Last few days before Australian climate madness takes effect

29 June, 2012 by

The Australian economy…

On Sunday 1 July 2012, the Labor/Green government’s carbon tax of $23 per tonne will finally take effect in Australia.

We’ve heard all the usual spin from Greg Combet about how other countries are taking similar action and Australia must “catch up”. It’s all bullshit as anyone with half a brain could work out. Unfortunately, Combet and Gillard and their Green mates don’t have half a brain between them, so they can’t work it out. In any case, it’s all Green blackmail anyway, to keep Gillard in power.

Coming at a time when:

  • the European economy could collapse at any moment thanks to any number of bankrupt states teetering on the brink of default,
  • economic confidence in the US is low, and
  • our own resources-run economy is feeling the pinch from decreased demand from China (even ignoring the punishing mining tax),

to legislate what is essentially the world’s highest carbon tax, when European carbon prices have been falling like a stone, and now stand around $10, is pure climate madness – and what originally gave this blog its name back in 2008.

And of course, it will do NOTHING for the climate. Our emissions will actually rise. And China and India’s emissions will rise several orders of magnitude more than any notional reduction here in Australia for decades to come.

Gillard believes that when the tax comes into effect, people won’t notice and she can crow “See, it wasn’t so bad after all!” Some hope. Electricity prices are already set to rise 18 – 20% next year and the additional costs of paying the tax will inevitably be passed on to consumers (or suppliers, who will eventually pass it on to consumers anyway). Prices of virtually everything will rise despite the almost childishly simplistic refrain of “it’s only the top 500 polluters who pay”. Yes, and who pays them?

The cost of living here in Australia is going through the roof and the economy is already stagnant. Uncertainty about a second GFC is forcing Australian families all over the country to tighten their belts, slash discretionary spending and sit tight in their bunkers until the next election, which they hope will deliver a majority government capable of action.

Thanks to the carbon tax, the next 15 months will be even worse than that. I foresee the economy shrinking, retailers going under, businesses failing and unemployment rising. The housing market will shrink and families will be stuck in the negative equity trap. There can be no other outcome.

The so-called “green economy” is a myth. It survives on a life support system of generous government handouts. Withdraw the feeding tube and death rapidly follows. Only when such alternative energies become genuinely competitive will they be able to survive without government crutches. It is not the panacea that will see us through this crisis.

We can only hope that something forces an early election and this pointless and damaging tax can be removed as soon as possible thereafter. Otherwise, we’re stuck with it until at least the second half of 2013, by which time, the Australian economy may be too broken to be saved – and it may take generations of hard times foisted upon our, quote, “children and grandchildren” to restore it.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: , ,

Fellow Earthians: Greens' bizarre psyche revealed

29 March, 2012 by

Bunch of nut-jobs

We’ve always suspected that the Greens were a bunch of nut-jobs, since anyone who puts the environment above care for the human condition must have serious psychological issues.

But recently, their twisted and disturbed way of thinking was confirmed and laid bare by Greens leader Bob Brown, in a recent speech, which begins thus (and this is no joke – the link to the Greens website is here):

Fellow Earthians,

Never before has the Universe unfolded such a flower as our collective human intelligence, so far as we know.

Nor has such a one-and-only brilliance in the Universe stood at the brink of extinction, so far as we know.

We people of the Earth exist because our potential was there in the Big Bang, 13.7 billion years ago, as the Universe exploded into being.

So far, it seems like we are the lone thinkers in this vast, expanding Universe.

Exclude yourself from the “thinkers” by the way, Bob. He ponders why other civilisations haven’t contacted us. His conclusion: because they have all “extincted themselves”. He doesn’t consider the miriad other possibilities, for example, that even at the speed of light, information from the other side of the universe may take billions of years to reach us, or that electromagnetic signals from such vast distances (unless stellar in origin) are too weak to reach us.

Or that the time we are currently living in isn’t particularly special on a universal scale, so why out of 4.5 billion years since the beginning of the Solar System, the alien signals choose Bob Brown’s lifetime (0.0000014% of that timeframe) as the exact time to arrive.

No, clearly alien life forms have evolved, built SUVs and sent their home planets into climate death spirals – talk about a blinkered, geocentric view of the universe! For all the talk of the wonders of the universe, Bob’s comprehension of it extends no further than the here and now.

