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28 Nov 10
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http://jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/corruption/climate-corruption.pdf
i find it amazing how each and every scientist FUNDED by governments all agree that climate change is real yet when they retire and no longer funded seem to change their tune..........why is that so professor?
bob and his loonies have convinced foolya joolya,wombleoz and her (soon to be backstabbing) mates that we need this tax............ biggest con job of ALL TIME well maybe 2nd biggest after the church rort of extracting money from the gullible in return for belief in a being which no one has EVER SEEN
i find it amazing how each and every scientist FUNDED by governments all agree that climate change is real yet when they retire and no longer funded seem to change their tune..........why is that so professor?
bob and his loonies have convinced foolya joolya,wombleoz and her (soon to be backstabbing) mates that we need this tax............ biggest con job of ALL TIME well maybe 2nd biggest after the church rort of extracting money from the gullible in return for belief in a being which no one has EVER SEEN
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SC you continue to say that i have no response to the US and China in regards to varying responsibilities
around emissions.
I posted this article soon after Obama made his historic commitment that puts Abbott's
Indirect Inaction to shame.
To view the article with all the tables and lists
shapingtomorrowsworld.org
It has often been claimed that Australian annual CO2 emissions are such a tiny fraction of the
world’s total, around 1.5%, that there is no need for us to take action. If we are only
responsible for such a small proportion, why should we bother with a carbon tax or emissions
trading scheme?
To provide context, we must first remember that there are about 200 countries in the world. If
they shared emissions equally, no single country would emit more than ½ a percent of the total.
So without going any further, our 1.5% is already three times more than would be expected if we
had an equal share in the world’s total—clearly we do not.
There is an additional context we must consider in the case of CO2 emissions: We must recognize
the importance of the sum total of emissions across the last two or three centuries. Why?
Because CO2 accumulates in the atmosphere, and hence what matters to a country’s responsibility
for climate change are its historical emissions—in the same way that if 5 housemates run up a
debt, each person’s responsibility extends to their entire expenditures, not just last week’s
excessive bar tab. Unfortunately, people’s cognitive apparatus is not well equipped to deal with
quantities that accumulate, and so it is worth expanding on this point.
Historical emissions data are provided by the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (CDIAC), which we link to from this website.
These data go back as far as 1750 (for some countries) and they are the best available record of
global annual emissions over time. (These particular data extend to 2007 and they are from
burning of fossil fuels.) When emissions are summed across the available record, the top 25
all-time emitters are as follows:
(*For this analysis, the Russian Federation and the Czech Republic inherited all the emissions
of the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia, respectively. This should be apportioned differently,
e.g., based on the share of historical emissions by that part of the former, bigger, country.
For simplicity I omitted that step here because it makes little difference for present
purposes.)
You will note that Australia is 14th—out of 200—in terms of cumulative emissions. This should
clarify how misleading it is to talk about “only 1.5% of emissions are ours”. In fact, over
history, we are responsible for a lot of CO2 in the atmosphere. This can be clarified further by
plotting the (logarithm of) historical emissions of all countries against the rank position of
each country (in other words, we order the countries from most-emitting on the left to least-
emitting on the right). This is shown in the figure below:
The figure clarifies that Australia has more historical responsibility for CO2 in the atmosphere
than 228 other countries. In other words, we are more responsible for climate change than about
94% of all countries in the world.
To provide full context, let’s examine what happens when we convert total historical emissions
to per capita emissions. How much of a responsibility does each one of us in Australia have for
the carbon emitted during the last 100-200 years? Like it or not, Australians have emitted
3,638,504,000 tons of carbon to date, and as you can see in the table below, each and every one
of us carries a share of this historical burden that’s equivalent to roughly 172 tons.
Let’s place that burden into further context:
(Countries with a population below 2 million were omitted from this analysis because their per
capita emissions often fluctuate considerably across time, suggesting that those estimates may
not be terribly stable. For example, Luxembourg’s population is less than ½ million but their
per capita emissions are very high. At least in part, this turns out to be due to the fact that
German and French drivers fill up their cars in Luxembourg because petrol is less heavily taxed
there, and the emissions then count towards Luxembourg’s. This is one of the reasons why per-
capita statistics from small countries are easily distorted. *The Czech Republic and Russian
Federation are again inheriting all historical emissions of their former countries for
simplicity.)
We are within the top 10 emitters if we account for the size of our relatively small population
relative to that of some other countries—for example China, which is in position 61 on this
list. In other words, the country that is the favourite bugaboo of those who want to forestall
climate action in Australia, is way down the list when it comes to the historical responsibility
of each of its citizens.
Australians, by contrast are among the top 10.
There is no shirking that responsibility.
around emissions.
I posted this article soon after Obama made his historic commitment that puts Abbott's
Indirect Inaction to shame.
To view the article with all the tables and lists
shapingtomorrowsworld.org
It has often been claimed that Australian annual CO2 emissions are such a tiny fraction of the
world’s total, around 1.5%, that there is no need for us to take action. If we are only
responsible for such a small proportion, why should we bother with a carbon tax or emissions
trading scheme?
To provide context, we must first remember that there are about 200 countries in the world. If
they shared emissions equally, no single country would emit more than ½ a percent of the total.
So without going any further, our 1.5% is already three times more than would be expected if we
had an equal share in the world’s total—clearly we do not.
There is an additional context we must consider in the case of CO2 emissions: We must recognize
the importance of the sum total of emissions across the last two or three centuries. Why?
Because CO2 accumulates in the atmosphere, and hence what matters to a country’s responsibility
for climate change are its historical emissions—in the same way that if 5 housemates run up a
debt, each person’s responsibility extends to their entire expenditures, not just last week’s
excessive bar tab. Unfortunately, people’s cognitive apparatus is not well equipped to deal with
quantities that accumulate, and so it is worth expanding on this point.
Historical emissions data are provided by the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (CDIAC), which we link to from this website.
These data go back as far as 1750 (for some countries) and they are the best available record of
global annual emissions over time. (These particular data extend to 2007 and they are from
burning of fossil fuels.) When emissions are summed across the available record, the top 25
all-time emitters are as follows:
(*For this analysis, the Russian Federation and the Czech Republic inherited all the emissions
of the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia, respectively. This should be apportioned differently,
e.g., based on the share of historical emissions by that part of the former, bigger, country.
For simplicity I omitted that step here because it makes little difference for present
purposes.)
You will note that Australia is 14th—out of 200—in terms of cumulative emissions. This should
clarify how misleading it is to talk about “only 1.5% of emissions are ours”. In fact, over
history, we are responsible for a lot of CO2 in the atmosphere. This can be clarified further by
plotting the (logarithm of) historical emissions of all countries against the rank position of
each country (in other words, we order the countries from most-emitting on the left to least-
emitting on the right). This is shown in the figure below:
The figure clarifies that Australia has more historical responsibility for CO2 in the atmosphere
than 228 other countries. In other words, we are more responsible for climate change than about
94% of all countries in the world.
To provide full context, let’s examine what happens when we convert total historical emissions
to per capita emissions. How much of a responsibility does each one of us in Australia have for
the carbon emitted during the last 100-200 years? Like it or not, Australians have emitted
3,638,504,000 tons of carbon to date, and as you can see in the table below, each and every one
of us carries a share of this historical burden that’s equivalent to roughly 172 tons.
Let’s place that burden into further context:
(Countries with a population below 2 million were omitted from this analysis because their per
capita emissions often fluctuate considerably across time, suggesting that those estimates may
not be terribly stable. For example, Luxembourg’s population is less than ½ million but their
per capita emissions are very high. At least in part, this turns out to be due to the fact that
German and French drivers fill up their cars in Luxembourg because petrol is less heavily taxed
there, and the emissions then count towards Luxembourg’s. This is one of the reasons why per-
capita statistics from small countries are easily distorted. *The Czech Republic and Russian
Federation are again inheriting all historical emissions of their former countries for
simplicity.)
We are within the top 10 emitters if we account for the size of our relatively small population
relative to that of some other countries—for example China, which is in position 61 on this
list. In other words, the country that is the favourite bugaboo of those who want to forestall
climate action in Australia, is way down the list when it comes to the historical responsibility
of each of its citizens.
Australians, by contrast are among the top 10.
There is no shirking that responsibility.
that's not an answer just some left wing carp about cumulative emissions which mean zip, we were not to know way back when that emitting co2 would be highly problematic (and still don't) so you just cant use that argument
the Q is do you agree with china/india pumping all they like (in effect negating all or any of OZ reductions) ??
YES OR NO?
my bet says you wont answer this with a simple yes or no...odds $1.01 AS ALWAYS
the Q is do you agree with china/india pumping all they like (in effect negating all or any of OZ reductions) ??
YES OR NO?
my bet says you wont answer this with a simple yes or no...odds $1.01 AS ALWAYS
the goose that wrote that seems to be in favour of increased emissions elsewhere that 100% completely obliterate any saving we make - even if we became carbon neutral!....how good is that for the planet?
if you read what you just posted AFL you would understand how much absolute nonsene that respone (not reply) was
lets read it again
To provide context, we must first remember that there are about 200 countries in the world. If
they shared emissions equally, no single country would emit more than ½ a percent of the total.
So without going any further, our 1.5% is already three times more than would be expected if we
had an equal share in the world’s total—clearly we do not.
... this is some drivel suggesting that China & India who are resposible for nearly hal of the world's greenhouse emmissions are now somehow quite a resposible gorup .. and that little old australia who emit hardly a "drop in the ocean" compared to the big burners (and lets not forget #2 usa also) .. are now repsosbible for 3 times whatever output we make
ffs lol
it is that kind of pretend maths that makes your political/alarmist agenda out of touch with the reality of the global greenhouse situation
lies, damn lies and .. political agenda statistics
lets read it again
To provide context, we must first remember that there are about 200 countries in the world. If
they shared emissions equally, no single country would emit more than ½ a percent of the total.
So without going any further, our 1.5% is already three times more than would be expected if we
had an equal share in the world’s total—clearly we do not.
... this is some drivel suggesting that China & India who are resposible for nearly hal of the world's greenhouse emmissions are now somehow quite a resposible gorup .. and that little old australia who emit hardly a "drop in the ocean" compared to the big burners (and lets not forget #2 usa also) .. are now repsosbible for 3 times whatever output we make
ffs lol
it is that kind of pretend maths that makes your political/alarmist agenda out of touch with the reality of the global greenhouse situation
lies, damn lies and .. political agenda statistics
lies, damn lies and .. political agenda statistics
once more so he gets it
once more so he gets it
No comment about
Libertarian ideology is the natural enemy of science
i see.
Libertarian ideology is the natural enemy of science
i see.
Jan 21, 2015 -- 9:31PM, wombleoz wrote:
Plenty of censoring going on here - not that I necessarily mind slabs of information from other sources not being allowed - I'd much rather read people's own thoughtsHad a bit of a read about your man Patrick J Michaels BJ - interesting he seems to agree the planet is warming at about the same rate as most but is contesting the impact of that. Reasonable I'd suggest, I don't necessarily agree with those that say the planet will be totally destroyed by climate change in the next few years either. In saying that, I'd still go with the majority scientific view that it's much more likely to have negative rather than positive outcomes for the planetNo surprise he is funded, at least in part, by the fossil fuel industry
Not really my man, just a man high up in the scheme of things, who disagrees with the mainstream bullsiht. He doesn't agree with the rate it is going up at all, in fact his point in that video, is that the figures are manipulated to project much higher than reality, for temperature alone, and that all the other scare tactics, are actually completely wrong and unjustified.
I used him to counter AFL's stance that every scientific organisation in the world is in agreeance. The fact is, they aren't.
Should we cut down on pollution? Fcuk yeah we should. Is the temperature going up? Who knows. There is that many doctored numbers going around that it really isn't easy to tell. The fact that we have had the coldest winter in 130 years would suggest a bit for mine.
And if the temperature is going up, that is in no way conclusive that we are causing it, given the constant change in climate since the dawn of time.
Al Gore, for the record is not a climate scientist, but that term is really given by governments in their funding models to try and prove some sort of point. Al Gore however, was the biggest PR campaign in regards to this, and most changes, taxes, opinions, etc are loosely based on his PR campaign.
Putting a movie out to schools, suggesting the sea levels will rise up to 6 metres, and here is what will happen to the worlds population if we don't trade carbon credits now, is one of the biggest frauds of recent times. Yes, sea levels could rise up to 6 metres. They have been up around 7 metres in the past, but if they do, it won't be for thousands of years, and is likely to do so anyway. There was so many ridiculous scare threats fed down the throats of the worlds children, that it is very hard to take any of it seriously.
And the carbon trading scheme that was put in place? Well, it was put in place by Al Gore, and members of Enron, who of course had a history of trading false commodities to fleece the public of billions (trillions?), yet were somehow in charge of saving the planet?
The whole thing is a crock of siht. From the 97% rubbish, to the science is settled. There is nothing settled about it. A high proportion of scientists that were surveyed (nowhere near representative of all the scientists in the world, enter 9/10 dentists recommend Colgate), indeed agreed that in their opinion humans contribute in some way to the climate of the day. But there is nothing agreed about how much, nothing agreed about if it will even have an impact, and nothing agreed on what could be done about it.
They could ask of course, if they believed that the population of rats in their opinion contributed to the climate of today, and I believe the same answers would prevail, that yes, they probably do impact it in some way. That could come down to 1 trillionth of a degree over the next 50 million years, but of course, they are still contributing, so the same scare campaign could be worked around that, as technically, of the people asked, they all had an opinion, no matter what contribution they believed.
They could ask the same about women. Do women contribute to the climate? 97% of scientists agree. Well wouldn't they? If that is the figure that agree with humans (clearly isn't but let's stick with it), then maybe we should tax women because of their contribution.
