It’s a tax that’s “not a tax” and a “free market” that isn’t free.
Joy. An emission trading scheme (ETS) is on the agenda again in Australia. Here’s why the first priority is to clean up a crooked conversation. If we can just talk straight, the stupid will sort itself out.
The national debate is a straight faced parody — it could be a script from “Yes Minister”, except no one would believe it. Bill Shorten argues that the Labor Party can control the world’s weather with something that exactly fits the definition of a tax, yet he calls it a “free market” because apparently he has no idea what a free market really is. (What union rep would?) It’s like our opposition leader is a wannabe entrepreneur building a Kmart that controls the clouds. Look out Batman, Billman is coming. When is a forced market a free market? When you want to be PM.
The vandals are at the gates of both English and economics, and we can’t even have a straight conversation. The Labor Party is in flat out denial of dictionary definitions — is that because they can’t read dictionaries, or because they don’t want an honest conversation? Let’s ask them. And the idea central to modern economics — free markets — when will the Labor Party learn what one is? It’s only a free market when I’m free to buy nothing.
A carbon market is a forced market. Who wants to buy a certificate for a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions? Only 12% of the population will even spend $2 to offset their flight emissions. How many Australians would choose to spend $500? Why don’t we ask them?! Why — because Bill Shorten knows what the answer would be.
Then, on top of all that, is the hypocrisy — the Labor Party say an ETS is the most efficient way to reduce carbon, but they know it isn’t true, because they also insist we buy 50% of our electricity from renewables. Even with an ETS, no one would choose wind power or solar to reduce CO2. They are that stupid.
But a fake free market will help the Global Financial Houses. Buy a carbon credit and save a Banker!
When will Labor start to speak English?
Definition of “Tax”: noun
So let’s call it what it is, the ETS-tax. Confront the Labor Party with their inability to speak honest English. There is deception here, written into their language. As long as they won’t speak English, how can we even discuss their policy?
Can someone tell Labor what a “free market” is?
Real free markets are remarkable tools and very efficient, but we can never have a real free market on a ubiquitous molecule used in all life on Earth. It’s an impossibility.
The Labor Party is simply stealing a good brand name. This fake market in air certificates does not meet even the basic requirements of a true free market. It’s a market with no commodity, no demand, no supply, and no verifiability of goods delivered. You and I are not “free” to choose to buy nothing. Most of the players in this market are not free to play — who pays for yeast, weathering, or ocean cycles?
As I said in The Australian: people who like free markets don’t want a carbon market, and the people who don’t trust capitalism want emissions trading. So why are socialists fighting for a carbon market? Because this “market” is a bureaucrat’s wet dream.
A free market is the voluntary exchange of goods and services. “Free” means being free to choose to buy or to not buy the product. At the end of a free trade, both parties have something they prefer.
To create demand for emissions permits, the government threatens onerous fines to force people to buy a product they otherwise don’t need and most of the time would never even have thought of acquiring. Likewise, supply wouldn’t exist without government approved agents. Potentially a company could sell fake credits (cheaper than the real ones) and what buyer could spot the difference? Indeed, in terms of penance or eco-branding, fake credits, as long as they were not audited, would “work” just as well as real ones.
Despite being called a commodity market, there is no commodity: the end result is air that belongs to no-one-in-particular that has slightly-less-of-a-trace-gas. Sometimes it is not even air with slightly less CO2 in it, it is merely air that might-have-had–more-CO2, but doesn’t. It depends on the unknowable intentions of factory owners in distant lands.
How strange, then, that this non-commodity was at one time projected to become the largest tradable commodity in the world – bigger even than the global market for oil…
Union Labor Australia, now using the brand ALP, have a three tier carbon tax policy, they deny that emissions trading is a tax. But when they were in government they introduced a carbon tax. And later claimed it was a first step to emissions trading. Minister Greg Combet was forced to admit that 10 per cent of carbon tax would be remitted to the UN. And he admitted that the plan was to convert the carbon tax into emissions trading by merging it with the EU ETS, our taxes sent to Europe.
Now the Union Labor Leader Bill Shorten has admitted that if elected again Union Labor will have a not a tax emissions trading tax, and what he did not admit to is a three tier new tax, targeting emissions generally, and fossil fuels, electricity power stations, and vehicles. The economic vandalism the tax represents is frightening.
He put forward many crazy socialist policies. Including $450 million to fund UNHCR operations, money borrowed to donate.
Journalist Max Walsh warned via an article in The Bulletin magazine that the ALP has been captured via a corporate-style union takeover, rank and file now irrelevant, useful for election campaign pamphlet distribution only, otherwise ignored.
The agenda controlling the governments of our nation.
And, with due regard for the Greek crisis, the PIIGS, and our taxes going to EU ETS, the plan is to collapse the Australian economy and finances too, and force the loss of sovereignty.
How can we explain this to the average, apathetic, voters?
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The problem is not that the ALP is run by unions. The problem is that the unions which run the ALP are run by Marxists, bent on installing a Communist economy.
Their first objective is to destroy our current economic system, no matter what the cost. This didn’t start recently. To sum up a much longer story, the Hawke government’s deregulation of the banks + the Hawke government’s promotion of Alan Bond = a large part of Australia’s contribution to the crash of 1987. In 1987 the Marxists were outsmarted. I don’t see anybody outsmarting them now.
Written as I listen to the ABC’s 7:30 Report promoting rooftop solar. I think I just heard to make steel! After all the coal fired stations have been shut down.
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Its funny….my elderly parents decided to move house, when they did I insisted they get roof top solar.
At the time, I didnt spell it out for them, but the main reason is so they would have access to power as the green lunacy reaches its zenith.
One thing that seriously ticks me off is how the elderly and vulnerable are going to fare once rolling blackouts start.
If history is anything to go by, it will only be a matter of time before the eco-zealots are dragged out of their homes into the streets as peoples loved ones start dying from lack of power. I could see this coming, so made sure they could survive. They also have a massive water tank and pool as well to hold water.