And for those of you who still believe that “climate change alarmism as a means to global government” is a conspiracy theory dreamed up by filthy deniers:

We need a strategy. We need action based on the reality that this is our own responsibility – everyone’s responsibility.

So democracy – ensuring that everyone is involved in deciding Earth’s future – is the key to success.  

For comprehensive Earth action, an all-of-the-Earth representative democracy is required. That is, a global parliament.

…

The concept of world democracy goes back centuries, but since 2007, there has been a new movement towards an elected, representative assembly at the United Nations, in parallel with the unelected, appointed, General Assembly. This elected assembly would have none of the General Assembly’s powers but would be an important step along the way to a future, popularly elected and agreeably empowered global assembly.

…

We Earthians can develop rosier prospects. We have been to the Moon. We have landed eyes and ears on Mars. We are discovering planets hundreds of light years close which are ripe for life. We are on a journey to endless wonder in the Cosmos and to realising our own remarkable potential. 

To give this vision security, we must get our own planet in order.

Anyone who continues to plug the conspiracy line – just look above. Brown doesn’t consider exactly the mechanics of how this would all work, but that’s irrelevant to Brown, who seems happy to abandon our own self-determination and hand over power to some remote global parliament. And if that’s still not clear enough for you:

So let us resolve that there should be established for the prevalence and happiness of humankind a representative assembly a global parliament for the people of the Earth based on the principle of one person one vote one value; and to enable this outcome that it should be a bicameral parliament with its house of review having equal representation elected from every nation. An Earth parliament for all. But what would be its commission? Here are four goals:

Economy. Equality. Ecology. Eternity.

Sorry, not global government but “earth parliament”. Away with the fairies, Bob.

And finally, if you think this was just Brown off on a frolic of his own, Christine Milne defends the speech in The Australian today, calling it “very inspiring”. Says it all, really.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: , ,

Idiotic Comment of the Day: Greens' Adam Bandt

20 March, 2012 by

Eco-wacko

Like all on the extreme environmental Left, Bandt inhabits a fantasy world where a country like Australia can simply stop using coal, like, today, and our entire economy will continue as normal, powered by, er, you know, solar and wind, right? Total f**kwit.

Mr Bandt said he was “stunned” to hear the state would potentially expand brown coal mining for both domestic use and export and vowed the Greens would try and block the move federally.

“The Premier, Ted Baillieu, is an environmental vandal and must be stopped,” the Melbourne MP told reporters in Canberra.

…

“It seems that the Government refuses to accept that coal causes climate change because if they accepted that they wouldn’t be taking this course of action,” he said. (source)

It’s good to see the Greens reminding everyone how disconnected they are from reality now and again. And also reminding voters that it is ecotards like him that are running the country, thanks to Julia’s grubby deal back in 2010.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: ,

Paul Sheehan unloads on the Green government

9 December, 2011 by

Running Australia

The fact that our present government is run by the Greens hasn’t escaped even the Sydney Morning Herald, as Paul Sheehan documents the Green takeover of the legislative agenda. The article will have the latte-sipping urban-green elite spraying their organic muesli over the breakfast table:

When the Australian people voted in last year’s federal election, most of them did not vote for the Greens nor did they endorse a Coalition government involving the Greens. But that’s what they got.

In the vote for the House of Representatives, where government is decided, 94 per cent of the adult population voted and 88 per cent of their collective primary vote went to parties other than the Greens. Yet in the ensuing 15 months all the big policy shifts by the Gillard government – none of which was put to the electorate – have been towards core policies of the Greens.

The Prime Minister said no to a carbon tax. We have a carbon tax. She said no to open borders. We have de facto open borders. She said no to gay marriage. Support for gay marriage is now Labor Party policy. She put off indefinitely any substance of an emissions trading scheme. The machinery for such a scheme has been legislated. She said little about giving trade unions sweeping new rights. The unions are now acting on sweeping new rights.

Yet another brick in the Green wall was put in place this week when Gillard and her cabinet made a mockery of the tender process, reversed itself again, and wasted millions of dollars again, giving the running of the Australia Network to the ABC, indefinitely.

The Greens, utterly wedded to big government, wanted this tax-funded Australian overseas TV network to be part of the ABC. The Greens will propose legislation seeking to make this happen next year.

It already has, effectively. The network will operate as part of the ABC despite losing the tender process to Sky News and despite the ABC’s dreadful 24-hour news network being grossly inferior to Sky News.

