The leaderless Yellow Vest — #GiletJaunes protest against living costs is escalating in France and spreading around the world to Belgium, The Netherlands, Serbia, even Basra and Bagdad in Iraq. A Yellow Vest protest is planned for Saturday in Vancouver. The workers are fed-up with being ignored and milked for causes they don’t support, fed up with being shamed for driving cars or for voicing their concerns. On twitter both the left and right sides of politics are trying to claim ownership (though most of the left are silent, recognizing that this is driven from the provincial and rural population and aims right at their sacred cows). Oil refineries are being blockaded. Ambulance workers and firefighters have joined in. Students have aslo started to protest about education changes — blocking over 100 high schools. So far four people have been killed and 133 people injured. Shops and hotels have lost 20% or more of their revenue. They’re flipping over Porsches. Macron’s popularity is down to 23%. The protesters are now starting to cite other issues like the UN migration pact which they don’t want Macron to sign.
Even after the violence and damage over 70% of people surveyed in France support the protests.
Is it any wonder the riots started in France — one of the highest taxing nations in the world, where 48% of the national GDP churns through government coffers?
After offering a weak 6 month delay in fuel taxes, Macron has now conceded that the tax will not go ahead at all. The headline on Breitbart :”Victory: Macron Permanently Cancels Planned Fuel Tax Hike After Yellow Vest Protests”. But instead of placating the mob, the masses are asking for more and calling for more protests this weekend. Another round to come.
Brendan O’Neill in the Spectator: It’s a profound crisis in democracy, this is about a broad anger against the political class, against the eco-orthodoxy
h/t Paul Matthews
At last, a people’s revolt against the tyranny of environmentalism. Paris is burning. Not since 1968 has there been such heat and fury in the streets. Thousands of ‘gilets jaunes’ stormed the capital at the weekend to rage against Emmanuel Macron and his treatment of them with aloof, technocratic disdain. And yet leftists in Britain and the US have been largely silent, or at least antsy, about this people’s revolt. The same people who got so excited about the staid, static Occupy movement a few years ago — which couldn’t even been arsed to march, never mind riot — seem struck dumb by the sight of tens of thousands of French people taking to the barricades against Macronism.
It isn’t hard to see why. It’s because this revolt is as much against their political orthodoxies as it is against Macron’s out-of-touch and monarchical style. Most strikingly this is a people’s rebellion against the onerous consequences of climate-change policy, against the politics of environmentalism and its tendency to punish the little people for daring to live relatively modern, fossil-fuelled lives. This is new. This is unprecedented. We are witnessing perhaps the first mass uprising against eco-elitism and we should welcome it with open arms to the broader populist revolt that has been sweeping Europe for a few years now.
This leaderless, diverse revolt, packed with all sorts of people, including both leftists and right-wingers, is important for many reasons. First because it beautifully, fatally shatters the delusional faith that certain Europhiles and piners for the maintenance of the status quo have placed in Macron since his election in May 2017.
…, far from defeating the populist thirst for change, Macron has inflamed it.
the second reason this revolt is important is because it suggests that no modern orthodoxy is safe from the populist fightback.
…now, in this populist moment, people are daring to say precisely these unsayable things. They’re standing up to the EU.
The irony of the Paris agreement imploding from Paris, and while COP24 runs…
Geoff Chambers, a long time skeptic, lives in France and explains how this is consuming the nation.
… I get the impression that the British press, Europhile, Francophile, and Remainophile, will do all they can to suppress news of the vast social and political earthquake occurring here. If you think I’m exaggerating, consider this:
I get my information largely from three “independent” rolling news channels, all owned by millionaire oligarchs, and financed by ads which are almost exclusively for fast cars and perfumes – the kind of luxury products which France produces par excellence. In France, less than 8% of the population reads a national newspaper. News is for the élite….
BUT, these French channels are devoting 95% of their time (I’m not exaggerating) to a movement supported by 85% of the population, which is now demanding the resignation of a president recently elected by 65% of voters, plus the dissolution of parliament, to be replaced by some kind of popular assembly. This situation, incomprehensible to the English, is easily explained by the sociological analysis of Emmanuel Todd, to which I have frequently referred, e.g. here.
Geoff has some interesting perspectives:
A demographer gave a most interesting explanation for the strength of the movement, laying the blame on INSEE, the government office of statistics, which apparently decrees that 95% of the population lives in urban, and only 5% in rural areas. A child, or a climate sceptic, could spot immediately the flaw in this statement, but not a President, his government, or the highly educated élite which advises them: It all depends what you mean by urban and rural. So, successive governments have ignored the sparsely populated three quarters of the country, where half the population lives, closing railways, hospitals and post offices, and leaving the mayors of small towns with no industry or commerce worth speaking of to finance their infrastructure from local taxes, with ever diminishing help from central government.
It’s all about Europe of course, and its golden rule of reducing the budget deficit. The pressure on wages exercised by twenty years of austerity dictated by Brussels has forced low paid workers further and further out of the cities into what has suddenly been identified as the périphérie – not the despised banlieu (suburbs) where the lumpenproletariat (often Arabs) vegetate in permanent unemployment – but the small towns and villages inhabited by the working class (or classe moyenne in French) – those whom Macron has described as “the people who are nothing.” And where a decent life is possible only as long as one can afford to drive to work, to school, to the hospital, or to the out-of-town shopping centre.
France stands out as one of the highest taxing nations in the EU
Graph, France Tax, EU.
Source : wikimedia
In week three — the economic toll is affecting the whole nation: [Reuters] Le Maire said sector revenues had been hit by between 15 and 50 percent.
While not providing a precise breakdown, [Finance Minister Bruno] Le Maire said small retailers had seen a fall in revenue of between 20 and 40 percent, and the hotel industry was seeing reservations down 15 to 25 percent.
Restaurants, depending on their location, had seen takings collapse by between 20 and 50 percent.
“The impact is severe and ongoing,” Le Maire said, emphasizing it was nationwide, although Paris, after riots and looting in some of its most upmarket districts on Saturday afternoon and evening, was particularly affected.
French oil major Total has said 75 of its 2,200 petrol stations have run dry as “yellow vests” blockade fuel depots.
Chance to be first but I can’t think of anything at the moment but I do have a yellow vest (well really its a yellow green colour) in my van!
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Well I actually do have something to say. I have just returned from a meeting of local residents objecting to an inappropriate development in our small village. If this had happened a few years ago it would probably be accepted without a murmur but now we have 50 odd people up in arms because this is being thrust on us despite even the local council not wanting it. It appears that just as in France there is now a growing resentment of what the bureaucrats think is good for us, but we know is just a grab for cash. I am not sure, however, we will get to rioting in the streets but the hostility is just as intense.
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Good for your village. that is what local democracy is all about. We do have a slight advantage here in France with our villages all having a local Mayor and council (a lot of village business is done in the local shop or on the street).
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Ah…but fortunately we have, for the power hungry loopy Elite, thier willing Comrades-in-arms lap dogs….
Apparently we’re “Delusional” now.
Remember the Soviet strategy to silence your eneemies – you declare thier views “insane” and put them in a psych facility.
This could also be part of the expected distraction of the public away from the yellow jackets success ….and it could be the Elite are in a panic right now….
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-12-07/climate-change-denialism-holocaust-david-attenborough-coal/10585744
“It would be fascinating to eavesdrop on discussions between members of the Flat Earth Society sailing the open sea, and debating why the horizon is curved. They would provide a good laugh.
They are deluded, but most committed flat earth believers appear normal in the rest of their lives and their delusion is not generally harmful to others.
A delusion is a belief that is clearly false, a denial of facts. It indicates an abnormality in the affected person’s content of thought.
The false belief is not accounted for by the person’s cultural or religious background or their level of intelligence.
The belief of climate change deniers is usually unshakable, like that of the flat-earth believers or Holocaust deniers. Many delude themselves that there is a conspiracy.
US President Donald Trump uses the words “hoax” and “Chinese hoax”. Often their fervour leads to influential positions, for example in environment and energy policy as in the Coalition.
Climate change delusion is dangerous to humanity, for it overtly or deviously prevents effective reduction of greenhouse emissions by governments in many countries, including the US and Australia, but is an increasing problem with the rise of right-wing governments in Europe and South America, including, Brazil where the new government has a foreign minister devoted to climate denial.”
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Wow, I read that rant and what a RANT it is he scrapes the bottom of the cesspit with the his reference to Holocaust deniers, what a disgusting and disgraceful thing to say from someone who is supposed to be a learned Doctor! And Aunty published this!
The delusional bully is clearly obvious!
Everyone here should write to their ABC and strenuously object to his insult to the Holocaust survivors and those who do not agree with his manic obsession!
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This excerpt is also from this morning’s ABC website news.
In New South Wales, the five coal fired power stations are a health scourge from their pollution which causes 279 premature deaths, 233 babies born with low birth weight (less than 2,500g), and 361 people developing type-2 diabetes every year, who would not otherwise do so. These are preventable deaths and illnesses.
How on earth did they arrive at such conclusions? Sources? These seem delusional in the extreme. Ridiculous. Words fail me.
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“How on earth did they arrive at such conclusions?”
Mindless statistics, and hallucinogenic substances.
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“including the US and Australia”
Oh – you mean the only countries who respectively reduced their emissions more than any requirement to meet Kyoto (even though they didn’t ratify that agreement), and one of the few who even get close to their Paris target?
Those two are the “bad guys”, huh?
And China is a good guy for building lots of renewables, huh? Fortunately, they know better than to destabilise their grid with too much – with subsidies gone, no-one wants to do it any more, so what they have is likely to be all that is ever installed, unless and until policy changes anyway.
The same China that is growing their CO2 emissions faster than we are reducing them? Good guys?
OK – that’s all I need to know about you. Bye.
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“The same China that is growing their CO2 emissions faster than we are reducing them?
I read somewhere that they increase their CO2 output each year, but more than our TOTAL CO2 output !
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“prevents effective reduction of greenhouse emissions”
It seems that they already understand that there’s no upside to reducing atmospheric CO2.
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I too have a yellow hi-vis vest!
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I’m going out to buy a few yellow vests before they are all gone. I would have rather that there was a vest in Navy Jack but there are too many pansies out there for that to be likely.
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I have a high vis vest, six long sleeve and six short sleeve his vis shirts, a high vis hoody, and a high vis winter coat. Every time I step out of my truck at one of my companies terminals and at many customers this truck driver has to have on one of the above as outer wear. I await the day when I am required to top it off with construction cone on my head like a dunce cap with a strobe light on top in order to continue to work. The thing is the company I work for did not want to require that crap. Toyota is a major customer and actually sent people to spy on our terminals and they demanded that we comply with THEIR safety standards at our terminals!
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I wear the yellow/green vest for visibility when cycling.
Now I’ll wear it as a badge of pride!
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The populist tipping point against globalist, elitist environmentalism has begun.
TheRe will be resistance in Australia, particularly by the media and the loony left ABC but it will gather momentum as electricity price rises and blackouts start increasing.
When people start losing their jobs, they will be looking at whom to blame.
It will be a right wing political backlash.
It will require a clean out of the ABC and sbs so the one sided fake news (Propaganda) is removed .
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Yes I always believed if we are to see a backlash against the left it will be from the so called right. Let’s just hope the pendulum doesn’t swing too far to the right but I fear it will, at least in Europe.
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What does Left and Right entail? Sure has me confused.
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I agree Glen.
Terms used to polarise an argument and cover the truth.
Useful for politicians and media when trying to whip up a storm without any examination of the facts.
KK
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Left and right wing politics are simply representations of two different ideologies that have opposing views on many aspects of life, such as freedom of speech, generation and distribution of wealth, etc., etc. They are just labels and many place too much emphasis on their origins because much of what the people in each group stand for changes over time. For example, originally the left stood for fairness and free speech but now it stands against them.
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Peter, for the purpose of a good riot “left” and “right” are sufficient. If you are sipping latte at some shoppe, you can carry on as Keith and Glen are doing.
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I don’t believe that Glen and I see the L/R labeling as irrelevant to how people are being mentally straight jacketed and left uninformed of the issues.
KK
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Sorry, you have a riot of yellow vests outside. Care to sit, have tea and discuss relevancy?
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Me too. I see it as an argument about statism and our lives increasingly being controlled by elites who get their marching orders from globalist ideologues and people just wanting to be left alone to live their lives as they see fit.
More and more people are getting sick and tired of being hectored and bullied by our self proclaimed moral betters.
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I find it even harder to define what “the centre” is supposed to mean. Vic Libs are heading there.
https://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/michael-obrien-elected-liberal-leader-cindy-mcleish-deputy-in-wake-of-state-election-drubbing/news-story/ec9e9457d19adbabffd54c311d844727
Whatever it means both main parties want to go there, which means politicians don’t have to argue for what they believe in and no choice for voters.
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New leaders, but sameold same old.
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Back to the ‘centre’ (whatever that’s supposed to mean) means more craven leftism as far as I can make out. Come on Cindy, let’s have some commonsense injected somewhere; I’m sure you can do it!
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In the USA we have the term ‘moderate’ for the center.
My definition of ‘moderate’….
Someone who stands …for reelection every few years and little else.
No wonder they support wind power as they vote whichever way the wind blows….
People of flexible convictions, as Newt Gingrich described the Clintons.
I call them the Clinteones, as in The Godfather series….a crime family.
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“PeterS
December 6, 2018 at 10:57 pm · Reply
Yes I always believed if we are to see a backlash against the left it will be from the so called RADICAL right. Let’s just hope the pendulum doesn’t swing too far to the right but I fear it will, at least in Europe.”
There, fixed it for you. In this modern world as far as the opposing leftist politicians and their lackys in the press are concerned there is no such thing as the right. Everyone on the right is radical.
30
I’m with Glen on the old Left/Right dichotomy being out-dated in 2018. Perhaps we’re seeing a revolt against too much government. In France in particular my estimate is that the simmering unrest over numerous other issues has been triggered by the fuel tax and a broad section of the population is having a good venting of frustrations.
20
“…hope the pendulum doesn’t swing too far to the right but I fear it will…”
Unavoidable, methinks.
We are at this time, very far from the real centre, the left having lurched further left and the right slavishly follows at the appropriate distance – the spread doesn’t change, but the “centre”, at least as seen from the politicl arena, moves!
Been stuck on the left-lean for a while now, and it’s coming home to roost.
Inevitably, it will swing the other way – probably too far, then get pulled back the other way, rinse and repeat ad nauseum.
My hope is that the swings get “damped” and don’t increase each time – the increasing swings cause chaos, damped ones are merely corrections.
80
People I know when I explain to them that state governments, led by South Australia and Victoria, are buying and installing diesel engine powered generators as backup for unreliable energy sources, coal no longer acceptable because of the Paris Agreement emissions reduction targets express surprise and anger.
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I think this is an un-relenting constant pressure war-game against the Elite.
If you go too hard too soon, the Elite will start a global war to break the power stanglehold and distract everyone, as they will panic and fear losing their power ( its always about power…), or create some sort of financial “crisis” or some “terrorist” issue – anything to bereak the yellow jacket momentumn.
They are suprememly devious, and do stuff in the dark, so be on the watch…..
Remember – we didnt start this stoush, they did.
The best thing now – is to exercise democracy ruthlessly, and call out any monkey business to expose it to the disinfecting power of the “sunlight” of truth ….bad stuff happens in the dark….
The govt should fear the people, the people should never fear the govt.
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A great Message OS.
Governments are put there by democratic process and any subsequent breach of trust should be identified and punished.
The real problem is the Media who cover up the breaches of trust made by our Parliament.
KK
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You’re both right but too bad they took away your guns.
Insurance is very expensive until you need it………
51
I’ve read two of your comments now and I’m still waiting.
10
I posted more than two and I’m still waiting. You start with a reply about insurance and an explanation of how a lengthy discussion of why left and right are complex or indifferent. I will work on pacifying the rioting crowd of yellow vests so that you have time to get it.
12
Mal,
Down-under the current school age generation are the least prepared of all to handle the
volte-face the is coming, political or GSM. They’ve been reared on the teat of enculturated socialism and eco-Marxist globalism. They are mentally crippled, brainwashed without a single critical, hyperventilating cortical neurone, bred to march in lock step with the Institutions. It’s extraordinary. To this end then, I read here (JN) recently of the Australian school boys & girls of Sydney who wagged school to join the Climatism Rainbow charade and protest to ‘Slave the Planet’.
