ABC comedy, the jokes on you — Here’s to a holiday on stained mattresses in the back yard

Thank the ABC. This is the best comedy I’ve seen them do on “climate change” — albeit unwittingly. The ABC has a new comedy show on Wednesday nights called RoadMap to Paradise.

This is Big-Government Comedy. You’ll swear this was made by a skeptic. No really.

Unconvinced that ‘feel good’ environmentalism is making any real impact @mrcoreywhite sets out to come up with a fresh solution. Could incentivising greed and laziness for a good cause be just what this country needs? #RoadmapToParadise tonight at 9.35pm. pic.twitter.com/JJUqU4lblp

— ABC TV Australia (@ABCTV) June 20, 2018

Is he a skeptic infiltrator? Nooo. The same episode includes an interview with a CSIRO scientist, Kathleen McInnes, who drops in to tell us things are “pretty bad”. And one of Corey White’s big ideas is to treat Elon Musk’s business like a tax deductible religion. I don’t think he sees the funny side of that either.

What was he thinking?

It’s tough being a comedian.

I’m guessing Cory White wanted to expose the futility of individual voluntary action to change the planet’s climate, with the bigger aim of convincing the audience that only Big-Government regulation can save us!

Sadly for him, Big-government action […]

Let us choose: If the public really thinks ABC is “priceless” they will be happy to pay for it

Australia’s public broadcaster is under public fire. It’s about time.

The rank and file of the Liberal Party voted to sell it off which sparked off a national debate about the value of subsidizing the largest media outlet in the country in an era when the average Australian can broadcast their opinion for free from their own phone. We don’t need a government funded voice, we just need free speech.

Fighting back, the ABC head says Australians think the “ABC is priceless”, so I say: Fine — let those people pay for it.

I’m Pro-Choice on the ABC. Let the people choose which media outlets they want to contribute to. Since the ABC costs $1.1b that’s about $50 per person per annum or $200 per household of four (assuming everyone pays, which they won’t). I say, launch the IPO, sell the shares, or at least, give us the tick-a-box option on our tax return. Make it voluntary.

Stop the forced payments for Big-Government-lovin’ propaganda

We could spell out the actual cost on the tax returns, and ask who wants to pay…

In a democracy this could be done for lots of items — want to send your tax dollars […]

One third of Australia wants public ABC spending cut. That’s 14 cents a day but Not Worth It

New essential poll today shows 35% of respondents support cutting spending on the ABC.

The ABC once had a hallowed status, but those days are over. One in three Australians are not enthused with non-stop naked Green-Labor advertising combined with derision and scorn for the deplorable half of the population.

We pay 14 cents a day for the ABC and it’s not worth it.

ABC ratings plummet 13% in the last year

Showing that this survey is not an abberation, the whole nation is voting with the remote control:

Last week ABC News attracted about 660,000 viewers in the mainland capital cities. This compares with about 760,000 viewers a year ago.

That’s a trend line headed for zero by 2025.

Most Australians don’t watch the prime time 7pm news service they are forced to pay for. Apparently the ABC is a subsidy package for poor inner city elites who can afford to live in Darlinghurst but not to pay for their own news service.

The ABC rescue plan is a workshop on telling stories

The ABC solution yesterday is to get better at “storytelling”. It does not include employing a second conservative or libertarian commentator (one, […]

The witchdoctors at work: ABC FourCorners parades four farmers and a fireman who “believe” in climate change

Four Corners has become TwoCorners — it represents both sides of politics — Green And Left

Brissenden has done no research, interviewed no critics, and asked no hard questions. When it comes to serving the Australian people, protecting them, and holding our government to account, he’s AWOL — promoting his own pet interests instead, hiding the scandals and critics. What do we pay him for?

The iconic show on the ABC won’t interview skeptics that walked on the moon or won Nobel and NASA prizes, but if a cherry farmer feels the climate is changing, send in the film squad!

After years of telling skeptics that you don’t ask a plumber to do heart surgery, the ABC “Weather Alert! last Monday was 90% plumbers.

The formerly iconic FourCorners “public affairs” show crafted a 43 minute advertisement for the Renewables Industry and Carbon Trading Bankers and the Green Blob. And we taxpayers paid for it all. As usual, most of their facts were correct, but only because they barely had any. The facts apparently are that at least four farmers across Australia have the feeling that their climate has changed and are “doing something”. Yeah. Plus a whole bunch of […]

Madness and misinformation in renewables-land: South Australia brags they didn’t have to “load shed”

Hope foreign readers are enjoying the spectacle of a first world nation destroying its competitive advantage with renewables. Hope that helps you avoid the same fate.