Read it all.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: ,

Labor values closer to Coalition than Greens

27 September, 2011 by

Extreme and out of touch

In yesterday’s post, “Who will Julia alienate next?“, I should have included Labor voters in the list of past examples, since her alliance with the Greens after the election betrayed her mainly centre-Left base to a bunch of extreme environmental whackos. New research supports the point, which is obviously a problem for Labor, given they are now completely dependent on appeasing the Greens in order to maintain a working majority:

THE core social values of Labor voters are far more closely aligned with Coalition supporters than Greens, a new social cohesion survey finds.

On a range of questions – such as valuing the “Australian way of life”, concern over immigration rates, the importance of migrants “blending in” and whether climate change is the nation’s most pressing problem – the response from Labor voters was more in sync with Coalition supporters than Greens.

Results from the Mapping Social Cohesion 2011 survey published today highlight the politically delicate nature of the Labor-Greens alliance in Canberra, as supporters of the two political parties value vastly different social policies.

Overall, the survey found the nation’s social cohesion in decline, with trust in government recording a sharp fall since 2009. More people report being discriminated against than two years ago, and volunteering declined from 38 per cent in 2009 to 31 per cent this year.

But it’s the differences between Greens and Labor supporters and similarities between backers of Labor and the Coalition that highlight the challenge faced by Julia Gillard and her ongoing ideological struggle to hold together minority government.

The report, written by Monash University researcher Andrew Markus, says “there is less differentiation between the attitudes of Liberal and Labor supporters than between Labor and Greens”.

“For example, 70 per cent of those who indicate that they would vote Liberal ‘strongly agree’ that it is important to maintain the ‘Australian way of life and culture’, compared with 62 per cent Labor and 26 per cent Greens,” it says.

“(And) 44 per cent of Liberal supporters ‘strongly agree’ that ‘in the long run’ in Australia ‘hard work brings a better life’ compared with 39 per cent Labor and 29 per cent Greens.”

The survey of 2000 people asked questions about culture and identity, including if it was better for the country if different racial or ethnic groups maintained their distinct customs or traditions or if they adapted and blended into the larger society. Seventy-two per cent of Coalition supporters believe it better to blend in, compared with 61 per cent of Labor supporters and 28 per cent of Greens supporters. (source)

Core Labor voters are becoming increasingly alienated by Labor’s lurch to the left on social issues. The reality is that the Greens’ extremism has no place in Australian politics and has no support within the vast majority of the Australian electorate. The sooner this Labor/Green alliance is defeated, the sooner the Greens will be relegated to the dustbin of history, where their policies and views belong.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: , ,

Greens aren't harmless tree-huggers, but closet communists

28 July, 2011 by

Closet communists

Miranda Devine on the danger posed by the Greens:

IN a serendipitous coincidence of timing, in the space of two hours this week, Australians were afforded a sharp, momentary insight into the two opposing ideological mindsets that are competing for the soul of our nation.

In a Sydney hotel on Monday night, Czech President Vaclav Klaus, an economist who fought against communism, was warning of the new threats to our freedom he recognises in the doctrine of global warming.

Almost simultaneously, in a Hobart casino, Greens senator Christine Milne was unilaterally announcing, on ABC-TV’s Q&A show, that the Government would be conducting an inquiry into the section of the Australian media that she finds “extreme(ly) bias(ed) against action on climate change”.

Milne’s every illiberal pronouncement was greeted with applause by an audience that seemed full of tree huggers, bearded public servants and other recipients of government largesse, about the only growth industry left in Tasmania.

Klaus, on the other hand, was speaking to an audience of economic liberals and climate change realists invited by the Institute of Public Affairs, the Melbourne-based free-market think tank.

“Twenty years ago we still felt threatened by the remnants of communism. This is really over,” Klaus said.

“I feel threatened now, not by global warming — I don’t see any — (but) by the global warming doctrine, which I consider a new dangerous attempt to control and mastermind my life and our lives, in the name of controlling the climate or temperature.”

Klaus, 70, who has twice been elected as Czech President and is its former prime minister, is one of the most important figures in post-communist Europe. His experiences under totalitarian rule have made him exquisitely alert to the erosion of democratic freedoms.

He said environmentalists had been arguing for decades that we should reduce our consumption of fossil fuels, using various farcical ploys from the exhaustion of natural resources to the threat of “imminent mass poverty and starvation for billions”.

