A long fisking of a stupid Parlimentarian

I caught Christine Milne (Greens Tasmania) on ABC news radio yesterday  on Thursday during the opening speeches about the minerals taxation bill.

The sheer “did she just say that” stupidity was breathtaking… That she hasnt been pilloried in the press for it speaks volumes about the poor state of political reporting in Australia today.

So Im going to fisk it a little, its a loooong speech, so it will take quite a while, her speech will be plain text, my observations will be bold.

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT (Senator Crossin):

Order! The Senate is considering the minerals resource rent tax legislation as a package.

Senator MILNE

(Tasmania—Deputy Leader of the Australian Greens) (19:30):

I rise tonight to discuss what sort of future we aspire to have in this country, because, whilst the specific is the Minerals Resource Rent Tax Bill 2011 and associated legislation, the context in which we are debating this tax is what sort of vision do we have for Australia in the next 20, 30 or 50 years. How you raise the money and where you spend it will determine that kind of country, because the future is actually an extension of the present and it is shaped by the decisions and actions we make.

Here Christine is using her amazing intellect to tell us time is linear, and actions have consequences… probably the highest point of her speech

More, oh so much more.. under the fold

Modern Australian education

Just received this bit of coursework from a mates son in year 8 school, Ive removed the names but its first hand, not one of the usual “internet memes” that you get 45th hand.

A year 8 English poem!!!   Bought home by ****** for an assignment. Opinions please!!

 

TIME IS RUNNING OUT
The miner rapes
The heart of earth
With his violent spade.
Stealing, bottling her black blood
For the sake of greedy trade.
On his metal throne of destruction,
He labours away with a will,
Piling the mountainous minerals high
With giant tool and iron drill.

 

The face of evil?

In his greedy lust for power,
He destroys old nature’s will.
For the sake of the filthy dollar,
He dirties the nest he builds.
Well he knows that violence
Of his destructive kind
Will be violently written
Upon the sands of time.

 

A pristine peoples nest, before the miners move in?

But time is running out
And time is close at hand,
For the Dreamtime folk are massing
To defend their timeless land.
Come gentle black man
Show your strength;
Time to take a stand.
Make the violent miner feel
Your violent
Love of land.
Oodgeroo Noonuccal.

My opinion?

What a heap of steaming greenie shit wrapped up in a “poor blackfellah me” story to try and give it respectability. The lady that wrote it was a Communist, and the name it was written under was her original one  Kath Walker, but plain old Kath Walker wouldnt sound mystical enough for the education department would it?

 

This type of bullshit propaganda completely ignores any of the massive plus sides of a modern manufactured life. Pencils, air con, computers, coal for electricity, steel, all used to improve the lives of millions of Australians.

Ignored for some mystical greenie gibberish which makes a fetish of a stone age way of life.

Forest rescue, brains of mush…

For those who came in late..

Forest rescue is yet another of those tedious self anointed savers of the world. In there world every form of industry and progress is bad and must be stopped, usually by pooling their dole payments and weed and strapping themselves to bits of machinery.

Unfortunately said machinery is not generally allowed to be switched on as long as they are strapped to it.

Recently 3 tools boarded a Japanese whaling vessel in an attempt to cause maximum drama.. The Japs havent played ball and offloaded them to an Australian customs vessel and they returned to Australian soil today.

Yes thats "captain" Watson visiting the ferals at their camp site. Wonder if they entered into a conspiracy to break the law while they were there?

 I thought Id have a look at their website to see if they received any corporate funding, apparently they dont… A rather non-transparent organisation when it comes to funds.

But I hit the mother lode when I had a look at the poems/drawings section on the website. A psychologist would have a field day analysing this stream of bong-smoke drivel.

All glory to the Hypnotoad.....

 

A second one for your viewing …pleasure… 

Abscence of organised religion isnt the same as non-religious.

There is a heap more at the site, including a lot that focuses on the twin themes of smoking dope and getting laid. The other major theme is hatred of anyone not them…

Congrats to ‘Watts Up With That’ – 100,000,000 Page Views and Counting…

W00T to WUWT on their “small milestone”, reached sometime this morning (8am-ish January 7th US Pacific time; the wee hours of the 8th Aussie time).