I observe their counterparts in France do the same, leave school, don yellow shirts and hit the Parisian streets, to kick back smoke grenades and other detritus at the police, joining the protest to really, “Save the Planet.”
Slave or save, I know where I stand. Those down-under kids have to be the most dumbed down sock puppet eco-muppets ever spawned. Their French counterparts would tear them to shreds.
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You would think that the Greenies would start asking questions when South Australia(which has only gone to 40% renewables)are having so many black-outs?Oh,sorry,I forgot.They DON”T WORK.So they don’t care.
00
Remembering this started years ago with the Truckies convoy to Canberra.
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HI taxation
is a form of
serfdom.
300
And you of all people should k ow beth 🙂
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Hidden Eco/Electric Taxes.
This is Taxation Without Representation.
Watt Tyler and the gang didn’t like it, and Neither should we.
There is No public benefit from the internal cross system transfers in our electricity shambles, only very carefully hidden private benefit.
There was a time when electricity supply was considered a core public/government run/non profit community service.
The fact that the unions had a grip on the electricity teat ment that the other side, libls, could persuade the voters that power needed to be privatised.
Of course, libls are not much better than laba in some respects and now we are enslaved, very quietly, by our “saviours”.
When you look at how Trumble Treats Us there needs to be a Revolution. Any politician who suggests to us that we have the power to go online and select a “good deal” from the “free market” is being very cynical. His son thinks of him as Don Turnbull, the great Australian manipulator.
The media is not free and this is a deliberate construct put in place by our rulers which WE must change before we can call ourselves a free people. Just because the press labels themselves as free and impartial doesn’t mean that they are.
KK
I can feel a revolution coming on.
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We can’t get a good deal from the free market because we do not have a free market. The regulations and rigged market is set up to advantage the rent seekers in the renewable energy industry. It is now more restricted than the union controlled state run electrical supply industries where.
50
Yep
20
Many will see echoes of the so-called “French” Revolution, which was an elite-engineered affair, like the breakdown of social and occupational protections which preceded it. And like the Bolshevik Revolution, for that matter.
This latest unrest puts me in mind of the common people’s revolt sparked by child abductions during the reign of Louis XV. Grabbing new inhabitants for Louisiana and the private behaviour of the king himself merged in people’s minds and there was full scale rioting, the city militia taking sides with the Parisians against the “deep state” of the day. Thanks to Marion Sigaut, evidence has emerged that Damiens, the “assassin” who scratched the king with a pen-knife and died under the most horrible tortures, was both a concerned parent and a domestic worker with inside knowledge of the Pompadour-run “Enlightenment” court.
In short, this looks like the real deal: an actual popular revolt, happening without permission from the manipulating class. In an age of illusion, stunts and round-the-clock media lies, one can’t be certain. But if it is that rare thing, bless it. Condemn the violence, but bless the people of France. Dieu Le Roy!
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It should not be forgotten that the removal of the Monachy and Court to Versailles concentrated the “decision makers” in a place isolated from the general public. The passing and febrile enthusiasms of the aristocracy were not of interest to the public, who were regarded by the aristocracy as the hoi poloi who had no say in decisions nor nowhere to go. The aristocracy regarded them merely as taxable subjects and the source of endless taxation.
The remote cause of dissent was a change of climate for cooler conditions a few years before, leading to price rises in essentials like food. Inept policy by those “out of touch” with the public caused dissent to grow and grow, until there was a revolution and the existing regime was destroyed. The reaction against the taxation authorities was severe and fatal to many, e.g. the scientist Lavoisier who was sent to the guillotine during the subsequent ‘Reign of Terror’ because of his association with the tax collectors.
The revolutionaries were a mixture of those with good, if unworkable, intentions and those determined to seize dictatorial control.
I wonder whether there are modern equivalents?
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As they say, how a society ( read: Govt/Elite ) treats its prisoners, is how it would treat the rest of us if it had its way.
The reason I consider Elite = Govt is that the Elite control the govts, regardless of what people think. The govt often are just obedient lap dogs of the Elite, case in point the eco lunacy, amongst others.
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Looks like Australians will be in the market for some yellow vests soon. Does anyone know an enterprising soul who might import one or two million after the next election?
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Aren’t the ones from Bunnings good enough?
Cheers,
Dave B
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It might be confusing to use yellow here as that’s the colour for Palmer’s UAP.
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Maybe if we all wore yellow, Palmers party might lose the association. Maybe they could then use Pink.
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I actually have a pink safety vest in the car. 🙂
74
lets stick with yellow…. 🙂
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What’s wrong with pink ??
Stands out in the crowd. (which is why we use them)
73
Pass…
51
Very bright orange vests over black would offer difference, the southern hemisphere orange revolution.
30
How about fluoro green? That’d confuse the watermelons
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Think of students working outside in groups, all wearing yellow or orange hi-vis.
It really helps to see where the other demonstrators are.
31
Can’t we think of something else? Otherwise we wind up looking like CFMMEU thugs, GetUp!, or the Prime Minister announcing something or other. None of those things works for me….
50
Don’t need to import any as our nanny states have legislated most blue collar workplace areas have to have some type of fluro to enter, people wear it at work and in public.
Personally I hate it but wearing some and marching on Spring street to face down the Andrews Cartel would be a worthy cause.
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The are called indestructiblity vests. When you get run over wearing them you will not even get a scratch on you!
50
The authority of science, which is recognized by most philosophers of the modern epoch, is a very different thing from the authority of the Church, since it is intellectual, not governmental. No penalties fall upon those who reject it; no prudential arguments influence those who accept it. It prevails solely by its intrinsic appeal to reason. It is, moreover, a piecemeal and partial authority; it does not, like the body of Catholic dogma, lay down a complete system, covering human morality, human hopes, and the past and future history of the universe. It pronounces only on whatever, at the time, appears to have been scientifically ascertained, which is a small island in an ocean of nescience. There is yet another difference from ecclesiastical authority, which declares its pronouncements to be absolutely certain and eternally unalterable: the pronouncements of science are made tentatively, on a basis of probability, and are regarded as liable to modification. This produces a temper of mind very different from that of the medieval dogmatist.
Bertrand Russell, 1945
Hilarious to read today. “The Science” obviously hadn’t quite been settled in 1945.
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A History of Western Philosophy.
40
The “Eco-Elites” are under siege – the “Yellow Vest Movement” started in Paris and their voice is now being heard globally – the thin edge of the wedge.
No doubt the “Eco-Elites” will also be under siege here in Oz. If one looks at the ALP’s current Federal Policies wrt “De-Carbonisation” then no doubt the “Yellow Vests” will be out in force as the escalating energy prices hit the hip pocket nerve of “budget sensitive” Aussie citizens. I predict a lot of headaches for the “Shorten Govt” post mid 2019.
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Maybe you should indicate to them that it might be a ‘shorter’ government (a guillotine as a symbol perhaps).
90
Touche!!!
If by some miracle the 2019 Oz Federal Election ends up as a “Hung Parliament” – as for the Gillard Govt in 2010 – then another “terminal symbol” can be applied.”
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Power prices reached a modest $423/MWh yesterday in SA. The forecast for today is north of $10,000/MWh. These are good days for the HPR. The price was down to $40/MWh at 0300. Price arbitrage of this level is how a battery makes money. With 30MWh available for arbitrage storage, the battery can net about $10,000 per day when swings are of the level yesterday. If the $10,000/MWh happens today it could make $300,000 in a single day.
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HPR is far too small (only 100 MW output, remember) to take significant advantage for arbitrage. But along with the struggle for generation to meet demand, the frequency stability of the SA grid will be severely stressed and it is here than HPR will rake it in.
40
Depends how long it can discharge at that rate, but its a nice little earner for sure
40
I reserve judgement as to whether the change has started here until I see the results of the next federal election. If it’s true the swing against globalism and the CAGW crap has indeed begun here we should see ALP+Greens defeated by a landslide in both houses. I await with much interest as to the real outcome. If only Morrison would take the chance and create a clear distinction from the left by placing nationalism ahead of globalism. That would require leaving Paris, scrapping RETs and the like, and removing the restriction on nuclear power plants.
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PeterS:
I doubt that he is capable of such decisiveness nor that his Party would permit it.
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However, maybe, ScoMo has worked out the motives and manipulation of the PM he replaced.
I read that other Liberal MPs certainly have turned their backs towards him.
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Turnbull still seems to have a firm grip on a fair number of the MPs.
Somehow he needs to be removed from the political scene COMPLETELY !!
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You don’t think they deserve him, their albatross? Poor harmless old Beloved Windbag…
30
I tend to agree very strongly on the last bit. I suspect the LNP is doomed due to its very nature of being a dogs breakfast. It stands to reason a party that continues long enough to be divided against itself so openly and deliberately cannot survive. Of course it could be rectified but it would require a lot of changes. I don’t see Morrison having the fortitude to make such changes.
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I continue to suspect that the 2019 federal election result will be another hung parliament, but worse than in 2010, meaning that the next government will have many more alliance partners in a minority government. I doubt that the government will control the Senate.
The traditional two party vote has been around 80 per cent shared including swinging voters swapping sides from time to time. According to former PM Howard during 2017 the shared vote now is around 60 per cent, and could be I believe somewhere in between 50 and 60 per cent. Many voters are not happy, even angry.
I will not vote for the major parties next time.
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With the way the two major parties are at the moment, one a dogs breakfast hell bent on destroying itself and the other hell bent on sending us back to the stone age, plus most of the independents just as bad as one or the other, the best we can hope for is the ACP and ON holding the balance of power in both houses. If the Trump phenomenon were to be repeated here that’s exactly what we should expect. Of course we won’t know if we in fact do have that outcome until the elections are over. I personally doubt we will but I’d be very happy to be proven wrong.
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The Coalition maybe a “DOGS Breakfast” but the ALP Shorten Govt will be a “CATastrophe”.
It will be raining “cats & dogs” and us Aussie citizens will be the big loser.
PURRhaps the 2022 Federal Election will bring some joy – the 2019 Federal Election won’t.
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Not a hung parliament, the Coalition will get home in a canter with fast rail infrastructure, a federal government responsibility.
12
Not if someone tries to cost it.
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The Sydney Melbourne run won’t cost the tax payers a cent and built in five years, but there is a caveat because they are going for the “private based value capture model”.
CLARA said they will use Asian money to build the infrastructure for the line and the new cities, think of it as value adding.
The two festering sores of immigration and high power bills can be settled easily.
32
If he were capable of such decisiveness then his Party would have to permit it. Isn’t that what a real leader would expect?
20
Peter you may have missed my memo on the excessive cost of building a nuclear power plant compared to a Hele coal fired station.
My thinking is that he won’t pull out of Paris or scuttle the RET before the election because 60% of the electorate has been brainwashed into believing the world is coming to an end because of our way of life.
Morrison said he’ll take a big stick to the power companies if they continue to gouge, its the sort of socialist talk the people love, so he may get away with saying nothing on the new coal fired power stations until after the election.
Put simply, I don’t think its possible to run a bullet train network and supply energy to a dozen new cities on renewable energy.
51
This is very dangerous. Of course this was always the desired Green result, riots, revolution, the overthrow of democracy, Martial Law. The people who dictate policy do not want to save the planet. That’s a laugh but it brings in the millions and the voters. The absurd Carbon Dioxide story is just a made up but convenient and unholy alliance of the bankers and capitalists like Macron and the communists. Squeeze society until it breaks. Civil unrest. Revolution. Martial law. Absolute power. Under every French veneer is a communist government in waiting.
The idea that the career communist Greens like Adam Bandt and Lee Rhiannon and the rest care a jot about ecology is just absurd. To take power whether you are Lenin or Hitler needs civil unrest on a grand scale. Call in the army.
If that happens, we may have another Communist Nuclear armed state. Most of France’s power is nuclear anyway and most of Europe is dependent on it as they have shut down their coal generation. England was without power for a week last summer. All good planning and a little luck and the rioters will play into the hands of the people who have planned this for years. Uncontrolled immigration plays its part too.
Let’s hope it can be settled down. There is no reason to cheer. This is not about ecology. It’s about mass unrest caused by insane UN/EU policies designed to bring down rich countries like Australia and France.
243
It’s not just the UN/EU. China must like very much for us to crash and burn so they can come over and complete the job of taking over the country. Russia is probably doing likewise with the EU and US.
130
I think that Russia is closest to their goal. When the climate turns cold and extra heating is required where will the EU get the necessary fuel? HINT, check out the dependence of Europe on Russian gas supplies. The USA will find other markets as they won’t care about those arrogant and ungrateful Europeans
180
The USA will need their shale gas and oil for their northern states (and Canada for its own consumption)
20
The Ukraine is utterly dependent on Russian gas. The yellow pipes are everywhere. Russian gas, Russian oil and Russian manufacturing and Russian coal, especially in Donbass which is possibly under Russian control as well, apart from Mariopol.
In the Ukraine, a bag of coal costs $US100, so people freeze in their apartments. In Russia, hot water powers every home in the city, for every use. It keeps the cities small too as you have to live inside the hot water distribution system, so the boundaries go straight from city to primeval forest. There is no alternative in winters of -40 and -50.
Crimea is near worthless to both parties. 2% of Ukraine. The East of Ukraine though is a powerhouse. This battle has just started and a quiet takeover is underway. No one wants the corruption of the Ukraine government.
Martial law is just an excuse to avoid the coming elections. You do not declare martial law because two small gunboats were seized after a provocative move by the Ukraine government. There is no stop to trading, just to gunboats.
40
I would agree with you, the caveat with the protests is tht they stay peaceful. Australians generally are a placid lot, it takes an awful lot to kick them off, but would put the French to shame if they really got going.
There is a brutal efficiency and toughness inside every Australian that should be rightly feared. Its probably also why our SAS are the top dogs globally, and why we took to use of bayonets in jungle fighting in WW2 a bit too well.
131
A considerable problem with respect to an organised protest movement in Aus is our relatively low population density.Almost any major centre overseas has little difficulty in gathering a mass in the thousands at short notice.Here it is a logistical nightmare to gather groups of this volume because of our widely distributed population.This places any popular response at an immediate disadvantage.
60
Pure jingoism.
20
Jingoism is just nationaistic chest beating.
I’d put South Africans and Australians almost on par with each other – once they set their jaw, watch out.
50
I suppose it was jingoism in the same way that the Cronulla protest was a revolt against the Muslim thugs and the inaction of the elites to protect the locals from them.
51
Yes we are more placid than the the French – much more. We are also still much better off so the need for a protest here is minimal. Things will have to get much worse before we react. Meanwhile most people are content with their jobs, leisure activities, unemployment benefits, etc. to be too concerned about rocking the boat. I’d be happy of enough people woke up and voted accordingly instead of acting like sheep and doing the usual. It’s a peaceful way to change things but for the same reasons as above people are not using their brains when voting and instead are content on letting things continue to deteriorate.
60
‘… instead of acting like sheep and doing the usual.’
If Cory came back to the fold with his clan before Easter, then he is assured of getting a Ministry in the new guvment.
32
Trading off past glories methinks. The general population is pretty soft these days. Being tough is having two shots in your soy latte.
60
The other point we should keep in mind is that Australia doesn’t really have a tradition of revolt, we were a convict colony after all.
When all that finally came to an end through the effort of free labor, there was the Eureka uprising by disgruntled diggers. The union revolt against capital came later and out of that tumultuous time the Labor Party eventually emerged.
We are an easy going lot who prefer to cast a vote to express their displeasure.
20
Not exactly true. There were a number of them with the Eureka Rebellion being one of the main ones. The Rum Rebellion of 1808 was actually more significant because it was the only successful armed takeover of an Australian government. What we haven’t had is a total revolution or civil war. I doubt we ever will; at least I hope not.
20
G’day TdeF,
I suspect you won’t enjoy this damnation of deluded denialists, but it won’t surprise you that the author is from South Australia, and a professor to boot.
Cheers
Dave B
20
Guess I,d better give you the link:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-12-07/climate-change-denialism-holocaust-david-attenborough-coal/10585744
Cheers,
D
20
In New South Wales, the five coal fired power stations are a health scourge from their pollution which causes
279 premature deaths,
233 babies born with low birth weight (less than 2,500g), and
361 people developing type-2 diabetes every year,
who would not otherwise do so.
