The rural communities are the only ones that really understand the effect of the ETS, and it is showing in recent polls. Green policies and environmentalism are fine when you live in the city, working in air conditioned offices, insulated from the harsh realities of those policies’ effects.

An opinion poll shows public support for Labor has fallen in regional areas as well as in Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s home state of Queensland.

The latest Newspoll figures, published in today’s Australian, show an increase in support for the Coalition from voters outside capital cities.

In regional areas, the Coalition now leads Labor 44 per cent to 39 per cent in primary figures and 51 per cent to 49 per cent in two party preferred terms.

The figures can be at least partly attributed to a boost in support for the Nationals, who are leading a strong anti-emissions trading campaign in regional areas.

The Coalition’s primary vote in Queensland was higher by four percentage points to 42 per cent, only one point behind Labor.

Read it here (this page has disappeared from the ABC web site for some reason, so this is the Google cache)

UPDATE: Barnaby Joyce sums up the effect of the ETS very succinctly:

“People just didn’t understand it, and now that they do get it they just hate it,” he told ABC Radio today. (source)

That’s the spirit. At least Julie Bishop had the guts to say “bring it on”, but Ian Macfarlane, the new climate change spokesman, has thrown in the towel before the fight has even begun, effectively committing the opposition to agree to an ETS becoming law prior to Copenhagen:

THE Coalition would lose an early election sparked by an outright rejection of Labor’s emissions trading scheme and precipitate a “disaster”, according to the opposition’s new spokesman on climate change.

Warning that the threat of a double-dissolution election was so great the Liberals and Nationals must now work to amend the Rudd government’s legislation, Ian Macfarlane said yesterday his goal was to craft amendments that would bring the Nationals back inside the tent. [Any amendments that would please the Nationals would certainly be rejected by Labor – Ed]

While deputy Liberal leader Julie Bishop was still talking tough about the Coalition’s readiness to fight an early poll, Mr Macfarlane said yesterday the reality was “we will lose”.

“The risk we take is that if we just oppose it outright, the double dissolution that precipitates and the likelihood (is) we would lose that election,” the acting climate change spokesman told the Nine Network.

“That means that the flawed legislation we have now will be the flawed legislation that goes to the joint parliamentary sitting. If that is the case, that will be a disaster. Far better for the Coalition to put up a practical set of amendments that will save jobs in Australia, and so I’ll be taking a proposal to the joint partyroom on that basis.”

Except the government is unlikely even to consider your amendments… I mean, why should they? They know they will win a double dissolution election (you’ve just told them), so they can be as tough as they like in negotiations, and at any time they can just walk away.

Read it here.

In an opinion piece today, The Australian correctly raises all sorts of tricky questions about the ETS which are simply not being answered:

THE emissions trading scheme, as Kevin Rudd says, is not “political slap and tickle”. It is serious legislation that could potentially have a greater impact on productivity, capital flows and jobs than the GST, which was subjected to intense scrutiny and almost cost the Howard government office 11 years ago. We’ve seen plenty of hot air, but the ETS has received little more than “slap and tickle” coverage from supposedly serious sections of the media, including some in the Canberra gallery. Climate Change Minister Penny Wong’s confected October 20 deadline for the opposition to propose legislative amendments led news bulletins this week, even though that was the Coalition timetable anyway. It would have been more helpful to examine the government’s failure to unveil the regulations that will largely determine the impact of the scheme.
…
But what about the government ministers, well known to many in the media, whose scepticism about the ETS and climate change privately rivals that of Mr Tuckey and Barnaby Joyce?
…
But what about jobs?
…
But what about the expectations of business?
…
Then there is the science. The public has not been well-served by scientists’ contradictory findings on such basic points as whether the world is warming or cooling. Figures predicting sea level rises fluctuate widely. Some have turned scientific method on its head, no longer proceeding through a process of conjectures and refutations, but rather conjectures and affirmation, crossing the line between inquiry and activism. The science has been politicised.

After all that, it’s hard to see how anyone could possibly support the ETS. But The Australian somehow manages it, on the flimsiest of pretexts:

What is not disputed is that Australia’s contribution to global emissions is barely 1 per cent and falling. The Weekend Australian supports the government’s scheme not because it will achieve much environmentally – it is too small for that – but because, like the scheme John Howard took to the last election, it is cautious and market-driven. Public opinion polls show most Australians feel better that something is being done.

Feel better? This is an almost unbelievably cowardly justification for supporting the worst single piece of legislation since Federation. The Australian is the only news source that is vaguely critical of the ETS, yet even it shies away from the inevitable shrill cries of “denier” that would be hurled its way if it came out and spoke the truth, namely that the ETS is bad law and should not be enacted.

Read it here.

Given that a binding global deal to slash CO2 emissions will send millions of people back into poverty, and at the same time make no difference whatsoever to the climate (which will change whether we want it to or not), let’s hope they’re right:

European leaders voiced growing doubts on whether the world will meet a December deadline for a new climate deal as a summit here looked set to take up global warming in generalities.

Twenty leaders who represent 90 percent of the global economy were holding two days of talks in the eastern US city of Pittsburgh, itself billed as a model of transition from decaying steel town to a green technology hub.

The summit opened two days after a high-powered climate meet at the United Nations, where Japan and China offered new pledges on how to save the world from rising temperatures predicted to threaten entire species if unchecked.

But with just a little more than two months before a conference in Copenhagen — designated two years ago as the venue to seal the successor to the landmark Kyoto Protocol — pessimism was growing.

“When it comes to the negotiations, they are in fact slowing down; they are not going in the right direction,” said Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, the current head of the European Union.

“We are very worried that we need to speed up the negotiations,” he said.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel also sounded a sour note.

