Labor's twisted logic on "go it alone" carbon tax

31 May, 2011 by

WTF?

Australia’s plan to put a price on carbon [dioxide] and reduce emissions by 5% by 2020 will remove 160 million tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

But last year alone, global emissions rose by 1.6  BILLION tonnes, which is TEN TIMES Australia’s total reduction over the next 8 years, or EIGHTY TIMES Australia’s planned reduction in a single year.

But, according to Labor’s logic, Australia’s carbon tax will “tackle climate change” and is “in the national interest.”

Julia, Greg, Penny: please explain.

Climate Madness.

(h/t Bolta)

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Climate Commission report just rehashed IPCC propaganda

30 May, 2011 by

Rehashed IPCC propaganda

Australian scientists Bob Carter, Stewart Franks, David Evans and William Kininmonth have produced a stinging rebuttal of the Climate Commission’s biased report, “The Critical Decade”, issued last week (see here).

The main accusation, which is difficult to ignore, is that the report simply rehashes the same old IPCC propaganda without any critical review. The IPCC isn’t a scientific body, but an organisation formed to find evidence for a preconceived conclusion, namely that AGW is real and dangerous. The Climate Commission, comprised of well-know alarmists, simply regurgitated the IPCC line, and, since there are no sceptics allowed on the Commission, failed to critically assess the validity of the IPCC’s pronouncements:

IPCC advice has been known to be politically motivated since publication of the 1995 2nd Assessment Report, in which the wording of the Summary for Policymakers was tampered with after the scientists had signed off on it. In 2001, the 3rd IPCC Assessment Report took as its leit motif a deeply flawed paper by Michael Mann and co-authors that falsely depicted Northern Hemisphere temperature over the last 800-1000 years as having the shape of a horizontal hockey-stick in which the upturned blade represented alleged dramatic warming in the 20th century; this graphic was later exposed as false, and the result of statistical incompetence. Most recently, the 4th Assessment Report, published in 2007, has been subjected to a blizzard of criticism subsequent to the revelations of the Climategate affair.

The overall weaknesses of the IPCC have been well documented by Melbourne researcher John McLean, and they reflect that the IPCC represents a political advocacy organisation more than it does an impartial scientific advisory body. Relying on IPCC recommendations (as interpreted by Professor Steffen and the Department of Climate Change) as the sole source of advice for setting Australian climate policy is therefore clearly unwise. In no other major financial or medical context would such dramatic policy prescriptions be adopted without exposing the expert advice to contestability by seeking a thorough second opinion and audit.

…

The Critical Decade contains no substantial new science. Rather, the report is a reworked amalgam of many of the IPCC’s dated and alarmist assertions, and at the same time it ignores recent independent reports (for example, that of the Non-governmental International Panel on Climate Change; NIPCC) and also ignores the numerous published papers that are consistent with the null hypothesis that contemporary climate change has largely natural causes. As for the IPCC reports on which it is based, The Critical Decade cites no empirical data that demonstrates that dangerous warming is occurring, let alone that human-related carbon dioxide emissions were responsible for the late 20th century phase of mild warming. Instead, the case for action to “prevent” dangerous warming put by the IPCC and the Climate Commission rests almost exclusively upon the validity of numerical computer models that are known to be incompatible with decades of detailed observations of the atmosphere.

In other words, the report, and the Commission, simply ignore dissenting views, and as a result, have produced a worthless report, on which no government should ever base its climate policy. Read it all here (PDF).

In other good news, Tony Windsor has said he won’t support a carbon price unless the rest of the world takes action too (see here). OK Tony, read the next item below…

Kyoto has been pronounced dead, as Russia, Canada, US and Japan all pull out of any further cuts under the treaty (see here).

Looks like you can’t support the carbon tax, Tony…

(h/t Jo Nova)

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Rich, privileged actress wants ordinary people to pay more tax

29 May, 2011 by

Carbon Cate

Cate Blanchett, who travels everywhere by first class air travel or private jet, and is worth millions of dollars, lectures ordinary Australians struggling to pay their energy bills on saying “Yes” to a tax that will make their lives even more difficult and achieve precisely nothing for the climate, whether in Australia or globally. Hmm, that will go down well!

The Australian Conservation Foundation, an extreme environmental pressure group (which still organises lectures in Australia to spread Al Gore’s climate falsehoods – see here), is launching an ad campaign to say Yes to a carbon tax. Here it is:

And as expected, there are all the usual misrepresentations. Let’s go through them shall we?

  • “Yes to less carbon pollution”: False. We would be saying yes to less harmless trace gas carbon dioxide.
  • “Yes to new money for clean energy that never runs out”: “New money” here means government subsidies for inefficient and expensive renewable energy sources. When they are competitive in the market, then people will use them. And as for never running out, wind and solar only work when the wind blows or the sun shines, so solar “runs out” every night, and wind “runs out” when it’s not windy enough.
  • “Yes to help for people struggling with bills”: which are only going to get much, much higher under a pointless carbon tax. And anyway, if we compensate people, they won’t change their behaviour – duh.
  • “Yes to jobs”: omitting to mention that every fake “green” job on average sacrifices between 2 and 4 “proper” jobs
  • “Yes to better health for our kids”: reducing harmless CO2 will make no difference to the health of our “kids” [by which I think she means “children”, or are we talking about goats here? – Ed]
  • And Cate’s starring role: “Finally doing something about climate change”: False. A carbon tax in Australia will do NOTHING for climate change, whether you believe CO2 is to blame or not.

The ad is very good at confusing harmless carbon dioxide with “carbon pollution”, smoke, soot and dirt – as demonstrated by the usual belching smoke stack photo. Because the more confusion that can be sown in the minds of the public, the more chance of pulling the wool over their eyes, and getting all these misrepresentations and falsehoods past them without being noticed.

I am all for reducing proper pollution such as particulates and toxins, but reducing carbon dioxide has nothing to do with this. If the campaign was about reducing “real” pollution by taxing people more, and had nothing to do with “saving the planet”, it wouldn’t get off the ground.

But who cares about the facts? As this blog has said countless times, nothing Australia does on its own will make any difference to the climate, and that’s even if you believe that CO2 will cause dangerous global warming.

Cate can afford to pay a carbon tax and not even notice (and can always go and live elsewhere if things get too rough here in Australia), and will continue to travel all over the world by fossil-fuel powered means of transport. When she turns up at a film premier on a bike, then we may take some notice. But until then, forget it.

The Herald Sun editorial sums it up well:

FEW Australians would dispute Cate Blanchett’s acting prowess.

She is a genuine international movie star who won an Oscar for her role in The Aviator and has banked an estimated $50 million fortune off the back of her success.

Good on her.

But that doesn’t qualify her to lecture Australian families — she is the star of a pro-carbon tax TV advertising campaign starting tonight — on why such an impost is good for them. Particularly when Prime Minister Julia Gillard has failed to tell the nation exactly how big this new tax will be.

It’s reasonable to assume that cost-of-living pressures are not something that trouble Blanchett, but they are certainly keeping Aussie mums and dads awake at night.

Electricity prices will soar higher once the tax is imposed. And it is likely that many families deemed “wealthy” by Ms Gillard will miss out on compensation. Cate Blanchett should stick to what she does best — acting. (source)

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Carbon tax will "strangle manufacturing" – Abbott

28 May, 2011 by

Carbon strangulation

A carbon tax will strangle Australia’s manufacturing industry, Tony Abbott has said this afternoon:

OPPOSITION Leader Tony Abbott has warned that Australia’s manufacturing sector would be slowly strangled by Labor’s planned carbon tax amid rising concern in business about the impact of the policy.

Mr Abbott made a direct appeal to manufacturing employers and workers today to take notice of the Coalition’s anti-carbon tax campaign at the same time as launching his latest personal attack against Prime Minister Julia Gillard.

He told the Victorian Liberal Party’s State Council that Melbourne would suffer badly if Australia followed the Labor course.

“Over time, a go-it-alone carbon tax means the slow strangulation of manufacturing in Australia,” the Opposition Leader said.

“Let the message go out to our country from here in Melbourne — the manufacturing heart of our country — that we must be a country that continues to make things. We must be a country with a first world economy.

“But we can’t be a first world economy if our manufacturing industry has been killed by Labor’s carbon tax.”

Read the rest here.

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Climate sense from Terry McCrann

28 May, 2011 by

Climate sense

Terry McCrann makes the very strong point that according to the Climate Commission, the science is settled and therefore the world will inevitably get warmer (because China and India will be increasing their emissions over the next decade). So, the argument goes, if we know that as a certainty, why are we flushing billions of dollars down the lavatory in a hopeless attempt to stop it, when we should be spending that money on adaptation? Don’t wait up for an answer from the warming zealots.

IF the science is as settled as climate commissioner Will Steffen asserts, then the Gillard government has only one rational policy option. It is the Lomborg solution.

It should immediately abandon all attempts to impose costly and inefficient wind and solar energy generation and, more broadly, abandon the 2020 target of cutting our greenhouse gas emissions by 5 per cent; with the redirection of all those freed resources to dealing with the perceived consequences of a hotter world.

Because it will get hotter; indeed, much hotter. That is to say, according to Steffen’s “settled science”. Because, simply put, global emissions in 2020 – at the end of Steffen’s “(absolutely) Critical Decade” – will be higher than they are today. Perhaps much higher.

The die will have been cast. For, according to Steffen and his settled science, that would then require the world to agree to cut global emissions by 9 per cent a year, every year from 2020, all the way to zero. That is, to total global decarbonisation in 30 years. And even that would only get us to a still 2 degrees hotter world. According to Steffen and his settled science.

You would have to rate the chances of doing that as zero. That a world that had allowed emissions to grow each year to 2020 would both agree to start cutting them immediately by 9 per cent a year, every year, and actually have a pathway to do that. Such an agreement is beyond even the most wishful of thinking.

As Danish statistician and “sceptical environmentalist” Bjorn Lomborg has consistently and persistently argued, the best course (for the world) is to adapt to short-term temperature rises rather than engage in futile and costly attempts to stop them.

Read it here.

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US Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative collapsing

27 May, 2011 by

Climate sense

Whenever anyone urges caution regarding Labor’s reckless and one-eyed pursuit of a carbon price, Gillard or Combet or Wong will wheel out how many other countries have cap-and-trade schemes in place, and claim that the rest of the world is “moving towards” more carbon pricing. They usually trot out the European cap-and-trade system, which accounts for 25 or so of the 30-odd countries, and which is so mired in corruption that the majority of transactions are fraudulent, followed by the US Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a cap-and-trade scheme with ten [er, nine – Ed] states. Even that is less than one fifth of the US.

It simply isn’t true. The world is pulling back from carbon pricing, as people realise it doesn’t work. Japan has abandoned plans for an ETS, the EU scheme is doing little to reduce emissions, but everything to cripple an already struggling economy, New Hampshire voted to leave the US RGGI, and now its the turn of New Jersey. Governor Chris Christie spells out the blindingly obvious:

New Jersey is dropping out of the nation’s largest regional effort to reduce greenhouse gases in a move announced by Governor Christie on Thursday that was praised by business groups and criticized by environmental advocates.

Christie called the 10-state Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative a “failure” and said it has been ineffective in battling global warming.

“RGGI has not changed behavior and it does not reduce emissions,” Christie said at a news conference in Trenton.

“RGGI does nothing more than tax electricity, tax our citizens, tax our businesses, with no discernable or measurable impact upon our environment,” he said.

Christie’s decision to withdraw by year’s end comes after similar efforts in New Hampshire, Maine and Delaware were met with resistance in recent weeks. New Jersey is the first state to opt out of the program, and some environmentalists fear Christie’s decision could provide momentum for other states to withdraw. (source)

Let’s hope so. Climate sense for once. Perhaps Gillard, Combet and Wong should follow New Jersey’s excellent example… How about a shot at Republican candidate in 2012, Mr Christie?

P.S. As at 2pm AEST, this news is missing in action from ABC, Fairfax, and News Corp. Only Sky have reported it so far…

(h/t WUWT)

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Daily Bayonet GW Hoax Weekly Round up

27 May, 2011 by

Skewering the clueless

As always, a great read!

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Turnbull wants to destroy Abbott – and the Coalition

26 May, 2011 by

Revenge on his mind…

Malcolm Turnbull’s ego is bigger than the Coalition. Bigger than a victory over Labor at the next election. Bigger than putting Australia back on a path to prosperity after six years of Labor mismanagement at the next election in 2013. Oh yes, Turnbull’s lust for revenge goes way beyond those petty considerations.

He hates the fact that Tony Abbott is doing so well as Opposition leader. He hates the fact that he thinks Abbott is inferior to him (or so he believes) and he himself should still rightly be the leader of the Opposition. He hates the fact that he was defeated by Abbott by one vote in 2009. He hates the fact that his mindless climate policy was dumped at the eleventh hour, just before his party was due to vote with Labor to enact an ETS. He hates the fact that Abbott’s recent budget reply went down so well (as evidenced by his curt handshake and flouncing out of the chamber at the first possible opportunity).

So last week we had the Lateline debacle, where Turnbull made little attempt to conceal his disgust for his own party’s climate policy. The next day, the headlines were full of… Malcolm Turnbull. And today we have another distraction from the task at hand, his alleged failure to vote in divisions, followed by the leak of a stiff email in rebuke. And, again, tomorrow the headlines will all be full of… Malcolm Turnbull.

To my mind, the fact that Turnbull is in the headlines again is no accident. I strongly believe that Turnbull wants to torpedo Abbott and then ride to the Coalition’s rescue as their saviour, and have himself elected leader again. All the evidence points that way, and it seems that he is prepared to sacrifice anything and everything to achieve this end, including a Coalition victory at the next election, just so long as he can exact his bitter revenge on Abbott.

We should not be reading headlines about Malcolm Turnbull – we should be reading headlines about Gillard’s incompetence. We should not be reading headlines about “divisions within the Coalition” brought about by Turnbull speaking out of turn – we should be reading headlines about the effect of Labor’s disastrous carbon tax on our economy and prosperity. Whenever Turnbull is in the headlines, it distracts from the task at hand: holding this inept and arrogant government to account.

The more of this kind of distraction continues, and the more cracks that appear in the Coalition front, the more opportunities there are for Labor to attack, diverting attention from their own shortcomings, eroding away, tiny bit by tiny bit, the extraordinary lead that Abbott has delivered, until Labor are ahead once again, Abbott sinks into the role of a leader in crisis, on the way out, and is eventually, inevitably, replaced by…?

So the message to Tony Abbott is all too clear: sack Turnbull now, or he will destroy you, the Coalition, and any chance of victory at the next election – all in pursuit of his own selfish goals.

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Media meltdown on Climate Commission report

25 May, 2011 by

Hardly impartial

Millions of column inches have been taken up on the Climate Commission’s one-sided and alarmist report, and most of those column inches haven’t had the benefit of an ounce of critical thought. Oddly, none of the journalists at Fairfax or the ABC have considered the vested interests at work in the commission, the careers built on global warming alarmism, the corruption of science by the IPCC, the lack of any opposing or dissenting views, the political influence of a government desperate to pass a carbon tax, and any number of other red flags which any independent thinking person would raise.

No, the media regurgitate the press release and the report without any consideration of any of those issues. Of course, Labor has been spruiking the report for all its worth – as if its conclusion has come as some kind of surprise! What did they expect from a bunch of scaremongering alarmists like David Karoly, Will Steffen and Matthew England? Balance? I think not. And neither did they. This whole edifice is nothing more than a propaganda machine, spewing out climate predictions on demand from a government in thrall to the Greens, and desperate to get traction on its flawed climate policy.

