UPDATE: A new ABC version of this story asks if it is a sackable offence for an energy company chairman to send an email praising The Skeptics Handbook years in the past before he was appointed? NSW Labor thinks so.
Click to download the PDF
The NSW Labor spokesman for Energy, Adam Searle, has described Mr Massy-Greene’s stance as “disturbing” and is calling for him to clarify his views or resign.
“If he is a climate change skeptic then his position as chair of publicly owned electricity businesses is untenable”, says Mr Searle.
“If Mr Massy-Green won’t resign, the Baird Government, which appointed him, needs to sack him.”
Amazing. Just to have ever sent an email praising the skeptics handbook years before he was appointed.
Are you now, or have you ever been a skeptic?
__________________
Streisand Effect coming
Nearly 7 years ago Roger Massy-Greene sent an email around to around 200 VIP’s with a link to the Skeptics Handbook saying “the best piece I have seen on global warming, and helps to explain what has so far been a very confusing debate.” Mr Massy-Greene later became chairman of Endeavour Energy — a state owned company that officially describes global warming as “the single greatest environmental challenge”. The ABC are now digging up the old email as a sign that perhaps Massy-Greene might still have doubts about the religion. Oh the scandal?
The free booklet done by a volunteer (moi) was distributed to a quarter of a million people and translated into eighteen languages by volunteers. This is the booklet that was too dangerous to allow a former MP to carry into Parliament House. The Handbook, and the worldwide grassroots movement it represented, was not important enough for the ABC to mention to its audience but a six year old email about it suddenly is?
Massy-Greene and his wife, Sydney University chancellor Belinda Hutchinson, are such capitalist sods they’ve donated $1 million to Sydney University to help get better graduates of STEM courses teaching at Sydney schools. The ABC don’t mention that, but they do mention that one company of his, donated $5000 to a Liberal politician.
The ABC: where investigating is done with one eye
Angela Lavoipierre, ABC, found time to get a comment from Tim Flannery, but didn’t tell the audience the email was from 2009, didn’t ask me to reply, nor would she link to the Skeptics Handbook. Too afraid ABC readers might actually read it? The ABC is a billion dollar Labor-Green advertising scheme.
Comments under the article yesterday included ones that were critical of the poor journalism, and of the man-made climate scare. Most or maybe all those comments have now been removed, and the original story quietly updated. (Google cache copy, of the article, shows the original, but doesn’t show the comments that were removed, not even a “Snip”). Where’s the honesty?
Nearly eight years after I started the blog with The Skeptics Handbook, it has stood the test of time — there’s not much I would change. Indeed here’s John Cook’s attempted take-down “Guide“, and here’s where I explain all Cook’s Unskeptical mistakes in it. Such is the bizarre state of the climate debacle — he took two years and had help from four funded professors yet find no mistakes. I took four days to document his and didn’t leave a point standing. He had no reply.
Flannery calls the Handbook “rubbish” – Tell us more Tim!
Leading climate scientist, Professor Tim Flannery from the Climate Council, described The Skeptics Handbook as “absolute rubbish”.
“I’m astonished that anyone in any sort of position of responsibility could take it the slightest bit seriously,” he told Hack.
In 2013 I invited Tim Flannery to list all the skeptics mistakes on my blog and promised to publish them in full with all his favourite graphs and sources. Tim-I-will-not-be-silenced-Flannery stayed silent.
(The offer is still open Tim. Do tell!)
Flannery wants to get skeptics out from “shadows”
…because people who disagree with the permitted science doctrine hide in dark places, right?
Presumably Flannery and political activists at the ABC hope to roast them one by one. But wouldn’t they get a surprise if they found out how many chairmen, investors, and politicians also sent around an email of something skeptical? They have no idea how many there are.
Professor Flannery said it was good to know where Mr Massy-Greene stood.
“One benefit that’s come from this sorry tale is that some clumsy thumbs have revealed the true character of an important person,” he said.
“We don’t want people lurking in the shadows when they hold important positions and have views of that nature.
“This should be a call to arms to be asking all chairmen and business people where they stand on climate change.”
The ABC is out of control.
UPDATE on irrelevant “apologies”: Looking again at the first article, Angela Lavoipierre makes a big deal that Massy-Greene sent “not one but TWO apologies.” Yet in the email she discloses, he’s apologizing for the sin of the dreaded mass email without BCCing — which presumably set off the usual email firestorm because people hit “reply all”. This has got nothing to do with the climate debate. Why is it national news? Does Lavoipierre hope to fool people that anyone sending a skeptical email should apologize for the content?
h/t David, Willie.
Yep, there’s no place in public information for dissenting views about the causes and likely effects of global warming.
Only one position can be presented.
Such is the way totalitarians ensure “the science is settled”.
I despair for the freedoms of expression of the younger generations.
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The younger generations have no freedom of expression – they mutually police each other into a regimented “truth” that the group consensus can accept.
Example: I was visiting a friend, in his place of work, preparatory to taking him to lunch in a harbour-side cafe. I was wearing a tee-shirt, under my jacket.
The front of the tee-shirt carried the words:
“Have you had yours, today?”
“I’ve had mine and feel great.”
This resulted to a number of complaints from the younger staff, as being totally inappropriate, and highly offensive. The actual act of complaining, seemed to raise the significance of my, “crime against decency”, as the group became more self-supporting.
Had I not been wearing a jacket, they could have seen that the back of the tee-shirt was extolling people to visit their doctor to get a flu jab.
I left wondering if they all had little red books, similar to “The Thoughts of Chairman Mao”, but redefined, for a more connected group-think generation?
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I have a tendency to ignore such nonsense…and take people directly to task for being short sighted. It hasnt won me many friends and is on par with “Science doesnt support CAGW”….
That said, one of the joys of living in a country-ish area is people are more in touch with the realities of life and are very aware that their Big Mac has to come via some cow meeting its maker in an abbatoir, city folk possibly less so, the latte set are waving placards on a dock-side somewhere about animal welfare, unless its artificial meat ….or something….
Smart phones are devilishly clever devices – how else can you get a whole population of impressionable 20 somethings “on song” for the same nonsense and use it to self police? I’m sure of I had a smart phone ( I refuse…. ) I’d enjoy stirring them up by constantly buckingthe trends. That said, I’ve never paid much attention tot he what the bulk of the ( mislead ) population thinks or cares about anyway, so….
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RW, extraordinary but tragically unsurprising from the generation characterised by their scintillating insight and erudition, a young twenty-something British woman was asked in a quiz show, which of the following words was most closely associated with the word ‘breast’ (as in female breast), chicken – mammal – fish.
She answered ‘chicken’ … ‘because I eat chicken breast in a restaurant and chicken is a ‘bird’ right?’
I’d swear they were collectively taking this pill.
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🙂
40
KK:
surely 2 emojis would be more appropriate?
40
Sorry Graeme,
I thought that this group here on the blog might
be over_represented in the area of those needing the pill so didn’t want to encourage that.
We need the intelligence, uncertainty and anger here to keep everyone fired up.
The last few threads have been full of amazingly on the mark comment.
The pill would take us down to SkepticalScience level.
OK
31
A day to not quite end all days.
KK, ….dyslexia and pressure gets the better of one, mid afternoon no lunch … but you guessed it right…
bird – mammal – fish
Answer: ‘bird’ … ‘because I eat chicken breast in a restaurant and chicken is a ‘bird’ right?’
I demand 3 emojis Graeme No. 3.
Thanking the kind kollective for your infinite forbearance (KK), silence (RW) and laughter (GNo.3).
30
🙂 🙂
30
The front of the tee-shirt carried the words:
“Have you had yours, today?”
“I’ve had mine and feel great.”
Maybe I’m too old but I cannot think of anything in those words that anybody could complain about. Can someone please explain it for me.
20
Dear Puzzled Reader, it’s not that you’re too old, your problem is that you have no flair for moral outrage, actually neither do I really, but I’m working on it, I reckon I’ll have it deciphered any day now.
20
Apologies for hijacking, but this one is interesting news – Trump seriously looking at changing the US role in climate agreements:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-05-18/trump-says-he-will-renegotiate-us-role-in-climate-north-korea/7424412
The alarmists would paint him as a climate heretic and drive sceptics to his campaign in droves.
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Flannery would agree with his master Al Gore that a few km down the Earth is millions of degrees ! LOL
20
What’s that Tim?, “tisk tisk tisk”, there’s a strange lady in the park?, “tisk tisk tisk”, and she’s telling everyone your full of it?, “tisk tisk tisk”, and you’ve got no tail to stand on?, “tisk tisk tisk”, crikey someone better go tell Aunty and social media about this, I’ll go Tim while you stand here like a…..well you in the headlights, “tisk tisk tisk”.