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You also need to consider the “HTP’s”, the Home Treatment Patients.
These are the folks who have to hook up to a dialysis machine, or spend time on a Respirator, every so often, or …
If you don’t have reliable power, those people will need to go back into hospital, or have a diesel generator for backup at home, or be euthanised.
What proportion of businesses in Australia, are run out of suburban offices, or homes, or garages. You can’t run a business today, without access to electrical power and the internet. Think of suburban shops. They are dependent, not just on lighting, but also power for cash registers, security measures, etc.
If the power goes off, what happens to the traffic lights, and hence what happens at intersections, when a school bus meets a tanker carrying volatile and explosive liquids.
I have been involved in many future scenario planning exercises, and the fact is, that we have a civilisation that is based on the amenities available today. You can change those amenities gradually, and civilisation will change by small increments in response – look at what smart phones have done – but you cannot change civilisation by edict in one big-bang without creating anarchy.
If Shorten wants to have a revolution, he should think about previous ones. You cannot have a revolution by stealth. Also, history shows that the people who start a revolution are invariably not those who come out on top, in the end. In fact they are lucky if they remain alive.
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Dennis,
In some way I hope that the dopey ALP DO want to fight the next election campaign on a new ETS, 50% renewables within 15 years etc etc etc.
if ANY of them had half a brain they would be aware of how much the majority of people on earth (including Australians) want “Action taken on climate change”
Sixteenth out of the sixteen most pressing issues of our time (ie LAST) – survey of about 7.7 MILLION people world wide.
As Billy boy said at the recent ALP conference – “BRING IT ON” – then please do so Billy – what a twerp!!
Cheers,
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All of this of course is aided and abetted by propaganda. We often think of propaganda in this context as simply a semi-hysterical knee-jerk reaction of hasty bare-faced lies.
It’s not. It’s a finely crafted science and we would do well to remember it, else be seduced by it.
I found this rather crisp description in Norman Davies ‘Europe – A History’. Page 500, almost exactly halfway through this brick of a book.
All this sounds familiar to you?
It certainly does to me.
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Not wishing to decry the military/political application of propaganda, as it was applied in 1930’s Europe, and again in 1950’s Korea, and yet again 1960’s Indochina, I should point out that the original thrust of propaganda was in support of Capitalism.
As Noam Chomsky put it, “[Edward] Bernays’ honest and practical manual provides much insight into some to the most powerful and influential institutions of contemporary industrial state capitalist democracies.”
It underpins all of advertising in the free world, and it probably defines the criteria by which you choose one product over another, and does so without you actually being aware of it.
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Rere –
I think it officially came into being for religious advantage (Officium de Propaganda Fidei – 1622).
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“….How can we explain this to the average, apathetic, voters?”
Practically everyone regardless of whether or not they are right or left leaning hates the banks. People may not understand climate but they can understand getting ripped off by the bankers.
This is a mirage that produces nothing but poverty. It does not produce a single penny of wealth and instead it acts as a short circuit across the advancement and wealth of an entire civilization. It transfers wholesale the wealth from the poor to the rich with the financiers vacuuming up as much wealth as possible.
You can bet your booties that if the World Bank is ‘in charge’ they will manage to skim a large portion of the money involved in ‘carbon finance’ Since when have we ever seen the poor actually helped by the bureaucrats in a meaningful way?
So what are the international bankers up to over the last decade or two?
Seems the big guys in Russia and the EU quietly got out and left the little guys to get scalped. E.M. Smith aka Chiefio had quite a bit of discussion of the scalping of ordinary people’s savings. SEE: https://chiefio.wordpress.com/?s=cyprus
The IMF then decided that the scalping was such a great idea that it should be worldwide. FORBES: The International Monetary Fund Lays the Groundwork for Global Wealth Confiscation
Meanwhile RUSSIA and company did not take all this financial havoc over the last decade or so sitting down.
Behind the scenes is a real fight over power. The globalists want Interdependence meaning an interconnected global governance run by the IMF and World Bank, UN and WTO. China was willing to play along as long as it was to the advantage of China. However CAGW is not to their advantage.
How do I know China wrecked the Copenhagen deal? I was in the room
David Archibald explains exactly why transferring technology and jobs to China was a foolish move on the part of the globalists.
China Picks at the Scab to Keep the Wound Fresh
Verification: Lessons of history: China’s century of humiliation
The repercussions of British opportunism in China during the Opium Wars can be felt in geopolitics even today by Chiranjib Sengupta
[Caught by the filter likely because of the number of links.] ED
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Every problem can be solved by a market, if the World Bank is to be believed. They push CC (Carbon Credit) trading everywhere. They and their banks see these as great ways to make money. You are correct when you say it creates poverty. The money captured in illusory markets such as the posited Carbon Markets has to be turned into real money. That is real money which could have been useful elsewhere but when it’s gone, it leaves … poverty.
The European Market collapsed partly because of thefts and poor security which created a crisis of confidence.
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The ETS works in theory, but the pre-requisite to justify an ETS for GHGs is to prove that GHGs are, in fact, a negative externality which should be avoided. Without convincing proof that GHGs are “bad” for us in the long run the ETS is completely baseless.
Any and all economists will agree with this reasoning. Of course that doesn’t stop them from lining up economic “experts” like Stern to argue that there are future negative impacts. But that is far from scientific proof. It’s all models, and like George E.P. Box said:
It’s a house of cards, built on quicksand, in somebody’s imagination.
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Unless the reality of an ETS can be converted into simple language that a first year high school student can understand and agree with, the politics will prevail. That eBay diesel generator is looking better all the time. If Labor wins the next election, get in quick before the prices skyrocket.
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If we can afford the Union Labor Greens taxed fuel.
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Yes, that is an ever present danger, as well as Labor/Greens dominated councils (is there one that isn’t?) that would inevitably ban all personal power sources, if not green certified. I wonder if a steam engine would pass?