So wander over, offer your congratulations and thanks to Anthony Watts for his tireless efforts to bring some sanity – and SCIENCE – back to the discussion of nature, weather, technology and global warming climate change, check out Christopher Monckton’s guest post Hurrah for 8 orders of magnitude! and make sure to have a browse through some of the WUWT classics reposted here.

As Tim Blair noted in his recent post PEAK LOVE, “Climate panic is in decline…”  And though the self-inflicted damage of the content of the Climategate emails and many of the stupid hyperbole-ridden ham-handed advertising and “awareness” campaigns by the Warmies themselves (and their Love Media enablers) are partly to credit for the loss of credibility of the Catastrophic Man-Made Global Warming’s Gonna Kill Us All®  movement, much credit must really go to the big guns of the bloggy “Deniosphere” such as Anthony Watts, Andrew Bolt, James Delingpole and our own Blogfather Tim Blair.

“Ha ha Warmist losers. For you the war is over.”

PAUL EHRLICH, still wrong after all these years.

For some obscure reason an Australian University was playing host to Paul Ehrlich this week, and apparently his lecture wasnt titled “I was wrong, boy wasnt that silly”. No instead hes jumped both feet first on the Global warming bandwagon and milking it for all hes worth.

 

Mr Ehrlich at his day job

 

As a serial wrongist of long standing I felt it might be worth a gentle layman’s Fisk of his radio interview.

ELEANOR HALL: The United Nations says the world’s population will reach 7 billion some time today, though it concedes the date is symbolic and its calculations could be out by six months in either direction.

The UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon says reaching the 7 billion mark is an opportunity for progress.

But Professor of Population Studies at Stanford University and author of the controversial book, The Population Bomb, Dr Paul Ehrlich, says the milestone is no cause for celebration:

PAUL EHRLICH: I think it’s cause for a lot of alarm and so does every scientist I know.

(Every scientist he knows, careful parsing of the phrase there Paul)

You have got to face it, we still have close to 3 billion people living in poverty, almost a billion hungry. We are wrecking our environment, we are changing the climate, we are toxifying the planet from pole to pole and the worst thing is that nobody is doing anything about it.

(Heres an article from a poverty fighting website, in fact things are getting better on an absolute level, in pretty well every area mentioned,

• 25 years ago in China, over 600M people were living on < $1/day. Today this number is 180M … meaning 420M+ people are now above this level.
• Between 1999 and 2004, 135M people worldwide rose from < $1/day to above this level. This is more people, more quickly than at any other time in history.
• In South Asia, the number of people without clean water has halved since 1990.
• In 1975, 75% of people aged 15-25 were literate. Now the rate is almost 90%.
• In 1970, the fertility rate in East Asia/Pacific was 5.4 and now is 2.1 In South Asia, it was 60 and now is 3.1. Overall, global fertility has fallen from 4.8 to 2.6 in 25 years. Africa has all but one of the countries with fertility rates above 5.0.
• A World Bank study noted that every 1% increase in national income her person in an emerging country translated in 1.3% fall in extreme poverty.
• In 2007, the global economy entered its fifth year of over 4% growth — the longest period of expansion since the 1970′s. Also, trade grew 9% despite all of the challenges.
• Almost half of all humans lives in countries with growth of more than 7% per year (which doubles the economy every decade).
• Inequality has risen in both rich and poor countries overall, but there are examples where this is not true questioning whether globalization is the main culprit of inequality. The Economist argues that lack of [quality] education is likely the biggest culprit.
• In 1990, more than 25% of people in developing countries lived on < $1/day. At current rates, this will be 10% by 2015.
• Income is not the only way to quantify improvement for the poor. Monetary measures understate the real gains from things such as lower child mortality, safer water, literacy and other social achievements.
• A study shows that the number of conflicts (international and civil) fell from over 50 at the start of the 1990′s to just over 30 in 2005. The number of international wars peaked in the 1970′s and have been falling ever since. The death toll in battle fell from over 200,000 a year in the mid-1990′s to below 20,000 in the mid-2000′s. [The WHO has higher numbers.]
• The number of incidents of terrorism has increased since 2001 although the number is still very small.

