Tony Abbott won a 90 seat landslide based on a blood oath to Axe The Carbon Tax. In 2014 he was thwarted in the Senate from instigating his plans to clean out the green-machine burden, largely by Clive Palmer and cohort, a coal explorer and senator who was a skeptic til Al Gore visited the week before key legislation was voted on. The people who voted for Clive sure didn’t vote to bankroll the Renewables Industry but that’s what they got, and thanks to the Australia Institute we can see just how much the turncoat cost — about $1,000 per person.
The Australia Institute is suddenly raving about the value of crossbench Senators — especially the ones who did the opposite of what their voters expected — “yay”, democracy. Then they’ve paired it with the release of a nothingburger survey that asked the wrong people no relevant or specific questions so the Institute could pretend Australians approved of the sell-out Senators who wasted $23 billion dollars on a pagan weather-changing plan. Do you like the Senate, then you love Renewables? Cheers Jiminy!
Is the Australia Institute a research group or a PR Agency for Renewables?
Saved By The Bench
How the Senate crossbench saved Australia’s renewable energy industry
The Abbott Government’s attempts to abolish key renewable energy policies were foiled by Labor and the Senate crossbench. These efforts have supported $23.4 billion worth of clean energy projects during a period that saw renewable investment fall by up to 48% in some years.
Bravo. Crossbenchers saved an industry which investors were running away from. Why? Because it was A/ an efficient provider of a valuable service and investors were stupid or B/ because no one wants overpriced, unreliable power?
Hmm.
Between 2013 and 2016, the Coalition Government attempted to abolish Australia’s three key renewable energy policies: the Renewable Energy Target (RET), the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) and the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA).
These three policies were saved in the Senate….
As a result, the CEFC continued financing, ARENA continued providing grants and other assistance and the RET continued encouraging renewable energy generation. In total $7.8 billion in government support has been provided to projects worth $23.4 billion, as shown in Figure 1:
| Figure 1: Total clean energy support saved by Labor and crossbench (2013–2018) | |||
| . | Funding and investment ($m) | Total project value ($m) | |
| CEFC investment | $6,652 | $19,000 | |
| ARENA grants | $1,187 | $4,371 | |
| Total | $7,839 | $23,371 | |
In addition, the RET has assisted the installation of 806,000 solar panel systems and 226,000 solar hot water systems between 2013–2018 and the generation of 85m MWh of electricity from large-scale generators. Saving the RET and CEFC has resulted in emissions reductions of at least 334m tonnes CO2-e. This is more emissions reduction than the government’s policy, the Emissions Reduction Fund, is likely to deliver over its six years of operation (92m tonnes from its creation in 2014 to 2020)
By contrast, the Emissions Reduction Fund is estimated to abate 192m tonnes, of which about 92m tonnes will be abated between its creation in 2014 and 2020, and the remaining abatement happening after 2020.37
Renewable energy subsidies; Six times as useless
So the $23 billion dollars used by the crossbenchers saved 334m tonnes of CO2 (equivalent) at a cost of $70/ton.
The Emissions Reductions Fund cost $2.29 billion and will save nearly 200 million tons at a cost of $12 per ton which makes it six times as effective. And if you believe reducing CO2 is important, Tony Abbott’s plan could save six times as many environments.
The $23 billion dollar gift to the renewable industry thus wasted 83% of taxpayer funds — a cool $19.5 billion dollars that could have been used to help the poor or the spotted quoll, but was instead wasted propping up a freeloading industry that makes electricity more expensive, drives other industries away from Australia, and probably loses 3 jobs for every one it creates. On the upside, Australia saved 334m tons of CO2 — equivalent to five weeks of emissions from China.
The senate sell-out cost every man woman and child in Australia about $1,000. Babies too. That’s $4,000 per family of four. That’s a family holiday the kids will never forget, because it didn’t happen.
During Tony Abbott’s time as PM renewable energy investment returned to “a free market” and fell by half:
In 2014 and 2015, while worldwide investment in the sector grew, Australian renewable energy investment fell by half. If the Senate crossbench had failed to save the CEFC, ARENA and RET, the decline would have been much greater and the rebuilding of the industry much more difficult. The future of Australia’s renewable sector was saved by the (cross) bench.
The decline of renewables would have been greater, but so would Australian wallets and in so many ways. The Australia Institute obviously approves of governments interfering in the market, and picking winners (or rather “picking losers, but calling them winners”.)
They even admit the Senators largely betrayed their voters:
Having been typecast as ‘conservative’ or ‘right-wing’, the new minor parties on the crossbench were widely expected to vote with the Abbott Government – and, indeed, Day and Leyonhjelm proved to be fairly reliable votes for the government. But Xenophon, Wang, Lambie, Lazarus, Muir and Madigan, along with the Greens, ensured that the Senate crossbench served as an important check on the government’s power.
Palmers team (bolded) didn’t so much serve as an “important check on the governments power”, but as an check on voters power. Not that The Australia Institute shows much concern. After the Palmer 2014 sell out, it appears half his voters voted for other people and the Palmer team (such as it wasn’t) won nothing ever again.
The Australia Institute didn’t ask Palmer’s voters what they thought, because they already knew the answer. Instead they asked other voters generic questions about the Senate and whether it was useful and what color their seats were. ( Seriously, 40% knew the Senate seats are red). Hence the Australia Institute got a headline that bore no resemblance to reality by asking no questions about the carbon tax or any issue relevant to their press release.
Spot the bait and switch with the word “which”:
Majority of Australians support Senate crossbench, which saved $23b of renewables from Coalition cuts
The ‘Saved by the bench’ report is being released in conjunction with Australia Institute polling* which shows that a majority of Australians believe the country is better off because of the Senate and that better laws are created when the government has to negotiate with other parties
It’s great PR for the renewables industry but not so great for Australians who had $1000 stolen.
The Australian Institute paper mentions no conflicts of interests nor donors. But with a $23 billion dollar carrot swinging through Australian Industry, there is potentially a nice river of tax-funded flowback that could have come their way. Who knows? That’s an awful lot of profits that are far more dependent on the mood of Parliamentarians than on providing something their customers need at a price they are willing to pay.
h/t Pat
REFERENCE
Saved by the bench, The Australia Institute, Dec 2018
CER announces eighth Emissions Reduction Fund auction results, 18 December, 2018
Global Carbon Project (2018) Carbon budget and trends 2018.
Why are politicians so clueless?
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O-kay: the hard ones first …
They weren’t born with any clues?
They have an advanced learning difficulty which prevents them from absorbing any clues while attending school
– this rubs off as an inability to acquire clues from other sources because of lower levels of literacy or outright illiteracy.
They attended clueless schools so of course no clues were acquired there because they couldn’t be acquired.
They acquired degrees which don’t need any clues, eg: Batchelor, Master, or Ph.D of Political Science, (a Contradiction in Terms) which is dangerous for obvious reasons
They don’t listen to their electorates, expecting their electorate clues to be absorbed through osmosis
or …
They listen too much to their electorates which have no clues either. This is a dangerous trap for clueless politicians: not having any clues themselves, how can they recognize a cluetrap electorate at all?
They watch too much CNN, specifically and especially shows from Chuck Todd (who is not a scientist and is completely clueless—he has declared the science is settled—himself. Okay, that makes him at least thirty years out of date …)
Last, they’re paid to be clueless. Follow the money/corruption, whatever you like to call it, and you just might find magnificent incentives to avoid all clues. You can’t expect a clueless individual to recognize the necessity of acquiring clues when their income depends on them remaining clueless, as explained by the incomparable Albert Gore.
Umm. I’ve about run out of reasons. What are your ideas?
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… ah, for income read re-election etc campaign fund.
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Perhaps its because among politicians, self interest always rises above what’s right.
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That’s why they’re there. Those who are there to honestly do something for the country don’t last and don’t get the power to do what they think they want to do.
Politicians haven’t the clue-bats to hold down “real jobs“—even lawyers face unemployment—and the salaries and perquisites are among the best in the world/country. In NZ, two terms (6 years) in “The House” guarantees a solid gold (it’s not gold-plated) superannuation scheme. an annual income over 3, nearly 4 times what another person will earn, and twice that a tradesman earns (the middle class are underpaid and the trades charge monopoly rates), but you don’t have to really work for all that. There’s the House dining room and it’s “top shelf” (unless you prefer beer in which case the selection is the widest in the country) I’ve thought about it as a form of employment several times when particular issues narked me, but then each time I looked at the … creatures … I would have to interact with and I’ve thrown that idea out as far and as fast as I can.
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Speaking of which
“AOC does it again – there’s truth for The (morally correct) Left, then there’s the truth”
https://www.michaelsmithnews.com/2019/01/aoc-does-it-again-theres-truth-for-the-morally-correct-left-then-theres-the-truth.html
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Apropos above, and beyond,this presentation by Jo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYHX-Ib3Q5Q deserves to be at number one, so I’m placing it there. Kudos Jo, for yr exposure of the problems of renewable energy and yr argument for efficient energy, staff of life for human prosperity. Viva Ol’ King Coal that rescued serfs from slavery and ended famine in the west. Sad that elites seek to deny events of history and use their medja sheeple to block knowledge of what efficient energy has wrought and conceal what George Soros, Al Gore, UN and Brussels are seeking to destroy.
This video needs to be disseminated far and wide -I’ll do my best in that regard.
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So these people are donkeys?
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Often referred to as “the donkey vote”.
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They listen to those who shout the loudest. At the moment the loony left speak the loudest from many directions – schools, Universities, MSM, Hollywood, political activists, etc. Meanwhile the silent majority are ignored but the issue is no one really knows what they think. They could be clueless as well because they too listen to the shouting left. The next federal election will expose what the silent majority think. It’s a shame too many are too lazy and/or too busy to think for themselves and do their own research with an objective mind. We get the government we deserve.
