Gina Rinehart, Australia’s wealthiest business leader opposes the carbon tax and asks “Where are the other leaders?”
What’s unseen are the hundreds of business leaders particularly in the top 100, especially the BCA, who say nothing. The only businesses that want an Australian Carbon Tax are the renewable energy brands and, of course, the companies who won’t have to pay it (i.e. our foreign competitors). Plenty of Chinese, Indian and Brazilian companies would surely give a schadenfreude-smile at seeing their Australian competitors hobbled.
Few Australian business leaders are brave enough to say the bleeding obvious, and I’ve mentioned before that many fear retribution. Gina Rinehart has published an article in Australian Resources and Investment this month (see below) daring them to speak up: where are Australia’s business leaders?
Bianca and Gina Rinehart with Lang Hancock in the 1980's.
Rinehart’s position in Australia is a curious one: in 2011 she is clearly top of the rich-list, and is the first woman ever to hold that position. Her father, Lang Hancock, opened the Pilbara but died in 1992 with his estate owing large sums and close to bankruptcy. Rinehart turned those projects around and became the most successful entrepreneur in the country when her wealth tripled to 9 billion dollars in the last year. But far from being the darling of the feminist cohort, nearly twenty years after Hancock died, she is dismissively labeled by many in the mainstream media as a “mining heiress” as if she just got lucky. Do we hear James Packer described as just a “media heir”? Not so. Yet the Sydney Morning Herald improbably told Rinehart that she needs to denounce her late father if they are to believe she’s made it on her own. No one is asking James Packer to speak ill of his dad, and yet the green-feminists don’t seem too concerned about the incongruity. If Packer tops the “richest person in Australia” 20 years after his father died, will anyone be suggesting he didn’t deserve it?
The feminist hierarchy in Australia were thrilled when Julia Gillard was appointed as Australia’s first female PM, and when Quentin Bryce was appointed the first Governor General. Right now, we’ve got the female golden trifecta downunder — PM, GG, and richest person. But one arm of the trio is summarily dismissed. And while there are many women in politics, there are few at the top end of business — with just 15 women in the top 200. Being a female success, it turns out, is not what matters to a feminist. Their heroes have to hold the “right” opinions too, not think for themselves. — JN
Reprinted with permission from this month’s Australian Resources and Investment magazine.
Australian business leaders – where are you?
By Gina Rinehart
When is the last time you had discussions with a 27-year-old and thought ‘this person should be leading the Business Council of Australia?’
On a wonderful weekend overseas recently, I met one such 27-year-old who graduated from one of the US’s best schools, and then went on to graduate from a leading US business university. After working in Asia and Europe, he now heads important power generation projects in his own country, recognising that energy security will be one of the key needs of this century.
And what was I told by this young gentleman? That Australia, with its great resources, should also be a country of entrepreneurs, developing our resources for the benefit of our people and its adjacent neighbours. I was further told that what Australia needs is a reduction in taxation levels, so that better incentives are created for Australians to encourage them to take risks, work hard, plan, persist and strive to do better, and that we should also reduce approvals, permits and license processes.
Yet what is Australia doing? Not only maintaining its taxes, but bringing in two more very messy taxes – MRRT and carbon tax – which will seriously undermine Australia’s competitiveness and increase our costs across the board. The 27-year-old was perplexed by this! And that is an understatement. He spoke more sense over a weekend than we usually hear from our top 100 companies forum, the Business Council of Australia. Why do we need to hear this from overseas when our own business executives should be making these recommendations?
Some mainstream media like to attack me because I speak out against a carbon tax. It’s a pity more business executives don’t speak out, because really this proposal should have been dropped long ago. Let me say how very proud I am of my fellow Australians, who, in recent polls, are voting in the majority against a carbon tax. We are showing we can think for ourselves, and are not swayed by the global warming fear campaign.
“don’t forget the words of President Hoover, ‘Blessed are the young, for they shall inherit the national debt.’”
Remember when mainstream media was running frightening commentary about carbon-induced global warming? We read and heard about how the oceans would rise, flooding our homes, and how, over years, we’d all be scorched due to the increasing heat. Have you noticed that we don’t hear much any more about global warming? The theme has now changed to carbon dioxide-induced ‘climate change’.
Let’s consider climate change – the world has constantly changed climate and will continue to do so. Even before human civilisation, the world went through ice ages and periods of global warming. There will always be changes that effect our climate, even if we close down all thermal coal-fired power stations, steel mills and other manufacturing operations, putting employees out of work and drastically changing our way of life. Furthermore, there will always be geothermal activity like volcanoes that spew out heat and ash, and this activity does affect the climate.
I am yet to hear scientific evidence to satisfy me that if the very, very small amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere (approximately .038 per cent) was increased, it could lead to significant global warming. I have never met a geologist or leading scientist who believes that adding more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere will have any significant effect on climate change, especially not from a relatively small country like Australia. I have however had the benefit of listening to leading scientists and reading information from them.
How would a carbon tax or MRRT on thermal coal (used for most of Australia’s electricity generation) economically impact Australians? Electricity costs would go up, for a start. Almost every item that you can think of requires electricity at one stage or another in its production, storage or distribution. It is not just the rich mining companies that would be affected, but every man, woman and child in Australia, not to mention blue collar workers whose jobs in steel mills, power stations and manufacturing facilities would suffer or disappear.
The sooner we can, as a majority, let our politicians know that Australians are fed up with wasting taxpayers’ money and do not want a carbon tax or MRRT on thermal coal (at least), the better.
Let’s take a quick look at some estimates from third party sources – which our government is not telling us:
If imposed at a rate of $26 per tonne the carbon tax will cost:
- 126,000 jobs in regional Australia (according to Access Economics);
- 10,000 jobs and 16 coal mines (according to ACIL economic consultancy);
- 24,000 jobs in other areas of mining (according to Concept Economics); and
- 45,000 jobs in other energy-intensive industries (according to Frontier Economics).
And that is just for starters.
And what for? It won’t stop China and India from continuing to emit carbon dioxide on their own account. These nations understand that you cannot raise a population’s standard of living without also increasing energy consumption.
Let’s quote the Leader of the Opposition, the Hon Tony Abbott, in a March 2011 speech in Perth:
‘Since December 2007 electricity prices have gone up 44 per cent. Water has gone up 46 per cent. Gas has gone up 28 per cent. Health costs have gone up 15 per cent. Education costs have gone up 17 per cent. Bread has gone up 12 per cent. Grocery has gone up 10 per cent. Rent has gone up 19 per cent, and much more in places like Western Australia. If you’ve got a typical mortgage, it’s costing you $500 a month more. The last thing you want is a government which is going to make a difficult situation worse with unnecessary new taxes and that’s why I am so implacably opposed to the carbon tax. That’s why I’m so implacably opposed to the mining tax.’
Money is being wasted left and centre on the carbon tax, yours and my money; taxpayers’ money. A grand new unnecessary building in Canberra, endless trips overseas, salaries and other perks for too many on the carbon tax gravy train, and so on, are all at the taxpayer’s expense.
It is not just the rich mining companies that would be affected, but every man, woman and child in Australia, not to mention blue collar workers whose jobs in steel mills, power stations and manufacturing facilities would suffer or disappear.
Do we really want more taxes, so that we can all be ‘compensated’ for our losses due to carbon tax and/or MRRT on thermal coal? How many bureaucrats would be required for such nonsense? And who’s going to pay for all the lost jobs? Taxpayers. Families and industries need to be told that carbon tax and the MRRT (on thermal coal at least) have been abandoned, so that we can all stop worrying about this issue, get on with our productive lives, and stop adding this burden to our increasing national debt.
But to get to this position we must bother to turn up at the ‘No Carbon Tax’ and ‘No MRRT’ rallies, email our politicians, write to our media industry, take part in talk-back radio and support organisations and people with the guts to stand up on these important issues. We can’t wait any longer for Australia’s business ‘leaders’ to finally stand up on this issue! If we don’t stand up, we run the great risk of seeing the consequences of such non-action in Australia, and I sincerely hope we don’t. The sooner the carbon tax and MRRT are gone the sooner we stop wasting time and money on these endeavours, and the easier it will be to raise finance for investment in Australia.
What I would like to see in Australia is steps being taken towards becoming an increasingly prosperous country that we can be proud of, with rising standards of living. We should become a country that the best in the world want to immigrate to, bringing their experience, expertise and funds as well. We must become a country setting aside enough to be able to care for its increasingly elderly population, to look after those who defend our country, and to defend our country against internal crime, war and terrorism.
We cannot forget that, with our population of elderly citizens rapidly increasing, the working proportion of our population is shrinking. Just look at our public hospitals. Are they being prepared for this? No, they are already inadequate. Just look at our elderly citizens’ homes – are they being prepared for this? No, they are also already inadequate. What about pensions for elderly citizens? No, they are inadequate too. How will we be able to afford more?
This country can afford more if it prepares itself now by casting off messy taxes like the MRRT and carbon tax, and slashing time- and money-wasting approvals, permits and licenses to free up resources and enable greater revenue. In addition it is important we do not prevent or delay guest labour from working in hot and remote areas of the country where Australians are often reluctant to work. Guest labour for pre-construction and construction is essential, particularly in remote areas.
“Think of our own children. Let’s not continue to add to Australia’s national debt and burden them, but change our actions and policies now… “
Adequate guest labour on a non-permanent basis would not only provide needed assistance in Australia, but would also provide necessary assistance to people desperate for work in Asia and India. For those against short term guest labour for preconstruction and construction please consider that if we are able to get industries and infrastructure built utilising guest labour for such construction, we then have those industries and infrastructure in Australia for decades to come and enabling jobs for Australians for the long term.