Termites for example, apparently emit 1,000% carbon dioxide as humans do. So wouldn't it be a lot easier to simply do something about the termites? Why aren't they considered the enemy to the planet? Because they are dead fcuking broke. Simple as that.
None of this has anything to do with the climate. This comes down to the same thing as everything else. How do we scare the population into happily handing us over more of their money?.
More disgraceful policies from the right wing zealots costing us investment in the very renewables that
apparently SC is in favour of
Going backwards: Australia's renewable energy investment bucks world trend
Max Berry 22 January 2015
independentausrealiadotnet
If there was any doubt about the impact of the Abbott government’s prevarication over the Renewable Energy
Target, it can now be cleared up: renewable energy investment in Australia fell in the past year, writes Max
Berry.
Bucking a global trend that saw a 16 per cent rise in renewable energy investment to a total of $US310 billion, investment in wind, solar and other clean energy sources in Australia fell by 35 per cent in 2014, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF).
BNEF attributes the fall in renewable energy investment to $US3.7 billion – the lowest level since 2009 –
squarely to the Government’s review of the Renewable Energy Target, which has triggered uncertainty in the
minds of investors and delayed decisions on projects.
The RET was established in 2001 and since 2010 the target has been to ensure that at least 20 per cent of
Australia’s electricity is generated from renewable sources by 2020.
Senator Christine Milne: “How much money was wasted on the RET Review?”
The decline is in stark contrast to other countries across the “West”, developing and totalitarian states. Indeed, thanks to the brakes put on by the RET “Review”, Australia’s investment in renewable energy projects slumped below that of even Algeria, Thailand and Myanmar.
Brazil appears to have won the mantle for the biggest rise in clean energy investment in BNEF’s annual survey. The South American giant saw an enormous 88 per cent rise.
Other big contributors to the global rise in clean energy projects were China (32 per cent), Canada (26 per cent) and Japan (12 per cent). Sure, Australia is not quite alone in seeing a fall in renewables investment. Italy had a 60 per cent fall after its government abandoned tariff support for solar.
In the global rise in renewable energy, solar projects are the major contributors, driven by a big improvement in the cost competitiveness of roof-top solar photovoltaics and solar thermal power stations. Prominent examples include the investment of $US1.1 billion in the 250 MW Setouchi Mega PV project in Japan and the $US1 billion 100 MW Solar One thermal plant in South Africa.
Big wind projects, too, are on the rise across the world. There were no fewer than seven billion-dollar offshore wind projects in Europe that reached the “final investment decision” stage in 2014, BNEF found, including the 600 MW Gemini array off the Netherlands, the 402 MW Dudgeon project in UK waters, and the 350 MW Wikinger project in the Baltic for Germany.
So what is the status of the RET twelve months since a review was announced? The Abbott government appointed a panel in February 2014, headed by Dick Warburton, a Coalition mate and company director whom media reports generally describe as a climate change sceptic.
The panel’s report found, no doubt inconveniently for the chairman and his political masters, that the RET had, in fact, succeeded in reducing electricity prices by encouraging the increase in generation capacity powered by solar and wind sources.
Assigning climate sceptic Warburton to #RET review was like appointing PhilipMorris to advise on tobacco control policy.
— Simon Chapman AO (@SimonChapman6) August 28, 2014The review panel was also forced to admit that the RET was also effective policy in achieving its primary objective of reducing emissions.
Presented with a couple of options, the government responded to the review by a simple cut to the RET from 41,000 GW hours of renewable-generated electricity to 26,000 GW, arguing that with the fall in grid-produced electricity consumption, the 20 per cent target was closer to 27 per cent.
The panel’s report makes several references to “alternative and lower cost methods of reducing emissions”, code for the government’s planned but unlegislated Emissions Reduction Fund, the centrepiece of its Direct Action Plan. But there is simply no way yet of knowing whether it would be a cheaper means of reducing emissions than the RET. This fact was highlighted in an interview given last year by Warburton to Radio National’s Fran Kelly. As Business Spectatorpointed out, it wasn’t Dick’s best day.
To be fair to Warburton and his panel, the government’s response of a simple cut in the RET for large projects doesn’t reflect its recommendations. The panel recommended either “grandfathering” the scheme – closing it to new renewable generators but leaving it in place for existing players – or a more sophisticated approach of setting targets based on renewables having a 50 per cent share of new growth in electricity demand. When governments decline to adopt even the recommendations of panels headed by their friends, one wonders why they were even appointed.
Joe Hockey can't stand the sight of wind farms but just loves coal fired stations churning out CO2 pic.twitter.com/mhrmBQ7REY #Auspol
— Eric T. (@Eric_T_Music) May 6, 2014
What is clear is that the ERF will represent a transfer of funds from taxpayers to businesses for greenhouse gas reduction projects that those businesses could be incentivised to complete at their own expense through an emissions trading scheme. The government has squandered enormous political capital over the past year in a failed attempt to introduce price signals for healthcare, yet declines to set price signals for businesses – through either a carbon tax or an emissions trading scheme – for the costs borne by the whole community of their greenhouse emissions.
The Direct Action Plan is also at odds with the government’s stance on transfer payments, which it abhors when the recipients are the unemployed, single mothers, and a range of disadvantaged groups.
Above all, the ultimate irony in Australian politics today is that the centre-right party that generally supports free markets disavows a market-based approach to emissions reduction in favour of a highly uncertain form of taxpayer-funded government intervention that has drawn widespread scepticism.
Meanwhile, the scaling back of the RET and the policy uncertainty for investors has had real and negative consequences in the renewables sector. A manufacturer of wind turbines in the west Victorian town of Portland, Keppel Prince, last year mothballed most of its fabrication works and sacked 100 workers after orders dried up. Turbines for at least one of the few wind farms given approval in Victoria recently were imported.
Legislation introduced by former LNP government with new 2km setbacks for wind farms
But the Abbott government cannot be squarely blamed for this through its RET review.
The then Coalition state government of Denis Napthine should shoulder a fair amount of the blame for its hostility to wind farms, with severe restrictions on their location. Since Keppel Prince is in the former premier’s electorate, perhaps the Coalition’s loss of office in November was poetic justice.
You can follow Max Berry on Twitter at @maxberry_.
Creative Commons Licence
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License
apparently SC is in favour of
Going backwards: Australia's renewable energy investment bucks world trend
Max Berry 22 January 2015
independentausrealiadotnet
If there was any doubt about the impact of the Abbott government’s prevarication over the Renewable Energy
Target, it can now be cleared up: renewable energy investment in Australia fell in the past year, writes Max
Berry.
Bucking a global trend that saw a 16 per cent rise in renewable energy investment to a total of $US310 billion, investment in wind, solar and other clean energy sources in Australia fell by 35 per cent in 2014, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF).
BNEF attributes the fall in renewable energy investment to $US3.7 billion – the lowest level since 2009 –
squarely to the Government’s review of the Renewable Energy Target, which has triggered uncertainty in the
minds of investors and delayed decisions on projects.
The RET was established in 2001 and since 2010 the target has been to ensure that at least 20 per cent of
Australia’s electricity is generated from renewable sources by 2020.
Senator Christine Milne: “How much money was wasted on the RET Review?”
The decline is in stark contrast to other countries across the “West”, developing and totalitarian states. Indeed, thanks to the brakes put on by the RET “Review”, Australia’s investment in renewable energy projects slumped below that of even Algeria, Thailand and Myanmar.
Brazil appears to have won the mantle for the biggest rise in clean energy investment in BNEF’s annual survey. The South American giant saw an enormous 88 per cent rise.
Other big contributors to the global rise in clean energy projects were China (32 per cent), Canada (26 per cent) and Japan (12 per cent). Sure, Australia is not quite alone in seeing a fall in renewables investment. Italy had a 60 per cent fall after its government abandoned tariff support for solar.
In the global rise in renewable energy, solar projects are the major contributors, driven by a big improvement in the cost competitiveness of roof-top solar photovoltaics and solar thermal power stations. Prominent examples include the investment of $US1.1 billion in the 250 MW Setouchi Mega PV project in Japan and the $US1 billion 100 MW Solar One thermal plant in South Africa.
Big wind projects, too, are on the rise across the world. There were no fewer than seven billion-dollar offshore wind projects in Europe that reached the “final investment decision” stage in 2014, BNEF found, including the 600 MW Gemini array off the Netherlands, the 402 MW Dudgeon project in UK waters, and the 350 MW Wikinger project in the Baltic for Germany.
So what is the status of the RET twelve months since a review was announced? The Abbott government appointed a panel in February 2014, headed by Dick Warburton, a Coalition mate and company director whom media reports generally describe as a climate change sceptic.
The panel’s report found, no doubt inconveniently for the chairman and his political masters, that the RET had, in fact, succeeded in reducing electricity prices by encouraging the increase in generation capacity powered by solar and wind sources.
Assigning climate sceptic Warburton to #RET review was like appointing PhilipMorris to advise on tobacco control policy.
— Simon Chapman AO (@SimonChapman6) August 28, 2014The review panel was also forced to admit that the RET was also effective policy in achieving its primary objective of reducing emissions.
Presented with a couple of options, the government responded to the review by a simple cut to the RET from 41,000 GW hours of renewable-generated electricity to 26,000 GW, arguing that with the fall in grid-produced electricity consumption, the 20 per cent target was closer to 27 per cent.
The panel’s report makes several references to “alternative and lower cost methods of reducing emissions”, code for the government’s planned but unlegislated Emissions Reduction Fund, the centrepiece of its Direct Action Plan. But there is simply no way yet of knowing whether it would be a cheaper means of reducing emissions than the RET. This fact was highlighted in an interview given last year by Warburton to Radio National’s Fran Kelly. As Business Spectatorpointed out, it wasn’t Dick’s best day.
To be fair to Warburton and his panel, the government’s response of a simple cut in the RET for large projects doesn’t reflect its recommendations. The panel recommended either “grandfathering” the scheme – closing it to new renewable generators but leaving it in place for existing players – or a more sophisticated approach of setting targets based on renewables having a 50 per cent share of new growth in electricity demand. When governments decline to adopt even the recommendations of panels headed by their friends, one wonders why they were even appointed.
Joe Hockey can't stand the sight of wind farms but just loves coal fired stations churning out CO2 pic.twitter.com/mhrmBQ7REY #Auspol
— Eric T. (@Eric_T_Music) May 6, 2014
What is clear is that the ERF will represent a transfer of funds from taxpayers to businesses for greenhouse gas reduction projects that those businesses could be incentivised to complete at their own expense through an emissions trading scheme. The government has squandered enormous political capital over the past year in a failed attempt to introduce price signals for healthcare, yet declines to set price signals for businesses – through either a carbon tax or an emissions trading scheme – for the costs borne by the whole community of their greenhouse emissions.
The Direct Action Plan is also at odds with the government’s stance on transfer payments, which it abhors when the recipients are the unemployed, single mothers, and a range of disadvantaged groups.
Above all, the ultimate irony in Australian politics today is that the centre-right party that generally supports free markets disavows a market-based approach to emissions reduction in favour of a highly uncertain form of taxpayer-funded government intervention that has drawn widespread scepticism.
Meanwhile, the scaling back of the RET and the policy uncertainty for investors has had real and negative consequences in the renewables sector. A manufacturer of wind turbines in the west Victorian town of Portland, Keppel Prince, last year mothballed most of its fabrication works and sacked 100 workers after orders dried up. Turbines for at least one of the few wind farms given approval in Victoria recently were imported.
Legislation introduced by former LNP government with new 2km setbacks for wind farms
But the Abbott government cannot be squarely blamed for this through its RET review.
The then Coalition state government of Denis Napthine should shoulder a fair amount of the blame for its hostility to wind farms, with severe restrictions on their location. Since Keppel Prince is in the former premier’s electorate, perhaps the Coalition’s loss of office in November was poetic justice.
You can follow Max Berry on Twitter at @maxberry_.
Creative Commons Licence
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License
Abbott and Hockey have sacrificed sensible economics to get rid of the Carbon Price and Mining Tax, they did stupid deals that keep the spending of both the Carbon price and Mining tax but no longer have the income, and why ???? Just so Tony Abbott can stand in front of the media and repeat over and over and over that he got rid of the Carbon Tax and Mining Tax !
This is the level of economic stupidity we have running this country ! Keep the spending, axe the funding and then complain about more debt, That is how incredible stupid these clowns are!
This is the level of economic stupidity we have running this country ! Keep the spending, axe the funding and then complain about more debt, That is how incredible stupid these clowns are!
Abbott will not be the PM at the next election guaranteed 100% How can I be so sure ? Simple, because of his lies before the last election he will be unable to campaign next election! He wont be able to promise anything at all, he wont be able to travel the country and say "I will do this" and "I will do that", because no one will be able to trust him at all. A political party that cant make promises will never win an election, full stop !
And when Abbott is rolled who in his front bench would be acceptable to the greater public ?
Pyne - A man that will never be PM, loathed by most Australians
Morrison - Will probably face a royal commission over his handling of refugees, is now in charge of delivering his brand of cruelty to the poor souls under the welfare umbrella, he will enjoy bringing misery to the poor, the unemployed, and the disabled and elderly, A man that will never be PM
Hockey - Has proven himself and economic dunce, has no idea what hes doing! Seems that having a rich wife and being able to spend your life using taxpayers money to collect accomodation allowance whilst staying at your own house and using those allowances to pay your mortgage! Released a budget tbat attack the poorest and sickest but failed to go after the perks of the wealthiest. A man who will never be PM
Dutton - Seeing this guy in front of a news camera is like watching someone pistol whipa blind kid! The guy is lost. Blander than the breakfast of a 90 year old with stomach cancer. This man will never be PM.