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Seems like a classic case of: ‘Let no good deed go unpunished.”
Give $1.0 million to Sydney University and get the biased slavering acolytes of the ABC’s climate doom squad on your case.
Put forward reasoned arguments and the Climate Inquisition comes after you, spluttering in impotent fury, as the facts rip to shred their empty rantings.
When the black hatted guys, the gatekeepers at the ABC comments department, censure reasonable contrarian comments, as do all alarmist blogs, then you know something is very sick and wrong with the system.
It seems inevitable these days that the state owned media have a strong lefty/greenie bias which gets entrenched in the system, allowing no other opinion, unless it has been cleansed of all supposedly heretical facts.
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Hi Jo,
The temperature patterns in your lagging CO2 graphs look suspiciously like Milankovic cycles. My opinion is that the natural variations in the earths orbit are a reasonable explanation for the cyclic global temperature variations that are well known. Sea levels have risen 130 meters in the past 20,000 years and this was obviously not caused by AGW.
As for professor Flannery, he is a hypocrite. He is in a position of influence and expressing strong views that detract from a balanced debate.
Regards William
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Yep. Get it published and we can all get back to our day jobs
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I’m in the mood for a fight.
https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2016/05/15/blank-sun-provides-more-evidence-for-solar-planetary-theory/
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Checkmate el Gordo!
“This is an evidence driven blog” or something like that.
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So why does the ABC still exist? In South Australia it would pay for one-third of a hospital, not necessarily functioning but in the twenty first century does that matter? Flannery and co. are somewhat interesting in that like so much that has come from the academy in Australia over the past forty years it is either false or misleading (that is, significant evidence ignored). My own experience is with domestic life in Oz during the Great War. Elsewhere there seems to be reason for doubt regarding the great bulk of scientific publishing. Schooling at all levels–primary, secondary, tertiary–has atrophied into training only. All very strange and very depressing. The exceptions are now so slight they seem hardly to matter; still should keep beavering away, I suppose.
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Good question. You have to add the $300Million SBS, Al Grassby’s ‘multicultural’ creation now completely obsoleted by the internet. The ABC radio became TV and now everything but newspapers, but with Fairfax and the Guardian, there is no need. The message is exactly the same.
Every argument for a taxpayer funded media has the same proviso, it must be absolutely neutral politically, which is now an outrageous joke. Its very size would be illegal for any public group, because in Australian law we fear a media giant which can push political opinions around. Now it cannot be downsized and continues to gobble up media space with ever increasing funding.
As Mark Scott, the $800Kpa chief said, we are not North Korea and do not need a State funded media. He was right. Now they cannot wait for Malcolm’s Greens to win. In fact they are so biased they refused to even televise or put on radio the first debate between prospective PMs, Turnbull and Shorten. You can only presume it is because they are utterly compromised. If there ever was a job for the Nation’s publicly funded broadcaster, it was this debate. They put on sports.
Sell the ABC. Those who watch it refuse to pay for it. Those who pay do not watch it. It is not our ABC. It is their ABC, a private club of luxuriously secure taxation funded political activists, accountable to no one. It is a national disgrace, at our expense.
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It would be a mistake to breakup the ABC/SBS and sell them off, until they openly admit that CO2 does not cause global warming.
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Why? There has never been an evidence that it does?
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Why? There has never been any evidence that it does?
50
Half the population think CO2 does cause global warming and we need these organisations to unravel the mess they have made.
All we need at the moment is to smash up the news department, then we can decide if these monoliths are out of date.
30
Just sell it. If it is worthless, it closes. If it is worth money, we get something back for an investment of say $100Bn. In private hands it would be illegal anyway, as it is just to big according to our media laws.
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These days most of the ABC and SBS is outsourced, so we can pull down the whole structure without ill effect.
The greenleftoids would scream blue murder, a conspiracy of enormous proportions, so no matter what they hear after that destruction wouldn’t be believed.
Leaving the structure in place we could see Catalyst explaining why the coolest and driest place on earth is not warming. The ABC weather standup saying the warm winter we are experiencing is caused by the intensification of the high pressure belt and its not caused by CO2 molecules. The opportunities are endless.
Fairfax, News and Guardian don’t have the bottle to bring it off, nor the free to air luvvies.
30
As a gentle reminder…one F35 strike fighter costs $126 million.
40
After thoughtful consideration I agree both organisations need to be scrapped in their entirety and quickly.
It will open up the field for small startups.
50
Can I have the F35 Strike Fighter?
30
el gordo
Exactly:
To sell something you have to evaluate it’s worth?
The ABC & SBS has assets – like property, equipment, vehicles etc
The rest like IP, staff etc are worth ZIP!
ZERO!
So total value to a Media organisation (the only possible buyer) is a BIG FAT zero!
I suggest:
1. Sell all assets held by ABC SBS etc to Auction Houses
2. Give ALL IP etc to existing staff Free
3. They then have to lease or rent all assets in order to operate
4. A FTA advertising ABC & SBS channel
Would last one month – then be liquidated!
The saving to Australia per annum = over $1.4 Billion
50
ABC – Atheist Broadcasting Commission.
20
And don’t forget UWA banned outright Bjorn Lomborg’s “Consenus Centre” to be set up at UWA (fully funded by the current Govt). And UWA wonder why I and many of my geo mates refuse to make donations to, or have anything to do anymore, with our Alma Mater. And remember Lomborg was not disputing AGW, just highlighting the fact that spending US$trillions to reduce carbon emissions by a minute amount via fast tracking to mega expensive RE, was money better spent assisting more deserving causes e.g. helping 3rd World Countries out of the scourge of poverty. And I am talking only about “outraged” ex UWA geo graduates. What do you reckon astute graduates of other disciplines think of that decision by UWA to ban the setting up of Bjorn Lomborg’s “Consenus Centre”?
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“Typo” – make that “Consensus Centre”. One wine too many.
120
As a geologist, I can honestly say if I had a million bucks for every alarmist geologist* I have met, I would still be as financially challenged as I am today.
Climate alarmists loathe private sector geologists for their sceptic beliefs and being very clearly and authorively able to state, “If CAGW theory was correct then we would be able to see it in the geological record, which we can’t.”
* Only applies to non-government geologists, as government geologists are required to parrot the official climate alarmist line, or face career consequences.
582
Preach it, Brother!
Amen and amen to your analysis of private vs. government-employed geologists. The paleo record is replete with times and places that show CO2 does not drive temperature. Reliable records going back 750 ma prove that “carbon” (sic) is little more than an observer in global climate. I think I’ve asked about four dozen alarmists to run a simple cross-correlation between temperature and CO2. Without knowing for sure, I think they look at the data, realize the jig is up, and send me dismissive missives or otherwise dodging the question I raise.
I think Samuel Clemens (“Mark Twain”) said, “It is easier to fool a man, than to convince him he’s been fooled.”
This may be why con artists are the world’s second oldest profession … … …
Regards,
Vlad
291
The second oldest profession is Town/Shire Clerk now CEO. Acts 19:35
50
A different view on the oldest profession
In our Geology 101 class (attached to an Agriculture degree) the lecturer read out a portion of a letter from Louis Bromfield (US author and later enthusiastic farmer) to a US serviceman.
The quote was “Agriculture is the oldest profession – even older than the one you’re thinking of”
50
Climate alarmists loathe private sector geologists …
Yep, loathe us with unquenchable passion.
The ABC, and largish sections of the general populace, are of the view that geology is not really a strand of science, so geological evidence just doesn’t count.
Cassandra
[Edited for publication] Fly
70
I met one once in WA – had a debate with Ian Plimer. IIRC correctly he left the field and saw Gore’s film and became a convert. Needless to say, Plimer completely trounced him in the debate. I think it was a WAGS (WA Geo Survey) sponsored event.
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Gary Warden – here is a piece mentioning the debate:
http://www.sciencewa.net.au/topics/environment-a-conservation/item/791-scientific-debate-on-climate-change-is-over-time-to-act
And it was Australian Institute of Geoscientists, not WAGS … close.
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Ahh looky looky the video of the debate is available at:
http://onmytv.net/aig/climate_change/presentation/container.html
50
I am always intrigued why a private sector geologist might want to turn to the dark side of climate. BD, this is the geologist you refer to.
These are excerpts from Gary Warden’s own blog.