I would also urge everyone to consider our friends in need who have been devastated by the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. Why not let our friends from Japan work in Australia for a year or two on a temporary guest labour basis? Japanese people are largely highly-skilled and well-educated, and Australia could offer them temporary homes and work in their time of need. As we sit in warm Australia, we tend to forget how cold it can get in northern Japan, especially for those without electricity or even homes.
Think of our own children. Let’s not continue to add to Australia’s national debt and burden them, but change our actions and policies now to build a more prosperous Australia. Think of the outlook of that very intelligent 27-year-old, and don’t forget the words of President Hoover, ‘Blessed are the young, for they shall inherit the national debt.’
If you are interested in the ideas outlined in this article, please visit ANDEV’s
(Australians for Northern Development and Economic Vision) website.
New members who share ANDEV’s vision are very welcome.
Where are we? About to begin the fight of our lives-
http://www.businessspectator.com.au/bs.nsf/Article/Budget-government-tax-Swan-Gillard-deficit-surplus-pd20110510-GQBHY?OpenDocument&src=kgbse
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We let the camel get his nose into the tent when we first allowed government to regulate private voluntary association and cooperation to protect something we felt “more important”. As with a camel, once the nose is in, government moves in to fill the private space and consumes all that is produced. It turns out that the freedom to form voluntary associations and have private cooperation toward common ends is just about the most important thing there is. Without that being possible, what is left is not worth having.
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Hey Joanne!
Great news, (don’t know if you’ve heard but here’s reputable peer reviewed proof the sun was responsible for the vast majority of warming…Already up at the University of Cornell and Harvard’s Smithsonian/NASA sites.
The paper finds that the Total Solar Irradiance (TSI) has increased since the end of the Little Ice Age (around 1850) by up to 6 times more than assumed by the IPCC. Thus, much of the global warming observed since 1850 may instead be attributable to the Sun (called “solar forcing”), rather than man-made CO2 as assumed by the IPCC.
http://www.aanda.org/index.php?option=com_article&access=standard&Itemid=129&url=%2Farticles%2Faa%2Fabs%2F2011%2F05%2Faa16173-10%2Faa16173-10.html
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Observa @ 1 This is also happening in the USA. Illinois has created the most burdensome tax environment for hiring contractors: The Illinois Employee Classification Act which brings with it very harsh civil and even criminal penalties to the owner of a business that errs when hiring contractors.
http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/publicacts/fulltext.asp?Name=095-0026
some Q&A here:
http://www.w-p.com/CM/Articles/The-New-Illinois-Independent-Contractor-Law.asp
Excerpt:
Elements of this are also being seen in Wisconsin and Minnesota. It would appear that the forces of evil work around the globe at the same time and with the same effect. (but it’s not a conspiracy…..)
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Sometimes I punish myself, or perhaps it is more for amusement that I do it, and go to visit the echo chamber that is Real Climate. It may interest you to know that they have now stooped so low as to promote that nonsense (or is that nonscience?) book by Cook of SkepticalScience infamy:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2011/05/handbook-in-denialism/
I think the post sets new records for use of of the words denier, denial and denialist… assuming anyone is keeping such records. I am just glad I haven’t eaten breakfast yet, because this stuff is quite unsettling for the bowels.
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Rudd said “We’ve got a long memory” to the mining industry. Labour’s like something out of a tinpot South American dictatorship.
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That’s like taking Ipecac for amusement.
I don’t know what job title Schmidt actually holds in the government, I asked by superiors to change my job title from “General Engineer” to “Man Made Climate Change Denialist.”
My request was denied. In any case if Hansen’s job is to promote global warming, then there is at least one person in the Federal government of the US who works to undo what he does.
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Well done Gina Reinhart!! I hope her comments get widely seen throughout Australia. Then it will be interesting to see how quickly the “sheep” in Corporate Aust. follow along. I say sheep because most people at the top of large corporates are very polical animals, just slightly different politics to what is found in Canberra.
Also this shows why Gina Reinhart bought into the media recently. She is obviously not finished yet and this might be viewed as the first “shots over the bow”
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Less tax??? Less red tape??? No!! No!! No!! That will never do!! Some people might actually have to get a real job and do some real work!!
A great article Jo, and very interesting commentary about what happens when women really do break through the glass ceiling- if they don’t fit the feminist mould. But take a bow, Jo, you and Jennifer Morohasy would be the leading skeptical commentaters in Australia. And you’re not the darlings of the feminists either.
Ken
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Carbon tax to cost $14m before it starts, thanks to ad campaign !!!!
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/carbon-tax-cost-14m-before-it-starts/story-e6frea6u-1226054314870
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Completely off topic but here is one for all the farmers out there
http://www.climatescience.org.nz/images/PDFs/the%20methane%20misconceptions%20published%20version.pdf
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Well, our fearless business leaders can take heart, they have a warrior on their side. Gary Johns, ex Hawke ALP Government minister has let fly against the current mob with some barbs that would make a Spartan proud:
He sounds off also on useless solar panels and windmills, and the Greens’ $200/t carbon tax insanity.
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I can see quite a few greenie-lefty-talking heads exploding if they read Gina’s article.
Thing is, she’s right. Why can’t we be a country of wealthy people? Why can’t we have a high standard of living? We have all the resources in the world, and the market proximity to those who want them. All that is needed is the desire and drive to develop the mines and the export markets. Sure, it’s not as sexy as selling iPods, but it’s a much better business model over the long term.
But no, academics and young people in cities will get excited about the damage done to relatively tiny parts of western Australia. Places they will never visit nor really care about. They will want to sit on sleek designer cafe chairs and denounce digging holes in the ground for base metals as wrong. They will eat fresh food and drink freshly roasted coffee and denounce agriculture as destructive and wrong.
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Bruce of Newcastle:
And he’s bloody well right too.
P.S. Great piece by Gina Rinehart. thanks Jo…
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“All that is necessary for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing.” (Edmund Burke)
“Hitler’s failure to follow up vigorously on the entree he had gained to the business community through his Industry Club speech tends to substantiate the hypothesis that he sought merely to neutralize big business, not to bring its leaders actively behind the NSDAP or to exploit its financial resources for his party.” –http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v08/v08p369_Ries.html
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Gina..you go girl.
It’s pleasing to see a women has more guts then most of our male business leaders.
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The problem in many of our industries is the fact that many of the people who hold themselves out as being leaders are, in fact, just the (expensive) hired help. People with high recognition job titles, large salaries and token shareholdings have much less at stake than a real or major shareholder. They can only progress through vigorous self promotion but the higher profile that results from this self promotion should never be mistaken for leadership.
Indeed, many of them would never close the door on a subsequent paid position with the very people who are persecuting the shareholders who currently employ them. So when a piece of political pond life suggests that he has a “long memory”, this message has a different resonance for hired help compared to that of shareholders. The hired help will never burn a bridge to a future career option when the only current loss will be to his employers capital.
So when a real stakeholder sees a serious threat to his capital base he should not expect the hired help to start drawing lines in the sand, let alone die in any ditch. Fighting the critical battles oneself has always been a core competency of the entrepreneurial caste. Always will be.
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“brc” (13) says “I can see quite a few greenie-lefty-talking heads exploding if they read Gina’s article….”
GOOD, the more the better.
In fact I would pay money to actually see them Explode !
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Thanks Jo for the post and thanks to Gina Rinehart for highlighting the truth on wasted expenditure for climate advocacy.
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Nestle, Yakult, Bundaberg Sugar among food giants joining war on carbon dioxide (Plant Food) tax
http://businesssupport.org.au/AnnouncementRetrieve.aspx?ID=49484
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Leftist heads tend to “pop” rather than explode I’ve found…
The sound can be quite deafening!
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Gina is my new hero (in addition to yourself Jo, of course, and Bob Carter and Dave Evans and, and….)
That is one enormous display of guts and leadership – think I’ll forward her letter to our CEO!
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She must be making this one up though:
” I have never met a geologist or leading scientist who believes that adding more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere will have any significant effect on climate change”
Surely everyone of import in the skeptical camp has at least met such scientists – there are surely enough of them around? Jo maybe you could send Gina a list? She has surely met some geologists with that opinion in her line of work? I certainly have.
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This doesn’t answer the Big Question of Australian business: what happens when the mines run out?
I’ve heard it said, variously, that they won’t run out; that it’ll be 50 years before they do, or 20 years, or even 10. To be honest it doesn’t matter. We need to diversify our economy because training every available man, woman and child (and a lot of ‘guest workers’) to dig stuff out of the ground is a really really stupid plan.
I support the mining tax for two reasons:
1. It might slow down the mining industry’s growth. Yes this will reduce our revenue in the short term, but in my opinion it’s better to have a sustainable income than a sudden burst of riches. The minerals can always be dug up later if we don’t dig them up now.
2. The revenue generated by the mining tax can be used to get other industries going. We need a domestic manufacturing base, a proper transport system, a decent information infrastructure. Government can help do this with the right attitude and a bucket of money.
I live in Perth and work in IT, and there’s a serious financial incentive for me to go to the mines. I’m exactly the sort of person that Australia needs to keep working in IT if we’re going to have any domestic technology industry, but if the current situation continues I’ll be digging stuff out of the ground because the financial penalty of not doing that is too large. I’m not alone in this, so imagine in 5 years time when the only thing anyone knows how to do in Perth is work on mines.
Primary resource extraction is a third-world economy. The theory is that a developing country uses the money from mining to build a manufacturing base, and the money from manufacturing to build a knowledge industry. We’re not doing any of that, we’re funding a first-world lifestyle with a third-world economy. It’s a slow-motion train wreck.
Gina Rinehart has a unique perspective on Australian business, and what she’s saying makes sense from that perspective. I don’t share her viewpoint, and from here what she’s saying looks like utter lunacy.
