8:20pm: Done deal. Labor 51; Liberal 77 (over the line). Green 1; Other 1. (?)
But all the talk will be about how Labor really did pretty well given the circumstances. Only four weeks ago the polls were 50:50 — it was thought they had a chance. Four weeks before that, polls predicted a wipe-out and Julia Gillard was pictured knitting a kangaroo.
The ABC meanwhile is finding all kinds of reasons to announce how things are going better than expected for Labor, and the Liberals may lose Sophie Mirabella’s seat (to a conservative independent). The word “Gillard” is a bit like she-who-shall-not-be-named. The ALP have not so much lost as been “vindicated” with their leadership change 9 weeks ago. Of course. The problems are not the policies or the management ability, but just problems with campaigns…
UPDATE 9:50: Rudds concession speech
Never admit defeat. You would think he is planning 2016. This is a man who thinks this result is a temporary aberration. No lessons to learn. He looks relieved and happy (he hasn’t lost his own seat, the carnage is not as bad as predicted yesterday). A child in the room with us, watching him, looks confused and says “who won the election”?
While Sky news commentators in the ALP party were talking about the “delusional” and “bizarre” atmosphere in the Labor camp, Abbotts speech had no false triumphalism. He talked of serving for all Australians, of a heavy responsibility, a great honor.
This election everyone is talking preferences. The Senate is a wild-card and no one is game to say how things will pan out. (Antony Green is scathing about our current system). The preference deals were subject to a major networking gambits with much wheeling and dealing behind the scenes.
Leon Ashby, president of the Climate Sceptics has been working very hard in South Australia, and convincingly makes a case that he has a very good chance. I wish him the best of luck. It would be something to see him beat Sarah Hansen Young of The Greens for the last senate seat position in South Australia. (The Shooters and Fishers Party took out the local Green Senator here in the West Australian State election last March. It happens).
Instead of accepting the preference deals, you may prefer to vote below the line but it means numbering up to 110 candidates. (Hints below for foreigners to follow the lingo*) Is it worth the effort? Above the line voting means preferences will flow as per these lists at the links below. It may be more effort to follow these lists than to number 1 – 110.
On ABC radio yesterday, it was obvious a lot of people don’t understand the system. So at the risk of saying the obvious, the first choice on the ballot may score a few taxpayer dollars — which you may prefer not to give to a major party. The catch (or you might think “benefit”) is that a party needs to get 4% of the vote to get any funds at all — so if you vote for the micro-party first, they may get nothing. But it is a chance to spread the power away from the majors.
The Climate Realists at Five Dock looked at the climate policies of the NSW senate candidates. Jim Simpson sent me their recommended voting list for the Senate “below the line”. (The climate realists are an amazingly successful social group that came together through this blog three years ago and still meet every Thursday.)
The Climate Sceptics “No Carbon Tax” Party controversially split their party preferences
Commenter Neville on this site spotted that the Climate Skeptics have split their preference ticket to Labor over Liberal in three of six states. Only in WA, SA and QLD does a 1 above the line for Climate Sceptics mean the Senate ticket ends (potentially) in Lib rather than Labor. In NSW, Vic, and Tas, the Climate Sceptics preferenced Labor before Liberal. Voters ought to be aware.
Bill Koutalianos of The Climate Skeptics, explains the decision below:.
Yes, we’ve put Libs ahead of Labor in QLD. So that works out to preferencing Labor ahead of the Libs in 3 states and the Libs ahead of Labor in 3 states.
Whilst we gravitate to the Libs on most policy areas, on the issue that’s most important to us, i.e. the climate deceit, the Libs are equally as complicit as Labor in deceiving the public and hence worthy of an equal amount of respect.
Whilst we had originally anticipated preferencing the Libs ahead of Labor, they have since had the gall to back the Kyoto 2 Protocol & apparently with some enthusiasm. Greg Hunt at his Sydney Institute speech of 30th May 2013 spoke approvingly of a ‘market mechanism’. What do you think he might be talking about?
