Farewell Penny?

10 September, 2010 by

"I've had it up to here!"

How will I survive without Penny, whose mechanical delivery earned her the moniker “the Wong-bot” in these pages? She’s provided so much material for this blog since October 2008… But she’s had enough:

PRIME Minister Julia Gillard is expected to bring high-flyer Greg Combet into cabinet to be climate minister, as Labor tries to rebuild credibility on an issue that helped sow the seeds of its poor performance at the federal election last month.

Mr Combet, the former ACTU chief who assisted in the climate portfolio during his first term in Parliament, is seen as one of the government’s best trouble shooters, most recently in his handling of the mop-up after the home insulation debacle.

His big challenge as climate minister would be to help win acceptance for a carbon price after Labor’s failed efforts to get an emissions trading scheme passed through Parliament during its first term.

Penny Wong, the minister who oversaw the ETS process and then had the difficult task of selling Ms Gillard’s unpopular plan for a citizens assembly on climate change, is believed to want a change of portfolio. (source)

OK, Com-bot – it’s your turn next!

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With:

Election 2010: "Giggling, grinning Oakeshott" betrayed voters

10 September, 2010 by

Imbecilic

Rob Oakeshott and Tony Windsor, the two witless and gutless independents that handed power to Julia Gillard earlier this week, betrayed their electorates by siding with Labor, as John Styles explains in The Spectator:

When you enjoy the sound of your own voice as much as the giggling, grinning Rob Oakeshott apparently does, there is always a chance you will say more than you may have intended. So it was during the Independent/maybe-Labor minister’s media conference on Tuesday at which he and Tony Windsor delivered federal government to the Labor-Greens alliance.

‘We’ve just had to go through an incredibly unnatural decision to draw some conclusions about lining up with a party that fundamentally we don’t believe with [sic],’ he said, during a typically long, rambling response to a journalist’s question about how the pair of independents could make a decision that was so comprehensively out of step with the conservative nature of their electorates.

Here was Oakeshott admitting that he was giving crucial support to a party he didn’t believe in. He described his decision as ‘unnatural’. How about bizarre, weird, crazy? How about calling it just plain nuts?

So we had the representative of a demonstrably conservative constituency, a seat that overwhelmingly supported the Coalition in its Senate vote and expressed a decided preference for a Coalition government in post-election opinion polling, siding with the Labor party and radical Left Greens. More than that, the decision defied the clear preference of the nation as a whole. On 21 August, the Coalition won the primary vote, the two-party-preferred vote and won the most seats in the House of Representatives.

In Rob Oakeshott’s Lyne electorate, the ALP managed to attract only 13.5 per cent of the primary vote and the Greens just 4.3 per cent. In Tony Windsor’s seat, the Left fared even worse: Country Labor 8.1 per cent, the Greens 3.6 per cent.

Former Victorian Liberal president Michael Kroger summed it up on Melbourne radio MTR 1377:

‘If [Oakeshott] had gone to that election saying that, if the opportunity arose, I am going to accept the position of a minister in a government led by a Socialist Left prime minister — let’s not forget, Julia Gillard has been in the Socialist Left faction of the Labor party for almost 30 years — I’m going to be a minister of a government which is supported by the extreme Left Greens, Andrew Wilkie from Tasmania and another former National, you know, people would have been aghast.

‘He wouldn’t have got close to being elected. And if he accepts a ministry in a Labor government supported by the Greens … the people in his electorate would have every right to be absolutely feral at him, and so they should be.’

Read it all – and weep.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With:

Daily Bayonet GW Hoax Weekly Roundup

10 September, 2010 by

Skewering the clueless

As always, a great read!

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With:

Pointless climate action inevitable

9 September, 2010 by

The nightmare continues...

Thanks to Labor, the hysterical eco-loony Greens and the witless independents, a price on carbon is virtually guaranteed, and probably within the lifetime of this parliament. All we can hope is that its life is so brief the moonbats won’t have a chance to do irreparable damage to our economy and our country. As the ABC reports:

Greens MP Adam Bandt and the independents who threw their lot in with Labor have made it clear they would like to see the Federal Government take action to address climate change.