1. “After graduating from the University of Western Australia with a degree in Geology, Gary joined BHP where he spent 18 years working in a variety of roles in a number of locations around the world.” It doesn’t sound like he was a real practicing geologist, at least not for very long.
2. He was originally sceptical about the claims relating to climate change. Maybe he was for a while.
3. “Prior to leaving BHP in December 2006, Gary was Global Manager for the company’s US$1 Billion business improvement program. He left BHP primarily to spend more time with his young family, but also to dedicate himself to creating a more sustainable life for himself and his family….” Oh please, does anyone really believe the second part of this?
4. “In September 2007 he was trained by Al Gore…..” Enough said.
5. “In November 2007 Gary ran for Senate representing the Climate Change Coalition.” So, presumably no success there.
6. Between 2008 and 2009 he was on the Executive Committee of the Conservation Council of Western Australia, including one year as Vice President.” This is a little known ecoloon organisation, which appears to specialise in separating cash from the gullible.
7. “Gary co-founded and is Executive Director of the very exciting Days of Change program, one of the largest sustainability programs in Australia and is now General Manager for Eco-Kinetics, one of the largest Solar PV companies in Australia and subsidiary of the ASX-listed CBD Energy.” I could not find any reference to the Days of Change program. Eco-Kinetics was recently closed down. CBD Energy became BlueNRGY, whose share price is down 98% over the last 12 months.
If you stray from the light into the dark side, there are inevitable consequences – so, no sympathy here from me.
https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwiP5oTjnuPMAhXDXhoKHXOMBjEQFggrMAI&url=http%3A%2F%2Fgarywarden.com.au%2F&usg=AFQjCNEEQz1C8oItLDoZE8onARqAtVIWtw&bvm=bv.122129774,d.d2s
60
That’s the chap. I actually attended the debate and all he could do is quote garbage from Gore’s film and wave “the IPCC says” about. Plimer nailed him with facts (some might be disputable, he had odd ideas about volcanoes according to many) and the debate was very lop-sided. Needless to say, I doubt Warden swayed any people in the room, as the majority of attendees were geos.
10
Climate alarmists loathe private sector geologists …
Yep, loathe us with unquenchable passion.
The ABC w@nkers, and largish sections of the general populace, are of the view that geology is not really a strand of science, so geological evidence just doesn’t count.
Cassandra
80
Yep Pete, add this financially challenged geologist to the list as well.
20
Can the geological record test that though?
I understand the appeal of using geological history as non-hypothetical climate experiments, but the usefulness of this is limited by
1) the precision and accuracy of the reconstruction, and
2) the similarity of past causes to present causes.
On point 1)… I hear plenty of talk about there being no significant correlation between temperature and CO2 over the last 500Ma+, but that is bad news because it means the proxy reconstructions are wrong. In the reduction direction, CO2 can be absorbed by weathering and of course by biological deposition over several millenia. In the emission direction, Henry’s Law is not optional. If the reconstruction has low temporal sensitivity then the carbon cleanup crew may have mopped up an emission event quicker than the proxy can detect. In that case any climate effect is then untraceable. OTOH, if the proxy is time sensitive enough to discriminate between emission and absorption, but those proxies don’t show CO2 going up in every case that temperature goes up then your reconstruction (of either variable) cannot be true and so the picture tells you nothing either way.
I suspect we don’t have the geological equivalent of satellites – precise and global. Where are proxies precise enough and accurate enough to actually record these two variables to the resolution required?
On point 2)… Other than the modern industrial Oil Age, what other geological event in the last 100Ma is known for certain to be a source of 1100Gt CO2 put into the air in less than 150 years?
32
As a geology graduate from UWA I endorse what you say 100% King Geo.
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We UWA geology graduates are not alone – I know many who think the same way and that includes many engineers. No doubt UWA only engages in “Scientific Research Confirming AGW [SRCA]” and discourages “Scientific Research Skeptical of AGW”. So put simply UWA engages in “Pseudoscience”. The sad thing for this once great academic Tertiary Institution is that the “AGW Sham” will be exposed as such next decade, ie when the imminent GM/LIA takes hold. It is at this time that UWA’s reputation will be for ever tarnished not by us current skeptics but by the majority of the population. All those SRCA publications, theses etc will not be worth the paper they are written on, ie destined for “mass shredding”. I would be happy to help in that shredding.
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“Leading climate scientist” Tim Flannery? Laughable. This still amazes. Infuriates. A man with no hard science qualifications. No meteorology, mathematics, chemistry, physics, biochemistry, microbiology, genetics,.. A basic degree in English at La Trobe? A PhD on very dead Australian kangaroos and wombats. A science fiction writer at best presenting as a technological expert on computers, meteorology, chemistry, physics and mathemetical modelling in complex multivariate simulations?
He even publicly advised investors on the capture of thermal energy at the failed hot rocks project in South Australia. “The technology is quite straightforward” which meant the Australian government wasted $93 million on a failed scheme where the directors were on $400Kpa. Everybody made money and we Australians lost. Again. Australian of the year warning for 30 years about rapid sea level rises and he has a seaside retreat on the Hawkesbury reachable only by water. At least that is brave, threatened by the terrifying 150mm sea rise since he started warning people to hand over the cash for windmills and hot rocks and solar panels.
The ABC is out of control, a staff collective with 1,000 jounalists who push their extreme views. Sadly they all want Malcolm Turnbull, which is an awful situation for most Australians facing a pantheon of Greens.
Unlike the people of Australia, the politicians want the end our borders, free travel to Australia, thousands of windmills, free everything and to tax the ‘rich’ who have jobs and shutting of manufacturing, mining, refineries, farming, a carbon tax, closing all the base load power as in Tasmania and South Australia. So a destitute third world dictatorship with a taxation funded media, like every other UN basket case.
This morning Di Natale wants an end to our alliance with the US, so we should not even defend ourselves. Soon we will manufacture exactly nothing and Bill Shorten is telling us that Australians “make things”. Not cars, electronics, machinery, aircraft, munitions or even submarines. We will not see a new submarine until at least 2030 while they learn how to assemble French submarines, something Di Natale would see stopped anyway.
How did it come to this? Is there something in the bean shoots?
451
Spot on Comments TdeF.
So who do we vote for on July 2 in the Lower House? Greens – NO!!!!!, ALP – NO!!!!, LIBS under Turnbull – NO!!. Running out of options here. I guess vote informal & vote for the ALA in the Upper House reluctantly giving our 2nd vote to the LIBS and who cares after that.
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Wait and see. Di Natale is publicly playing a game, prepared to partner with Labor under extreme conditions but the deal is already done with Malcolm. I think there will be a riot near voting day with all sorts of advice. My only advice is to put the Greens last.
As I pointed out in Melbourne Ports with Liberals 40%, Labor 30% and Greens 20%, even a free Green vote would see the first Liberal member home easily in the oldest Labor seat. Then there is the Senate. So your vote does not count as much as Green’s preferences. If Liberals and Greens swap preferences or even have neutral tickets, we will see more of Malcolm’s Greens and Country Greens in both houses and as few as 8 Labor seats from 55. Quite legally. Then the Turnbulls have their own Turnbull Liberal party and unfettered power. They will do exactly as they please, as long as the Greens have everything they want. Like a true banker, National debt is no concern for rich Malcolm. As our currency crashes he will bring his money home, even richer. As Adolf worked out after the Munich Putsch, you can seize control from the inside with the unwitting help of the conservatives.
The irony is that after the elections, Labor will revert to the old working man’s Labor, but too late. They and the Nationals will be political history. Only 12% of private eworkers are in a Union. Most of Labor’s loyal voters are now in the public service and some like Malcolm’s ABC are already 60% Green. Thanks to Labor and the Greens, there are no workers left. Shorten blames the Liberals, but Toyota was literally chased out of the country by the Unions in the High Court of Australia. They had to pay the Union workers 3 years wages just to shut the plant. We can always buy used Japanese cars like NZ.
My only hope is that the retiring Liberals and Joyce wake up and force a leadership ballot, putting Abbott back at the last minute. He might even win. Australians love an underdog, a battler who fights back when he is on the canvas.
Or that Labor wakes up and makes a stand against the Greens, forcing people to choose between Labor and the Greens. Otherwise Greens and Labor will swap in the lower house. Labor will be the smaller party with few seats.
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For those who think this is a conspiracy theory, everything is quite legal. This is just a deal involving secret meetings, planning, gaming the voting, just like the removal of Tony Abbott. Nothing illegal at all. Without it, even if the Liberals win, they cannot pass legislation so Malcolm can argue it was necessary to beat Labor.