Of course, her comments on the carbon tax are spot on 🙂
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Mattb, thanks, but I suspect that at the office of Hancock Prospecting Gina might have met more Geo’s by the time she got her drivers license than you may ever meet.
That said, I’ll give you that there are probably still a few Geo’s in Australia somewhere who think AGW is reasonable.
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To create wealth, Grumpy, one either grows it, or mines it, or manufactures it.
Period. Anything else is just pushing money from one place to another and there is enough of that activity everywhere.
Here in the US, mining was supposed to have “run its course” a couple decades ago. And metals were supposed to have increased in commodity price along with population because of scarcity.
The reverse has been true, because of continual improvements in technology to extract minerals from ever less enriched ores.
People forget how much a quantity of something like “0.0001% of the Earth’s crust” really is.
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The abc is at it again with this extremely Offensive segment by Radical Leftists about the global warming FRAUD…….
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/er_right_so_that_proves_the_theory_does_it/
Your taxpayer dollars hard at work…..
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Grumpy, The thing with Australian Mining is that so far the mining companies have only plucked the “low hanging fruit”. I.e. the mines that are rich in the mineral they are after AND close to transport and/or close to the coast. As the best resources (as based on the above criteria) are exhausted, then the more “remote” resources will be brought on stream. Australia has many generations of available resources for the world to buy. It’s just a matter of transport.
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It’s fun to pay to be assaulted, isn’t it.
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Grumpy : back to economics class for you.
Australia has comparative advantage in resources. It might seem ‘third world’ to you, but it’s the foundation of our economy. Either learn to live with that, or move somewhere else. Wishing and hoping for another industry isn’t going to change the fundamental factors that drive export earnings and economic growth.
You speak of IT. Forgetting for the minute that Australia has a tiny IT output, let’s pretend it was a major industry (no, writing sql lookups for banks is not really IT). Would you support a higher tax on IT companies in order to provide capital for mining?
Either an investment is worth doing, or it is not. Either it will pay for itself, or it will not. No amount of money and wealth redistribution will ever change this simple fact. You either build an industry on it’s own merits, or you construct a potemkin village industry that lives like a parasite off other industries. And any industry which relies on subsidisation and wealth rediversion is susceptible to a political change in the wind.
Sure, this applies to some things like roads and hospitals – but these are things as a society that we all agree are indispensable. So, the best way to fund these things is to allow all deployed capital to maximise returns. Not to try and intelligently push it around by way of government dictat.
Eventually, every industry meets its death as whatever was driving it dries up or goes away. The buggy-whip business is a bust these days, as is the corset game. Drive-in theatres were once a money fountain but no longer exist. Analog modem companies once made billions but are here no more unless they changed their main technology. So pretending that diverting capital from mining into some other ‘chosen’ industry that might seem more trendy but will ultimately prove to be less long-lived than mining, which has been going on for a couple of thousand years now.
You should either take that ‘serious financial incentive’ or stick to what you’re doing, sans the complaining. This type of ‘we can make a good industry despite the fundamentals’ is just starry eyed dreaming.
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Think so? These people understand that a million years of geologic time is like yesterday morning to a global warmer.
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Jo for sure… I’m sure she’s meets more geologists before breakfast than I would in a year. I did date one once. But of the few I’ve met at least 1 believes in AGW… surely the odds suggest I didn’t just fluke it.
The following is a 2009 statement made by the Geological Society of Australia. I’m sure any one of them would make the time for lunch with Gina.
“Human activities have increasing impact on Earth’s environments. Of particular concern are the well-documented loading of carbon dioxide (CO2) to the atmosphere, which has been linked unequivocally to burning of fossil fuels, and the corresponding increase in average global temperature. Risks associated with these large-scale perturbations of the Earth’s fundamental life-support systems include rising sea level, harmful shifts in the acid balance of the oceans and long-term changes in local and regional climate and extreme weather events.
GSA therefore recommends…strong action be taken at all levels, including government, industry, and individuals to substantially reduce the current levels of greenhouse gas emissions and mitigate the likely social and environmental effects of increasing atmospheric CO2”
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IPCC REAL AGENDA – WEALTH REDISTRIBUTION
An interview by one of the top IPPC men given to NZZ am Sonntag on November 10 2010.
Ottmar Edenhofer is a German economist who deals with climate change policy…….. He is currently professor of the Economics of Climate Change at the Technical University of Berlin, co-chair of Working group III of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and deputy director and chief economist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research…… In 2004 he was a lead author for the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with former Vice President of the United States Al Gore.
In the interview Edenhofer freely admitted that the goal of Climate Policy is to transfer wealth from the West to the Third World by imposing economy eviscerating carbon caps on the West.
http://www.libertarianadvocate.blogspot.com/2010/11/ottmar-edenhofer-co-chair-of-uns-ipcc.html
=============
IPCC Official: “Climate Policy Is Redistributing The World’s Wealth”
http://thegwpf.org/ipcc-news/1877-ipcc-official-climate-policy-is-redistributing-the-worlds-wealth.html
THAT SAYS IT ALL!
THE TRUE AGENDA IS REVEALED !!!
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Sure, why not redistribute wealth?
According to leftists, somebody who has “earned wealth” has simply “stolen it” from somebody who “deserves it” for “doing nothing.”
So the Government’s job is to take it and give it to people who need drugs and beer
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Damian… did you read your own link or are you a liar or stupid?
You say “In the interview Edenhofer freely admitted that the goal of Climate Policy is to transfer wealth from the West to the Third World by imposing economy eviscerating carbon caps on the West.”
Edenhofer said :”But one must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy.”
It is important to understand that he is stating a consequence not a goal.
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thanx for making sense, gina rinehart.
did anyone notice Swan in his budget speech didn’t say a word about the carbon (dioxide) tax reducing “global warming”. it’s just a revenue raiser now:
10 May: Federal Budget 2011 – Wayne Swan’s full Budget speech
And we believe this Budget, our tax reforms, and our plans for a carbon price, will set Australia up for the prosperous future all our people deserve..
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/wayne-swans-full-budget-speech/story-e6frevp9-1226053514455
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Grumpy at #24
The reason why mining is best a 1st world business is that most 3rd world governments are either crooks or incompetent. For example Zambia was one of the biggest copper mining countries in the world until it put punitive mining taxes on before finally nationalising the whole lot. Copper production sank like a lump of lead in the ocean. They have had a recovery though because they opened up to private companies and removed the mining super taxes. Gooses & golden eggs. They will breed if you keep ’em happy, capiche? They go away if you steal all their feathers as well as their eggs. Oz mining companies already pay a higher net tax rate than any except the gambling companies, and the ALP wants to rip them another one and recreate Zambia of the Pacific.
Companies I’ve worked for have been interested in several well known countries that I will not name, but had to bail because of nationalism, corruption or simple theft. All these put the price up for the metals etc we use, we consumers are the ones who ultimately pay.
Second, mining resources do not run out, they just get more expensive to extract. For example there is more uranium in the dirt in your backyard (probably about 2 ppm) than there is gold in a good gold mine. Peak oil is a myth because it is already very economically attractive to convert coal or LNG to synthetic crude oil, the only thing stopping it is misguided green tape.
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Perhaps Gina should send a copy of that to that idiot Kloppers at BHP.
He was out their agitating for carbon pricing of some kind about 12 months ago. You have to wonder.
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Grumpy old fart:
May 12th, 2011 at 1:20 pm
Grumpy what you say about the finite nature of Australia’s natural resources may be true they may one day run out. More likely they will be displaced as market imperatives shift the focus to new and different materials and more economic sources. Take it from another old fart, if we don’t exploit our natural resources in the here and now the world will just move on and the opportunity will almost certainly be lost forever.
That is not to say that the other sectors of our economy should not also be developed by more accommodating attitudes by governments both state and federal to people prepared to work hard and take risks – that would be a good start. The breaking down of the morass of red and green tape, and the promotion of more flexible labour laws all would help develop our secondary industries. Removing politically inspired hypocritical legislation like that which bans uranium processing and nuclear power in Australia but yet allows the export of uranium oxide for processing and use overseas would also be a positive step.
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No, you are wrong, Jo! Right now we’ve got the female quadrella downunder – PM, GG, Richest Person and Best Blogger. Great article.
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“Geoff Brown” (40),
Don’t forget about the Utterly Despicable anna bligh in Queensland.
I’m looking forward to getting rid of her in the next state election !
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Grumpy old Fart & Matt B it is clear that you know nothing of the minerals industry. Clearly both have never met any qualified geologists or engineers associated with mining or minerals processing. I may not have met as many geologists as Gina Rinehart but certainly every geologist I have met from 6 or 7 countries laughs at the AGW alarmism and or called climate change threat. They all know climate has naturally changed in the past and temperatures have been both colder and hotter, and also CO2 levels have been very much higher at times when life thrived. Further, no metal or mineral will run out. It may become more difficult to extract but engineering innovation such as the discover of mineral flotation at Broken Hill in 1904-05 will lead to recovery efficiency and cost reductions.
Those believers of AGW do not understand scientific fundamentals such as heat transfer by convection, phase change, and radiation. Measurements such as lower troposphere temperatures, humidity and cloud which differ from model projections, icecore samples which show CO2 lagging temperature etc all have falsified the AGW hypotheses. Climate scientists have been found to manipulate data and even make up their own data.
Everyone knows about the the exaggerations of Flannery, Hansen, Lowe, Hoegh-Gulberg etc. Lowe was even found in a court case to have exaggerated by 15 times the correct quantity and shown to lack expertise. Why do politician listen to people who have no technical expertise other than massaging their image.
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Garnaut: use carbon tax to redistribute wealth……
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/garnaut_use_carbon_tax_to_redistribute_wealth/
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A mining tax would be a very good thing for australia, however the governments super profit tax was a disgrace.
The key to a good tax is to offer ways to avoid paying it in return for productive investment.