Unbelievable. I mean it. Presumably by pollution the good doctor means excessive CO2? If so how do the five coal fired power stations in NSW cause higher CO2? This is amazing nonsense.
Reading such rubbish could cause the deaths of thousands of household pets, the slaughter of echidnas and the refusal of Tasmanian devils to mate.
81
“Dr David Shearman is the Honorary Advisor to Doctors for the Environment Australia and Emeritus Professor of Medicine at Adelaide University.” He has started DEA, a great idea with Doctors for the Environment. Unfortunately he appears to have bought the CO2 is bad for you story hook, line and sinker.
It is not the first time I have run into Physicians who believe everything they are told. I put this down to the fact that it is what they have done all their lives from childhood.
71
Here in the states they make those claims about deaths due to pollution from coal fired power plants all the time but when asked to come with specific cases with names, dates, and circumstances they produce none.
40
As I’ve similarly responded to the previous blog, I believe this health report is the discredited Latrobe Valley report by an activist doctor, and has been widely and roundly condemned by the local health experts who have pointed out that there are many other mitigating factors such as a high level of smoking, poor local diets, sedentary lifestyles, etc. I believe it was derived from another discredited report from New Jersey.
00
I don’t agree much at all. Completely peaceful resolution of this Green crap was never likely. That said, government willing to resolve it peacefully IS possible. Your scare crap that it has to end with a Hitler is Bull Cra-. I’ve read your posts for a long time and you are better than this (I think)
41
Like you, I really hope I am wrong. What is different is that so many people are middle class, live good lives, have plenty of food. It is much harder to get revolution started. However France is changed with hundreds of thousands of migrants, uneducated, often illiterate, without jobs. Also some 6 million Turkish Muslims now in each of France and Germany and vast numbers of Arab muslims arriving and an aggressive Turkey which is veering from Atataruk’s secular government ideal, there is a powder keg. France is very crowded. It is plain scary around St. Denis in Paris. Some areas are no go and the police are armed for trouble.
However that is what the Lenin model says has to happen. That is what the communists who took over the Greens want, as retold by Dr. Patrick Moore, one of the founders of the organization which used to be Greenpeace. Like you I hope it is impossible to light the fuse in France or that it will fizzle out if lit, but it is not about ecology, global warming, saving the planet and Green ideals. This is about poverty, jobs, taxes, race, taxation, uncontrolled migration of the unemployable and incompatible, religion and extreme socialism as dictated by the elites and EU. As in Algeria in the 1950s, it could get much worse before it gets better. Christmas is two weeks away and we can only hope it does not bring a repeat of the assault on Christians celebrating Christmas, from Nice to Germany to Bourke Street, Melbourne.
60
I’ll concede and acknowledge that you have made very interesting and worthwhile points. Heat and food together with rising cost of living are most important IMHO.
We should hope for a meaningful Christmas everywhere. Not Green or Red……
00
Le President Macaroni est mort…
111
Quel est un MACRON? C’est un piece de merde sous votre soulier!
30
Another political earthquake appears to be hitting the UK. The conservatives there are getting cold feet re BREXIT. Looks like the big Western political parties all over the world have fallen in love with globalism, except for Trump of course. According to many the new arrangement with the EU is actually worse than the current one, and bears no resemblance to the wishes of the people. Talk about a con job. It’s now the norm for a politician to say one thing but actually mean the exact opposite.
270
Never did understand why the UK needs a “deal” to exit the EU – stuff ’em, just adjust the law appropriately and if the EU doesn’t like it, tough, what are they gonna do?
81
you dont really know who holds what marbles, I doubt its an area for simplistic answers. e.g. the UK needs power interconnectors to the EU, has vital supplies like medicines supplied from the EU. Sure give them the big FU so you feel tough, then what do you think will happen?
30
Yes Kneel, The poms should simply declare unilaterally that they are no longer a member of the EU, nationalise all property in the UK held by foreign nationals or companies, then negotiate from there.
52
There is no surprise whatsoever in the UK parliament’s reluctance to embrace Brexit — after all 70% of parliamentarians voted against it in the referendum compared to less than 50% of the voters. May and Co have stalled and fudged and lied and obfuscated from day 1, aided by the bureaucracy, the Bank of England, Soros operatives and funding from the EU.
What astonishes me most is the degree of political naivety and incompetence shown by the Brexiteer politicians like Farage and Johnson, who once the popular vote was won, walked away as if their job was complete. Children . . . as if the will of the people was ever going to be enough to overcome the power elites so easily. No, they demand another referendum — a People’s Vote this time — the 1st vote apparently being the will of the fairies or something, and if the 2nd vote fails to torpedo Brexit, then they need to keep voting ad nauseam until a vote supports the EU.
A pity that drawing and quartering has gone out of favour. May deserves nothing less for her treachery.
70
The Left views this as a minor set back especially since their socialist framework is still strong and still in place. Unlike most other nations (Venezuela, Russia, China,Cuba), Left takeovers in the West must be by carefully turning up the flames.
100
jo writes:
On twitter both the left and right sides of politics are trying to claim ownership (though most of the left are silent, recognizing that this is driven from the provincial and rural population and aims right at their sacred cows).
—
it’s not only on Twitter. the left (& CAGW mob) are at it too, but here’s where it’s reached now:
6 Dec: UK Express: END OF MACRON: French MPs launch NO CONFIDENCE vote amid nationwide anger and riots
EMMANUEL Macron’s leadership is hanging by a thread as left-wing groups within the French parliament discuss launching a no confidence vote against the president.
By Romina McGuinness
Now BFMTV says left-wing parties within the French parliament have agreed to discuss a no confidence vote against Mr Macron’s government. The French Communist Party and the Socialist Party are leading the rebellion.
First Secretary of the Socialist Party Olivier Faure wrote on Twitter: “We’ve decided to work together to file a no confidence vote [to the government] next Monday. During the coming days, we will seek to increase the number of signatories. We have to show that other ways are possible.”
https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1055152/Macron-news-france-crisis-protests-end-of-macron-no-confidence-vote
The Latest: Macron’s government may face no-confidence vote
Washington Post-2 minutes ago
French left-wing opposition parties are seeking a no-confidence vote in President Emmanuel Macron’s government amid growing protests and fears of violence.
5 Dec: Marxist.com: France: the yellow vests must go further!
https://www.marxist.com/france-the-yellow-vests-must-go-further.htm
4 Dec: ClimateChangeNews: Macron suspends fuel tax hike in face of ‘worst protests since 1968’
By Natalie Sauer
In an attempt to shake off impressions that the Gilets Jaunes are anti-green, the movement has come out with its own ecological demands. Organisers urged the government to “favour ecology while saving households money” by carrying out a national plan to insulate buildings. Among other demands were an end to tax perks on aircraft fuel and the construction of shopping malls in the suburbs to discourage car use…
http://www.climatechangenews.com/2018/12/04/macron-drops-fuel-tax-hike-face-worst-protests-since-1968/
was this also an environmental movement, ClimateHome?
4 Jan 2014: Guardian: French eco tax mobilises new generation of Breton red caps
When Claudie Le Bail joined tens of thousands of Breton “red cap” demonstrators protesting in Carhaix at the end of November to oppose regional job losses and a green tax on road freight, she took her 79-year-old mother with her…
The Socialist government has announced the suspension of the tax, which had been due to come into force on 1 January, but the red caps have continued their campaign, demanding its cancellation altogether. The most recent attack on a motorway radar was last weekend, and their first action of 2014 will come on Sunday, when members are to occupy bridges straddling the motorways throughout Brittany…
Then came the government’s decision last year to enforce the eco tax, approved under Sarkozy, from 1 January 2014 – it became the last straw for the Bretons, who worried that the haulage companies would pass on the taxes to consumers, further undermining the local economy…
(Socialist deputy for the Finistère constituency which covers Carhaix, Richard Ferrand) acknowledges the “great distress” in the local community. But he says that green shoots of recovery are appearing, notably thanks to a Chinese company’s €100m investment in a factory to produce milk powder for export to China. The ground-breaking ceremony in Carhaix takes place on 10 January…
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/03/french-eco-tax-new-generation-breton-red-caps
70
should have noted ClimateHome has no link for its assertions; plud “organisers” are not named.
even if there were such demands, it would not be based on a consensus of green-vests! just some ClimateHome-type/s claiming to be yellow-vests.
meaningless.
60
I suspect France will get rid of one ex-bank employee and be “given” another.
It will be intersting which tame globalist stooge is voted in….
50
OS, I prefer the term “housebroken” globalist stooge, but spot on regardless…. 😛
00
6 Dec: Sputnik: French Police Union Calls on Police to Join Yellow Vests’ Protests
The French labour union Vigi has called on its members working in the national police and in the Ministry of the Interior to start an indefinite strike on Saturday, joining the Yellow Vests movement. The statement was placed on Vigi’s Facebook page on Wednesday.
“The demands made by the Yellow Vests movement related to all of us. The time to organize legally and express solidarity with them for the benefit of all has come”, Vigi’s post reads.
FACEBOOK PAGE
“We are being perceived as mercenaries, given bonuses for overtime work, but they cannot compensate for the decisions made by the government”, Vigi’s statement reads.
The call is directed at “administrative, technical, scientific and state workers/cooks from the Ministry of the Interior”, according to the statement…
Michel Thooris, the head of the France Police labour union, said that the French government had failed to implement security measures in Paris, noting that “a majority of the French continue to back the movement”. She also highlighted that using the armed forces against civilians would indicate that France is heading towards a civil war…
https://sputniknews.com/europe/201812061070444941-french-police-union-calls-police-join-yellow-vests-protests/
6 Dec: Reuters: France’s CGT union calls 48-hour energy strike in support of yellow vests
by Bate Felix
France’s hard-left CGT trade union on Thursday called on its energy industry workers to walk out for a 48 hours from Dec. 13, saying it wanted to join forces with ‘yellow vest’ protesters.
The CGT said President Emmanuel Macron’s long-term energy-transition plan would hurt jobs and increase France’s energy dependency on neighboring countries.
It urged its workers at state-utility EDF, gas and power supplier Engie and all other companies in the sector to down tools. It had already called a 24-hour strike, but said it was extending that.
There was no immediate reaction from the yellow vest movement, an amorphous group with no formal leader which so far has not associated itself with any political party or trade union.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-protests-energy-strike/frances-cgt-union-calls-48-hour-energy-strike-in-support-of-yellow-vests-idUSKBN1O517X
50
If it continues with shutting down power, police, transport, deliveries of fuel, martial law will be next and not unreasonably if basic services cease. Anarchy is not democracy. France has a long history of violent revolution. This is the fifth Republic in just 200 years. Once law and order is reestablished, the government will have to proceed carefully. Reducing taxes is the most obvious first step, the belief that you can tax the people endlessly is now over. Even Gerard Diepardu reasonably ceased to be a French citizen in protest. He earned $50Million in a year and was taxed $51 million. Climate Change taxes are the last straw for everyone. Having forced everyone to go diesel, punitive taxes on diesel fuel and even diesel ownership are outrageous and the latest provocation by the new Macron private school aristocracy and their friends in Brussels.
120
Taxes are only one side of the equation, the French run a raft of socialist largesse that sprays public money in every direction. While people riot about taxes will they accept giving anything up? It will be a difficult balancing act.
30
the Unions developing story reminds me of the only interesting bit in Aljazeera’s Inside Story program (which didn’t mention “green” “climate” or anything else CAGW). it’s easier to watch on the youtube link below the summary:
2 Dec: Aljazeera Inside Story: Can Macron survive the biggest challenge to his presidency?
Barricades burn in Paris for a third successive week as calls grow for the president to resign.
“Yellow Vest” protesters are again venting their fury at the rising price of keeping their cars on the road…
Presenter: Laura Kyle
Guests:
Anne Giudicelli – Chief executive, Terrorisc Consultancy
Remi Bourgeot – Economist, French Institute of International and Strategic Affairs
David Lees – Lecturer in French Studies, University of Warwick
—
(rough paraphrase)
at 19min32sec: Aljaz presenter Kyle asks David Lees, Warwick Uni: no real leadership. but how likely they will get more organised. that Trade Unions coming on board and it then becomes a much more concerted & perhaps more worrying movement for the Govt?
David Lees: having Trade Union involvement, or indeed having more mainstream political involvement, might be a good thing for Macron, because it would actually focus negotiations on a central leadership capable of ?.
harder for Macron to sit down with a movement in disarray than to sit down with people he may already know.
May 68 movement didn’t have leadership for a long time – De Gaulle/Pompidou found it easier to negotiate once Unions became involved; it took the sting out of the movement in a significant way.
i think, in many ways, Macron would welcome having Trade Union or mainstream political involvement, because it would take away from the sense of this being a popular movement that transcends political boundaries.
Kyle: because it is a popular movement, isn’t it? more than 75% of the French people support it etc.
Youtube: 24min45sec: Aljazeera: Can Macron survive the biggest challenge to his presidency? Inside Story
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-sq20kTG4A
40
In Paris a great outcry grows,
The Emperor’s sham to expose,
As they take to the streets,
To protest the elites,
Who stitched up and scammed his new clothes.
260
Macron’s carbon tax is only just the beginning of that required to eliminate the use of fossil fuels in cars. Economists are agreed that the only way carbon taxes will work is to have a steep, automatic, annual escalator to ratchet up the cost of fossil fuels until they are unaffordable. Even if Governments were to lower taxes elsewhere, this would be politically reckless and unacceptable in most societies. That is why a majority of major nations play the climate diplomacy game. Make empty commitments that do not actually damage their economies or upset the political status quo. For instance the UNEP Emissions Gap Report 2018, released at the end of last month just ahead of COP24, showed the projected emissions changes from 2015 to 2030 for the G20 countries based on Paris commitments. Or at least it does with some calculations. The net impact is an increase in global emissions of nearly 10%. It would have been worse if the USA was not decreasing its emissions – mostly through the emergence of shale gas.
Looking at a broader perspective, of the of the 45 nations with a population above 30 million, just 10 have pledged to have emissions lower in 2030 than 2015. Fully 83% of the global population live in a country with 30+ million people where emissions are projected to be higher in 2030 than in 2015. France and Australia are losing the diplomatic game.
My analysis is here.
151
Econimically, carbon taxes work killing fossil fuelled cars, but at what cost?
If you think about it – electric cars put humanity on a leash – your banned from any form of freedom with petrol/deisel cars range, you cant travel far, and you have no choice – its just another hand on the back of your neck by the Elite…..it needs to be rejected.
141
True. They are already rejected because hardly anyone wants them. For starters who wants to wait hours for the batteries to be charged when one can fill a tank of a normal car in a matter of minutes? People might be fools but they are not normally that stupid. When they can charge an electric car in about the same time as refilling a normal car then perhaps more people will be buying them. Until that happens electric cars are just a fad.
90
The problem is that it is very hard to keep a few jerry cans of electricity at home on the garage, for the time the service station can’t supply.
We often lose power in thunderstorms. It was for 26 hours last week & 5 days back in February. If the electric cars battery is low, we might not even be able to get to town to buy food.
60
Steve, the short range travel is one of the objectives of UN Agenda 21. Herd everyone into enclaves and deny them physical interaction with other enclaves and they are more likely to do as they are told – you can also do experiments on controlled enclaves with impunity because what you do won’t get blabbed about to other enclaves.
30
The Australian runs with a Project Syndicate piece I read this morning by elitist, (new) philosopher, Bernard-Henri Levy (not one of my fave people – see his Wikipedia):
Yellow Vests need to shake off the Brown Shirts in their midst (by Bernard-Henri Levy)
The Australian-35 minutes ago
If the Yellow Vests decide the machine they have unleashed has overtaken them, and they can no longer stop Act IV, they must be prepared during the protests…
5 Dec: Project-Syndicate: Will the Yellow Vests Reject the Brown Shirts?
by Bernard-Henri Lévy
Now that President Emmanuel Macron has retreated in the face of France’s grassroots protest movement, the ball is in the protesters’ court. The danger is that they will place themselves in the tradition of paranoid nihilism and pollute their ranks with the political vandals that France still produces in abundance.