Kevin Andrews - A disaster no matter where he goes. A disaster in the Howard Govt, and a disaster in the Abbott Govt, now in charge of defence, FFS! Came up with the idea of spending millions on vouchers for marriage councelling, knowing full well that a lot of those vouchers would be collected by churches. An extreme right wing believer that should never have been elected into this Govt. A man who will never be PM
Julie Bishop - Deputy to everyone, only sheila allowed to sit at the big boys table! Totally hated by the public due to her right wing ideas and refusal to listen to others. Couldnt lie straight in bed and is probably busy white anting Tones position now, a woman, so will never ever be elected leader by the mens club of the LNP. Shewill never be PM
WarrenTruss - ha ha ha ha ha ha ha......... ROFL......!!!!!!!
posted by kanookandchook at theguardian.com
Ha Ha Ha ....so true.
And when Abbott is rolled who in his front bench would be acceptable to the greater public ?
Pyne - A man that will never be PM, loathed by most Australians
Morrison - Will probably face a royal commission over his handling of refugees, is now in charge of delivering his brand of cruelty to the poor souls under the welfare umbrella, he will enjoy bringing misery to the poor, the unemployed, and the disabled and elderly, A man that will never be PM
Hockey - Has proven himself and economic dunce, has no idea what hes doing! Seems that having a rich wife and being able to spend your life using taxpayers money to collect accomodation allowance whilst staying at your own house and using those allowances to pay your mortgage! Released a budget tbat attack the poorest and sickest but failed to go after the perks of the wealthiest. A man who will never be PM
Dutton - Seeing this guy in front of a news camera is like watching someone pistol whipa blind kid! The guy is lost. Blander than the breakfast of a 90 year old with stomach cancer. This man will never be PM.
Kevin Andrews - A disaster no matter where he goes. A disaster in the Howard Govt, and a disaster in the Abbott Govt, now in charge of defence, FFS! Came up with the idea of spending millions on vouchers for marriage councelling, knowing full well that a lot of those vouchers would be collected by churches. An extreme right wing believer that should never have been elected into this Govt. A man who will never be PM
Julie Bishop - Deputy to everyone, only sheila allowed to sit at the big boys table! Totally hated by the public due to her right wing ideas and refusal to listen to others. Couldnt lie straight in bed and is probably busy white anting Tones position now, a woman, so will never ever be elected leader by the mens club of the LNP. Shewill never be PM
WarrenTruss - ha ha ha ha ha ha ha......... ROFL......!!!!!!!
posted by kanookandchook at theguardian.com
Ha Ha Ha ....so true.
it borders on bizarre BJ his one eyed nonsense
Max Berry 22 January 2015
independentausrealiadotnet
just another piece of dribble from the new-online-NONindependent left wing rag of rubbish
and ... no comment ever from AFL about the Renewable Energy Pitifulness regarding Whyalla when the previous govt under gillard knocked back the chance to show australia (and the world) that large scale solar may well work
whyalla ... a fkn ... coal town ... wanted $60 mill from the Renewable Energy Authority ... to switch over 19,000 homes from coal fired energy to solar ...
but the RENEWABLE NONSENSE COMMISSION dumped on them after consulting with the PREVIOUS govt
not one comment from the one-eyed politico person on this travesty
http://www.whyallanewsonline.com.au/story/2265829/sun-sets-on-solar-oasis/
The failed Solar Oasis project will be taken apart and sold as scrap metal in a huge blow to the Whyalla community.
"It was very close to construction but the funding from the Commonwealth government (gillard's labor) was withdrawn and that doomed the project," Mr Pollock said.
and more from the ABC on the previous govts pretend environmental plans
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-06-07/solar-thermal-plant-blow-for-whyalla/4738758
The project was being developed by Solar Oasis, a consortium of renewable energy companies, and was to provide power to about 19,000 homes.
Ivor Frischknecht from the Government-run Australian Renewable Energy Agency says the consortium can still submit an alternative funding application.
"[It] doesn't mean the project can't go ahead, but our support for it is no longer there," he said.
"The impacts on Whyalla is the loss of world-class solar thermal project, the loss of 200 construction jobs, the loss of building up our research and development capacity at the Whyalla campus of the University of South Australia."
Max Berry 22 January 2015
independentausrealiadotnet
just another piece of dribble from the new-online-NONindependent left wing rag of rubbish
and ... no comment ever from AFL about the Renewable Energy Pitifulness regarding Whyalla when the previous govt under gillard knocked back the chance to show australia (and the world) that large scale solar may well work
whyalla ... a fkn ... coal town ... wanted $60 mill from the Renewable Energy Authority ... to switch over 19,000 homes from coal fired energy to solar ...
but the RENEWABLE NONSENSE COMMISSION dumped on them after consulting with the PREVIOUS govt
not one comment from the one-eyed politico person on this travesty
http://www.whyallanewsonline.com.au/story/2265829/sun-sets-on-solar-oasis/
The failed Solar Oasis project will be taken apart and sold as scrap metal in a huge blow to the Whyalla community.
"It was very close to construction but the funding from the Commonwealth government (gillard's labor
) was withdrawn and that doomed the project," Mr Pollock said.and more from the ABC on the previous govts pretend environmental plans
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-06-07/solar-thermal-plant-blow-for-whyalla/4738758
The project was being developed by Solar Oasis, a consortium of renewable energy companies, and was to provide power to about 19,000 homes.
Ivor Frischknecht from the Government-run Australian Renewable Energy Agency says the consortium can still submit an alternative funding application.
"[It] doesn't mean the project can't go ahead, but our support for it is no longer there," he said.
"The impacts on Whyalla is the loss of world-class solar thermal project, the loss of 200 construction jobs, the loss of building up our research and development capacity at the Whyalla campus of the University of South Australia."
Julie Bishop - Deputy to everyone, only sheila allowed to sit at the big boys table! Totally hated by the public due to her right wing ideas and refusal to listen to others. Couldnt lie straight in bed and is probably busy white anting Tones position now, a woman, so will never ever be elected leader by the mens club of the LNP. Shewill never be PM
What sort of political expert refers to the deputy PM as a 'sheila' a reasonable person might ask? Is kanookandchook the author of any peer reviewed papers??
What sort of political expert refers to the deputy PM as a 'sheila' a reasonable person might ask? Is kanookandchook the author of any peer reviewed papers??
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Michaels
Michaels' viewpoint, as argued in a 2002 article in the journal Climate Research, is that the planet will see "a warming range of 1.3–3.0°C, with a central value of 1.9°C" for the 1990 to 2100 period (an analysis far smaller than the IPCC's average predictions)
Most scientists think we have to try and limit warming to 2 degrees or the outcomes we be more severe even BJ's man thinks it could be more than that
Michaels' viewpoint, as argued in a 2002 article in the journal Climate Research, is that the planet will see "a warming range of 1.3–3.0°C, with a central value of 1.9°C" for the 1990 to 2100 period (an analysis far smaller than the IPCC's average predictions)
Most scientists think we have to try and limit warming to 2 degrees or the outcomes we be more severe even BJ's man thinks it could be more than that
Transcript of Senator Whitehouse’s Speech (February 4, 2014)
independentaustralia.net
‘I come to the floor today, for the fifty-seventh consecutive week that the Senate has been in session, to urge my colleagues to wake up to what carbon pollution is doing to our atmosphere and oceans.
I have described Congress as surrounded by a barricade of lies. Today I'll be more specific. There isn’t just lying going on about climate change, there’s a whole carefully built apparatus of lies.
This apparatus is big, and artfully constructed: phony-baloney organizations designed to look and sound like they’re real; messages honed by public relations experts to sound like they’re truthful; payroll scientists whom polluters can trot out when they need them; and the whole thing big and complicated enough that when you see its parts you could be fooled into thinking it’s not all the same beast.
But it is. Just like the mythological Hydra: many heads, same beast.
So this speech is going to be about that Beast.
A recent research article published by Dr. Robert Brulle, a professor of Sociology and Environmental Science at Drexel University, describes the Beast. He joins a tradition of scholarship in this area, including work by Naomi Oreskes, Aaron McCright, and Riley Dunlap, each of whom has studied the forces behind climate denial; and David Rosner and Gerald Markowitz, who explored chemical and lead industry campaigns to deceive Americans about the dangers of those products.
The intricate, interconnected propaganda web and funding network of this climate denial Beast encompasses over one hundred organizations, including industry trade associations, conservative think tanks, and plain old phony front groups for polluter interests.
It has even co-opted media outlets, a phenomenon I chronicled in an earlier speech about the Wall Street Journal editorial page becoming the tool of polluter propaganda.
This is why I canceled my @WSJ subscription the second Murdoch bought it: WSJ Digs In Climate-Change-Denial Heels http://t.co/t0wF0EOUJr
— AndrewBuerger (@AndrewBuerger) May 29, 2014
The Climate Denial Beast Web of Interests
So let’s take a look at this climate-denial Beast — and how polluter money and dark money flow through its veins.
This chart from Dr. Brulle’s report shows the complex interconnection of the Beast's major players. The green diamonds are the big funders: the Koch-affiliated foundations, the Scaife-affiliated foundations, the American Petroleum Institute, and so on.
And the blue circles are the who’s-who of climate denial groups: the Heartland Institute (they're the group that compared folks concerned about climate change to the Unabomber, just to give you a sense of what sort of people they are), the American Enterprise Institute, right here; the Hoover Institution; the Heritage Foundation; the Cato Institute; the Mercatus Center; to name just a few.
The purpose of this network, to quote the report, is
‘a deliberate and organized effort to misdirect the public discussion and distort the public’s understanding of climate.’
To misdirect and distort. The coordinated tactics of this network, the report shows,
‘span a wide range of activities, including political lobbying, contributions to political candidates, and a large number of communication and media efforts that aim at undermining climate science.’
That is the Beast.
How many $ billions flow through its veins?
And big money flows through it: more than half a billion dollars. The Drexel University report chronicles that from 2003 to 2010, 140 foundations made grants totaling $558 million to 91 organizations that actively oppose climate action.
It looks like a big Beast to build, just to propagate climate denial. But if you look at carbon emissions from fossil fuels, which in 2011 EPA estimated to be over 5.6 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide. So take 5.6 billion tons of carbon dioxide, and then multiply that by the social cost of carbon, the economic and health costs that the polluters cause and inflict on the rest of society which OMB recently set at thirty-seven dollars per metric ton of CO2. 5.6 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide emitted, $37 per metric ton of CO2, in social cost of carbon, just one year’s emissions will cost roughly 200 billion – with a ‘b’ – dollars. One year’s.
So, the stakes are pretty high for the polluters, if they were to pay for the harm that they’re causing.
Half a billion dollars – through the Beast – over seven years, to get away with $200 billion of harm every year? It’s a bargain.
And more than that, a lot of this machinery was already built. The Beast did not spring up at once, full-grown. It grew, over time, in industry-fuelled campaigns to obscure the dangers of cigarette smoke, of acid rain, of ozone depletion. Who knows; there are probably parts of it that go back to fighting the benefit of requiring seat belts and air bags in cars.
Looking back on the effects of these industry-funded campaigns of denial, we see that real people were hurt. But the denial machinery stalled action and made the wrongdoers money. It worked.
So now the climate denial machine, the Beast, is calling plays from the same playbook, and even using many of the same front organizations.
So who is behind this Beast?
Unfortunately for proponents of transparency, a large portion of the funding is not traceable. Much of the money fuelling the Beast is laundered through organizations which exist to conceal donor identity. Some of the organizations examined by Dr. Brulle get over 90 percent of their money from hidden sources. Indeed, more than a third of these organizations get over 90 percent of their money from hidden sources.
#Climate change denial is a castle built on sand. My op-ed in today's @Projo about how we can beat the deniers: http://t.co/KdLgnfsBrN
— Sheldon Whitehouse (@SenWhitehouse) May 27, 2014
The biggest identity-laundering shop is Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund. Indeed, it is by far the biggest source of funding in this web. These twin entities reported giving a combined $78 million to climate denier groups between 2003 and 2010, and they refuse to identify their funders.
According to the Drexel report, the Donors Trust/Donors Capital Fund operation does double duty: it is the “central component” and “predominant funder” of the denier apparatus; and at the same time it is the “black box that conceals the identity of contributors.”
Interestingly, anonymous funding flowing into the Beast through Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund has grown in tandem with disclosed funding from fossil fuel polluters declining: anonymous dollars up, disclosed dollars down.
As we see here, Donors Trust and Donors Capital donations to the Beast went from 3 per cent of all foundation funding in 2003 to more than 23 per cent in 2010.
At the same time, for example, the Koch Brothers' Affiliated Foundations declined from 9 per cent of all foundation funding in 2006 down to 2 per cent by 2010.
And the same is true for other polluter-backed foundations.
Exxon Mobil Foundation, for instance, wound down its disclosed funding of organizations in the climate denier network and basically zeroed out by 2007.
It makes perfect sense. Why would the Koch Brothers and Exxon come under fire for obviously funding climate denial, when Donors Trust and Capital creates a mechanism for polluters to secretly fund the Beast?
Plus, the phony baloney front organizations within the Beast, they can pretend that they're not funded by polluter money. Everybody wins in this identity-laundering scheme, except the public, of course, whom this elaborate construction is designed to fool.
The product of this denial apparatus is a complex ruse to delegitimize the science that supports curbing carbon emissions, foisted on the American people with all the financing and fantasy of a Hollywood blockbuster production.
Here’s Dr. Brulle describing what you see when you look behind the actors who appear in the media spotlight:
‘The roots of climate-change denial go deeper. . . . Just as in a theatrical show, there are stars in the spotlight. In the drama of climate change, these are often prominent contrarian scientists or conservative politicians. . . . However, they are only the most visible and transparent parts of a larger production. Supporting this effort are directors, script writers, and, most certainly a series of producers, in the form of conservative foundations.’