“There has been progress, in particular from the Chinese side, from the Japanese side now, and the UN meeting with (UN Secretary General) Ban Ki-moon,” Merkel told reporters in Berlin before heading to Pittsburgh.

“But I have to say that when I consider what still has to be achieved before Copenhagen, we cannot be happy,” she said.

Read it here.

Two Indoctrination Alerts in one day? This is becoming a bit of a habit:

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has called on university students in the US to devote their time and talents to tackling climate change.

In the US for the third G20 meeting, Rudd took the opportunity to speak to students at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh about climate change.

He told the students that human use of technology had created global warming and it was humans inventing and adapting new technologies, that would lead to reduced emissions.

The spin just gets worse and worse.

Read it here.

And of course, Kevin Rudd and Wayne Swann, the Bill & Ben of Australian politics, will be there enjoying the free (carbon-fuelled) hospitality and (carbon-fuelled) flights whilst at the same time telling everyone how we should cut emissions:

The forum, hosted by US President Barack Obama, will discuss progress on financial market reforms [socialism good, capitalism bad – Ed], a co-ordinated world strategy to withdraw stimulus spending and a sustainable plan for economic recovery and growth.

The G20 will also further examine plans to crack down on bankers’ salaries and bonuses. [The politics of greed and envy – Ed]

It will also be the last chance many world leaders have to discuss climate change and financing arrangements for developing nations before the Copenhagen climate change talks in December. [King Canute style politics of hubris and arrogance – Ed]

Sounds like one to miss.

Read it here.

Indoctrination Alert as yet another teacher outs herself as a climate alarmist, having learned all the necessary propaganda from Al Gore himself. The Warrnambool Standard is gushing about it (well it would be – it’s part of Fairfax):

ENVIRONMENTAL campaigner Rebecca Phyland has been educating the south-west about climate change [hysteria] and now she’s taking her message to the world.

The Narrawong teacher will make a presentation for international educators and policy makers at the Greening Education Conference to be held in south-west Germany next week.

Ms Phyland is a permaculturalist* and teacher with South West TAFE and leads education and consultancy business Thornbill Eco Education.

Earlier this year she was one of 300 people chosen to take part in a training session to enable her to present environmental campaigner and former US vice-president Al Gore’s slideshow on the climate crisis [which we all know is a pile of steaming climate BS, by the way – Ed].

I wonder what she might teach her students at TAFE? A balanced view of climate science enabling the students to use their own minds to evaluate the various arguments? Or ramming Gore-based propaganda down their throats? I wonder…

Read it here.

* “While originating as an agro-ecological design theory, permaculture has developed a large international following. This “permaculture community” continues to expand on the original ideas, integrating a range of ideas of alternative culture, through a network of publications, permaculture gardens, intentional communities, training programs, and internet forums. In this way, permaculture has become both a design system and a culture of rewilding the human species.” So now you know. (source)

The first of many, we hope. Julian McGauran is threatening to vote against any ETS before any international agreement – dead right too.

Senator McGauran, who defected from the Nationals in 2006, said he would not vote for an ETS before the international community reached an agreement on targets to cut emissions.

Countries are due to decide targets at a United Nations meeting in Copenhagen in December.

Senator McGauran said he’d vote against any ETS bill that came before the parliament before a global agreement was finalised.

“There is no amount of compromise that would convince me otherwise,” he said.

“Once an international agreement is signed and active, a coalition amended ETS can be taken off the top-shelf and implemented in Australia.”

And we know how much chance there is of that…

Read it here.

A lonely voice of sanity amongst the hysteria.

In the past 48 hours, Wong has set an October 19 deadline for the Opposition to present its amendments to the Government’s lunatic emissions trading legislation – overlooking the reality that Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull had earlier indicated the Opposition’s amendments would be ready for Federal Parliament’s resumption on that day.

Before writing to Turnbull, however, she told correspondents in New York (where she is attending a United Nations picnic with the Prime Minister) that the so-called compromise plan she has advanced on Australia’s behalf would permit developing nations to continue to increase their greenhouse gas emissions.

At the same time, Australia and other wealthy Western nations would have to suffer cutbacks by submitting their own legally binding economy-wide emission reduction targets.

Even those who have gone along with the totally unproven human-induced climate change nonsense would have to see the idiocy in this illogical humbug.

It is a case of unscientific theory being met with ill thought-through policy which can only have one outcome – the erosion of the industrial base of technically superior Western and Asian nations in favour of development of Third World economies.

Despite all of that potential turmoil, none of it would have any possible effect on the emission of greenhouse gases or impact on global climate change. Further, Wong and Rudd remain determined to push through legislation which will drive up the cost of living for ordinary Australians and cost thousands of jobs in the key industries driving our robust economy.

Essentially, the Rudd/Wong plan would reverse the development of Australia that has taken place since European settlement.

The Rudd/Wong solution is, in short, a joke. Much like the UN itself.

Read it here.

And they thought one and a half hours of Gaddafi’s rambling incoherence was punishment enough. The delegates were all stampeding for the exits as Rudd patronised and talked down to them in that trademark monotone. All the usual climate bull was wheeled out as expected:

What is required globally is the leadership to embrace this truth [right on, man – Ed] and to respond to it accordingly because the truth is all our governments need [“ooh, ooh, yeah, the truth is all we need”- cue guitar riff – Ed] to reach beyond their self interests and instead fashion a grand bargain between the developed and developing countries of the world – a grand bargain on climate change which embraces both historical and future responsibility; a grand bargain which is anchored in the science of climate change [Science? SCIENCE??? You wouldn’t know the science if it smacked you in the face – Ed] and the need to keep temperature rises within two degrees Celsius to avoid catastrophic climate change.

What, no Rudd-speak? No talk of programmatic specificity? Such a disappointment…

Read it here.