For instance you could make investment in downstream processing or community infrastructure fully tax deductable!
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Damian@41.
As I typed that comment, ABC News 24 (Iknow, shame on me!) was reporting on the Premier of Tasmanian LARA BINGLE…or something.
At least we in NSW had the sense to eliminate our first female premier um…I’ve forgotten her name already.
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Well, I actually did study economics, so I’m not going back to that class 😉 OK, let’s ignore the ‘mines will run out’ issue, and just talk about a resources market crash or severe dip.
This is how I see it: Australia has vast natural resources and a small population. This means there is effectively no limit to how much of the population can work on extracting the resources. So supply of people stays constant and demand for people rises, so salaries rise. Because people are interchangeable, all our salaries rise (i.e. a waiter can learn to be a miner, so you have to pay waiters similar wages to miners). So costs rise, and we get into an inflationary spiral. This is bad, so we allow more people into the country to try and improve the supply (hello ‘guest workers’ and ‘friends from Japan’), which means Australia is effectively buying foreign labour to reduce our own income. This is where we are now and the future is worse unless we do something about it.
If left to its own devices, the market will happily utilise every single man, woman and child in Australia to extract resources. However, when the export market for Australian resources crashes or dips, the market doesn’t care that no-one in Australia knows how to run a factory or bake a loaf of bread or write a computer program. We care, the market doesn’t. Obviously this is a bad thing, so it makes sense to encourage other industries and other markets so we have some resilience in the face of a resources market crash.
Markets use resources in the most efficient manner, not the fairest or most socially equitable manner, or the manner which benefits us in the long term, but always the manner which makes the most money in the short term (economic definition of ‘efficient’).
Government intervention in markets make them more inefficient, but also more fair, or socially desirable, or resilient, or whatever attribute the policy is aimed at. All of our markets have rules put in place to ensure a greater or lesser degree of some other attribute, so we’re not talking about starting any new thing, but just adjusting some of the rules so we get more resilience (and more inefficiency, so less money). Effectively, we spend some of our mining income buying ourselves some insurance against a resources market crash. It makes sense to me.
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While the ladies are breaking the glass ceiling, Wayne Swan is just breaking glasses:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/video/2011/05/12/3214611.htm
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Okay, I’m now hunting for a Gina Rinehart screensaver.
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Grumpy – you must have studied economics to make all those assumptions.
Of course not every person is going to end up employed in mining. Of course people are going to continue to bake bread, write programs and all those other things. A bunch of people with mining income in their pockets is going to drive more bakeries, not less. Even manufacturing takes off in a resources industry, because equipment has to be built to do the mining. A lot of armchair economists seem to think that mining just involves digging holes in the ground. They tend to forget the intense geological research, modelling, mapping, construction and information systems needed to hang it all together from source to customer. Because of this ‘dirt and dust’ image people can’t see the highly sophisticated industry it really is.
I suspect for you, and for many people, it’s the image rather than the capital concentration that upsets you so. If you turfed this all out and employed them as assembly line workers in an electric car or ipod factory, they’d be happy. So clean, so green, so ‘high tech’. The point is : it doesn’t matter what brings in the national cash, as long as it is coming in. Yes, it’s sad for a reader of The Age that mining workers prefer to spend money on a hilux and a speedboat, or maybe a fishing trip to the gulf, rather than concert tickets and art purchases. But you can’t call it wrong, or try and change the national industry because it’s not trendy enough. It’s still money coming in, money getting spread around by choice of free people. It makes everyone better off.
There’s a lot more risk in operating in a market created by a government distortion than in a cyclical market. Essentially you’re saying that we should divert capital from the mining industry and prop up others, because if mining goes bust, then we’re stuffed. Inefficient capital deployment costs us all.
However, if you put people into industries created by government distortion, then there’s even more chance of it going bust. See insulation, soon-to-be solar installers, set-top box installers, and, in the future, carbon traders. All these industries are going to be destroyed by government interference which is blown about by the political winds. Yes, the mining industry waxes and wanes on world economic growth and prices. But so does everything else. Of all industries apart from crime and prostitution, mining has stood the test of time pretty well.
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Geoff Brown @47
After this “reportable safety incident”, you can just imagine the arm waving safety bunnies rushing around in orange vests looking pompous & self important.
No doubt there will be some sort of enquiry complete with recommendations for future JSAs, potential accident forms & the ABC will have to go plastic for pollies.
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Grumpy old fart:
May 12th, 2011 at 4:00 pm
Surely the Marxist doctrine has been long since discredited. Maybe China is an anomaly although it does treat well and have an unspoken dependance on it’s innovative citizens, those that might be considered entrepreneurs in the west.
As far as Australia buying foreign labour goes, surely it’s the socialists of the current ALP/Green government that promote the unbridled admission of more and more economic migrants (sorry refugees). But then maybe we shouldn’t consider them as workers considering that most seem to remain permanently on welfare. Buying labour that actually works and has no guaranteed permanent residence here surely can’t be such a bad thing?
Mining taxes are already high by comparison with all other industry sectors in this country. Perhaps someone should have a word in the ear of the current mob in Canberra about it’s squandering of the start the previous government made in saving some of that tax bounty?
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Business leaders don’t really need to do anything about this carbon tax. Most households will be lining up at the polling booths to remove it if and when it goes ahead. Industry sectors with a lower risk exposure than the mining sector don’t need to do a single thing. Why would you waste money fighting a policy that will have a greater impact on your richer, more influential neighbours?
“Sometimes real leadership is having the courage to do nothing” – as is quoted on sceptic websites all the time.
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MattB:
May 12th, 2011 at 2:16 pm
Damian… did you read your own link or are you a liar or stupid?
Mr B perhaps if you have a penchant for throwing stones you may want to check the GSA’s policy position you quote is current & representative of its members views.
Cherry picking & convenient selective quoting is not the sole preserve of the IPCC, CRU or stacked political party branches.
Do you reckon the electorate of Australia today still enthusiastically supports a Carbon Tax/ETS or is it that they have somehow become less informed of recent times?
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Oh and,
Nuff said. Please go away Gina, and fight this “carbon tax gravy train” with your resources exporting gravy train.
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MattB:@35
Err, not quite Matty. Edenhofer also said this:-
You must have forgotten that bit eh?
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Thing is, she’s right. Why can’t we be a country of wealthy people? Why can’t we have a high standard of living? We have all the resources in the world, and the market proximity to those who want them.
brc is also right. It is not a crime to be well off. It is a crime not to use the talents (resources) that we all are given. The best way we can help the poorer nations is from a position of wealth. The poor can’t help the poor. Does Tim Costello send begging letters to people in Malawi? No he sends them to the wealthy. Besides the resource boom will one day run it’s course and we will have to once again be makers of things and for that we will need lots of cheap energy.
Cheap energy and lots of resources = wealth = ability to help our neighbours. Less wealth = less ability to help.
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Grumpy at #46
Actually, when there’s a boom like now everyone does end up working in the mines. A few booms ago we had lots of work on in our technical lab so we got our receptionist lady into overalls and onto night shift. Another time I was at a large well known mine in Australia and managed to get a tour of the plant. Discussed with the metallurgist about plant control and how in another plant we got the operators to control the plant, doing titrations to check how the process was going. She (who was from Chile) pointed to the operator and said he’d left school in year 8 and last job worked in an abbatoir. He wouldn’t be able to spell titration much less do one. I suspect if you turned up at the front gate of that mine and asked for a job you’d be doing induction 10 minutes later.
As for the economics, that is the theory. The reality is that (a) there’s a crash of one form or another every 4 years for miners and (b) the process economics factor both the breakeven point and the peak of the price booms in their NPV. If you rip out a super tax then the NPV drops to nothing and the plant doesn’t get built. Then the employees don’t pay tax because they are unemployed. They become a societal cost instead of taxpayers, and become more unemployable the longer they’re out of work. Zambia on the Pacific, as I said.
The way you GET money to salt away is to encourage projects by not taxing them into the dirt, then salt away some of the regular tax takings. Do you really expect ALP pollies would ever do that? Would they even salt away a super tax take? Really? I don’t trust any pollie within a cricket pitch length of a bucket of money, they’ll find ways to spend it.
The reason why Australia has a mining boom is because other countries have been going nationalistic. They are not getting the investment or the jobs or the taxes, because the sovereign risk adjustments to WACC are so large that they can’t pass muster on the NPV or IRR hurdle. As soon as they come to their senses and remove these barriers the capital will go their way, away from Oz. Or the ALP will bring in the mining tax, which puts a WACC risk adjustment on Oz project hurdles, the local projects all stop, prices go up and the capital goes to the other countries with the now similar risk profile but lower labour and environmental costs.
Economics are great, but if you want to know the real story, ask the goose. Its her egg.
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“GO YOU GOOD THING”
Gina is an inspiration and will become Australia’s most important business spokesperson.
I want a
as well.
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Let’s clear up a few matters about exploration and mining. I spent from 1973 to 1993 in a fairly high position in a Company ranked by auditors as about the world’s best bang for the exploration buck. Between 1969 and 1993 we (a group that reached about 70 graduates at its peak) found about 10 new mines, some of which are still operating. By 1990, the value of minerals sold (not some estimate of future worth) was above $4 billion in old dollars and I guess that given the rise in metal prices since then we would have discovered some $25-40 billion of new wealth in total. That is NEW wealth, not recycled.
The question of most importance is whether a higher rate of taxation would have benefited the nation in that time. The answer can only be a resoundingg “NO”. There is not much evidence that a governement entity would have achieved the leverage that we did with the scarce dollars that we raised, earned and gradually expanded. (This excepts the top work done in early times by the Bureau of Mineral Resources, some State Geology services and research done cooperatively by CSIRO and others under mining company funding pools.)