Praise the lord, states without coal don’t have to load-shed-industry (because they don’t have much left):

The South Australian Treasurer is bragging that SA didn’t have to shed any industry load on Friday, but the coal state of Victoria did. Pull the other one:

“In terms of supply we should be okay,” he [the SA Treasurer] said.

“Victoria I understand is about to load shed industry. So they’re not coping with the power supply.

“They are a coal-dependent state and they are having to take industry offline to support their households. In South Australia we’re not having to do that today.” — h/t A H

The Treasurer didn’t mention that SA shed the load already over the last two years by driving heavy manufacturers out of business, and out of the state. Let’s name some:

Gone from the SA power load: Mitsubishi, GMH, Plastics Granulating Services (Recyclers), Caroma (76 jobs) after 79 years in business, Penrice, Arnotts biscuits (120 jobs), Aldinga Turkeys (79), ACI Glass (60 […]

Forget Megawatts, ABC invents new unit of power — “size of Tasmania”

Outback couple build solar farm to prove fringe-of-grid power generation needs

Building a $14 million solar farm is an expensive way to send a message about electricity prices, but Doug and Lyn Scouller said they were left with few options.

In Normanton, 500 kilometres north of Mount Isa in north-west Queensland, the Scoullers built a solar farm big enough to power an area almost twice the size of Tasmania, in a move to prove to stakeholders the benefit of positioning power generation sites at the end of the grid.

In old fashioned terms, the “farm” produces five-megawatts. But yesterday, Tasmania didn’t use 5MW it used 1,072 MegaWatts. So this solar farm would have supplied 0.2% of the houses and businesses on an area “twice the size of Tasmania”. The only Tasmania-sized-areas that would be functioning on 5MW are in the empty desert or the Great Southern Ocean.

And we wonder why some Australians think solar power is a no brainer. If this little farm can supply 120,000 km2, we just need another 60 like it, and we could do the whole continent!

ABC journalists are not good with numbers. If only they had a billion dollars […]

ABC renewables fantasy island “farewells diesel” (except for 40% of its power)

Flinders Island is in the Bass Strait North of Tasmania.

If there is a heaven for renewables, this island should be it. But instead, even on Flinders Island, renewables aren’t cheaper than diesel generators. This is a dismal reality, yet the ABC promotes it as a fantasy poster-isle, interviewing only vested or “no idea” people, asking no critical questions, doing no counter research and telling us renewables will be “more reliable” and implying they are cheaper too. The ABC is a three-million-dollar-a-day advertising outlet for other government agencies. Instead of serving Australians it appears to be there to help shake down the taxpayer.

ABC renewables hype strikes again: Rhiannon Shine reports Flinders Island as a showcase of the brave new renewables world. Let’s translate that spin and see just how pathetic it is. If anywhere was going to be totally renewable, Flinders Island would be it — a first world island, tiny population, massive subsidies, no access to cheap coal or gas power, government support at every level and placed in a handy wind stream known as “the Roaring Forties”. Yeah! This is one of the last places in the first world (short of Antarctic stations) where renewables […]

ABC: Let’s pretend base load power doesn’t exist, call it a dinosaur. Who’s in denial?

The new phrase that must be neutered is “base load”. It’s like kryptonite for renewables!

Nick Kilvert at the ABC helpfully provides a no-hard-questions mouthpiece and tells us Base load power is the dinosaur in the energy debate.

To serve the Australian taxpayer he quotes a Professor Vassallo, Chair of Sustainable Energy Development (USyd), and CSIRO Energy Director Dr Glenn Platt. Just in case they weren’t green and biased enough he also interviewed Professor Blakers, director of the ANU Centre for Sustainable Energy Systems. Finally he turns to Dr Mark Diesendorf, who is apparently just some guy at UNSW with a team of modelers. (Kilvert doesn’t give us his title, but a two second search suggests he works at the “Centre for Energy and Environmental Markets“. Perhaps it was an oversight, or maybe Kilvert was feeling guilty that every single person he quoted has a career in sustainable energy). Glenn Platt — by the way, is not just “Energy Director” but is described at The Conversation as leading the Energy Transformed Flagship research centre at CSIRO. So that’s four green academics, no one from the coal industry, no skeptics, no other engineers, and no one involved in managing a grid.

