Every Australian ought to read the Ergas article in The Australian. For non-Australians, it’s a case-study of just how thin and fragile all our democracies are. The government was elected NOT to do this. The Treasury are paid to provide their modeling and assumptions to the Australian people but they won’t. The Labor Party is planning to put in the crippling legislation that can’t be unwound, even if 99% of Australians wanted it to be.
No, this is not a master plan to destroy the country, it’s just filthy ambition — to rule at all costs, the nation be damned. The ALP doesn’t particularly want to sacrifice itself over the Carbon Tax, but in clawing for every tiny election advantage (No, you can’t campaign to remove the toxic tax!) they are resorting to breaking unspoken principles of western democracies and revealing something they normally hide in their darkest recesses: their naked disdain for the citizens. It’s the end result of crumbling standards of ethics in parts of the public service, and a lack of intellectual debate within the Labor Party.
A mortally wounded, weak government, is a dangerous creature.
START with what is uncontested. First, once carbon emitters are issued permits, those permits will be property they own, so any government that abolishes them will have to pay compensation, possibly in the billions of dollars.
Second, entitlements created by statute may be found by the High Court to be property even if that is not specified in the legislation creating them. But specifying it in the legislation, as the government intends, makes that outcome, and the need to pay compensation, far more certain.
Third, a future government could not get around the need to pay compensation simply by mandating a zero carbon price. This is because that would almost certainly require rejecting the Climate Change Authority’s recommended abatement trajectory. But unless that government could convince both houses of parliament to adopt another abatement target, such a rejection triggers a default pricing mechanism. And far from reducing the carbon price, the legislated mechanism could increase it by up to 10 per cent in a single year.
Fourth, nor could a future government get its way by modifying the membership of the Climate Change Authority.
Rather, the legislation creating the authority limits the number of members it can have: unlike, for example, that establishing the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission. And a government has little scope to dismiss members once they have been appointed. The new government would therefore be stuck with its predecessor’s authority.
I am annoyed with Ian for coming up with a brilliant book title, and I can’t steal it. All the same, I am looking forward to reading it. You can order the book now for its release in November.
Actually, the serious point here is that I am getting reports from parents of students at environmental “science” courses at university level and at high schools, who are not allowed to question their masters without a payback. This is the perfect thread for those discussions of how our education system is being influenced by activists. — Jo
Are pupils, parents and the public being fed political propaganda on climate change? Now is your chance to find out. Professor Plimer gives 101 simple questions with answers for you to ask teachers, activists, journalists and politicians. The climate industry adjusts the temperature record and withholds raw data, computer codes and information from scrutiny. Computer predictions of a scary future don’t agree with measurements. Past natural climate changes have been larger and more rapid than the worst case predictions yet humans adapted. Is human-induced global warming the biggest financial and scientific scam in history? If it is, we will pay dearly.
The Labor Party claim they think science is important:
”We can’t let this debate be waylaid by people who don’t accept the science,”Ms Gillard said in May.
Yet, when Dr Dennis Jensen wanted to table peer reviewed papers on the Parliamentary record this week, Kate Ellis refused to allow it. Jensen is the only PhD scientist in the Australian Parliament and the papers are directly relevant to the policy under discussion.
The ALP will accept an unaudited foreign committee report, whole, without question, but not scientific evidence from an elected Australian representative. Who are the climate science deniers? Is it the same team that calls people mindless denigrating names?
Ms Gillard said in Parliament in March that Mr Abbott should admit he was ”a climate change denier”
“I approached Minister Ellis, about tabling some of the scientific evidence I was about to use in my speech”, Dr Jensen said.
“The Minister refused without reason my simple request for honest and evidence based parliamentary debate.”
“It seems the Labor Party is unwilling to allow frank and open debate on the science of climate change, which underpins the whole framework of this legislation.”
“I currently hold the highest scientific qualifications of all the MPs and Senators, and was hoping to shed some scientific light on this debate”
Dennis Jensen wants to talk about the evidence:
“I would happily debate the science with any member opposite
but I know they are too gutless to take me on.”
All the Labor Party posturing about science is disingenuous.