The Beast will be one of America's great scandals
Frankly, Madam President, this apparatus is a disgrace. When the inevitable happens, and the impact of climate change really starts to hit home, people will want to know – Americans will want to know, people around the world will want to know – why, why we didn't take proper steps in time? It’s not as if there isn’t enough scientific evidence out there for us to act.
Why not? This denial operation, the Beast, will then go down as one of our great American scandals, like Watergate or Teapot Dome – a deliberate, complex scheme – of lies and propaganda that caused real harm to the American people and to our country, all so that a small group of people could make more money a little longer.
And the fact that one of our great political parties is in on the scheme will be to its lasting shame. There’s an old hymn that says,
"Turn back, O man, forswear thy foolish ways."
It is time for our denier colleagues to turn back, and forswear their foolish ways. If they don't, there will be a day of reckoning, and a harsh price to pay.
(Australia's climate deniers - image courtesy John Graham)
Every day, more and more Americans realize the truth, and they increasingly want this Congress to wake up. They know climate change is real. As the President said in his State of the Union address,
“the debate is settled. Climate change is a fact.”
Sir Winston Churchill once said this:
“Owing to past neglect, in the face of the plainest warnings, we have now entered upon a period of danger. . . . The era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays, is coming to its close. In its place we are entering a period of consequences. . . . We cannot avoid this period; we are in it now.”
Well, we are now in a period of consequences. We have got to break the back of the Beast, and break the barricade of blandishments and lies that Beast has built around Congress. This campaign of denial – this Beast – is as poisonous to our democracy as carbon pollution is to our atmosphere and oceans. With money and lobbyists and threats it has infiltrated itself in an unseemly way into influence in our government.
For the sake of our democracy, for the sake of our future, for the sake of our honor, it is time to wake up.
I yield the floor.’
You can follow Senator Sheldon Whitehouse on Twitter @SenWhitehouse.
Buy John Graham originals from IA's online store.
Want to find out more about the climate denial machine in Australia and who funds it?
Graham Readfearn's 'Australia's place in the global web of climate denial'
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-06-29/readfearn---australia27s-place-in-the-...
Sandi Keane's 'Crackers 4 - the Institute of Public Smokescreens'
https://independentaustralia.net/business/business-display/crackers-4-the-in...
Sandi Keane's 'Deception is our Product'
https://independentaustralia.net/environment/environment-display/deception-is-our-product,3942
Creative Commons Licence
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License
independentaustralia.net
‘I come to the floor today, for the fifty-seventh consecutive week that the Senate has been in session, to urge my colleagues to wake up to what carbon pollution is doing to our atmosphere and oceans.
I have described Congress as surrounded by a barricade of lies. Today I'll be more specific. There isn’t just lying going on about climate change, there’s a whole carefully built apparatus of lies.
This apparatus is big, and artfully constructed: phony-baloney organizations designed to look and sound like they’re real; messages honed by public relations experts to sound like they’re truthful; payroll scientists whom polluters can trot out when they need them; and the whole thing big and complicated enough that when you see its parts you could be fooled into thinking it’s not all the same beast.
But it is. Just like the mythological Hydra: many heads, same beast.
So this speech is going to be about that Beast.
A recent research article published by Dr. Robert Brulle, a professor of Sociology and Environmental Science at Drexel University, describes the Beast. He joins a tradition of scholarship in this area, including work by Naomi Oreskes, Aaron McCright, and Riley Dunlap, each of whom has studied the forces behind climate denial; and David Rosner and Gerald Markowitz, who explored chemical and lead industry campaigns to deceive Americans about the dangers of those products.
The intricate, interconnected propaganda web and funding network of this climate denial Beast encompasses over one hundred organizations, including industry trade associations, conservative think tanks, and plain old phony front groups for polluter interests.
It has even co-opted media outlets, a phenomenon I chronicled in an earlier speech about the Wall Street Journal editorial page becoming the tool of polluter propaganda.
This is why I canceled my @WSJ subscription the second Murdoch bought it: WSJ Digs In Climate-Change-Denial Heels http://t.co/t0wF0EOUJr
— AndrewBuerger (@AndrewBuerger) May 29, 2014
The Climate Denial Beast Web of Interests
So let’s take a look at this climate-denial Beast — and how polluter money and dark money flow through its veins.
This chart from Dr. Brulle’s report shows the complex interconnection of the Beast's major players. The green diamonds are the big funders: the Koch-affiliated foundations, the Scaife-affiliated foundations, the American Petroleum Institute, and so on.
And the blue circles are the who’s-who of climate denial groups: the Heartland Institute (they're the group that compared folks concerned about climate change to the Unabomber, just to give you a sense of what sort of people they are), the American Enterprise Institute, right here; the Hoover Institution; the Heritage Foundation; the Cato Institute; the Mercatus Center; to name just a few.
The purpose of this network, to quote the report, is
‘a deliberate and organized effort to misdirect the public discussion and distort the public’s understanding of climate.’
To misdirect and distort. The coordinated tactics of this network, the report shows,
‘span a wide range of activities, including political lobbying, contributions to political candidates, and a large number of communication and media efforts that aim at undermining climate science.’
That is the Beast.
How many $ billions flow through its veins?
And big money flows through it: more than half a billion dollars. The Drexel University report chronicles that from 2003 to 2010, 140 foundations made grants totaling $558 million to 91 organizations that actively oppose climate action.
It looks like a big Beast to build, just to propagate climate denial. But if you look at carbon emissions from fossil fuels, which in 2011 EPA estimated to be over 5.6 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide. So take 5.6 billion tons of carbon dioxide, and then multiply that by the social cost of carbon, the economic and health costs that the polluters cause and inflict on the rest of society which OMB recently set at thirty-seven dollars per metric ton of CO2. 5.6 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide emitted, $37 per metric ton of CO2, in social cost of carbon, just one year’s emissions will cost roughly 200 billion – with a ‘b’ – dollars. One year’s.
So, the stakes are pretty high for the polluters, if they were to pay for the harm that they’re causing.
Half a billion dollars – through the Beast – over seven years, to get away with $200 billion of harm every year? It’s a bargain.
And more than that, a lot of this machinery was already built. The Beast did not spring up at once, full-grown. It grew, over time, in industry-fuelled campaigns to obscure the dangers of cigarette smoke, of acid rain, of ozone depletion. Who knows; there are probably parts of it that go back to fighting the benefit of requiring seat belts and air bags in cars.
Looking back on the effects of these industry-funded campaigns of denial, we see that real people were hurt. But the denial machinery stalled action and made the wrongdoers money. It worked.
So now the climate denial machine, the Beast, is calling plays from the same playbook, and even using many of the same front organizations.
So who is behind this Beast?
Unfortunately for proponents of transparency, a large portion of the funding is not traceable. Much of the money fuelling the Beast is laundered through organizations which exist to conceal donor identity. Some of the organizations examined by Dr. Brulle get over 90 percent of their money from hidden sources. Indeed, more than a third of these organizations get over 90 percent of their money from hidden sources.
#Climate change denial is a castle built on sand. My op-ed in today's @Projo about how we can beat the deniers: http://t.co/KdLgnfsBrN
— Sheldon Whitehouse (@SenWhitehouse) May 27, 2014
The biggest identity-laundering shop is Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund. Indeed, it is by far the biggest source of funding in this web. These twin entities reported giving a combined $78 million to climate denier groups between 2003 and 2010, and they refuse to identify their funders.
According to the Drexel report, the Donors Trust/Donors Capital Fund operation does double duty: it is the “central component” and “predominant funder” of the denier apparatus; and at the same time it is the “black box that conceals the identity of contributors.”
Interestingly, anonymous funding flowing into the Beast through Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund has grown in tandem with disclosed funding from fossil fuel polluters declining: anonymous dollars up, disclosed dollars down.
As we see here, Donors Trust and Donors Capital donations to the Beast went from 3 per cent of all foundation funding in 2003 to more than 23 per cent in 2010.
At the same time, for example, the Koch Brothers' Affiliated Foundations declined from 9 per cent of all foundation funding in 2006 down to 2 per cent by 2010.
And the same is true for other polluter-backed foundations.
Exxon Mobil Foundation, for instance, wound down its disclosed funding of organizations in the climate denier network and basically zeroed out by 2007.
It makes perfect sense. Why would the Koch Brothers and Exxon come under fire for obviously funding climate denial, when Donors Trust and Capital creates a mechanism for polluters to secretly fund the Beast?
Plus, the phony baloney front organizations within the Beast, they can pretend that they're not funded by polluter money. Everybody wins in this identity-laundering scheme, except the public, of course, whom this elaborate construction is designed to fool.
The product of this denial apparatus is a complex ruse to delegitimize the science that supports curbing carbon emissions, foisted on the American people with all the financing and fantasy of a Hollywood blockbuster production.
Here’s Dr. Brulle describing what you see when you look behind the actors who appear in the media spotlight:
‘The roots of climate-change denial go deeper. . . . Just as in a theatrical show, there are stars in the spotlight. In the drama of climate change, these are often prominent contrarian scientists or conservative politicians. . . . However, they are only the most visible and transparent parts of a larger production. Supporting this effort are directors, script writers, and, most certainly a series of producers, in the form of conservative foundations.’
The Beast will be one of America's great scandals
Frankly, Madam President, this apparatus is a disgrace. When the inevitable happens, and the impact of climate change really starts to hit home, people will want to know – Americans will want to know, people around the world will want to know – why, why we didn't take proper steps in time? It’s not as if there isn’t enough scientific evidence out there for us to act.
Why not? This denial operation, the Beast, will then go down as one of our great American scandals, like Watergate or Teapot Dome – a deliberate, complex scheme – of lies and propaganda that caused real harm to the American people and to our country, all so that a small group of people could make more money a little longer.
And the fact that one of our great political parties is in on the scheme will be to its lasting shame. There’s an old hymn that says,
"Turn back, O man, forswear thy foolish ways."
It is time for our denier colleagues to turn back, and forswear their foolish ways. If they don't, there will be a day of reckoning, and a harsh price to pay.
(Australia's climate deniers - image courtesy John Graham)
Every day, more and more Americans realize the truth, and they increasingly want this Congress to wake up. They know climate change is real. As the President said in his State of the Union address,
“the debate is settled. Climate change is a fact.”
Sir Winston Churchill once said this:
“Owing to past neglect, in the face of the plainest warnings, we have now entered upon a period of danger. . . . The era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays, is coming to its close. In its place we are entering a period of consequences. . . . We cannot avoid this period; we are in it now.”
Well, we are now in a period of consequences. We have got to break the back of the Beast, and break the barricade of blandishments and lies that Beast has built around Congress. This campaign of denial – this Beast – is as poisonous to our democracy as carbon pollution is to our atmosphere and oceans. With money and lobbyists and threats it has infiltrated itself in an unseemly way into influence in our government.
For the sake of our democracy, for the sake of our future, for the sake of our honor, it is time to wake up.
I yield the floor.’
You can follow Senator Sheldon Whitehouse on Twitter @SenWhitehouse.
Buy John Graham originals from IA's online store.
Want to find out more about the climate denial machine in Australia and who funds it?
Graham Readfearn's 'Australia's place in the global web of climate denial'
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-06-29/readfearn---australia27s-place-in-the-...
Sandi Keane's 'Crackers 4 - the Institute of Public Smokescreens'
https://independentaustralia.net/business/business-display/crackers-4-the-in...
Sandi Keane's 'Deception is our Product'
https://independentaustralia.net/environment/environment-display/deception-is-our-product,3942
Creative Commons Licence
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License
The purpose of this network, to quote the report, is
‘a deliberate and organized effort to misdirect the public discussion and distort the public’s understanding of climate.’
They would be very proud of SC and Thebas
‘a deliberate and organized effort to misdirect the public discussion and distort the public’s understanding of climate.’
They would be very proud of SC and Thebas
Yet none of that has anything to do with CO2 now does it. That article also states many other things, which of course you left out.... Not surprising.
I believe one such, was that He contends that the changes will be minor, not catastrophic, and may even be beneficial., and of course the line immediately following yours In 2009, Michaels authored a CATO report arguing that "Congress should pass no legislation restricting emissions of carbon dioxide, repeal current ethanol mandates, and inform the public about how little climate change would be prevented by proposed legislation.
I believe one such, was that He contends that the changes will be minor, not catastrophic, and may even be beneficial., and of course the line immediately following yours In 2009, Michaels authored a CATO report arguing that "Congress should pass no legislation restricting emissions of carbon dioxide, repeal current ethanol mandates, and inform the public about how little climate change would be prevented by proposed legislation.
so ok AFL seeing as the $1.01 was landed and a yes or no answer once again avoided I have decided not to answer your question ONCE AGAIN lol.........and you keep posting about denialism for and against
now, ok I'll go along with less pollution day in day out, and lets says I actually believe the data fudging and untold BILLIONS in comparison paid by govts to scientists world wide in support of CC against the opposing team which have every right to do so btw
sheet off the track lets say I'm a believer and something needs to be done , lets take action!!
GUIDE ME IN YOUR OWN WORDS AFL...noticing that NOT ONCE you agree/disagree with the china/india/usa situation and the traders
what is your solution to the problem???
free of political claptrap....just a solution to climate change ok?
now, ok I'll go along with less pollution day in day out, and lets says I actually believe the data fudging and untold BILLIONS in comparison paid by govts to scientists world wide in support of CC against the opposing team which have every right to do so btw
sheet off the track lets say I'm a believer and something needs to be done , lets take action!!
GUIDE ME IN YOUR OWN WORDS AFL...noticing that NOT ONCE you agree/disagree with the china/india/usa situation and the traders
what is your solution to the problem???
free of political claptrap....just a solution to climate change ok?
dead set $1.01 no answer from the c+p king will be landed
you will find thebas and I are united in a less polluted world as it stands...whichever way the figures show
the argument here is the 'solution'
the argument here is the 'solution'
Australia's place in the global web of climate denial
By Graham Readfearn
Posted 29 Jun 2011, 7:06amWed 29 Jun 2011, 7:06am
Climate sceptics, deniers, contrarians – call them what you like – are engaged in a fight for column inches, radio waves, TV talk-time and community sentiment.