[…]

Alan Kohler dreams of banning combustion engines in cars in Australia

You have to hand it to The Australian – they will publish both sides. Take this (please, take it): “Our energy policy still stuck in coal country”. This is Alan Kohler, bless him, who doesn’t get it and dreams of a nation of motor-heads “going electric”. But, wow, ouch, watch how he reasons it out… not with numbers and graphs (he’s the numbers man on the nightly finance report) but with pop psychology?

The idea of an Australian government banning petrol and diesel cars to promote public health seems especially remote right now: we can’t keep the lights on as it is, having closed a few fossil fuel power stations.

But you can bet that the Coalition government and its media supporters will argue that the electrification of transport makes it even more necessary for there to be more “baseload power” from coal-fired power stations — how could we possibly charge millions of cars, and run millions of airconditioners and fridges if we let Liddell close in 2022?

And you can fix that Mr Kohler, how?

Wait for it…

This is the underlying reality of Australia’s energy debate: a majority of the government does […]

UPDATE: Malcolm Roberts, One Nation replies the two-stroke mower *change* is about real pollution, not CO2

Thanks to Malcolm Roberts for contacting me tonight with more information. CLARIFICATION: It’s not a complete ban on two-strokes, but a change to increase standards on motors. (It appears it will reduce real pollution, and the legislation also claims it will reduce CO2, though no CO2 limits are mandated as far as I can tell. It will stop the sales of most conventional two-stroke outboards and mowers, but not “direct injection” outboards. Gory details below)*

From Malcolm Roberts:

Re: Genius Plan to ban two-stroke motors

Please note that Soichiro Honda himself banned his company from making 2-stroke outboard motors in the 1970’s after he visited Lake Tahoe and was shocked to see oil film on its waters. That pollution was produced by 2-stroke outboard motors.

He had the courage to do the right thing so despite the inherently higher weight and lower power of 4-stroke motors at the time. He put the real environment ahead of profits and as a result the new path led Honda to designing and building superior motors.

9.5 out of 10 based on 55 ratings […]

Antarctic scientists may find climate Holy Grail, ice with magic 7 digit age

ABC news tells us intrepid researchers are in a race for the sacred key. The news is a sexed up advert for climate funding done in the theme of Raiders of the Lost Ice:

“It’s the “holy grail of climate science”, a piece of ice so old that it might be able to reveal the climate of the past and help predict the future of Earth’s atmosphere.

And Australia’s Antarctic scientists are now part of an international race to find the ancient time capsule.

So, what is it?

Somewhere deep below the surface of Antarctica, ice has laid untouched for a million years or more — it’s believed to be the world’s oldest ice“

I don’t know why scientists think the million year mark is so holy, they’ve pretty much ignored the message in the first 800,000 years. They hunted and drilled but the telex from prehistory kept saying temperature controls CO2, not the other way around.

Either CO2 followed the temp, or CO2 stayed high, but temp did its own thing. (See the spot from circa 130,000BC, for about 15,000 years? CO2 was at “record highs” unseen for 120,000 years, but that didn’t […]

Brian Cox thinks 17,000 employees at NASA always produce perfect graphs. NASA employees disagree. Who to believe?

The key moment making headlines from the Q&A “Science Weak” episode — Brian Cox shows a temperature graph. Malcolm Roberts said the GISS temperature data has been “manipulated”. The Particle Physics Genius’ reply was argument from incredulity: gushing, gratuitous astonishment spread over six attempts to form a complete sentence:

By who? NASA? The people the… Hang on a minute. No, no, see this is quite serious. But can I just – just one thing. NASA, NASA… The people that landed men on the moon?

In a blink of reductio ad absurbum, Cox sweeps aside a potentially useful discussion about thermometers near car-parks, airports, skyscrapers, and mysterious 1,200 km homogenized smoothing. In its place he gives cheap theatrical tricks. Follow his thought to its logical conclusion — everything that NASA does (or presumably will ever do) must be 100% correct. NASA becomes an apostle of the holy order. He treats the brand name as untouchable, but NASA is not just Neil Armstrong and a Big Step, it’s an agency with 17,000 employees. But hey, none of them have ever produced a manipulated graph.