Dr David Evans lays out four crucial pieces of evidence, and calls for a debate with Prof Andrew Pitman. But the evidence is so unarguably strong for skeptics, we know that the name-calling-team-who-want-our-money will do anything to avoid a public debate. If the evidence is “overwhelming” why are they so unwilling to explain it? — Jo
—————–
Submission to the Inquiry into Carbon Tax Pricing Mechanisms
Dr David Evans
20 September 2011
Dr David Evans consulted full-time for the Australian Greenhouse Office from 1999 to 2005, and part-time to the Department of Climate Change from 2008 to 2010, modeling Australia’s carbon in plants, debris, mulch, soils, and forestry and agricultural products. Evans is a mathematician and engineer, with six university degrees including a PhD from Stanford University.
Global warming has become a scam. Let me explain how it works.
It has superficial plausibility. Yes, global warming is occurring. Yes, carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas and levels are rising. And yes, every molecule of carbon dioxide we emit causes some global warming.
Many non-scientists think that proves the case, but it doesn’t. In particular, it doesn’t rule out the possibility that carbon dioxide is merely a minor or insignificant player, and that something else is the main cause of global warming.
Here’s a clue: the world has been in a warming trend since 1680, the depth of the Little Ice Age. It has warmed steadily since then, at half a degree per century. Within the trend there is a pattern of 25 – 30 years of warming followed by 25 – 30 years of mild cooling. We just finished a warming period that started in 1975, so chances are we’ll have mild cooling for the next couple of decades. But there were no SUV’s in 1680. Human emissions of CO2 were miniscule before 1850, nearly all come after WWII, and a quarter since 1998. Yet the warming trend was as strong in the 1700s and 1800s as it was in the 1900s.
The theory of man-made global warming doesn’t stand up to even casual scrutiny. It requires believers to ignore or deny overwhelming evidence that it is bunk. The believers have to be schooled by massive propaganda not to notice certain things, and to ignore and revile anyone who points out those things.
There is in fact no empirical evidence that global warming is mainly man-made. If there was, we would have heard all about it. Tens of billions of dollars has been spent looking for it.
Climate scientists readily concede that there is no direct evidence that global warming is caused by our carbon dioxide. Instead, they say that our knowledge of how the climate works is embodied in their climate models, and the climate models say that global warming is man-made.
Models are logically equivalent to someone punching in numbers and doing sums on a calculator – models are calculations, not evidence. The problem is that the models contain many guesses and assumptions about how things work, and some of them are wrong.
Here are four bits of evidence that the climate models are fundamentally flawed
Emails are flying, submissions are flooding in. It’s a nation in uproar. The implications of what Henry Ergas wrote are setting off a wave of fear and anger. People are using words like “sickening”, “shocking” and describing Gillard’s actions as “vindictive” and a “treacherous spoiler”, and using the word treason. There’s a plea: “God help us!”
Here’s a few samples of what has been CC’d to me.
UPDATE: I should have added that I put the first email up to show just how deep the sense of betrayal runs. I don’t think Gillards actions represent a grand well thought out plot. This is scrabbling desperation to notch up a “success” (the country be damned). Even she advised Rudd to give up the ETS. A weak government is the most dangerous kind.
——————————————————————————————-
Dear John,
Please drop everything and listen to this:
Professor Henry Ergas reveals the hidden deadly dangers in the Carbon Tax legislation to Alan Jones.
The vindictive implications for Australia are worse than horrendous.
The shameful and treacherous group (loosely described as the “government” of this country) should be thoroughly exposed as SPOILERS [snip cliche].
PLEASE BRING THIS TO EVERYONE’S ATTENTION!
SECOND:
The second response registers the telling impact this dynamite interview is having on ordinary Australians as they come to grips with the explosive revelations made in this interview. The reaction of people hearing this for the first time is bad enough, however once its insidious message filters through, it becomes overpowering in the utter sense of hopelessness it engenders. The Australian people are just now beginning to feel like the proverbial rabbit caught in the full headlight glare of what is being proposed in the parliament of our beloved country right now, and it is sickening: –
———————————————————
Date: 20 September 2011 6:55:18 AM AEST
To: Ben
Subject: God help us all
Ben,
This morning I listened again to the exchange between Professor Ergas and Alan Jones.
There can be no mistaking that what is being planned by Julia Gillard is both vengeful and completely treasonous.