Betrayal yes, but the only conspiracy really is not saying anything before the election. Frankly people even know about the Liberal/Green vote swap but they are assured it is only a few seats. When (47/55) 85% of Labor seats require Green preferences for their jobs, even a neutral ticket would destroy Labor. If the Liberals do the same in a few country seats, it could devastate the Nationals.
You have to love denials though. Di Natale has publicly denied that he is preferencing the Liberals. Why? Surely no one is suggesting such betrayal just so he can be deputy PM with a pile of seats in the lower house and ministries and real power? That would not tempt him, would it? Malcolm would not betray the memory of Tony’s Liberals? Surely.
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Nothing to see here folks, just move along …
Nicely understated.
90
Its the life blood of politics…
I’ve often said politics is where the absolute worst of all human behaviour is not only encouraged, but publically funded….
Perhaps this is where the old saying of getting the govt you deserve, comes from….
50
I like it Steve; self funded abuse.
10
‘My only hope is that the retiring Liberals and Joyce wake up and force a leadership ballot, putting Abbott back at the last minute.’
That won’t happen.
I got into an argument last night with traditional Labor people who outnumbered me in a shouting match, until I raised the issue of Malcolm wooing the Greens. A shocking dead silence followed, the thought hadn’t crossed their minds.
The Nats are happy with DAP and will stay the course, but if Malcolm stitches up a deal with the Greens after the election, like a tax on carbon dioxide and more renewables then I’m confident the agrarian socialists would walk.
A Green/Liberal Coalition would change the political landscape.
110
A deal has obviously been done with the Greens. We just do not know what it is, but you can guess.
The Greens and Liberals joined forces to legislate the removal of the minority parties in the senate against Labor. Why? Why did Labor oppose it, as they and the Greens are the obvious beneficiaries? Without these minorities, we would still have a Carbon tax and a Mining tax. Why a July double dissolution in an election year? What is the purpose?
The Green/Liberal preference swaps were front page news this week in Victoria, but that doesn’t explain it. Malcolm says he can make a Very Fast Train profitable by selling land along the route but as this is a very fast intercity train and it cannot stop, so why is he gilding this absurd Green fantasy?
As Palmer says, the action is in the Senate and this unnecessary and urgent double dissolution increases the Green hold on the senate. This makes absolutely no sense unless the deal involves power sharing with the Greens.
Mr and Mrs Turnbull are big players. Lucy is on a COAG committee and just sold a cancer drug company in which she is involved for $400million. She is clearing the decks. You do not get to be Lady Mayor of Sydney by accident. As for the ABC, Malcolm loves the ABC. It is their personal PR firm and will be amply rewarded.
The complete lack of criticism of Malcolm’s Liberals is quite amazing from the people who setup the aboriginal embassy riot against Abbott on Australia day in a blatant conspiracy with Gillard. Malcolm could look at his watch, wink on radio and eat an onion and nothing would be said. Peta Credilin however is in big trouble for just suggesting he lives a privileged existence in a Sydney Harborside mansion. The Prince of Point Piper is untouchable.
So the Green deal is done. They just have to get through a quick election. At the same time Di Natale’s public demands on Labor are reaching extreme fantasy levels. Soon it will be a refugee and windmill in every home while we send all our money to the UN. As the prettiest at the ball, Di Natale is just having fun because the deal is already done. That fact that it is unthinkable for traditional Liberal voters is part of the attraction.
If someone can see a problem with this interpretation of the facts, I would love to be corrected because it is depressing. Just writing that conspiracies do not happen is silly. It is the core skill of politics, the secret surprise deal. Malcolm never needed the job. It is all about fame and power and ego and history. Everyone loves Malcolm.
100
Di Natale has said
Greens should be asking WTF does he mean with that qualifier except to give himself wriggle room for when the deal is announced?
The excuse he gives for the flip will be interesting.
http://www.news.com.au/national/federal-election/the-greens-could-be-quite-powerful-in-next-parliament/news-story/d2c95f8eb948279c40f74074017d9639
40
“I’m confident of that”. Agreed. That pollie speak for it’s not true.
Dr. Bob Brown today
“There’s contention about where preferences should go – leave it to the voters, open tickets are a good thing,”
So you add the unnecessary denials to the open admissions to the support for open tickets. Labor cannot afford a single open Green ticket. Even 50/50 would wipe them out. Malcolm’s Liberals are more Green than the Greens, something Labor has been attempting. Very Fast Trains for everyone. One to Tasmania too. Actually, a bridge would be worth building and probably cheaper.
40
Could he just be being honest? With the new voting system in the senate he has no control over where the voters’ preferences might go. He can only recommend and hope. At last I’ll be able to put that mob last, or absent.
Cheers,
Dave B
40
Do you have a link for this VFT fantasy?
‘Malcolm says he can make a Very Fast Train profitable by selling land along the route but as this is a very fast intercity train and it cannot stop, so why is he gilding this absurd Green fantasy?’
40
Its okay, got it.
‘Government sources told The Australian the Coalition wanted the very fast train network to be built in stages by a private consortium that would be given access to a share of the potential uplift in land value resulting from the new infrastructure.
‘This would minimise the amount of taxpayer dollars needed to get the much-vaunted project off the ground, and ensure that the cost-benefit analysis for the project stacked up.’
Sarah Martin / Oz
——-
With this policy he woos the Greens and Nats, and Chinese investors get hold of the land.
50
‘Crabb said she had been assured by members of the moderate wing within the party Turnbull would be rewarded for success.
“When he wins an election in his own right.. he will have more authority, and he’ll be more at ease within himself to be himself.”
Huffpo
30
I’m really not sure he could actually be “more at ease with himself”. He seems to be almost drunk on the assurance that his rise and rise will continue. And now that Lucy seems to be buying into the scene so obviously, you really do have to wonder what their ultimate aim is. President and mrs president, perhaps? Sec Gen of the UN and missus? Wouldn’t that put Krudds nose out of joint!
20
One way to stop this nonsense is to put them all “Last” at the election.If enough people vote for the Nats,or One Nation,or some of the Micro parties in the lower house,their”Under the Table”deals will be worthless.Turdbull doesn’t know how much he is hated,because his “Minders” think “We the People”will still vote along party lines.
10
A good question. I attribute it to:
(a) Mutagenic compounds in WWI gas attacks. This alone could account for the UK Climate Change Act passing with only a handful of dissenting (sane) votes, as well as Germany’s fondness for solar power at their latitude.
(b) Spraying of brain cell destroying chemicals on the ivy at universities around the world. The collective global insanity of academia re AGW (and practically everything else) can have no other explanation.
153
You are ignoring the possibility of biological action. The zika virus was unheard of until recently, with it effect of shrinking the cranium of those susceptible. A simple mutation may have changed its effect to shrinking the brain of those susceptible, and in the hothouse conditions in Universities it could wreak much damage unnoticed by the inmates.
30
There are ‘Greens’, and there are ‘Carbon Greens’.
It makes no sense to tar all greens with the same brush or everyone gets confused. In my case i am an ordinary green who wants less man made chemical emissions like herbicide and dangerous chemicals, a complete stop on the conversion of native forest into plantation forest, more efficient cars, homes etc, and of course there are greens that are a bit here and a bit there.
68
I think you need to differentiate between ‘greens’ and ‘greenies’.
The latter are a motley collection of lefties, loonies and science challenged losers, desperate to rise above the pointlessness of their lives.
The former, with a reasonable attitude towards the environment and pollution, are a rarity, as the greenies have hijacked their space, but still call themselves ‘greens’.
121
There is some hope. For instance, “Greens”, “greenies”, and “carbon greens” and “greens”. What both have in common is differentiation with the result of being more exacting and precise.
There should be more of it. The two of us could find another 48 shades of green/environmentalism/world maintenance/world creation each to eventually describe not less than 100 shades of green and so forth.
Being able to differentiate or more than one, like mamma and pappa, is already a big improvement for sure.
42
I find it sad that the Communists have infested the green movement….
100
After the fall of the Berlin Wall there was nowhere else to go.
60
The Man with the Red Bandanna is bound to move a censure motion against the Chancellor at the next meeting of the Senate of the University of Sydney: Are you or have you ever been a climate sceptic.
100
Methinks Roger Massey-Greene would have the measure of Tim Flannery.
90
Some media lead from the front,
Seeking skeptics who dare to confront,
The ‘settled’ position,
Of the new inquisition,
In a modern day climate witch hunt.
290
Thanks again. You’ll have me trying it myself yet!