Since experts matter (so Cox tells us) let’s ask the experts — like say, Buzz Aldrin, […]

Malcolm Roberts on Q & A : 1 skeptic against 6 who believe the consensus

On the Eastern side of the country the new skeptical Senator, Malcolm Roberts is on Q & A.

Monday, 15 August 2016

Greg Hunt – Minister for Industry, Innovation & Science Linda Burney – Shadow Minister for Human Services Brian Cox – Particle Physicist and TV Presenter Lily Serna – Mathematician and TV Presenter Malcolm Roberts – One Nation Senator-elect for Qld

As usual it is 6 against 1 the skeptical views that 54% of Australians share. Glaciers will form in hell before the ratio on the ABC would run 1:6 the other way. For Groupthinkers it’s very important that the group discussing a “controversial” topic agrees with each other. This neutralizes any damaging effects of hearing a lone voice put forward counter arguments.

John Cook has sent in a Question about empirical evidence.

Cook points at “less heat escaping to space” – Jo says –this doesn’t mean anything. We assume he means less heat escapes at certain frequencies (which he should have said). Sections of the outgoing spectrum are missing (e.g. Harries et al), which shows that CO2 is stopping some outgoing radiation and is a greenhouse gas (and we knew that already), […]

ABC reports pushy brain-snap from greenie activists to rename “Eggs and Bacon Bay”

Eggs and Bacon Bay, Tasmania

Their billion-dollar-ABC reports every irrelevant thought bubble a greenie group can dream up:

“PETA launches bid to change Eggs and Bacon Bay to healthy alternative”

The ABC can’t find a single local who wants the change, but they treat the fantasy to a three-photo feature, complete with expert opinions and interviews. The locals think the idea is a bad joke. Listen to Doug:

…Doug said locals were perfectly happy with the name.

“These single-interest groups ought to go overseas and annoy the shit out of ISIS,” he said.

The only person outside the ABC who thinks this issue is worth discussing is some poor chicken mayor who is happy to sell out the locals for fear of offending the busybody control-freaks:

Huon Valley Mayor Peter Coad is willing to consider the idea.

“Obviously these issues should be taken seriously and have some merit,” he said.

Dear Mayor Coad, PETA are demanding a meat-free map. You think this is serious?

One type of Eggs And Bacon Flower.

The town, by the way, is named after a flower. That’ll be next on the hit list, and before […]

ABC investigates grammar entrails of Malcolm Roberts

Malcolm Roberts, Lateline, ABC

This is what we pay the ABC a billion dollars for, so they can investigate the really big questions we were all asking, like why Malcolm Roberts used such odd grammar five years ago, and is he connected with other groups that use odd grammar?

One Nation senator Malcolm Roberts denies links to Sovereign Citizens movement

Yes, I’ve never heard of them either.

The big breakthrough was that Malcolm Roberts wrote some letters five years ago with highly suspicious grammar:

The senator has been quizzed about his knowledge of the Sovereign Citizens movement because of the existence of documents he began writing five years ago in a style similar to that used by the group’s adherents.

The crime:

Among the documents’ distinctive characteristics was an unusual style of punctuation.

593,000 people voted for One Nation, but the ABC wants to ask about semi-colons.

Similar stylisation of names is often employed by those within the Sovereign Citizen movement, in the belief that hyphens and colons can help them evade governments’ use of grammar to enslave their citizens.

And it takes three people write up about some tenuous […]

ABC national tribute to vegan lecturer climber who died on Everest

Who are the national heroes according to the ABC?

Last night we saw two full indulgent minutes on our ABC national news broadcast (from 12:25 mins) on the death of the unfortunate Maria Strydom, as she tried to descend Mt Everest. My issue is not with her, but with the ABC choice of national priorities. The 34 year old climber ticked all the PC boxes, a vegan academic in pursuit of better holidays. The ABC lost one of their tribe. But where are the accolades for the 50 people have died already this year doing their jobs in Australia, like the farmers and miners who die supporting their families?

The effusive coverage did not mention the phrase “unnecessary risk”. It was just a straight out tragedy. (A very first world kind of one).

There was an unbridled virtue message about hallowed university experts:

“…intellectually, reaching a PhD by age 30 — massive achievement”

“…celebrate the life of people like Maria — who actually did what she loved”

ABC narrator James Hancock revealingly sums it up: “…risking their lives in pursuit of the ultimate goal”

Because in ABC-world, “the ultimate goal” is adventure for self-gratification?