Those same environmentalists shamelessly talk now about dangerous global warming.

“They don’t care about resources or poverty or pollution.

“They hate us, the humans. They consider us dangerous and sinful creatures who must be controlled by them.

“I used to live in a similar world called communism. And I know it led to the worst environmental damage the world has ever experienced.”

Read it here.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: ,

Greens want to control our media

27 July, 2011 by

Dangerous totalitarians

Australia, that former democratic state, is heading towards a totalitarian regime, or it will be if the Greens have anything to do with it. Now they are a party of government, they are suddenly surprised that not everyone shares the same extremist environmental (Marxist) aims, so their immediate reaction is to shut down dissent and control the message. And unfortunately, the News of the World hacking scandal in the UK has proved the ideal excuse.

Senator Milne:

“The Murdoch press has been running a very strong campaign against action on climate change.

“The bias is extreme, in The Australian in particular.

“You’ll see column inch after column inch of every climate sceptic in the country … You’ll find day after day a real attempt at regime change…

“And one of the useful things about the hacking scandal in the UK is that it will lead to an inquiry into the media in Australia.

“We are at least going to see some real discussion … around issues such as the level of ownership and dominance of the Murdoch press in several capital cities in Australia.

“We’ll also have a look at a range of other issues, including who are fit and proper people into whether we need that test into people to be running media outlets. It’s time we had a good inquiry and certainly bias is certainly going to be one of the things that’s certainly to be looked at.” (source)

Of course, this allegation of “bias” only goes one way. You don’t see Milne complaining about the ABC or Fairfax because they pander to the Green/Left agenda, and you never hear the Right making the same demands for “media control”. Next they will be demanding the right to censor the opinion pages to make sure only views consistent with the “regime” are published. Scared yet?

It’s called a free press and it’s a cornerstone of a free society. And the Greens can’t abide it. If Brown and Milne get their way, living in Australia will soon be like living in the Soviet Union.

With luck, this will appal all decent members of society, and will further alienate the government from the people.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: ,

Embarrassing: Gillard wanted direct action approach to climate

25 July, 2011 by

You won't be laughing...

In other words, Julia Gillard wanted to pursue a policy very similar to that presently advocated by, er, the Coalition. Oops.

It’s common knowledge that Gillard opposed the ETS being pushed by Kevin Rudd in 2009, and now it has been revealed that she encouraged alternatives to a carbon [dioxide] price, which can only realistically mean some kind of direct action policy.

It’s also common knowledge that the carbon dioxide price is the Greens’ policy, but even so, the revelation that she favoured an approach other than a carbon dioxide price is deeply embarrassing for Labor and Gillard, desperate to force through a carbon tax without a mandate and in the face of huge public opposition:

JULIA Gillard faces new pressure over her climate change convictions as Tony Abbott seized on a report revealing she previously pushed for a bipartisan approach that didn’t involve a carbon tax or an emissions trading scheme.

Mr Abbott today questioned what Ms Gillard stood for, saying her post-election carbon tax plan had been dictated by the Greens.

“What that shows is that the Prime Minister’s attacks on our policy aren’t genuine,” Mr Abbott told ABC radio today.

“It demonstrates that the policy that the government is currently adopting is Bob Brown’s policy. Not Julia Gillard’s policy.”

The Australian Financial Review reports that Ms Gillard, as deputy prime minister, had encouraged the Rudd government’s “kitchen cabinet” to shelve plans for a carbon price in favour of other alternatives.

The revelation is extremely damaging for Ms Gillard, who with Treasurer Wayne Swan urged Kevin Rudd to dump his emissions trading scheme.

A spokesman for the Prime Minister today said the government did not comment on cabinet processes, but did not refute the story.

Mr Abbott said it now appeared Ms Gillard had backed the Coalition’s direct action policy.

“No-one can take her seriously,” he said.

“The nearest we get to ‘real Julia’ when it comes to climate change policy is the note that she gave to the inner cabinet just before she became prime minister herself where she said what the government should do is embrace the kind of policy the Coalition’s got.” (source)

Like Combet and the rest of her government, they have been blackmailed by the Greens to take urgent action on climate change, in direct opposition to Gillard’s previous position.