50
Ruairi keeps delivering top prose,
How he does it who knows,
I would love to be a good poet,
But whenever I try I always blow it.
40
Nailed again Ruairi! Brilliant.
60
I looked up Jo’s link to an old post from 2009 and looked through the comments.
http://joannenova.com.au/2009/11/former-member-of-parliament-refused-entry-with-skeptics-handbook/
It felt like a visit to a war cemetery. So few of the first responders still remain.
Our success is very limited so for but our numbers have grown substantiaally which gives me hope for the future.
71
The ABC article is amusing on many levels.
An accolade to Jo that her effort is still hitting the mark, congratulations.
I’m a bit out of touch with the ABC, being unaware that they ran a parallel news service on tripleJ for the hipsters; when leftie mainstream isn’t leftie enough….great value.
I’m intrigued as to who put the poor reporter up for digging out such a dated story..(Jo would have a motive, but hardly the influence of have thought), it leads me to speculate that some SJW noble-cause-zealot type convinced this reporter that it was a wise thing to do. The ABC is riddled with this level of journalism.
100
Senator McCarthy and others at one time attacked ‘communists’/’reds’ in the US with a vengenence and said they must be “ferreted out” as they are hiding within the government.
This sickeningly period of time in the US compares to Flannery and his ‘hiding in the shadows’ comments. He is an ideolog. They are both dangerous and pathetic. Like Mann and Schmidt in the US and Ward in the UK, amongst others.
111
Different times different goals, McCarthy like anyone wasn’t perfect but he was definitely on the right path in what he was ferreting out, in hindsight the only sickening thing I can see is how quickly people forget their history only to allow the Flannery’s of the world to rise into positions of influence in society.
We respect our war veterans and dead but often overlook the fact they killed other humans to garner such respect so their actions are justifiable as they were on our side, this is simply life and how we live it, the consistent slurs against McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) has been ironically launched by the left as they learnt from the trials that an aware nation can never be a compliant nation, so revolutions are now launched from political and internet platforms.
90
Yonnie and others who might think McCarthy was on to a good thing, in any shape or form – Go to the Wiki page for Sen. Mcarthy and scroll down to the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations – read from there to get a look at what this “right path” really was, and remember – if they can do it to one, they can do it to all.
It was a very sad time for the US, and the best I can compare it to is the cleansings performed by the very types the committee was ostensibly ferreting out. The current attacks on skeptics and “deniers” is extremely reminiscent of that period.
20
UPDATE: A new ABC version of this story asks if it is a sackable offence for an energy company chairman to send an email praising a The Skeptics Handbook years in the past before he was appointed? NSW Labor thinks so.
The NSW Labor spokesman for Energy, Adam Searle, has described Mr Massy-Greene’s stance as “disturbing” and is calling for him to clarify his views or resign.
“If he is a climate change skeptic then his position as chair of publicly owned electricity businesses is untenable”, says Mr Searle.
“If Mr Massy-Green won’t resign, the Baird Government, which appointed him, needs to sack him.”
http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/programs/hack/climate-denial-email/7422706
Amazing. Just to have ever sent an email praising the skeptics handbook years before he was appointed.
Are you now, or have you ever been skeptical?
302
The Skeptics Handbook has become the 21 century’s equivalent of The Tyndale Bible. It is a race back to the sixteenth century:
Aye, they’ll be at burning thar
witchesskeptics at thar stake, so they will.”210
Nice point. Mr Tyndale himself did not do well out of it.
Amazingly when James I found he could not stop the English Geneva bible, he authorized his own version and then mandated it be bought by every parish church. It made a lot of money for him plus the King James Bible along with Shakespeare’s work are the two foundations of the English language. He also authorized it with the first Letters Patent, creating the foundation of modern patents, the key to funding innovation.
History will tell what happens to the handbook, but it may end up in museums like Magna Carta.
100
Don’t joke about burning skeptics, Rereke, it’s only a matter of time before some delusional and disturbed deep green individual, frustrated at the slow pace of change, decides to “take matters into their own hands” and start hacking up public figures who don’t toe the green/red doctrinal line. The level of vitriol spewed by the deep greens towards their fellow man and skeptics in particular is truly dangerous, and will one day push some deluded follower over the edge.
50
It’s worse than Joe McCarthy’s campaign. I wasn’t around in the Middle Ages but it seems to be serious competition for the Witch Hunts and Torquemada’s Inquisition of the Little Ice Age.
Maybe those so strenuously calling for someone’s termination for holding and expressing an honest opinion should face the same sanction. Immediately.
101
Man, you missed one hell of a party ..
80
Middle Ages parties are not as much fun.
40
Watch this space. The ABC has thrown down the gauntlet in its usual poppy lopping fashion. This time they have bitten off something that is tough enough to choke them. And in time for it to be mentioned in policy before the election, too.
The ABC must be cut down to size. This should be the last straw needed to convince people of that.
110
I guess Jo it really doesnt get much more “climate trench warfare” than this….
We must never stop telling kids that the media lies and lies and laies and to rarely believe it, if ever.
I think we can safely say we have an “Animal Farm” scenario right now.
100
They are getting even more desperate. If the “science” were truly settled, they could defend it with ease. However, what they have done is attempt to dictate to reality what it is to be. As usual, reality doesn’t cooperate and stubbornly stays exactly what it is – no more and no less. In attempt to coverup their failure to get reality to cooperate, they work to suppress all opposing data, ideas, and views and permit only their side to be expressed.
Even that can not be and no longer is successful so they want to send their opponents off to a distant gulag for ultimate disposal. Interestingly, that too has never really worked for long. See the ultimate demise of the USSR system of mind control or even the Spanish Inquisition prior to the Renascence. It is, in the green blob’s own words “unsustainable” and leads to an almost complete social and economic collapse. Why? It was because it opposed what the reality of what humans are and what it takes for them to live and thrive. Reality is what it is no matter what grand and noble causes the “powers that be” wants it to be. As long as their path is followed, we are going to have another decline to and repeat of a long dark age of stagnation, destruction, disease, and death.
There is an alternate path that can be followed to avoid the next dark age. Sadly there appears to be no interest at any level of political or social institutions in even discussing that path let alone making the changes necessary to follow it.
As they say, we live in interesting times.
200
Lionell, perhaps dark ages are a Reality nature uses to control human population?
50
That would presume that reality has a purpose and if so, is aware, thinks, chooses, and has values it seeks. In effect, it would be alive rather than merely have produced living creatures from the basic materials and energy flows at hand. Reality is causal and behaves exactly as it is and can behave in no other way. No matter how convenient or useful for it to behave otherwise.
Living creatures must deal with the situation they are in. If they can’t, they cease to be alive. Not because reality chose to kill them. It was because they failed to know enough, failed to make the right choices, and failed to act in an effective way. This is true even of man.
However, unlike almost all living things, man has the capacity to learn, think, invent, and take advantage of the situation they are in. They can choose their own path to their own chosen future. They can choose to transform their environment to one more conducive to their lives. That capacity is almost without limit except for the currently too dominant tenancy to abandon being human and become mere undifferentiated members of a rather undistinguished but politically correct hive.
Thus, if man drifts back to a dark age mode of existence, it won’t be because reality chose to make it so. It will be because man failed to learn what he must learn and failed make the right choices and actions to sustain modern technological civilization. Man’s life is in his own hands. Reality is simply the background within which he lives or dies by his on choices driven by his own chosen purposes.
70
“Hey man, who are you?”
“I am not a who, I am a what.”
“What?”
“That is correct, I am reality.”
“What?”
“I have just answered that question.”
“Yeah, you are … something?”
“Reality.”
“Yeah, … what is that?
“Reality is what remains when all of your fantasies evaporate.”
“Oh, like a bad trip, man?”
“Worse than that.”
“What can be worse than a really bad trip?”
“Being nothing at all.”
“But that only happens when you’re dead.”
“Welcome to reality.”
“Oh, wow, what a concept! But wait a minute … “
110
The politicking is running strong on this one. A clue to who put the story up, no doubt.
A stackable offence?….clearly not.
Any director needs to do his due diligence, discuss the views from all angles. Labor is treadling hard and getting nowhere on this one. Obviously someone has it in for Mr Massy-Greene. I trust he has the fortitude to weather the dogma. Perhaps he can show it up for what it is. He certainly has my support.
100
Sackable….cursed pre-emptive text.
20
Good lord, perhaps it is time to bring back patronage! Yes, I’m on point.