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Soon enough all of this will unravel. Soon enough…
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We certainly live in Interesting Times. To make them even more interesting and alarming, Al Gore thinks America is at a political “tipping point”. [published on Wattsupwiththat.com last week.]
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Al Gore always says there is some kind of tipping point, its how he gets his head on the media and maintains a profile. The fact that nothing he says ever happens seems to escape his acolytes.
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I blame Al Gore’s ex wife for most of this.
To think, in a parallel universe where young Al courted differently we could all now be facing a massive Katting Point.
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Remember he was married to one
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tipper_Gore
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“Born Lucky” insider trading.
70
Reminds me of the fate of Haman as outlined in the Bible, Esther Chapter 7 – Haman hung on his own gallows.
I’m not implying utilizing capital punishment on anyone, more the principle of those determined to do the innocent harm, will have the means of destruction they created, visited upon them by God, as God is very big on justice….
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There will be a reckoning. How it will pan out is anyone’s guess, but the constant lies will become obvious to all and sundry.
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Bemused: The almost all-Left MSM is the key to any possible chance of the lies becoming obvious.
They know what’s happened….they’ve engineered it…they’ve been the essential ingredient for the ‘transition’ of Australia to 3rd world poverty and the energy abyss that the [ IMO] sinister subversive anti-Australian…anti-democracy Australia Institute… lusts after.
The LW TV hacks enable and facilitate everything the Australia Institute and the rest of the LEFT does….they give them massive cred on their regular interview spots where the subversives propagate their lies to sabotage democracy.
The very same hacks are doing everything they can to force Tony Abbott out of parliament…leering and sneering at his every opinion on every issue…even when it’s proven true ….trying to deny only Tony Abbott…the only real democratically-elected PM since 2013…his backbencher’s right to freedom of speech.
He’s their pesky victim who won’t die.
They want to bury their victim but he keeps popping up in the interests of Australia…to tell the truth about the suicidal course the Left has set us on.
The LW hacks knew what a hit on democracy and Australia it was to trash the 2013 election result just 15 months after the landslide win…to veto the democratic vote of the Australian people…to mount a coup against the landslide-winning PM to install a plotter they had puffed and promoted to the Australian people to sink Abbott’s polls in preparation to install the MSM/Paris candidate.
The LW MSM ‘journalists’ are the ones who conducted the vulture watch on Tony Abbott after they and their PARIS candidate put him on 6 months probation…a period during which he was in the dock…crippled….supposed to show cause why he shouldn’t be politically assassinated for being unable to counter the 24/7 blitzkrieg by the ‘journalists’ PARIS candidate and his Lefty Wets…Labor…almost all of the country’s MSM hacks posing as journalists…and the likes of the crossbench and Senate zoo of nitwits doing Gore’s bidding…like Palmer and Lambie….the latter still a darling of ABC as they keep her on ice in the hope that she can be used to subvert democracy for them again.
The LW ‘journalists’ knew their coup was all about forcing on Australia …via their PARIS candidate Turnbull…the specific climate policy [ virtually the policy of the LNP’s GreenLabor opponents ]…that the people of Australia had voted against..in a landslide.
They knew without any possibility of doubt…that they were destroying democracy in Australia …and removing any reason for Australians who disagreed with the MSM dogma …to vote at all.
Why should the Australian people vote at all when the LW ‘journalists’ candidate…ie the CAGW candidate…the RE carpetbaggers’ candidate… can be enabled and promoted and facilitated to steal government from the Australian people’s choice in a MSM-run coup…a vicious juggernaut that no man born of woman could possibly counter.
Consequently the MSM hack-assisted Anti-Australia Institute is empowered more than ever to flog its propaganda to gullible Australians…and their agenda for us all is the UN/PARIS/GLobal Socialist agenda…crippled precarious NEM with nothing but 100% weather-dependent intermittent electricity system..crippled agriculture [ farmers taxed off their land to achieve that]…crippled industry…crippled mining…decimated export income and therefore no funds for Medicare-PBS-NDIS-pensions-welfare-no jobs…no border security..no sovereignty…no military…taxed [ UN advises use of euphemisms like ‘fees’ and ‘contributions’]out of our homes and herded into high rise ..or for so long as we keep our homes ..forced to live 24/7 in rooftop solar and battery power plants so central authorities can remotely ‘orchestrate’ our ‘homes’ …our batteries and our lives.
They acknowledge that we’ll resist their total control…but claim that’s just our ‘solution aversion’…silly people that we are wanting autonomy in our own homes.
Empowered also are the RE corporate mafia with massive undisclosed vested interests who are posing as frolicking beach bunnies at Manly Wharf as they try to get the gullible of Warringah to boot Tony Abbott ‘for the planet’..their interests having nothing to do with the planet and all to do with making squillions for themselves out of supping at the subsidy trough of taxpayers money funnelled straight from the pockets of low and middle-income Australians into the coffers of the uber-rich.
Australia is in existential danger right now…and unless we take on the LW ‘journalists’ and the monsters they’ve created.. the country will suffer damage that will destroy every good aspect of our children’s and grandchildren’s lives and futures.
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I talk to mates and people who will listen. Ive seen the remnants of communism in the old east germany…its bleak and awful.
People need to be constantly told they are being lied to, that they are been laughed at by those who would do thier kids harm for generatiobs to come.
That gets thier attention…
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I speak to a lot of people in my rural township and you’d be surprised at how many truly understand that all of this is crap, and they call it out as such. It’s little wonder that the state and federal members are a National Party members and the Greens struggle every election. Rural Australia will be where the push back will begin.
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bemused,
No kidding. The other day I asked my brother, who lives in very rural Pennsylvania, how much CO2 he thought was in the atmosphere and he replied about 2%. He even has an chemical engineering degree and should know better, so this goes to show how powerful the lying rhetoric is at keeping people dazed and confused. He was actually quite surprised to learn that it was only about 400 ppm.
40
Well worth the read.
A good, decent, hopeful country post WWII, then the CarpetBaggers arrived and got to work.
By the late sixties the mood of greatfulness and frugality has been changed to one that brought us to the current point.
By the mid seventies the wealthy in the unions and politics had been blooded, and wanted More, much more.
Our nation has been Transitioned, and we are now Slaves.
A once proud and decent country has been Transitioned to Slavery.
KK
00
Bemused alleged @ # 1.3.3.1
Watch this from Lord Monkton [2015] Now the Gorebul Warning about a “ Political Turning Point” should be taken seriously.
20
And here is how totalitarianism rips the power from the citizenry and what happens afterwards … I’m sure you will all enjoy this …
It’s exactly the recipe followed in Germany in 1933 by Adolf’s Gang …
30
And to think that Dr Guillotine invented his inspired device to ensure the humane and expeditious despatch of the cake eaters of the day. Rothschild banker Macaroon must be having nightmares.
40
It is more a case of what sort of person actually ends up getting into politics.
Like the saying goes: Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach.
If you are actually good at your job then in most cases you can end up with a highly successful career in the private sector. The money is often better, the privacy is better and you don’t have to spend time in Canberra.
So the people who do end up in Canberra are often the ones who are not particularly good at ‘running things’. Instead their skill lay in winning votes. This can be the votes of the public come election time, or the votes of their party peers in reaching pre-selection. The trick then is knowing which side your bread is buttered and keep convincing your vote holding supporters that you are the man/woman looking out for them. Remember you don’t have to fill those promises, just convince people that you are honestly trying really really hard.
Play that game well can you can be in Canberra for years. Forget the promises you made to your supporters and they take their vote elsewhere.
Unfortunately for the voters this ‘correction’ can take several years and the politicals in question can stuff their nests quite well during that period.
So, why are so many clueless?
Because the people smart enough to actually run the country know they can get much better jobs and lives OUTSIDE of politics. Occasionally you get the sort of person who believes and loves the country enough to step down into politics to fight for the way of life that made the country wonderful, but basically anyone in power is pretty much clueless before they even start.
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To expand on the saying:
Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach. Those who can’t teach, become politicians.
61
“Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach. Those who can’t teach, become politicians.” No, they
teach the teachers
31
By hook or by crook Australia, you will adhere to international commitments, diminish your liberty and prosperity, become poorer, create less wealth, all the while comforting yourselves that you have assisted the UN toward achieving,
“the most difficult task we have ever given ourselves, which is to intentionally transform the economic development model for the first time in human history.” (Christiana Figueres, former executive secretary UNFCCC)
Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development possesses 17 Sustainable Development Goals and 169 targets.
As is evident and of which you are all becoming painfully aware, Goal 28 makes it quite clear that the Australian branch of “UN-Settled Globalist Politics Inc’ is not only,
” committed to making fundamental changes in the way that our societies produce and consume goods and services. Governments, international organizations, the business sector and other non-State actors and individuals must contribute to changing unsustainable consumption and production patterns, …”
…but succeeding very nicely.
For how much longer?
Let’s turn to Alex Lantier, of the World Socialist Web site who wrote in Dec 2018, “The “yellow vest” movement has erupted precisely because, in France and across Europe, capitalist parliaments are trampling democracy and the working class underfoot.”
“Macron now rules only from behind a wall of tens of thousands of riot police, backed by armored cars and helicopters on permanent standby, ready to evacuate him from the Elysée palace or any other “secure location” he fears protesters might storm.”
“Rather, they are demanding access to affordable transport, housing, and food; jobs; and an end to the financial-military dictatorship of the banks and the European Union.”
Realizing these demands requires mobilizing the working class to take control of the economy and to take power.
Alex Lantier, World Socialist Web site Dec 2018
Australia must eventually become broken. It remains to be seen whether the electorate will accept globalised chaos or prefer and revert to the securities of nationhood, culture and economic prosperity.
