NSW electricity bills to rise 60% in 3 years

18 March, 2010 by

Shocking price rises

And well over a third of that increase will be thanks to the government’s pointless ETS (if it ever gets through):

NSW residents will be slapped with a 60 per cent electricity price hike over three years, to be announced today, more than a third of which will be to pay for Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s emissions trading scheme.

The power price rise will add at least $100 to the average annual bill for households in Sydney. [If you live in a box with a single 60w lightbulb perhaps, but for average homes, a 60% increase is going to be way more than this – it’s so wrong I wonder if this is a typo? – Ed]

Country residents will be hit even harder, with the annual power bill for homes expected to increase by $170-$200 a year. [Again, this seems ridiculously small – Ed]

The Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal will release its final determination into NSW power pricing this morning.

It has told the State Government that to pay for the anticipated climate change policy of the Federal Government, charges need to be increased in NSW by significantly more than they otherwise would have been.

And in a surprise move by the independent regulator, the price rises are due to come into effect as early as July 1 this year.

…

The report, details of which have been provided to The Daily Telegraph, states that a third of the increase was directly attributable to CPRS.

“It is to pay for the fact that the country is so heavily reliant on coal,” a source in the energy industry said.

Yet again, we find the effect of the Rudd ETS is completely at variance with the spin and misrepresentations coming from the government.

Read it here.

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SA Labor's "pact with the Devil"

18 March, 2010 by

Feel those preferences flow…

According to Kevin Rudd, climate change is the greatest moral challenge since the Big Bang (or something), but obviously his mates in South Australia don’t worry about that when their electoral future is at stake. Massive Hypocrisy Alert as SA Labor directs preferences to … (drum roll please) … the Climate Sceptics Party:

South Australian federal Liberal MP Jamie Briggs said he was amazed that Premier Mike Rann would sanction such a deal when his friend Kevin Rudd had declared that he viewed climate change as the greatest moral challenge of our time.

The sceptics’ lead candidate in its bid for a seat in the state Legislative Council, Nathan Ashby, says the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has been shown to be untrustworthy and produced conclusions based on fraudulent science.

…

“It seems to be a very desperate move from the Premier to be preferencing the climate sceptics ahead of the Liberal Party when his very good friend the Prime Minister has stressed the danger Australia faces from climate change,” Mr Briggs said.

“You would have thought that if Mike Rann were really concerned about this issue he would have put them last. I couldn’t believe they’ve done that given all the hype we’ve heard from the PM on this issue. It seems extraordinary.”

It sure does. But not when you stop to consider what Labor actually stands for: nothing. As has been said on these pages before, Labor has no principles whatsoever. It is a principle vacuum. It’s just a weathervane, twisting here and there, helplessly following the winds of public opinion, and desperate to stay in power at any cost.

Read it here.

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Quotes of the Day: Stephen Conroy on Lateline

18 March, 2010 by

Quote of the Day

I woke up this morning to hear Stephen Conroy’s lamentable, blustering performance on Lateline last night, repeated on News Radio. Now there’s a fine way to start the day … There was all the usual spin and hot air, but the funniest bit came when Tony Jones (who is one of the ABC’s most vocal climate change alarmists) held up his hands in horror at Maurice Newman’s accusation that the ABC was less than balanced on the issue of climate change. It was a classic “What, me?” moment. And then he successfully bullied Conroy into saying “No, no, it’s all fine you’re doing a great job”, and Conroy didn’t have the balls to resist:

TONY JONES: Alright, a final question. You’ve refused to comment in any detail on the claims by the ABC’s chairman Morris Newman that coverage of the global warming climate change issue is an example of “group think” where contrary views have not been tolerated.

Do you see any evidence of that?

STEPHEN CONROY: Well, look, the chairman… The ABC is an independent statutory authority. The chairman is entitled to his views and I understand from discussions that I’ve had over the last 24 hours it was a very robust discussion that followed that, uh, that speech and I think that is a healthy thing for all involved.

TONY JONES: Do you see any evidence? I am asking for your opinion. Whether you see- because it is a serious accusation he’s making: “Should there be a view that the ABC was sheltering particular beliefs from scrutiny or failing to question the consensus, I would consider it to be a dangerous perception that could lead to the public’s trust in us being undermined”.

That is the suggestion. Do you see any evidence that that has been happening?

STEPHEN CONROY: Well, I do remember that the ABC screened the documentary the Global Warming Scandal, I think last year.

TONY JONES: Swindle.

STEPHEN CONROY: Swindle, sorry, yes. So I think the ABC can point to a whole range of areas where it has given all sides of the debate a fair run.

TONY JONES: So you don’t see any examples or signs of “group think” in the ABC?

STEPHEN CONROY: Well, I am not sure that Mr Newman pointed his finger at any particular area. I don’t think he was speaking in a general sense but on an issue that you’ve mentioned like climate change, I think you’ve got a proud record where you can point to the screening of that documentary and there’s been plenty of debate over the last 12 months on this topic on the ABC. (source)

Ah, so showing the Great Global Warming Swindle is balance is it? Let’s remember what happened there, shall we? Firstly, Tony Jones himself, who was presenting the film, proclaimed before it was shown:

I am bound to say The Great Global Warming Swindle does not represent the views of the ABC.

Which means that the public service broadcaster has “views” on climate change – and I don’t need to tell you what they are. Hardly balance there. And following the screening, there was a round table debate in which TGGWS was thoroughly ripped to shreds by a typical ABC left-leaning audience. The hypocrisy is breathtaking. Why did the ABC take TGGWS apart, and yet never raise a finger to the partisan, innaccurate propaganda film An Inconvenient Truth? Where were the round table discussions picking that apart, Tony? No, wait. You’ve already explained. TGGWS doesn’t represent the views of the ABC, because AIT does, right?

If you want to see ABC bias at work for yourself, just go to the ABC’s Great Global Warming Swindle pages here and especially the nauseating article by Bernie Hobbs (ABC science broadcaster) here – it’s all there in black and white.

ABC balance on climate change? Don’t make me laugh.

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Butterfly study hijacked by AGW

17 March, 2010 by

Ever felt used?

Here’s an innocent little story about butterflies [which is now plastered all over the ABC and will no doubt be on the 7 o’clock News and 7.30 Report and Lateline and every ABC web site under the sun – Ed]. Apparently they are getting impatient and are now emerging from their cocoons ten days earlier than 65 years ago. But who does the ABC choose to interview on The World Today? Firstly Michael Kearney, biologist from Melbourne University, but then, oddly, David “Asteroid” Karoly, who is a fully paid up climate alarmist (link to audio and transcript here):

Professor David Karoly of the University of Melbourne, says the study breaks new ground on the impact climate change has on the natural environment.

“Butterflies and many other natural systems are responding to warming both in Australia and around the world,” he said.

“This is the first time we’ve been able to link the change in a natural system, like a butterfly, to regional warming and then link that regional warming to increase in green house gases as a result of human activity.”

Why would they interview Karoly? So I did a bit of research, and tracked down the original home page at Monash for the study here. Firstly, it should be noted that this is a research project within the school of Biosciences (not Earth Sciences or Climate Change) and there is no mention of Karoly as part of the project. Here is the project summary from a project update dated August 2008 :

Climate change and habitat fragmentation are together a major threat to the continued survival of a vast number of species. Correlative bioclimatic models are often used for predicting future suitable habitats, but currently do not take into account whether species are able to colonise new regions, nor the mechanisms by which they interact with and adapt to their environment. We will use a butterfly model species to investigate the relationship between genetic polymorphisms, physiological capacity for dispersal, and environmental constraints at the landscape scale. This will allow truly mechanistic and more accurate predictions of how novel climatic environments will affect species distributions. (source – PDF)

Again, no mention of anthropogenic climate change or greenhouse gases or carbon dioxide (or Karoly). They are simply looking at how butterflies react to increasing temperatures – you only need to read the PDF to see that. But wait, look what’s happened. Suddenly there is a “final step”, oddly not mentioned in any of the project’s earlier documentation, where Karoly steps in and neatly links the whole thing to human caused climate change:

The final step taken by the researchers was to link the regional temperature changes with human-induced global warming.

Team member [since when? – Ed] climatologist, Professor David Karoly applied global circulation models to the Melbourne region, taking into account local factors that influence climate.

This suggested that the regional temperature changes observed over the decade were unlikely to be observed without the influence of human greenhouse emissions, says Kearney. (source)

And hey presto, an avowed climate alarmist manages to show that Melbourne’s temperature rise can only be cause by human factors [because we don’t know what else could have caused it – brilliant – Ed]. What a surprise. So somebody, at present unknown, had the brilliant idea “if we can tie this butterfly study into AGW, we might get some air time from the ABC,” and that somebody was dead right, because it fits the ABC’s unashamedly alarmist agenda.

UPDATE: The Australian Research Council lists the grants made for this study (a total of $240,000 over three years), and it too mentions nothing about Karoly or the anthropogenic nature of the climate change in question. Here is the extract from the ARC’s PDF for funding grants made to Monash (not Melbourne) in 2006 for research commencing in 2007:

Extract from ARC's funding

So Karoly has simply been wheeled in to add the alarmist perspective. The difficult questions to ask would be:

  • When did Karoly become part of the project?
  • On whose instigation?
  • Were all the funding bodies notified of the change in emphasis of the study towards human-induced climate change?
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Another museum falls prey to climate dogma

17 March, 2010 by

Another one bites the dust

Indoctrination Alert as another climate change disciple takes on a senior role at a museum. From the Sydney Morning Herald:

A LEADING Australian businesswoman with a keen interest in climate change and sustainability will be the new president of the Australian Museum Trust.

Samantha Mostyn, the second woman to hold the position, said she was incredibly proud to take the helm of the governing body of the natural history museum. ”The museum is one of the most cherished institutions in Sydney, if not the country,” she said.

Ms Mostyn is the director of the Institute for Sustainable Solutions at the University of Sydney. A lawyer, she has a long history in the business sector and was once a political adviser to the former prime minister Paul Keating. She is also an adviser on the board of ClimateWorks, a partnership between Monash University and the Myer Foundation.

The Herald reported on a study by ClimateWorks yesterday that suggested the federal opposition climate policy would reduce carbon emissions by only half the amount it had claimed. [And ABC NewsWatch pointed out that ClimateWorks is just a cheap shill for Labor, see here – Ed]

Ms Mostyn said while the museum did not have a background in climate science it did have an extensive natural history collection that illustrated Australia’s unique biodiversity.

”It shows what we stand to lose if we don’t think carefully about the impact of the change in climate,” she said. ”I would like the museum to continue to play a role in helping [the public] understand some of the big science and nature debates that we are currently dealing with.’‘ (source)

Soon there won’t be a museum left in Australia that won’t brainwash its visitors about climate change…

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EU proposal to bind itself to 30% cuts by 2020

16 March, 2010 by

What the EU has been doing?

And the precondition for an international agreement is gone. What are the EU smoking? Whatever it is, it has so addled their collective brains that they are prepared to sacrifice the economies of dozens of countries, force energy bills through the roof, and send millions of jobs offshore just to pander to the enviro-extremists. But hang on, it’s all OK, because that kick in the guts to the EU economy will create thousands of “green jobs” – yeah, like I was born yesterday:

The [UK] Government will today support a proposal tabled in Brussels for a new, much more onerous EU target for cutting carbon dioxide even though other nations with higher emissions have failed to commit to reciprocal action.

Ministers have abandoned their previous condition that the world must agree a legally binding treaty on emissions before the EU commits to a tougher target.

The EU has already gone farther than the rest of the world by making a legally binding commitment to cut emissions by 20 per cent on 1990 levels by 2020. It is now preparing to raise the target to 30 per cent despite the failure of December’s climate change summit in Copenhagen.

By contrast, the US is debating whether to cut emissions by 4 per cent on 1990 levels by 2020 but is unlikely to make a decision this year.

The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) has calculated the cost to Britain of its contribution to the 30 per cent target but is refusing to publish the research.

A European Commission policy document, being debated today by EU environment ministers, says the EU should adopt the 30 per cent target “if the conditions are right”.

The EU had previously said it would only adopt the higher target “if an international agreement on emissions reductions is secured”.

I can’t believe what my home country has come to: Fool Britannia.

Read it here. (h/t EU Referendum)

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McGauran: CSIRO is "political puppet"

16 March, 2010 by

Gloves off

Following on from our story yesterday, Liberal Senator Julian McGauran takes CSIRO to task for parrotting the government’s climate change agenda:

Senator McGauran says the organisation has been stripped of its independence and is doing the bidding of the Minister for Science, Kim Carr.

“Minister Carr without doubt has wandered through the CSIRO offices, intimidating the scientists and the executive to do as they’re told,” he said.

“This is now a political organisation. The executive have become compliant to the minister, utterly.” (source)

The rest of the ABC article is just the typical mish-mash of pro-Labor spin, and vacuous ad hominems from Carr. Actually, CSIRO probably don’t need any intimidation from Carr – they’re all fully paid up alarmists anyhoo.

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UK government ads "exaggerated global warming"

15 March, 2010 by

Giving kids nightmares

Really? Why would they do that? Maybe because as the generally intelligent British public becomes more fed up with having the wool pulled over its eyes, that the government has to spin and mislead even more to keep the message going:

Two nursery rhyme adverts commissioned by the Government to raise awareness of climate change have been banned for overstating the risks.

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) ruled that the adverts – which were based on the children’s poems Jack and Jill and Rub-A-Dub-Dub – made exaggerated claims about the threat to Britain from global warming.

In definitely asserting that climate change would cause flooding and drought the adverts went beyond mainstream scientific consensus, the watchdog said.

It noted that predictions about the potential global impact of global warming made by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) “involved uncertainties” that the adverts failed to reflect.

The two posters created on behalf of the Department of Energy and Climate Change juxtaposed adapted extracts from the nursery rhymes with prose warnings about the dangers of global warning.

One began: “Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water. There was none as extreme weather due to climate change had caused a drought.” Beneath was written: “Extreme weather conditions such as flooding, heat waves and storms will become more frequent and intense.”

The second advert read: “Rub a dub dub, three men in a tub — a necessary course of action due to flash flooding caused by climate change.” It was captioned: “Climate change is happening. Temperature and sea levels are rising. Extreme weather events such as storms, floods and heat waves will become more frequent and intense. If we carry on at this rate, life in 25 years could be very different.”

Upholding complaints from members of the public, the ASA said that in both instances the text accompanying the rhymes should have been couched in softer language.

After the UK government’s despicable “bedtime story” advert, now they are defiling nursery rhymes in order to advance their extreme green agenda. Nothing is sacred to these people.

And this week’s best “yeah, right” moment:

Ed Miliband promised to better reflect scientific uncertainty about global warming in future campaigns.

My aching sides, I think not.

Read it here.

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CSIRO: climate change is "beyond doubt"

15 March, 2010 by

No-one's listening

The alarmists are hitting back, with more scary headlines from our national, taxpayer-funded AGW advocacy group, sorry, independent scientific organisation, which the ABC gleefully trumpets on AM this morning:

The head of Australia’s peak science body has spoken out in defence of climate scientists, saying the link between human activity and climate change is beyond doubt.

The head of the CSIRO, Dr Megan Clark, says the evidence of global warming is unquestionable, and in Australia it is backed by years of robust research.

Dr Clark says climate records are being broken every decade and all parts of the nation are warming.

“We are seeing significant evidence of a changing climate,” she said.

“If we just take our temperature, all of Australia has experienced warming over the last 50 years. We are warming in every part of the country during every season and as each decade goes by, the records are being broken.

Yep, agree with all of that. The world is indeed warming. So what about the cause? Solar fluctuations? Recovery from the Little Ice Age? ENSO? Cosmic ray cloud modulation? No, none of those of course:

Dr Clark says the evidence strongly suggests human activity is responsible for the rise.

“We know two things. We know that our CO2 has never risen so quickly. We are now starting to see CO2 and methane in the atmosphere at levels that we just haven’t seen for the past 800,000 years, possibly even 20 million years,” she said.

“We also know that that rapid increase that we’ve been measuring was at the same time that we saw the industrial revolution so it is very likely that these two are connected.”

So temporal correlation = causation according to Dr Clark? And she calls herself a scientist.

Read it here.

UPDATE: From the Sydney Morning Herald:

The CSIRO’s chief executive, Megan Clark, said yesterday that while society would have a debate about the science underpinning climate change – much like previous debates about the link between smoking and lung cancer – the CSIRO’s role was to release ”unemotional” scientific data. (source)

From News.com.au:

AUSTRALIA’S leading scientists have hit back at climate change sceptics, accusing them of creating a “smokescreen of denial”. (source)

Gee, I’d hate to hear them if the ever did get emotional…

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Australian scientist goes feral on sceptics and fellow scientists

14 March, 2010 by

Wants climate action through "political upheaval"

From The Briefing Room:

One of Australia’s most outspoken scientists has this week rubbished the team behind the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland, describing the project as nothing more than a “nuclear billiards machine” and saying the money should be devoted to paying for more climate change research instead. [Who said climate alarmism was about getting more research funding? – Ed]

Ian Lowe, emeritus professor of science, technology and society at Griffith University in Brisbane, has been in New Zealand for a low-profile crisis meeting on how to get climate change back on top of the public list of concerns. [To get more research funding perhaps? – Ed]

The meeting brought together not just climate scientists from New Zealand and Australia, but also social scientists who’ve been asked to come up with strategies on how to manipulate public opinion. Additionally, key sympathetic business leaders like Air New Zealand’s Rob Fyfe are understood to have attended.

As part of the conference, the NZ Government funded Science Media Centre, a climate change propaganda unit, organised for select invited media to attend a briefing from Professor Lowe, and NZ government social scientist Karen Cronin.

The briefing is a unique insight not just into the mindset of the climate science propaganda units, but in the sychophantic media willing to push their message unquestioningly.

During the hour long media briefing, Lowe

  • ridiculed the scientists working on the Large Hadron Collider, saying money would be better spent by climate scientists
  • argued that for propaganda purposes the media should hype-up individual weather events – such as floods in Mozambique – as proof of climate change
  • claimed Hurricane Katrina was clearly caused by climate change
  • claimed a conspiracy of white, Anglo Celtic elderly males was behind the skeptic movement
  • with NZ government social scientist Karen Cronin advocated researching how to foment enough anger in the public that governments who refused to take climate action could be “pushed out of the way” in a political upheaval

Just to put this in perspective, Ian Lowe is the president of the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF), which is an extremist environmental pressure group. It is famous for being the Australian wing of Al Gore’s despicable “Climate Project”, whose sole purpose is to disseminate to the unsuspecting public the lies and propaganda contained in An Inconvenient Truth.

Read the full story here (with audio clips).

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