 

Much, much more paul slapping under the fold.

Or you could just watch this little video from

The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement

Looks like Im taking a holiday.. of sorts

Looks like holiday time for the mole commencing on about the 17th of August.

Why you ask?

Im offering my services as a paramedic on this little expedition, “The convoy of no Confidence”, being organised by the National Road Freighters Association. The bloke I talked to was happy to hear from me, so it looks like Im going.

 

It will cost me a couple of grand, put business on hold for a fortnight or so, but should be a bucket load of fun. Who knows, maybe we can force the government into a backdown or re-election?

 

Ill take a few happy snaps along the way as well, its good to see the organisers are thinking of safety, they are still after paramedics, so if you know any ambos or minesite medics that might be interested let them know.

It started out as 1 convoy, now it looks like it will be 7-8 of the things leaving from all over Australia. According to the organiser I spoke to there may be up to 200 farmers from the mid-west region going. If there are similar figures all over Australia it may be the single biggest demo Canberra has ever seen.

Its open to anyone to go not just truckies, people will have to be fairly self sufficient (fuel/water/food) and allow the trucks to lead the way.

A few others have picked up on this

Menzies house

Bolt

Abc???? nothing….

 

More convoy routes/details under the fold

 

Thug tactics or prudent behaviour?

I was struck by this article over on the ABC, at face value possibly prudent regulatory behaviour, given the Labour parties “whatever it takes” philosophy on politics possibly sinister.

 

ACCC flying squad to combat carbon rorts

Sounds ok, a specialist squad to catch those trading in fraudulent carbon allocations eh? Such as the EU has been plagued with..

 

Not quite…

The $12.8 million Australian Consumer and Competition Commission team will be tasked with dealing with false and misleading claims and price rises that businesses blame on the new tax.

More like a political weapon to keep companies from passing on the full cost of the carbon plan immediately.

The laws specify fines of up to $1.1 million per contravention, and the ACCC will use them to prosecute carbon price rorters.

The original penalties were in place to catch misleading or false advertising, they now encompass the possibility of fraudulent passing on of costs. This seems a massive expansion of the scope of the ACCCs’ powers.

Treasurer Wayne Swan says the consumer laws are the “toughest Australia has had for 100 years”.

“I believe the vast majority of business will do the right thing, but for those businesses that don’t do the right thing they will feel the full force of the law and heavy fines,” he told reporters.

Mr Swan says the ACCC “will be as active as possible” when the carbon price is introduced on July 1 next year.

“The ACCC will be the cop on the beat out there to ensure that those that meet these false claims are dealt with and dealt with  with the full force of the law.”

Competition Policy parliamentary secretary David Bradbury (another career lawyer/politician)urged consumers to dob in businesses that increase prices as a result of the carbon price.

“We’ve allocated $12.8 million over four years to the ACCC and will establish a dedicated team of more than 20 staff,” he said.

“Their activities will be directed towards enforcement and education of businesses and consumers.”

Mr Swan says the prices passed on as a result of the carbon price should be very small.

This is, to my mind, a thuggish way of pressuring businesses not to step out of line or face punishment.

Say hello to my liddle friend..

Mr Swan says the prices passed on as a result of the carbon price should be very small.

He says the carbon price will impact on the inflation rate by 0.7 per cent when the scheme is introduced.

“It is a price that applies to the 500 largest polluters,” Mr Swan said.

“It is not a tax on households as is claimed by many but it will have a small price impact in the supply chain and that is why we have put in place assistance for households to ensure they can meet those price impacts.”

Crap Swan, its a tax on energy production, pure and simple. The more energy you or the goods you obtain (as long as they are Australian made) “cost” to make the more money it will cost you.

Just because the Sunbeam factory doesnt produce its own power, doesnt mean it hasnt got increased costs for any of its Australian made products. But that’s ok, because we can import cheaper products from China, which doesnt raise a tariff wall against its own products.