From the moment the French government canceled its planned fuel tax hike in the face of massive protests, it was obvious that the move would be perceived as inadequate, insignificant, and above all incapable of having any calming effect. Honor to whom honor is due: the Yellow Vests claim to be an expression of the sovereign people. But they now bear a heavy responsibility.
For starters, they must announce a moratorium on demonstrations and blockades for a period long enough to accommodate the dialogue proposed by Prime Minister Édouard Philippe, if not longer. In particular, they should renounce the much-touted December 8 “Act IV” of the movement, brewing on Facebook since Saturday evening, which everyone expects to be more violent, destructive, and tragic than the preceding installments. There have been enough deaths, injuries, and damage (including to some of the most famous monuments in Paris).
If the Yellow Vests decide the machine they have unleashed has overtaken them, and they can no longer stop Act IV, they must be prepared during the protests to help the police flush out the violent “brown vests” who will be circulating among them. Because the wreckers of the far right and far left will surely reappear to vandalize, terrorize, and desecrate; it is up to the Yellow Vests to say once again, this time as if they really mean it: Not in our name. Whether the Yellow Vests declare a moratorium or continue to protest, nothing would serve their cause better than to dissociate themselves – decisively and unambiguously – from all the political profiteers who would capitalize on their misery.
The cast of opportunists is well known. Here is Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who, having finished fourth in the 2017 presidential election won by Emmanuel Macron, is desperately seeking a new following. There is François Ruffin, the leader of the anti-austerity movement Nuit debout, with his irresponsible anti-republican calls of “Resign, Macron!” And over there is Marine Le Pen, oscillating comically between taking pride in and repenting her call to occupy the Champs Élysées last Saturday, thereby becoming accountable for the worst of what was said and done there.
And there the intellectuals who, in the manner of Luc Ferry and Emmanuel Todd, suggest that it was perhaps not “by chance” that the wreckers had such an easy time approaching, storming, and sacking the Arc de Triomphe. Such rhetoric lays the worst of all traps for a popular movement: the trap of conspiratorial thinking.
***In other words, the Yellow Vests are at a crossroads. Either they will be bold enough to stop and take the time they need to get organized, following a path not unlike that of Macron’s own La République en Marche !, which, in hindsight, might appear to be the Yellow Vests’ first-to-arrive twin.
***Macron’s movement, too, had right and left wings. And it knew that it was a new political body, engaging in a dialogue or even a showdown that would lead to an honest reckoning with poverty and the high cost of living. If the Yellow Vests build a movement that rises to the height of Macron’s, it may end up writing a page in the history of France.
Or the Yellow Vests may turn out to lack that boldness and settle for the paltry pleasure of being seen on television. They will allow themselves to become intoxicated by the sight of luminaries and experts of la France d’en haut (elite France) seeming to eat from their hands and hanging on their every word.
But if the Yellow Vests allow passionate hate to win out over genuine fraternity and choose wrecking over reforming, they will bring only chaos, not improvement, to the lives of humble and vulnerable people. They will careen off into the darkest side of the political night, and end up in the dustbin of history, where they can rub elbows with those other yellows, the early-twentieth-century “Yellow Socialists” of the proto-fascist syndicalist Pierre Biétry.
The Yellow Vests must choose: democratic re-invention, or an updated version of the national socialist leagues; a will to repair, or the urge to destroy. The decision will hinge on the historic essence of the movement – whether its reflexes are good or bad, and whether, in the final analysis, it possesses political and moral courage.
So the ball is in the Yellow Vests’ court. They have the initiative as much as Macron does. Will they say, “Yes, we believe in republican democracy?” And will they say it loud and clear, without equivocation? Or will they place themselves in the tradition of paranoid nihilism and pollute their ranks with the political vandals that France still produces in abundance?
https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/yellow-vests-or-brown-shirts-by-bernard-henri-levy-2018-12
40
Pat this French intellectual elitist bull sh*t. It’s a pity the Australian printed it..It does not serve any positive purpose beyond defending the elites in power…
100
The Murdoch empire with the younger sons at the helm is moving Left. As such, I’d expect the Oz to slide into the leftist “seagull” media camp slowly but surely, so that all of the MSM is of the same anti-common sense ilk.
Fox in the USA appears tobe already sidelining conservative voices, which is a stark deptarture from its previous conservative stance.
Sometimes I have to watch morning tv at the gym if my ipod dies, and its a huge incentive to always have a working ipod…..morning tv is like mental slow motion labotomy….
50
This Bernard-Henri Levy is one of the people that needs to go. He thinks most of the French people live in the cities and should obey the intellectuals diktat – in other words he hasn’t a clue and lives in his little intellectual bubble.
There is a lot more left to do here, the windmills have to come down and the nuclear power plants have to be updated to give continuity of supply. The taxes that are applied to electricity have to be removed and the rollout of smart meters (Linky)killed, it is only there, as in all other countries, to give controlled blackouts when unreliable renewables don’t supply enough power.
[Appreciate your note. Thank you.] AZ
[snipped the note.]
60
sorry
but You are completely wrong.
It’s a social uprising, the carbon tax is just part off the social problem
If You read some off the list off the expectations off the yellow shirts, You will see that they probably all are for ecological laws, they just ask for others too pay.
In the list off requests, You will see the ban off glyphosate.. amazing .
And they all will go for a green world, they just need to find some too pay,The “fortuntax” is one off the first on the list
asking, are You for the ernergetical transformation, they all agree
nomobody seem too understand, that cheap energy could save they propserity
And the risk, if there is no solution from this governement ( and I do’nt see any )is that some communist solution (like the one in Greece, and Spaigne, will take in power.
The greens would like too be part of that of course
Sorry for my bad english,
141
at least Stephen Pope calls it a carbon tax:
6 Dec: Forbes: Stephen Pope: Long Live Gilets Jaune As Macron’s Makes A Fuel Tax U-Turn
(Stephen Pope has over 30 years of experience in the international capital markets and is Managing Partner at Spotlight Ideas)
There is no other way to put it. The appeasement of the “Gilets Jaunes” (Yellow Vests) who for successive weekends took to the streets of Paris to protest a new fuel tax is a major embarrassment. This act of capitulation will not help the divisions that pervade French society and may well backfire as it signals that aggressive, violent demonstration can effectively alter government policy.
What it shows is that rather than being the savior of France, President Macron, elected on May 7, 2017 with 66.1% of the popular vote versus 33.9% for Marine Le Pen, is just another typical politician with one eye on their individual popularity rating.
From that heady position of a 66.1% approval rating, the President’s popularity has plummeted to 23% in a poll conducted late last week by Ifop-Fiducial poll for Paris Match and Sud Radio…
How quickly the shiny polish of a new leader can tarnish as it was realised that he was in fact a typical politician that was a fiscal conservative whose remedies meant plenty of pain as austerity bit hard…
What is so damaging to the President is the fact that he readily chastised his predecessors for caving in to popular demand and conducting U-Turn’s as a clear reason why the French economy had failed to modernise.
This concession is not going to mend the broken fences within France and it would be no surprise if it gave succor to movements in other European nations where there is growing disenchantment with the old established order…
Macron had shown great promise as he drove through much needed reforms of the labour market, education system, professional training and state railways. However, now, with the bugle of retreat reverberating around France one has to question is what prospect there is of the President being able to drive through the contentious overhauls of the pension and unemployment insurance systems.
Macron’s Prime Minister, Édouard Philippe, announced on Tuesday that a January 1, 2019 increase in carbon tax on gasoline and diesel will be deferred for six months, and increases in natural gas and electricity prices will be shelved. Move forward another day and the increase has been removed from the 2019 budget. To be blunt, it has been scrapped. Sacrificed on the altar of political populism…
The proposed tax increase was seen a step too far for the population of rural and small-town France who have been struggling in recent years amid budget restrictions. They are concerned with making their income stretch out on a month to month basis. In such circumstance they do not care for the carbon taxes and government efforts to reduce the country’s greenhouse-gas emissions. They have had enough of the elite and their tendency to dictate to the rural regions…
Given there have been severe cutbacks in rural public transport links the tax would have meant that rural and small-town citizens who must drive to major centres to seek out pubic services. Coupled with the fact that French vehicle-fuel prices are among the highest in Europe, the tax rise was the final straw…
French drivers now pay €1.99 per litre ($2.25 per litre) or €8.95 per gallon ($10.13 per gallon) for gasoline or diesel. Over half of that is already devoted to taxes and the January 2019 carbon tax would have added another 25 Euro cents (29 US Cents) to that price…
Indeed, opinion polls have revealed that 70% of French public opinion sympathizes with the protesters.
That is significant factor for the President to consider with European elections due in May next year. However, he once saw the Greens as a natural ally; now they will be harder to win over given his retreat on the fuel tax.
Better assume a brace position as the only winner from this sorry affair will be Marine le Pen and her party “The National Rally”. They currently now hold 24 of France’s 74 seats in the European Parliament and will make further gains next May. Be warned, she is slowly building momentum ahead of 2022.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/stephenpope/2018/12/06/long-live-gilets-jaune-as-macrons-makes-a-fuel-tax-u-turn/
30
So far MSM coverage of this has been reluctant. When they do cover it at all, they have been very careful to portray this as a revolt against taxes in general or high living costs, and not what specifically sparked this off. What sparked this off was a carbon tax. Fuel taxes are carbon taxes. Moreover, it was just the first stage of what was planned. These carbon tax hikes were meant for compliance to Paris Climate Accord commitments.
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*****CHAOS AT COP24*****
6 Dec: ClimateChangeNews: Polish trade union Solidarity rejects climate science consensus
In a joint statement with US denialist think-tank the Heartland Institute, Solidarity expressed scepticism of UN conclusions on the dangers of global warming.
By Chloé Farand for DeSmog UK
A Polish trade union has issued a joint statement with a ***notorious American climate science denial group, rejecting the scientific consensus on climate change.
The statement (LINK), signed by the Chicago-based Heartland Institute and the trade union Solidarity was released as UN climate talks took place in Katowice, the centre of Poland’s coal heartland region of Silesia…
In the statement, the trade union Solidarity and the Heartland Institute express “skepticism of the assertions of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that the world stands at the edge of a climate catastrophe”…
The Solidarity-Heartland statement adds that “neither organisation opposes the goal of clean air nor supports the elimination of coal from the world’s energy portfolio” and calls on “an end to the war on science and scientists by powerful state-backed forces”.
It is signed by James Taylor, senior fellow at the Heartland Institute, Jaroslaw Grzesik, the chairman of Solidarity’s energy and mining secretariat and Dominik Kolorz, the president of the Solidarity in the Silesian region.
The statement was issued after Solidarity representatives met members from the Heartland Institute on the fringe of Cop24 in Katowice. Both parties agreed to “begin working together more closely to advance sound, science-based public policy” as well as “educating the public and policymakers on climate policy” with a focus on educating young people.
Solidarity said it had translated the Heartland Institute’s latest report into Polish and was “very satisfied by the new science and policy presentations”…
The alliance between Solidarity and the Heartland Institute will come as a blow to the Polish government, which has so far balanced urging progress on finalising the Paris rulebook with reluctance to significantly reduce the share of coal in its energy mix…
Poland relies on coal for 80% of its electricity and a significant share of household heating…
At the start of the conference, Polish president Andrzej Duda said climate change needs to be tackled, but not at the expense of the coal workers who made the Silesia region thrive as an industrial centre.
http://www.climatechangenews.com/2018/12/06/polish-trade-union-solidarity-rejects-climate-science-consensus/
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DeSmogUK/Farand had already produced a major hit-piece on Heartland earlier in the day.
5 Dec: DeSmogUK: COP24: Climate Science Denial, Disinformation and Fake News at the UN Climate Talks
By Chloe Farand
A small group of climate science deniers tried to grab attention by hosting an event on the fringe of the conference, claiming to “present the science that debunks UN alarmism”.
But this year, very few were paying attention.
Year after year, climate science deniers have attempted to use the climate talks as a platform to undermine the global climate negotiation process…
***Inside the UN conference, climate science denial voices have traditionally been ignored…
Isolated Deniers
The notorious Chicago-based climate science denial group The Heartland Institute, a long-standing visitor of the UN climate talks, came to Katowice on Tuesday to defend fossil fuels as “a cheap and abundant source of energy”. But very few bothered to listen to what they had to say.
Describing itself as “globally recognised as the leading think tank promoting scepticism of man-caused catastrophic global warming”, the Heartland Institute held a tedious three-hour event outside the UN conference centre with five climate science deniers as speakers.
The event was live-streamed on Youtube and was watched by about 50 people, according to the video platform. AFP journalist Frank Jordans, who was allowed inside the venue, reported that 10 people attended the event which received no other press coverage…
Speakers included Craig Idso, from the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, Dennis Avery, director of the Center for Global Food Issues and James Taylor, a senior fellow at The Heartland Institute.
DeSmog UK applied for a press accreditation to attend the event but was denied access by The Heartland Institute, which claimed DeSmog was “not a news organisation” despite having official UN media accreditation to report on the climate talks.
This is not the first time The Heartland Institute has prevented DeSmog UK from reporting on its event. In 2015 in Paris, DeSmog UK journalists were kicked out of an event hosted by the group after the meeting was suddenly changed from being public to private.
Bragg, from Corporate Accountability, said that discrediting the press as illegitimate — a tactic repeatedly used by President Trump — could be an “incredibly dangerous and destructive” method in the disinformation toolkit…
For Dana Nuccitelli, a journalist who has extensively covered climate change denial, this strategy of labelling any critical media coverage as “fake news” has long been implemented by climate science denialists and continues to thrive today…
Astrid Caldas, a senior climate scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientists, added that Trump’s vendetta against the “fake news media” had led people to want to belong to the President’s camp “not only because it aligns with what they want to believe in, but also because they think it is prestigious and legitimises their behaviours”.
“That leads to radical behaviour, bullying, and actions like denying press entry or canceling passes,” she said…READ ON
https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/12/05/cop24-climate-science-denial-disinformation-and-fake-news-un-climate-talks
with reference to the insults about the numbers quoted in the above and the Solidarity article – there are now 3,641 views for the Heartland video. plus who would expect a large audience for a Heartland event at a COP summit, when the place is crawling with NOTHING BUT CAGW ZEALOTS. zealots who are not at all interested in climate science, it should be said.
that said, the video is, indeed, tedious. where’s Lord Monckton, or Jo, when you need them? lol.
Youtube: 3hrs-plus: COP24 Climate Science Presentation by The Heartland Institute
Heartland’s event, featuring two scientists and three experts on climate and energy policy in the United States and Europe, will be held at the Vienna House East Katowice from 2:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. local time…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sC1N1-Okm1c
80
As always, good enough is the enemy of perfection. However, reaching perfection is at best an asymptotic process. One can get ever closer but never actually reach it. The most one can honestly say is that “all known problems have been corrected”. This must have something to do with the Three Laws of Thermodynamics.
First law: you can’t get ahead. (Conservation of energy)
Second law: you can’t even break even. (Running any real process causes Entropy to increase)
Third law: you are behind before you start. (Work can only be done by consuming Enthalpy)
To do other than the what The Three Laws permit, you must use magic, which is inoperative in this universe. The defining characteristic of politicians, religious or secular, is they don’t really believes this. They have absolute faith that the application of sufficient brute force can achieve anything. Thus they increase spending, the size and power of institutions, and the application of coercive force until the system they pretend to govern collapses into a state of total Entropy. At which, time no useful work can be accomplished. This is followed by an indeterminate period of stagnation, poverty, despair, disease, death, and destruction until the Three Laws and how to use them are discovered once again.
The bottom line is that there is no such thing as a free lunch. In the attempt to pretend there is, others are forced to pay for it. The consequence is that more and people will be paying more and more for the ever smaller free lunches. Only when all cupboards are bare and the politicians starve to death will the pretense stop.
The details vary but the essence of the cycle of human history is thereby explained.
Is there a way out of this viscous cycle? Yes! It is by the use of Reason, paying consistent attention to Realty, and using Logic rigorously. Sadly, the ascendancy of the exact opposite, faith, wishing, and force, is upon us along with its inevitable consequences. Hang on! It is going to be a rough ride.
Hence, stop feeding them. It is going to happen anyway so it best be at the time and place of our choosing. Otherwise, like it or not, we are all going to fall into the deep dark cold abyss.