The difference between the skeptical world and the true-believer world can be measured by
accountability level. Bureaucrats aren’t accountable. Can’t be fired. Heck, in the US they can’t
even be punished for gross malfeasance or outright contempt for the law.
Make them secure enough, and electing a new government doesn’t fix the problem, it just forces the new folks to fight a battle against a third column opposed from day one, and its a pretty poor bureaucrat who can’t run out the clock on a political term.
This is especially pernicious when you have a govt sponsored/sanction outlet, rather than just one where the ruling party and the media elite are intermarried and commonly schooled.
Civil service was once thought to provide competence and a service ideal that needed to be protected from politics so the non-controversial parts of government could chug on with outstanding public service insulated from the winds of political change.
Thanks, Teddy Roosevelt.
But this seems a bit quaint in a world where the consensus is broken and everything is political, and provides potential leverage to despoil ones opponents.
Yes, its not likely to work well to shuffle the entire government each election, so how about less government. SO you need the ABC? We still have a PBS sucking up government funds; that which was created to provide “choice’ when we had only three networks, and remains, sucking up funds even in an era when we have ‘250 channels and nothing on’.
If it slid into the sea tomorrow, would your ABC be missed? Would there be no enterprise arise to fill whatever functionality it may have?
So, bring back patronage, and, to prevent evil, don’t give the pols any positions to appoint, Problem solved.
90
I note the reporter says:
“His position seems to be at odds with the public climate change policies of both Ausgrid and Endeavour Energy, whose environment policy describes climate change as “the single greatest environmental challenge to fulfilling our commitment to future generations.”
She fails to see that even if he is still a “sceptic” on co2, the challenge may still be there in his view, either as natural climate change or as political dogmatic headwind to future prosperity.
120
LOL
70
I read that and I immediately thought,
But they apparently do. I’ve been thinking for a long time that the world is in the hands of children. But maybe we’ve graduated to Chimps sooner than I thought.
Absurd is the only word I can think of for this. But it’s even worse than that and way beyond words to label it.
Now I’m left wondering how much louder the complaint could get if that same executive had praised The Skeptic’s Handbook just a week or two ago. Maybe the next level down from Chimps would be the lowly jackass.
What can you do with such an abysmal understanding of nearly everything?
130
From America to the ABC: ROFLMAO !!!
50
There some basic principles behind absurd things.
1. Don’t try to make sense of the absurd. It is absurd because it doesn’t make sense.
2. Search for that the continuation of the absurdity achieves.
3. That achievement is the purpose for the existence of the absurdity.
4. Once you discover that purpose, you know the real motivation of the people who uphold the absurdity in spite of any of their words to the contrary.
Hence, if the absurd idea, policy, or action achieves only poverty, despair, death, and destruction THAT is exactly why it exists. They willfully want the destruction of modern technological civilization and the deaths of the billions of people caused by that destruction. Clearly, they don’t mean well even though they are committed to what they believe is the highest possible noble cause.
230
Exactly. That is why CAGW is a smokescreen for Agenda 21 / The 2030 Agenda – de-industrialization, mass population reduction and a return to an agrarian or even hunter/gatherer existence is the real objective.
Zardoz, anyone?
110
Say, who guardeth the guardian?
La Fontaine all over again
‘n again… Brexit and
likewise exit A B C, that
left-wing-massage-monopoly.
http://imgc.allpostersimages.com/images/P-473-488-90/65/6501/YIK6100Z/posters/honore-daumier-la-fontaine-renewed-prussian-wolf-disguised-as-a-shepherd-to-guard-german-sheep.jpg
40
Alas poor Yorick.
30
Beth,
I wonder if we ever knew him. I think probably not. He made too much sense. 😉
30
Lionell,
You’re no doubt right. But please, on this one I’m content to be rolling on the floor laughing my … off. It doesn’t need analysis, it needs ridicule. 🙂
30
One of your green thumbs is mine. To be fair, I cannot possibly criticise your logic. But really, aren’t you laughing at least a little? Even in the midst of the battle, the enemy’s stumbling around like a blind man is good cause for laughter.
20
In this case, I think we need both analysis and ridicule.
Yes, it is silly and stupid to the max but there is a very deadly purpose behind it. We must laugh while we are dismantling their demented constructions. Laughter alone is not enough to get the job done. Accurate analysis and effective action will also be required.
30
I keep wondering where the effective action is. Jo Nova and similar blogs seem to be the only such action going.
Just one politician with a spine strong enough to stand up and speak the truth and keep speaking it would be a relief and might well encourage others to do the same. I cannot believe that every single politician in the world is bamboozled by climate change chicanery.
20
To not be bamboozled would require they know something and stick only to what is real. A politician who tried to do that wouldn’t last a full term even if he did get elected.
The only thing modern politicians are good for is to sell out their constituents in order to stay in office for one more term. Any principle they ever had has already been sold and forgotten. It doesn’t much matter if they have an R or a D after their name.
10
Sigh…
10
I do believe that Cory Bernardi is a sceptic.
10
I think the ABC has skipped the Chimp stage, thinking it was a David Attenborough documentary.
The jackass stage? Almost certainly if you are thinking of loud braying that only means something to others braying as well.
80
When playing hockey, a defender can often be highly effective by doing a “poke tackle” whereby unexpectedly the defender lunges forward and “stabs” the ball with their stick , while the ball is in front of the attackers stick – not only does it have the element of suprise and literally doubles the reach of the defender, but it also breaks the attack, highly frustrates the attacker *and* usually captures the ball – all in one energy efficient move…..
I think sceptics can be highly effective through constantly asking hard scientific questions to get warmists to provide proof of CO2 causing global warming , that strike hard ( but fairly ) at the ball ( but never the man ).
60
An interesting state of affairs. Wonder if his teen-aged or college ideals will be brought up next…
In the US we have a break in our labor groups – the unions – and this should lead to a more interesting election than we are up for so far. With a rift such as this developing – and it seems more monetary than ideological – I am sure that criticism of past endorsements will be up soon. The need by the warm’nistas to defeat Trump at all costs may end up sending even more voters to his side.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/17/us/politics/democratic-turnout.html?_r=0
“The dispute, laid bare in a pair of blistering letters sent on Monday to Richard L. Trumka, president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O., underscored the tensions between the two pillars of the Democratic coalition.
For decades, organized labor was among the most powerful forces on the left, financing Democratic candidates and reliably delivering working-class votes, and political foot soldiers, for the party in crucial states and districts.
But with blue-collar white voters shifting to the Republican Party and Democrats growing more reliant on higher-income voters and liberal donors like Mr. Steyer, environmental activists are increasingly muscling out unions.”
110
Times change but the driving force remains.
Greed and personal benefit.
Thanks for the great outline of shuffling deckchairs on the Titanic.
KK
50
That’s a good statement of the situation — better than it might appear. But we seem to be passengers on that “Titanic”, charging along through the night at flank speed in the fog. And I can’t find any lifeboats.
If you know where they are you need to let the rest of us know, ASAP. 😉
20
He obviously needs some expert advice about emails.
Does he know Hillary?
Or someone at UEA CRU, perhaps?
I think Shukla is getting clued up, as well!
I think the above have set the bar for how bad things can be without ay sign of prosecution.
120
GC
Re Shukla getting clued up
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/05/17/shuklas-emails-tell-a-very-different-story-about-how-ny-ags-rico-campaign-started-off/
Maybe the height of that bar might be changing?
60
Normally you would describe such political thinking as scarey but not in this case.
The only word to describe it is VICIOUS.
30
I don’t know why this comment is here.
Perhaps the link to WUWT in Ian’s comment was the target but my comment was in relation to a woman in Canada who proposed shutting down a large area of that country with here weird science.
??
10
Gees I hope Trump gets in as POTUS.
….and starts to tear down the anti-science totalitarian garbage that is AGW and its related waste of money renewables..
131
Jo
Somewhat O/T but is this the secret model behind the federal election?
“Ontario’s big, green assisted economic suicide plan”
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2016/05/wynneing-41.html#comments
50
More discussion on this here – totally ridiculous ideologically base policy without any consideration to realities. But then why do they want to close some of the world’s best nuclear reactors (and in the meantime force up gas usage through wind power intermittency) if carbon emissions are the real concern?
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/05/16/ontario-climate-plan-leaked-all-new-homes-to-use-electric-heating-by-2030/
70
As i repeatedly comment – if we really did have a catastrophic issue with climate, the gummint would have forced people holding hydrogen patents to hand it over to avert the catastrophe.
This fact seems to be constantly missed – I guarantee that if a crisis was truly as big as they ( falsely ) make out, huge resources on govt dime would be allocated and put to work to provide a solution……and yet…..