In its negotiations to form government, Labor agreed to convene a climate change committee made up of MPs and experts [but no sceptics, of course, or anyone that could possibly cast doubt on the AGW hysteria propounded by the IPCC] that would work towards putting a price on carbon.

The Climate Institute says it is hopeful the new Government will act more promptly and decisively than the previous Labor government, but a mining industry body says it is reserving judgment.

The independents who sided with Labor and Mr Bandt made it clear shortly after polling day that they want something done about climate change. [Just like that! Easy! As if Australia legislating an ETS will make one iota of difference to the climate! It’s simply laughable.]

“I support the precautionary principle and whether it applies to a market or not, or is carbon tax or whatever else, but if the climate scientists are in fact right and we do nothing, what have we done to future generations?” independent MP Tony Windsor said. [Yep, Windsor thinks that spending trillions of dollars to solve a non-problem is better than spending it on hospitals or schools. A bit like the NBN really…]

…

John Connor from the Climate Institute says it is a big step forward. [Backward.]

“I think it is very possible that we will get a price tag and limit on pollution here in Australia in the next couple of years,” he said.

“I think it is in everyone’s interest if we get on with that and do that as early as we can in this Parliament so people can understand the world won’t end, and in fact opportunities will arise and come as a consequence of that action.” [In the fairy-tale land you inhabit, perhaps, but not in the real world.]

Mr Connor says the election outcome should serve as a warning to Labor and the Coalition that the electorate wants action. (source)

Which is utter nonsense. People voted Green as a protest against the incompetence of Labor – nothing to do with crippling our economy with a pointless ETS or carbon tax.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: ,

Gillard on climate change

8 September, 2010 by

Gillard on the 7.30 Report

As we would expect, the climate change “committee” that Julia Gillard will set up in agreement with the Greens will be stacked with warmists, and there won’t be a sceptic within 20 miles. From the ABC’s 7.30 Report last night (thanks to Laurie W for the link):

KERRY O’BRIEN: OK. If we can look at your early priorities in this Gillard Government. Climate change has had a very chequered career within Labor’s first term, and even during the campaign. When your climate change committee that you’ve agreed to with the Greens has been set up – which it will be done as – I think by late this month – what timeframe would you want to see for that committee? And are you committed to seeing legislation come into the Parliament within this term of office?

JULIA GILLARD: Well, in the spirit of including people, Kerry, it’s not for me to dictate. But what I would like to see from that committee is that we can genuinely include, across the Parliament, people who believe climate change is real and who believe we will only reduce carbon pollution and meet our 2020 targets if we price carbon. And then with all of those people in the room, we’d work through to look for the points of agreement. (source)

Just read that sentence again: The committee will be formed from “people who believe climate change is real and who believe we will only reduce carbon pollution and meet our 2020 targets if we price carbon.” So what on earth is the point of this committee other than to rubber stamp a decision already made?

You can already detect the stench of Green influence on this government, and it will only get more putrid…

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: ,

Sticky: ACM Poll

7 September, 2010 by

Dear Readers,

Please would you kindly vote in the ACM poll (top right) to let us know how you like posts to be displayed on ACM. Poll will end on 7 October.

Thanks, Simon

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Election 2010: Gutless, witless independents hand power to Gillard

7 September, 2010 by

I’m excluding Bob Katter, because, maverick that he is, he did at least support the Coalition (as his electorate would expect him to). The other two wet weekends were blinded by climate change and broadband, the two biggest non-issues of the election, and thereby hand power to Gillard. And did you hear Oakeshott’s self-indulgent speech? What a joke! Even the journos couldn’t stand it – they were groaning in the background. And it doesn’t take long for the real agenda to come out:

When asked by a journalist why he didn’t back the Coalition, Tony Windsor admitted with a grin, “because they’d be more likely to win if they did go back to the polls”.