120
In other words, Socialism only works until you run out of other people’s money.
60
In an American comic strip called The Wizard Of ID, many, many years ago. . .
A short, fat, king and his tall seneschal are standing on the parapet of a the king’s castle. The seneschal is looking over the parapet, looking at fires, peasants, and pitchforks in the distance.
Seneschal: “Sire, the peasants are revolting!”
The King, who was too short to look over the parapet, and can’t see anything beyond the parapet:
“They certainly are. . . ”
Sounds really modern, doesn’t it?
130
I believe that was also a portion of a comedy by Mel Brooks. Maybe “History of the world I”?
20
Here it is
10
Link to image
https://crayfisher.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/9685171.jpg
10
6 Dec: Heartland Institute: PRESS RELEASE: Solidarity, Heartland Institute Sign Historic Climate Communique at COP24
By James Taylor, Jim Lakely
Polish labor union that stood up to the Soviet Bloc and changed the world joins Heartland on front lines of resistance to climate alarmism
KATOWICE, POLAND (December 6, 2018) – The Heartland Institute and representatives of Solidarity, the historic labor union founded by Nobel Peace Prize winner Lech Walesa that helped bring down the Iron Curtain, signed a joint statement on Wednesday calling on the United Nations at COP24 to ensure the “restoration of the Scientific Method and the dismissal of ideological dogma at the United Nations.”
The joint statement, created at Solidarity’s prompting and written cooperatively between the two organizations on December 5, was submitted to the UN Conference of the Parties climate conference in Katowice today…READ ALL
https://www.heartland.org/news-opinion/news/press-release-solidarity-heartland-institute-sign-historic-climate-communique-at-cop24
90
This is the same rhetoric that Hillary and liberals in general use disparagingly to describe “fly over country” here in the U.S. — a term I loathe intensely, as I come from a rural part of the upper Midwest but now call Phoenix home. The arrogance of progressivists to deride the common person is perpetually on full display and explains why I cannot tolerate their political initiatives no matter what.
If we are meant to “care” about the poor migrant trying to cross our national border, why are the same morons making fun of poor people who work for a living in rural areas? You either care about everyone, or you care for no one. Picking and choosing what group is worthy of political activism is pure hypocrisy. I can’t wait for the movement to come here to America. Let’s see how well urban centers can survive when garbage centers outside their borders stop taking their refuse and food doesn’t get delivered.
190
Ah…his “Let them eat cake” moment…..
New president for france soon I think….
100
And as if to throw a knockout punch to the whole shebang. We’re having steady heavy ran here this morning with the gutters running full. And it’s been going on since well before I got up at least 2 hours ago.
Hey Jerry, what was it you said about drought being the new normal? You better work quickly to shore up your house of cards.
The only problem is that there are sure to be mud and landslides so close to all the fires.
We’ll be OK here but how many will suffer insult on top of injury.
Irony isn’t a strong enough word for the Paris agreement to come unglued right there where it was put together in he first place. How about we call it justice? How about we hope for it to spread to every corner of the Earth?
240
I’ll bet you didn’t know a sphere had corners, did you? 😉
130
Well, my little corner is always warm … … … it’s ’90 degrees’!! (Math geek joke!)
Hey, Roy — — totally off-beat and off-topic question for you: We’ve discussed the outside chance I might drop into your neighborhood, should I pull off a visit to my San Jose brother (2020 is looking much more likely than 2019, just FYI). I think I might have an inkling where you are located.
Now, follow my logic: Suppose I wander into your neck of the woods (or your little corner of Mother Earth), and, upon departure, I wanted to get northbound on I-15, to follow it back into Utah (and, eventually, Wyoming). Is there a possibility that I would use some route numbered as “18” to join I-15, if I meandered the correct way, even having to use several other routes, and taking what might be called, the ‘less direct route’?
The question is based on where I think you live. If you confirm the ‘departure routing’ for me, I’ll sneak some of the letters of where I think you might live into a message here.
Regards, as always,
Vlad
70
You are getting serious aren’t you?
I just forwarded a URL to you from Mapquest by way of Jo. Let me know if for some reason it doesn’t work for you and I’ll see what else I can do.
You’ll have my email address so we won’t need to take up anyone else’s time on the blog.
70
I’m glad your little corner is doing well. We just finished a long fairly heavy rain and so as you’ve probably seen, I rubbed Jerry Brown’s face in it.
90
And I still haven’t figured out how I’ll introduce Vlad the Impaler to my wife. Must work on that. 😉
80
Vlad wasn’t very nice person, he gave plenty of people a lot of stick………..
70
Funny!
…..Or maybe not so funny. That Vlad was sick. Very very sick. Though his neighbors were very very quiet.
This Vlad is only deplorable because Hillary said so. Me? I’m Mark the deplorable. Named after the Gospel of deplorable Mark.
51
Yoni,
What are you, a stand-up comedian now?
Well, funny is funny, no matter how it got here.
00
Mark D.
How long have we known each other? I don’t remember for sure but I think it was 2010. That’s far too long for me to believe you’re deplorable. Mischievous maybe but not deplorable.
The real Vlad was indeed very sick but he no longer bothers us unless you have an easily upset stomach. I can let him lie, take jokes about him and almost anything. He’s fair game now. But you’re a friend and I don’t think for a minute that you’re deplorable.
20
Roy, I am old enough where recalling eight year old details are sketchy. It seems to me that we have known each other for a very good long time.
I am aware of this Vlad the Deplorable and no harm or foul is suspected.
10
It does if you use the right differential geometry 😉
10
Indeed water or lack thereof is not the issue. It’s the lack of enough dams to collect a tiny fraction of the the huge amount of water that rains upon this nation. For some reason Australia prefers to live differently to the way other nations plan things wrt water storage and instead act as though we are on the moon when in fact it is in abundance if only we stopped cowtowing to the loony left.
181
Look at it this way. Imagine if Australia was colonised for the first time today by say UK, US, China or Russia. I doubt very much there would be any hesitation to building all the dams that were needed from now on not to mention coal AND nuclear power plants. We are a clueless nation.
161
As a nation, weve become soft, being a bloke has become a crime, everyone has become a “victim” with rights but no responsibilities, and the decay of the rugged individualism has accelerated by the clueless evil leftist PC rubbish.
We just listen to the ratbag element too much – they need to be shoved back against and told to get lost….like we used to.
140
Imagine if the Romans had got here first.
https://youtu.be/uvPbj9NX0zc?t=53
00
Indeed.
We harvest less than 5% of the water that falls here.
In per capita terms, we have about 10 times more railfall than the USA.
Most just tops up the ocean.
71
Ahh, yes, but we have “Wild Rivers”. In the US they are tame, apparently.
00
reminds me of The Peoples Republic of California,where GOP state pols have called for years to build catchments / reservoirs and make a large reservoir in the San Joaquin River basin. Enough sky juice falls to meet the needs of the state after say 3-5 years of filling up same that no panic is necessary.
Except politically, eh?
Of course there is a chance the endangered Bwana Bug or the breeding grounds of the Kumquat Trout are threatened in some way….THEN it matters.
00
Previous eco-elitism and consequences
“Why did Trump say a lot of global warming was a hoax? We follow the biggest science heist in history to find the answer #Climategate”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/12/06/why-did-trump-say-a-lot-of-global-warming-was-a-hoax-we-follow-the-biggest-science-heist-in-history-to-find-the-answer/
90
“France May Be Ahead Of The Curve When It Comes To Global Warming Policy Backlash”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/12/06/france-may-be-ahead-of-the-curve-when-it-comes-to-global-warming-policy-backlash/
Hopefully!
80
Attention: ScoMo
“Australian lawmakers voted to repeal their country’s carbon tax in 2014. Former Prime Minister Tony Abbott led his conservative party to victory in the previous year’s elections on the promise to repeal the carbon tax.
However, France’s violent reaction to new carbon taxes is part of the country’s “romantic” view of political uprisings, according to an expert on French politics and history.”
90
The name of the game for the left is to move us from prosperity to something they know no-one wants. They do it in stages as best they can, to boil us slowly. In the end only a terrible tyranny is able to keep the population compliant. For the left, we are all just irrelevant fools, except as a mass, brought to heel, worshipping their god, the god of our own worthlessness.
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“those whom Macron has described as “the people who are nothing.”
Also “slackers” and “illiterate.”
https://www.fpri.org/article/2018/11/president-macrons-minor-mishaps-towards-a-downfall-or-a-rebound/
Our elites have many names for us:
Elitist Hillary called us “deplorable”
Elitist Joe Biden calls us “the dregs of society that support President Trump.”
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/sep/17/joe-biden-dregs-society-have-ally-donald-trump/
And the peace-loving-prize winning elitist humanitarian Obama calls us “weeds” …
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11-08/obamas-america-seen-in-trump-defeats/10476474
Take control and own these names and wear these names with pride on your Gilet Jaunes.
120
Looks like Turnbull’s teleprompter?
70
All the best dressed free speech folk are wearing a GiletJaunes and a red MAGA cap!
90
‘To the denier, there is no climate change — so coal is clean, coal is good, coal is cheap, it is our duty to export it to the poor of the world to give them electricity.’
David Shearman (ABC)
70
4 legs good, 2 legs baaaaaaaddd……
90
he just left out the man made, before climate change. Otherwise good work.
40
France had a chance in 2017 with Marine Le Pen – they chose a toy boy instead.
140
CO2 levels directly linked to Economic performance !
I wonder if the IPCC have a model to show this “Economic Greenhouse”. effect of CO2 ?
This gas is magic stuff !
100
Ah !, I guess a link to the article would help !
40
Oh well, now links are super complicated are they ?
40
I give up
20
Links do appear to have become more difficult. I have resorted to removing the h t t p stuff and replacing the . with dot. I thought it was me.
30
I just copy the address from the address bar and paste in the comment. It seems to work.
40
Someone help me out please !
South Australia has the dearest electricity in the world !
But renewables have given them cheaper electricity !
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-12-07/study-shows-impact-wind-solar-gas-power-on-electricity-prices/10590876
90
Amazing logic – highest electricity prices in the world in SA, but they would have been even higher without “cheap” intermittent wind. And it’s all due to the high price of gas. Well, perhaps if they hadn’t blown up their coal stations SA could have had reliable, low cost electricity. And then: “As long as you have so much gas generation with such inefficient and old gas plants … your prices will be high.” But as plants have to be on standby for when the sun isn’t shining and the wind isn’t blowing, wind/solar create that uneconomic model.
What their study ignores through their “computer modelling to crunch electricity price data” is that on the surface, when the sun is shining and the wind is blowing, spot wholesale prices will be low because there is surplus capacity. However that ignores the double investment that must be in place – in SA there is 1900 MW of wind nameplate capacity, and about 500 MW of solar, enough to meet SA average demand, and on average they deliver about 50% of demand. But SA needs adequate alternate capacity to meet 100% of peak demand when the intermittents deliver zero. Ergo SA has more than double the investment required to meet demand, and that all requires a return on investment, or government subsidy as happened with the previous government’s urgent purchase of diesel generators to meet peak summer demand.
And so yesterday, one of the first hot days of summer in SA and Vic, with plenty of sun and wind, SA and Vic wholesale prices averaged $115/MWhr, while in Qld/NSW that still have reliable coal stations, prices were $65/MWhr.
100
So, Weatherdill “retires” from politics, and claims to have left a “legacy” in SA of clean power ..yada, yada, yada….
Ironic then on that same day, SA demand peaked at 2.6GW, with 2.0 GW of that being Gas fueled, ..0.2 GW from wind, 0.2GW from Solar , and 0.2 GW from Victorian coal !!
…..Nice legacy Jay,…shut the door behind you !
PS,..any bets on which Board of directors he turns up on ??
AEON ?
101
He’ll be sharing his power grid expertise on the board of AEMO with Zibelman quicker than you can say BLACKOUT.
50
Robber
I’m afraid that it is spreading
“Worse than “ABC News Maths”
So a 12% rate hike that will cost average households more that $100 per year saves them money?
Has Orwellian speak now migrated to finance?
“Under a renewable energy proposal from Northern Indiana Public Service Company (NIPSCO), Indiana consumers would face a 12 percent electricity rate hike, which will cost the average household more than $100 per year in additional electricity costs. NIPSCO is justifying its renewable power rate hike by asserting renewable power saves consumers money, but there’s absolutely no truth to these claims.”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/12/05/indiana-utility-seeks-12-percent-rate-hike-to-shut-down-coal-power/ “
70
Must be true r r,
It is a report written in Victoria after all. And they used a computer model…
Cheers,
Dave B
50
Thans for the link. I see a reference to it on the ABC site and ignored it as probably rubbish but now that I have read it I know it is rubbish.
As robber says “Amazing logic”. You have the highest electricity prices in the world but some days they are higher because renewables aren’t working, therefore renewables reduce prices????????
I would make an extended comment on the intellectual capabilities of green thinking academics but it would be MODERATED.
100
Umm, suffice to say that should they be in charge of a two bed brothel, some customers wouldn’t be asked to pay.
20
I love how the “study” states
when the price of a REC (which happens to be priced per megawatt hour of electricity produced) was $76 to $89 during 2017 and $71.90 on 27 September 2018. Plus the PPAs that guarantee prices for the wind farms no matter what the market prices are must also get ignored in Bruce Mountain’s subsidy calculation
http://www.cleanenergyregulator.gov.au/RET/Pages/About%20the%20Renewable%20Energy%20Target/How%20the%20scheme%20works/Large-scale%20generation%20certificate%20market%20update%20by%20month/Large-scale-generation-certificate-market-update-January-2018.aspx
http://www.cleanenergyregulator.gov.au/RET/Pages/About%20the%20Renewable%20Energy%20Target/How%20the%20scheme%20works/Large-scale-generation-certificate-market-update—October-2018.aspx
60
And then there is the total inability (whether through ignorance or denial) to acknowledge the cost increase in thermal generation due to fixed costs that are inadequately funded when the renewables suppress prices below the proper bid rates, forcing the thermal generators to bid at higher prices to recover these costs when the wind ain’t blowin’ and the sun ain’t shinin’.
Kids in primary school could understand this stuff if rephrased in the context of lemonade stands.
60
I once read a report that said “The intangible benefits, if they could be quantified , would be valued in excess of one million dollars”
My somewhat cynical boss at a certain unnamed oil company that likes sea shell images, was reviewing a report on the benefits of installing a new IT system. His comment was that we should cease production and sales of petroleum products and just start installing these systems as there appeared to be a whole lot more money in it. The eager analyst was told to go away and commune with reality for a while.
60
Analitik:
I think the $11 is the difference between what is charged and rebates from interstate customers who get to pay for most of SA’s lot.
That is, if you have 45% renewables and this years RET is 18% renewables, then you have a lot of surplus certificates to sell to those people with cheaper and more reliable supply, on the old bushranger’s terms.
50
Apparently we are the biggest threat to the survival of mankind!
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-12-07/climate-change-denialism-holocaust-david-attenborough-coal/10585744
30
OK then when is the ABC going to start protesting against China and India for building hundreds and hundreds of coal fired power stations? This is a serious and legitimate question. If they ignore the question then they need to be shut down because it would prove they are not serious about their beliefs on climate change and are instead just scaremongering.
110
I think the ABC has sunk to a new low with this piece of junk , it’s time for the ABC to provide a balanced view not the scaremongering crap they seem only too willing to keep the uninformed and trusting in the dark by peddling this snake oil .
51
Come, come Robert!
They need to “tell a story” to “engage the consumer”.
The time when the media in general and the ABC in particular, separated fact from opinion is long past – they are both blurred and lumped together indistinguishably to whatever suits the political agenda of the reporter and the editor.
“Facts? We don’t need no stinking FACTS! It’s how we FEEL about it that matters! And I am here to tell you how to feel about it – that’s my job as a reporter for the ABC.”
40
You would have enjoyed the puff piece the ABC did on the Drax pellet burning power plant. Not one single enquiring question, not one enquiry about how shipping pellets from the US can possibly be “green” Just a lot cooing and gushing.
Journalism is dead, at least in the MSM.
50
Peter,
That’s not only a “serious question” that you have put, it may, in truth, be the question of the Century.
The ABC, SBS, Tripple J and associated empires must be confronted as to why they “filter” some facts and so present a false Reality to the peasants.
Soon please.