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Note please: Not one former living ALP prime minister attended the ALP Conference in Melbourne last weekend.
Hawke (former ACTU President) and Keating were well aware of union movement corruption (see TURC) and how unchecked the movement was undermining our national economic prosperity. Keating referred to a Banana Republic situation forced by union demands.
Take their absence as a RED LIGHT
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They did not attend, that is unprecedented.
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When people want to sell you on an idea they don’t think you’d accept if presented honestly, they conflate like Labor. Pay a little bit of tax and save the Earth.
https://thepointman.wordpress.com/2014/05/08/conflation-confusion-and-conditioning/
Politically, I’d have thought an ETS was not only dead in Oz but an electoral liability, so why’s he punting the idea? Looking for green donations?
Pointman
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Pointman – see my comment at 1.2
I also definitely think they’re on a hiding to nothing fighting on the ETS, renewables etc.
FOOLS!
Cheers,
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Didn’t you see the polls?
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Didn’t you see the polls in the last election in England – remember – the ones predicting a Labor landslide – hehe!
I follow the bookies – they know where the good money lies.
Cheers,
40
“Pay a little bit of tax and save the Earth.”
Which for 30 years now has been instilled into our kids from pre school on.
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The ALP needs green preferences (ie. 2nd vote) to have a chance of winning, especially in the now-gentrified inner city electorates. This “policy” appeals in these electorates
The suburban vote doesn’t much care for greenie stuff since those people know such stuff costs them money. But they are mollified (the ALP hopes and expects) by the shibboleth of “taxing the rich” – for those electorates, Robin Hood never dies
There is also a 3rd demographic segment the ALP appeals to, comprising the most recent immigrant vote – mostly Mu***m (if I spell out the word properly, this website censors the comment, shades of Charlie Hebdo, would you believe). These people don’t care much for either the greenie stance or Robin Hood but they DO care about immigration policy – so the ALP has spouted stuff to please them as well
Will all of this work ? Dunno, of course, but it might …
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A World Bank and/or IMF stipend?
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It is worth properly defining a free-market. From Investopedia
The outcomes of a free market are the result of human interactions, but not of human design. Making up definitions to suit their own purposes is a common theme among climate alarmists, as I have found with skeptic (and here), fake skepticand academic. They cannot even distinguish between science and pseudo-science. Even where there are specialist terms, such as temperature homogenisation, the definition is based on flawed, untested assumptions.
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Jo asks : Can someone tell Labor what a free market is?
I plead: Can someone tell the coalition what a free market is? And the academics who trained them all?
There is not, never has been and never can be any such thing.
1. The Market is not free if it is not free for all.
2. Each and every act of government is a corruption of the free market.
3. If there is no government, organised criminals then manage the market.
So the term “free” as applied to “The Market” should be a relative term, not the absolute term that it is in modern commentary.
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There is a ‘free market’ it is the underground economy or gray/black market.
In the USA it is estimated at 2 trillion dollars
IMF Report: Hiding in the Shadows
The Growth of the Underground Economy
What everyone above is missing is the underground economy is a vote of no confidence in the government and in some cases a knowing middle finger given to the government. I find the last to be an increasing point of view in those I have talked to. If you think the government is a bunch of crooks out for themselves only fear will get you to cough up tax money.
This is a prime reason for driving people to work for large corporations where taxes are confiscated before the worker gets the money and the reason for a ‘carbon tax’
With a carbon tax ALL economic activity is taxed with very few exceptions especially if they tax emissions from livestock too.
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Ted,
You are quite right about the term “free market” being a relative term. But emissions trading is far from it. The “market” is for a commodity that only people would not willing buy and sell. A business has to purchase electricity, or rent/purchase premises, as without them it could not trade. But ET certificates are not something of the real world, neither of the free market ideal type. These are crucial differences.
1. There is monopoly supply, and that supply will become increasingly restricted, driving up price. Free markets do not restrict new entrants (which is why illegal drugs markets are not free) and so new entrants drive down price.
2. The commodity is fixed. In free markets people profit by providing better goods and services. See for instance home computing in the last thirty years.
3. The structure of the market for ETS is fixed – usually by some investment bank who charges large fees. In a free market there is no fixed structure reducing transaction costs. E.g. Amazon revolutionized book selling.
4. Free markets tend to promote the general economic well-being. ETS schemes are restricted territorially, which will create anomalies. For instance, two high energy users are chemical factories and supermarkets. The former have to compete with products from non-ETS areas but the latter do not. So manufacturing shuts down. Trying to impose tariffs to compensate is not only impossible, it would impose huge economic harm.
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Is there no relief from this insanity, no mercy?
A Labor/Green Government demands a 50% RET and a Carbon Tax? Obviously we need to be punished for our crime of having coal. China, which generates half the CO2 in the world is not a problem. As for a tax, sure, it is not a tax, it is a gift of money to unnamed people overseas, forced by a Federal law for worthless scraps of paper. A tax at least would come back to the people as general revenue.
So 98% of our CO2 comes from overseas but we have to send our money overseas to apologise? Fair? It is a travesty of justice, but we must be punished. Utter madness.
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Empirical climatic evidence does not support the many IPCC models’ predictions of dangerous, accelerated global warming – especially the contentious theory of human-associated forms thereof.
This has gone on now for over 18 years. In that time, several predictions by climate scientists and climate-warming activists have been shown to be majorly flawed.
Amazingly, the CAGW scientific/political/social movements has not retreated from their overall positions that CAGW is on track unless billions of dollars are redirected (especially by a minor player in carbon dioxide net contribution, namely Australia) to halt it.
It’s their naive dogma. However, nothing is further from reality!
The CAGW fraternity that is floundering in the wake of empirical evidence that torpedoes their predictions of impending doom continues unabatedly to keep its increasingly threadbare climate alarmist flag flying.
It’s clearly a December 2015 Paris IPCC deal or bust for CAGW alarmism. Watch the publications and press releases flourish by CAGW activists in the next few months.