40
Hopefully the ABC can get Tim on to tell us some more about how the rain that falls will not fill our dams /sarc.
130
Yep, the Tasmanians can attest to how there was no recent rain to lift their dam levels from 12.8% to over 20%.
30
Or why he’s got TWO beachside homes! Sounds like he doesn’t believe his own words…
30
this is such a bad argument that even skeptics have stopped using it. First of all his homes are metres above any projected sea level rise. If he lives for several thousand years and keeps his title I suppose he might have something to worry about if something new and unexpected changes to cause all land ice to melt.
10
“skeptics have stopped using it” only because he retracted his outlandish 1996 predictions
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/flannery_admits_no_chance_of_that_flooding_he_claimed_after_all
10
Sorry Bolt was wrong – it wasn’t 1996. Flannery made the statement in 2006, parroting James Hanson
http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/climates-last-chance/2006/10/27/1161749313108.html
10
two things. Speedy didn’t seem to know about this (maybe he/she is not a skeptic?) and the second is that none of his original predictions invalidate my statement. The closest of his homes to the shore is way above the level predicted.
10
OK, show me which of these properties looks like it’s 25 metres above the water
http://www.realestate.com.au/buy/in-nsw+2082+berowra+waters/list-1?source=location-search
And what makes you think speedy didn’t know?
20
I’m just re-reading Orwell’s “1984”. The feeling of deja vu is overwhelming.
Could Orwell have been a psychic, a prophet of things to come?
He certainly knew something about leftard politics.
120
Colin, hi………
while you are on the path re read “Atlas Shrugged”…….
80
Leading climate scientist, Professor Tim Flannery.
If he is a “leading scientist”, God help science.
His “predictions” have been less accurate than Mystic Meg’s.
120
B & T
Re predictions
Many years ago at a conference we were told that the results of long range weather forecasting a la Lennox Walker were about the same as your chance with a two bob bit.
I got to thinking recently that the two bob bit might well be ahead of the BOM these days
130
The most egregious part of the whole BOM approach is that they believe that while they have a huge legal disclaimer on today’s weather predictions, they can predict a hundred years out with certainty. There is absolutely no reason to think that this is true.
However it is hard to disprove but as models and supercomputers around the world predicted a steady +0.5C per decade, over the last twenty years and whatever the cause, we can say that Global Warming is busted. Man made or not. As for Climate Change, the CSIRO had real trouble even defining it, especially when you start to include this new concept, natural variation. I guess that encapsulates everything which is not in the infallible models.
Personally I would like to see a model of the world’s many climates which explained why the Southern Hemisphere is so much colder than the Northern, that the North Pole can reach +25C in summer while the South pole only reaches -25C. Melbourne at 37 is at the Latitude of Tunis but it has a climate closer to 47. Glasgow is actually two degrees closer to the pole than Heard Island but liveable. If a world model cannot explain the obvious, how can it predict detailed local climates? All this without CO2.
100
TdeF
“the infallible models”
“The inflatable models”
Corrected IMO
40
‘Southern Hemisphere climates tend to be slightly milder than those at similar latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere, except in the Antarctic which is colder than the Arctic. This is because the Southern Hemisphere has significantly more ocean and much less land; water heats up and cools down more slowly than land.’
wiki
30
Hi Redress,
Read Atlas Shrugged quite a time back. My middle name is Galt 😉
60
Time to shut down the Marxist ABC with a 100% funding cut and march off climate kookoos such as Flim Flam Flannery , Karoly and co in Straight Jackets.
What are we doing with a state funded propaganda outlet ?
Let its advocates find 1200 million per year to fund the crazies , and if not then bon voyage forever to these climate kookoos and closet Marxists !
What a relief that would be ….no more ‘the Dumb’ , and no more ‘Q & BS’ !
They would have to go and get real jobs , similar to the rest of us.
No doubt something that most of these pretenders would be unaccustomed to .
101
I had the pleasure of reading Flannery’s ‘The Weathermakers’ some years ago. Can only be described as a ‘clever mix of truths, half-truths and outright lies’.
No wonder he has trouble coping with the content of ‘The Skeptics Handbook’.
50
My curiosity always spikes when “ClimateGate” is mentioned (for obvious reasons), so I was surprised to see EnergyNews running a piece with it in the title:
http://www.energynewspremium.net/StoryView.asp?storyID=826963590§ion=Safety+%26+Environment§ionsource=s67&aspdsc=yes
It seems the author co-opted the name to describe the Exxon subpoena mini-affair. One wonders if he is hoping it will catch on so the original ClimateGate is sent down the memory hole.
50
Well after writing to them they changed the title to “
Climategate…”
40
Oops meant to bold not blockquote… you get the gist.
50
Some of us still remember that it was you, Bulldust, that coined the phrase ‘ClimateGate’ rather than the GreenOnTheOutsideRedOnTheInsideWatermelonMan, JD and it’s sad that I can only give you one green thumb for your post:)
All I ever got was to be credited with the term ’28Gate’ from Anthony Watts although, to be candid, I did write it as ‘TwentyEightGate’ in the forlorn hope that it would be easier to Google:(
Ah for those heady days when I got my 15 nanoseconds of fame:)
50
Remember the reference to the Port Lincoln Parrot also known as the 28 parrot.
10
From your article it would seem Roger Massy-Greene made two apologies. He is a coward and deserves no defense. I think he should be sacked for being a pathetic person with no personal standards or ethics.
31
The “skeptics handbook” has nothing to do with scientific scepticism. Just the repetition of the many failed arguments that the scientific illiterati fabricate to avoid the reality of the greenhouse effect and the evidenced warming of the planet. The idiocy of force X and the notch is based on mathematical and statistical fraud. Any numnut can access valid solar data which fundamentally disproves the theory of the lag and hence force X. If solar data is the leader of temperature variations then the temperatures of recent years, which David E conveniently ignores, should be falling in line with solar radiation. Implausible, falsifiable and dumb science
[The degree of incoherence is noticably increasing, which is rather sad.] Fly
[Yes, sad to say, there’s not only no understanding of the scientific method, there’s no understanding of comedy either. You should be able to find at least one of the 2 in someone who makes regular comments. :-)] AZ
(Another cogent free comment. Most skeptics long agree there is a “greenhouse” effect,that climate changes and it has been warming since the late 1600’s.Warmists like him keeps distorting what skeptics think…) CTS
13
Oh the poor mods’, nothing of science to offer just the same ol’ fallible fantasies as the years go by.
Anytime you want to start putting forward actual content instead of just insults, don’t hold back — Jo
05
Sillyfilly – all bluster, no content. You can give not one single example of a mistake or evidence that suggests either the Handbook or Evans work is wrong. But thanks for showing yet again how fast you are to toss insult bombs without having even a hint of something to substantiate them with.
Most of the witchcraft type fear generated by the weather is of this same thin veneer, indignant scorn from anonymous cowards.
51
Easily resolved. Anybody can take a look at the 11 year running mean of TSI. Funnily it bears no correlation to temperature from either satellite or instrumental data (though some people still attempt to “prove” the opposite).
05
And yet when TSI is used in a climate model with a delay of one solar cycle it hindcasts the climate better than CO2, which doesn’t fit any of the turning points ever.
So when provoked “this” is your big content point? I replied to you on the solar thread and you ignored it.
A dishonest anonymous coward.
31
Sillyfilly has been appearing on The Australian in the comments and might be feeling a bit bruised and in need of sympathy. Send her to The Guardian where they like minorities (the smaller the better**).
** Also applies to IQ so sillyfilly will be right at home there.
00
Serious irony here. Labor says it will outspend Turnbull Coalition Team on education. Better not be in the hard sciences/maths area or they might create some true sceptical thinkers who explain the errors in the current AGW doctrine. But wait, isn’t Bill calling for focus in these very disciplines?
Perhaps the “system” is going to self-correct in the decades to come. Let’s hope we still have an economy left to reap the benefits of Bill’s education agenda.
50
John
You have confidence of being around in a next life to see this?
Or maybe just I’m older than you – and I hope it happens much sooner. Like yesterday.
40
If he doesn’t want sceptics “in the shadows” then don;t drive them inot the shadows with this sort of fascist behaviour.
What I find so bizarre is that Climate Change is the thng they pick on, rather than say homeopathy or blank slate human nature or socialism.
All are far more obviously nonsensical and there is far more evidence that they are wrong – so why can you hold those views and have these jobs?