In Australia, the issue has turned decidedly unsavoury, with climate scientists revealing inboxes chock-full of hate and Government advisors being slurred as Nazis.
But as a memo from US Republican communications guru Frank Luntz revealed in 2003, the most important aspect of climate change denial is not to throw hate, but to sow doubt.
Should the public come to believe that the scientific issues are settled, their views about global warming will change accordingly. Therefore, you need to continue to make the lack of scientific certainty a primary issue in the debate.
Doubt is the product of the climate change denial industry – an industry which is tightly knit, well resourced and globally linked.
Hot on the heels of climate sceptic Lord Christopher Monckton's visit, part-funded by the Association of Mining and Exploration Companies and supported by mining billionaire Gina Rinehart, will be Václav Klaus.
The president of the Czech Republic, a long-time denier of the evidence of climate change, is being flown to Australia to talk about the "mass delusion" of climate change.
Then, once president Klaus has done his bit for the cause, in comes yet another denier of the risks associated with human-caused climate change – Lord Lawson.
This conveyor belt of climate denial is no unhappy coincidence. Australia is an important hub in a long-standing global assault on climate science coordinated by a network of think tanks and front groups, many with links to fossil fuel and mining companies.
Earlier this week in The Age newspaper, Professor Bob Carter, an adjunct (unpaid) research fellow at James Cook University in Queensland, wrote one of his many columns questioning global warming.
Despite the fact that the World Meteorological Organisation has declared the decade just gone to be the warmest on record, Professor Carter claimed the world had gone through a "slight cooling".
Writing in The Age today, John Cook, founder of the blog Skeptical Science, explains the methods Professor Carter uses to confuse readers, such as employing half-truths, cherry-picking data and conveniently ignoring other multiple lines of evidence.
Earlier this month in The Conversation, Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, director of the Global Change Institute at the University of Queensland, searched the leading science journals for peer-reviewed papers on climate change written by Professor Carter and other sceptics, and found only one.
The paper had claimed that natural variation in the climate could account for most of the observed global warming, but when a group of genuine climate change researchers examined the paper they found it seriously flawed. The conclusions made in the paper, wrote a group of eminent scientists in a response in the same journal, were "not supported by their analysis or any physical theory".
In other words, Professor Carter and his co-authors had come to a conclusion which even their own analysis had failed to support. With this being Professor Carter's only foray into the peer-reviewed literature, it is odd that he should be held up as a climate expert.
Yet he is touted as an expert, regularly, and not just here but in the United States and the UK by numerous organisations that deny the risks or even the very existence of human-caused climate change.
As well as being the sole science advisor to Australia's Institute of Public Affairs (IPA), Professor Carter is also listed as an advisor at the US-based Science and Public Policy Institute (SPPI) where Lord Christopher Monckton is the chief policy advisor.
The SPPI emerged from another think tank – the Centre for Science and Public Policy (CSPP) – which Greenpeace has discovered was launched with a grant from oil giant Exxon. Robert Ferguson, the SPPI president, was the executive director for CSPP and Lord Monckton an advisor.
Professor Carter is also the chief science advisor to the Canada-based International Climate Science Coalition (ICSC), where again he teams up with Lord Monckton , who is a policy advisor.
Australian Viv Forbes is also an ICSC advisor, as well as being an advisor to the Australian Climate Science Coalition and chairman of his own Carbon Sense Coalition. The Carbon Sense Coalition also includes former cat palmist Ken Ring amongst its advisors.
When long-serving coal industry director Mr Forbes isn't advising to organisations spreading misinformation on climate science, he is serving as a director at coal export business Stanmore Coal.
On Friday, Professor Carter will be in Washington with a swag of contrarians as a keynote speaker at a conference dedicated to climate denial – mistitled the Sixth International Conference on Climate Change.
The conferences, which started in 2008, have been organised and sponsored by the Heartland Institute – a free-market think tank which has been heavily funded by fossil fuel companies including Exxon, the oil and gas billionaires the Koch brothers and the oil and banking family the Scaifes.
Professor Carter was also a key speaker at the first conference in New York, the second also held in New York, the third in Washington, the fourth in Chicago and the fifth in Sydney.
These have included Alan Moran, a researcher at the Institute of Public Affairs, Professor Ian Plimer, a geologist and mining entrepreneur and South Australian Liberal Senator Cory Bernardi. Lord Monckton has also spoken at two of the conferences.
Alongside Heartland, Australia-based groups have given sponsorship. The IPA has sponsored three conferences and the Lavoisier Group, Carbon Sense Coalition and the Australian Libertarian Society (ALS) have each sponsored twice.
The ALS treasurer is Tim Andrews, who in 2009 spent a year in the US with the Koch Associate Program – set up by the same Koch brothers which have helped fund climate denial and the "grassroots" Tea Party movement in the US.
A series of Greenpeace USA reports have claimed that the companies, foundations and trusts of Charles and David Koch, of the oil and gas company Koch Industries, have ploughed more than $US55 million into think tanks and groups which challenge human-caused climate change.
The Lavoisier Group, which was founded by Hugh Morgan, former head of Western Mining Corporation, is an organisation devoted to climate denial. Mr Morgan is currently a member of the Liberal-led Coalition's business group advising on its climate policy.
The Competitive Enterprise Institute, another free-market US think tank receiving funding from Exxon, co-ordinates the Cooler Heads Coalition, which includes the Lavoisier Group among its members.
In Australia, one of the most enthusiastic supporters of climate denial has been the IPA which is not required to reveal its funders. Lavoisier founder Mr Morgan is a former director of the IPA and his son William is currently on the board.
In its latest attempt to confuse the public on climate change, the IPA will bring Czech Republic president Václav Klaus to Australia late next month.
President Klaus gives away some subtle clues to his long-held position on climate change in the titles of his talks.
Perth gets "Threats to freedom in the 21st century", Sydney gets "Climate change the dangerous faith", Melbourne enjoys "The mass delusion of climate change" and Brisbanites get to hear "Climate change a new ideology".
After president Klaus flies out with his measured analysis still ringing in the ears, Australians will then be treated to climate sceptic Lord Lawson, president of the London-based Global Warming Policy Foundation – yet another think tank devoted to confusing the public about climate change.
Presumably Lord Lawson will not be too concerned at missing president Klaus' talk, given that last October he gave the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) annual lecture in Cambridge.
GWPF also has friends in Australia. Professors Plimer and Carter are both on its "academic advisory council".
The IPA also brought Lord Lawson to Australia in 2007 (Lord Monckton's sister is Rosa Monckton, who is married to Dominic Lawson – Lord Lawson's eldest son). This time, the debate, to be held in Sydney in about five weeks time, is being organised by The Spectator magazine and its editor Tom Switzer, a long-time researcher at the IPA.
With all of this noise being generated in the coming weeks over climate change, Australians could be forgiven for thinking there is a genuine debate over the causes of rising global temperatures, melting ice-sheets, retreating Arctic ice, acidifying oceans, rising sea-levels or the many other direct consequences of increasing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
No doubt there is a debate and no doubt, either, that it is being manufactured.
Graham Readfearn is a freelance journalist and writer covering the environment and sustainability.
By Graham Readfearn
Posted 29 Jun 2011, 7:06amWed 29 Jun 2011, 7:06am
Climate sceptics, deniers, contrarians – call them what you like – are engaged in a fight for column inches, radio waves, TV talk-time and community sentiment.
In Australia, the issue has turned decidedly unsavoury, with climate scientists revealing inboxes chock-full of hate and Government advisors being slurred as Nazis.
But as a memo from US Republican communications guru Frank Luntz revealed in 2003, the most important aspect of climate change denial is not to throw hate, but to sow doubt.
Should the public come to believe that the scientific issues are settled, their views about global warming will change accordingly. Therefore, you need to continue to make the lack of scientific certainty a primary issue in the debate.
Doubt is the product of the climate change denial industry – an industry which is tightly knit, well resourced and globally linked.
Hot on the heels of climate sceptic Lord Christopher Monckton's visit, part-funded by the Association of Mining and Exploration Companies and supported by mining billionaire Gina Rinehart, will be Václav Klaus.
The president of the Czech Republic, a long-time denier of the evidence of climate change, is being flown to Australia to talk about the "mass delusion" of climate change.
Then, once president Klaus has done his bit for the cause, in comes yet another denier of the risks associated with human-caused climate change – Lord Lawson.
This conveyor belt of climate denial is no unhappy coincidence. Australia is an important hub in a long-standing global assault on climate science coordinated by a network of think tanks and front groups, many with links to fossil fuel and mining companies.
Earlier this week in The Age newspaper, Professor Bob Carter, an adjunct (unpaid) research fellow at James Cook University in Queensland, wrote one of his many columns questioning global warming.
Despite the fact that the World Meteorological Organisation has declared the decade just gone to be the warmest on record, Professor Carter claimed the world had gone through a "slight cooling".
Writing in The Age today, John Cook, founder of the blog Skeptical Science, explains the methods Professor Carter uses to confuse readers, such as employing half-truths, cherry-picking data and conveniently ignoring other multiple lines of evidence.
Earlier this month in The Conversation, Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, director of the Global Change Institute at the University of Queensland, searched the leading science journals for peer-reviewed papers on climate change written by Professor Carter and other sceptics, and found only one.
The paper had claimed that natural variation in the climate could account for most of the observed global warming, but when a group of genuine climate change researchers examined the paper they found it seriously flawed. The conclusions made in the paper, wrote a group of eminent scientists in a response in the same journal, were "not supported by their analysis or any physical theory".
In other words, Professor Carter and his co-authors had come to a conclusion which even their own analysis had failed to support. With this being Professor Carter's only foray into the peer-reviewed literature, it is odd that he should be held up as a climate expert.
Yet he is touted as an expert, regularly, and not just here but in the United States and the UK by numerous organisations that deny the risks or even the very existence of human-caused climate change.
As well as being the sole science advisor to Australia's Institute of Public Affairs (IPA), Professor Carter is also listed as an advisor at the US-based Science and Public Policy Institute (SPPI) where Lord Christopher Monckton is the chief policy advisor.
The SPPI emerged from another think tank – the Centre for Science and Public Policy (CSPP) – which Greenpeace has discovered was launched with a grant from oil giant Exxon. Robert Ferguson, the SPPI president, was the executive director for CSPP and Lord Monckton an advisor.
Professor Carter is also the chief science advisor to the Canada-based International Climate Science Coalition (ICSC), where again he teams up with Lord Monckton , who is a policy advisor.
Australian Viv Forbes is also an ICSC advisor, as well as being an advisor to the Australian Climate Science Coalition and chairman of his own Carbon Sense Coalition. The Carbon Sense Coalition also includes former cat palmist Ken Ring amongst its advisors.
When long-serving coal industry director Mr Forbes isn't advising to organisations spreading misinformation on climate science, he is serving as a director at coal export business Stanmore Coal.
On Friday, Professor Carter will be in Washington with a swag of contrarians as a keynote speaker at a conference dedicated to climate denial – mistitled the Sixth International Conference on Climate Change.
The conferences, which started in 2008, have been organised and sponsored by the Heartland Institute – a free-market think tank which has been heavily funded by fossil fuel companies including Exxon, the oil and gas billionaires the Koch brothers and the oil and banking family the Scaifes.
Professor Carter was also a key speaker at the first conference in New York, the second also held in New York, the third in Washington, the fourth in Chicago and the fifth in Sydney.
These have included Alan Moran, a researcher at the Institute of Public Affairs, Professor Ian Plimer, a geologist and mining entrepreneur and South Australian Liberal Senator Cory Bernardi. Lord Monckton has also spoken at two of the conferences.
Alongside Heartland, Australia-based groups have given sponsorship. The IPA has sponsored three conferences and the Lavoisier Group, Carbon Sense Coalition and the Australian Libertarian Society (ALS) have each sponsored twice.
The ALS treasurer is Tim Andrews, who in 2009 spent a year in the US with the Koch Associate Program – set up by the same Koch brothers which have helped fund climate denial and the "grassroots" Tea Party movement in the US.
A series of Greenpeace USA reports have claimed that the companies, foundations and trusts of Charles and David Koch, of the oil and gas company Koch Industries, have ploughed more than $US55 million into think tanks and groups which challenge human-caused climate change.
The Lavoisier Group, which was founded by Hugh Morgan, former head of Western Mining Corporation, is an organisation devoted to climate denial. Mr Morgan is currently a member of the Liberal-led Coalition's business group advising on its climate policy.
The Competitive Enterprise Institute, another free-market US think tank receiving funding from Exxon, co-ordinates the Cooler Heads Coalition, which includes the Lavoisier Group among its members.
In Australia, one of the most enthusiastic supporters of climate denial has been the IPA which is not required to reveal its funders. Lavoisier founder Mr Morgan is a former director of the IPA and his son William is currently on the board.
In its latest attempt to confuse the public on climate change, the IPA will bring Czech Republic president Václav Klaus to Australia late next month.
President Klaus gives away some subtle clues to his long-held position on climate change in the titles of his talks.
Perth gets "Threats to freedom in the 21st century", Sydney gets "Climate change the dangerous faith", Melbourne enjoys "The mass delusion of climate change" and Brisbanites get to hear "Climate change a new ideology".
After president Klaus flies out with his measured analysis still ringing in the ears, Australians will then be treated to climate sceptic Lord Lawson, president of the London-based Global Warming Policy Foundation – yet another think tank devoted to confusing the public about climate change.
Presumably Lord Lawson will not be too concerned at missing president Klaus' talk, given that last October he gave the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) annual lecture in Cambridge.