The next question is how (or why) the people can share in this wealth. Well, they do. A company that finds and sells a huge value of minerals does not throw the coin in a pool and swim like Scrooge McDuck. The money goes into the economy and it turns over. Gina probably has a better lifestyle than I do, but what’s the significance of her spending a few hundred thou a year on personal life when I spend less? It’s missing the point to imagine that wealth from minerals helps the country only when it is taxed and redistributed and we are talking many billions of $. The people who can make an honest claim to a part of this are those who hold shares in the mining companies, who are prepared to put their private money where it can get a good return. Those who lack the resources, both monetary and intellectual, to turn an ordinary block of land into a valuable mine have no strong claim to a share of the proceeds. Many chuck it into the pokies then complain when they run out of income.
On the subject of running out, this can be done two ways. The first is for a company to underspend on exploration. This is happening with the majors at the moment. Apart from fossil fuel and iron, the success rate in exploration is dismal and nowhere near what we achieved. This means that after the majors have feasted on the discoveries of our generation, they will starve. The other way to run out is to go to a country where the exploration, mining and tax laws are more bountiful to the miner. I’d be cautious about investing in Australian mining after the next 3-4 years because I think we shall see both types of running out. Or, more accurately, governments driving out.
Mining has long been a roller coater ride as the miners best the government meddlers for a while, then get overwhelmed by new laws, especially ones relating to who gets to distribute the money. There are times when many taxi drivers are ex-geologists. There are States, like Victoria, whose pollies have never seemed willing to grasp the concept of attracting miners for fear of another Eureka Stockade.
Finally, the Geological Society of Australia is not representative of the people who really matter in mining. You need to talk to people like Chambers of Mines, like the Association of Mining and Exploration Companies and groups that make rules like the Joint Ore Reserves Committee of the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy (of which I was a Fellow before retirement). The majors have some good material still, some Aussies in high positions, but increasingly they must be looking to other countries for their emphasis because a super tax would be highly unpalatable.
Message: Government, stick to what the Founding Fathers of the Constitution wanted you to do.
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OT. sorry.
Did anyone else see Tony Abbott’s reply to the Labor/Green set-top-box budget tonight? It was a historic speech! Not only was it Tony’s best performance ever, it was perhaps the most important single speech in parliament since before my time. Tony has come into his own. He sounded like a seasoned PM knocking back a wet behind the ears opposition.
The bottom line of Abbott’s speech: The Labor/Green Coalition, because of Gillard’s great lie to steal the last election, must call an election NOW if it wants the mandate for a carbon tax.
Tony drew a line in the sand. The Labor bench looked like lambs being led to the slaughter. But they’re more like mutton and old goat heading to the knackers.
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It will come as no surprise that I think Gina’s motivation is pure greed. Not a hero, just someone looking after their own (inherited) empire.
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Wes @ 60:
Yep, it was worth watching for a change. I liked the line “Building the Entertainment Revolution” re set top boxes.
Will the government crash through or crash with the carbon tax? Maybe both.
Ken
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Anyone know what percentage of the population in Australia works in mining?
I suspect it would be much lower than people seem to think.
When I see what this government is doing it brings to mind a bunch of barbarians sacking a city. Oh! Look at all this stuff! Let’s get some!
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The TAG TEAM TROLLS have returned!
Jo has proved her statement!
Sexism & Bias is alive and well in Trollville!
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126,000 jobs in regional Australia (according to Access Economics);
10,000 jobs and 16 coal mines (according to ACIL economic consultancy);
24,000 jobs in other areas of mining (according to Concept Economics); and
45,000 jobs in other energy-intensive industries (according to Frontier Economics).
16,000 skilled migrants for regions with skills shortages.
Maths 205,000 unemployed with CO2 Tax (cumulative above)
Maths 16,000 employed with CO2 Tax (budget Wayne Swan)
Ratio 12.80 unemployed to 1 employed.
Economy 101 Fail by Wayne & Julia.
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Geoff… I didn;t say it was representative, but I assume they have a fair few geologists on the team and Gina could pop to an exec meeting and have a chat maybe? Just to meet some. Just saying. UNless there are no geologists at the Geological Society?
Here are all the fellows? http://www.gsa.org.au/recognition/fellows.html note they have to ve a geologist with 10 years exp.
here’s the executive – again kinda geology oriented: http://www.gsa.org.au/management/index.html
Chambers of mines you say Geoff?
WA Chamber: http://www.cmewa.com/Portfolios
“responding to climate change”
SA Chamber: SACOME
“While there will inevitable be challenges for the industry through implementation of climate change policy, the transition to a low carbon economy does present real opportunities for SA. As the electricity sector moves to a lower carbon base, SA’s rich endowment of gas, geothermal, wind, solar and wave resources will position the state to capitalise on the new economy. ”
International council on mining and metals
http://www.icmm.com/climatechangepolicy
AUSIMM: http://www.ausimm.com.au/content/docs/sustainabilty_news_2010_11.pdf
Where are all these geologists that Gina knows?
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MattyBee
Top Idea of yours et. al.
You have no idea on what you quote!
Wind – when it blows?
Solar – when the sun shines?
Waves – when the surfs up?
Great solutions from you Mattybee! Gina may want to employ you in WA! NOT
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MattyBee
You quote
This quote shows your attitude towards this article!
Condescending Upstart!
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@ 61 John Brookes: May 12th, 2011 at 8:33 pm
“It will come as no surprise that I think Gina’s motivation is pure greed. Not a hero, just someone looking after their own (inherited) empire.”
True John @ #61, is it any dissmilar to the ‘greed’ of the academic [commentariat] industry that effected these regions? Comparison of numbers in employment and real intrinsic $ value could be extrapolated of the working and productive mineral economy from this region as descriptor of the state economy.
Please provide a model of this for readers. If this is not a useful suggestion, assuming you reside in Adelaide, SA, provide a comparison of the opening of the Woomera region as a comparison to the WA scenario. Please ensure the 40-odd years where shut down or monopoly of particular industries [and all associated by-industries and development] in these areas occurred. And the consequential effects of this ‘shut-down’ to the states of SA and WA.
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Grumpy
Markets are meant to use resources in the most efficient manner, however, often government interference distorts this to effect some inefficiencies.
Left to its own devices the market will never utilise every man woman and child to extract resources. Why? There are many other services that are required. A home to live in, food to eat, someone has to supply these.As do others then need to supply the sevices that in turn these people need.
Australia has a comparative advantage with its resources, we also have a comparative advantage in having a well educated, english speaking population which means we can provide high level services to other countries who do not have these advantages.
What some these other countries do have is cheap labour, and much of it, for manufacturing the things that we want and need. Their comparative advantage.
So we purchase their manufactured goods at a lower price than we can manufacture for, we get more for our money, it leaves us more free people to pursue higher level services while at the same time helping lift the living standard of the other countries.
Enter the government. Labor governments in particular like to pick winners; they are almost always wrong. They like to set what everyone will be paid and their employment arrangements and generally shove its nose where its not welcome. Now that’s not to say they shouldn’t be making laws to protect people from abuse, they need to set boundaries, but still let the market make the most efficient use of resources within those parameters.
Remember, government does not create wealth, they absorb it. The best they can do is set the scene for the market to create wealth and intefere as little as is necessary.
In the end, mining wealth, like any wealth production, naturally filters through the economy, when the government interferes and tries to short circuit the process, (mining tax – redistribution of wealth) we all lose because the multiplier effect is negated.
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David don’t blame me the quote about wind and waves is a quote from the SA Chamber of bloody Mines… Geoff says that is where I should go to find out what Geologists think. I don’t even believe that quote.
Also how is my other quote condescending, ignorant old man? I’m just saying I’ve met only a fraction of geologists that Gina has and I’ve met some who think AGW is fair dinkum… unlike Gina who has met so many more yet only skeptics? I’ve linked to all the major australian geology organisations and they all seem to think AGW is fair dinkum, yet Gina has “never met a geologist or leading scientist who believes that adding more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere will have any significant effect on climate change”
She doesn’t even limit it to geologists but “never met a… leading scientist” I mean she has either never met a leading scientist or a leading geologist or she is lying for dramatic purposes. Clearly the latter.
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Harry the Hacker @ 38
Marius Kloppers? An Idiot? Hush your mouth, good sir!
Marius is a genius – just ask him!
Though I know a lot of people who reckon he’s a practised onanist. (I wasn’t allowed to say w*nker.)
Cheers,
Speedy.
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Cement-a-Friend @ 42
Agree, but you forget that the peak public body of alarmism is the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change). This suggests that:
1. It assumes Climate Change (of the manmade type) exists.
2. It is more a political than a scientific body.
3. It exists to further a preconceived agenda.
Such things by their nature attract corruption and poor logic.
Cheers,
Speedy
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How about plain old racialism? These people view it as their duty to force underdeveloped nations to live in filth and misery in perpetuity based on their junk science fantasies.
And why is that, you wonder?
These people derive sexual fun from making other people suffer! Tell me that “green living” isn’t “true confessions” magazines for these people. That’s why it’s so difficult for these people to respond to common sense at all
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Joanne, help from a most unexpected quarter. James Hansen in New Zealand, and on NZ television last night:
‘issue [of AGW] is comparable to slavery and Naziism’
‘the science is crystal clear’
and the cure is ‘not these cockamamie Emmission Trading Schemes‘
I’m astounded that he gets away with his claptrap without a single pointed question from a supposed investigative journalist.
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Cudos to Gina Rinehart. It is not before time for business to weigh in. But there is more at stake here than a few carbon taxes or a few windmills or even economic prosperity. It is the 21st century’s ‘retreat from reason’, the pervasive intellectual dishonesty and our seeming acceptance of ever more obvious public lies and rent-seeking, so well represented in climate change fraud, that threatens our enlightened western society. Living in a world of unchallangeable lies is what it was like living under communists in eastern Europe. I will certainly be joining, not for greed, John Brookes, but for the sake of an honest future for my children.
