"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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Election 2010: Half don't even know what an ETS is!

24 July, 2010 by

ETS? Never heard of it.

Yet oddly a majority of the population are still in favour of it (allegedly). Despite being a small poll, the number of people stopped in the street by Sydney’s Daily Telegraph who didn’t have a clue what an emissions trading scheme actually is was astonishing.

The Daily Telegraph yesterday surveyed 150 people in five Sydney suburbs and in the marginal seat of Robertson on the Central Coast, with the results showing Ms Gillard could have a lot of work ahead of her before she even gets consensus on what ETS means.

Just 73 of 150 voters knew what the letters ETS stood for, while only 53 of the 150 supported the introduction of an Emissions Trading Scheme.

Parramatta local Shaun Fernandez, 29, said he didn’t support an ETS because “it doesn’t seem like it will aid in the reduction of emissions”.

And almost half of 30 voters approached in Robertson – one of the most marginal seats in NSW – said they had never heard of the ETS concept. (source)

We’ve seen these kinds of results before. Despite all the government spin and advertising, and saturation media coverage and support, the general public have very little understanding of the ETS, and therefore the reality of what it will achieve (nothing) and at what cost (substantial). People tend to think that Australia should be “doing something” for the climate, because that’s the politically correct attitude to take (after all, who doesn’t want to “save the planet”?), but they have no comprehension of the fact that an ETS or any kind of carbon price in Australia will have no effect on the climate whatsoever, especially when China is installing new coal fired power stations with emissions equivalent to our entire annual CO2 output every few weeks. And that’s even assuming that microscopic changes in a harmless trace gas actually have a discernible effect on the climate over and above natural forces and noise.

They also do not understand the cost to our economy, and that the price of virtually everything, goods, services, you name it, will go up. And jobs will move offshore to countries, like China and India, that are more concerned about economic growth and raising their populations out of poverty than some liberal-elite ivory-tower urban “save the planet” crusade.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: ,

Election 2010: a vote for Labor is a vote for the Greens

21 July, 2010 by

Not fit for politics

That’s the inevitable result of the cosy little back-room deal for preferences struck by Labor and the Greens earlier this week.  The Greens will hold the balance of power in the Senate, meaning that no piece of legislation which does not have bipartisan support will get through without the Greens’ say so. The question that must be asked, therefore, is: what have Labor secretly agreed to in order to secure their support for government legislation? Who knows. The media obviously don’t care, but the people should care.

The Greens are an extremist, single-issue, far-Left environmental advocacy group that shouldn’t even be dignified by calling them a political party. Once they get their hands on the levers of power in the Senate, who knows what nonsense they will force Labor to enact – maybe interfering, meddling, nanny-state anti-Libertarian claptrap like this, or much worse: an ETS or carbon tax.

The Australian people should be afraid, very afraid.

And whilst we’re on the subject of extremist, single-issue, far-Left environmental advocacy groups, the WWF today proves that if you ask the right questions in a poll, you’ll get the right answers:

A new Galaxy poll of four marginal Queensland seats has found support for an emissions trading scheme (ETS) continues to grow.

The poll was commissioned by World Wildlife Fund Australia.

It found 74 per cent of respondents in the seats of Brisbane, Bowman, Petrie and Ryan say they are in favour of an ETS to reduce carbon pollution.

The figure is up 4 per cent from the previous poll conducted in June.

The survey also found 87 per cent of those who identified themselves as Labor voters want an ETS by next year. (source)

I am currently trying to source the question wording, and I’m sure we won’t be surprised when we see it.

UPDATE: Fair play to WWF for courteously providing the information requested. The primary question asked regarding the ETS was:

Overall, are you in favour or opposed to the introduction of an Emissions Trading Scheme to help reduce carbon pollution in Australia?

66% responded “in favour”. My gripe with this is the reference to “carbon pollution” rather than “carbon dioxide”. Any question that asks “do you want to reduce pollution” will predispose respondents to answer in the affirmative – I mean, who doesn’t want to reduce pollution? Unfortunately, the public do not understand enough about the real meaning of an ETS, and that’s thanks to a politically correct media. I wonder what the response would be if the question had been worded “are you in favour of an ETS to reduce the harmless trace gas carbon dioxide and which will increase your electricity bills by 50% and have no discernible effect on climate either locally or globally”?

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Abbott: no price on carbon [dioxide]

19 July, 2010 by

No ETS or carbon (dioxide) tax

Tony Abbott has confirmed that a Coalition government will not set a price on carbon [dioxide].

TONY Abbott has vowed any government he leads would never introduce a carbon price.

The Opposition Leader has hardened the Coalition position, preparing a campaign strategy to target Labor on the basis that it would drive up electricity prices.

He said that, even if the international community agreed on a carbon price, a government led by him would not necessarily back it. “I do not support the government going out there and making consumers pay a price on carbon,”Mr Abbott said.

Even if there was an international consensus position on a carbon price, a Coalition government would not necessarily fall into line, he said.