GWPF also has friends in Australia. Professors Plimer and Carter are both on its "academic advisory council".
The IPA also brought Lord Lawson to Australia in 2007 (Lord Monckton's sister is Rosa Monckton, who is married to Dominic Lawson – Lord Lawson's eldest son). This time, the debate, to be held in Sydney in about five weeks time, is being organised by The Spectator magazine and its editor Tom Switzer, a long-time researcher at the IPA.
With all of this noise being generated in the coming weeks over climate change, Australians could be forgiven for thinking there is a genuine debate over the causes of rising global temperatures, melting ice-sheets, retreating Arctic ice, acidifying oceans, rising sea-levels or the many other direct consequences of increasing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
No doubt there is a debate and no doubt, either, that it is being manufactured.
Graham Readfearn is a freelance journalist and writer covering the environment and sustainability.
AFL
‘a deliberate and organized effort to misdirect the public discussion and distort the public’s understanding of climate.’
yes i agree afl .. those alarmists are definately misdirecting & distorting the truth ... you finally see it ... at last
0.05c per decade ... according to the ipcc themselves ... is 20 decades until a 1c extra warmth is achieved
20 decades = 200 years ... for 1c increase
so we're now talking ... 2200 .. not 2100 ... like the alarmists tried to scare us about ... back in 2007
this alarmism and socialist wealth distribution political agenda (based on alarmism) is well exposed
the ets ... BIGGEST RORT EVER
‘a deliberate and organized effort to misdirect the public discussion and distort the public’s understanding of climate.’
yes i agree afl .. those alarmists are definately misdirecting & distorting the truth ... you finally see it ... at last
0.05c per decade ... according to the ipcc themselves ... is 20 decades until a 1c extra warmth is achieved
20 decades = 200 years ... for 1c increase
so we're now talking ... 2200 .. not 2100 ... like the alarmists tried to scare us about ... back in 2007
this alarmism and socialist wealth distribution political agenda (based on alarmism) is well exposed
the ets ... BIGGEST RORT EVER
again a wonderful non answer ONCE AGAIN ffs!
cant you ever say anything FOR YOURSELF?????????????
cant you ever say anything FOR YOURSELF?????????????
I don't believe anything you say about this subject. You have denied and belittled time and again every thing
about human induced CC and Global Warming.
At the same time you NOW are trying to claim you and Thebas are actuallly Greenies
PLEEEEEEEASE.
about human induced CC and Global Warming.
At the same time you NOW are trying to claim you and Thebas are actuallly Greenies
PLEEEEEEEASE.
Do agree with the ahem *person* from the Guardian and just fix the problem by buying up BILLIONS of carbon CREDITS?
Crackers #4: The Institute of Public Smokescreens
Sandi Keane 13 June 2011, 11:35pm 1,783
BusinessEnvironmentInvestigations
The Crackers Award* this week goes to the Institute of Public Affairs, the cash for comment think tank of choice for the Liberal Party, Big Tobacco, Big Coal, Big Carbon and many other fellow travellers. Environment editor Sandi Keane reports.
by environment editor Sandi Keane
THERE'S NOTHING MUCH that’s public about the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA).
…not its affairs.
…and certainly not its financial affairs.
Apart from a few lapses of discipline over the years or an unavoidable moment of truth-telling in response to some teeth pulling by the Productivity Commission, the IPA is shy about revealing its funding sources.
In his 2007 scathing critique of the PR industry, Inside Spin: The Dark Underbelly of the PR Industry, Bob Burton writes how conservative think tanks like the IPA are used as a smokescreen by those large corporations anxious to hide their affiliation to invisibly influence just about every news story we see and hear:
“...a little funding routed via a think tank enables the policy agenda of corporate funders to be projected to a broader audience with more credibility than if they did it themselves.”
You’d think these days, the spinmeisters at the IPA and other think tanks would have woken up to the fact that we, the long-suffering public, have woken up to them. But as long as the money keeps rolling in, why should they care?
A big fan of Media Watch, I was, therefore, fascinated when Jonathan Holmes – clearly a fellow-spin-fatigue sufferer – decided to tell the IPA that the game was up.
The public might be fooled some of the time but not all of the time.
We were about to be avenged.
Just days after the then Rudd government’s announcement of its “plain packaging” plans on 28 April 2010, Media Watch went to air on 10 May with a damning critique of the IPA entitled “Smoking out the Spin”.
The program focused on the reaction by the IPA’s Tim Wilson the day following the Government’s media release. Wilson stormed the airwaves on behalf of Big Tobacco…. It was virtually wall to wall. He clocked up at THIRTEEN radio interviews, an opinion piece in The Australian and still managed to pop up, fresh as a daisy, on prime time 7.30 Report. Be afraid, he warned. Be very afraid. This outrageous plan would cost the public $3 billion in compensation! If our government took away a company’s logo, it could be seen as STEALING!
Jonathan Holmes clearly took exception to the ‘cash for comment’ record of the IPA, particularly when the ABC is used as the vehicle. If the IPA was acting on behalf of the tobacco industry in return for large injections of cash, this should be disclosed.
Media Watch cited a 2002 opinion piece in The Australian from the IPA’s Don D’Cruz that included a rare disclosure that the “IPA receives support from tobacco companies”.
The program asked the IPA whether it still received funding from tobacco companies.
It declined to comment. It was up to their sponsors to divulge who was on the payroll.
Holmes asked all 3 tobacco companies, British American Tobacco, Imperial Tobacco and Phillip Morris.
All refused to comment.
Which leads me to the question: just what is the word “public” supposed to signify in this organisation’s name — a weasel word to obscure its shadowy dealings?
Media Watch could have gone a step further and asked IPA Director, Alan Moran. He’d have confirmed that the IPA receives cash for comment from those corporate interests anxious to hide behind a seemingly acceptable outfit like the IPA. Thanks to Dr. Guy Pearse’s forensic exposé of the IPA in High and Dry, we are directed to a Transcript of Proceedings of the Inquiry into the National Access Regime on 28 May 2001. The participants, IPA, United Energy, Citipower and TXU, are asked by the Chairman to give their names and affiliations. Alan Moran revealed that the IPA had about 4000 funders and whilst the IPA “may take positions which are somewhat different from those of the funders. Obviously that doesn’t happen too often, otherwise they’d stop funding us…” (p.45)
Watching the program, I was impressed by Tim Wilson’s manic output that day. It was a marathon effort. No wonder young Tim Wilson is hailed as the IPA’s wunderkind. Alan Moran surely couldn’t have gone 13 rounds on air plus the 7.30 Report (and we’re talking Kerry O’Brien here) as well as pen an opinion piece for The Australian. I know I couldn’t have.
Grudgingly, I had to hand it to Tim — whatever Big Tobacco was paying him, it wasn’t enough.
It makes financial sense to give generously to high profilers like Tim Wilson and the IPA. Why risk being mauled by the mob when you can hire a pressure group like the Institute of Public Affairs? Its media savvy guarantees a positive sound bite, millions of dollars of free publicity through opinion pieces in our major newspapers and ‘credible commentator’ status on all major current affairs TV and radio programs. How many times does the IPA pop up on The Drum, Q&A, 7.30, Lateline, ABC Radio National, regional ABC radio? I don’t watch commercial TV, but here’s wall to wall media exposure across the ABC for starters.
What struck me was how a shadowy outfit like the IPA with some of its unsavory connections gets that amount of free publicity on the ABC? Bob Brown struggled to get a mention for the Green’s views on plain packaging the day Tim Wilson dominated the airwaves.
It appears the politicization of the ABC under the Howard government (documented by Margaret Simons, Robert Manne, and Clive Hamilton, amongst others) has survived the Howard regime. If you recall, the Minister responsible for the ABC ordered ‘surveillance’ to prove bias. Right-wing appointments were made to the Board. They, in turn, appointed senior executives to carry out the transformation. It was called the ‘culture wars’.
The culture exists today in the ABC’s mindless pursuit of ‘balance’. The BBC is far more balanced in that it represents ‘the majority view’. It also has a stricter policy on disclosing links to sponsors.
Thus, I was compelled recently to write to Jon Faine, the popular presenter of the ABC’s 774 Melbourne Morning program. Jon Faine is a respected journalist and no fool. Yet, every Friday on his ABC 774 morning program in Melbourne, the IPA’s Tim Wilson appears as Faine’s guest on the Friday Wrap segment. Prior to Tim, it was IPA’s Executive Director, John Roskam.
Tune into the Friday Wrap to see how Tim Wilson uses the program to push the IPA’s well-rehearsed climate science denial routine.
The IPA is the heart of climate science denial in Australia and some say the denial movement started with the IPA, following its funding by the mining lobby.
But not once does Jon Faine ask the question that Media Watch berated journalists for failing to do in Smoking out the Spin: does the IPA get funding from the big polluters?
I know it does and the fact is well documented. But not all ABC listeners know this.
My complaint was that the IPA’s funding sources should be disclosed when its agenda is clearly one aimed at delaying any sort of regulation on the big polluters. The response from Jon Faine was:
“The IPA position is what it is and they are as entitled to be heard as anyone else, regardless of their $ source”
So, two different opinions from the ABC.
Jonathan Holmes believes that when Tim Wilson is on the ABC airwaves spruiking for Big Tobacco, the funding links should be disclosed. But when the same Tim Wilson spruiks for Big Carbon on Jon Faine’s program, it is OK.
Wilson is currently completing a Graduate Diploma of Energy and the Environment (Climate Science and Global Warming) at Perth's Murdoch University. This is not Annabel Crabb’s East Bumcrack University. It’s a real tertiary institution teaching real climate science. Could be tricky for a busy boy like Tim; he’ll have to focus:
IPA hat: climate change = crap.
Student hat: climate change = real.
The IPA does a sterling job spinning for Big Carbon and Big Tobacco. But given the challenge of winning over the spin-fatigued public, it decided it needed to multiply its efforts. More lobby groups were the answer.
In 2005, the IPA set up the Australian Environment Foundation. Just as there is nothing ‘public’ about the ‘affairs’ of the Institute of Public Affairs, there is nothing ‘environmental about the Australian Environment Foundation. This is a deliberate attempt to deceive the public into confusing it with that highly respected organisation, the Australian Conservation Foundation.
There are no treehuggers here in the AEF, just treeloggers. This ‘astroturfer’ with the greenwashed name promotes logging of old growth forests, genetic engineering and nuclear power and is, as you would expect of from the loins of the IPA, a climate skeptic front group. Timber Communities Australia is one of its funders.
The IPA has been spinning the facts on climate change for several decades now. Its moral lowpoint was inviting (Crackers #3) Dr Fred Singer to Australia not once, but twice. This is the man who used his scientific credentials to argue against the link between lung cancer and cigarettes; stopped prompt action on CFCs, played down the danger of nuclear weapons, denied acid rain was caused by pollution and even took sides against the whales.
If there was harm being done to man, beast or planet and your corporation was the cause, Singer was your “one stop shop”.
"...the IPA links to the Liberal party go back decades. Its Executive Director, John Roskam (pictured), a Liberal party powerbroker and former Howard government staffer, has run for election on several occasions."
The Coalition is no longer in government but the IPA links to the Liberal party go back decades. Its Executive Director, John Roskam, a Liberal party powerbroker and former Howard government staffer, has run for election on several occasions. The Chair of the Board is former Howard government Senator, Rod Kemp. Former Victorian Liberal party President and power broker Michael Kroger is also a Board member, as is former Rio Tinto and Liberal party PR advisor Tim Duncan.
Through its association with the IPA, Fred Singer and the whole cabal of climate skeptics, the Liberal party lost supporters in its ranks who care passionately about the future of the planet.
A sobering observation was made this month by Health Minister, Nicola Roxon: if someone came up with the idea of cigarettes today, their product would be banned. The tobacco industries’ product kills half of those who use it. In January this year, a US district court overturned the appeal by Phillip Morris on charges that it had violated the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act for conspiring to hide the dangers of cigarettes.
Who would want to associate themselves with corrupt racketeers and purveyors of a disease like cancer? Well, the Institute of Public Affairs and the Coalition do. Abbott might have kicked the habit of saying ‘no’ when he supported plain packaging, but accepting blood money from Big Tobacco is a reflection on the moral bankruptcy of this once proud party.
I can still remember when the IPA was more transparent — when it used to list BHP as one of its sponsors. These days, you’d need a laser to shed light on the murky depths of the IPA’s money pool.
Rio Tinto was a sponsor. We know that because it announced it was withdrawing its sponsorship of the IPA following the aggressive character of IPA's attacks on Aboriginal self-determination.
Thanks toresearch done byAustralia’s climate organisations and Sourcewatch, we can shine a light on some of the corporations using the services of the IPA. These include Philip Morris, British American Tobacco, BHP Billiton, Western Mining, Caltex, Esso Australia (a subsidiary of Exxon), Shell, Woodside Petroleum, Murray Irrigation Ltd. Telstra, Clough engineering, Visy, News Ltd. and fifteen major companies in the electricity industry.
It’s a start. But it’s high time the media starting insisting on disclosure. That way, we’d know when we’re being spun a line. And we might start getting some real ‘balance’ and an informed debate.
In Margo Kingston's 2004 book, 'Not Happy, John', the IPA's then executive director Mike Hahan was quoted as saying that the IPA's supporter list would be publicly available in the near future.
We’re still waiting.
* ‘The Planet vs East Bumcrack’ is a weekly column by IA's environment editor, Sandi Keane, in which she discusses the pseudo-science that typically characterises anti-environmentalist arguments. The term ‘East Bumcrack’ comes from an following episode of ABC’s Insiders, where journalist Annabel Crabb used the term to describe the science used by Andrew Bolt to argue against climate change as arising from “East Bumcrack University”.