KK
90
Mocking them is the best solution – no one likes to me made a fool of, but to neutralize the propaganda and protect our kids from their evil, its necessary…..
40
I have adopted a new name at Fairfax along the NPC meme. I just gush and enthuse about renewable energy and put just enough of a fact in there for people to think mmmmmm maybe that wont reall work. That is if they think.
40
probably should explain NPC = non playing character in video games. They are filler characters that just provide the background and often just utter stock phrases when encountered. Very much like renewable fan boys, big on stock phrases but otherwise empty vessels.
40
I propose that henceforth all ABC broadcasts and podcasts are powered entirely by wind and solar, if available. No wind: no DRUM, no 7pm news, no Q&A, no Media Watch, no alleged “comedy”, no propaganda, no ABC. Like it or lump it ABC.
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In the few years of living in Paris, this is the first time I’ve seen notices put up in my apartment building by the management company about protests. It seems they are concerned about possible damage to personal belongings this weekend, along with a notice about when garbage bins will be put out on the street, and suchlike. A couple of my neighbours thought it was all a bit over the top – I tend to agree.
I live a…stones throw…from Bastille – close enough that metro stations are closed, cafes, restaurants and bars fill with protesters and their signs, and traffic grinds to a halt, and but far enough that the real protests themselves are not particularly obvious.
Various strikes are planned for tomorrow – and who knows what the weekend will bring. I don’t condone the violence, but I do generally support the gilets jaunes.
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BTW France only emits 0.9% of the world’s co2 emissions and yet this Macron donkey is keen to close some of their nuclear power stns.
France generates 45.2% of their TOTAL energy from nuclear and just 1.1% from GEO+s&wind.
Here’s the IEA pie chart for France’s TOTAL energy.
And this fool wants to spend billions of Euros on more clueless S&W energy.Unbelievable but true.
https://www.iea.org/stats/WebGraphs/FRANCE4.pdf
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Shutting down their nuclear plants while dozens are being built elsewhere is so typical of a mental sickness permeating the political elite in most of Europe.
Summary:
Nuclear power capacity worldwide is increasing steadily, with about 50 reactors under construction.
Most reactors on order or planned are in the Asian region, though there are major plans for new units in Russia.
Significant further capacity is being created by plant upgrading.
Plant lifetime extension programmes are maintaining capacity, particularly in the USA.
Plans For New Reactors Worldwide
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France also props up their more delusional neighbours. If France radically winds back nuclear power Europe is in deep dodo.
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Fuel on the periphery
“Feds Discover Largest Oil, Natural-Gas Reserve in History”
https://www.nationalreview.com/news/feds-discover-largest-oil-natural-gas-reserve-in-history/
Amazing what happens when you go looking.
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Good for the abotic theory of petroleum. Going by that volume, and I bet theres allot more and it will refill.
“In all, the new reserve is said to contain 281 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, 46.3 billion barrels of oil, and 20 billion barrels of natural-gas liquids, the Interior Department’s U.S. Geological Survey said.”
And these geologists still think it all came from squashed Devonian fish and chips!
70
Univ. of Utah researched the ‘fossil fuel’ idea…how much biomass of all sorts would we need to make ONE gallon of gasoline? This back in 1998 I recall.
98 TONS of leaves, twigs, dead budgies & so on, or 196,000 lbs. ….for ONE gallons worth.
I just put 10 gals (US) in my Subaru Outback wagon.Nearly one thousand tons of biomass to make that much fuel?
Nope.
Next bedtime story, please….
00
We should all buy some of these:
https://www.officeworks.com.au/shop/officeworks/p/trafalgar-hi-vis-safety-vest-yellow-l-tryelvelrg
Use to picket your nearest politician.
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6 DecL PoliticalInsider: Daily Caller: Trump’s Energy Regulator Pick Wins Confirmation By Razor-Thin Margin
by Jason Hopkins
Bernard McNamee — Trump’s pick to become a member of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) — won confirmation by a 50-49 vote. The razor-thin margin fell along party lines, with Democrats sharply opposed to his nomination…
Democrats on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee initially took umbrage with his past work in the Department of Energy, where he led an unsuccessful effort to enact a bailout for failing coal and nuclear plants. However, things became worse for McNamee when a controversial video surfaced in late November.
In the footage, McNamee is heard trashing renewable energy, environmentalists and the concept of global warming.
“Renewables, when they come on and off, it screws up the whole the physics of the grid,” he said during a speech (LINK) in February, during his time working for the conservative Texas Public Policy Foundation. “The green movement is always talking about more government control because it’s the constant battle between liberty and tyranny.” McNamee also added that he tells his son to “deny it” if the subject of climate change comes up in his science class…
In a notable reversal, West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin joined his party in voting against McNamee’s nomination Thursday. The vote was a pivotfrom in November, where he voted in favor of advancing McNamee through the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Manchin, who is facing backlashfrom his party’s environmental base, cited the video as reason for his change of heart.
“After viewing video footage, which I had not previously seen, where Bernard McNamee outright denies the impact that humans are having on our climate, I can no longer support his nomination to be a FERC commissioner,” Manchin said in a statement Wednesday.
McNamee, a Republican, will also return a GOP majority to FERC. The 5-member regulatory panel had previously been under a 2-2 partisan split after former Republican Commissioner Robert Powelson left for a job in the private sector.
Not only will a GOP majority aid the administration in its energy agenda, but McNamee is viewed as much more friendly toward the president’s philosophy on fossil fuels.
https://thepoliticalinsider.com/bernard-mcnamee/
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Chipping away at the Obama mischief; six more years of this will go a long way towards redressing the institutional imbalance.
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14 Nov 2017: Guardian: Adam Vaughan: US will become a net oil exporter within 10 years, says IEA
The last time the US exported more oil than it imported was 1953, and a ban on oil exports was lifted only in 2015.
The IEA’s best estimate is that the US then becomes a net oil exporter around 2027…
7 Dec: Reuters: In major shift, U.S. now exports more oil than it ships in
by David Gaffen
The United States last week exported more crude oil and fuel than it imported for the first time on record, according to data released on Thursday…
When adding in all imports and exports of crude and refined products, the U.S. exported a net 211,000 barrels per day for the week through Nov. 30 – the first time that has happened, according to U.S. Energy Department figures dating to 1973. That was on the back of a jump in crude exports to a weekly record of more than 3.2 million bpd…
“So when does the U.S. send a delegate to OPEC meetings?” said Kyle Cooper, consultant at ION Energy in Houston. “It’s really quite amazing. I do think that will occur more and more often in coming years.”…
The data comes on the same day that the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries adjourned a meeting without announcing a supply-cut agreement as it grapples with sinking prices due in part to the surge in U.S. output that has upended the global supply equation…
U.S. crude production is expected to average more than 12 million bpd in 2019, according to the EIA, an increase of more than 3 million bpd in 2016…
For the week, the United States also posted net exports of 4.2 million bpd of products like gasoline and diesel…
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-oil-eia/in-major-shift-us-now-exports-more-oil-than-it-ships-in-idUSKBN1O51X7
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WaPo/NYT and many more carrying the following:
6 Dec: WRAL: Paris riots over fuel taxes dim hopes for climate fight
By SETH BORENSTEIN and ANGELA CHARLTON, Associated Press
(AP science writer Seth Borenstein reported from Washington. AP economics writer Christopher Rugaber contributed from Washington and Frank Jordans contributed from Katowice, Poland)
The “yellow vests” in France are worrying greens around the world…
But taxes on fossil fuels are just what international climate negotiators, meeting in Poland this week, say are desperately needed to help wean the world off of fossil fuels and slow climate change.
“The events of the last few days in Paris have made me regard the challenges as even greater than I thought earlier,” said Stanford University environmental economist Lawrence Goulder, author of the book “Confronting the Climate Challenge.”
Economists, policymakers and politicians have long said the best way to fight climate change is to put a higher price on the fuels that acre causing it — gasoline, diesel, coal and natural gas. Taxing fuels and electricity could help pay for the damage they cause, encourage people to use less, and make it easier for cleaner alternatives and fuel-saving technologies to compete.
These so-called carbon taxes are expected to be a major part of pushing the world to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and try to prevent runaway climate change that economists say would be far more expensive over the long term than paying more for energy in the short term.
But it’s not so easy for people to think about long-term, global problems when they are struggling to get by.
Macron said the higher tax was his way of trying to prevent the end of the world. But the yellow vest protesters turned that around with the slogan: “it’s hard to talk about the end of the world while we are talking about the end of the month.”
The resistance to the fuel tax is a personal blow to Macron, who sees himself as the guarantor of the 2015 Paris climate accord, its strongest defender on the global stage. He has positioned himself as the anti-Trump when it comes to climate issues.
The French government quietly fears a Trump-led backlash against the accord could spread to other major economies whose commitment is essential to keeping the deal together…
So what went wrong?
Yale University economist William Nordhaus, who won this year’s Nobel prize for economics, said the tax was poorly designed and was delivered by the wrong person. “If you want to make energy taxes unpopular, step one is to be an unpopular leader,” he said. “Step two is to use gasoline taxes and call them carbon taxes. This is hard enough without adding poor design.”
Macron, like French presidents before him, made environmental and energy decisions without explaining to the public how important they are and how their lives will change…
The French government already has programs in place to subsidize drivers who trade in older, dirtier cars for cleaner ones, and expanded them in an attempt to head off the protests last month. But for many French, it was too little, too late…
The French reaction to higher fuel prices is hardly unique, which highlights just how hard it can be to discourage fossil fuel consumption by making people pay more. In September, protests in India over high gasoline prices shut down schools and government offices. Protests erupted in Mexico in 2017 after government deregulation caused a spike in gasoline prices, and in Indonesia in 2013 when the government reduced fuel subsidies and prices rose.
In the United States, Washington state voters handily defeated a carbon tax in November.
“Higher taxes on fuel have always been a policy more popular among economists than among voters,” said Greg Mankiw, a Harvard economist and former adviser to President George W. Bush.
Even proponents of carbon taxes acknowledge that they can disproportionally hurt low-income people. Energy costs make up a larger portion of their overall expenses, so a fuel price increase eats up more of their paycheck and leaves them with less to spend. And because energy costs are almost impossible to avoid, they feel trapped…
“The mistake of the Macron government was not to marry the increase in fuel taxes with other sufficiently compelling initiatives promising to enhance the welfare and incomes of the ‘yellow vests,’ said Barry Eichengreen, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley.
Now the question is “How can we address the climate problem while also avoiding producing political upheaval,” Goulder said…
The key is giving a good chunk of money back to the people, Wesleyan University environmental economist Gary Yohe said…
The protests, while sparked by fuel prices, are also about income inequality, populism and anti-elitism, experts say, not just about carbon taxes.
“Is it a death knell for the carbon tax or pricing carbon? I don’t think so,” economist Yohe said. “It is just a call for being a little bit more careful about how you design the damn thing.”
https://www.wral.com/paris-riots-show-difficulty-of-fighting-warming-with-taxes/18043699/
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5 Dec: AmericanThinker: French retreat on fuel tax increase worries delegates to climate change conference
By Rick Moran
The tax increase was a large part of Macron’s effort to combat global warming, and the elites in Poland are concerned that voters in other E.U. countries will think protesting their government’s trying to save the planet on their backs isn’t such a good idea…
Recall that President Obama was downright excited about raising the electric bill for every American. He succeeded. But when the French people see that there are cheaper alternatives to staying warm, they ask why their government wants to impoverish them.
Germany, which still uses coal to generate 40% of its electrical power, is another example of where saving the world from climate change is just too darn expensive…
That’s the real story of the revolt against the fuel tax. The burden of saving the Earth will fall most heavily on those least able to pay for it. European elites, congratulating themselves on their “courage” in foisting these burdensome carbon taxes on their people, just don’t get it.
People get angry when asked to do with less for a goal that rich people are saying is for the best for everyone.
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/12/french_retreat_on_fuel_tax_increase_worries_delegates_to_climate_change_conference.html
reminder:
Youtube: 1min03sec: Youtube: Obama: My Plan Makes Electricity Rates Skyrocket
posted by BattleBornPAC 18 Mar 2009
Barack Obama: “Under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.” (January 2008)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlTxGHn4sH4
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Macron and his globalist agenda is finished.
One oppinion, Dr Steve Turley. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNPH51uKETc
50
Micron.
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And courtesy of the pioneering french, we now know the effectiveness of this method of making our pollies accountable to us who elected them – rather than to the alarmist experts, who would rather govern on the basis of the “Dictatorship of the Greenists
20
Hmmm…oceans drive climates? Who’d have thought….wait…..what if the ocean heats up?
What then? More CO2 released?
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-12-07/indian-ocean-dipole-dominant-cause-drought/10571802
“The droughts of past decades have burnt the term El Nino into the Australian vocabulary, but after the drought of 2018, perhaps the IOD — short for Indian Ocean Dipole — might also become a household name.
“A decade ago, an Australian team led by a young climatologist, Caroline Ummenhofer, began trawling through more than 100 years of Australian drought records.
The conventional thinking was that El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) drove Australia’s drought cycle.
“But the University of New South Wales team was looking for a different culprit, and at the turn of the millennium, a new climate driver was discovered — the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD).
“It worked a lot like El Nino, but on the western side of the country in the Indian Ocean.
Dr Ummenhofer discovered the IOD was an even bigger factor than El Nino in driving long-term Australian droughts.
“In its summer outlook the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) said the IOD is currently dominating Australia’s weather and climate patterns.
This comes after Australia experienced its driest September on record.
BOM climatologist Jonathan Pollock said it is likely the IOD has outweighed El Nino in driving this year’s dry.
“While we’ve seen development towards an El Nino in the Pacific, we’re not there yet,” Mr Pollock said.
“But we have had a positive Indian Ocean Dipole event.”
“Dr Caroline Umenhoffer said the strongest droughts and floods Australia experiences are when the IOD combines with ENSO.”
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A good sensible article from the ABC on the IOD.
Mind you I’m a bit of a Om wonk, so I have known about the IOD since about 2012.
So the ABC has been a tad tardy with letting the rest of Oz know.
10
full of CAGW critics:
7 Dec: AP: Trump EPA acts to roll back control on climate-changing coal
By ELLEN KNICKMEYER
WASHINGTON: The Environmental Protection Agency acted again Thursday to ease rules on the sagging U.S. coal industry, this time scaling back what would have been a tough control on climate-changing emissions from any new coal plants…
In a ceremony Thursday at the agency, acting EPA administrator Andrew Wheeler signed a proposal to dismantle a 2015 rule that any new coal power plants include cutting-edge techniques to capture the carbon dioxide from their smokestacks.
Wheeler called the Obama rules “excessive burdens” for the coal industry.
“This administration cares about action and results, not talks and wishful thinking,” Wheeler said.
Asked about the harm that coal plant emission do people and the environment, Wheeler responded, “Having cheap electricity helps human health.”…
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, said the EPA’s action Thursday was “targeting another regulation that would have made it nearly impossible to build any new plants.”
Citing that and other Obama administration moves to tamp down emissions from coal-fired power plants in the national electrical grid, McConnell called the proposal “a crucial step toward undoing the damage and putting coal back on a level playing field.”…
https://www.apnews.com/c9f226034f05432b9a00f975e15815bf
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I wonder how may visitors (business, tourists, and so on) were in France when the French folks started to block streets, gas stations, and other points of interest.
[I’ve read that burning cars and other actions by immigrants has been common, and thus rarely reported.]
This seems to be different and not something a visitor can avoid. Many Canadians and USA people believe France is a must-experience culture — or they once did.
I do know 3 families that were in Europe in August, but cannot think of anyone I know well that is now in France.
From a high hotel window it would be quite an experience. We saw burning in 1967 in the Avondale area of Cincinnati OH, east of the University’s high rise dorms.
40
John, there is a vast difference between the illegal African immigrants trying to force their culture on the nation than what the GiletJaunes are doing today. With the former white people are considered ‘the enemy’, today white people are considered ‘the opressed’ because of the government green policies.
I, as an Englishman living in France, have no fear being out on the streets with my fellow villagers in the protest. I don’t know what would happen if some foreigner started saying that the carbon tax is good for saving the earth in the middle of a group of GiletJaunes though.