 

Australia is effectively raising a tariff wall against Australian made products.

Best Australian Ad of the Year So Far: TradeTools Doesn’t {Heart} Julia

I love this ad.  I would marry this ad.  Hell, I would gay marry this ad.

PDF of actual ad from yesterday’s Sunday Mail at link; text of the prize rant below for clarity:

Why isnt this man a greens candidate?

I was perusing the ABC site when I came across this news item on the cattle trade being reopened, and how some in the Labour party were unhappy with that.

Kelvin Thomson is one of the nine backbenchers who have expressed concern about the announcement, demanding a “no stun, no deal” policy.

He says the main problem is that the international guidelines do not ensure cattle are stunned before they are killed.

 

I thought Id have a look at Mr Thomson and his background.

My conclusion… the mans a loon.

From his own Bio:

 

Kelvin Thomson is a tireless campaigner for population stabilisation, for action on climate change, and for the protection of Australia’s beautiful and fragile environment.

Hmm, population stabilisation… what could that mean?

Well it appears Mr Thomson was author of  “Kelvin Thomsons 14 point plan for population reform” a rather creepy document.

Much more under the fold

 

Fight the GetUp! campaign against Australian businesses [Update]

I received this email from CANdo – the Conservative Action Network – today and thought it was worth passing on.  It’s time for us to have a go at fighting back against the bully-boy tactics of the Greens/union-funded astroturfers from GetUp!.  They may have had a win in getting clubs like the Broncos to cancel Chris Monckton’s speech at the last second, but the lifting of the ban on our live cattle export industry shows that if enough ordinary people get motivated to make their concerns known, true grass-roots movements can be just as effective.

Anyway, have a read and pass it on.  Also, think about joining Australia’s Conservative Action Network. They won’t swamp you with emails, only contacting you when there’s real action needing to be taken, and once you’re a member how much or how little you do is completely up to you.  Hey, as our Mole has found out, taking action can be fun!

Plus! Haven’t you really always wanted to be able to add “Community Organiser: VRWC Division” to your CV?  😉

♦

A message to all members of CANdo

Dear CANdo members

There has been a disturbing development in the carbon tax debate, led by left-wing activist group GetUp!

GetUp! is engaging in a campaign to blackmail businesses into dropping their public opposition to the proposed carbon tax. To blackmail legitimate businesses that are doing nothing more than exercising their freedom of speech is simply unacceptable.

The letter sent by GetUp! is available here for you to read.

What CANyoudo:

1. Contact your local talkback radio stations and let them know how disgusted you are by this latest scare campaign
2. Write a letter to your local paper to make people in your area aware of this atrocity
3. If GetUp! does indeed publish a list of businesses that it is boycotting (we’ll let you know if they do) go along to those businesses in your area and support them.

Australian businesses do not deserve to be intimidated by Labor-Greens front groups like GetUp!

Visit CANdo at: http://network.conservative.org.au/?xg_source=msg_mes_network

♦

As soon as we get word of the businesses GetUp! plans to target, I’ll post them here and we can go to work letting these businesses know (as several of us did with Max Brenner) that they have our support.

And seriously – read the GetUp! letter, especially the questions they’re demanding that businesses answer.  McCarthy had nothin’ on these people.

UPDATE:  More on this GetUp! boycott at the Australian – CLICK.  (via James)

UPDATE II: Bolt goes with the McCarty analogy as well – “The New Warming McCarthyists” – and makes a good point about their claim to as many as 570,000 “members”:

It’s time more people realised the GetUp’s power is wildly overstated. Those more than 400,000 members it boasts [EDIT: The boycott letter actually claims 570,000 members] are just names on petitions. Fewer than 18,000 people have actually sent it money – less than $100 each on average.

Update III:  Quadrant, March 2011 – Inside GetUp and the New Youth Politics 

 In its most recently published annual report for 2008-09, the total number of individual donors was just 17,295 with an average donation of $96.78.

Since most of the donated money came from big unions, the actual amount given by individual members must have been very small.