Creative Commons Licence
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License
Sandi Keane 13 June 2011, 11:35pm 1,783
BusinessEnvironmentInvestigations
The Crackers Award* this week goes to the Institute of Public Affairs, the cash for comment think tank of choice for the Liberal Party, Big Tobacco, Big Coal, Big Carbon and many other fellow travellers. Environment editor Sandi Keane reports.
by environment editor Sandi Keane
THERE'S NOTHING MUCH that’s public about the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA).
…not its affairs.
…and certainly not its financial affairs.
Apart from a few lapses of discipline over the years or an unavoidable moment of truth-telling in response to some teeth pulling by the Productivity Commission, the IPA is shy about revealing its funding sources.
In his 2007 scathing critique of the PR industry, Inside Spin: The Dark Underbelly of the PR Industry, Bob Burton writes how conservative think tanks like the IPA are used as a smokescreen by those large corporations anxious to hide their affiliation to invisibly influence just about every news story we see and hear:
“...a little funding routed via a think tank enables the policy agenda of corporate funders to be projected to a broader audience with more credibility than if they did it themselves.”
You’d think these days, the spinmeisters at the IPA and other think tanks would have woken up to the fact that we, the long-suffering public, have woken up to them. But as long as the money keeps rolling in, why should they care?
A big fan of Media Watch, I was, therefore, fascinated when Jonathan Holmes – clearly a fellow-spin-fatigue sufferer – decided to tell the IPA that the game was up.
The public might be fooled some of the time but not all of the time.
We were about to be avenged.
Just days after the then Rudd government’s announcement of its “plain packaging” plans on 28 April 2010, Media Watch went to air on 10 May with a damning critique of the IPA entitled “Smoking out the Spin”.
The program focused on the reaction by the IPA’s Tim Wilson the day following the Government’s media release. Wilson stormed the airwaves on behalf of Big Tobacco…. It was virtually wall to wall. He clocked up at THIRTEEN radio interviews, an opinion piece in The Australian and still managed to pop up, fresh as a daisy, on prime time 7.30 Report. Be afraid, he warned. Be very afraid. This outrageous plan would cost the public $3 billion in compensation! If our government took away a company’s logo, it could be seen as STEALING!
Jonathan Holmes clearly took exception to the ‘cash for comment’ record of the IPA, particularly when the ABC is used as the vehicle. If the IPA was acting on behalf of the tobacco industry in return for large injections of cash, this should be disclosed.
Media Watch cited a 2002 opinion piece in The Australian from the IPA’s Don D’Cruz that included a rare disclosure that the “IPA receives support from tobacco companies”.
The program asked the IPA whether it still received funding from tobacco companies.
It declined to comment. It was up to their sponsors to divulge who was on the payroll.
Holmes asked all 3 tobacco companies, British American Tobacco, Imperial Tobacco and Phillip Morris.
All refused to comment.
Which leads me to the question: just what is the word “public” supposed to signify in this organisation’s name — a weasel word to obscure its shadowy dealings?
Media Watch could have gone a step further and asked IPA Director, Alan Moran. He’d have confirmed that the IPA receives cash for comment from those corporate interests anxious to hide behind a seemingly acceptable outfit like the IPA. Thanks to Dr. Guy Pearse’s forensic exposé of the IPA in High and Dry, we are directed to a Transcript of Proceedings of the Inquiry into the National Access Regime on 28 May 2001. The participants, IPA, United Energy, Citipower and TXU, are asked by the Chairman to give their names and affiliations. Alan Moran revealed that the IPA had about 4000 funders and whilst the IPA “may take positions which are somewhat different from those of the funders. Obviously that doesn’t happen too often, otherwise they’d stop funding us…” (p.45)
Watching the program, I was impressed by Tim Wilson’s manic output that day. It was a marathon effort. No wonder young Tim Wilson is hailed as the IPA’s wunderkind. Alan Moran surely couldn’t have gone 13 rounds on air plus the 7.30 Report (and we’re talking Kerry O’Brien here) as well as pen an opinion piece for The Australian. I know I couldn’t have.
Grudgingly, I had to hand it to Tim — whatever Big Tobacco was paying him, it wasn’t enough.
It makes financial sense to give generously to high profilers like Tim Wilson and the IPA. Why risk being mauled by the mob when you can hire a pressure group like the Institute of Public Affairs? Its media savvy guarantees a positive sound bite, millions of dollars of free publicity through opinion pieces in our major newspapers and ‘credible commentator’ status on all major current affairs TV and radio programs. How many times does the IPA pop up on The Drum, Q&A, 7.30, Lateline, ABC Radio National, regional ABC radio? I don’t watch commercial TV, but here’s wall to wall media exposure across the ABC for starters.
What struck me was how a shadowy outfit like the IPA with some of its unsavory connections gets that amount of free publicity on the ABC? Bob Brown struggled to get a mention for the Green’s views on plain packaging the day Tim Wilson dominated the airwaves.
It appears the politicization of the ABC under the Howard government (documented by Margaret Simons, Robert Manne, and Clive Hamilton, amongst others) has survived the Howard regime. If you recall, the Minister responsible for the ABC ordered ‘surveillance’ to prove bias. Right-wing appointments were made to the Board. They, in turn, appointed senior executives to carry out the transformation. It was called the ‘culture wars’.
The culture exists today in the ABC’s mindless pursuit of ‘balance’. The BBC is far more balanced in that it represents ‘the majority view’. It also has a stricter policy on disclosing links to sponsors.
Thus, I was compelled recently to write to Jon Faine, the popular presenter of the ABC’s 774 Melbourne Morning program. Jon Faine is a respected journalist and no fool. Yet, every Friday on his ABC 774 morning program in Melbourne, the IPA’s Tim Wilson appears as Faine’s guest on the Friday Wrap segment. Prior to Tim, it was IPA’s Executive Director, John Roskam.
Tune into the Friday Wrap to see how Tim Wilson uses the program to push the IPA’s well-rehearsed climate science denial routine.
The IPA is the heart of climate science denial in Australia and some say the denial movement started with the IPA, following its funding by the mining lobby.
But not once does Jon Faine ask the question that Media Watch berated journalists for failing to do in Smoking out the Spin: does the IPA get funding from the big polluters?
I know it does and the fact is well documented. But not all ABC listeners know this.
My complaint was that the IPA’s funding sources should be disclosed when its agenda is clearly one aimed at delaying any sort of regulation on the big polluters. The response from Jon Faine was:
“The IPA position is what it is and they are as entitled to be heard as anyone else, regardless of their $ source”
So, two different opinions from the ABC.
Jonathan Holmes believes that when Tim Wilson is on the ABC airwaves spruiking for Big Tobacco, the funding links should be disclosed. But when the same Tim Wilson spruiks for Big Carbon on Jon Faine’s program, it is OK.
Wilson is currently completing a Graduate Diploma of Energy and the Environment (Climate Science and Global Warming) at Perth's Murdoch University. This is not Annabel Crabb’s East Bumcrack University. It’s a real tertiary institution teaching real climate science. Could be tricky for a busy boy like Tim; he’ll have to focus:
IPA hat: climate change = crap.
Student hat: climate change = real.
The IPA does a sterling job spinning for Big Carbon and Big Tobacco. But given the challenge of winning over the spin-fatigued public, it decided it needed to multiply its efforts. More lobby groups were the answer.
In 2005, the IPA set up the Australian Environment Foundation. Just as there is nothing ‘public’ about the ‘affairs’ of the Institute of Public Affairs, there is nothing ‘environmental about the Australian Environment Foundation. This is a deliberate attempt to deceive the public into confusing it with that highly respected organisation, the Australian Conservation Foundation.
There are no treehuggers here in the AEF, just treeloggers. This ‘astroturfer’ with the greenwashed name promotes logging of old growth forests, genetic engineering and nuclear power and is, as you would expect of from the loins of the IPA, a climate skeptic front group. Timber Communities Australia is one of its funders.
The IPA has been spinning the facts on climate change for several decades now. Its moral lowpoint was inviting (Crackers #3) Dr Fred Singer to Australia not once, but twice. This is the man who used his scientific credentials to argue against the link between lung cancer and cigarettes; stopped prompt action on CFCs, played down the danger of nuclear weapons, denied acid rain was caused by pollution and even took sides against the whales.
If there was harm being done to man, beast or planet and your corporation was the cause, Singer was your “one stop shop”.
"...the IPA links to the Liberal party go back decades. Its Executive Director, John Roskam (pictured), a Liberal party powerbroker and former Howard government staffer, has run for election on several occasions."
The Coalition is no longer in government but the IPA links to the Liberal party go back decades. Its Executive Director, John Roskam, a Liberal party powerbroker and former Howard government staffer, has run for election on several occasions. The Chair of the Board is former Howard government Senator, Rod Kemp. Former Victorian Liberal party President and power broker Michael Kroger is also a Board member, as is former Rio Tinto and Liberal party PR advisor Tim Duncan.
Through its association with the IPA, Fred Singer and the whole cabal of climate skeptics, the Liberal party lost supporters in its ranks who care passionately about the future of the planet.
A sobering observation was made this month by Health Minister, Nicola Roxon: if someone came up with the idea of cigarettes today, their product would be banned. The tobacco industries’ product kills half of those who use it. In January this year, a US district court overturned the appeal by Phillip Morris on charges that it had violated the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act for conspiring to hide the dangers of cigarettes.
Who would want to associate themselves with corrupt racketeers and purveyors of a disease like cancer? Well, the Institute of Public Affairs and the Coalition do. Abbott might have kicked the habit of saying ‘no’ when he supported plain packaging, but accepting blood money from Big Tobacco is a reflection on the moral bankruptcy of this once proud party.
I can still remember when the IPA was more transparent — when it used to list BHP as one of its sponsors. These days, you’d need a laser to shed light on the murky depths of the IPA’s money pool.
Rio Tinto was a sponsor. We know that because it announced it was withdrawing its sponsorship of the IPA following the aggressive character of IPA's attacks on Aboriginal self-determination.
Thanks toresearch done byAustralia’s climate organisations and Sourcewatch, we can shine a light on some of the corporations using the services of the IPA. These include Philip Morris, British American Tobacco, BHP Billiton, Western Mining, Caltex, Esso Australia (a subsidiary of Exxon), Shell, Woodside Petroleum, Murray Irrigation Ltd. Telstra, Clough engineering, Visy, News Ltd. and fifteen major companies in the electricity industry.
It’s a start. But it’s high time the media starting insisting on disclosure. That way, we’d know when we’re being spun a line. And we might start getting some real ‘balance’ and an informed debate.
In Margo Kingston's 2004 book, 'Not Happy, John', the IPA's then executive director Mike Hahan was quoted as saying that the IPA's supporter list would be publicly available in the near future.
We’re still waiting.
* ‘The Planet vs East Bumcrack’ is a weekly column by IA's environment editor, Sandi Keane, in which she discusses the pseudo-science that typically characterises anti-environmentalist arguments. The term ‘East Bumcrack’ comes from an following episode of ABC’s Insiders, where journalist Annabel Crabb used the term to describe the science used by Andrew Bolt to argue against climate change as arising from “East Bumcrack University”.
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I just would like to know your answer....ITS NOT A HARD QUESTION ffs
I'm convinced you are a 100% dead set halfwit ....likeable to some extent but seriously lacking thought process
you have NO ANSWER - just go along blindly with lefty solutions because they are the GOOD guys in life , never done a single thing wrong....ooops did someone mention the South Oz ICAC enquiry?
I dont read your c rap any more so do continue posting your total B ull s hit.
I am just going to keep bombing this thread with the truth.......something you are allergic to when it comes
to this subject.
I am just going to keep bombing this thread with the truth.......something you are allergic to when it comes
to this subject.
and posting from such esteemed journos like ummm
kanookandchook
and wait for it
AlanTheAmazing
you couldn't dream this sh!t up
kanookandchook
and wait for it
AlanTheAmazing
you couldn't dream this sh!t up
sandi keane = journalist (from the new NON independent australia left wing rubbish rag)
see this is where you are wrong...once again
I am willing to see less pollution
so what would your answer be to achieve it
its not a difficult question not is that full of crap
I am willing to see less pollution
so what would your answer be to achieve it
its not a difficult question not is that full of crap
you do want me to believe don't you???
show me the way....with an answer
show me the way....with an answer
the truth is you have no answer......you just want loonies running the show and print money till your nose bleeds , its ok,one world government and every single person on the planet conforming....no rich no poor.....all comrades together....
runs under scrutiny EACH AND EVERY SINGLE TIME - you cant handle the TRUTH lol
or if doesn't run he just pastes some loony rag crap
or if doesn't run he just pastes some loony rag crap
not once in any thread have you proposed a solution to anything.....but just swing with whatever the left says and bag the right
at least with Womble he applauds any good initiative on either side of the fence
at least with Womble he applauds any good initiative on either side of the fence
yeah that's right go have a sook , then wait till I'm off and post more garbage WITHOUT A SOLUTION
BIGGEST RORT EVER = ETS
BIGGEST RORT EVER = ETS
My bet is Thebas has a penny in the denier trough.
He has been drinking the same kool aide of denial as the big deniers,,,,,,,, he's got it down pat.
He has been drinking the same kool aide of denial as the big deniers,,,,,,,, he's got it down pat.
Of the tens of thousands of words of "opinion" you have posted on all your threads, NONE have been your own. You don't find that a little strange for somebody so "opinionated"? 
i've always denied the alarmism AFL
but do you still agree with the alarmism ?
and if so ... what are your thoughts on obama congratulating the chinese for saying they ...
"haven't peaked their greenhouse emissions yet and it would likely be 15 to 16 years before they hit their peak greenhouse gas emission output level"
is that a good thing for the planet ... while australia has reduced our emissions over the past 2 years by 2.2% ?