Never before has a government legislated the deliberate and permanent destruction of its country’s economic future viability. There is NO other word than “treason” in the English to appropriately describe the intent of the Carbon Dioxide Tax legislation.
You know, the one comforting thing about the insanity going on in the UK is that Australia doesn’t seem quite so basket-case, suicidally silly. Actually that’s not really true, both countries are barking mad, but thanks to David Cameron its a little less lonely at the loony farm. Democractic dementia has company.
Exhibit A:
In 2008 Ministers were aiming to generate 20 per cent of the country’s energy from renewable sources by 2020. Professor MacKay explained back then, that to reach that, they would have to put wind farms over the entirety of Wales. How did the governing class respond? By 2011, the UK Coalition took that crazy renewable target and doubled it.
— Total subsidies paid to these non-UK owned farms is £523 million.
— The subsidies paid to local folk are handy for Dukes and whatnot, and those who have large estates (especially ones they don’t live on) who can pick up the £20,000 a year in subsidies — milked from people who don’t have large estates and are forced to pay more for electricity.
Now I’ve got nothing against foreigners earning money from investing, taking risks, and producing something the people of the UK want, which brings me to…
Try the absurd Methane Madness if you haven’t already! Discuss how the big Gore event came and went with barely a trace, and marks the fall of the man who set alight much of the Greenhouse Extravaganza. Or there’s the coolest UK summer in 20 years… wiping out masses of blue butterflies. (Where is the Green angst: “Stop the cooling trend — Save the Butterfly — Donate a sunspot?”).
If the current egregious insanity makes you angry, join us on Sunday at Langley Park. If you have No Confidence in the current Australian Government. Let them know! It doesn’t have to be this way.
ELECTION NOW!
RALLY THIS SUNDAY, 18th SEPT 2 PM
LANGLEY PARK on the PERTH FORESHORE (Terrace Rd near Hill St)
MC’d by 6PR’s HOWARD SATTLER
David Evans and I will be there. Hope you can come too and bring all your friends.. – Jo
Too frightening for words. Henry Ergas has a bone-chilling warning.
It takes time to get a feel for how spectacularly insidious the Australian carbon tax could be.
Firstly there’s the anti-democratic nature of it: apparently Gillard is doing things that are considered utterly beyond the pale in other nations. Ergas suggests that by granting “property rights” she is threatening to make the cost of removing her legislation all but insurmountable. (For all the world, it appears she’s determined to stop the opposition offering the people the choice to remove the carbon tax. Could it be, that for the sake of an advantage in the next election campaign she’s tossing the country down the nearest black hole?)
Secondly, the Australian Carbon Tax is a freakishly large sacrificial offering: Australians will be hit for $391 for every man, woman and child, and that’s just the first year (according to the government estimates). Compare this to the EU. There in the land-of-exploding-economies, each good citizen has had to fork out the vast grand sum of (wait for it) … one dollar fifty cents each (yes, $1.50). And, it gets worse, (how do you satirize this?) — that’s the cumulative total since the EU started trading in 2005.
(…!)
It’s not like we want to copy EU economic policies in the first place, but why take something that doesn’t work, and outdo it by 3000%?
Hello to the new global patsies!
‘The EU was aiming for a global scheme, but only Australia and New Zealand were daft enough to join them in their carbon follies — the rest of the world is backing out the exits. The Europeans get China to do their manufacturing and thus emit their carbon emissions for them, so they pay virtually nothing. But we are the land of coal-gas-iron and aluminium, we are emitting for the world. Is this the new cultural cringe in Australia?
The former democracy known as Australia…
The carbon tax will affect virtually every part of our national activity, and is one of the most sweeping economic transformations to hit the country ever (suicidal is the word). There are 18 pieces of legislation, and 1100 pages. (Insert manic laugh…). Yes, we-the-citizens have one Earthling week to “comment”. Bhahahha ha ha….ha….. (Go on. Laugh til you throw up. One week.)
(See the bottom of this post for the links. Please! Bring out your uber caffeine and read those docs.)
Is it possible that a strong modern democracy could decay so fast? Could a government run for an election, specifically promise not to do something, be barely elected, then do it, and worse, do it in such a way that even when the people finally get the chance to vote NO — it can’t be unwound without inordinately crushing costs?