UPDATE IV:  Via CANdo, The Galileo Movement and Menzies House comes this plea – URGENT: Help Us Stop GetUp!’s Blackmail.  It appears that the AFGC are really feeling the heat – the CEO reports that their members are feeling “intimidated” – and they need to hear that they do have support out here.  Click over to MenziesHouse for details.

 

 

Environmental activists “too polite and well behaved”; urged to “get tough”

You know what the Warmy activists’ problem is? They’ve just been too gosh darned polite & well-behaved so far. Really.

“Have we failed to slow global warming pollution in part because climate and environmental activists have been too polite and well behaved?”

Via climatenonconformist, Steve Goddard take a look at a Rolling Stone article which announces that “It’s time for climate activists to get tough.”   Because you can’t slow global warming pollution [global warming pollution??] without breaking a few eggs!

“Is it time to take to the streets, express some outrage, maybe engage in a little guerilla [sic] warfare against Big Oil and Big Coal?”

It’s not violent extremism if you’re on a mission from God Gaia.

Plus, bonus Crazy Eyes!

“In the letter by Bill McKibben, he is asking protestors “to do something hard,” which is to come to Washington ”in the hottest and stickiest weeks of the summer and engaging in civil disobedience that will quite possibly get you arrested.” ”

Yeees, Biiill.

Now here’s a thought:  What would the reaction be if those of us who don’t believe that there’s enough scientific evidence to claim that man’s CO2 emissions are heating the world to hell, and don’t believe that the government can control the world’s climate through “carbon tax” or “cap and trade” schemes, were to propose engaging in “a little guerrilla warfare” against the government and academic institutions which are threatening our economy, our jobs, our quality of life, and our childrens’ futures with their various expensive but futile plans to “stop catastrophic man-made global warming”?

We were already tagged as “extremists” (and worse) simply for holding a peaceful rally in opposition to the carbon tax.  What if we were to promise to stop being so polite and well behaved and engage instead in a little guerrilla warfare*?

Happily, that’s not our way.  But it’s evident that as their CAGW scam continues to fall apart before their very eyes, the Warmies are getting more and more frantic and more and more militant.  I just hope this doesn’t get real ugly before it’s all over.

*That was not a “death threat,” Warmies.  No need to evacuate to your secure bunkers.

Our Langolier government

Most of you probably remember the book and/or movie, The Langoliers. Those little creatures would gobble up, or destroy if you will, everything – matter, space, time – they came across.

In a sense, the Gillard (and previously, Rudd) government has many similarities. Everything her Langolier eyes set themselves upon, they destroy.

The list is unbelievable.

Read the rest of this entry

One for the Sheeple

As at July 1st 2011, the Australian Greens took the balance of power in the Senate.  Thank you, whoever voted for them – we owe you one!

The Ultimate Absolute Complete and Utterly Final Global Warming Poem

KITTENS CRYING, people.

KITTENS CRYING!

»» A must-see by TimT – he who will type for food.  H/T Blair.

UPDATE:  TimT needs to talk Debbie from eHarmony into doing a dramatic reading of his fine pome.  I would pay money to see that.

Green deceivers

The latest Green commercial states that “storms are more extreme and more frequent”.

This is flat out wrong. In fact, the opposite is true.

Yes. Storm frequency and intensity has actually gone down the past 30 years. Here’s data collected by Dr. Ryan Maue Ph.D at Florida State University.

Continue reading this entry

Brown Town [Video]

BROWN TOWN:  Ray Hadley reworks a Petula Clark classic in honour of Greens leader Bob Brown; @s_dog takes the liberty of putting some pictures to the song and uploading it to YouTube:

(Please feel free to pass it on – the URL for the video is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IM73CRgUPiY )

UPDATE:  Thanks, Bolta!  Link: A Lesson for Brown 

UPDATE II:  Critics.  Sigh.  “Brown Town” song parody proves right-wingers have no sense of humour

UPDATE III: Thanks to Menzies House for reposting; also GregoryNo6, Iain Hall, James Board, Mags 

UPDATE IV:  More linkers – thanks!  Quadrant Online, Blazing Cat Fur, Stop Gillard’s Carbon Tax, ASX Guru, DontCopIt, and thanks to Mark Sharma and the other ‘Aussies on the Right’ on Twitter for passing it around… (if I’ve missed any, let me know)  Also, @Western_Patriot just let me know that Ray Hadley mentioned my clip on @2GB873 this morning and it got positive feedback – I’ll post a podcast link when it’s up.