When asked how he could back a government that’s less likely to win, Windsor stated that they’d “be more likely to be here a longer time if they can’t go to the polls and win in a hurry”, with Oakeshot interjecting, “They’ve got more to lose”.

In other words, Oakeshot and Windsor admit they are defying what the nation (including their own conservative electorates) and propping up one of the most incompetent and unstable governments in Australia’s history, which has been massively repudiated by voters, has suffered a savage swing – in seats, first and second preference votes and its legitimacy – in order to preserve their power for as long as possible. (source)

So, fellow Australians, we can look forward to a rag-bag coalition, the Greens on the levers of power, an NBN cock-up to rival or exceed the BER cock-up or the pink batts cock-up, importantly for this blog, an emissions trading scheme or a carbon tax, a mining tax, and god alone knows what other disastrous policies for this country. Good luck, Australia.

Filed Under: Aussie Politics, Climate Tagged With:

Windsor and Oakeshott back Labor

7 September, 2010 by

Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott both back Labor, handing government to Julia Gillard.

Tony Windsor’s arguments were very weak, citing broadband and climate change. Oakeshott’s were the same… And his speech left this listener wishing he were anywhere but here, taking an eternity to reveal his decision.

It’s hard to believe that two country MPs could vote for the anti-country Labor/Green alliance. I hope their electorates let them know their views at the next election…

Filed Under: Climate

Election 2010: Katter backs Coalition

7 September, 2010 by

BREAKING NEWS: Bob Katter has just announced his support for the Coalition. The other independents are due to announce their decision later this afternoon.

Stay tuned.

UPDATE: Sky is predicting the other two independents will be backing Labor, handing a minority government to Julia Gillard.

Follow updates on my Facebook page: www.facebook.com/australianclimatemadness

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Oops! Ice caps melting "twice as slowly"

7 September, 2010 by

Not "worser" than thought

Or half as quickly – woteva. Isn’t it odd that all the errors and dodgy sources in the IPCC report conspired to make the climate change problem bigger, badder, “worser” than previously thought? Wouldn’t you think that roughly half the errors would show it “worser”, and half would show it not “worser”? If you were cynical, you might even conclude that such dodgy sources and errors were included because, oh, I don’t know, the authors had some pre-conceived agenda to push? OK, sarcasm off. But today’s “inconvenient headline” (thanks to Paul at The Daily Bayonet), which comes from the UK Daily Mail, reports that things in the melting ice cap department aren’t quite as bad as previously believed:

The Greenland and West Antarctic ice caps are melting at half the speed previously predicted, it has been announced.

Scientists measured the change in the ice caps by analysing changes in Earth’s gravitational field using two satellites, which monitor the distribution of mass on Earth including ice and water.

When ice melts and joins the sea, this has a small, but detectable effect on the Earth’s gravitational field.

This finding has emerged from research by a joint US/Dutch team from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Delft University.

The average rise in sea levels as a result of the melting ice caps is also lower, the team discovered.

Previous estimates for the Greenland ice cap calculated that the ice was melting at a rate of 230 gigatonnes a year  – 230,000 billion kg. That would result in an average rise in global sea levels of around 0.75 mm a year.

For West Antarctica, the estimate was 132 gigatonnes a year. However, it now turns out that these results were not properly corrected for glacial isostatic adjustment.

This phenomenon relates to the rebounding of the Earth’s crust rebounds [sic] as a result of the melting of the massive ice caps from the last major Ice Age around 20,000 years ago.

These movements of the Earth’s crust have to be incorporated in the calculations, since these vertical movements change the Earth’s mass distribution and therefore also have an influence on the gravitational field.

Researchers have now succeeded in carrying out that correction far more accurately. (source)

Makes a change, dunnit? A bit of good news. Once again, it just goes to show how utterly nonsensical it is for anyone to say about climate change “the science is settled.”

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: ,
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