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You make a crucial point here. The IPCC in particular and the climate community in general do not revise their theory in the light of evidence that fails to support it. Instead they provide excuses for the failure. Yet core to the discipline is the use of bayesian probabilities, where estimates are revised in the light of new information. By believing in the a priori truths of CAGW theory and the efficacy of the policy outcomes, the global warming research program would have collapsed into dogma even if theory and policy had broadly been correct.
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It has always been political. ‘Science’ was just the sheepskin tossed over the true agenda.
The IPCC knows darn well the Climate Models are completely useless and have known it since 2001.
So what is the actual goal? if you bother to read it is in plain black and white.
The official UN Framework Convention on Climate Change definition:
The IPCC takes it’s direction from the treaty:
So it never was about understanding the climate. It was really about ‘options for mitigation and adaptation. ‘ and this is the change wanted by the Globalists like the UN, the World Bank, and the WTO.
The IPCC’s ROLE
So there it is again. ONLY “human-induced climate change” is of interest and that is why you see very little work done on natural climate change.
Worse it is the custom and practice of the IPCC for all of its Reports to be amended to agree with the political summaries. The facts are as follows.
The Summary for Policymakers (SPM) is agreed “line by line” by politicians and/or representatives of politicians, and it is then published. After that the so-called ‘scientific’ Reports are amended to agree with the SPM. This became IPCC custom and practice of the IPCC when prior to its Second Report the then IPCC Chairman, John Houghton, said:
This was done and has been the normal IPCC procedure since then. (We saw that with the draft vs the final for this last report)
Under these conditions “Climate expert” means someone who has received money from the government, in exchange for an implicit or explicit promise to generate politically useful propaganda. As we have seen anyone like Dr. Bill Grey, Dr Murry Salby, Dr. Tim Ball, Dr. Zbigniew Jaworowski or Dr. Willie Soon, any one who does not produce useful propaganda is attacked and if possible driven out of work.
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the whole CAGW scam is based on fake data & fake wording. my pet peeve of late is news.com.au’s use of “climate supporters” to describe CAGW “believers”. there are people who don’t support climate? whatever does that mean?
as for the following, what about the people who aren’t firing juvenile ad homs at the Govt, who might even want the Govt to admit it’s all a scam?
why can’t the MSM include at least one person who cares about the environment, but who doesn’t think the Govt should be wasting taxpayer money on CAGW policies, such as jo, for instance?
28 July: Australian: AAP: Govt under fire on emissions target
A potential goal to slash Australia’s carbon pollution by 15 to 25 per cent is being slammed as “pathetic” by environment groups.
Reports the Abbott government is considering a 15 to 25 per cent emissions reduction target on 2005 levels by 2030 have been met with anger and disbelief among green advocates.
Climate Institute chief executive John Connor said anything in that range would be a “big fail” that left Australia at the back of the international pack.
“It would be too ridiculous to imagine,” he told AAP on Tuesday…
Shifting the base makes the targets look larger, a move Australian Conservation Foundation chief executive Kelly O’Shanassy labelled brazen and embarrassing.
“They’re like naughty school kids on the way home on the bus trying to change their F for fail to a B on climate change,” she told AAP…
Labor accused Mr Abbott of being “so frightened” of his party room he had to abandon his promise to release the targets in July and reveal them after a party meeting on August 11…
Greens senator Larissa Waters advised Labor not to stoop to the coalition’s “woeful” level of ambition.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/latest/govt-under-fire-on-emissions-target/story-e6frg90f-1227459509118
as for Shorten being excited about Al pretending to be “impressed” by Labor’s fanciful policies, what is there to say?
27 July: ABC PM: Bill Shorten says Al Gore ‘impressed’ by Labor climate change policy
STEPHANIE CORSETTI: Mr Gore was warmly welcomed at the University of Melbourne this afternoon.
AL GORE: (Applause) Thank you. Thank you very much ladies and gentlemen.
STEPHANIE CORSETTI: He was also welcomed by Labor’s leader Bill Shorten, who used a meeting with Mr Gore as an opportunity to sell his renewable energy policy.
BILL SHORTEN: We’ve stepped up to the plate. We’ve said to Australians that a Labor government will ensure the ambition of by 2030, that we have 50 per cent of our energy derived from renewable energy sources like the rest of the world is also planning to do. The beauty of solar power, and renewable energy more generally, is on one hand it’s real action on the climate and it’s dealing with climate change, and on the other hand it gives consumers power to help control prices…
STEPHANIE CORSETTI: Professor David Karoly from the Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute was part of a research roundtable discussion with Mr Gore.
He says it comes down to individual cities to make changes.
DAVID KAROLY: But it’s also clear that action is need at sub-national levels, so state governments, and also at cities because in practice many of the impacts of climate change are occurring at the regional and city level, that most people are living in cities now not only in Australia but around the world. And so, city actions are really really important in addressing climate change and responding to climate change.
STEPHANIE CORSETTI: A universal climate change agreement will be up for negotiation in Paris this December, to keep global warming below two degrees…
http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2015/s4281801.htm
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All politicians twist the language. Nothing special about Labo
ur doing it, especially since they can’t spell, either.121
RoHa
No. That’s not a mis-spelling it’s deliberate.
It’s their iron clad guarantee to take “U” out of work
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VERY clever 🙂
Cheers,
11
All politicians twist the language, but some do it more than others. The best defense is the dictionary.
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One of the most unbending rules of economics is:
Strong unions = weak economy
As commented above, the only people benefitting from carbon credits are bankers, which I suppose is the reason why, as I have said often before, it is just like a hooker: you have it, so you sell it, but you still have it, so you sell it again, etc, etc, until eventually everyone refuses to buy it.
Just about everything socialist works on the basis of: if it works in theory, that’s great, we don’t have to worry about it working in practice. This is why socialists adore the concept of renewable energy, you can pretend you are saving the planet, while the obvious side effect of destroying your economy can be safely ignored..