Is this the radio interview that cost Julia government?

UPDATE at the bottom 29/6/11

Caught part of this interview driving around work today.

Its devastating.

Nice place, shame if anything were to happen to it.... Guv'ner

Heres the only bit of transcript up now.

The live cattle export ban to Indonesia is the last straw for one of the Territory’s well known cattle families.Bullo River Station, located 800 kilometres south west of Darwin, has been put on the market.The 160,000-hectare property is well known as the home of the late author and cattle queen Sara Henderson.But her daughter Marlee Ranacher says with no income since late last year, the business is no longer viable.”It was a progression of things that led to it.”Last year there was a weight and class restriction set by the Indonesia Government… following a very very long record Wet season.”Then just as we were about to send some cattle off, with 24 hours notice, the entire industry was shut down.”I mean, most people get more notice when they lose a job, don’t they?”How exactly are we going to buy the diesel fuel that pumps water for the cattle?”Where do they go? Who feeds them? It’s really really hard.”

Heres a link to the interview.

http://blogs.abc.net.au/files/marlee-ranacher.mp3

She pins the blame squarely on Julia Gillard, and makes a couple of extremely interesting points.

1: The ban is hitting at the critical time of the year for northern producers. Unless stock leave for feedlots now they will be trapped by the wet season. So even if Julia announces a “solution” in a months time there will be no way of shipping them off.

2: The ABC has colluded with animal rights groups to time this quite deliberately. She makes the claim the ABC has been sitting on the footage since January. I will send a query to 4 corners on this but dont expect an answer.

3: The land will be overstocked massively soon. There will be 2 seasons worth of cattle on the same land.

4: The excess cattle are unsaleable due to the 350kg weight limit on cattle. What will happen?

5: A whole seasons cattle will have to be shot.

I can’t emphasise enough listen to this interview, if you are strapped for time just listen to the last 1/2.

Its heartbreaking, Gillard and her green/4 corners mates should be pilloried for this, the deliberate destruction of a whole industry. Thousands out of work directly, and many, many more businesses ruined, truckies, helicopter musterers, feed lot owners. All ruined. Once that infrastructure is gone it will take decades to get back…. or Julia could declare it a national park… Just for Bob.

If you dont choke up hearing her say “we have to shoot them”… well you must be a greenie.

 

UPDATE: Bob Brown has announced his paries plans to completely stop ALL live exports.

From His speech to the national press club:

• Rachel Siewert’s Live Animal Export (Slaughter) Prohibition Bill would stop the export of live animals for slaughter now – not in three years as in the Xenophon-Wilkie bill. Export of live animals too often ends up in cruelty and it also ships Australian jobs and profits off-shore;

Labor and Green comment-bombing on the rise? You’re not imagining it. And yet…

The Greens had “Shock & Awe”…

The Greens have launched another strike against the media, calling for volunteers for a rapid-response team to target “shock jock” and “hate campaigns” through talkback and letters to editors.

The call to action echoes Bob Brown’s attack on the “hate press” last week and Twitter jibes at individual journalists from his director of media, Marion Rae.

“The Australian Greens are looking to build a national network of individuals who want to take up the challenge of responding to the misinformation and hate campaigns being waged by radio shock jocks and other sections of the community and media,” says the party in an email.

The party calls the task “critical work”.

Labor has the “Wall of Noise” …

LABOR faithful are being urged to flood airwaves, news websites and letters to the editor sections with a “wall of noise” as part of a propaganda campaign against the Liberal-National Government.

The Sunday Times has obtained emails from Labor state secretary Simon Mead urging party members and supporters to become a “noisemaker” and join the “wall of noise team”.

“We need to be making phone calls to radio stations, posting items on news websites and writing letters to all our newspapers,” Mr Mead told Labor supporters and members in the email sent last month.