Christopher Monckton is very popular in outback Australia isn’t he? For the sake of the farmers I’ve met, it seems only fair to spread a voice telling some more of their stories. (The ABC certainly weren’t too willing to inform Australians about the Thompsons plight or Maxwell Schulz either.)
The inner city and rural producers have become so disconnected, it is like a visit from aliens — Jo
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The bull and the Borg
By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley
Captain’s Log, Stardate 2013.67: Antipodean climate extremists are going to have a field day with this one. In Australia (where else?) a pedigree Hereford bull has been named “Lord Monckton”. And the Prime Directive forbids me to intervene.
Peter Manuel, who farms many thousands of acres in the Lofty Ranges, became so exasperated with the Natural Resources Management Board of South Australia for interfering with farming that he arranged for Lord Monckton (the real one, that is) to visit the state and give a series of talks to farmers.
Lord Monckton’s semen is now available at premium prices
Peter is chief executive of Farmers’ and Landowners’ Group Australia (FLAG), which campaigns to defend farmers against the ridiculous environmental over-regulation that is destroying their livelihoods.
Earlier this year, I spent ten days with Peter and his family on their beautiful, impeccably-maintained spread high in the hills above Adelaide. The only way for us jackaroos to cover all the rolling acres and herd the cattle and sheep (in Australia, the word “sheep” is spelt “IPCC”) was on off-road motor-bikes, keeping a sharp eye out for snakes as we thundered across the rock-strewn terrain at speeds that would have been illegal on the roads.
After I had ridden (or slidden) fearlessly after my kind host down a shifting, rock-strewn 60-degree brae that no visitor had dared to attempt before, Peter announced that this year’s best pedigree bull on the farm would be named Lord Monckton, and would make an early appearance at the Adelaide Show.
Cut those waste-of-time academic projects? Not a moment too soon.
If the Coalition wins the election they want to refocus the Australian Research Council (ARC). The first “wasteful” project mentioned is about adapting to climate change through public art. What a good omen…
Some ARC funds appear to be nothing more than disguised government advertising. That has to stop.
MILLIONS of dollars in taxpayer-funded grants for obscure research projects – such as the role of public art in climate change – will be scrapped or redirected to find cures for dementia and other diseases as part of a Coalition crackdown on government waste.
And a further $1.1 billion is expected to be returned to the budget bottom line from the scrapping of the carbon tax, under the Coalition election promises costings to be released today.
The Daily Telegraph can reveal that as part of the Coalition’s budget savings measures, a dedicated team will be formed under its proposed Commission of Audit to re-prioritise about $900 million in annual Australian Research Council grants.
The Daily Telegraph can reveal that a list of the types of grants that would no longer be funded under new and more stringent guidelines for the ARC included an RMIT project on Spatial Dialogues: Public Art and Climate Change which sought to explore how people could adapt to climate change through public art.
Coalition sources also cited as waste several grants worth more than $1 million into philosophical studies including the meaning of “I” through a retrospective study of 18th and 19th century German existentialists.
Perhaps we can suggest a few wasteful grants from the ARC grants list
ARC Linkage Projects are listed here (Linkage just means the projects are co-funded by another department or another group as well).
Grants from the most recent round, copied below, include ones aiming for cultural transformation, climate governance, and a discussion of legal paths used to try to stop the use of coal. Lawyers who want to help the UNFCCC stop a major Australian industry can apply for grants from the ARC?
Why are we spending $800k to transform our culture?
Who decides what kind of culture we ought to have? Who voted for broader “societal change”?
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DP130102229 Kashima, Prof Yoshihisa; Paladino, A/Prof Angela; Sewell, Dr David K PSYCHOLOGY The University of Melbourne
Project Title Collective self-regulation: the case of climate change mitigation
Total $410,137.00
Project Summary
Solutions to contemporary societal problems such as climate change mitigation require cultural transformations,namely, widespread changes in the ideas and practices of community members. This project will examine how people may achieve this in part by regulating their own temptations and actions for the good of the community.