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This is indeed necessary, but it’s not quite sufficient. We must add another, stronger condition: In a free market, only the transactors set the terms. Third parties are not permitted to interfere.
In America, Washington’s attachment of huge taxes and regulatory restrictions to nearly all commercial transactions renders our “free market” utterly unfree. They got away with it through gradualism, and the rest of the “First World,” Australia included, has followed Washington’s lead.
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So a soft centred question that has been floating around in my mind following the debacle that was the latest Australian Labor Party conference.
How remote or what are the chances if the current situation continues which it won’t; this is politics where a week is a long time, of a split developing in the Labor Party with the hard left going off to get into bed with the greens but retaining party status if they have the numbers to do so and the other much more pragmatic right stepping out as the New Labor party?.
The UK Labour Party did something of the sort when it became “New Labour” initially under Tony Blair from 1994 and then under Gordon Brown up to 2010.
Over to you all you political aficionados!
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A valid question but one that breaks down to where the money is.
The problem with the ALP is by all rumours they do not actually have that many grass root members. Grass root types, at least for the conservative type parties, are the people who come out at election time, put up the posters, do all the letterboxing and then, on election day, stand in the sun having the general voting public scowl at them.
With the Libs there are a lot of volunteers who come out of the woodwork. With the ALP the unions organise this work. Nearly everyone I know who has done a booth on election day has a story where they have been chatting with the red shirt person only to discover they have come in from interstate.
(yes I say ‘rumour’. I have no proof because no one in their right mind is going to confess their party is broke and their dog has just decided not to renew his membership, but let’s just say that no one is dropping rumours that the ALP is seriously cashed up at the moment. It is union funding by all accounts, not public support that pays their bills.)
The other thing the grass roots type do is provide the fund raising.
Now, if the rumours are true, the ALP don’t have grass roots anymore, and their funds come direct from the unions. So the problem with any split is that the unions (read ‘the money’) are with the ‘Left Faction’ while the voters seem to be more with the ‘Right Faction’. The relative success of PUP as a ‘centre’ party does show there are a significant amount of voters who no longer agree with the ALP, but don’t trust the Libs (or vice versa, the point is they want to vote ‘centre’).
So there lays the problem with any ALP split. The ‘Left’ controls the money and can afford a big cashed up campaign, while the ‘Right’, while probably more connected with the voters, would be campaigning with two handmade posters and a youtube video.
20
the joke is Labor is committing to an emissions trading system that hasn’t even been sorted out in the EU, which is the leader in “this space” (using a fave CAGW term):
27 July: LSE Blog: New reforms to the EU’s emissions trading system are welcome, but the devil will be in the details
(Luca Taschini is a Senior Research Fellow in the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics)
Luca Taschini writes on a recent proposal, approved in the European Parliament on 8 July, to tackle this problem by creating a so called ‘Market Stability Reserve’. He argues that while this should be seen as a positive development, its impact will depend heavily on the details of the reform that are eventually agreed between national governments…
This month has seen two major announcements for the European Union Emissions Trading System (EU ETS). The European Parliament approved, on 8 July, the introduction of a Market Stability Reserve (MSR). And, on 15 July, the European Commission announced its ‘summer package’ for energy, which included proposed reforms to the number of free emissions allowances companies are eligible for.
As it stands, the supply of allowances in the EU ETS is determined within a rigid allocation programme. A reform of the EU ETS intends to make the allocation of allowances flexible so that it can adapt to changes, such economic shocks and technological advancements. The challenge for policymakers is to design a flexible system that helps regulate a market affected by future uncertainty, whilst also limiting the complexity of that system.
I have previously argued in favour of a reform of the European Union Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) that makes the system more responsive to unexpected price shocks. A policy paper last year proposed a rules based mechanism for withdrawing and injecting allowances from the market based on price trends.
So the vote in favour of an MSR by the European Parliament should be welcomed.
***However, it still needs to be approved by EU environment ministers on 18 September and the exact details will no doubt be the subject of great debate. But this is an attempt to fix the root cause of the problems with the system: the rigid allowance allocation programme…
The strength of the proposed MSR is that it is a rules-based market mechanism. The exact design of the mechanism is yet to be decided. Crucially, there are four parameters to be decided on: first, the point at which the system contains ‘too many’ permits; second, the point at which the system contains ‘too few’ permits; third, the rate at which new permits are added to the system; and fourth, the rate at which permits are removed from the system.
Setting the levels of ‘too many’ or ‘too few’ permits is likely to prove controversial. Green industries and green campaigners will call for fewer permits in the system. And those on the other side of the argument will want more permits in the system. All parties are likely to be left feeling dissatisfied. This could prove a significant political barrier to agreeing an effective MSR mechanism…
Our analysis investigates this trade off and proposes a tool for the selection of an optimal adjustment rate. Based on the modelling assumptions, the resulting rate at which permits are added to and removed from the system does not seem to be far from the adjustment rate indicated by the European Commission…
The Commission must now ensure that debates over the exact design of the MSR do not come at the detriment of an effective emissions trading system. After all, the main goal is to create an incentive that begins to decarbonise the European economy.
http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2015/07/27/new-reforms-to-the-eus-emissions-trading-system-are-welcome-but-the-devil-will-be-in-the-details/
above links to various papers, including:
The European Union emissions trading system and the market stability reserve: optimal dynamic supply adjustment
Download: Working Paper 195 – Kollenberg and Taschini (PDF)
http://www.lse.ac.uk/GranthamInstitute/publication/the-european-union-emissions-trading-system-and-the-market-stability-reserve-optimal-dynamic-supply-adjustment/
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fake words, fake figures:
what was: Clean Power Investment Slumps 28% in Quarter Amid Market Turmoil
Highly Cited-Bloomberg-10 Jul 2015
somehow became this in updated Bloomberg piece:
10 July Updated 14 July: Bloomberg: Clean Power Investment Declines ***0.2% to $73.5 Billion
Global investment in clean energy slipped slightly in the second quarter to $73.5 billion…
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-07-10/clean-power-investment-slumps-28-in-quarter-amid-market-turmoil
how did Bloomberg overlook a full $20 billion of “clean energy” spending in a single quarter when they first wrote the piece?