He said in another email: “By getting your voice heard you help change the media story from one supporting the government to one that says they are out of touch with the public.”

And yet despite all their smears, their sneers, their jamming and spamming, their outright deceit… their poll numbers say what?

The Australian Pravda, at it again.

Their ABC has another wonderful example of where their priorities lie.

On the online page is this.

The next, fairly harmless story off in the links???

• Brown says coal industry will be replaced

Greens leader Bob Brown says ultimately the carbon price has to result in shutting down the coal industry.

“I would not figure that in because they are so highly profitable. But, that has to be the outcome … the coal industry has to be replaced by renewables,” he said.

So basically we have the party which holds the balance of power openly talking about taxing a whole sector of the economy out of existence, and its not top story?

ABC bias is sickening.

Agreed, Jill Singer: the nonsense has to stop

Jill Singer supports a carbon (dioxide!) tax. Unfortunately, she shows a complete ignorance of the real science behind the politics.

THE “debate” over a carbon tax in Australia has become high farce.

Indeed it has. The Left seem to think that taxing the bejesus out of a trace gas will somehow save a planet that doesn’t need saving. Jill and her ilk fail to realise CO2 is only a minor greenhouse gas at that. It makes up only 0.04% of our atmosphere. Most of it is natural. The sceptical side has man-made CO2 at 3% or about 0.001% of our atmosphere. The alarmist side puts man-made CO2 at ten times higher. But so what? That means man-made CO2 would occupy 0.01% of our atmosphere.

There’s no way Man’s small contribution to a minor greenhouse trace gas – yet an essential gas, most of it naturally occurring – can be the main driver of climate. That hypothesis is, to use Jill’s words, a “high farce”.

Read more of this post

Extreme Keynesianism meets extreme green in Germany.

I read today of an extremely strange decision in Germany to shut down the largest single contributor to their power supply.

“Angela Merkel has committed to shutting down all of the country’s nuclear reactors by 2022, a task said by one minister to be as mammoth as the project to reunite East and West Germany in 1990.”

Nuclear energy in germany accounts for somewhere around 23% of their power supply, the single biggest component above even coal. Given that Gerbil worming is the “greatest threat to mankind”, evah!! how does it make sense to remove a non greenhouse gas producing asset?

 “It gives the country just over 10 years to find alternative sources for 23% of its energy.”

This has apparently been brought about by the Fukushima plants problems, which, to date havent killed anyone despite experiencing at least a partial meltdown. So the worst scenario possible, in a decades old plant, caused by a catastrophe well outside its design tolerances is reason to shut off 25% of a nations power?

It smells fishy, regardless of the power of the greens party in Germany (a major player there), so what could be driving this push into idiocy?

Greens mothership come to take them away??

The answer seems to be Keynesianism ratcheted up to 11..

The EU is currently experiencing a massive financial crisis, Germany, traditionally a modern bedrock of financial stability is lashed to the mast of the Euro, therefore exposed to the PIGS financial woes. At the moment they are bailing out the PIGS, but this seems top be staving off the crisis not preventing it from spreading.

Germany has done extremely well out of the Euro, in the past the Deutsche Mark would have appreciated hugely against the PIGS currency, severely hurting Germany’s export ability within the EU. As it stands they can “export” internally into the EU without worrying about currency fluctuations.

The PIGS get german goods, paid for by borrowing Euros from Germany, which then drives its own economy by selling products into its captive markets.

All nice an neat, until now…

Germany is preparing for 2 likely scenarios, both of which will potentially tip them into recession, the nuclear announcement is a call for stimulus spending on an unprecidented scale.

Scenario 1: The bailouts continue.

Germany continues to support the Euro, this requires austerity measures within Germany itself, and would be almost certain political suicide for Merkel, unless she can sell it as part of a “grand coalition” action supported by all parties.

Merkel presented the results to the center-left Social Democrats and Green Party on Sunday evening, in an uncharacteristic appeal for opposition support. But it remains unclear whether the opposition will back the new approach.

Scenario 2: The Euro is allowed to fail, national currencies re-emerge.