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DP130100845 Kashima, Prof Yoshihisa; Robins, Prof Garry L; Kirley, Dr Michael G; Kashima, Dr Emiko S;
Peters, Dr Kim PSYCHOLOGY The University of Melbourne
Project Title Co-evolutionary dynamics of culture and social structure
Total $414,444.00
Don’t think the carbon dioxide wars are over in Australia.
What turmoil lies ahead. The Coalition looks like easily winning the election on Saturday (though Jeff Kennett points out he lost an election people thought he would win). If they win, they’ve promised to wipe out the Labor Party’s carbon tax. (Not a moment too soon.) Abbott was made leader on this issue in December 2009, and has vowed “in blood” to remove it.
But after this election the Senate will still be in the grip of a Labor Green majority until July next year, when the new senators (whoever they may be) take over half the Senate. Yesterday Tony Abbott renewed his pledge that this election is about “the carbon tax”. If he wins, and the Senate won’t pass his climate change legislation, he says he’s determined to pull the ultimate political trigger and call a double dissolution election.
The stakes are high. For the sake of foreign readers, the double dissolution is a rare event that, unlike a normal election, means every senator is suddenly out of a job and up for reelection (not just the usual half a Senate at a time). We could, in theory, have another bigger election in early 2014 and if we did, it might wipe out the Labor Green majority in the Senate– but it is a risky move for both sides.
Andrew Bolt points out that the Labor Party under Rudd-Renewed have promised to “terminate the carbon tax” themselves, so they look like hypocrites extraordinare if they did not pass an Abbott government plan. But of course, they were not terminating it at all, just changing a direct tax to an indirect one through a trading scheme. It’s just tricky wordsmithing; they are wedded to a “carbon price”.
Paul Kelly (Editor-at-large for The Australian) claims Labor is trapped, can’t give it up, and won’t pass Abbott’s repeal of the Carbon Tax. Does a double dissolution beckon?
“Labor has expended buckets of political blood on carbon pricing. It will not betray its slain warriors. Labor’s commitment to carbon pricing has become an issue of identity. Support for an ETS is entrenched, a policy Labor has held under the leadership of Kim Beazley, Rudd, Julia Gillard, Rudd again and, almost certainly, under any future leader.”
USS Pennsylvania leads convoy to reduce Japanese carbon emissions
Tom Quirk sends me thought provoking news.
File this in the Semi-Satirical Times
Since 1920, ice cores from Law Dome show only one significant pause in an otherwise relentless rise in CO2. Ominously, that sole plateau occurs from 1940 to 1950. If human activity drives changes in global CO2, there is no mistaking that the pause was during the only decade that war went global.
The question has to be asked: Is war an alternative to wind-farms?
Who would have thought all the tanks, bullets and bombs, and all the men in green uniforms, could be so good for the planet? World War II must have been a low electricity use time.
Or was it the mass burials – a form of carbon sequestration? (Though, cremation, after all, undoes the benefits. Does anyone have stats on the ratio of burning versus burial? Can we get a grant?)
In World War 2, direct action against the evil large fossil fuel polluters took on a new meaning. Don’t just tax those factories, bomb them!
Ahem… (all jokes aside — let’s look at that data…).
To get this extraordinary information Tom Quirk looked at the modern records from Law Dome Antarctica. We can’t use Mauna Loa data because that station didn’t start until the late 1950s. Firstly, it’s worth knowing that the ice bubbles at Law Dome are really storing a kind of 5 year smoothed averaged, not a year by year record. We know that because of the Nuclear Tests which pumped C14 into the sky show up as a spike in direct annual records from New Zealand. The spike is smeared over 4 years as captured by the bubbles in the Law Dome records. (see Figure 1)
Then knowing that the Antarctic record will smooth out spikes into flat plateaus, Quirk shows that there is a plateau in the Law Dome records of CO2 levels that starts at the same time as WWII. He estimates that CO2 levels must have spiked up and then down to produce the flat line. Curiously the spike down rather fits with sea surface temperatures in the Southern Hemisphere (it must be a coincidence 😉 ). Pace Murry Salby.