Then there is the inevitable “trust the scientists.” As if everything a scientist says is beyond question. Wheeling out the old chestnut about the patient with cancer, they crow, who would you trust? The three specialist oncologists or the quack? Over at the Impact of Climate Change blog, this post sums that attitude up perfectly:

The Hon. Julia Gillard, yesterday, explained that she accepts expert, scientific advice:

“The science is in, climate-change is real.  The science is clear:  man-made carbon pollution is making a difference to our planet and our climate. […]

“When I first met Ian Frazer, and he told me he had a cervical cancer vaccine that could cut the rates of cervical cancer for women and girls, I didn’t pretend to myself I knew enough about cancer to second-guess what he was telling me was right.

“He was right; he’s a scientist.  We’ve got climate scientists here who are telling us exactly the same about the nature of global warming and the climate of our planet.”

That’s “harmless carbon dioxide gas”, rather than “carbon pollution”, Julia, by the way. And the response?

When I met Claudius Ptolemaeus and he told me that he could accurately represent the geocentric universe as a set of nested spheres, I didn’t pretend to myself I knew enough about astrology to second-guess what he was telling me was right; he’s a scientist, and couldn’t be mistaken. (source)

And what is the difference between oncologists and climate scientists? Climate science has been corrupted by money and politics, things that the medical profession manages, in the main, to rise above [yes there are specific exceptions, primarily in connection with pharmaceuticals of course, so don’t bother writing in]. For years, climate science was obscure, and suddenly, a crisis! Climate science is suddenly on the front pages of newspapers. Entire climate science departments have sprung up at universities all over the world, government climate departments have been established in virtually every country, the UN has climbed aboard the bandwagon and set up hundreds of climate committees, such as the IPCC. In other words, billions and billions of dollars spent, and the careers of thousands of scientists at stake.

And we somehow expect the results of all this to be impartial? If there were no climate crisis, none of these departments would exist, and climate science would return to that forgotten corner of the lab. That is why it is mainly retired scientists who dare speak their doubts about the “consensus” out loud.

So until the Climate Commission opens its eyes and ears and invites dissenting views to be part of its reporting process, it will remain nothing more than a hopelessly biased propaganda machine and mouthpiece for a government hamstrung by the Greens.

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Galileo Movement's rebuttal of Climate Commission's report

24 May, 2011 by

Galileo Movement

The Galileo Movement (link) has recently been set up, in their own words, to “expose misrepresentations pushing a ‘price on carbon dioxide’. We care about freedom, security, the environment, humanity and our future.”

They have produced a response to the Climate Commission’s scaremongering report of yesterday, and an associated press release, which states:

The Galileo Movement asks: Why are all eight of Australia’s publicly prominent academics promoting the notion of global warming due to human causes when all fail to provide specific, scientifically measured real-world evidence for their core claim of human causation?

Why are people funded by the government included in the Climate Commission’s Science Advisory Panel? This appears to be a conflict of interests.

The Climate Commission’s report coincides with release of Dr Wes Allen’s book ‘’The Weather Makers Re-examined’. This is the first and only serious review of Chief Climate Commissioner Tim Flannery’s book ‘The Weather Makers’.

Dr Allen’s solid data reveals serious errors, misrepresentations, exaggerations, contradictions and inaccuracies in Tim Flannery’s book that became a foundation for the public’s unfounded alarm about climate.

The Galileo Movement calls for an immediate investigation into what it sees as misrepresentation of science by the government funded Climate Commission and by the government itself.

The Climate Commission’s report diverts valuable attention from real environmental and humanitarian challenges. We urge Australian politicians to take the Climate Commission’s Key Messages as not factual. (source – PDF)

The response to the report can be found here (PDF).

ACM sends best wishes to the new organisation: the more people out there rebutting the government-sponsored misrepresentations and propaganda the better.

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