This would be the easy political fix, but the resulting strength of the new Deutsche Mark would effectively cripple the competitive advantage the Euro gave of a “captive market”, to Germany’s export sector.

Wheres Keynes come in?

“Energy firms warned that the decision – a total policy reversal – would require significant investment in energy infrastructure. Philipp Rösler, new head of the FDP party, which rules in coalition with the CDU, agreed, likening the task ahead to that which faced Germany in 1990 after reunification. A study in 2009 showed that €1.3 trillion (£1.1tn) had been transferred from the West to rebuild the East.”

Germany is considering bailing on the Euro, they have to find a way to prevent the mass layoffs which are sure to result. They have to find a way to soak up a few million people in their own internal economy.

The highly inefficient renewables sector is a way of employing a large number of people to generate the same amount of power as Nukes currently provide. In the meantime Germany will import power from France/Eastern bloc countries to meet any shortfall. This may actually be cheaper for Germany than the current arrangement, given the likely strength of a new Deutsche Mark.

All opinion and kite flying of course, but I can’t see any underlying logic behind this decision.

Save Australia — Close London’s Decommissioned Battersea Power Station! [Updates]

Oh no they didn’t…  Oh yes they did!

Check out the nasty filth-spewing power station featuring in this ad pushing for a tax on Australia’s carbon dioxide emissions:

That’s right… an English power station.  A closed English power station.  Battersea, as featured on the cover of the Pink Floyd album Animals:

And yes, that’s a flying pig:

Beyond parody™.

UPDATE Poll: Should the Warmies have let MARTIN write their “Say Yes” ad for them?

UPDATE 2:  Now that’s better…  Say YES, We Want An Election!  (h/t Catallaxy)

UPDATE 3:  Oh, please.

Australian Conservation Foundation climate and clean energy campaigner Phil Freeman last night denied the Battersea Power Station image was used, insisting it was a “representation of a power station taken from a stock image”.

Tim Blair:  “They take us for fools.

UPDATE 4: Adam has another Youtube video debunking the lies in the Yay-4-CarbonTax ad

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gavin Atkins and the Search for the 50 Million Missing ‘Climate Refugees’

In 2005, the United Nations Environment Programme predicted that climate change would create 50 million climate refugees by 2010. These people, it was said, would flee a range of disasters including sea level rise, increases in the numbers and severity of hurricanes, and disruption to food production.

Gavin Atkins has been doing a series over at Asian Correspondent trying to track down these 50 million missing climate refugees and I thought I’d keep a list of his articles on the subject here, for ease of reference.

What happened to the climate refugees? (April 11, 2011)

Cover up: UN tries to erase failed climate refugee prediction (April 16, 2011)

50m climate refugee claims: It’s all about money for the UN (April 19, 2011)

Reaction to the 50 million climate refugee prediction (April 22, 2011)

The origins of the 50 million climate refugees prediction (April 23, 2011)

50m climate refugees? New Scientist can’t find them either (May 5, 2011)

50 million climate refugees – the search continues (May 9, 2011)

The Alaskan climate refugees who never left (June 14, 2011)

Asian Correspondent makes it to the Beeb:  Gavin Atkins talks to Hannah Barnes from BBC radio 4 about the missing 50 million climate refugees story  (June 16, 2011)

I’ll try to keep this list updated as the hunt continues.

…as I told him after his May 9 article was published, “Mate, you’re gonna need a bigger milk carton” 🙂
Anyone with Photoshop skills out there want to step up..?

Oh dear me Sarah..

Poor misguided soul Sarah Hanson-Young has ventured another opinion piece for the SMH.

Photo pinched from Col. Neville

Its just as vapid and fisk worthy as her first one, and as much as Ive tried to resist the temptation I have to go through this one as well.

Speaking of the Gillard Government…

What we’ve got here, is a #GoatRodeo.  With monkeys.  And dogs.

Although they actually seem a little more well-organised and disciplined than Julia Gillard’s Labor-Green minority government.

“Labor has lost its way.”

h/t William A Jacobson (@LegInsurrection)