40
6 Dec: Townhall: The Perpetual Presidency
by Victor Davis Hanson
Former President Barack Obama recently continued his series of public broadsides against his successor, President Donald Trump.
Obama’s charges are paradoxical. On one hand, Obama seems to believe that he, rather than Trump, should be credited with the current economic boom and the emergence of the United States as the world’s largest energy producer. But Obama also has charged that Trump’s policies are pernicious and failing…
Trump jawboned against outsourcing and offshoring, and praised rather than lectured private enterprise. He sought to reindustrialize the Midwest and promised to open new federal land to fossil fuel production, complete proposed pipelines, and lift burdensome restrictions on fracking and horizontal drilling.
In contrast, Obama had argued that the U.S. could never drill itself out of oil shortages. He advocated making the use of coal so expensive that it would disappear as an American energy resource. Renewable energy sources such as wind and solar were Obama’s vision of an America energy future…
https://townhall.com/columnists/victordavishanson/2018/12/06/the-perpetual-presidency-n2537023
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6 Dec: GatewayPundit: Jim Hoft: US Geological Survey Discovers Largest Continuous Oil and Gas Resources EVER in Texas-New Mexico Delaware Basin
The new report indicates the basin contains an estimated 46.3 billion barrels of oil plus 281 trillion cubic feet of gas and 20 billion barrels of NGL…
Science Daily (LINK) reported…READ ON
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2018/12/us-geological-survey-discovers-largest-continuous-oil-and-gas-resources-ever-in-texas-new-mexico-delaware-basin/
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A long way from yellow jackets. Read and weep
“Sarah Hanson Young, Chair of the Senate Select Committee on Fair Dinkum Power”
https://www.michaelsmithnews.com/2018/12/sarah-hanson-young-chair-of-the-senate-select-committee-on-fair-dinkum-power.html
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And recover before you read its membership
40
I am wary of people who breath venom and have a permenant snarl on thier faces….
Never ends well….certainly wouldnt be out of place in a May Day march, clench fist raised, shouting slogans….
10
30
6 Dec: WUWT: Solidarity, Heartland Institute Sign Historic Climate Communique at COP24
by charles the moderator
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/12/06/solidarity-heartland-institute-sign-historic-climate-communique-at-cop24/
30
5 Dec: AP: Hong Kong businessman guilty of bribery in African oil deal
By JIM MUSTIAN
NEW YORK — A federal jury convicted a Hong Kong businessman Wednesday of bribing the presidents of two African nations to secure oil rights for a Chinese energy conglomerate, a case that stretched from the halls of the United Nations and highlighted the often blurry line between nongovernmental organizations and private enterprise.
Dr. Chi Ping Patrick Ho was found guilty of seven of eight counts, including conspiracy, money laundering and violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act in a case that involved several former presidents of the United Nations General Assembly…
Ho also was charged with bribing Sam Kutesa, the foreign minister of Uganda and a former president of the U.N. General Assembly, and Kutesa’s brother-in-law, longtime Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni.
https://apnews.com/d7887a0827fd41f8bd110acaacc84589
AP’s opening para offers a lot, but delivers almost nothing. best to read the following to get the UN and NGO details (some may remember John Ashe):
30 Nov: CourthouseNews: ADAM KLASFELD: Ex-UN General Assembly Heads Tied to Bribery Scheme
The first week in the trial of China Energy Fund Committee’s secretary general Chi Ping Patrick Ho ended with blockbuster revelations of two former U.N. leaders: 68th President of the General Assembly ***John Ashe and 69th President of the General Assembly Sam Kutesa.
In 2015, ex-U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara kicked off the anti-corruption crackdown at the United Nations by charging Ashe in a $1.3 billion bribery scheme. A related case ended in the conviction of Chinese billionaire Ng Lap Seng, but Ashe died of a weightlifting accident before he went to trial.
On Friday, a different jury in Manhattan heard a wiretapped phone call suggesting that Ashe also received payoffs from another Chinese benefactor: Ho.
In the phone call, Ho is speaking to disgraced ex-***Global Sustainability Foundation director Sheri Yan, who pleaded guilty to bribing Ashe two years ago.
“Do you, have you made some contribution to him [Ashe]?” Yan asked Ho in the July 2014 phone call, after apologizing for her directness. “Because we always, you know, that’s what he needed, he needs.”
Ashe, who was also a former U.N. permanent representative for Antigua and Barbuda, needed the money, Yan said, because “his country is so small.”
“Yes, we already paid,” Ho replied.
After Yan pressed for a “major contribution,” Ho replied that “the problem is” he requires “give and take.”
The context of the conversation is unclear in the recording, and Ho is not charged with bribing Ashe…
At the time, Ho led a think tank associated with Chinese energy giant CEFC, which by then had been a $41 billion company holding the 342nd spot on the Fortune 500 list. The energy giant had large operations in Asia and Europe and had its sights set on the African continent.
Kutesa, who is Uganda’s foreign minister, led the U.N. General Assembly between 2014 and 2015. His support for Uganda’s discriminatory Anti-Homosexuality Act made him a controversial choice to lead the world peacekeeping body, and he had previously been accused of receiving kickbacks from the Irish company Tullow Oil.
A year after his U.N. leadership term ended, Kutesa and his wife Edith worked with Ho to bring CEFC to Uganda – for a price.
FBI agent Melissa Galicia showed the federal jury several emails showing the Kutesas prodding Ho for a sizeable donation to the Food Security and Sustainable Energy Foundation…
https://www.courthousenews.com/ex-un-general-assembly-heads-tied-to-bribery-scheme/
20
pre-Paris COP in 2015, I posted a lot about this story, because it revealed so much about UN corruption. following two pieces well worth reading:
7 Dec: Independent Singapore: Where is Belt and Road billionaire Ye Jianming?
By Anna Maria Romero
http://theindependent.sg/where-is-belt-and-road-billionaire-ye-jianming/
novel-length:
11 Nov: SMH: Beijing’s secret plot to infiltrate UN used Australian insider
By Nick McKenzie, Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian, Zach Dorfman & Fergus Hunter
https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/beijing-s-secret-plot-to-infiltrate-un-used-australian-insider-20181031-p50d2e.html
20
4 people have already been killed. How many more? Politician should come to a conclusion where they can fulfill the demands for protesters while keeping in mind about their concerns and benefits.
30
” … against the politics of environmentalism and its tendency to punish the little people for daring to live relatively modern, fossil-fuelled lives.”
I wish I could remember where I saw this, so I’m afraid it has to be an anonymous hat tip. Apologies to whoever coined this one – perfectly apt.
It goes something like this: “Climate change is about taking money from the poorest in rich countries and giving it to the richest in poor countries.”
If that concept doesn’t stop the ill-informed armies in their tracks, we’re done.
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Steve of Cornubia –
3 Dec: UK Spectator: In praise of the Gilets jaunes
by Brendan O’Neill
At last, a people’s revolt against the tyranny of environmentalism…
Most strikingly this is a people’s rebellion against the onerous consequences of climate-change policy, ***against the politics of environmentalism and its tendency to punish the little people for daring to live relatively modern, fossil-fuelled lives. This is new. This is unprecedented. We are witnessing perhaps the first mass uprising against eco-elitism…
For years we have lived in a climate of ‘You can’t say that’…You can’t agitate against climate-change policy — that’s climate-change denialism, on a par with Holocaust denialism, and anyone who dares to bristle against eco-orthodoxy deserves to be cast out of polite society. And yet now, in this populist moment, people are daring to say precisely these unsayable things. They’re standing up to the EU. They’re demanding that immigration become a democratic concern rather than something worked out for us by unaccountable bureaucrats in Brussels. And now they’re even grating against the hitherto unquestionable religious-style diktat that we must all drive less, shop less and do less in order to ‘save the planet’…
https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2018/12/in-praise-of-the-gilets-jaunes/?fbclid=IwAR3z93j_OHxreq3L042OHWEHtvb-tWwVK4WMYt-v1tt12wPmlqrIKx_N8Ok
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Steve. I think started life as a comment on international aid generally. No less accurate though.
20
According to Max Keiser there is graffiti on the Arc de Triomphe “We have beheaded leaders for less”.
Funny how centuries don’t change the psyche of a nation. The French are still violent malcontents, the Germans are still trying to dominate Europe, the Yanks still know that all disputes can be solved at the barrel of a gun, two atomic bombs seem to have cooled Japanese expansionism but Aussies are docile convicts, as if we are still in irons.
If we got angry and got out on the streets I would be a prouder Aussie than if we beat the All Blacks.
20
Unfortunately, this is where socialist / CC policies will ultimately end up. When the state is broke and has “run out of other people’s money”, then the riots and breakdown of society will quickly follow.
France will most likley never recover from this situation, simply because too large a percentage % of the population have been conditioned to expect the state to provide a free existence and the state is now broke. The Green plan to import the huge Islamic masses, as a way to destabilise the incumbent capitalist / democratic system has also worked a treat, with large zones of France now effectively controlled under Sharia law and marked as no-go zones to white Europeans. Whilst I’m sure this plan to destroy capitalism by importing people from an extreme opposing culture along with the removal of affordable energy was fully intended by the Green socialists, I often wonder if they realised the end result would be the creation of a place worse than hell where few people would wish to reside. Most likely these people hate their own society so much they are prepared to live in hell just to see their ideological opposites suffer. One can only ponder.
Of course this plan of destruction is being played out today in all western countries. The plan starts in the schools and universities to turn the young and bendable minds against the system that created their freedom and opportunity. CC indoctrination, turning women against men, re-writing western colonial history as evil, destroying the principles of Christianity, and now even trying to remove the concept of gender to create a generation of people with no sense of self-identity, more ready to be brainwashed without resistance and turned to violence. Once our western values and culture are destroyed, then so too is our prosperity, freedom and peace. They are all intrinsically linked.
10
5 Dec: Thomson Reuters: French protests show a green world must be fair too
by Megan Rowling
* Any views expressed in this article are those of the author and not of Thomson Reuters Foundation
The climate movement must talk to other groups that will be affected by the policies it advocates, experts say
France’s “yellow vest” protests – which were sparked by a planned fuel tax hike and have led to violence on the streets of Paris and beyond – could hardly have come at a worse time for President Emmanuel Macron’s green credentials.
The political crisis erupting in France has cast a shadow over the U.N. climate change talks now underway in Poland’s main coal-mining region, just three years after governments negotiated a landmark agreement to tackle global warming in Paris…
But climate experts in Katowice and beyond said they do not believe the tensions will force the government to row back on its overall commitment to climate action. It will, however, likely need to do things differently.
Laurence Tubiana, CEO of the European Climate Foundation, said the protests should be interpreted as a warning that the transition to a cleaner, greener economy “cannot be top-down”. She described them as a “wake-up call for social justice”.
Poorer households will need more help to soften the blow of higher fuel prices, so that taxes on carbon-heavy ways of living are not “regressive”, she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
The time has come for the climate movement to “open the door” and talk to other groups that will be affected by the policies it advocates.
“We have to find the solutions together,” said Tubiana, who was France’s special envoy for the Paris climate talks and played a key role in securing the agreement…
Paris is also mulling changes to other unpopular taxes unrelated to the green agenda, and has also said it will delay raising the lowest prices at which retailers can sell food, to which farmers’ groups responded angrily…
Pierre Cannet, head of climate and energy with WWF France, said a process that was not developed in an inclusive manner was “destined to fail”.
The French government had “put the cart before the horse by not addressing the social measures necessary for a just transition”, he added in emailed comments…
But he and other experts insisted France has no alternative to bringing in carbon taxes if it hopes to reduce its emissions on the scale needed to keep rising temperatures in check.
“To focus solely on the social costs of acting on climate change is a fallacy. At the end of the day the reason we need to take action is because the social and economic costs of climate impacts are far worse,” said Camilla Born, senior policy adviser at climate-change think tank E3G.
http://news.trust.org/item/20181205205846-7b42g/
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It appears that the NGOs and other hangers on are beginning to feel the cold wind of change and the drying up of the money trough – it couldn’t happen to more deserving groups.
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here comes the attempt to bring the yellow vests & climate activists together!
6 Dec: Le Monde: La marche pour le climat maintenue mais son itinéraire modifié
Le défilé aura lieu samedi, en même temps que la nouvelle journée d’action, dans 140 villes de France.
Par Rémi Barroux
https://www.lemonde.fr/planete/article/2018/12/06/la-marche-pour-le-climat-veut-converger-avec-les-gilets-jaunes_5393606_3244.html
google translation:
The walk for the climate maintained but its modified route
The parade will take place Saturday, along with the new day of action, in 140 cities of France…
“There is a greater risk of not demonstrating in the context of the crisis at the national level and of a COP [the climate conference, COP24, which is taking place until December 14 in Katowice, Poland] which marks no progress said Pauline Boyer of Alternatiba, one of the associations that initiated the fashion shows in France on Wednesday (December 5th). We have not made progress since COP21 in Paris in December 2015, and room for maneuver to act against global warming has further diminished. Governments do not do anything.”…
No question for the organizations – Alternatiba, ANV-COP21, the Friends of the Earth, Attac, the collective citizens of which it is still time, etc. – to give in to the pressure put in particular by the Minister of the Interior for the cancellation of this World Climate March, which will also take place in seventeen countries. Heard by the commission of laws of the National Assembly, Monday, Christophe Castaner has indeed proclaimed that he invited “the organizers not to want to maintain this event.
Tuesday, on RTL, it was the turn of Nicolas Hulot, former minister of ecological transition and solidarity, to say that it was “not the right moment because it is a risk of additional confrontation and confusion of messages
However, during the contacts that the organizers have regularly with the police headquarters, no ban has been envisaged. But the authorities would have told them they would not be responsible for securing the route.
“We will give ourselves the means to make this event a festive parade, where we can go with the family, with children, avoiding any incident,” said Gabriel Mazzolini, Friends of the Earth, responsible for the Paris parade . More than 200 volunteers are planned to secure the course…
Saturday’s race in Paris was initially scheduled from Trocadero to Champ-de-Mars, via the Alma Bridge and Rapp Avenue. He was referring to the march that ended the COP21 and ended also on the Champ-de-Mars…
But the risk of confrontation being real, the trip was finally changed Thursday by the prefecture to remove the event from the Champs-Elysees. The march will leave the Place de la Nation at 14:00 and will end in Republic by speaking and a concert…
“You have to create emotion, tell a story, and the artists know how to do it,” Cyril Dion, author-director, told the film Demain (with Mélanie Laurent, 2015), and committed ecologist. A concert is planned at the end of the march which will bring together Abd Al Malik, Jeanne Cherhal, Lambert Wilson, Juliette Binoche, Lou Doillon, Emily Loizeau or Xavi Polycarpe.
***Beyond maintaining their initiative, the environmental associations want to emphasize the convergence that exists, according to them, between the mobilization of “yellow vests” and the march for the climate. “The problems of end of the month and end of the world are not different, they pose the question of the economic model,” insisted Cyril Dion, like the representatives of the associations. “The government is not responding to social anger or the climate emergency,” said Aurélie Trouvé, of Attac.
Difficult to implement, especially in Paris, convergence between protesters for the climate and “yellow vests” will exist in many cities such as Marseille, Amiens, Aix-en-Provence, Lille, Clermont-Ferrand, Bayonne … In the latter city, the two initiatives will begin together in front of the town hall, Saturday morning, before separating for two different courses. “The technique of government is to divide everyone, we will not walk in this combination, social injustice and climate injustice cause the same problems,” said Thomas Maisonnave, “yellow vest” fishmonger in Bayonne.
In Marseille, the “yellow vests” will wait for climate activists on the Old Port. In Aix-en-Provence, a yellow and green banner will open a common procession, under the motto “Let’s change the system, not the climate, for ecological and social justice”. And when the protesters go to bed, at the Mirabeau course, for a die-in (a form of protest in which the participants simulate death), the “yellow vests” that occupy the toll of the Barque, on the A8 motorway, will as much, says Catherine Milard, from Alternatiba-Pays d’Aix.
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comment related to this is in moderation:
6 Dec: ZeroHedge: Tyler Durden: France Deploys 89,000 Cops Amid Fears Of Yellow Vest Rebellion On Saturday
French authorities will deploy at least 8,000 riot police and gendarmes in Paris on Saturday, and 89,000 forces across the country according to the Prime Minister, as the Elysee prepares for “act four” of the Yellow Vest movement’s violent protests against the Macron government.