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My recent optimism about the likelihood that the carbon dioxide tax would not see the light or day is now tempered by the fact that those who will be electorally slaughtered by it — Gillard, Brown, the Greens and the Independents — have decided that they will deny demands for an election to give the tax a mandate and force the incoming Liberal-National government to repeal it in 2013. This means the only chance of avoiding the tax is to appeal to the Labour MPs who are likely to be wiped out by the tax to get rid of Gillard. She evidently has decided that she is dead electorally and will end her political career at the next election, so come hell or high water that will not be a day before it’s constitutionally due in 2013. In other words, she is running as scared as Oakshott and Windsor; to flip-flop again would mean she would never have another job in politics anyway. People fighting this battle also need to be aware that the Green Senators who will hold the balance of power from July are elected for six years and there is virtually no chance of a double dissolution election to get rid of them. It is essential, therefore, that people know the Libs have to maximise their vote in the Senate in 2013 to neuter the Greens, if there is a wipeout of ALP and Greens in the Lower House as expected. I fear the campaign to break the spell of the IPCC’s zombie science will get uglier before it improves.
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Tom,
I stand by my predictions made here months ago that a carbon tax will not come to pass by this government, but it’s gonna be close and will require all of us to personally engage in the democratic process of peaceable protest. At the very least call and email your member. Heck, email every member parliament and remind them there will be electoral hell to pay for this betrayal of public trust.
At some point the Labor/Green coalition will realize that it’s political suicide to pass the carbon tax. Especially for Labor.
It’s also political suicide NOT to pass the carbon tax. Especially for the Greens.
Honourable people would choose political oblivion based on their strongly held principles. No worries, Labor has no principle other than retaining power, therefore, they might well calculate they have a 5% better chance of survival if they cave on the carbon tax, offering some lame excuse, hoping one more flip won’t stand out among the torrent of flops.
But Zombie Bob’s Greens are True Believers in the classic Maoist sense. Besides, they represent an urban lunatic fringe and can only continue to represent their base by urbane policy lunacy issued from the fringe. The Greens can never comfortably form government, too much scrutiny of their actual policy details in the limelight. Like roaches they best prosper in dark, damp, warm places…occasionally scuttling out into the friendly twilight of an ABC report where with the help of state-controlled media they can catapult roach faeces at the political centre, then scuttle back into the dark where they can plot against Zionist conspiracies, etc. Just like the cute little bugs in the animated series Miniscule before our 7 pm Pravda report.
So what we’re looking for is the inevitable Realpolitik donnybrook in the Green/Labor/Indy coalition as their interests become desperately divergent. For the carbon tax to pass there are a thousand ways to go off the rails but only one way for it all to work like a clock. Hard to imagine that the most incompetently insane clown posse that has ever held government could possible tick all those boxes to get the carbon tax over the line. Of course, I’ve been wrong before… 😉
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Wes@78 says:
The most effective way is to target the vulnerable – on each side of politics. If a marginal labor voter sees the emails piling up and the phone calls being logged, he will find it hard to prop up the dying party line. Same for marginal Libs/Nats.
Hoit ’em where it hurts! In the Electoral box.
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Wes I for one share your opinion “that a carbon tax will not come to pass by this government”. I just won’t share the celebrations if we are right.
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Interestingly I think the greens would prosper most should they support the tax, but the ALP fold under pressure. At least the Greens are consistent on the issue unlike both majors.
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Wes, right on the button!
Unfortunately, roaches can live for 10 days with their head cut off, and I fear the Greens are are just the same. They certainly share the same characteristics, I don’t think a Greenie would notice if his noodle was lopped off – he’d just keep wandering around in ever-decreasing circles until he disappeared up his own fundamental orifice. 🙂
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@ Wes George. I think you’re right. If we want this tax blocked, we will have become activists in our own little patches and pressure our local pollies, even if activism doesn’t come naturally. It doesn’t for me and I have to say, in “normal” circumstances, I’d be inclined to vote Labour. But not for this rabble, especially since they’ve attached themselves to the most toxic anti-civilisationist sludge in the Western world, in my opinion. They can’t believe we’ve given them so much power (with 11.8% of the vote, which will be 6-8% in 2013).
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MattB@66
On a quick look at the Fellows of the GSA, I have immense respect for the achievements of the about 50% that I have known; and I am not knocking those I do not know. I would have employed or worked with about a quarter of them on Joint Ventures or cooperative research. Those who have contributed to real, new wealth through discovery, like Roy Woodall, Ross Fardon, Ross Large, John Rattigan and others in that category would surprise me if their overall views differed much from Gina’s. There are many people who are on the list because of their contributions to government enterprises, like State Departments of Mines; there are quite a few in petroleum and we never did mix much with the oilies; and there are also quite a few who were mainly within Universities (David Groves, the older Ross Large et al), some doing work not closely related to direct ore discovery, like sedimentology or palaeontology. Several were CSIRO people (Ray Binns, before he went sailing, Ray Smith, Graham Taylor and more).
My comments at 59 were more directed to the first of these miscellaneous groups, especially those in private enterprise. It is a reasonable premise that those on the government payroll are more or less obligated to make the lip service concession to global warming – if they were not, we would see it less. That is what I meant by saying that the GSA was not a representative body in the context of Gina’s statements.
Re Who Else at 70. Please forget the notion that Australia is blessed with mineral resources. What we have is reward for the sweat of the brow. Country area also helps, if you think Singapore or Holland, for example. Interestingly, Australia is a rather difficult landform for exploration because much of it is ancient and the surface has not been recently cleaned by glaciation as say in much of Canada. The soil profiles in Australia can be deep, geochemically complex, expensive to penetrate by drilling and geophysics. There is more praise needed for former heads of mining companies who continued to pour in exploration funds when it was so tempting to cut them in harder times. Sir Arvi Parbo, Sir John Proud, to name a couple.
Overall, this is a complex topic and it’s slipping off thread. But, if you are sniping at Gina then you have fallen for one of the deadly sins, jealousy.
All of you might be surprised to learn the estimated aggregated contributions by the wealthy to charities and similar. It’s a rather staggering sum, enough to affect the economy rather badly if it suddenly ceased. (In an earlier time, it was one of my side tasks to help allocate our portion).
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Geoff Sherrington
You seem to have missed my point. My comments were more about macro economics than anything else. The last thing I was doing was sniping at Gina.
But yes, Australia is blessed with mineral resources AND yes, it has taken a lot of hard work, investment and risk to explore for and mine those resources. My business benefits from mining companies as do I from my shares in mining companies. Jealousy? Certainly not!
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[…] where are you?…on carbon tax Posted on May 14, 2011 by Tom Harley Gina Rinehart asks the business leaders of Australia to stand up against the carbon tax […]
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[…] Gina Rinehart calls for responsibility from business leaders. From Jo Nova. What’s unseen are the hundreds of business leaders particularly in the top 100, especially the BCA, who say nothing. The only businesses that want an Australian Carbon Tax are the renewable energy brands and, of course, the companies who won’t have to pay it (i.e. our foreign competitors). Plenty of Chinese, Indian and Brazilian companies would surely give a schadenfreude-smile at seeing their Australian competitors hobbled. […]
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“Being a female success, it turns out, is not what matters to a feminist. Their heroes have to hold the “right” opinions too, not think for themselves.”
Notice that they conveniently avoid mentioning Margaret Thatcher.
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Monckton got it right – he said that business people now are afraid to speak out, as business people were under Hitler.
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Hi Jo,
we are really feeling the effects in Tasmania of the extent to which the f*****g Greens have taken over the levers of power in our political landscape. Tasmania has a minority Labor government that has ceeded two cabinet positions to Greens members, while the rest of them throw barbs at us. The federal government exists with cross bench support, and is about to experience the f*****g Greens assuming balance of power in the Senate! I say this as a long-suffering member and supporter of the timber industry in Tasmania, and we are finding our representative organisations have been wedged into a hopelessly compromised situation.
My question is this: can a new organisation be formed with the single objective of causing as much electoral damage to the f*****g Greens as possible? Can it be based around supporting resource-based industries (the lot of them – not just forestry) and can it send some assistance to us in Tasmania, which is ground-zero of the Greens machine, for us to run advertising campaigns and political campaigns to chuck them out? I say this as a Labor supporter (dare I say member?) who wants to be rid of these miserable grizzling pricks! I reckon an organisation that targets them on their home soil, with a chance of some success, might just be what the whole country needs and deserves!
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God help us all if Gina Rinehart has an influence in our political life. So many non-sequitors and mish-mashed thinking that passes for logic. It’s frightening to think this is the calibre of political debate we have in this country. If she was right on all her points on climate change why did Tony Abbott agree with the Labor party on climate change before his volte face and how come the Conservatives in the UK have a for more ambitious climate change policy than our present Labor one? And then there’s the mining tax…let’s get rid of the $12 billion fuel excise subsidies per year before we consider anything else.
The collective amnesia is breathtaking…..
—-
REPLY: Silly me, and all this time I thought we needed to study the atmosphere and oceans, and really we just needed to look at conservatives past policies? Wasted millions we did! Jo
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To all those who hate the Greens and lefties, are you happy for the environment to be destroyed in the name of making billionaires richer? Once it’s gone it that’s it. Without the Greens just think of how much worse we would be off – they’ve done so much to conserve our environment and of course the Government lets mining companies poisen the land – and what for? Jobs? Come on, it’s for money. Evil money. And to all those climate change skeptics who just don’t want to believe in climate change because they don’t want to change their life of consuming and greed, the science is out there. And these scientists aren’t being paid to give us answers that make multi-nationals happy. It’s a fact.