On this economic transformation, there was no debate, not of the science, nor of the policy. And if news outlets, and even new media, are forced to hold a license, there may never be one. We need an election (and by next Tuesday). What are the odds?
In Henry Ergas words is a message we can’t ignore.
On The ConversationMatthew Bailes, Pro Vice Chancellor at Swinburne University of Technology, is feeling sympathetic towards those poor climate scientists who have to deal with daily criticism, but he doesn’t seem to know much about how climate science works. I’d like to help him out, but don’t think the Conversation team would let me add my comments into his article, so I’ve done that here, responding to Bailes:
“Imagine for a minute that, instead of discovering a diamond planet, we’d made a breakthrough in global temperature projections. Let’s say we studied computer models of the influence of excessive greenhouse gases, verified them through observations, then had them peer-reviewed and published in Science.”
Verified?”#$%^!! Sorry, what’s that? No one in the official world of climate science has mentioned “verification” since the mid 1990’s. Shhh. In climate science they verify the observations first: when they fit the models, then they know the equipment worked. 😉
“Instead of sitting back and basking in the glory, I suspect we’d find a lot of commentators, many with no scientific qualifications, pouring scorn on our findings.”
“People on the fringe of science would be quoted as opponents of our work, arguing that it was nothing more than a theory yet to be conclusively proven.”
“Conclusively proven?” This is the theory that has narrowed climate sensitivity all the way down to between 2.0 to 11.1 degrees C (none of which match the observations). Yes, I’d call that “conclusive”.
Ominously, the embryonic markers of solar cycle 25 are three years late and are nowhere to be seen. Scientists are asking if this could be the start of another Maunder-type Minimum. (The bummer with that, being that during those 70 quiet years the world slipped into the Little Ice Age; animals froze in barns, people starved, disease raged… see The brutal cold of the Maunder Minimum and the Great Irish Frost for some light entertainment.)
If it were going to happen, we ought to start preparing now, right? You know, take precautions, “buy insurance”, figure out if CO2 actually does any useful warming (and if so, pump more of it into our atmosphere). You know it makes sense…
Seriously, if the cold is coming, we really ought to pay attention. — Jo
————————————————————
From the press release today (June 14):
Major Drop in Solar Activity Predicted
“This is highly unusual and unexpected,” Dr. Frank Hill, associate director of the NSO’s Solar Synoptic Network, said of the results. “But the fact that three completely different views of the Sun point in the same direction is a powerful indicator that the sunspot cycle may be going into hibernation.”
Normally cycles begin with activity at 50 degrees (See 1999). New jet stream activity should have started in 2008 inside the circles.
Latitude-time plots of jet streams under the Sun’s surface show the surprising shutdown of the solar cycle mechanism. New jet streams typically form at about 50 degrees latitude (as in 1999 on this plot) and are associated with the following solar cycle 11 years later. New jet streams associated with a future 2018-2020 solar maximum were expected to form by 2008 but are not present even now, indicating a delayed or missing Cycle 25.
“We expected to see the start of the zonal flow for Cycle 25 by now,” Hill explained, “but we see no sign of it. This indicates that the start of Cycle 25 may be delayed to 2021 or 2022, or may not happen at all.”
No one from the big scare campaign is even pretending that this is about the science anymore. It’s just tribal name-calling, voo-doo dolls and poo jokes from preschool.
Al Gore hopes he has reality on his side. But the reality is the relentless slide of the polls. It’s the crashed Chicago Climate Exchange, the kaput green jobs. It’s the long list of countries who are are shaking themselves free of the eco-shackles. The apostles of a bygone cult are reduced to saying that warming causes cooling, death, disease and even prostitution in Ghana. The babbling last players standing are talking about saving the world from aliens. Sadly, those are not the nutters, no, they’re the ones from NASA.
The NASA crew worry that the aliens who have been blind to the last 60 years of I love Lucy beamed out to space, have instead been transfixed by a trace gas composition change from 0.028% to 0.039% on the third rock from the sun in a distant galaxy. I’m scared now, not of the aliens, but of our collapsing collective IQ. This is modern public debate (and from the team that got the man on the moon.)
Another big La Nina could mean another cold winter for the Northern USA, and another wet flooding summer with potentially nasty cyclones for Eastern Australia (and the rest of the Eastern Pacific nations). La Ninas even affect the Indian Monsoon Season. If only we could predict them accurately.