In addition to the closure of the Eiffel Tower on Saturday, several Paris museums have announced that they won’t be open this weekend.
“The demonstrations announced Saturday, December 8 in Paris cannot guarantee the safety of visitors, the Sete has made the decision to close the Eiffel Tower,” announced the Societe de la Tour Eiffel which operates the monument.
Coup attempt?
French intelligence services have reported to the Elysee Palace – the official residence of President Macron, in light of “calls to kill” and “carry arms to attack” government officials, parliamentarians and police, according to Le Figaro (LINK). “They are putschists. We are in a coup attempt,” said Le Figaro’s sources…
On Thursday, Yellow Vest leader Eric Drouet said “Saturday will be the final outcome. Saturday is the Elysee,” adding “we all would like to go to the Elysee.”
Le Figaro also reports that Saturday’s demonstrations may involve unprecedented violence, as it may include “a hard core radicalized” element, from “both the extreme right and extreme left.”
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-12-06/france-deploys-12000-riot-cops-closes-eiffel-tower-coup-attempt-feared-yellow-vests
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O/Topic guys, but this one is pretty big IMO. Sargon of Akkad, aka Carl Benjamin, just got dropped by Patreon (a system for monetising creators on Youtube and other platforms). When someone as relatively milquetoast as Sargon gets booted you know the purge is on in earnest. the internet will be unrecognizable (and not in a good way) is this trend persists. The material I posted some months back was just the beginning. This is now stepping up a gear or three.
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6 Dec: ClimateChangeNews: UN climate finance rules ‘dragging’ amid fight over who reports what
Developing countries want to know how much aid is coming; rich countries worry about ‘constitutional constraints’, at Cop24 climate talks in Katowice
By Sara Stefanini; Karl Mathiesen contributed reporting
Financial aid for poor countries – and how it is counted, publicly reported and locked in for the future – is one of the biggest sticking points in global climate change negotiations. Again…
The latest draft on reporting past financial aid (LINK)included 41 “options” and 185 square brackets, denoting phrases that could still change, according to analysis by Carbon Brief (LINK). Among the issues still to be decided: whether the accounting of past aid from developed countries should be tied to the reports they make every two years on future “indicative” support…
In Katowice, the fight is over the rules designed to hold richer countries to their pledge to shore up $100 billion a year in public and private climate finance from 2020.
The question is how far developed countries will be required to go in committing to their pledges for future funding, and reporting on what they deliver.
Developing countries want firm reassurances on the sums they will receive, the type of development aid that is counted and where it is being funnelled. The more they know about future funding, they say, the easier it will be to fulfil their own pledges for tackling climate change, since many of them are conditional on support…
The European Union and others on the developed side worry about tying their national budgets into international law – especially if they have to pledge funding more than a few years in advance. Some developing countries initially asked for funding to be committed alongside national plans for cutting emissions, which go out to 2030, according to observers following the talks.
“There are certain constitutional constraints for developed countries to report on the forward spending, which are difficult to overcome,” Elina Bardram, the European Commission’s chief negotiator, told reporters on Wednesday. EU countries and the European Investment Bank are the biggest contributors to climate finance, providing a combined €20.4 billion ($23.2bn) in public finance last year…
The draft text also pointed to uncertainties over who must report the financial aid, and who can or should report it – suggesting that emerging economies could be encouraged to do more…
http://www.climatechangenews.com/2018/12/06/un-climate-finance-rules-dragging-amid-fight-reports/
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AAP: Queensland bushfires: Palaszczuk blasts Morrison government over land-clearing inquiry
Queensland premier says Coalition is ‘blaming the trees’ for the fires
Guardian – 7 Dec 2018
“If you want to know what caused those conditions, I’ll give you an answer – it’s called climate change,” the Queensland premier told reporters. “It is only the LNP who could watch Queensland burn and then blame the trees.”…
7 Dec: North Qld Register: Littleproud launches inquiry into Qld bushfires
by Mark Phelps
FEDERAL Agriculture Minister David Littleproud has announced a House of Representatives inquiry into the impact of vegetation and land management policies on agriculture.
The inquiry was first flagged in August. However, Mr Littleproud said recent catastrophic fires in Queensland had provided the catalyst to get the numbers to make the Inquiry a reality.
“Queensland Labor had the chance to look at this properly but they’ve squibbed it, so we’ll do it,” Mr Littleproud said.
“We need to have a real look at the impact of the Queensland Labor Government’s native vegetation management land management practices.
“The idea a farmer is too scared to make a proper firebreak is a joke. We need an easy process so this can be done to protect us from fires. Departments need to be clear and quick when responding to landholders on this.
“The absence of proper firebreaks on both public and private land is just dumb.”
The announcement of the Littleproud inquiry follows on from calls yesterday from the Queensland LNP demanding Queensland Parliamentary Inquiry into the devastating bushfires.
LNP Leader Deb Frecklington said concerns have been raised about land management practices to manage fuel loads, how national parks were managed and what landholders also needed to do to protect their property and livestock.
“These bushfires have been devastating, but we need to learn lessons about how we can prevent it from happening again,” Ms Frecklington said.
“Climate change can’t be used as an excuse to do nothing. If anything, climate change means we should be adapting our response more.”
Mr Littleproud said he also wanted to know it the lack of cool burning on state-owned land had contributed to fires.
“Has the Queensland Government done enough to make sure fires don’t spread from National Parks onto farms? Have Queensland’s vegetation management laws left more fuel load on farms?
“I’ve often wondered whether indigenous land practices could be incorporated into our modern land management now.
“If Queensland’s laws are locking up agriculture’s potential and making fires worse, we need to know about it.”
Tom Marland said the family had repeatedly applied for a permit to burn, starting in December 2017.
“We were advised that the permit had been approved but not processed. We are still waiting on the permit and a response,” Mr Marland said.
The fire that ripped through Bulburin National Park, spread the Marland’s forest lease destroying a large number of cattle along with wildlife and centuries old trees.
In contrast the Marland’s freehold country, which adjoins the forest lease and had been controlled burned, escaped the destruction.
Mr Littleproud said he would be inviting Queensland Deputy Premier Jackie Trad, the architect of Queensland controversial vegetation management laws, to appear and give evidence at the inquiry.
“Queensland Labor’s silence on these issues comes in the same week Queensland Labor has announced it will cut agricultural colleges in Longreach and Emerald, a callus abandonment of agriculture west of the divide gripped in one of the worse droughts on record,” he said.
The inquiry will begin this month and is expected to report back by April.
https://www.northqueenslandregister.com.au/story/5799021/littleproud-launches-qld-bushfire-inquiry/?cs=4735
6 Dec: Qld Country Life: Federal pollies point finger at Queensland over bushfires
by Mike Foley
Liberal National Senators Matthew Canavan and James McGrath, and MPs David Littleproud, George Christensen, Michelle Landry as well as Ken O’Dowd formed a united front in Canberra today to make their case.
They said poor state regulations prevented the appropriate level of fuel management in National Parks and State Forests and restrictive vegetation laws had blocked private landholders from undertaking preventative action.
Senator Canavan said Queensland farmers “need to have their voice heard” and that state government had tried to avoid scrutiny of its policies by blaming climate change for the fires.
“I note the government’s position this morning,” Mr Canavan said.
“Why are they afraid of hearing from average landholders?
“I cannot for the life of me see how the Queensland government has ruled out an inquiry. They’re treating the people of Queensland with contempt.”…
“I’m bloody furious over these comments,” (Queensland Agriculture Minister Anthony) Lynham said…
Mr. Lynham said climate change had was a main driver of the fires.
“These weather events are extreme, record temperatures are being set time and time again. Climate change is real and it needs to be addressed.”…
“We have over one million hectares burnt out by mismanagement of land clearing and National Parks,” Mr Littleproud said…
https://www.queenslandcountrylife.com.au/story/5797865/canberra-call-for-independent-inquiry-into-queensland-bushfires/?cs=5373
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NYT’s attempt to merge the yellow vests with the CAGW mob. originally the opening line was:
‘Yellow Vest’ Protests Shake France. Here’s the Lesson for Climate …
New York Times-11 hours ago
PARIS — Vincent Picard describes himself as a “militant ecologist.”
he’s been “softened” now to a “pastry maker”, but still a “militant ecologist”!
6 Dec: NYT: ‘Yellow Vest’ Protests Shake France. Here’s the Lesson for Climate Change.
By Alissa J. Rubin and Somini Sengupta
A pastry maker from northern France, Vincent Picard describes himself as a “militant ecologist” — one who also joined the so-called Yellow Vest protests set off by an increase in France’s gasoline tax.
If those two impulses seem to conflict, Mr. Picard, 32, explains that he has to drive to work every day. The nearest train station is 35 minutes. The trains run only once an hour, and soon perhaps even more infrequently as the government looks to save costs on rural routes.
“I am conscious that that we have reached the end of fossil fuels and that we have to modify our habits,” he said. “They are asking us to to be mobile, to adapt, but this cannot be done from one day to the next. You have to continue to live.”
How to design smart policies to help people live through that transition away from fossil fuels is a challenge facing not just France, but nearly all industrialized countries committed to pulling the world back from the cliff’s edge of catastrophic climate change…
There is little doubt among scientists and economists that putting a price on carbon — and a high one at that — is essential in the effort to reduce fossil fuel dependence. The question is how to design a carbon tax — and how to cushion the blow for the most vulnerable…
If nothing else, the maelstrom in France showed that the political challenge of how to create incentives for people to conserve energy and convert to cleaner sources requires much more than raising a tax on gas at the pump or subsidizing solar panels…
Of the 34 billion euros, or $39 million, that Mr. Macron hoped to raise from the fuel tax, less than a fourth was earmarked for environmental measures, said Daniel M. Kammen, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley who specializes in energy policy.
Much more of the fuel tax proceeds, Mr. Kammen said, could have been used to lower the prices of electric vehicles, including taxis, to help make it more affordable for people to commute from areas with no public transportation links. Or it could have been used to develop more charging stations or subsidize big batteries to enable taxis to do long trips.
“So while President Macron has highlighted the need for funds to invest in clean energy, that is not actually what was planned,” Mr. Kammen said…
“This situation illustrates how equity and fairness considerations have to be built into the design of such policies,” Alden Meyer, policy director at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said by email from Katowice, Poland, where United Nations climate talks are underway.
Others agreed. “There is a consensus among economists who have said that to fight against the warming climate, there must be a price put on carbon, but they underestimated the social repercussions that could have,” said Jean-Marie Chevalier, a French economist and professor emeritus at the University Paris-Dauphine.
“The people in the street do not give a damn about the energy transition,” said Mr. Chevalier, who worked for many years with Cambridge Energy Research Associates, whose clients include business and governments worldwide…
In Canada, conservatives have pledged to undo Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s plans for a national carbon tax. Only six of 10 provinces are going along with his plan.
In Australia, when Malcolm Turnbull tried to advance a law that would have reined in greenhouse gas emissions this year, he was ousted as prime minister.
Similarly, in the United States, where the car is king, public transportation lags and the automobile and energy industries maintain powerful lobbies, politicians toy with low fuel prices at their own risk.
Coal miners carrying a painting of St. Barbara, the patron saint of miners, in Pawlowice, Poland, this week during United Nations climate talks there…
Mr. Picard, the pastry chef, for instance, earns €1,280 a month, or about $1,450, after payroll taxes. For him, the planned tax increase of 6 or 7 cents per liter of gas “is enormous,” he said.
“Imagine how violent this tax is for those people who earn less than me and who are not conscious of environmental needs,” added Mr. Picard, who lives in Woincourt, a village of 500 people about 45 miles from Amiens, Mr. Macron’s hometown…
“Everybody loves to talk about climate goals and preserving the environment, but nobody is talking about the now,” said Vonda Brunsting, a researcher at Harvard’s Kennedy School who works on environmentally responsible investment policy.
“Some governments are intent on having ambitious plans for meeting the Paris climate conference goals, but they have to survive politically long enough to put them in place,” she added. “Macron and the French government have skipped over the part involving the workers and the community.”
Among the forms of help that economists point to are offering subsidies to encourage people to use less-polluting forms of energy, and expanding transit networks rather than closing them. Flexibility is a virtue, too, like reducing the fuel tax level if oil prices raise the cost too high…
“We are in the transition period and the government has run into political economic problems,” said Philippe Aghion, an economist at the prestigious College de France who advised Mr. Macron during his presidential campaign. “So you need to smooth out this period. You need to reach out a hand to help people across the bridge.”
He believes a number of countries may have to to violate the European Union’s 3 percent cap on annual deficits so that they can borrow more to fund their energy transitions.
The cap “was not designed for countries undergoing structural reforms,” he said, adding that the bloc should be willing to do so since it will eventually lead to more long-term wealth.
Camilla Born, who analyzes energy policy at the research and advocacy group E3G, said that while Mr. Macron could be faulted for not putting in social measures that would allow French citizens to “ride out the challenges of change,” the price of inaction was ultimately far more costly.
“The reason we need to take action,” she said, “is because the social and economic costs of climate impacts are far worse.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/06/world/europe/france-fuel-carbon-tax.html
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NYT’s Vincent Picard was also written up by a CAGW-obsessed website called ID Info Durable, which has plenty on COP24:
Info Durable: COP24
https://www.linfodurable.fr/mots-cles/cop24
for them, Picard simply belongs to an activist group, which they call ANV-COOP21 (quick search hasn’t come up with anything more):
20 Nov: L’Info Durable: “Yellow vests and ecological awareness are not incompatible”
by Omaya Lise
While on Saturday November 17 the demonstration of the yellow waistcoats, some have taxed the movement to be “anti-green”. A false interpretation according to Vincent Picard, member of the association ANV-COOP21, for whom the event reflects above all a “real suffering “…
Many internet users accusing in particular the yellow vests to be “anti-environment” and to show “individualism” towards the climate emergency…
In the aftermath, a second movement also appeared on the Internet. That of ***green vests, which militate this time for “a fair and equitable ecological transition”, with the aim of “linking social justice, democratic demand and ecological urgency”. Enough to oppose the two camps for some…
But not for others, according to whom the movement has nothing “selfish.” Among them, Vincent Picard, member of the Ecological Association ANV-COOP21, participated in the demonstrations on Saturday. The latter believes that “the movement of yellow waistcoats is far from absurd” and that it denotes “of a real suffering ” of the share of “those people who have no choice to take the car ” in rural areas that suffer from the lack of transport and of efficient services. For him, “yellow waistcoat and ecological awareness are not incompatible”…
VIDEO: VINCENT PICARD 1min03sec
https://www.linfodurable.fr/environnement/gilet-jaune-et-conscience-ecologique-ne-sont-pas-incompatibles-7493
very much doubt if NYT found him as a random protester. Sengupta’s co-writer, Alissa J. Rubin is New York Times Bureau Chief in Paris, so I would imagine she found him through ID Info Durable.
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not a peep about CAGW during the mid-term campaigns, and nothing but CAGW ever since:
Chuck Schumer: No deal on infrastructure without addressing climate change
By Chuck Schumer
Washington Post – 7 Dec 2018
Now that Democrats will soon control one branch of Congress, President Trump is again signaling that infrastructure could be an area of compromise. We agree, but if the president wanted to earn Democratic support in the Senate, any infrastructure bill would have to include policies and funding that help transition our country to a clean-energy economy and mitigate the risks the United States already faces from climate change.
For too long, Congress has failed to act in a meaningful way to combat the threat posed by climate change.
It’s impossible to overstate the urgency with which America needs to confront climate change…
Two weeks ago, I was blessed with the birth of my first grandchild. I want him to grow up and grow old in a world that’s safe and healthy — a dream I know every American has for their children and grandchildren. In the next Congress, Democrats have to force the issue…
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Some thoughts on the political upheaval occurring in France.
https://thepointman.wordpress.com/2018/12/07/revolution/
Pointman
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Who would have ever thought that the French of all people could possibly save the world from Tyranny ?
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People who fear the beginning of every month revolt against people who fear the end of the world.
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A yellow vest ripple effect you reckon?
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For all his commitment to saving the planet, all his principles and all of the “evidence” of climate change are being subjugated to Macon’s desire to stay in office.
Politicians are such models of hypocrisy.
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