Tassie’s tied up in it…

The Australian state of Tasmania is a wonderful example of what happens when you let the Greens get a grip on the levers of government. Unemployment spiralling upwards, and the economy spiralling downwards.

So what better way to make sure that Tassie disappears completely down the gurgler than to tie it up in yet more Green tape. That’ll fix it!

The Tasmanian Government has released a climate change strategy aimed at 100 percent renewable power usage by 2020.

The Climate Smart Tasmania plan includes energy reduction targets across government, land use, infrastructure, transport and waste systems.

The Climate Change Minister, Cassy O’Connor, says its the most comprehensive plan by any Australian Government to reduce carbon emissions as well as adapt to a changing climate.

The strategy sets a new interim 2020 target to reduce carbon emissions to 35 percent below 1990 levels.

Ms O’Connor says its about showing leadership on climate change.

“We now have in Australia a climate denialist Government that is taking us backwards on climate change” she said. [Thank f*ck for that – Ed]

“Tasmania here has extraordinary advantages with our Hydro power, with the carbon in our forests and we do need to show leadership; it’s also the economically sensible thing to do.” (source)

The Tasmanian climate change minister, Cassy O’Connor, must be smoking something pretty strong to write this with a straight face:

Climate change is the biggest challenge we have ever faced. After many decades of scientific evidence that the world is warming, governments and communities around the world are now taking action.

The Tasmanian Government, through this Strategy, has committed to take State-based action to address the climate issues affecting our State, to build on our low-carbon advantage and to ensure we meet our fair share of the global emissions reduction effort. While Tasmania’s emissions represent only 1.3 per cent of Australia’s national total, we still have higher per capita emissions than Germany, the United Kingdom, China, Brazil and India. We are also noticing the impacts of climate change, such as higher average temperatures and more intense extreme events such as bushfires.

Let’s just do the math here: 1.3% of 1.5% (Australia’s emissions as a percentage of the global total) is less than one fiftieth of one whole percent. But the government is prepared to sacrifice jobs, standards of living, the economy, to make an utterly pointless gesture?

If you don’t believe it (which I didn’t at first), you can read about the miles and miles of Green tape here (PDF – 2.8MB).

Climate Madness.