340
Interesting to see the German ‘left’ disown the gilets jaunes.
From the link above:
“Abhorrence of any revolt from below is written into the DNA of the Left Party … To paraphrase Friedrich Engels, it is “more frightened of the least popular movement than of all the reactionary plots of all the Governments put together”.
The Left Party instinctively regards any social movement that is not controlled and held in check by the trade unions as a right-wing conspiracy.”
Meanwhile, the deplorables (the right-wing conspiracy) speak …
Gilets jaunes slogan: “Macron talks about the end of the world,” they say, “but we are talking about the end of the month.”
241
via twitter:
Look at the size of the Yellow Vests protest!
Why does #YellowVests Never trend on Twitter?
Why does MSM not cover it?
The protests grow.
The globalists will lose.
https://twitter.com/magagary687/status/1081581404213993472
140
The news eve party at the yacht club has a dress up theme and this year it was uniforms.
So I bought a yellow vest and a hoodie.
To my dismay non of the other party goers seemed to get it. They thought I might be thinking road worker or something. Even when I said GILET JAUNES, some did not seem to understand.
282
Yes but we are dialled into the news. I think about most of the popular search pages – the biggest story would be who wore what at some pointless awards night….
People seem to want to operate in the shallow end of the pool, its easier and their lives are easy. People seem to have no real clue apart from high power bills, of the bigger game in play , and that they soon will be literal collateral damage if he lunacy doesnt stop…..
The biggest risk to personal safety and freedom, as was shown in countless conflicts, is people in your own suburb who as brainless drones, will dob you in once you are declared an “enemy of freedom” becaue you thnk or are a skeptic. If you look at Yugoslavia, Nazi germany, even now in western countries – people are encouraged to snitch on each other. The infamous anti-terrorism fridge magnet created by Comrade John W. Howard is a nascent form of encouraging paranoia-based snitching…..kids in nazi germany were encouraged to dob in parents….
90
You touched on one of the reasons why we are in such a mess and getting worse. Apathy. Eventually of course when the pain is too much people will wake up and react accordingly. For now too many are still very comfortable and having a good time. When the music stops though watch out.
30
Yep…you will want to be at a safe distance….
10
PeterS,
You are correct.
In Australia at present, apathy is at fever pitch.
30
I also wonder how people will react when our real-estate prices keep declining and accelerate to the downside with Shorten in power. Not to worry I’m sure he’ll find a way to spend trillions on trying to support the market somehow only of course to find out to be a total waste of time. The left only know one thing – how to waste as much money as possible as quickly as possible. We should have learned that lesson not long ago but of course most have such short memories. Perhaps it’s those nasty memory holes that the elite keep popping up all over the place in schools, Universities, MSM and the like. We need a reset where both the LNP and ALP+Greens are wiped out of existence.
30
and via twitter, the opposite of gilets jaunes, the socialist elites …
The Sunrise Movement
0.25: “We have 12 years to radically transform our economy and society to stop this crisis and protect human civilisation as we know it.
We’ll talk about it like that because that’s what it is.”
https://twitter.com/sunrisemvmt/status/1063113434965962752
30
Maybe if you’d used “gibbets”?
00
MarkM: It’s anathema for the LW MSM ‘journalists’ because the ‘yellow vest’ crowd are the people whose lives the LW ‘journalists’ think it their right to control…taking control for themselves instead.
When LW MSM journalists foster…promote..facilitate…enable and legitimize a coup to oust a duly elected PM and install…as in the atrocity of 2015…their own preferred leader….chosen by them for his allegiance to the policies of Paris…they’re hardly going to give any publicity to the weeks of protests by the actual people of Paris against those same policies and others.
50
This video might help explain the German reaction to the yellow vest movement. But it also is well worth watching for all the other issues it covers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmmjqphCjpU
30
He’s really into it.
20
By the time we get to 2020, the Demorats will be reduced to a frenzied Leftist residue, with a substantial self-inflicted contribution courtesy of #WalkAway.
The party of division is unsurprisingly divided, and dividing.
Next stop: KAG
20
OK. OK. 🙂
KAG = Keep America Great.
It’s always been great. (Except for the Obama years. And the Clinton years. And the years of the lifelong peanut farmer).
20
You have got it. Anyone one that believes in sustainable development is a socialist green. There is nothing sustainable in the long term. Mines run out of reserves, products get replaced by something different and new (look at phones & computers- how long is their life, they were not even available to the average person 50 years ago), housing changes, different people get elected, people die, agricultural practises change, things we eat change, travel changes, Nuclear energy will become more common.
People who elect or appoint those that believe in sustainable development are causing self harm. Get rid of these Green Socialists.
191
As always when that term “Wasted” is used in relation to the Renewables Industry: No!
It wasn’t wasted.
The primary flow was directed to where it was always intended and was greatly appreciated, thanks Australia.
Both partis are involved in promoting the Renewables Industry and it is 97% certain that their interest is superficially on Saving the Planet while their main objective is the Consulting or enabling fees that accompany that noble work.
It is obvious that Jo’s aim in writing this post is that their efforts on our behalf should be acknowledged at the next election.
In every ballot, select a good independent candidate or someone from the new upcoming parties.
Make your vote count by putting Greens last, then Laba, then Libls (but allowing for any exceptional candidates), then the rest with No 1 spot already given to the best you can find.
We want to avoid marching in the streets if possible but be prepared to buy a yellow vest; it’s not likely to end well.
KK
KK
230
If only you werent talking to the converted, and if only the Aus public werent so apathetic. Labor will get in and things will get much worse , but I doubt the yellow vest style action here.
100
I think the point of this post is that is the crossbench that failed us, not the major parties.
The mystery remains, what on earth did Gore convey to Palmer? Or were they simply talking about their favourite episodes of Captain Planet?
70
Similar to Gore’s conversation with Malcolm Turnbull I assume, and to other influential Australians.
20
That’s been my voting plan for some time, Labor Green last, Liberal National above them. A trustworthy candidate for my primary vote in (1) position and other or others below.
Objectives:
Deny the major parties the $2.70 per primary vote bonus and force a hung parliament (as in 2010) requiring the successful side to form government to negotiate to recruit alliance partners to form an alliance minority government.
The plan should favour Liberal National well in front of Labor Green but deny them unlimited power by forcing them to continue to negotiate with the alliance partners.
I will vote for a minority Group for the Senate.
The preferential voting system favours the major parties however Anthony Green, election commentator and psephologist, has reported that rarely do preferences flow past third position on the ballot paper.
We must end the two party system prevailing.
And shock the major parties into governing for we the people of Australia, not implementing globalism without giving us opportunities to decide, as in referendum.
I recently read a comment that every time UN Treaties are imposed some sovereignty is lost in the process. This must stop. I was alerted when PM Turnbull and partners inserted a clause into their National Energy Guarantee effectively quarantining politicians from prosecution when they ignore constitutional law and for the NEG purposes writing Paris Agreement emissions commitments into Australian Law. The Australian Republican Movement used deception regarding the powers of the Queen as one of their campaign planks. They do not acknowledge that the original powers were watered down by an Act of the British Parliament during the 1930s (for them and for Australia) and during the 1980s the Australia Act effectively removed all but ceremonial powers for the Queen of Australia when she is on our soil, the Governor General is our permanent Head of State.
What ARM want referendum permission to do it to change the Australian Constitution to remove the checks and balances it contains that frustrates certain politicians who refer to the Constitution as a flawed document drawn up by not so clever people, the their opinion. And other things they prefer not to explain to the people.
80
Do not vote for Center Allaince Dennis.
They are just a slightly lighter shade of the Greens
20
Bill there will be many Greens and Labor related “independents” I have no doubt about it, and GetUp will be behind many of them.
Recently I came across “Central Coast NEW Independents in a green logo who I read about in an article regarding “climate change” decisions effecting local land owners in that local government area that is causing considerable anger. Land being listed for no further development or redevelopment because of the dangers from rising sea level.
I am not living in that council district but have discovered that there was no suggestion via their campaigning that they were Greens in disguise.
In State NSW politics State Labor were running several “independents” who were presenting as conservatives the people could trust as an alternative to Nationals and they won seats. Prisoner and former Labor Minister Eddie Obeid was their inside Labor contact apparently.
30
I agree with you all in relation to the lower house (although my electorate is strong Labor).
I’ll still put Greens last, Labor second, last then Libs or if no strong independent I may have to put Libs as my first selection.
In the Senate I intend to vote for Corey Bernardi – he has Australia at heart and will suit me better that voting for ANY other Senate candidate.
I ask everyone to at least consider Corey or his candidates in each state – it couldn’t be worse than the current swill!!
Cheers,
80
I have personally met all 3 Conservative NSW senate candidates.
They have my vote.
All great value, down to earth and FOR AUSTRALIA.
Riccardo Bosi seems particularly useful.
104
That hit a nerve Andy. At least it shows that the Get-up dregs read this block.
60
“Exceptional candidates”? Sadly, I don’t live in Warringah.
Bernardi for the Senate. I have no idea who will stand in my ‘new’ electorate ( it moved, I didn’t ). I’ll have to wait.
10
How does the Australian Institute know that their approved (by them) schemes reduced CO2 emissions by 334 million tons?
Are they working from the nominal capacity of the renewables installed?
What about the businesses closing down? The people who have had to reduce their usage because of the sudden cost increase? Do these count as a win for the Australian Institute?
120
Its a win for socialism, Comrade…thats all that counts…..
So who funds and runs this think tank?
50
How do they actually measure CO2 emissions? If you want to sell something for $1, you have to measure it within +/- 0.3% accuracy, yet best guess statistics are accurate enough to justify spending trillions on something that has no known supportable business case! Even calculating the CO2 from a ton of coal is dependant on the efficiency of the boiler/generator at that moment. Similarly on the emissions from cars and trucks – when an engine is cold, the efficiency is way different from when it is up to operating temperature, as it is when driven by a “lead-foot” or gently, empty or loaded. Just so many variables, the “scientifically derived” emissions are just so much bull!
60
Meanwhile the globalists are attacking Australian politicians who do not toe their line on man-made global warming caused by carbon dioxide hoax;
https://www.michaelsmithnews.com/2019/01/getup-targets-all-conservative-politicians.html
80
As we do here in reverse. Its just they are better organised and funded. Amazing when you can so obviously see we are swimming in “Big Oil” money, boy they must have a truckload.
60
Meanwhile even the Tories in the UK MAY be starting to wake up to some of this Green madness. What is it about DUMB S&Wind energy that attracts these barking mad loonies?
https://www.thegwpf.com/happy-new-year-green-energy-policies-at-risk-as-uk-treasury-targets-cuts-in-energy-prices/
80
Its a modern version of dancing around maypoles in the nuddy….loopy is as loopy does….
All they need now is some form of pagan sacrifice and the circle will be closed…..
70
Getups attack policy, cross benches ignored as they are next to worthless.
https://hardright.getup.org.au
50
The “hard right” description of Australian MPs who are conservatives is just another example of socialism globalism deception aimed at fooling gullible voters.
Just an extension of the names they call sceptics who dare to question their man-made global warming hoax.
GetUp was established by foreigners with support from the union movement here. Australian Workers Union senior executive Bill Shorten used member’s monies to donate to GetUp Australia and then became a Director of that activist organisation. In 2010/11 the CFMEU donated $1,200,000.00 to GetUp (as one of a number of large donation providers). I understand that the unions continue to donate to GetUp, and to the Greens.
George Soros is associated with them and the organisation’s model is a US activist organisation established for similar purposes of political interference and manipulation.
181
Yeah but look at it from their perspective, they want to save the planet.
‘Global warming has heated the oceans by the equivalent of one atomic bomb explosion per second for the past 150 years, according to analysis of new research.’
Guardian
51
Meanwhile, back in Newcastle, a pair of newly elected Libl Parti MPs were dismissed from Parliament for electoral misdeeds.
Not that they did much but the Libl Machine did O.K. out of their brief tenure.
They were only put in to office to get rid of Laba which likewise had done nothing for Newcastle.
The crime that led to their undoing was to have received $10,000 or thereabouts in hidden donations. One of them may have received double that.
This is a joke compared to the flows of money and cross linkages that are well known.
Getup, The Unions, Getup, The MPs, Getup our next PM?
What a country.
KK
150
corruption persists if you forgive the small things just because there are bigger things happening.
70
I agree.
That’s why I believe that all of the federal money used to purchase votes from recent school leavers is effectively corruption.
Instead of running our country as Donald Trump has done and made American business possible again, our politicians invented a better way to reduce unemployment statistics.
They allocated about $10,000 per school leaver p.a. to encourage these obviously, seriously intelligent young people to attend university. Of course the course work had to be eased a bit but better that than be on the embarrassing government Unemployment Statistics.
After a year or two of repeating first year many give up and go on social security. But the stats are helped significantly.
Of course the jobs which were once available to so many in Australia are now overseas where electricity prices do not hamper industrial activity.
Yes: I believe that governments using our tax dollars to buy voters affections, even $10,000 p.a. should be brought to justice.
KK
50
I didn’t intend to leave out the overriding principle that should guide us in these matters but I thought, considering the target was politicians we should be satisfied with small steps to begin with.
” He who is faithful in little is also faithful in much”.
Could they understand that , let alone adhere to it?
KK
10
Yep. Gee Aye.
Just as the green-left forgives Tim Flannery for his extremist untruths, he goes on to even bigger and better nonsense:
If nine percent of the world’s oceans were covered in seaweed farms it would be possible to draw down all the CO2 currently being emitted and provide enough fish food to feed a population of 10 billion people with 200 kilograms of high quality protein a year.
The man’s a fool.
https://mattersjournal.com/stories/ourwarmingworld
30
You are referring to the law against accepting donations from property developers that the last NSW Labor Government legislated not long before they left office after 16 too long years in power.
Union controlled Labor remains free to accept donations from the Union Movement and to rubber stamp grants to unions for the many and varied creative reasons and purposes the grants are applied for.
40
Interesting Dennis. But current Information about Get Up is needed now. I goggled but found very little.Just propaganda
60
Reading through their propaganda we need a ‘not for profit’ Blue Team to counter Getup, just half a dozen millennials with scientific nous should do the trick.
They have to be attractive, charismatic, serious individuals with gravitas and a satirical bent. They are practically extinct so it won’t be an easy task to track them down.
21
Yeah but they would be hunted down and bashed by the Antifa goon squads.
21
I nominate Joel Creasey, the goons can’t touch him.
00
And of course Tom Gleeson, who graduated from the University of Sydney with a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics and Physics.
He can be the anchor on this gig.
00
Amos Gill is another one, he looks the part and gets rave reviews.
https://hifiwaythepopchronicles.com/2019/01/07/amos-gill-almost-famous/
00
Whata out Ian Plimer?
20
I guess the Saltbush club could be it. But most folks in it are tooooo busy earning their daily bread.
Is there funding to help the Saltbush Club to develop into a real, prominent public cashed up lobby group ? ( Ike get UP already is ! )
10
And if there is a cause that needs adopting it’s “Let’s vote out the hard left”… 🙂
Now that would give ‘GotUp’ ( the bastards have got up my nose !! ) something to think about.
Labor green or ‘Independent” hard lefties can be campaigned against.
30
Here is a link for you Bill …
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2010-10-14/abetz_unmasks_get_up21/40088
00
And …
https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2011/03/inside-getup-and-the-new-youth-politics/
10
Dennis they are good sources. But both are dated now – from 2010 & 2011..
What is there that’s more recent ?
Bill
00
Andrew Bolt had something a while ago about Getup being 12 people (IIRC)
20
It came to mind that during the late 1970s the Wran NSW Labor Government advised the later to be elected in 1983 Hawke Federal Labor Government that to win seats by attracting more voters the most important consideration was where the average Australian voter is on the political spectrum. In the centre, centrists or conservatives including until more recent times the 80 per cent who either stick to one side or are “swinging voters” moving from side to side as they see fit. Regardless, Australians have never been radicals or extremists, apart from a small minority. The Greens, for example, at the height of their success attracted about 15 per cent of voters, many of whom were attracted to environmental issues and blissfully unaware of the not well publicised far left agenda, the “doctor’s wives” as they were called following a television interview with a group of female tennis players in an exclusive eastern suburbs of Sydney, roughly half said they intended to vote for the Greens.
Wran’s advice to Hawke was to push the Liberal National Coalition to the right as far as possible and steal the middle ground for Labor. That tactic is, I believe, what GetUp is doing now attacking Liberal MPs as far right and referring to conservatives generally as far right, or whatever silly descriptions they use.
I understand that there will be in key electorates candidates for Labor Green who will not campaign as such.
And remember what Tony Abbott said in 2015: I will not stand for socialism masquerading as environmentalism.
30
This is important to know about, the source is of course political climate change supportive, but it offers an insight into how little the left cares about democracy and sovereignty;
https://theconversation.com/climate-policy-is-a-fiendish-problem-for-governments-time-for-an-independent-authority-with-real-powers-93853
30
This bloke knows what’s best for us and has total trust in the Climate Warriors he is working with to save the planet.
We literally pay our government to solve problems for us by getting the best, most accurate and honest guidance needed.
Instead we get Dogma, Self Interest and Pressure Groups serving up trash.
Shouldn’t someone be held responsible for this?
KK
90
I was at a Perth Writer’s Festival event on 20 February 2016.
It was a panel discussion titled “Breaking the Impasse”.
The panel: Peter Doherty, author of “The Knowledge Wars”; Laura Tingle, AFR political editor; and Richard Denniss, chief economist, The Australia Institute.
How they all fretted about “climate change”, together with the audience of about 200.
Doherty: “What am I doing talking about climate change?” What, indeed?
My question to him and the rest of the panel was like a bolt from the blue:
“We can’t control our population growth rate. We can’t control our economic growth rate. Are you seriously suggesting we can control the planet’s – and Australia’s – climate?”
There was a stunned silence. Then Doherty, a Nobel laureate, replied: “We have to try!”
Hardly an argument. But our virtue-signalling intelligentsia seldom do arguments.
111
“We can’t control our population growth rate. We can’t control our economic growth rate. Are you seriously suggesting we can control the planet’s – and Australia’s – climate?”
Absolutely !
Exactly !
Spot on !
Bull’s Eye !
But what a piss weak dopey response from Doherty.
Thank you.
90
B r a v e.
40
Quote from Peter Doherty’s recent post in The Conversation:
“I have come to regard human-induced global warming as similar in nature to the problem of toxic lead poisoning.
Just like heavy metal toxicity, the problems caused by atmospheric greenhouse gases are cumulative, progressive and ultimately irreversible, at least on a meaningful human timescale.”
https://theconversation.com/climate-policy-is-a-fiendish-problem-for-governments-time-for-an-independent-authority-with-real-powers-93853
How does a Nobel laureate come to regard a colourless, odourless gas beneficial/vital to all organic life – a gas that we exhale – as analogous to “toxic lead poisoning”?
How, indeed?
41
How, because he knows the ‘Agenda’ has to be brought to fruition. Push the scam, hoping he isnt put against the wall, with the rest, when the revolution comes…
10
Superb article here by Paul Collits,
https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/doomed-planet/2018/12/still-taking-water-in-the-alarmist-archipelago/
“An absurd proposition has captured the imagination of nearly 200 governments around the world and inflicted untold damage on the people of the world and on the body politic. Seemingly the gradual recovery of sanity by the folks is not yet enough to convince all these governments that the game is up. In which case, all power to Trump and to Orban and to the new Brazilian guy and to Tony Abbott and Craig Kelly and to all those brave pollies who talk common sense in the face of their jelly-backed colleagues and who speak truth to evil power.”
80
Remember Dr David Viner telling us that the kiddies wouldn’t know what snow was like.
It seems that there is now plenty of snow wherever one cares to look. This time parts of California have been snowed under with major highways blocked and more snow storms and heavy rain forecast.
Amazing pixie dust effect from their extra co2. It will cause less snow except when it causes more snow. Amazing stuff. SARC.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/01/07/massive-snowfall-closes-i-80-in-california/
140
https://watchers.news/2019/01/06/europe-greece-blizzards-january-2019/
Blizzards leave 10 people dead as cold snap hits Greece, other parts of Europe and Middle East
Oh My Gaia! The ™warming™ is now killing people with cold and avalanches and icy road accidents and who will think of the great woolly mammoths! Some great pics of villages completely buried under metres of anthropogenic carbon pixie-dust pollution while people dig their homes out from feet & yards of some unprecedented white powdery stuff never seen before – well, since the last time it happened anyway.
http://www.bom.gov.au/nsw/forecasts/sydney.shtml
Apologies for sullying this fine blog with the above acronym – b • o • m – but it appears Sydney isn’t even going to hit 30˚ for the next week, plus there’s a fair bit of rain in the forecast, yet our MSM (Munted Stuff’d Mania-media) keep harping on about The Never-Ending Australian Heatwave Of 2019! Half of New Zealand is still hungover and sun-burned from New Year’s celebrations so will blithely accept this bulldust as pure gospel… sheesh. I want my extra 2 degrees NOW! 😉 sarc/off
120
Look like CHCH has had some nice hot nights and 34C days, NOTE quite normal for the winds from the Alps, but the MSM play it as krimate change of course.
30
Jo I tried to read this article. But I gave up confused.
Why ? Not because of a lack of willingness to read. Rather because you assume we know so much about what happened back round 2013-2015….And to be frank I don’t. At the time for me this was not major or important issue. I’m sure there are plenty of others reading here who are in the same position.
I feel like someone looking at a 4000 piece jig saw and only having 300-400 bits.
40
Questions for folks like me who don’t know :
1 : What is the RET and which government set it up?
2: What does the RET do-especially to fossil fuel burning generators ?
3 : Why did Abbot try to rescind the RET legislation ?
4 : He did not have the numbers in the senate and did not have the support of the cross bench senators. Why ?
5: Given that Abbot had a huge majority in the House of Reps and was still popular with the public, why didn’t he have a double dissolution and get rid of the opposing senators ?
70
The over riding element is Agenda 21 and the brainwashing of our political representatives.
71
A double dissolution requires a trigger, which needs the support of the Governors General. Abbott didn’t have it and neither did Turnbull.
20
EG The constitutional requirements for a double dissolution are very clear. and Simple.
If the senate rejects the same legislation twice within a set period, the trigger for a Double dissolution is established. It then only needs the Pm to request the dissolution of both houses of parliament.
By the way Turnbull got his double dissolution in 2016.
Abbot did not ask for one.
I do not know why.But he should have in early 2014. And cleaned up the Labor & Greens completely while he was still overwhelmingly popular.
10
Bill, for starters go to the Clean Energy Regulator website. It’s not the easiest read. In summary:
In June 2015, the Australian Parliament passed the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Amendment Bill 2015. As part of the amendment bill, the Large-scale Renewable Energy Target was reduced from 41 000 GWh to 33 000 GWh in 2020 with interim and post-2020 targets adjusted accordingly.
The Renewable Energy Target works by allowing both large-scale “renewable” power stations and the owners of small-scale :renewable” systems to create large-scale generation certificates and small-scale technology certificates for every megawatt hour of power they generate. Certificates are then purchased by electricity retailers (who supply electricity to householders and businesses) and submitted to the Clean Energy Regulator to meet the retailers’ legal obligations under the Renewable Energy Target. This creates a market which provides financial incentives to both large-scale renewable energy power stations and the owners of small-scale renewable energy systems. That imposed “market” means that wind/solar/hydro generators, as well as getting the wholesale price of around $80/MWhr also get to sell those issued certificates for an additional $40-80/MWhr to meet the target each year.
40
Labor in government created a 28% RET based on the original, “trial basis only”, 3% Coalition RET that was a small part of the post Kyoto Conference “greenhouse gas emissions” targets. They also introduced Carbon Tax of 10% on electricity bills and a green energy (forget the name) tax of 10%, both plus 10% GST. At least our bills since the Abbott Government repealed the Carbon Tax etc have been lower than they could have been.
The hostile Senate agreed to repeal of Carbon Tax but would not repeal the RET and subsidies, they did compromise a little and agreed to a reduction of RET to 23%.
However, the unreliable energy transition is also a state and territory government area of responsibility. Labor SA made their state electricity grid first into trouble and with highest pricing for consumers in SA.
It is worth checking the person in charge of the AEMO, a former New York electricity executive I understand, and Social Democrat, friend of the Clintons, recruited by the Turnbull Government.
20
Since I posed these questions in my comment above – 10.1 for or five people have replied with additional information. But to be frank they have not added clarity.The waters are even more muddied.
I will be frank : On this issue of power costs and RE rorts, there is a need for absolute clarity..
Otherwise the ordinary bloke will never understand; the penny will not drop.. And so it will be ignored as an important issue….
Think KISS : Keep It Simple Stupid !
00
Yeah well the sad truth is that the RET legislation is intentionally not simple.
Had Robert Hill presented a bill called “A Mechanism to Guarantee the Elimination of Coal Fired Electricity Generation in Australia” then perhaps it would not have been legislated back in John Howard’s day.
As I understand it MPs are never shown the detail of what they vote for, rather they act on an understanding that the single sheet summary they are given is a truthful account. Craig Kelly’s insistence on seeing the detail of the NEG highlighted the fact that even members of cabinet are doing their arithmetic in the dark. What hope the general public eh!
50
Bill
You can read all the Gory details here:
https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/doomed-planet/2014/07/al-clives-alvation/
They came, they saw, they concurred — except they really didn’t, not beyond a mutual interest in the bottom line. If two large men represent the best hope for a small planet, as a gullible press gallery urged its readers to believe, poor Gaia really is neck-deep in very hot water
Two high-net-worth chaps recently appeared in the Great Hall of Parliament House. They spoke for 11 minutes about saving the world from a “climate crisis” and then zipped off to dinner. It was a Foul Weather Friends double-act that could have been scripted by Barnum & Bailey, the Media Circus Network or Brother Love’s Travelling Salvation Show. Somewhere a band played Don’t ask me no questions and Heat Wave.
The back-story began two months earlier, when Mr Gore’s group opened applications for CRP’s 25th Leadership Corps training program in Melbourne, June 25-27. The fourth such exercise here, it partnered with The Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) to ‘train 500 Australians’.
Don Henry, former CEO of the ACF (1998-2014) and a CRP director, confirmed he set up the meeting on ABC RN’s The World Today last Thursday.
Eleanor Hall: What role did you play in identifying Clive Palmer for Al Gore?
Don Henry: He asked for my advice on who may be important to meet with in Australia. I suggested Clive Palmer to him and I thought it would be good for Clive Palmer to hear first hand from one of the world’s leading experts and committed people on climate action.
Eleanor Hall: What did you expect from this meeting when you helped to set it up?
Don Henry: Well, firstly, I actually hadn’t expected Mr Palmer to say yes to a meeting. I was pleasantly surprised when he agreed with some considerable interest to have a meeting and I know that Mr Gore appreciated that he wanted to have a meeting. I was fortunate to sit in on the private discussions between them….We knew when we walked into the public statements that Mr Palmer was going to stop the repeal of the Climate Change Authority (CCA) and the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) and that he was not going to allow changes to the Renewable Energy Target (RET) and put off any review until 2016. They were very significant announcements. They didn’t agree on everything but they did agree on some really, really important things.
According to Laura Tingle, The Australian Financial Review‘s political editor, Henry was assisted by John Clements, an advisor to former MP Tony Windsor. Ben Oquist, a former Greens adviser and now Australia Institute strategy director, also played a role.
60
Former NSW State MLA and then Federal MP Tony Windsor, cousin of Labor Spin Doctor Bruce Hawker, advisor to PM Kevin Rudd, recruited by him to support Labor if required (for the 2010 election) and supported in between time.
He was joined by a former NSW State MLA Rob Oakeshott who won the 2008 Lyne by election to enter federal parliament, and was also recruited. Both people had backed State Labor in the past and were one of several state MLAs holding safe conservative electorate seats as “independents”. Another, Richard Torbay MLA resigned suddenly when the NSW ICAC named him as a person of interest relating to former Labor NSW Minister Eddie Obeid who apparently associated with those independents.
30
Australia’s Co2 contribution to the world is .000? % and we’ve spent $23 billon to reduce that piddly amount even further to appease the green inner city vote .
140
But , Comrade, think of how much money has been drained form productive use and peed against the wall, so that the middle class is further damaged ( that and its wound up in some interlopers pockets – the question is – qui bono? )
110
This morning, all 5452 MW nameplate capacity of subsidised windmills funded by taxpayers and electricity consumers is delivering just 320 MW of power into the AEMO grid to meet total demand of 22,000 MW, that’s a whopping 1.5% contribution. Fortunately we still have enough reliable dispatchable coal/gas/hydro to keep Australia operating. Wind-powered trains or solar-powered hospitals anyone? Yet still the muddled media and pathetic pollies promote inane demands for more “cheap” unreliable wind/solar.
190
Ahh yes, but wind turbines are far better than coal fired power stations.
And the owners consider them to be excellent investments.
sarc.
10
They look good too, all the lovely country vistas covered in eye catching wirly gizmodoos each reaching 120m + gosh dont they look lovely compared to a nasty smoke belching lil old powerstation next to a lake or river hidden away with fences behind trees.
10
O/T but related – the Left being broken on the wheel of the coming border wall?
I think also Trump knows the Left will eventually throw off any veneer of civility it has, once it realizes it cant get its own way….. Trump appears to be goading the Left into open conflict, using the Lefts own insanity to hang itself.
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/01/the_great_wall_of_america_will_break_the_democrats.html
“Democrats know that the wall is imminent. Is the pending dread more psychologically damaging than the erection of the wall?
Democrats know that the wall is what will finally break them, and no amount of Democrat and Democrat Media Industrial Complex (DMIC) agitprop will ever tear down the wall. It will be the chasm between the old guard and the burgeoning of Leninism within the party.
The wall is deserving of proper name capitalization.
The Democrats know that The Wall will achieve its intent of deterring and preventing mass illegal immigration, which has resulted in an illegal alien population that the federal government has no true, accurate count of.
The Wall will be the physical affirmation of our historic, theory of black swan, glass-ceiling shattering 2016 win over Empress Clinton. Tax reform and withdrawals from bogus deals with Iran and climate change globalist welfare treaties aren’t palpable; I can’t take a selfie in front of the 2018 Tax Cuts & Jobs Act. United States Supreme Court justices are a bit more tangible, but the court isn’t omnipresent 24/7.”
150
Regarding the steel wall now being discussed. I have not learnt what the design and materials will be but I was involved in NSW (and later interstate) high-security fencing design for prisons back in the 1980s, the first was erected at Silverware Remand Centre in Sydney. That consisted of expanded steel mesh panels welded together with apertures too narrow for fingers and the diamond shape not comfortable for climbing anyway. On top an air conditioning duct offset to the inside discouraged climbing.
Over many following years the design was improved and extended to Juvenile Detention Centres and included a trench below filled with concrete containing part of the galvanised mesh fencing and razor wire on top. The mesh openings were much smaller. Some prisons used high tensile welded wire mesh instead with narrow openings.
It could be that palisade design fencing could be used consisting of tubular steel sections set close together are chosen for the fence.
In NSW there is an inner chest height fence much like housing commission dwellings used to have and then a grassy strip before coming to a woven wire mesh fence like a tennis court and then a strip with round pebbles that are noisy when walked upon. The strip has CTV cameras and other security devices. And guard towers overlooking.
The Democrats who rubbish President Trump want open borders and chaos, economic damage, etc.
40
“Silverware Remand Centre ” 🙂 maybe for the contractors 🙂
10
Sorry, Silverwater Remand Centre.
Silverware maybe for the contractors?
And the unions too probably.
10
Border Wall
Trump goes for broke. Tomorrow our time he will deliver an address to the Nation from the Oval Office, explaining why Americans need a border wall. The government has been shut down now for 3 weeks because Trump will not sign the funding bills until the Congress includes funding for the border wall.
Anne Coulter wrote a column recently imploring President Trump to make an Oval Office Address. He seems to have responded. Anne Coulter might even help write his speech. Watch this space.
https://www.breitbart.com/radio/2019/01/03/ann-coulter-trump-should-give-oval-office-address-explaining-immigration-crisis-reagan-did-tax-cuts/
30
Easy! Identify the UAP rep at your local voting booth and present with a letter of demand (for my family it will be$30,000.00 come election time) to be passed on to Mr Palmer. Inform said rep in a very polite way that no matter how many millions Palmer spends on ads, he sold out Australia with his deal with Gore.
80
Where’s this bloody Global warming when we need it ?
I’m in the Adelaide Hills in SA. Were having a lovely mild Summer with the odd hot day.
And as a result my tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, pumpkins are months from having fruiting. Bugger some have not even flowered yet.
This is not what Global Warming Alarmists told us would happen.
60
And I also noticed that South Australian bees are starving because of a regional cooling signal. Too hot then too cold confused the plants.
30
That’s right EG. The bees are down in numbers after the cold Spring as well But don’t worry EG. The honey industry is now owned by the Chinese for the Chinese market. Adding frustose is normal now.
PS My Zuchinni seed did not even germinate or the Trombocinni seeds either.
But as the Global Warming Greenists chant, “We’ll be fried next time”
30
Same in Melbourne.
Apart from an early self seeded tomato in a very warm spot pretty much everything is only just flowering.
Even potato that went in late was struggling to kick off
Strawberries, just setting fruit now.
not a zucchini in sight … I just put some more seed down
50
bit different away from the coast, my neighbour just gave me a zucchini that I put over my shoulder to carry. Chook food I think.
10
Here’s Dr Patrick Moore’s video telling us the facts and history of Co2.
Just think what would happen if you tried to show this evidence to schoolkids today. I think the left loonies would probably bring back the death sentence.
Don’t laugh because they’ve even dreamed about blowing up kids for doubting their CAGW agenda.
Here’s his short video that tries to combat the lies and delusional nonsense fed to us by the MSM. Indeed co2 is the giver of life.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDWEjSDYfxc
71
Very good piece of work there.
Excellent presentation.
31
all over the FakeNews today:
World Bank Group president Jim Yong Kim, who was at odds with the Trump administration’s policies on climate change, will resign effective…
8 Jan: SouthChinaMorningPost: World Bank President Jim Yong-kim unexpectedly resigns amid differences with Trump administration
•Jim Yong-kim, a Korean-American, was nominated by former US President Barack Obama for two five-year terms
•He had pushed financing for green energy projects and largely dropped support for coal power investments
Kim told World Bank employees in an email that he was leaving the world’s largest lender and donor to poor and middle-income countries on February 1 to join a private-sector firm focused on infrastructure investments in the developing world.
“The opportunity to join the private sector was unexpected, but I’ve concluded that this is the path through which I will be able to make the largest impact on major global issues like climate change and the infrastructure deficit in emerging markets,” Kim said…
Kim said details about his new job would be released at a later date…
https://www.scmp.com/business/banking-finance/article/2181093/world-bank-president-jim-yong-kim-unexpectedly-resigns-amid
what the FakeNewsMSM is not reporting today. read all, including Editors’ Notes at bottom:
25 Aug 2016: Devex: Donald Trump won’t choose the next World Bank president
By Michael Igoe
The World Bank’s presidential appointment process unveiled this week points to a second term for Jim Yong Kim; it will also likely bar any possibility that Donald Trump, were he elected U.S. president, would influence who runs the world’s largest multilateral development bank for the next five years…
“Jim Kim has been basically lobbying … saying, ‘oh, you better choose [me] now before Trump might win and name somebody from his side.’ The entire process has been timed and planned … to finish before November,” said former World Bank staffer Hafed Al-Ghwell, citing conversations with members of the bank’s board of directors…
“This flies against precedent, flies against the courtesy that has always been there for the next U.S. administration and the next U.S. Treasury secretary to decide who’s the president that he’s going to be working with,” Al-Ghwell said…
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has issued frequent remarks about withdrawing U.S. support from international institutions — and his supporters often attack “globalism,” the idea that an international political agenda might subvert U.S. national interests. The Republican nominee’s positions have raised concerns among global development professionals about what his presidency would mean for the global architecture of international cooperation that has evolved since World War II, of which the World Bank Group is a central part…
While Hillary Clinton would also not technically appoint the next World Bank chief, the man likely to win a second term, Kim, landed the position in 2012 largely thanks to Clinton’s support.
Clinton’s support for Kim has been one of his selling points to World Bank board members, Al-Ghwell said…READ ALL
https://www.devex.com/news/donald-trump-won-t-choose-the-next-world-bank-president-88689
30
And this is why Abbott had to go – he was damaging the Photios’ and the Turnbull’s, and other influential Liberals and Swampies, investments and financial interests in the renewable sector. It had nothing to do with the poor government polling or a few of Abbott’s much earlier poor decisions. It was all about the money, the rolling of Abbott was done for pure self interested financial reasons and the MSM was complicit in the backstabbing.
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As Christopher Monckton warned Australians, to watch Prime Minister Abbott’s back.
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Doesn’t that mean that private companies financed 23.4 – 7.8 = 15.6 billion ?
So fairer to say Australians had 7.8 B / 24.6 M = $317 stolen ?
20
Also doesn’t the CEFC expect to get a reasonable return for taxpayers on it’s investments ?
CEFC investment $6,652 ($m) $19,000 ($m)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_Energy_Finance_Corporation#Commercial_approach
00
Taxes are no longer used for the greater good of the common citizen. Instead they are used to buy votes in a very calculated way. Groups are assessed and special interest needs weighted against the number of votes to be gained by parsing out a calculated amount of our taxes.
Those with the highest incomes pay the most to attain these votes and have little or no say in where their taxes go. When that money runs out, the marginal income for higher taxes is pushed down on the middle class. All calculated to gain the most votes.
When the number of bureaucrats and special interest parties are greater than the taxed class, the system breaks down and a feeding frenzy takes place. This is where the socialists displace those who believe in a republican government and you end up as Venezuela.
How will we get there? Letting elected officials tax us so they can buy votes.
Taxes unfairly hurt the poor. Income taxes are not the greater evil. Add a gas tax or a food tax and it hits the poor the hardest. The poor feel the effects of unnecessary taxes first. Can’t afford to install roof top solar but still have to pay 45c/kwh? How fair is that?