Just imagine we were taxing, trading and burying CO2 in holes in the ground (not to mention building masses of windmills and solar panels) but at the same time we didn’t know the major sinks and sources of CO2 emissions? Welcome to the post modern economy — where money is wasted on billion dollar scales every day.
— Jo
Guest Post Tom Quirk
Returning the compliment
Near constant values for atmospheric CO2 in the 1940s have been found in ice core measurements made by the CSIRO at the Law Dome in Antarctica. Ice core measurements come from bubbles trapped in the ice which, while forming, sample the atmosphere over a period of years.
Fortunately there is a way of measuring the time window over which the ice core bubbles sample the atmosphere and this has been done by the CSIRO. A peak occurred in atmospheric CO2 labeled with radioactive carbon-14 in 1963, before the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty came into force. There was a near doubling of carbon-14 CO2 and this peak was captured in the ice cores at the Law Dome. Comparison with direct air measurements in New Zealand enables the calculation of the extent of atmospheric sampling in the ice cores. The sampling is approximately characterized by a normal (Gaussian) distribution with a 4.2 year standard deviation (Figure 1).
Figure 1: Direct atmospheric measurements in New Zealand and ice core measurement of C-14 labelled atmospheric CO2. The continuous green diamonds area modelled ice core simulation from redistributing the direct measurements using a normal distribution with a standard deviation of 4.2 years.
The reverse process of unfolding the ice core CO2 measurements is now possible. The result shows that the apparent plateau in the 1940s for CO2 is the result of a fall in atmospheric CO2 concentrations at the South Pole in the middle of the 1940s. It is not possible to simulate the measurements using a plateau in atmospheric CO2 concentrations (Figure 2).
Figure 2: Law Dome ice core and direct South Pole measurements of atmospheric CO2. Solid line – modelled direct atmospheric CO2 concentrations increasing at 0.389 ppm per year before 1946 and 0.556 ppm per year after 1948. The continuous red line is the simulated ice core measurements assuming a 4.2 year standard deviation for atmospheric mixing in the ice core air bubbles.
Most conservative governments have bowed to the name-calling bullies for far too long. They are either fooled by the names (do they think “denier” is a scientific term?), or they are so afraid of being called “deniers” themselves that they adopt the bullies meme, too scared to ask the most basic and substantial questions of it. They have stayed out of science, while big-government players have milked the good brand-name shamelessly. Science needs to be set straight.
Above all else, those who care about the environment and the people should grab the moral high ground and the sensible-middle-road at the same time, and get serious about getting the science correct— which means the most rigorous investigation, the best practice, and a real ongoing public debate (no, there hasn’t been one yet). The environment and citizens deserve nothing less. And paying for better studies costs a fraction of global trading schemes, along with tens of thousands of bird-killing turbines and solar industrial plants.
Before we spend anything on mitigating a problem based on models, we need to know what empirical evidence supports the assumptions in the models. (Make no mistake, while CO2 causes warming it is the models that predict how much warming). I’ve been asking for since Jan 2010 and no one can name that mystery paper with strong observations. We need to understand how accurate those predictions are. It is only then that we can figure out which are the most important environmental concerns. As it happens the models are doing a really poor job of prediction (see also here).
Those who are our elected representatives should be representing their electorate. Who has audited the recommendations of the foreign committee known as the IPCC? Who is protecting Australians (or Americans, Europeans or New Zealanders) from being exploited? Can anyone name a government investigation that seriously discusses the strengths and weaknesses of the last IPCC report? Apparently checks are left to volunteers online. It’s a crazy way to run a country.