40
Flim Flam Flannery is the guy who doesn’t know his carbonics from his carbolics:
http://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2016/01/fishy-science-ocean-acidification/
“Tim Flannery, head of Australia’s Climate Council, is of the view that CO2 falling into the ocean produces “carbolic acid” or phenol, that useful disinfectant which can still be bought on eBay in the form of soap bars. Flannery is, as always, correct in terms of the prevailing hysteria, if not real-world facts. His prophecy is affirmed by Ocean Acidification International Coordination Centre (OAICA) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which agree that
Too much carbon is flooding the ocean with carbolic acid, with devestating (sic) effects on life in the sea.”
51
One small leap for a headline, one large laugh for chemists.
Why remain silent and be thought a fool when you can speak out and remove all doubt? He has gone from village idiot second class to village idiot with benighted cross and diamond cluster.
40
Yes, ABC TV is unwatchable and radio is unlistenable unless you are a rank left winger.
51
Streisand Effect versus McCarthyism Purge – a celebrity grudge match where there are no winners.
The old Yes Minister adage of “Mind Over Matter” is relevant here: They don’t mind as long you don’t matter!
You can wax skeptical until you’re black and blue and no witch hunt happens. But the moment you acquire any position of social and political influence, bam! Pitchforks and burning torches are rallied in every village square and hashtag. Shun the unbeliever? If only! They’re baying for a sacrifice.
And Mr Massey-Greene is supposed to “clarify his views or resign” which is Orwellian doublespeak where “clarify” here is intended to mean “normalise” in the conformal sense. If he were to clarify his view by saying the historic facts haven’t changed and further research since 2009 has only made the skeptic case even stronger… the collective brain explosion in LegoLand would be a sight to behold.
The McArthyism is unambiguous. But the Streisand analogy is not complete yet. Jo, please check if downloads of The Skeptics Handbook got a jolt over the last 48 hours.
51
I will make two points
The first is again as history has so frequently illustrated, when a large organisation becomes extreme in its actions and words regardless of its political or social stance and a very large element of hubris becomes central to its culture and actions [ ENRON and its smartest guys in the room ? ] a backlash builds and almost invariably cuts the organisation and its principals right down to just a shadow of what it was.
And thats if both the principals, their executives and the organisation are very, very lucky.
Alternatively and mostly the whole hubris driven show just exceeds its capabilities, over extends as the full hubris driven egotism kicks in with all former restraints are moved on and eliminated and a final catastrophic implosion as it all goes bankrupt both financially and ideologically and is almost totally wiped out to much muffled applause from all the sideliners.
The ABC is fast approaching that same elevated level of hubris which together with the extreme egotism of its excessively salaried front men and women lead them to believe they have become untouchable.
They seem to have reached a hubris and ego driven point where they have come to believe that the different sides of politics will never agree on the reigning in their platform to promulgate for their own personal prejudices and their steadily increasing social and political extremism and the bigotry and bias against any conservative or normal family orientated values now being practiced by the ABC staff with increasing impunity.
*************
The second item is a simple few lines in the Australian Broadcasting Corporation Act 1983
————-
Part VI Finance;
67 Moneys of the Corporation
(1) There are payable to the Corporation such moneys as are appropriated by the Parliament for the purposes of the Corporation.
(2) The Finance Minister may give directions as to the amounts in which, and the times at which, moneys referred to in subsection (1) are to be paid to the Corporation.
________________
And thats it!
If for some reason all parties in the Federal Parliament or for that matter, just the major parties agree and decide that the ABC needs to be reigned in, let alone be disposed of, they have the power right there in those couple of short paras in the ABC act 1983 to just reduce or even shut down for any period or shut down completely as they might wish, all the allocations of funding to the ABC merely through a parliamentary budget vote.
Much , much stranger things have happened in politics as the wheel of history rolls ever onward on and the old generations with their fixated ideas and attitudes move on and out and a new cohort of leaders and political operators with different motives and different aims and different policies move into power and the political, financial and social power structures all change with the new regime.
The ABC is heading down into a very dark valley indeed of extremism and hate filled agendas promoted against anybody who does not kow tow to its leading principals increasingly hard left socialistic promoting agenda.
And its deliberate misrepresenting of news and information that does not accord with the leading ABC principals own personal ideological beliefs.
The ever more strident promoting of its own increasingly dishonest, bigoted and biased agenda, all indicative of a fast increasing descent into that dark valley of shadows from where it becomes ever rarer for a body corporate to ever come back from as it sinks deeper into extremism.
And the deeper the ABC goes into extremism, a hard leftist green extremism that is unacceptable to the largest majority of voters at that, the more likely it becomes that some day and perhaps not far away at that, the politicals collectively will quietly decide amongst themselves that the national media and communications system is now such that the politicals and government no longer needs the ever more embarrassing, ever more expensive weight of a long dead and steadily increasing stink of the increasingly expensive albatross that the ABC has become, hanging about its neck anymore.
And then as in any socialistic trending government,other peoples money eventually runs out.
And the politicals likely solution to that run down in available government funds and those ABC self created attitudes ; Just cut it off and move on.
And in a couple of years few will miss it anymore as all the other corporate news and entertainment organisations both large and small rush to fill the percieved news and entertainment gap.
51
South Australia has officially hit the panic button
South Australia launches biggest solar + storage trial to defray network costs
They’re trying to pitch it as reducing distribution costs but The Catalyst episode earlier this year already let the cat out of the bag. They want home solar and batteries with the Reposit management system to act as “mini power stations” to shore up the grid this summer. But I don’t think 640 kWh (100 houses in Salisbury will the aim for the scheme for 6.4kWh batteries) is a big enough crutch.
50
Analitik:
“Roberts says the combinations of solar PV, battery storage and grid connections are the “future of energy provision”. Indeed, studies suggest that up to $400 billion will be invested by customers over the next few decades in rooftop solar and battery storage.” Much cheaper than building 2 CCGT plants of 500MW to solve the supply problem (about $2 billion).
Vote buying exercise in marginal electorate with lower solar PV take-up? The annual usage rate to qualify is lower than the average customer, esp. someone worried about their electricity bill, but I cannot see the savings they claim. Assuming you soak up 4 kWh during daylight and use it at night, what are the savings? About $350-400 a year. If you charge up at night and use at peak prices (15 charge then 35 saved) your gain is less than $300 a year.
As for preventing blackouts in the coming summer – in a word from one of the lesser known chinese dialects – phooey.
41
It seems that these battery packs may not be around for much longer.I hear that they are having “Liquidity”problems.
20
Jo, you are being far too kind to “Professor” Flannery. His history of climate predictions is laughable and he only opens his mouth to change feet.
Ceers,
Speedy
31
If I were Massy-Greene my stance would be:
You sack, I sue.
40
Jo I really liked this quote of yours , I had hoped to see the Abbreviation of the German secret Police in it , as their tactics were very similar
According to the ABC one is not allowed to hold varying opinions on a subject or even read contrary material.
what the hell is wrong with these people?
40
Now that I can sit back and be a little more analytical, there is that completely airheaded view of things, isn’t there?
She married the only other one in Hollywood who could sit as host of a TV show, now more than 20 years years ago and ramble on without ever having a point to make and without ever realizing he made no sense whatsoever. I stumbled across it while channel surfing one night and recognizing who it was (James Brolin) I watched as much of it as I could stand. It was awful drivel.
When I heard they were to get married I thought it must be a marriage made in heaven. I can’t imagine any two people who deserve each other nearly as much. Just think a minute, here you have a couple having absolutely nothing to argue about because they both swallow anything that comes along. That just doesn’t happen in the real world.
They’re both passable actors. And should have stayed with something they know something about. But Hollywood does weird things to anyone who hangs around very long.
50
Roy
You reminded me of that Oscar Wilde quote to the effect of
“How fortunate that they maried, thereby making only two people unhappy instead of four”
50
Having just read this item on George Orwell’s ‘Animal Farm’ and the battle that he had getting his very telling Preface published, readers may well be encouraged by his persistence to get at the truth of a matter – especially CAGW.
10
Whoops! Missed the important reference!
http://donaitkin.com/george-orwell-on-our-present-discontents/
10
Give me Massy-Greene over the Green Mass anytime.
10
Jo,
Sorry if this repeats earlier advice.
If an important person calls a book “absolute rubbish” in public
then the author has been materially and otherwise damaged.
The author should sue the slanderer for damages.
If there is no reaction the author is implicitly accepting the opinion.
I personally offer to subscribe $50 towards your legal expenses
if you mount a court action.
regards
Richard Hill
20