And when you have little money you are attracted to the loudest braying donkey who makes a promise to meet your needs in exchange for your vote; using someone elses tax money. You are now a part of a special interest fed by the taxation teat.
And the hole keeps getting deeper as more and more taxation moves us toward socialism.
100
Tax is theft (by force), literally.
21
who pays 45c per kWhr?
10
Talcum’s Handiwork
‘The report found that Australia’s investment in renewables dropped 46% in the three years after 2013, but “has since rebounded dramatically, to a record high of US$8.5bn in 2017”.
‘The report credits decisions by Labor, the Greens, Palmer United party and other crossbenchers for ensuring “investment in renewable energy has continued through a time of great uncertainty for the energy sector”.
Guardian
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Nice amount of money they could have used on, healthcare, free public transport for the aged, fixing the diabolical road system, etc etc. and much other stuff.
30
Helping the one in every eight Australians living in poverty, thousands of them children.
20
Hope for NZ? probably not with a green lefty PM
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/farming/opinion/100489407/doug-edmeades-why-im-a-global-warming-sceptic?rm=a
Also ‘Cricket commentator and former Black Cap Simon Doull calls climate change “rubbish” while discussing the upcoming Cricket World Cup.’
At least some in the media are taking notice.
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Ergon Energy has some useful advice for EV owners;
The distance your EV can travel before needing a recharge will be shortened by:
Aggressive driving
Long mountain climbs
Non-stop high speeds (eg on a highway)
Strong headwinds
Extra weight (eg three passengers and luggage)
Loss in battery capacity (the amount of charge the battery can supply)
High air conditioner use.
Ways to extend EV range
You can increase the distance your EV can travel before needing a recharge by:
Driving less aggressively
City/town driving with more braking
Driving long descents downhill
Tailwinds
Using the air conditioner less.
Also ….. the average driver travels 14,000 kilometres a year, accordingly the EV battery would probably need replacement every 7 years.
To think that our government is paying fleet leasing firms $300 million to promote EV to fleet operators, $100 million going to Macquarie Bank Leasing.
Once upon a time free market capitalism prevailed!!!
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EVs are a dream for rich and enchanted fools. I did a masters project for an environment paper, use electric vehicles, part of my engineering requirement at that time , thats in the early 90s. I found that then, current tech the batteries were the weakest part, and still are. What I didnt factor in was the drain on the grid and I didnt foresee the stupidity of the windmill farms etc taking over instead of sensible power generation. It was more weighted on the use less hydrocarbon fuel scenario, BUT foolishly I didnt have the information that oil isnt limited in supply. (pre current internet).
The idea of every vehicle being electric to ‘save the planet’ is straight out of ‘Alice in Wonderland’.
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Evs are designed to limit pur mivements. Autinomous vehicles can be remotely stopped or restricted in where they can go.
Evs are not about progress, they are a rolling prison….especially under Agenda 21 where they want to cram as many people into cities, under under extreme green plans called “Rewilding” – humans are to be banned from 95% of the physical earths land to protect the mythical joke called “Gaia”……
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With smart meters, could we arrange that EVs can only charge when wind and solar are supplying the grid?
30
TRU
Some recycling here
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2018/12/29/w-o-o-d-29-december-2018/#comment-106023
“Hmmm Congress Critter builds home electrical system using a wrecked Tesla car battery, programmed it himself in C on a Pi”
00
7 Jan: AFR: Energy from waste gathers steam as Suez joins new WA plant
by Ben Potter
French waste management giant Suez has struck a long-term deal to supply a proposed waste-to-energy plant south of Perth, a neglected corner of the renewable energy sector where investment is only just starting to gather steam…
The Rockingham plant will convert 300,000 tonnes a year of municipal, commercial and industrial waste as well as 30,000 tonnes of biosolids into 29 megawatts of electrical power, enough for more than 40,000 homes. and cost $400 million to $450 million to build.
Backers include Hitachi Zosen INOVA (HZI), the waste management division of the Japanese industrial giant and the engineering firm building the plant, local Perth company New Energy Corporation, and Tribe Infrastructure Group, an Abu Dhabi-based infrastructure group focusing on energy from waste, “district cooling” and sustainable agriculture in the Middle East, south-east Asia and Australia…
The French giant is also working with Australian Paper on a $600 million plan to convert 650,000 tonnes of waste from Gippsland and Melbourne landfills each year into energy for use at the Maryvale mill in the Latrobe Valley, saving 500,000 tonnes of carbon emissions.
Last October the Australian Renewable Energy Agency committed $23 million towards Macquarie Capital and Phoenix Energy Australia’s proposed plant in the Kwinana Industrial Area, which will cost $668 million and convert up to 400,000 tonnes per year of municipal solid waste into 36MW of electricity…READ ON
https://www.afr.com/news/energy-from-waste-gathers-steam-as-suez-joins-new-wa-plant-20190107-h19soi
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8 Jan: Energy Matters: Queensland’s solar energy tariffs: making the most of the Sunshine State
Queensland feed-in tariffs are some of Australia’s best, and the state has the highest solar panel installation rate in Australia.
According to the Clean Energy Australia 2018 report (LINK), Queensland is leading Australia’s rooftop solar boom with eight of the country’s Top 10 postcodes for installations…
The feed-in tariffs offered by south-east Queensland electricity retailers are currently…ETC
The good news for Queenslanders who want to install a new solar power system is that the federal government support scheme will operate until 2030…
https://www.energymatters.com.au/renewable-news/queensland-feed-in-tariffs/
10
‘ CO2 (equivalent) at a cost of $70/ton.’
Thought, if I save all my CO2, I breath out, in a plastic bag for say a year or even 5, then I can sell it? I need to do the math to see if its really worth it…….
50
Forget it.
Plastic bags are a no no.
With most climate scientists, mathematics is also a no no.
It should not be too long before “breathing out” is also a no no.
That probably sounds a bit stupid, but in 1990 the idea of a carbon tax sounded more stupid.
50
7 Jan: Weather Channel: Europe Weather Pattern Generates Feet of Snow, Coastal Flooding, Even Middle East Snow, Dust
By Jonathan Erdman
▪ Feet of snow have buried the Austrian Alps and Apennine Mountains of Italy.
▪ Snow has also fallen in Greece, Turkey and Lebanon, among other locations.
Ski resorts on the Austrian Alps reported 3 to 7 feet of snow in the first days of January, prompting some resorts to close.
Photos and video showed snow-choked roads and parking lots, buried vehicles and blocked building entrances…
According to Brown, up to 5 meters – approximately 16.4 feet – of snow built up in the Alps in less than a month’s time 20 years ago, triggering thousands of avalanches.
“This current pattern with northwest winds and moisture from the North Atlantic and North Sea is similar and brings some of the highest avalanche risk to the northern side of the Alps,” Brown said…
Feet of snow buried parts of southern Poland, including the resort town of Zakopane, near the border with Slovakia…
Residents of some Italian villages resorted to digging narrow alleys to get through city streets PIC…
In this case, the air was cold enough to produce snow at some southern Italian beaches…
Heavy snow also triggered travel headaches in Greece, snarling travel through the mountains in northern and central Greece, even blanketing the city of Thessaloniki. Snow was even expected in the city of Athens Monday into Tuesday, leading to the shutdown of schools in the area, the Greek Reporter said…
Snow in Istanbul, Turkey, delayed flights Friday and Monday…
This impressive pattern also affected parts of the Middle East.
Heavy snow stranded motorists in the higher elevations of Lebanon Sunday and Monday, the Naharnet Newsdesk reported…
20
Those in Lebanon could be Australian Passport holders Pat.
[wink]
10
should have posted the url:
https://weather.com/news/news/2019-01-07-europe-heavy-snow-cold-pattern-alps-italy-greece
10
Moonbeam’s state is about to get a lot more snowflakes.
In fact, the additional snow flakes have even closed some roads.
30
Good short video on the “duck curve” problem created by solar generation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYLzss58CLs
They explain well the economic problem that generators like coal and nuclear are really only economic if they are running all the time, but lots of solar punches a hole in this every sunny midday.
10
Congratulations, Jo. What an outstanding and well researched article. I feel quite sick at the thought of how powerless we seem to be, being represented by parliamentarians who not only do not represent their electorates but who are obviously completely clue-less about the issues that they vote on.
This is a great article for Peta Credlin to get her teeth into.
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OT but I’ve just realised I have 40,000 litres of Oxidane and 12,000 litres of Di Hydrogen monoxide in the backyard, don’t tell the greenies .
30
Better not! They might start a petition against them! 😉
20
read all:
7 Jan: HuffPo: As Green New Deal Fight Shifts To 2020, Young Activists Are Hitting The Road
The Sunrise Movement’s Road to a Green New Deal Tour will make stops in states like Kentucky, Michigan and Pennsylvania.
By Alexander C. Kaufman
Now the Sunrise Movement, likely the nation’s fastest-growing climate advocacy group, is planning a 14-stop tour meant to drum up grassroots support for a Green New Deal across multiple states, HuffPost has learned. It’s the first leg of the group’s effort to make the policy the defining issue of the 2020 election.
“We’re launching the Road to a Green New Deal Tour to activate the millions of Americans who are ready to fight for a Green New Deal but haven’t heard of it yet,” Varshini Prakash, co-founder of Sunrise Movement, said by email…
“The challenge is how to scale it and make it sustainable,” ***Anthony Leiserowitz, the director of the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, said of the upcoming Sunrise Movement tour…
“I feel the Sunrise Movement and their proposed Green New Deal is a genuinely exciting new development,” ***Ed Maibach, a climate communications researcher at George Mason University, said by email…
https://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/entry/green-new-deal-tour_us_5c326a4fe4b0d75a9831d845?ec_carp=1598714208835215640
not a hint Yale’s Leiserowitz and George Mason’s Maibach collaborate on dubious CAGW polls/surveys/research.