The news […]

Climate change causes hybrid Grolar bears? ABC cites facebook pic, no data, scientists guess

Does “climate change” cause more polar bears to chat up the grizzly girls producing Grolar Bear babies? Maybe…

The Headline: “Grolar bears: Climate change could be behind grizzly-polar bear hybrid, scientists say”

The evidence:

Chris Servheen, a bear biologist and Adjunct Associate Research Professor at the University of Montana, said sightings of this hybrid bear species have been very rare in the past.

“But they seem to be more common now,” he said.

Mr Servheen said not very much was known about the grolar and pizzly bears, as little contact had yet to be made between them and humans.

The recent photo of what many suspect to be one of the hybrid bears was posted on Facebook…

That’ll be one data point confirmed then?

Mr Servheen said it was hard to know how many of the bears existed.

In 2006 a bear shot by hunters in the Arctic was tested and confirmed as a polar-grizzly hybrid.

So if a scientist reported that thermometers “seem” to be more near airport tarmacs than they were in 1910, with a photo of an unconfirmed one on facebook, would that be worth […]

ABC attacks philanthropist for old skeptical email. UPDATE Is it a sackable offence?!

UPDATE: A new ABC version of this story asks if it is a sackable offence for an energy company chairman to send an email praising The Skeptics Handbook years in the past before he was appointed? NSW Labor thinks so.

Click to download the PDF

The NSW Labor spokesman for Energy, Adam Searle, has described Mr Massy-Greene’s stance as “disturbing” and is calling for him to clarify his views or resign.

“If he is a climate change skeptic then his position as chair of publicly owned electricity businesses is untenable”, says Mr Searle.

“If Mr Massy-Green won’t resign, the Baird Government, which appointed him, needs to sack him.”

Amazing. Just to have ever sent an email praising the skeptics handbook years before he was appointed.

Are you now, or have you ever been a skeptic?

__________________

Streisand Effect coming

Nearly 7 years ago Roger Massy-Greene sent an email around to around 200 VIP’s with a link to the Skeptics Handbook saying “the best piece I have seen on global warming, and helps to explain what has so far been a very confusing debate.” Mr Massy-Greene later became chairman of […]

Hot magma is melting Greenland ice – can windfarms save it?

Here on the ball of magma called Earth, there’s a hot plume of rocks under Iceland that stretches right across under Greenland. Those hot rocks are melting the ice from below in a band 1,200 km long and 400 km wide.[1]

I don’t think solar panels are going to stop Greenland melting.

The main part of the plume has been progressing eastward over the last 120 million years, right under Greenland and now lies under Iceland.

Will the media take a million years to catch on?

Presumably, being world class journalists, from now on all ABC/BBC/CBC stories will not mention melting Greenland ice-sheets without also noting that geothermal heat may be causing it instead of your long hot showers.

But a similar study published in Nature Geoscience 3 years ago was the forerunner to this one with similar conclusions and the mainstream media don’t seem to have noticed yet.[2] No mention of magma, tectonics and hot rocks here: ABC — Antarctica’s melting ice alone could lift sea levels one metre by 2100, March 31st, 2016. Or here: ABC — Global warming melts last stable edge of Greenland’s Zachariae ice stream, March 17th, 2014. Or on the BBC – […]

ABC news is bread and circuses agitprop, nothing to see on matters of national importance

UPDATE: For those who can’t see the ABC footage we have a copy at dropbox, thanks to Panda.

UPDATE #2: This episode has now been pulled from the ABC website 13 days early. The ABC, with its billion dollar budget, has a website to show all its programs for 14 days after they run. But for no stated reason this one has been deleted after just one day. Did the ABC not like us discussing it? (H/t to Panda). Thank goodness we have a copy. [Screencap of current ABC page here.]

h/t to Peter Q. Thanks to Andrew M as well.

Dennis Jensen has a lot to say on matters of national importance, but the ABC doesn’t ask him very often about those.

Tonight Dr Dennis Jensen was just the “Climate denier” target who had stepped over the line on another topic — breaking a sacred taboo. He might lose pre-selection. He might be out of a job. The ABC seem to think we care about the party political machinations more than the suffering of Australian citizens, which Jensen had been trying to get us to discuss. Instead the ABC went into great details of […]