“Let’s cross that bridge . . . look, it’s not going to happen in the foreseeable future,” Mr Abbott said.

“One thing is for sure, if this government is re-elected there will be a carbon price.

“It will be a high one and it will impact on everyone’s standard of living.”

And then a Labor own goal from Penny Wong [who she?]:

Climate Change Minister Penny Wong said without putting a price and a limit on pollution, Mr Abbott had no way to meet the emissions reductions targets that he had signed up to.

“He should be upfront with the Australian people and admit that his policy is a con that will not do anything to reduce emissions,” Senator Wong said yesterday.

But unfortunately, that’s the Labor policy too, and Julia Gillard believes in man-made climate change.

Read it here.

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Gillard calls election – climate in "top three" policy areas

18 July, 2010 by

Dancing to the tune of the faceless factions

Refreshed thanks to a week away from the grinding moonbattery of climate alarmism, the news that Julia Gillard has called an election will focus people’s minds on climate again. The fact that the election is so soon after her “Night of the Long Knives” demonstrates, to this writer at least, that Gillard is running scared, knowing that if she leaves it any longer, her popularity will sink further and there’s less chance of a victory. She must think we’re stupid, frankly.

Anyway, the ABC reports that climate will be a “key election issue”, although having abandoned the ETS and any chance of a carbon tax, what does that mean, exactly?

Labor’s support dropped in the opinion polls earlier this year when it announced it was shelving the emissions trading scheme.

But Ms Gillard says she will unveil new policies during the campaign.

She also delivered a veiled swipe at Federal Opposition Leader Tony Abbott over the issue. [Because no Labor politician can say anything without having a veiled swipe at the Opposition. A sure sign that their own policies aren’t worth listening to.]

“What I can say very clearly and guarantee for you that as we announce those policies, my policies, they will be policies coming from a person who believes climate change is real, who believes it’s caused by human activity and who has never equivocated in that belief,” she said.

But Mr Abbott says the Government’s climate change policy will hurt Australians’ standard of living.

“The Coalition and only the Coalition has a clear policy to deal with it,” he said.

“Julia Gillard will talk to you about a carbon price, but she won’t actually establish how she’ll get it, what it will be and how much it’s going to raise the cost of everyday living.”

And the Greens think their time has come, holding the balance of power after a hung parliament. Please, please, please, people of Australia, don’t let that happen.

Read it here. Watch the Liberals’ puppet string advert here.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: , , ,

No ETS or carbon tax until at least 2013

9 July, 2010 by

Abbott is pulling the strings

Be thankful for small mercies, I guess. We have 2 1/2 years (at least) before a Labor government would consider introducing an ETS, and a carbon tax is off the menu. But the vested-interest green groups are desperate, needing continued climate alarmism to justify their own existence:

GREEN groups have demanded Labor introduce a carbon tax or ETS as Julia Gillard prepares to outline her plans to tackle climate change.

“We need to see the government commit to a detailed plan, which would see legislation introduced in the life of the next parliament to limit and put a price tag on pollution,” Climate Institute CEO John Connor said yesterday.

The Prime Minister specifically rejected a carbon tax on Wednesday night, telling ABC Television “the pricing of carbon I think is best done through a market-based mechanism –– that is the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme”.

But she confirmed her government would not move on the ETS during the life of the next parliament and instead stick to the timetable outlined by Kevin Rudd.

“I am holding to the decision that was announced by the government that we will review in 2012 the nature of the community consensus in Australia about the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, the progress internationally on pricing carbon and combating climate change, and we’ll make a decision then about the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme,” Ms Gillard said.

And the only option for Labor is spelt out by Greg Hunt:

“Julia Gillard has become the second Labor prime minister in four months to postpone the promise of an ETS indefinitely,” he said. “The only place for her to go now is to adopt parts of the opposition’s direct-action approach.”

Tony Abbott is running the climate policy from the Opposition (like he’s running the asylum seekers policy).

Read it here.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: ,

Climate madness: New Zealand begins ETS

1 July, 2010 by

Wave your economy goodbye

Token Gesture Alert as the government of New Zealand, unable to think straight thanks to years of green environmental propaganda, brings in its emissions trading scheme. New Zealand emits about 0.1% of global CO2. So even if New Zealand reduced its emissions to zero overnight, AND it were demonstrated that the climate sensitivity is large enough to notice (which it hasn’t been), it would make not the slightest bit of difference to the climate. Not only that, but I hardly think that China and India are going to look at New Zealand, and, wracked with guilt and remorse by the plucky little country’s valiant efforts to save the planet, stop their coal fired economies in their tracks. Not on your life. China and India are far too busy building their prosperity and lifting their populations out of poverty. It’s only wealthy countries can afford the luxury of pointless environmental gestures like this.

So the only result will be higher prices for poor Kiwis. Everything will cost more: electricity, petrol, groceries, consumer goods – everything – since everything (virtually) requires energy for its production or transportation. As the ABC reports:

New Zealanders are bracing for higher electricity and fuel prices with the introduction of an emissions trading scheme (ETS).