We need a free market in science
The monopolistic version of research is not serving us well. Unless both sides of a controversial theory get funding to put their best case forward, all-too-human factors can easily dominate the scientific process. John Howard, former PM of Australia, and other conservative leaders around the world could have set up independent research groups 15 years ago, but missed the chance to ensure there was real competition in science.
What sensible politicians could do (and should have done): Establish the Bureau of Climate Prediction or The Climate Research Institute
The western world needs some independent science organizations of experts outside official climate science — drawn from fields such as maths, statistics, engineering and geology. They should audit and check the IPCC pronouncements on behalf of Australians, Canadians, etc. They could also advise the government science funding bodies on which areas of research would be most useful for scientists to pursue. Obviously a research institute could do original research.
I suggested as much to a couple of high ranking elected Australian Liberals* a few years ago, and the response was essentially: “But who could we ask?” They wanted names, the obvious inference being that anyone they picked would be accused of being a skeptic, or attacked for some other reason. Which is true.
But the point (which I probably didn’t make well at the time) is that believers of the Global Warming religion would attack anyone and everyone who doesn’t believe. There’s no need to play that game, instead we point out the double standards. Labor employed Tim Flannery, after all. It is preposterous, beyond all reason, to think that virtually any highly educated math, engineering, meteorology or geology expert would not have as much credibility as a man who predicted we needed desalination plants urgently, and tried to convince us in 2007 that dams that would never again fill. (And a few other special Flannery quotes).
Critics would cry that only “climate scientists” can understand climate science. Sensible people could reply that all areas of science work on the same principles, laws and standards of evidence — and if climate science is different then it is not science.
The most important aim of an independent group would be to make predictions about the climate that did not prove to be false. Their reputation and future funding ought to depend on that. If that means the group produced conservative predictions with accurate uncertainty ranges, how could that be a bad thing? It would mean Australians would understand the risks — if it’s not possible to predict the climate yet, shouldn’t Australian’s be aware of that and base funding any emission reduction efforts accordingly?
If we aren’t 95% certain we can predict clouds and humidity a hundred years from now, why pretend we are 95% certain a disaster is on the way? In case you didn’t know, most of that catastrophe predicted by the models depends on clouds and humidity.
No one who has real concerns about the environment could object to having independent institutes set up, to compete to see which one can produce the most accurate predictions. Anyone who complains that an independent body was a front for a government policy could be asked if they also complained about the unscientific pronouncements of the current climate commissioners.
David Archibald points out that even setting up an inquiry into the matter would be enough. Certainly it would be cheaper and faster and involve less bureaucracy. But I’m being ambitious. I think we can do more than just point out the flaws in mainstream climate science, I think we could aim to do real science and see whether a true skeptical approach can outdo the current hobbled, misguided and bureaucrat-driven approach that starts with an assumption rather than a question. Competition is the key.
Can we engender science-as-a-quest for truth, rather than a policy driven profession?
There are not many serious comparisons of the ALP vs Coalition policies on “climate change”. Don Young, a statistician and IT consultant in Canberra, with experience at the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) and in Washington, is now (happily) retired and has had time to take a close look at both. Strangely, The ABC Drum declined to publish this analysis. (Perhaps the details of reducing CO2 is not a high priority?)
The centerpiece of the Labor strategy is the carbon tax/ETS, which will end up raising $7.7b in financial year 2012/13. That’s $900 per household, and judging by the record of the last few years works out at an average cost of at least $640 per tonne of Co2 not emitted.
The Coalition propose to spend $800 million per year, or $100 per household, with a cap on the cost per tonne that is likely to be much lower, so a lot more effective per dollar. If it can be done.
The Labor Party want us to buy carbon credits overseas, which is “essentially foreign aid”. The Coalition are considering measures like increasing soil carbon, which might not be either verifiable or permanent. I would argue that most of the carbon abatement strategies accepted under the Kyoto Protocol suffer the same uncertainty. Soil carbon can be released into the air, and forests burn down.
Our national debate talks of reducing carbon emissions by at least 5% by 2020. Young points out that to achieve an ambitious 1.5 per cent reduction in co2 emissions per year (so 10% by 2020, 55% by 2050), another 4 per cent of co2 emissions needs to be abated each year (allowing for average GDP and energy growth of 2.5% per year). This amounts to an extra 25 million tonnes of abatements to be found each year. And if that will be hard to do next year, it will be even harder the year after that (and so on).
The stark fiscal inefficiency of the Clean Energy Finance Corporation was news to me. Young notes that the CEFC was set up to invest $10 billion over five years. But after one year it has invested just $138 million, and at a cost to the taxpayer of $18 million per year in management fees to keep the CEFC running. The only good thing is that they are not successful at spending more money.
He writes from the perspective of a person concerned about CO2 levels, looking for the most economically efficient methods to reduce emissions. It’s safe to say he hasn’t read a lot of what’s on this site, but in the spirit of promoting logical analysis (starting from the basis that CO2 should be reduced) I found his thoughts, especially on costs, interesting.
— Jo
Carbon organisms doing free carbon sequestration somewhere near Eucla WA (give or take 500km)
Australia – CO2 Emission Reduction Strategies
Guest Post By Don Young
The Labor Strategy
Treasury estimates that the government will raise $7.7 billion from the carbon tax for 2012-13.*
What happens to this revenue? Compensation for households is about $4 billion. Compensation for business (trade exposed industries, high co2 intensity power stations, coal industry, steel industry, etc.) comes in many forms and is difficult to find and quantify, but seems to be around $3.5 billion (jobs and competiveness $2.4b, coal program $1.0b, steel program $.15b). And a significant amount is needed simply to run the various government bodies set up to administer the carbon tax.
Labor’s strategy is to reduce co2 emissions by making energy more expensive. But energy demand is relatively inelastic, so even a large price rise will only modestly reduce energy usage. So its further strategy is to use the carbon tax to make high co2 emission intensive energy relatively more expensive, encouraging a shift to low co2 emission intensive energy. But because high emission energy is much cheaper to produce than low emission energy for technological reasons, the carbon price needs to be quite large before low co2 emission intensity energy can compete on cost.
Labor claims that its strategy has worked, citing economic growth and decreasing emissions in the last year. No doubt the $23 per ton carbon tax had some impact, but how efficiently and at what cost? Electricity prices have increased about 75 per cent in the last five years (Figure 19). This is mainly due to factors other than the carbon tax, which only accounts for 9% of current electricity prices. Other factors include network costs (including much networking to remote wind turbines), generation costs, RET targets, and feed-in tariffs. The carbon tax has therefore contributed only 21% of the increase in costs over the past five years — and so can only be responsible for 21% of any decrease in co2 emissions due higher electricity prices. Other energy sectors, such as transport, are not yet covered by the carbon tax, so it is not responsible for any decreased emissions in these sectors. And the shift to renewables has been also driven by RET schemes, structural changes to manufacturing, and the loss of aluminium smelters.
The glossy government publication How Australia’s carbon price is working – One Year On summarizes the progress and performance of the government’s carbon tax strategy. Unfortunately this report might kindly be described as “boastful and superficial”, because it fails to provide the basic essential information. There is no detailed summary of money raised, money spent, or co2 emission reductions. There is no detailed analysis of the cost-effectiveness of programs, of other causes of changes to co2 emissions, of how much the carbon tax actually contributed, and no annual projections to 2020. One case study, about the Brisbane City Council, quantifies the savings in electricity costs, but does not quantify how much money was invested or how many tons of co2 emissions were saved, and thus omits the all-important efficiency of the savings ($/tonne of co2). Why was this information withheld?
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The clean up begins. I am beaming.
What happens to this revenue?
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