Frank Lansner on HideTheDecline has noticed that one set of models (NCEP/CFS) is predicting a large La Nina brewing, while most of the others are still forecasting “neutral” conditions. The NCEP/CFS models were more accurate last year. If they are right now, we could be in for a large La Nina. On the other hand, Australia’s Bureau of Met is predicting only that “La Nina remains possible in 2011”.
Guest Post: Frank Lansner
Another Large La Nina Imminent?
For months the NCEP/CFS has been predicting a stronger second La Nina dip. Prior to the last La Nina, the NCEP/CFS was much better at predicting the La Nina — and personally I feel confident with the NCEP/CFS Prediction. It does seem to suggest that a La Nina will be upon us in a very short while. If so, global cooling is likely to shift into a faster gear.
The death threats scare that was widely publicized in June 2011 turned out to be opportunistic hyperbole based on a five year old letter, one unverified remark at an event a year ago, and recycled old boorish emails. Yet the shameless propaganda machine continues to repeat the baseless claim without admitting that it was a transparent attempt to score sympathy points.
Why can they get away with it? Because media outlets like The Canberra Times won’t apologize for printing such vacuous unsubstantiated claims, and they won’t correct the record. And Catalyst (which soaked in the one-sided hyperbole with Science Under Seige last night) won’t do enough “investigation” to get the story straight.
The facts on the “death-threats”:
The only “death-threat letter” the ANU could name in June 2011 was five years old. (It was posted in 2006 or 2007.) Even that was not serious enough to officially report to the Australian Federal Police. (Issuing a death threat is a criminal act punishable with a 10 year sentence in the ACT.)
The other threat the ANU could “confirm” was a year old off-hand remark by an unknown person at a university function.
Other reports of threats were vague, without details, and are not being investigated by the Australian Federal Police.
When they had “quotes” they turned out to be just rude emails with lots of “f” words. Regrettable, unnecessary, but not death threats. (See: To a climate scientist, *swearing* equals a Death Threat (no wonder these guys can’t predict the weather.) The weak emails include things like: Just do your science or you will end up collateral damage in the war, GET IT,” and “If we see you continue, we will get extremely organised and precise against you,” reads another.
The “worst” rude emails they could find were shamelessly recycled from a year before. That says a lot about how frequently these type of emails are sent.
The security cards issued to climate scientists turned out to be a standard issue upgrade. Brice Bosnich reports that every member of the ANU Chemistry department got a new card.
The evidence confirms that those claiming “death-threats” are serial exaggerators, without evidence, seeking false sympathy to distract from their disintegrating scientific case.
“Respect the Science?”
After all this, Anna Maria Arabia — who heads up a scientific body FASTS (the Federation of Australian Scientific and Technological Societies) launched a “Respect the science” program. She strangely tried to set the tone by calling independent scientists insulting names, “deniers”, and repeating the vague, out-of-date and false claim that there were many death threats. Stooping to conspiracy theories without any evidence, she asserted that it was part of a “coordinated campaign”.
Let’s do what the government does, it works for them, it might work for us,
so I forgot my ethics and morals and swallowed my pride
We took out every credit card we could get and took out the maximum debt
You wouldn’t wish a wounded government on any nation. They’re too dangerous.
The timing could hardly be worse. We’re about to force our nation to spend far more on its energy than it has too, while our competitors are decidedly not doing that, and the world faces a economic meltdown of the “generational” type. We’re the last cab off the rank in a race to nowhere and most of the competitors have moved on to other events.
“Far from saving the worker, the ALP have become the unwitting schmucks who screwed the workers to help the banksters”.
The 15 minutes of fame or a face saving “legacy” will last only until the rest of Australia wakes up to just how monumentally stupid, utterly pointless, and expensive and ineffectual this tax is. And they are waking up. The rise of skepticism in the polls is a one way street, a monotonic increase. No one is shifting into the believer camp.
Only an idiot would think a tax can change the weather.
Far from making skeptics “give up”, the legislation will galvanize the activists, industry, and the disorganized grassroots campaign. There will be no let up, no escape from the relentless bad news as Australia becomes the last nation on Earth to fall headlong for the witchdoctor’s scare campaign.