So when Gillard says “It’s the right thing to do”, she says that with a loaded gun to her head, wielded by Bob Brown and Christine Milne.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: , , , ,

Arrogant Combet to plough on with carbon tax

24 July, 2011 by

Contempt for the electorate

Poor Greg. He’s got no choice of course. Blackmailed by the Greens into taking urgent action on climate change (thanks Adam Bandt for that bit of intelligence), Labor has the unenviable choice of either:

(a) abandoning the most unpopular tax in Australian history quickly, losing the Greens’ support in parliament, thereby precipitating an early election… which they will inevitably lose; or,

(b) forcing through the most unpopular tax in Australian history, and then having to survive until the next election… which they will, er, inevitably lose.

They’ve plumped for the second option and you have to admit Combet is playing the part well, with plenty of huff, puff and bluster and swagger (none of which he probably believes himself), and in the process managing to alienate even more of the electorate – if that were possible – with his play-acted arrogance and conceit:

Climate Change Minister Greg Combet has lashed out over criticisms at how long it’s taking the public to warm to the carbon tax.

It’s two weeks since the federal government released the long-awaited details of its carbon price, and the polls are still indicating a lukewarm response. [“Lukewarm”? More like freezing your nuts off – Ed]

Asked if the government will be forced to rework the tax or consider alternatives if support doesn’t pick up, Mr Combet gave an exasperated response.

“Give us a break will you, God, this is such rubbish,” he told Network Ten on Sunday. [Does he mean the tax or the question? – Ed]

“The detail (of the carbon price) has been out for two weeks. There has been months of deceitful, misrepresentative campaigning by (Opposition Leader) Tony Abbott, supported by some others.” [Which is of course nothing compared to the deceitful, misrepresentative campaigning by the Government on the carbon tax – see the Eight Lies – Ed]

He insisted the government won’t waver on its plan to price carbon at $23 a tonne starting July 1, 2012.

“The government is going to stick to its guns here.

“We will continue to explain this to people, in particular that the price impacts are modest.”

As always, they think that the public is plain stupid, and just by explaining it more they will learn to love the tax. But they won’t. You can’t polish a turd. And the carbon tax is a turd alright…

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: , , ,

Gary Johns dumps on the Greens

7 July, 2011 by

Anti-human

If you lie down with dogs, you will get up with fleas, so the saying goes. Which is exactly what will happen to Labor in their cosy agreement with the Greens. Former Labor MP Gary Johns launches a stinging attack on Labor’s alliance party, ridiculing their claim that they would eventually usurp Labor:

The Greens, by contrast, will never defend humanity against nature. Brown regards humans as tellurians, inhabitants of the earth, along with plants and animals. The Greens care little for our most important gift, our intelligence, or for our most important human achievements, such as our families and our nations. On these grounds, the Greens can never be a mainstream party.

Picture Brown’s address to (his recently mooted) United Nations of all People. “Tellurians of the world unite!” He gets no further because a Chinese guard drags him off stage as a dangerous environmentalist and gay activist.

Bob, in the parliament of the world, China has the numbers.

The Greens will consume the good upbringing that family brings, the immense wealth, health and comfort that human ingenuity brings, and the political stability that nation states bring, but they will never defend them.

They may support wind, wave and solar technologies, but when tough decisions have to be made about more people and the energy and resources they will require, the Greens always duck for cover and wish there were fewer people.

Brown rails that Australia’s uranium may “turn up as deadly radioactive materials in Japanese fish and lettuce” and that “80,000 people have been evacuated from [Brown’s demented construct] the Fukushima-Australia uranium contamination zone”. He seems to forget that 10,000 people were killed by nature, none so far by the human-created radioactivity.

The Greens are always against war, but some wars are necessary. When push comes to shove the Greens will never defend democracy against fascism or communism, Islamism, or indeed a resource-hungry foe. They will never make the required investment in defence. Theirs is an undergraduate debate about “guns or butter”.

The Greens delight in the threat of global warming. They delight in stopping the genius of capitalist economic development in the service of humanity. In the face of environmental threats they retreat and hope they can turn off the machine.

…

Labor toys with population policy, it toys with gay marriage, it toys with euthanasia and it toys with animal rights. But if, at the margin, there is a choice to be made between people and nature, it will, if it knows what is good for it, remain wedded to a human conception of history.

If it wanders down an anti-humanist path in search of green votes it risks its major-party status. Be wary, comrades: environment in the service of humanity, yes; the rest of the Greens’ anti-humanist agenda, never. (source)

 

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With:
«Previous Page
Next Page»
%d bloggers like this: