Climate talks "going backwards"

7 August, 2010 by

UN: more hot air than a ballooning festival

Which is better than “moving forward”, isn’t is Julia? Did you know climate talks were going on currently? No, neither did I. But given that the UN is just one big gab-fest, you can be pretty sure that any week of the year there will be some climate talks going on somewhere! Fortunately, however, things aren’t going too well:

UN climate talks tasked with curbing the threat of global warming are backsliding, delegates said at the close of a week-long session in Bonn.

Record global temperatures, forest fires in Russia, lethal floods in Pakistan “are all consistent with the kind of changes we could expect from climate change, and they will get worse if we don’t act quickly,” said US negotiator Jonathan Pershing. [In other words, weather isn’t climate, except when we say it is]

“Unfortunately, what we have seen over and over this week is that some countries are walking back from the progress made in Copenhagen,” he told journalists, referring to the 11th-hour accord hammered out at the climate summit in December.

That agreement enshrined the goal of capping the increase of global temperatures at 2.0 degrees, but did not muster the commitments needed to attain it.

It also pledged long-term financing to help poor countries green their economies and cope with consequences of climate change, without specifying where the money would come from.

Dessima Williams of Grenada, speaking for the 43-nation Association of Small Island States, said she was “greatly concerned” by the slow pace of the talks.

“The situation on the ground for all our countries is worsening,” she said at a press conference. (source)

Given that the Copenhagen Accord was worth less than the paper it was printed on, sliding back from that is pretty desperate! At least Western economies will be spared for a little while longer.

Keep up the good work!

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Election 2010: Desperate Gillard begs Rudd for help

6 August, 2010 by

Nightmare for Julia

From the “You Could Not Make It Up” department. Just weeks after savagely knifing Kevin Rudd in the back and stealing the prime ministership, Julia Gillard is now relying on Rudd to rescue her disintegrating campaign:

THERE are now three leaders in this election campaign.

The Prime Minister, Julia Gillard; the alternative prime minister, Tony Abbott; and the former prime minister-in-exile, Kevin Rudd.

In his intervention, Rudd presents himself as the saviour of Labor’s fortunes – an event of far-reaching and unpredictable consequences.

There has never been an election like it. With each day it’s more about Kevin.

Gillard, who assassinated Rudd as prime minister six weeks ago, has been reduced to asking him to salvage her prime ministership. It is a huge risk and reversal, but Gillard had no choice.

Rudd, the recently detested and vanquished former PM, now returns to centre stage as potential saviour. Indeed, it seems only Rudd might resurrect Labor in Queensland and that he is dictating terms to the party. Labor MPs do not know whether to laugh, cry or cheer.

Read it here.

See also: “It takes two to tango but one to lead” and The Australian’s editorial on the subject.

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Daily Bayonet GW Hoax Weekly Roundup

6 August, 2010 by

Skewering the clueless

As always, a great read!

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"Global warming fatigue sets in all over the world"

5 August, 2010 by

Climate sense

Tom Switzer on the waning interest in “saving the planet” [that’s because “saving the planet” is the biggest conceit ever dreamed up by humanity – the planet’s been here 4.5 billion years, and will be here long after we’re all gone]:

Canada’s cap-and-trade legislation is going nowhere. Japan’s weak and divided government has temporarily shelved its ETS in parliament. French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s carbon tax is blocked by the Constitutional Council. Public opinion polls show higher climate scepticism in Britain than in western Europe, North America and the Antipodes. Even when an ETS has been implemented, as in the case of the European Union, the policy has been a debacle: a collapsed carbon price, higher energy prices, and increased emissions during the first three years in operation.

China’s leaders, far from leading the world to a low-carbon future, won’t sign a legally binding global deal, because they want to grow their economy and reduce poverty on the back of the cheapest form of (carbon) energy.

Senior Indian politicians, meanwhile, criticise US officials when they push for Delhi to adopt binding emissions targets.

Nowhere is the changing climate more evident than in the US. Last month, congress could not even agree to a climate bill to debate on the Senate floor before a vote. Nor was it simply conservative Republicans who opposed what is called “cap and tax”. Democrats from states heavily dependent on coal, oil and manufacturing are overwhelmingly opposed to Al Gore’s agenda. When the House passed a climate bill a year ago, one in five Democrats opposed the legislation.

Read it here.

UPDATE: Strange that some polls seem to say precisely the opposite:

A poll has found climate change is a big issue in voters’ minds, as Labor hastily reassesses its climate policy before election day.

The poll of 2200 people, commissioned by conservation groups, found 78 per cent said climate change would influence their vote.

Almost half said the issue would be a strong influence, with younger people, and those learning towards Labor or the Greens, most concerned. (source)

The poll was commissioned by two environmental advocacy groups, the Australian Conservation Foundation (that runs Al Gore’s misleading Climate Project in Australia) and WWF, both of which firmly believe in AGW. I have requested the question wording and will update when I receive a response.

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NSW government uses black balloons to represent CO2

3 August, 2010 by

Because we all know that CO2 is black, right? Because it’s carbon, right? And it’s pollution, right? And it’s causing catastrophic climate change, right? Wrong, wrong, wrong and wrong again. But that doesn’t stop the moonbat NSW government wasting even more precious taxpayer money (that could be spent on e.g. fixing the state’s woeful transport network or any one of a thousand more deserving causes) on no less than fifteen (count them, fifteen) adverts to blackmail the weary population to wear dirty, damp clothes covered in bird-shit (no warm washes, no tumble dryers allowed, line dry instead), suffer in cold houses in winter and hot ones in summer (turn down that evil heating and cooling), and of course, live entirely in semi-darkness with flickery, epilepsy-inducing CFLs (get rid of those tungsten filament bulbs right now) all to “save the planet”. I am all in favour of reducing energy consumption, but this is just pure Green propaganda:

[hana-flv-player video=”http://www.australianclimatemadness.com/video/nsw_save_power.flv” width=”400″ height=”330″ description=”NSW Save Power advert” player=”4″ autoload=”true” autoplay=”false” loop=”false” autorewind=”true” /]

There’s also a hideous new website [how much does that cost?] to go with it here, and plenty more of those sinister black balloons.

Welcome to the interfering, meddling, nanny state of environmentalism… or as we call it, New South Wales.

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Global warming "linked to solar radiation"

3 August, 2010 by

How could a massive fusion reaction on our doorstep possibly affect climate?

From “The Science is Settled” department. The IPCC want to play down the effect of the sun on climate because, well, you can’t tax the sun. But you can tax a harmless trace gas which is a byproduct of burning fossil fuels, and thereby stop the fastest growing economies in their tracks, and prevent them from their selfish pursuit of alleviating poverty for millions of people. All together now: “It’s the sun, stupid.”

A STUDY of Arctic cooling cycles suggest warming is linked to solar activity.

By measuring the rings of 400-year-old Scots pine trees, German researchers at the University of Hohenheim in Stuttgart were able to determine periods of fast-growth activity associated with higher average temperatures.

They took their measurements from trees on the Kola Peninsula and compared it to 2004 data from the Swedish Laplan and Russian Siberia regions.

They found that temperatures between 1630 and 1840 cooled, then warming in the Arctic began – just after the end of the “Little Ice Age” and 30 years before the start of the Industrial Age.

The “Little Ice Age” refers to a 300-year cooling effect leading up to the Industrial Age in which the Arctic cooled by 0.4C.

That phase also coincided with a decline in solar radiation over the same period.

After reaching their peak between 1935 and 1957, the German researchers found summer temperatures in the Arctic then dropped by “one or two degrees” to 1990.

The new lows came through a modern phase associated with high emissions, yet still dropped to temperatures not seen since 1870, just as the Industrial Age began.

“One thing is certain: this part of the Arctic warmed up after the end of the Little Ice Age around 250 years ago, cooled down from the middle of the last century and has been warming up again since 1990,” paleoclimatologist Dr Tatjana Bottger said.

And because News.com.au has a pro-warming agenda, it adds this bizarre caveat:

But before the climate sceptics start celebrating, the researchers also noted that since 1970, solar radiation’s influence on summer temperatures had weakened.

Although they don’t explain why the laws of solar physics have decided to change in 1970 after staying the same for 4.5 billion years. And next time there’s a warming scare story, will we see News.com.au writing “Before the alarmists start celebrating…”? I think not.

Read it here.

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More hysterical climate alarmism from the ABC

2 August, 2010 by

Banging the Green drum

The ABC is the campaign wing of the Labor/Green Alliance Party (as it should now be called) in all but name. Spruiking Jooolya’s policies whilst at the same time dissing Tony’s. Dredging up any tiny embarrassment from Tony’s past, but leaving Jooolya’s communist connections well alone. And of course, using the Drum as a platform for climate hysteria is just all part of the grand scheme. For every sceptical article that gets the nod, about 10 alarmist ones get through – there’s balance for you, ABC-style. Last week we had Kellie “Ranter” Tranter’s climate nonsense, deconstructed expertly by Jo Nova here, and now we have another climate evangelist, spouting deep Green propaganda:

The inertia of the climate system, particularly the slow warming of the oceans, means that the results of our emissions today only become evident decades hence. Thus, unless we take rapid action now, we may well be locking in irreversible climate change of catastrophic proportions for future generations [nonsense – there is no evidence whatsoever of irreversible climate change in our planet’s history – it’s been here for 4.5 billion years, for f***’s sake]; indeed we may have already done so.

There will always be scientific uncertainties on an issue this complex, with year-to-year climatic variations continuing to be used selectively by deniers [cheap ad hom] to discredit the mainstream science; but the overall trends are clear and they are all moving in the wrong direction. It is tempting to believe the deniers [and again] are right, but faced with the mounting empirical evidence, prudent risk management dictates we should not gamble on inaction.

The world is starting to understand that, if catastrophic outcomes and climatic tipping points are to be avoided [which don’t exist], the real target for a safe climate is to reduce atmospheric carbon concentrations back to the pre-industrial levels of around 300ppm CO2 from the current 392ppm CO2 [despite CO2 levels being at least 20 times greater in the past, with no significant effect on warming] This will require emission reductions in the order of 40-50 per cent by 2020, almost complete decarbonisation by 2050 [could have been written by the Greens] and continuing efforts to draw down legacy carbon from the atmosphere.

The author is a fellow of the Centre for Policy Development, which has already made its mind up on climate change, as it states here:

The short-term thinking of the election cycle is damaging Australia’s long-term interests. From the global economic crisis to the climate emergency, the costs of poor public policy are increasingly clear. (source)

So is it any wonder that one of their “fellows” writes such undiluted horseshit? And is it any wonder that the ABC publishes it so uncritically?

Read it here, if you must, but frankly, don’t bother.

UPDATE: From the author’s CPD biography:

He is Chairman of Safe Climate Australia, Deputy Convenor of the Australian Association for the Study of Peak Oil and a Member of the Club of Rome.

Let’s always remember that the Club of Rome once pronounced that “the Earth has cancer and the cancer is Man”. Says it all really.

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Election 2010: Labor prepares "smear campaign" on Abbott

1 August, 2010 by

The gutter: Labor will always get there first

Labor is the expert in gutter politics and smear, so there shouldn’t be much preparation required. Even the Sydney Morning Herald refers to is in this derogatory way. But we shouldn’t be surprised – Labor’s polling is in free-fall, and Labor will do anything to stay in power, even if it means descending to this level, as the SMH/Age gleefully reports:

LABOR’S election campaign is set to enter a new aggressive and negative phase designed to exert maximum pressure on Tony Abbott by highlighting his ”extremist” past rhetoric.

After a collapse in support following a series of leaks, Labor will be using its new underdog status to turn the blowtorch back onto Mr Abbott, warning voters to take a closer look at the man who could be prime minister.

Labor is preparing a smear campaign drawing attention to Mr Abbott’s controversial past rhetoric. The Sunday Age has been given an extensive dossier containing dozens of comments by Mr Abbott on issues such as industrial relations, abortion, teenage sex, marriage, and climate change. It includes extensive material on Mr Abbott’s hardline attitudes to women and abortion, including a 2006 statement that there was ”a bizarre double standard in this country where someone who kills a pregnant woman’s baby is guilty of murder but a woman who aborts an unborn baby is simply exercising choice”.

Small Business Minister Craig Emerson yesterday said Labor would turn up the pressure by highlighting Coalition plans to slash spending in areas such as health and education.

”Let’s just see how Tony Abbott deals with pressure,” Dr Emerson said.

”He didn’t respond very well to pressure in the first week. We are halfway through the second quarter in this match and there will be plenty of pressure coming on to Tony Abbott and let’s just see how he responds to it.”

So I guess Mr Emerson that you’re behind this school-playground type plan, yes? Abbott should not rise to this puerile mudslinging, and hope that the public see it for what it is – Labor desperation.

Read it here.

UPDATE: As Andrew Bolt rightly points out, if Labor is going to drag up Abbott’s past, then perhaps we should look a bit more closely at Julia Gillard’s as well, and her association with ultra hard-Left, socialist organisations, advocating batty policies like twinning Melbourne with Leningrad. Labor and Gillard should be very careful. Read it here.

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Election 2010: Labor is just so last year

31 July, 2010 by

Old and falling to pieces, like Labor

Out of touch, out of control, and with a bit of luck, soon to be out of power. Magnificent timing by Labor. No sooner has Joooolya Gillard launched her innovative and original “cash for clunkers” policy to “tackle climate change” than the Yanks have, er, yanked theirs:

The White House says its cash for clunkers scheme worked well but that it will not be repeating the offer.

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard has said she will introduce a similar scheme if re-elected.

The US cash for clunkers scheme was created last year as part of president Barack Obama’s bid to help the car industry during the financial crisis. [But Joolya’s policy isn’t about helping the car industry, because the Greens want everyone to give up cars and ride ethnic peace bicycles™, but to save the planet, of course.]

More than 500,000 drivers received rebates of up to $4,500 to upgrade their cars.

The scheme was so popular the government had to provide another $2 billion. (source)

Such a scheme here would be yet more money down the drain on pointless climate policies that could be better spent on, you know, education, health, roads, infrastructure – in fact anything else.

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Election 2010: Labor in self-destruct as polls slide

31 July, 2010 by

It’s all looking rather shaky for Labor this morning. Andrew Bolt summarises, but before we go to that, here’s Kevin O’Lemon Version 2 from the Liberals:

Over to Andrew:

A catastrophic result for Labor:

In a stunning reversal of fortunes for the Coalition after a disastrous week for the government, support for both the Prime Minister and Labor has plummeted; the Coalition now leads Labor on a two-party-preferred basis by 52 per cent to 48 per cent.

This represents a 6 percentage point two-party swing against the government since the last Herald poll a week ago, and a 4.7 point two-party swing against the government since the last election…

The poll shows Labor’s primary vote has gone into freefall, plunging six points in a week to 36 per cent while the Coalition’s primary vote rose four points to 45 per cent. The Greens remained steady at 12 per cent…

The 58 per cent to 42 per cent lead that Ms Gillard enjoyed over Mr Abbott among women voters only a week ago has disappeared and the female vote for Labor and the Coalition is now statistically even at 49-51.

This result also comes just two days after a Galaxy poll put the parties at 50-50.

The import of this poll does not just lie in its predictive value. The poll will also hurt Labor’s already floundering campaign for at least several dark days.

First, the pressure now on Julia Gillard has become colossal. She faces not just defeat but personal humiliation if she leads Labor to defeat just seven weeks after assassinating a prime minister who was once our most popular on record. She will feel real fear, but betraying a glimpse of that will fatally make her seem out of her depth and out of control – the very opposite of what she’s projected for the past three years.

Second, Gillard will have to change to a much riskier tactic for her. She has tried to sail through the campaign serenely and regally as the frontrunner, barely engaging with Tony Abbott, trying to seem as the calm, impeturbable and methodical Prime Minister that Rudd in fact never was. Now she has to attack Abbott, who has seemed more assertive and even Prime Ministerial by the day. Can she do it without seeming shrill and scared? Her few digs at Abbott in the debate – patronising him as “naive”, for instance – seemed dangerously unsuccessful to me. It’s a challenge for a woman in politics to be strong without seeming just a bitch,

Third, Tony Abbott now knows he need take fewer risks – and certainly not of the magnitude of his absurdly lavish parental leave scheme. His real work now is to seem genuine prime ministerial material, now that voters are cooling rapidly on Labor and Gillard again.

Fourth, Abbott will have a surge of confidence – and confidence is a very reassuring thing to see in a political leader, providing it comes across more as assuredness than cockiness.

Fifth, the results will finally kill off that absurdly exaggerated claim that Abbott has a “women problem”. Having his shy wife and his daughters appear with him seems to have helped.

Sixth, journalists have the meme for the next week – Labor’s stumbles.

Seventh, as Osama bin Laden said, people tend to follow the strong horse. If the Liberals look like winning, more businesses will dare donate to its fund, and more public servants will dare to leak it revelations about Labor. On the other side, the Labor leakers against Gillard will be joined by the blamethrowers, advice-givers and the desperate.The party could yet blow right open.

This past week could prove to be the one that lost it for Labor. This next week could confirm it, unless Labor finds something very special, or the Liberals manage some great pratfall.

Read it here.

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