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Fee, fund, levy, trading scheme, duty, loading, surcharge, charge, toll, all different ways to spell TAX! They should all be legally required to be called TAX. Can anybody think of any other imaginitive ways the gov’t has spelled TAX?
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Regulation and Inflation (Wage Devaluation)
Both are insidious taxes that the general population is completely ignorant of.
40
Yes, they also spell it
RATES
Excise
Stamp duty, and duty.
Tariff
Royalty
Licence
Certification
Price
Service charge / charge
Contribution
Levy
Fee eg for searches of government data.
10
what Bloomberg originally said:
10 July: edie.net: Clean energy investment down 28% on 2014
Global clean energy investment fell to $53 billion (£33.3bn) in the second quarter of this year.
That’s 28% less than the same period last year, according to a new report…
Michael Liebreich, Chairman of the advisory board at Bloomberg New Energy Finance said: “The first two quarters of 2015, taken together, have seen investment down 18% compared to the first half of last year. It is possible that the first quarter and second quarter 2015 figures will be revised up a bit in due course as some more deals are disclosed but we have been predicting since January that this year would see lower investment than 2014 because of the strong dollar…
http://www.energylivenews.com/2015/07/10/global-clean-energy-investment-falls/
***the figures were pretty well known, it would seem!
11 July: CleanTechnica: Joshua S. Hill: Q2 Clean Energy Investments Continue To Lag Behind 2014
Bloomberg New Energy Finance has released figures showing that clean energy investment sat at $53 billion in the second quarter of 2015, continuing to lag behind 2014 figures.
Investment numbers for Q1 were revised to stand at $54.4 billion, dropping a little bit further to Q2’s $53 billion mark, which itself was a catastrophic 28% down compared to the $73.6 billion recorded in Q2’2014…
There continue to be bright spots in the overall darkness, but these are difficult to focus on considering the seeming negative shift in investment figures…
***Most dramatically, venture capital and private equity investment in specialized clean energy companies which totaled a measly $564 million, which was down 31% on Q1 and down 60% on the second quarter of 2014. These figures are in fact the weakest in any quarter since the third quarter in 2005 for the VC and PE segment, and distressingly far below the peak of $4.2 billion in the third quarter of 2008…
“The low VC/PE total reflects the fact that technologies such as wind and PV are now far more mature, and less open to challenge from young companies,” said Luke Mills, clean energy economics analyst at Bloomberg New Energy Finance…
http://cleantechnica.com/2015/07/11/q2-clean-energy-investments-continue-lag-behind-2014/
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It would be nice to see some basis for a carbon tax in the first place, and secondly some guarantee that this woul;d achieve its so-called objective in containing global temperature to a 2 degree rise. However, there is little evidence to support either concept being no correlation between levels of CO2 and global temperature, and that CO2 abatement will achieve anything anyhow.
However, the talk of the renewal of carbon tax by Labor shows both the scientific ignorance of its members and the dishonesty of the pundits pushing the global warming wheelbarrow as well as the nearly total bias of the media. It’s sad to see the lengths the pundits will go to achieve their political objective including the misuse of the language of Shakespeare and the failure to uphold any scientific principle.
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Further thoughts
To draw a war analogy;
Labor is still fighting yesterday’s war.
The war over the CAGW ideology has moved on.
The skeptics have landed and now have a very considerable beach head in the Warmustas territory and amongst the populace who will only show their true colours once they are convinced that they can identify the winner.
The Warmusta believers could be described as carrying out a fighting withdrawal while all the time giving up ever more ground to the skeptics.
The propaganda war has intensified as it often does when somebody is losing badly.
Armageddon or what well might be the final Battle will be at Paris in December which is just around the corner and the warmustas are gathering their forces for the battle for if they lose at Paris or even if they cannot forge a convincing victory, their cause is lost although some elements will battle on through the gathering gloom of a possibly cold Maunder Winter gloom.
There will be warmusta partisans sniping away for many a year to come but they too are doomed to fade into obscurity in the years ahead if Paris is a bust.
Labor may well find itself committed to fighting a climate war that others have long abandoned and have moved on to other more current problems of which there is a surfeit of, all of them much deadlier in prospect for a few billions than a minor and few percent increase in atmospheric CO2 and a increasingly unlikely couple of fractions of a degree increase in global temperatures.
172
Al Gore makes it very clear it is yesterday’s battle.
Al Gore Walks Away From Green Energy
90
It must be depressing for the oligarch group(s) to have to deal with a democracy to convince a majority of voters to tax the air they breathe out. Sadly, it’s not as difficult as one would have thought.
101
Murdoch’s Business Spectator gives space to Gavin to write one of the craziest anti-coal pieces ever. it should make TonyfromOz’s blood boil:
27 July: Business Spectator: Gavin Gilchrist: Brown coal – a tale of love versus statistics
(Gavin Gilchrist is a Sydney energy and sustainability consultant)
Brown coal from Yallourn, as far as I’m concerned, was tops.”
Often on TV discussion shows, it’s those little asides from the main discussion that are the most revealing about the speaker’s beliefs.
This was from Gerard Henderson, head of the Sydney Institute. Those two little sentences reveal so much about an all-too-common misunderstanding of the structure of the Australian economy and the importance of cheap power to business. In turn, that leads to an error of judgement on the impact of a price on carbon.