The storms are coming. Pay us your tithe!
The growing ridicule and satirical jibes will eat ALP credibility for breakfast.
“DESTRUCTIVE hurricanes such as Katrina and Rita are likely to be more common … Tim Flannery warns.” “These hurricanes have been a catastrophe just waiting to happen.”
…
The IPCC concludes:
“Studies showed … future tropical cyclones would likely become more severe with greater wind speeds and more intense precipitation.” AR4 10.3.6.3 Tropical Cyclones (Hurricanes) pp786
…
Wow, that’s scary! Let’s look at the studies:
“These studies fall into two categories: those with model grid resolutions that only roughly represent some aspects of individual tropical cyclones, and those with model grids of sufficient resolution to reasonably simulate individual tropical cyclones.”
Oh? That’s models, or er… other models?
But where are the observations?
CO2 levels have risen to the highest level in a million years, presumably Hurricanes, Tornadoes and Cyclones are at all time highs, stronger and nastier than we’ve ever seen.
Records of actual tropical storms or proxies for storms show:
Global energy levels haven’t changed since records of that sort of thing began.
Global frequencies haven’t changed either.
Neither Australian or US extreme storms are becoming more common
US Tornadoes are not getting worse either.
Long term studies show it’s not about CO2, and not much about temperature, but more about La Ninas and El Ninos.
…
Globally tropical storms show no correlation with our CO2 emissions. Their global energy levels are no different to what they were 40 years ago.
Last 4-decades of Global and Northern Hemisphere Accumulated Cyclone Energy: 24 month running sums through August 31, 2011. Note that the year indicated represents the value of ACE through the previous 24-months for the Northern Hemisphere (bottom line/gray boxes) and the entire global (top line/blue boxes). The area in between represents the Southern Hemisphere total ACE. Ryan Maue
Tony Abbott’s record lead over Julia Gillard: Newspoll
After a devastating decision in the High Court last week wiped out the Prime Minister’s Malaysia Solution for asylum-seekers, Labor’s primary vote has stuck at a record low of 27 per cent.
The Coalition’s has risen to 50 per cent – the highest since John Howard was prime minister at the time of the September 11, 2001, terror attacks.
An editor has resigned after committing the dastardliest of crimes: He helped publish a skeptical paper in a peer-reviewed journal. God-forbid, imagine a paper being reviewed only by people who have some sympathies with your results? It’s unthinkable. We all know that Nature and Science, for example, dutifully send all the papers by alarmists to at least one skeptical reviewer, and since 97% of 77 climate scientists are alarmists, that means the other two scientists who aren’t, are very busy people. (75 of 77 climate scientists “agree” that the world is going to hell because of CO2). And who knows where they found that third skeptic?
Naturally, lots of journal editors have resigned when they’ve realized that, accidentally, they’ve only sent alarmist papers to alarmist reviewers.
As if we needed reminding about how bizarre, unbalanced, and unscientific is the creed of climate. Normally, if egregious mistakes are found, a paper would be retracted. If “normal” mistakes are found, those who found them could publish something called a “reply”. This resignation appears to be a first. Wagner chucked his job without even so much as phoning Spencer or Braswell, which makes you wonder if it was all a bit convenient.
To the editors who are thinking of resigning from peer-reviewed journals, or finishing up as presidents of Science Associations, or winding up their position at a government funded institution, instead of just resigning, why not go out with a bang? You too, could quit, and leave a blockbuster-press-release-for-the-cause, pretending that (insert spurious reason) provoked you into going.
See, it’s really handy — Roy Spencer and William Braswell have a paper out there that’s peer reviewed, but very difficult to answer, Wolfgang Wagner has provided the perfect reply: That paper was so bad that the editor of the journal quit because it was published. See, no one needs to discuss the evidence in it now; they can just pour scorn, and talk about the editor resigning, case closed, it’s obviously a crap paper you know. Brilliant!
*Me. Of course, I’ve got no evidence, or even a hint that Mr Wagner was thinking of resigning anyway, but if he wasn’t and he really did resign over this, it’s all the more pathetic — like a cult victim sacrifice. In which case we ought be feeling sorry for poor old Wagner, who has been got too, excommunicated from his peer group for accidentally letting through an evil paper.
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