Sorry, my blood boils with all of this right wing anti-Green talk. I can’t wait for the insults.
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Evil Money, eh Josh?
Want an insult? Sorry, can’t help you there. You’re a disadvantaged individual with a tenuous grip on reality, and it wouldn’t be right to insult someone like that.
Without the greens we would be much better off. We wouldn’t have a job destroying, environmentally damaging carbon tax for a start.
You don’t even understand what money is. You think it’s evil. All money is, is a stored value of someone elses work. So, if you think money is evil, you think work is evil. Which is fine, as long as you don’t expect anyone to every do anything else for you for your entire life. Or you think you can invent a barter-based civilisation.
Don’t like mining? I assume you live in a house made entirely out of wood, use no metallic objects throughout your day, use no electricity, use no form of mechanised transport, and grow all your own food and vegetables using rocks to dig up the dirt. Because if you don’t, you’re a complete hypocrite because everything else came out of the dirt in a mine somewhere. And we know you’re a hypocrite, because you used a computer and the internet to post your little diatribe. You used silicon, gold, silver, rare earth minerals, coal, iron ore, hydrocarbons or some extraction or another.
It’s fine if you hate the society you live in. You can see a doctor about that, they may be able to help you out. But I don’t see why your blood would boil at people who just point out reality to the delusional.
Seriously, get help, or at the very least, get some type of education.
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Don’t be sorry Joshua, and I’m here to oblige: You are an IDIOT.
Let me wonder where the world would be without money (Evil no less):
No advanced medicine
No advanced engineering
No advanced Science
No advanced education
Right where the Green Leftards would want the world to be: Cold, Wet and Hungry, with a short human life span.
NO THANKS IDIOT!
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Bla bla bla… Zzzzz…..
No facts are presented.
Just the usual greenie pap.
It is true there has been some environmental damage from mining.
But it is also true that you greenie’s have by your stupidity INCREASED pollution by opposing Nuclear power production and tolerating coal dust pollution.Because of that idiotic decades long opposition to a much cleaner power source that Nuclear is while coal power production went way up because of it.Thus increasing air pollution and coal dust pollution that you greenie whiners claims to hate seeing happen.
Even when a much cleaner and simpler Thorium nuclear is proposed you greenie nuts STILL oppose it.
You guys make no sense at all in your idiotic opposition to cleaner high mass power production but drool at the mouth over “sustainable” low low low mass power production projects like Wind and Solar.The ones that has to be backed up by high mass power producers 24/7/365 1/4.
Only brain dead greenie’s say this miserable stuff.
Since you think money is evil you are invited to send them all to me or give it to Timothy Ball or Heartland Institute.
And there it is the greenie poop that stinks to heaven.The stupidity that flows like water when they make a statement like this.
Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!
There are NO climate change skeptics except in your fevered imagination.And we KNOW climate change exists because we are rational to notice it.Did you make this dead on arrival statement with a gun put to your head?
It is a Red Herring claim because there are NO climate change skeptics.
Skeptics are not convinced that a trace gas in the atmosphere can unduly influence the worlds temperature to go up crazily sky high.The utter lack of evidence of at least regional or worldwide positive feedbacks existing has been a long time problem for CAWG adherents.They are always in the realm of models and not in the real world.But there are a number of published science papers attesting to empirically based NEGATIVE feedbacks being observed.
You write like a leftist who would love to tell us how to live by force if possible.Consuming and greed you say but as usual you have no idea what some prominent skeptics do to avoid using cars and such.Try Steve Goddard who rides his bike all the time even in miserable winter weather.He has made it clear he is not a fan of cars.But he is a prominent skeptical blogger with a sarcastic overtone in his entries. What about Anthony Watts? Do you know what he does in trying to reduce his impact on the environment?
Maybe it is smarter not to make sweeping statements against skeptics who can be serious about the environment and reduce their use of it as some skeptics have done.
The science out there these days is now overwhelmingly supportive of the skeptical side.
C3 Headlines and The Hockey Schtick have a habit of posting recently published science papers that supports the natural causes of warming and cooling trends.
LOL,
what made you write this line?
Desperation perhaps but still wrong as usual.Dr. Hansen has raked in a lot of money the last few years for being a wild eyed unethical warmist.So has a number of other AGW believing science guys who love the grant money flow for pushing their warmist babble.
Just like your other fact less comment you posted.Devoid of rational thinking with some red herring and strawman sprinkled in.You never intended to have a meaningful discussion because you do not know how to do that.
If you really wanted the insults then you are telling us that you are here to be a troll.
Go outside and pull some weeds instead.
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Hi Joshua,
Did you go to school with John Huxley by any chance?
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Well said brc. Josh is the kind of algal bloom one gets on the surface of a pond when the water gets too warm and there is an excess of nutrients of a faecal origin. Lower the temperature and ease up on the nutrients and the problem just goes away.
Treasurer Swan has reverted to 60 year old campus-trash class warfare, rediscovering that old chestnut, the super profit, when he realised how devoid of imagination he always was. What he has forgotten is that the real owners of capital these days are the ordinary workers who’s superannuation funds are invested in mining stocks. Every dollar he takes as mining tax reduces the value of the mining company by $22 which then reduces the superfunds tax by $3.30. The clown is totally out of his depth.
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Josh was dead right! Evil is a word I would use to describe the IDIOTS who have left messages after his comment. Horrible greedy people who are wrecking this planet, you should all be ashamed. Don’t you care about your kids breathing fresh air and swimming in clean water? I also can’t stand ‘working class people’ defending a mega rich person like Gina R. I think you are all brainwashed, I can’t see any other reason for it. You lap up all the right wing crap that is fed to you, some of which is paid for by people with vested interests. It’s obvious the planet is being polluted, just look around you. Who cares if global warming is man-made or not, what we are doing is not helping the situation. Why is it OK to create jobs in industries that pollute and destroy the planet and are a potential risk to the environment causing job losses in tourism, farming, fisheries etc? Look at the Gulf Of Mexico! When will ‘greeny haters’ ever get the message!? Australia needs to spread the wealth and encourage industry across other areas not just mining. Mines in Australia export uranium, what a dirty business that is! We would be a lot smarter to invest in ‘clean energy’ for the future instead of defending the raping of our country and the world. Jobs are no excuse!!
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……So many Trolls, so little time…….
So Adam, how many poor people have you worked for in your life?
Ok, I’m looking, What next? Should I be looking at the perfectly healed environment after the “worst environmental disaster” EVER?
Dumbass Greens said it would never be the same. How many months did mother nature take to completely resolve the problem? C’mon dumbass stop buying the useless crap from the Green Leftards and start thinking for yourself before it is too late.
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I ask:
Anyone want to wager that Adam hasn’t ever worked for anyone?
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The only “raping of our country” is the absolute FAILURE of the Gillard-Greens Government to protect our environment from pollution.
The two biggest pollution events in the last few years have been harbor dredging pollution in
Newcastle Hunter river and the current harbor dredging up north presided over by dinky di
Labour State Governments (Bligh and Christina) and the Federal mob with Rudd-Gillardi.
WHERE HAVE THEY BEEN? Hiding. Is there money involved.
Have young people been conned by very clever political marketing?
Does green$$ce really care about the environment?
No – they were TOTALLY silent about the Newcastle – Labor pollution of our harbor and city beaches.
A disgrace!
You have been suckered – big time.
🙂
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Wow, it must be day release time at the green/left refuge. And what a sorry batch of emotive cliche. My only concern is that my kids have to breathe the same air as these dropkicks who are so far down the socio-economic learning curve that they are still wondering why one little piggy had bread and jam while another little piggy had none.
People like Josh and Adam fear the market place because, deep down, they know a fully informed market would value their own intrinsic worth at close to zero, if not negative, value.
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Completely resolve the problem? What gave you that idea? Is this from reading the Herald Sun? The Gulf of Mexico is still screwed.
If you believe what you read in the media that makes you a dumbass. There is a lot of information that doesn’t reach the public, just how Gina wants it, and of course with the power and money these people have it will probably always be that way.
Anyway I know there is no point in all of this so I won’t reply any more. I just knew it would fire a few people up. I just don’t have anything in common with right-wing people and what you believe in. I mean I’d be interested to know what you think about Australia’s wildlife and the original inhabitants, since all of these unsustainable industries involve stealing their land. The stories I’ve heard about wildlife being poisened by the timber industry. I’d believe that.
God help you all.
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Hi Josh Your comment “The stories I’ve heard about wildlife being poisened by the timber industry” is off target.
This blog is about CO2 induced Global Warming and in particular, very particular, the IPCC no less, is worried about Human Origin CO2 and CAGW.
A true non event.
I am right with you on REAL POLLUTION but can’t handle the WWF and Gr$$np$ace “moving target on man made CO2 warming.
It does not exist and this means there has been a lot of FRAUDULENT representations made about science and engineering.
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Wow a freaking Green Believer! How unusual….
Please Joshua, (good biblical name) don’t go away yet.
So do you have some evidence of the Gulf being “screwed”?
Likewise, what is the financial gain for the Timber industry “poisening” wildlife?
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But on the contrary, you do have a lot in common with the rest of us. You live in the same world, use the same housing, the same transport, the same technology.
The difference is that you believe that the wrongs of the world can be overcome with hoping and good intentions.
The rest of us merely observe the human condition and work to get the best outcome for us and our families given the reality of the world in which we live. We realise that decisions have been made in the past, but instead of walking around with a permanent hatred for ourselves and the society in which we live, the rest of us look to the future and see what past mistakes can be avoided through good decisions. And one of the biggest mistakes ever made by humanity has been allowing an all-powerful state to take control over their lives, whether done outright by force, or creepingly through good intentions of forcing an inherently unfair world into a fair one. You’ll recognise the former as conquest through way, the latter as any flavour of socialism.