It’s the big coal-has-been-our-saviour myth, yet again. Don’t these guys know anything about the structure of the economy, about where the jobs really are? It is amazing…
Given electricity costs were always a small part of operating costs, brown coal power generation never underwrote the Victorian economy in the 20th century…
This myth about the importance in economic development of cheap power has fooled most Australians, particularly industry department bureaucrats and politicians. They believe energy costs are a huge whack of business’ costs. They’re not. They never have been…
And that, I predict, is why any new scare campaign against Labor’s proposed emissions trading scheme will fall on deaf ears in the electorate. The Coalition is flogging a dead horse.
http://www.businessspectator.com.au/article/2015/7/27/policy-politics/brown-coal-tale-love-versus-statistics
who is Gavin? the opening paras of the above might have given a clue. he was looking around for a job when his LinkedIn was last updated:
LinkedIn: Gavin Gilchrist
Managing Director at Big Switch Projects
Previous: Sustainable Energy Development Authority, The Sydney Morning Herald, ABC TV News
Summary: It’s July 2015, so it’s been a bit over six months since I wound up my Sydney consulting firm Big Switch Projects. I’ve had my sabbatical, I’ve recovered from running a small business for 14 years, and I’ve done a lot of well-overdue home renovations; now it’s time to actively look for new work opportunities…
National Medical and Science Reporter, ABC TV News, 1988 – 1996 (8 years)
https://au.linkedin.com/in/gavingilchrist
btw i’m hoping TonyfromOz will listen to Fran Kelly’s ABC Breakfast piece with AFR’s Coorey, which I posted in the comments on his CCS thread, and respond.
101
All this confirms that AGW is strictly a political/religious issue and nothing to do with science as the (original, unaltered) evidence shows that the AGW hypothesis is untrue.
121
A “free market” is having the government take all your money so you don’t have to worry about how to spend it because the government will take care of you so you can do what you want. You see? It’s that simple.
101
By the same analogy, sending someone to prison is giving them the freedom from the need to work for a living, or deciding when to get up in the morning, or deciding when to eat.
100
There is a difference???
UN Agenda 21 Transit Village
60
It’s not a tax. It’s an indulgence.
Indulgence – noun
Roman Catholic Church. a partial remission of the temporal punishment, especially purgatorial atonement, that is still due for a sin or sins after absolution.
Word Origin and History for indulgence
mid-14c., “freeing from temporal punishment for sin,” from Old French indulgence or directly from Latin indulgentia “complaisance, fondness, remission,” …. [etc]
70
Fran Kelly today on RN Breakfast, Politics with Phil Coorey, regarding the $65 billion cost of Shorten and Labor’s renewable plan, 11,000 new wind turbines, and Fran dropped this little gem:
“…but that’s a capital cost, certainly not a cost for consumers…”.
ABC journalists in the trenches, and slogging it out blow by rhetorical blow with the perceived conservative enemy, fighting hard for The Cause.
80
In Europe, a free carbon market is a carbon market which Brussels and Strasbourg always feel free to rig.
70
Your original post is about the use of honest language and meaning, Jo.
Did Labor really say it can and wants to control the world’s weather? Is this honestly what you think is an accurate description of what they mean to do?
[How many angels can dance on the head of a pin, I wonder? How many times can a hair be split? Your comments getting more bizarre by the day.] Fly
17
Joker, to show your “honesty” I”ll quote from my reply to your last iteration of this exact same inane point (unpublished in a moderated comment). The fact that you haven’t found “one” single example, as I asked for, rather makes my case. That you ignore my personal replies, and dishonestly repeat post the same mistakes as if I had not already answered them, explains why your comments are mostly timewasting.
I said: “What deception? Isn’t the aim to reduce global temperatures? Moreso, when did Bill or the Labor Party stand up and say that it is NOT about slowing storms, stopping floods, reducing droughts etc etc. Find me quotes where Shorten scoffs, mocks or announces that it isn’t correct to blame a storm/flood/drought on climate change? If he’s willing to use these events to promote his climate agenda, he’s selling a scheme to stop them. Show me you care about “honesty”. – Jo]
Obviously, Labor wants us to think that bad-weather is caused by climate change and they want us to spend billions to fix it so we don’t get bad heatwaves, worse cyclones, heavy rain, etc etc. They use these one off events to push their agenda, so what I said is fair. Furthermore, the Labor Party still refuses to tell us how much “climate change” their policies will achieve. That’s because we all know it’s 0.0C globally.
If you only had the honesty/emotional maturity to make your points informative and constructive without a 10:1 ratio of hate-mail, Id not only be publishing all of them, but grateful. As it is, you can’t self-edit, and the flaming pointless aggression wastes too much of my time. You are not here for an honest conversation. Shame.
150
In the USA, no less than the Supreme Court–in deference to Obama, rather than to the United States Constitution–ruled that the preemptive fine for not buying health insurance (the “individual mandate” in Obamacare) was not a fine but a tax (but, tellingly, increasing dramatically after the first year of non-compliance), thus, technically, taking upon itself the power of the Congress to levy taxes (and overrule the clear meaning of the bill).
The point is, it was all a lie, every bit and every reassuring promise. The same is true of every action Obama has taken as President. It is happening again right now, with Obama solemnly assuring the public that his Iran deal has real teeth and Iran’s compliance will be entirely verifiable and strictly enforced. He is on a par with the worst tin pot African (or other third-world) dictator. And by now it should be clear the entire political Left is the same. Those of you who say all politicians lie don’t understand just what a pathological liar Obama, and the Insane Left, is (nor the war they are surreptitiously fighting against all the people, because they believe in their ideology, not people). A pathological liar is one who destroys in the name of justice and the truth. That is what is being done here.
70
The warmists don’t want to come clean,
On what carbon-tax language might mean,
As they hide their delusion,
Behind public confusion,
Of a viable ETS dream.
100
This is what makes me furious.
At this Labor Conference, they did a deal with the CFMEU to ensure passage of their proposals, and that was detailed on Tuesday Night’s 7.30 program. (at this link)
Union Boss Tony Maher says it all at the 1.36 mark of the video clip where he says this: (my bolding here)
Really!
Don’t you just love it when they speak from authority like this. I mean, how true it must be. Trust me. I’m a Union Boss.
So, Loy Yang A and B 3350MW Nameplate.
Rooftop Solar spread across the length and breadth of Australia. 1.5 Million Installations at an average size of 2.2KW, so that’s 3300MW.
