Abbott resigns – others to follow?


Tony Abbott has announced his resignation in protest over the ETS.

Tony Abbott and Sophie Mirabella have both confirmed their resignations and speculation is rife that Senate Leader Nick Minchin, Senator Eric Abetz and MP Tony Smith will soon follow.

Earlier this afternoon, Mr Abbott dropped a bombshell, resigning from the Liberal front bench in protest at the party’s decision to support Labor on climate change.

Mr Abbott denied his decision was a leadership issue but said he could not rule out a leadership spill may be called in the coming days.

Read it here.

More details to follow.

Abbott set to resign


Tony Abbott

Tony Abbott

Another blow for Malcolm Turnbull:

MALCOLM Turnbull’s leadership is about to be thrown back into turmoil with the resignation of frontbencher, Tony Abbott.

Mr Abbott is expected to announce his resignation from the frontbench this afternoon to allow him to vote against the Rudd Government’s ETS.

Other Ministerial resignations may follow and trigger another Liberal party room meeting to challenge Mr Turnbull’s leadership.

It is likely that Liberal Senate Leader Nick Minchin will vote against the CPRS bill in the Senate and means that he too has to resign from the frontbench.

Mr Abbott’s resignation will throw the Liberals into further chaos and bring fresh doubt as to whether the CPRS bill will pass the Senate.

At least some in the Liberal party still have principles. Remember them?

It ain’t over yet.

Read it here (h/t Andrew Bolt)

Turnbull dooming Libs to landslide defeat


Alby Schultz

Alby Schultz

Probably right, because just as the public mood turns against the global warming alarmism of the past decade, and with daily revelations about fudging figures in order to make the data fit the agenda, Malcolm Turnbull signs up with Kevin Rudd to introduce an emissions trading scheme that, let’s remind ourselves, will do nothing for climate (see here):

Liberal backbencher Alby Schultz says the Coalition is facing a landslide defeat at the next election after the party chose to back the Government’s controversial emissions trading scheme.

Mr Schultz, the Member for Hume, says Coalition support for the ETS will leave it in Opposition for possibly the next three elections because public mood is shifting.

“I’ve received over the years many, many emails and phone calls,” he said.

They have never been to the level that I’m receiving them at the moment.

“My assessment of it is that the Opposition has no hope of winning the next election.

“I sat down last night and looked at it and, conservatively, we’re looking at a landslide.”

That’s what happens when Oppositions forget to do what they’re supposed to: oppose.

Read it here.

NZ temperature data fudged, claims NZ climate group


Fudge

Whole lotta fudge

Another CRU-style scandal may be brewing as it is revealed by the New Zealand’s Climate Science Coaltion that the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) appears to have added “corrections” to raw temperature data, leading to increased warming:

Before:

Raw temperature data

Raw temperature data

After:

After adjustments

After adjustments

Read more here, and the original PDF here.

Miranda and Melanie: two great articles


Miranda Devine in The Age:

Climate doomsayers caught out

We knew but never before had seen such proof of bad faith, overwhelming in its small detail, its shameless dishonesty, its meanness, its totalitarian tactics, pouncing on every deviation from The Word, as handed down by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Melanie Phillips in the UK Spectator:

Green totalitarianism

All the manipulation, distortion and suppression revealed by these emails took place because it would seem these scientists knew their belief was not only correct but unchallengeable; and so when faced with evidence that showed it was false, they tried every which way to make the data fit the prior agenda. And those who questioned that agenda themselves had to be airbrushed out of the record, because to question it was simply impossible. Only AGW zealots get to decide, apparently, what science is. Truth is what fits their ideological agenda. Anything else is to be expunged.

William M Briggs: "What is – and what isn't – evidence of global warming"


Statistician to the stars

Statistician to the stars

A very worthwhile read, cutting through the hyperbole of global warming reporting:

Remember when we heard that the icebergs were melting, that polar bears were decreasing in number, that some places were drier than usual and that others were wetter, that the ocean was growing saltier here and fresher there, and that hurricanes were becoming more terrifying? Remember the hundreds of reports on what happens when it gets hot outside?

All of those observations might have been true, but absolutely none of them were evidence of AGW.

Diminishing glaciers did not prove AGW; they were instead a verification that ice melts when it gets hot. Fewer polar bears did not count in favor of AGW; it instead perhaps meant that maybe adult bears prefer a chill to get in the mood. People sidling up to microphones and trumpeting “It’s bad out there, worse than we thought!” was not evidence of AGW; it was evidence of how easily certain people could work themselves into a lather.

No observation of what happened to any particular thing when the air was warm was direct evidence of AGW. None of it.

Every breathless report you heard did nothing more than state the obvious: Some creatures and some geophysical processes act or behave differently when it is hot than when it is cold. Only this, and nothing more.

Read it here.

The Daily Bayonet: GW Hoax Weekly Round-up


Skewering the clueless

Skewering the clueless

As always, a great read!

Liberal senators to cross floor on ETS vote


From The Australian:

AT least 12 of the 32 Liberals sitting in the Senate appear to be preparing to cross the floor on the emissions trading bills when a Senate vote is finally held, either on Saturday or early next week.

With the five Nationals senators, five Greens senators and two independent senators also planning to vote no — for a variety of reasons — there could be 24 or more of the 76 senators voting against the bills.

At least one Liberal senator, Mary Jo Fisher, will “actively abstain” — registering her dissent not by voting “no” but by sitting at the back of the chamber.

Frontbench senators Nick Minchin and Eric Abetz were absent from votes on the procedural motions yesterday.

But despite their strong opposition to the ETS, as frontbench members they will be expected to vote for the amendments negotiated between Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull and the Rudd government, and also for the final bill.

At least some senators can see the pointlessness of the ETS…

Read it here.

Quote of the Day: George Monbiot


Quote of the Day

Quote of the Day

George Monbiot on denial (but slips in a Denier Alert at the same time):

I have seldom felt so alone. Confronted with crisis, most of the environmentalists I know have gone into denial. The emails hacked from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia, they say, are a storm in a tea cup, no big deal, exaggerated out of all recognition. It is true that climate change deniers [!!] have made wild claims which the material can’t possibly support (the end of global warming, the death of climate science). But it is also true that the emails are very damaging.

The response of the greens and most of the scientists I know is profoundly ironic, as we spend so much of our time confronting other people’s denial. Pretending that this isn’t a real crisis isn’t going to make it go away.

Read it here. (h/t Andrew Bolt)

"Hide the decline"