All of the Greens policies involve greater control over peoples individual freedom under the doctrine that the humans are the lowest rung on the earth, and all other flora and fauna and minerals have higher priority. The way they propose to make this happen is to control and plan the activities of humans and to force people to do things their way. You’ll recognise this as a centrally planned economy with total state control, which is just another flavour of socialism. And all socialist experiments end in disaster – no exceptions. The scale of the disaster might just be a ruined economy and widespread drop in living standards, or it might be genocide to eliminate the evidence of the failed experiments. Either way, once you let your government take control over you, unless you’re on the top of that pyramid, you’re in big trouble.
You call that being a right wing nutcase. So be it – but you’re not going to learn anything by jumping at figments of your imagination. Learn from the mistakes of the past. Moderate your views. You can still love nature and live in a modern economy – indeed, the possibilities for preserving and enjoying nature require a strong and healthy economy. Poor countries and weak economies ruin their natural world as orderly resource usage disentigrates and management of natural resources disappears.
Understand that true environmentalism is a case of looking at the realities of the world and making a local difference in the welfare of native forests and native animals in the area in which you live. The beauty of this is that it can be achieved no matter what your politics.
You seem to be under the impression that an oil spill wouldn’t happen if the Greens had control – well, if you use oil, you get spills, it’s unavoidable. The key is to allow free enterprise to innovate away from oil, and improve technology for cleaning up oil. Stopping oil usage is impossible – that’s observing the world as it is, not as and idealistic denier of reality would like it to be. And that’s the key takeaway for you and your ilk – stop dreaming, stop hoping you can fix the world if you can just get control over everyone else and make them do as you say.
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Joshua,
You wrote this emotional comment that is silly:
The gulf of Mexico is fed with oil seeps from the floor all the time.It is a known geological fact that you greenie weenies never seem to discover.This article is TWELVE years old
Scientists Find That Tons Of Oil Seep Into The Gulf Of Mexico Each Year
Then we have this:
Natural Sources of Marine Oil pollution
There is a reason why the big oil release went away fast.But you are too busy being a greenie weenie to figure it out.
Then the typical greenie pap who is oblivious at the irony:
You know what greenie weenie,there are a lot of people here who have the gall to read science papers.Heck some have major science degrees too.What do you have to brag about?
Meanwhile have you recovered from being exposed as being ignorant over the long known fact that nature likes to spew out pollution?
Volcanic eruptions ring a bell sweetie? Dust storms or marvelous forest fires started by lightning.Those evil oil companies in the oceans crust seeping oil into the pristine waters.Hurricanes and Tornadoes damage or destroy nature habitats.Methane fires and more wonderful but NATURAL Air Water and Soil pollution to be gobsmacked about.
Where is the carbon tax bill for mother nature to pay?
When are you greenie’s going to scream at Gia for it?
Really you are going to leave after barely saying anything beyond your basement level tripe that we are doomed or whatever doomsday crap you were trying to peddle.We have read all this sort of crap for DECADES now and still you are the same whiners despite the obvious improvement in air,water and soil condition that are well documented.
When are you greenie’s ever going to catch up?
Sure it would fire some of us up after all we wonder how you can still stay unembarrassed when you post a lot of words and yet say nothing at all.I am an INDEPENDENT and sick of the Democrats and the Republicans.But I despise the leftists most of all since I consider them mentally ill jerks.They are the idiots who are pushing the hardest the stupid carbon tax schemes that would fill the pockets of the rich and make the rest of us poorer without any redeeming benefit to the environment it was supposed to protect.
You can take your righteous greenie bullshit and stuff it!
Have you read about the Thompson family being stabbed in the back by the government and the banks?
The Thompsons
21 complaints about farm smells and an idiotic bureaucracy – enough to ruin a life, a livelihood, and a family home
Update from the Thompsons: The legal limbo drags on
You will believe anything that fits in your narrow greenie worldview.
That is why you are pathetically uninformed.
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*sheesh*
*face-palm*
Unlike people on here who back up fools like Bush Bunny and Crackar, I shall not lower myself to defending Joshua and Adam.
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Thumbs up for you MattB. Disowning the crazies even if they are on ones ‘side’ is a smart thing to do.
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Here, this is for you. Click on my name.
Keith from earlier… agree completely about the large, numerous and growing environmental problems that are getting little or no attention with carbon (insert your own overused media term) being the culprit for taking away the attention.
I would not rank your examples as highly as you but I suspect you were doing so to score a political point.
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They are just the two which I am most aware of – particularly the Hunter River fiasco.
Undoubtedly there are other pressing cases.
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Also forgot to mention that “pollution” or government avoidance of control legislation is not a Lib – Lab or Left – right thing.
They will all take the money and we need to control ALL of them.
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exactly… your comment gave the appearance of singling out Labor governments for blame, which didn’t help with legitimising the remainder of your comment.. I don’t think that any governing party in this country has done anything better than a bad job.
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Yes
“”your comment gave the appearance of singling out Labor governments for blame, which didn’t help with legitimising the remainder of your comment””
I thought about that, but it does help to make the point that “The Left”, when in Government, are just as bad.
Look at the pollution records of governments in China and Vietnam. Not exactly democracies.
There is an inherent message in the Adam – Joshua syndrome that only Western Democracies pollute.
Most of the pollution problems are actually not from failure of technology capacity but government failure to enforce standards – read as ” bought off”.
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For the record I am a professional who works and pays taxes and I also do a heck of a lot of voluntary work for the community. I have a heart, am not a member of the Greens nor do I read any of their literature. My views are my own and I am happy to sleep at night with the knowledge that I care about our planet and the ‘poor people’ in it. Perhaps the haters should have a good cleanse of the mind and spirit because you really stink to the high heavens! I feel sorry for you…
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Perhaps I was more harsh than necessary;
All that is good stuff.
But is your employer poor? Do you know any poor people that employ anyone?
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MarkD
Perhaps we are all a little bit tense when someone like Joshua or Adam shows up with all the hallmarks of conditioning by the “System”.
They sling off about things of which they have no knowledge and try to perpetuate a rich – poor or old – young conflict scenario.
AGW is about awareness or lack of it.
Those of us with some education in the areas of AGW view the young people innocently caught up in the “save the planet” meme as being victims of cynical “climate scientists”, Green-piece and WWF executives who strut the world’s stage spouting eco drivel.
The AGW bus is off and running.
Lots of ropes tied to the back
Each rope has a nose ring.
Think of all those who can’t escape the pull of “saving the planet”.
Is you nose hooked to a ring on the back of the AGW bus?
Get off.
Be an individual – decide for yourself.
🙂
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KK, fair enough comment.
I don’t have the time to re-train all the poor youths that have suffered the “training” of the last ump-teen years. Sooner or later they need to wise up and take responsibility for what they don’t know or what they do “know” that is wrong.
I guess in my haste I prefer shock treatment over coddling.
I have a hunch these two didn’t expect our swift replies. I suspect they were trying to “lay eggs” in a dead post thread thinking it was not being watched.
I will offer an olive branch however, to both Adam and Joshua: If you’d like to discuss these subjects thoughtfully and rationally I’d be more than happy to impart whatever wisdom I am able for their benefit.
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Is this offensive jibe supposed to suggest that everyone else does not have heart?
The caricatures in your head must be a sight to behold. I guess they involve jumping on babies and squashing poor people under the wheels of luxury cars, while setting fire to native bushland just to hear the crackle.
The visions we have of you are of a slightly-befuddled person unable to cut through the fog of hoping and wishing to see the reality of the world in which they live. And of quietly dreaming about having the power to control others to force them to do as you want.
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Maybe some of you need to re-think your views and the way you live as it sounds to me that you are filled with hate, fear and anger. There is no need for such contempt for people with views that differ from yours. This can’t be good for your health. Perhaps you are so over worked and busy counting your money that you have totally lost touch with the fact that you are a ‘mammal’ living in a natural world. get out of the city and into the real world!
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I’m not a mammal, I’m a grape!
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OK
I gotta pay that.
🙂
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Then you should be lovin all that co2 we’re pumpin out!
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ooh yes but no La Nina. If we get a few dry sunny weeks I will be OK though as I am yet to mature.
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“”views that differ from yours””
This isn’t about VIEWS, it is about science.
We hate frauds – especially when they want our tax money.
I know — I know.
You
don’t
pay
Tax Yet!
It’s all about the money.
Gr$$npeace thanks you for your donation,
but can you spare a little more?
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Gratuitous planet salvation is the cop-out of choice for narcissistic mediocrities. Ordinary folk understand that it is challenge enough to simply strive to be as good a person as possible and raise children who have the same ideals.
But one of the major by-products of comparative affluence is over indulgence, and with that over indulgence comes an over inflated view of one’s own potential. And with it comes a totally unrealistic appreciation of what inputs are needed to meet that potential.
The longer those inputs remain in deficit the gap between self expectation and reality gets wider and wider. And a feble mind then leaves the field altogether by adopting a goal, like planet salvation, that is so vague, grandiose, unrealistic and unattainable that no-one can actually bring them to account for their non-performance. And to postpone their eventual admission of failure, they are then free to heap blame on everyone else but themselves.
It is clearly a cognitive dysfunction of the first order. It is treatable but, like many psychological disorders, there is a 50/50 chance of self healing with the passage of time. Failing that, a descent to madness is always an option but suicide might be a greater public good than working for DERM or the EPA. Adam should consider fundraising in a Koala suit, its about his speed.
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To be fair I think it should be recognised that most people who have been through one of our state education systems in the last 20 years or so will have been thoroughly inculcated with the dogma of the man-made warming orthodoxy and many will be true believers.
In time many of these same people, once/if they acquire real world life experience, will come to recognise that as kids they were brainwashed.
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