10
some convoluted thinking!
7 Jan: ProjectSyndicate: From Yellow Vests to the Green New Deal
by Joseph E. Stiglitz
(Joseph E. Stiglitz, a Nobel laureate in economics, is University Professor at Columbia University and Chief Economist at the Roosevelt Institute. His most recent book is Globalization and Its Discontents Revisited: Anti-Globalization in the Era of Trump)
The grassroots movement behind the Green New Deal offers a ray of hope to the badly battered establishment: they should embrace it, flesh it out, and make it part of the progressive agenda. We need something positive to save us from the ugly wave of populism, nativism, and proto-fascism that is sweeping the world.
NEW YORK – It’s old news that large segments of society have become deeply unhappy with what they see as “the establishment,” especially the political class. The “Yellow Vest” protests in France, triggered by President Emmanuel Macron’s move to hike fuel taxes in the name of combating climate change, are but the latest example of the scale of this alienation…
When I was at the World Bank, the first lesson in policy reform was that sequencing and pacing matter. The promise of the Green New Deal that is now being championed by progressives in the United States gets both of these elements right…
It has long been recognized that decarbonization, if done correctly, would be a great job creator, as the economy prepares itself for a world with renewable energy…READ ON
https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/yellow-vests-green-new-deal-by-joseph-e-stiglitz-2019-01
8 Jan: SMH: Private-public sector co-operation can tackle major challenges
By Jim Chalmers
(Jim Chalmers is Labor’s Finance spokesman)
A decade ago, a solar and battery system that relies on machine learning to make intelligent decisions to optimise energy use in people’s homes might have seemed like something straight out of science fiction.
But, as unlikely as it might have seemed, the mass-scale fusion of renewable energy and smart software is now a reality.
Redback Technologies, the small start-up out of Brisbane responsible for the project, last year attracted $6 million in investment through the Clean Energy Finance Corporation created by the federal Labor government in 2012…
It’s just one of more than 100 transactions worth a total $6.6 billion the CEFC has committed to in its first five years, leveraging $19 billion in new clean energy investment and helping Australia transition to a clean energy economy.
The CEFC has become the poster child for the concept of co-investment…
And, perhaps most importantly, it allows us to invest in the things we value, such as clean and renewable energy and green jobs…
***Eminent economist Mariana Mazzucato, who is visiting Australia for the first time this month for a series of meetings and talks hosted by the Centre for Policy Development, is arguably the highest-profile advocate for co-investment and a better understanding of the role of governments in markets…
Given the immense opportunities and proven success, co-investment will be a guiding principle in a future Labor government, particularly in the finance portfolio, which will play a more progressive and activist role than it does now.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/private-public-sector-co-operation-can-tackle-major-challenges-20181213-p50m4l.html
***”eminent economist” Massucato who, like, Stiglitz, also writes for Project Syndicate:
Wikipedia: Mariana Mazzucato
In 2016, Mazzucato co-edited a book, Rethinking Capitalism: Economics and Policy for Sustainable and Inclusive Growth with Michael Jacobs. In 2013 The New Republic called her one of “the three most important thinkers about innovation”…
On September 27, 2015, it was announced that she had been appointed to the British Labour Party’s Economic Advisory Committee, convened by Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell and reporting to Labour Party Leader Jeremy Corbyn…
***She is also a regular contributor to Project Syndicate since 2015.
She is currently a Special Advisor for the EC Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation, Carlos Moedas, and has recently authored a high impact EC report Mission-Oriented Research & Innovation in the European Union. She is also a Special Advisor to the Secretary General of the OECD, Angel Gurría, for the OECD’s New Growth Narrative…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariana_Mazzucato
10
I want Al gore arrested for being a foreign agent interfering with the 2010 election. It seems like the US Democrats are fine with foreign interference as long as it’s them doing the interfering
70
I’ll second that.
60
7 Jan: Reuters: Last year was fourth warmest, greenhouse gases up – EU’s Copernicus
by Alister Doyle
Average world surface air temperatures were 14.7 Celsius (58.5 Fahrenheit) in 2018, just 0.2C off the highest, it said in the first global assessment based on full-year data.
***This year will also likely be hot, its scientists said…
Among other extremes in 2018, California and Greece suffered severe wildfires…
The Paris accord seeks to end the fossil fuel era this century by shifting to cleaner energies such as wind and solar power…
The WMO will issue its own estimate for 2018 temperatures in coming weeks, also comprising data compiled by U.S., British and Japanese agencies.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-climatechange-temperatures/last-year-was-fourth-warmest-greenhouse-gases-up-eus-copernicus-idUSKCN1P10XG
20
8 Jan: PG&E Bankruptcy Risk Gets Real — But What Comes After?
California must figure out how to pay for defending the grid against a changing climate.
By Liam Denning
A series of wildfires over the past two years has left the state’s largest utility, PG&E Corp., exposed to potentially tens of billions of dollars of liabilities…
At the high end of estimates, liabilities could run to $25 billion or more. PG&E’s enterprise value is $29 billion…
Signaling support for PG&E carries the risk of being accused of bailing out a company whose equipment may have played a key role in fatal wildfires (investigations are ongoing). Yet letting the company slide into Chapter 11 carries its own costs and risks. One of the latter includes the possibility that PG&E’s power-purchase agreements with renewable-energy projects get rejected in a bankruptcy court. The falling cost of renewable power, and the desire to cut any costs as a way of mitigating the increases in power bills necessary to pay for the wildfire liabilities, could make this tempting for multiple parties in a bankruptcy situation. And that could hamper another important political goal in California: the push for zero-carbon electricity by 2045…
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-01-07/pg-e-bankruptcy-risk-gets-real-but-what-comes-after
7 Jan: CarbonPulse: LCFS Market: California prices drop in wake of PG&E bankruptcy fears
California Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) prices have slid in recent days after reports surfaced that utility PG&E was exploring a possible bankruptcy filing if found liable for a devastating wildfire last year.
—
behind paywall:
8 Jan: UK Times: Varadkar delays carbon tax after learning lesson of water charges
by Niamh Lyons, Shauna Bowers
The government needs to develop a “package of measures” to meet Ireland’s climate change targets without bringing protesters out on the streets, the taoiseach has said.
Leo Varadkar said that he had learnt from the water-charge protests in Dublin and the yellow-vest demonstrations in France that measures must be implemented with public support.
He said that the government did not introduce carbon taxes in the most recent budget because it would have placed a heavy burden on citizens when coupled with the recent VAT increases.
“Nobody wants the cost of living to go up and the decision the government took was that we did not want to increase carbon taxes at the same time as we were increasing VAT on services,” he said…
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/varadkar-seeks-public-approval-to-implement-a-carbon-tax-qkxcpbz5p
20
8 Jan: Reuters: U.S. top court rejects Exxon in climate change document dispute
by Nate Raymond and Lawrence Hurley; Additional reporting by Gary McWilliams in Houston
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday cleared the way for the attorney general of Massachusetts to obtain records from Exxon Mobil Corp to probe whether the oil company for decades concealed its knowledge of the role fossil fuels play in climate change.
The justices declined to hear Exxon’s appeal of a ruling by the top court in Massachusetts holding that state Attorney General Maura Healey, a Democrat, had jurisdiction to seek records to probe whether the company misled consumers and investors.
The high court’s action marked the latest setback for Exxon in its efforts to halt the Massachusetts investigation and a similar one by New York’s attorney general, who in October filed a lawsuit against the company…
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-court-exxon-mobil/us-top-court-rejects-exxon-in-climate-change-document-dispute-idUSKCN1P11ES
7 Jan: InsideClimateNews: U.S. Supreme Court Refuses to Block Exxon Climate Fraud Investigation
By David Hasemyer
Healey’s office praised the high court’s denial (LINK), which was issued without comment…
The rejection of Exxon’s appeal by the U.S. Supreme Court means Massachusetts authorities can now test their theory that Exxon was aware of the hazards of climate change and the possible consequences, said David Shapiro, an assistant professor of public management at New York’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice. He’s a former FBI agent who specialized in financial crimes.
“It opens a lot of doors to investigators,” Shapiro (LINK) said. “Investigators will be looking for a document trail that shows the long picture of how Exxon collected and interpreted data over years and decades.
“That door is open but there are a lot of confusing corridors ahead.”
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/07012019/exxon-climate-fraud-investigation-supreme-court-ruling-massachusetts-attorney-general-healey
00
City of Sydney slugs ratepayers $39000 for women’s talkfest on …
Daily Telegraph-7 Jan 2019
Ratepayers will fork out at least $39,000 for Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore and her staff to attend a women’s climate change talkfest in Paris…
41
With the climate what it is in Europe this week I hope they get stranded at the airport.
20
There have been a number of references to former Prime Minister Abbott and questioning why he didn’t do this and that, this link regarding his battle to achieve progress as Opposition Leader and then Prime Minister, a Timeline from 2009 to 2015, is well worth perusing;
00
Sorry, here is that link;
http://stopturnbull.com/relentless-undermining-2009-2015/
10
The site’s been hijacked.
00
…but it has been archived on the Wayback Machine (archive.org) here.
00
… and now that I’ve read through it I can confirm that it provides a detailed account of Mister Turnbull’s relentless exertions, a prolonged tenacious decade long effort that would be admirable were there any moral substance to the fellow I always think of as the Beloved Windbag it being such an effort to hear out his vapid and typically pointless discourses.
There’ll be more from him; can’t wait.
00
How much water could we have stored for $23 billion. And how much hydro power could we generate? ( I don’t mean using pumped hydro)
00