See, he’s tellin’ the truth.
Well, sort of anyway.
Total generation for delivery to the Victorian grid for Loy Yang A and B comes in at 23,000GWH of power each year.
Capacity Factor for Rooftop solar, and here I’ll be generous and give them 13%, because the further South you go, like Vic, SA and Tas, then it could be as low as 9 to 10%.
So then, total generated power from all those rooftop units spread across the whole Country.
3300 X 24 X 365.25 X 0.13 = 3,760GWH. (or 16% of what Loy Yang delivers)
So, umm, all that rooftop solar power is delivered by Loy Yang in, umm 59 days.
Now most of that generated power is consumed in the actual home with the panels itself, and that figure is around 80%, so 20% is fed back to the grid. So now we see that 750GWH is fed back to the grids, not just in Victoria, but across the whole of Australia, you know, the same amount of power delivered from Loy Yang in, umm, 12 days.
Loy Yang on the rooftops?????
Well, not quite.
Why don’t these people see how stupid these statements are? Why don’t they actually check first?
And a grateful political Labor Party says ….. “Yeah, sure, thanks for your support.”
And the plebs, their loyal supporters, well, they just believe every word they say, like dutiful little sheep.
More like lemmings speeding towards the cliff, panting out loud, shovel on a little more
coalsorry, bovine waste product.Come on all you deluded Labor followers. I know you’re reading this. Go ahead. Prove me wrong!
Good luck with that.
Tony.
180
Well, we’ve been here a thousand times or more, Anton, and for well over twenty years now (note that length of time, Pat)
The true lesson is that we don’t own the public megaphone
And note that Maher is President of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Electrical union … yet is advocating huge job losses for his fee-paying members
70
Tony,
Please point out that even the 10% is unreliable power – that is it is not coal equivalent 24×7 reliable energy. The rooftop power that is there is NOT CAPABLE OF DISPLACING YOY LANG power because it doesn’t have equivalent reliability. You are therefore comparing apples and oranges. At best you might get 2% on a comparable reliability basis – if you invested $6000 per kW in storage.
60
Tony,
Tony Maher has been a senior official of the CFMEU for a long time.
That in itself is noteworthy.
A d*ckhead for that long will probably always be a d*ckhead.
20
Tony,
Curry’s Climate,Etc. recently had a post about Microgrids and “Clean” Energy.
http://judithcurry.com/2015/07/28/microgrids-and-clean-energy/
You might think the conclusion was predictable from the URL, but the topic is devilishly complicated. I’m glad someone is thinking through the conflicting design goals, but it would be better if they were actually heard by the hoi polloi. When people think “solar power” they don’t think “cyber attack”.
10
ETS – Prime candidate for OCT and CDS
The ETS system is a great candidate for OCT (over-the-counter) trading , the same market that Brooksley Born warned the FED about in the mid 1990s. (see FRONTLINE PBS – The Warning)
It’s volatility going from extreme highs to extreme lows makes it prime money making territory for those institutions still engaged in CDS.
From the BIS – the current CDS market (exposure) is valued at over 600 Trillion (ten times the total GDP for the planet).
60
The Warning is here:
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-warning-brooksley-borns-battle-with-alan-greenspan-robert-rubin-and-larry-summers-2009-10
CDS: http://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/creditdefaultswap.asp
50
Jo
O/T but here for reference
http://fuelrfuture.com/review-of-forbes-on-line-magazine-article-solar-energy-revolution-a-massive-opportunity/
via comments at
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/07/28/hillary-clinton-the-jetset-climate-warrior/#comment-1995486
50
Ian,
thanks for that first link.
Pity something like this gets buried, eh!
A couple of bullet points from the Conclusions of that Paper: (my bolding here)
Tony.
80
Tony
I work on the principle that I’ve found blogs that I think I can trust for an open view
And for any trolls that doesn’t mean these blogs and I are not thinking and questioning
And I appreciate that there is not enough time to read everything on line.
Which used to be referred to as “The Information Highway” or similar terms.
I compare it to a bad wheat crop – some grains and a bloody lot of chaff.
So I do a scan of some blogs in the next layer of obscure and when something looks of interest that might be of interest I bring it to notice.
And if it is not noticed then I don’t run that blog so fair enough.
As it is when I occasionally get censored!
10
ETS === Economy/Employment Termination Scheme !!
No Thanks !
61
election now!!!
12
And STILL these global warming lunatics come up with more ludicrous scares for the gullible public !
Brisbane will become a “tropical Venice” with sea levels set to rise…………
http://www.couriermail.com.au/questnews/east/brisbane-will-become-a-tropical-venice-with-sea-levels-set-to-rise/story-fni9r0lo-1227460524433
Lord, Give Me Strength !!
My BS Meter just broke.
60
first thing i heard on local ABC this morning. unbelievable.
60
Here is an explanation of the “vision” this global warming Religion has for the future of humanity.
THE POST SUSTAINABLE FUTURE……….
http://www.postsustainabilityinstitute.org/the-post-sustainable-future.html
God help us all if this comes to pass.
This is why they can not be allowed to win.
50
http://www.michaelsmithnews.com/2015/07/bill-shortens-plan-for-50-renewable-energy-al-gore-bought-it.html
Australia, the final destination of rogues milking socialism masquerading as environmentalism
40
Looks like Tony Abbott has had delivery of a fresh load of common sense. Something of a Dream Team will be formed for the UNFCCC/IPCC “competition” later this year. Pack your bags, Jo. 😉
00
If you can turn the brand ..Global Warming into Climate Change doesn’t it follow that the same
extreme green lefties will try to turn Free Markets meaning into Carbon Tax by any other name .
Why would Labor support the biggest job killing scam ever ? Thought they were to protect and defend workers interests not sell them down the river .
Good luck getting that green knife out of your back Labor leaders . You will be getting a long time out to re-establish your priorities.
Conservatives world wide Thank You for self destructing .
00