From today New Zealanders will pay around three cents a litre more for fuel.

Electricity bills are set to increase by up to 5 per cent as companies pass on the costs of buying carbon credits to consumers.

Environment minister Dr Nick Smith says New Zealand had to act because its greenhouse gas emissions have increased by 25 per cent over the past 20 years. [So from absolutely tiny, to slightly less absolutely tiny]

“It’s actually about New Zealand starting the path, starting the change to a less carbon intensive economy,” he said. (source)

Good luck with that. Just watch your industries move offshore, and your economy decline for no purpose whatsoever.

Climate madness.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: ,

Bullet dodged – Australian ETS was due to start today

1 July, 2010 by

Just like Neo (The Matrix)

Unlike other countries which have succumbed to emissions trading schemes, all of which:

  • have significantly damaged the host country’s economy;
  • have wasted precious resources that could have been spent on health, education, you name it;
  • are mired in fraud and carbon scams by organised crime gangs; and,
  • most importantly, will have no discernible effect on the climate,

Australia has, for the time being at least, been spared. Sky News tearfully mourns the ETS that wasn’t:

Australians were supposed to be waking up today to life under an emissions trading scheme.

But that birthday has been delayed by years, pleasing critics of the scheme and disappointing conservationists.

Former Labor leader Kevin Rudd said climate change was the great moral challenge of our time and promised to start an ETS on July 1.

The ETS would have forced up the price of dirty products like coal-fired power and gas and possibly petrol and beef to encourage people to use less. [Actually, it wouldn’t have forced them to use less, it would have forced them to pay more – big difference]

The scheme would also have allowed Australia to reduce greenhouse pollution. [No, it wouldn’t.] (source)

Good riddance, and let’s hope we never see it again.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With:

New Zealand's climate disaster

30 June, 2010 by

Climate disaster

I’m not talking about some disaster caused by climate change (because there haven’t been any), but an economic disaster caused by pointless efforts to “tackle climate change”. Not only is New Zealand’s ETS “beyond rescue”, but it also has a liability of up to $5bn under the Kyoto protocol for failing to meet emissions targets. Now $5bn is a truckload of money, which could have been far better spent on health, education, employment, infrastructure etc – in fact, anything rather than trying to change the planet’s climate:

The authors of The Carbon Challenge – Victoria University researcher and economist Geoff Bertram and climate-change analyst and researcher Simon Terry – also describe the Government’s current ETS as “technically obsolete” and “beyond rescue” as a sustainable framework for tackling climate change.

They say the scheme will not make any inroads into cutting New Zealand’s gross emissions levels.

On top of that, the ETS was so unfair in the way it distributed benefits to high emitters with political influence, while placing a regressive quasi-tax burden on households, that there was a risk it could undermine the public’s willingness to support a stronger regime in the future. [So I guess the news isn’t all bad.]

…

The authors say the bulk of the financial liabilities of several billion dollars arising from New Zealand exceeding its Kyoto Protocol target will fall on future taxpayers, making it a “massive intergenerational transfer of liability”.

“The ETS completely fails as a mechanism to make today’s polluters meet today’s emissions bill.”

The book says there is complacency in New Zealand that credits for storing carbon in forestry crops will save the country from having to seriously address reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.

But this year’s Budget had broken with the past by flagging the real cost of New Zealand’s 22 per cent overshoot of its Kyoto target. Depending on the price of carbon, it said the Kyoto liability could be as much as $5.7 billion.

That Budget reference officially scotched the myth that the Government did not face any financial effects under the protocol because it could rely on offsetting credits from plantation forests.

“The credits must be paid back when the trees are harvested in the 2020s.” The authors say using these credits to pay the Kyoto bill is like putting it “on the plastic” for the next generation to pay.

And Australia is heading straight down the same path.

Read it here. (h/t Andrew Bolt)

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: ,

Wong: Gillard wants carbon trading

29 June, 2010 by

Get back in the cave

Penny Wong has crawled out from the cave she’s been in since December to tell a climate conference that Julia Gillard wants a carbon trading scheme.

Some of the world’s leading climate change scientists have gathered on the Gold Coast to discuss how the world can best adapt to a warming world.

Climate Change Minister Senator Penny Wong welcomed almost 1000 delegates to the event, stressing the importance of the science behind the debate. [Ha, ha – my aching sides]

Senator Wong said the government would listen carefully to what the conference had to say.

“Julia Gillard has made clear her commitment to this issue, and her views about the need for a price on carbon,” she told reporters.

“The reason we don’t have a price on carbon is Tony Abbott tore down a leader (Malcolm Turnbull) and installed himself on the basis that he doesn’t believe climate change is real, and the Australian Greens voted with Mr Abbott. [You mean like faceless factional bosses tore down Kevin Rudd and installed Julia Gillard? The irony is clearly lost on Penny]

“All of us who understand the risks climate change poses to Australia and its future have a responsibility to work and build a consensus, which Tony Abbott torpedoed.”

Ahh, how I’ve missed Penny (not).

Read it here.

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