(according to womble's article)
but do you still agree with the alarmism ?
and if so ... what are your thoughts on obama congratulating the chinese for saying they ...
"haven't peaked their greenhouse emissions yet and it would likely be 15 to 16 years before they hit their peak greenhouse gas emission output level"
is that a good thing for the planet ... while australia has reduced our emissions over the past 2 years by 2.2% ?
(according to womble's article)
and nothing will convince me about the climate unless the earth tilts ....no doubt BJT has a theory on that one
all those years everyone swept up leaves and set little fires on a sunday in the gutter now banned, or the back yard incinerator banned...I wonder how many other countries do the same?...not many im guessing
that alone should have a high percentage of reduced greenhouse gases
that alone should have a high percentage of reduced greenhouse gases
Amazing. Insightful. Brilliant. Absolute genius post megsy. Congratulations.
?
afl
alarmism
Among the experts who debunked the latest White House report:
former chair of the EPA Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee Dr. George Wolff
former director of the National Hurricane Center Dr. Neil Frank,
Colorado State University Emeritus Professor of Atmospheric Science Dr. William M. Gray,
IPCC expert reviewer and University of Missouri professor of Atmospheric Science Dr. Anthony R. Lupo,
retired Environment Canada scientist and IPCC expert reviewer Dr. Madhav Khandekar
In their report trashing the latest federal alarmism, the experts noted that over the last 130 years, the 1930s still had the most high-temperature records — with a stunning 70 percent of current state record highs set prior to 1940.
Meanwhile, the last 50 years have seen more record lows than record highs, they noted.
The latest White House alarmism, the coalition added, even stands in contrast to Obama’s “usual allies” in promoting extreme climate hysteria, with the UN and the National Academy of Sciences both “dialing back apocalyptic claims.”
---
this from a Prez who oversees his country where enormous jets of methane in a sector of the USA are pumping out the equivalent VOLUME of methane into the atmosphere as that produced by the whole of australia every year
of course CH4 methane (depending on who you believe) has a greenhouse effect of between 30 and 80 times that of co2
so the equivalent of 30+ australia's around the world each year dumping greenhouse
yet the Prez says Oz should do more and then appauds china for saying they are STILL INCRESING their greenhouse output till they will peak it in about 15 years
... alarmism and trickery .. and of the course the fake-for-the-environment ETS where sovereign wealth is handed over
yeah ... leave me out of those tricks for sure
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/methane-leak-rate-proves-key-to-climate-change-goals/
and greenpeace on the methane problem
In late September 2013, the IPCC reported that methane is a far more potent greenhouse gas than had been previously assumed.
http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/campaigns/global-warming-and-energy/science/Natural-Gas-and-Global-Warming/
... funny eh .. no mention of that in the left wing online rags ... maybe you can find one from your (non) independent "journos"
yet the claim for an ETS on coal based co2 pushes on and on ... though china & india are not 'coughing up' (pun)
maybe australia shouldn't either .. till the full facts are explored and understood
afl
alarmism
Among the experts who debunked the latest White House report:
former chair of the EPA Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee Dr. George Wolff
former director of the National Hurricane Center Dr. Neil Frank,
Colorado State University Emeritus Professor of Atmospheric Science Dr. William M. Gray,
IPCC expert reviewer and University of Missouri professor of Atmospheric Science Dr. Anthony R. Lupo,
retired Environment Canada scientist and IPCC expert reviewer Dr. Madhav Khandekar
In their report trashing the latest federal alarmism, the experts noted that over the last 130 years, the 1930s still had the most high-temperature records — with a stunning 70 percent of current state record highs set prior to 1940.
Meanwhile, the last 50 years have seen more record lows than record highs, they noted.
The latest White House alarmism, the coalition added, even stands in contrast to Obama’s “usual allies” in promoting extreme climate hysteria, with the UN and the National Academy of Sciences both “dialing back apocalyptic claims.”
---
this from a Prez who oversees his country where enormous jets of methane in a sector of the USA are pumping out the equivalent VOLUME of methane into the atmosphere as that produced by the whole of australia every year
of course CH4 methane (depending on who you believe) has a greenhouse effect of between 30 and 80 times that of co2
so the equivalent of 30+ australia's around the world each year dumping greenhouse
yet the Prez says Oz should do more and then appauds china for saying they are STILL INCRESING their greenhouse output till they will peak it in about 15 years
... alarmism and trickery .. and of the course the fake-for-the-environment ETS where sovereign wealth is handed over
yeah ... leave me out of those tricks for sure
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/methane-leak-rate-proves-key-to-climate-change-goals/
and greenpeace on the methane problem
In late September 2013, the IPCC reported that methane is a far more potent greenhouse gas than had been previously assumed.
http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/campaigns/global-warming-and-energy/science/Natural-Gas-and-Global-Warming/
... funny eh .. no mention of that in the left wing online rags ... maybe you can find one from your (non) independent "journos"
yet the claim for an ETS on coal based co2 pushes on and on ... though china & india are not 'coughing up' (pun)
maybe australia shouldn't either .. till the full facts are explored and understood
yeah it was Amazing. Insightful. Brilliant. Absolute genius post 
http://www.comlaw.gov.au/Details/F2013L01165
http://whatsyourimpact.org/greenhouse-gases/methane-sources
http://www.comlaw.gov.au/Details/F2013L01165
http://whatsyourimpact.org/greenhouse-gases/methane-sources
If reducing CO2 emissions is the objective, then connecting wind power to the current electricity grid is having the opposite effect.
http://stopthesethings.com/2014/09/07/why-intermittent-wind-power-increases-co2-emissions-in-the-electricity-sector/
http://stopthesethings.com/2014/09/07/why-intermittent-wind-power-increases-co2-emissions-in-the-electricity-sector/
wind is awful stuff BB - heaven forbid we use it to generate power 
sun, wind, tidal, geothermal and the like will power Australia in the years to come and it can't happen soon enough for me
sun, wind, tidal, geothermal and the like will power Australia in the years to come and it can't happen soon enough for me
Methane is definitely and issue Megsy - especially on here with plenty of old farts not recognising the issue
There is nothing wrong with wind power womble, it is just being poorly deployed. Wind power output is erratic and unpredictable. Currently coal/gas power stations are forced to operate in a wasteful manner to allow wind power priority to the extent that the result of adding wind power to the power grid is a net increase in CO2 emissions.
Wind power is better suited to being connected to some sort of battery.
Solar (pv) and tidal have potential as they are predictable but both are hampered by only being available for a limited time each day.
Solar (thermal) attempts to extend this availability and shows some promise.
I think geothermal is the answer. Once set up, geothermal can provide a consistent base load power supply. Australia has sufficient geothermal resources to power the entire country indefinitely.
This from the Geoscience Australia website:
'It is estimated that one per cent of the geothermal energy shallower than five kilometres and hotter than 150°C could supply Australia's total energy requirements for 26 000 years (based on 2004-05 figures)'
On a different note, came across this website that shows electricity production by state and fuel type. (updates every 5 minutes)
http://www.nem-watch.info/widgets/RenewEconomy/
Wind power is better suited to being connected to some sort of battery.
Solar (pv) and tidal have potential as they are predictable but both are hampered by only being available for a limited time each day.
Solar (thermal) attempts to extend this availability and shows some promise.
I think geothermal is the answer. Once set up, geothermal can provide a consistent base load power supply. Australia has sufficient geothermal resources to power the entire country indefinitely.
This from the Geoscience Australia website:
'It is estimated that one per cent of the geothermal energy shallower than five kilometres and hotter than 150°C could supply Australia's total energy requirements for 26 000 years (based on 2004-05 figures)'
On a different note, came across this website that shows electricity production by state and fuel type. (updates every 5 minutes)
http://www.nem-watch.info/widgets/RenewEconomy/
It's not only the fake pollution taxes we need to worry about its the slow erosion of citizens rights and the attack on our privacy courtesy of various false flag staged terror attacks around the world
thank for your input Eddie
Solar is the way of the future - the sun is the ultimate energy source and they are working on ways to store the energy it produces - molten salt sounds like it has a lot of potential
I forgot hydro on my list - so many clean alternatives
we just need to change the way we work with wind
Solar is the way of the future - the sun is the ultimate energy source and they are working on ways to store the energy it produces - molten salt sounds like it has a lot of potential
I forgot hydro on my list - so many clean alternatives
we just need to change the way we work with wind
no problem with any of that womble and when they build i'll be more than happy to pay for it, just the same as the new woolies has opened up down the road paid for by the company to capture earnings from my pocket ... bring it on!
but the question is what will PM Turnbull's policy be ??
go with his GS mates or go with what the Coalition (and the last election majority) want?
go with his GS mates or go with what the Coalition (and the last election majority) want?
ok all you greg hunts..the numbers are in..
The 10 hottest years in known history now in order are 2015, 2014, 2010, 2005, 1998, 2013, 2003, 2002, 2006 and 2009.
nothing to see here tho..carry on,happy new year
The 10 hottest years in known history now in order are 2015, 2014, 2010, 2005, 1998, 2013, 2003, 2002, 2006 and 2009.
nothing to see here tho..carry on,happy new year
geez it's hot over here ted ... i've barely got the plastic off another slab before its' goooonnnneeee.
been a lovely mild summer so far in Brisbane 
all are welcome
now interesting that you used those particular years Ted
bigted
The 10 hottest years in known history now in order are 2015, 2014, 2010, 2005, 1998, 2013, 2003, 2002, 2006 and 2009.
2009 of course being the year that the official US temp monitoring facility NOAA (who have about 33% of all the global weather stations in the whole of the whole fkn whole planet lol).
but of course the USA ... being so important as a global leader in peace ... as well as climate ... should have a third of all the monitoring stations in the world under their control
but I digress ... 2009 .. where it now became the hottest of the hot hot hot years ... EVER
... was
pretty much the SAME year that the US monitoring group NOAA should introduce their ... USHCN Version 2 algorithms
had to guess ... because we need computer algorithms to tell us what the weather is like now .. compared say to 1913 ... when they didn't have algorithms ... just someone reading a simple thermometer I guess
https://www.oig.doc.gov/OIGPublications/STL-19846.pdf page 3
USHCN Version 2 Was Created to Correct Data Quality Issues
NOAA researchers created the USHCN Version 2 algorithms, which were implemented in 2009, to adjust climate data for several different factors.
Mainly, Version 2 was intended to compensate for undocumented changes that were not addressed by its predecessor, USHCN Version 1.
Version 1 had several issues that caused inconsistencies in climate data, such as undocumented changes in climate stations.
These inconsistencies led to concerns in the climate community regarding the accuracy and reliability of the data.
-----------
but like I always say ... you can always trust an algorithm (to do what it is told) ... maybe more so than the programmer writing them )
of course it HAS to be hotter collectively than it was 100 years ago
we've gone from .. two and a half billion people on the planet back in 1950
to something like six and a half billion people even five years ago ... almost a threefold increase
what a world we live in
(as a side note .. I find it interesting that the word .. algorithm ... could also be written as
... Al Gore Ithm)
all are welcome
now interesting that you used those particular years Ted
bigted
The 10 hottest years in known history now in order are 2015, 2014, 2010, 2005, 1998, 2013, 2003, 2002, 2006 and 2009.
2009 of course being the year that the official US temp monitoring facility NOAA (who have about 33% of all the global weather stations in the whole of the whole fkn whole planet lol).
but of course the USA ... being so important as a global leader in peace ... as well as climate ... should have a third of all the monitoring stations in the world under their control
but I digress ... 2009 .. where it now became the hottest of the hot hot hot years ... EVER
... was pretty much the SAME year that the US monitoring group NOAA should introduce their ... USHCN Version 2 algorithms
had to guess ... because we need computer algorithms to tell us what the weather is like now .. compared say to 1913 ... when they didn't have algorithms ... just someone reading a simple thermometer I guess
https://www.oig.doc.gov/OIGPublications/STL-19846.pdf page 3
USHCN Version 2 Was Created to Correct Data Quality Issues
NOAA researchers created the USHCN Version 2 algorithms, which were implemented in 2009, to adjust climate data for several different factors.
Mainly, Version 2 was intended to compensate for undocumented changes that were not addressed by its predecessor, USHCN Version 1.
Version 1 had several issues that caused inconsistencies in climate data, such as undocumented changes in climate stations.
These inconsistencies led to concerns in the climate community regarding the accuracy and reliability of the data.
-----------
but like I always say ... you can always trust an algorithm (to do what it is told) ... maybe more so than the programmer writing them
)of course it HAS to be hotter collectively than it was 100 years ago
we've gone from .. two and a half billion people on the planet back in 1950
to something like six and a half billion people even five years ago ... almost a threefold increase
what a world we live in
(as a side note .. I find it interesting that the word .. algorithm ... could also be written as
... Al Gore Ithm
)
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
All I can say is said in this short video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olbbhTSwDIk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olbbhTSwDIk
No one's going to click on one of your videos after that last howler!!
Are you unfamiliar with the term "howler"?
Oh, that's a shame. Another Rightie huh?
I suppose you guys are hoping Donald Trump wins the US Presidency?
It would be the best thing ever if Bernie Sanders won.
It would be the best thing ever if Bernie Sanders won.
The most Secular country in the world is Estonia
'you guys'??? Who's 'you guys'? Do you mean me and Tommy?
I once had an Estonian girlfriend. She hated just about every race and nationality on the planet particularly Russians and ****. She was very proud of her father and the prodigious number of people he had massacred during WW2. Her sister got sick and she had to go back home and I never saw her again.
She probably went home because Estonia is the most Secular country in the World.
Estonia once threatened to cut Russia's power off : http://www.politico.eu/article/baltics-threaten-to-unplug-russian-region-pow...
Estonia once threatened to cut Russia's power off : http://www.politico.eu/article/baltics-threaten-to-unplug-russian-region-pow...
She never mentioned that. I suppose it's possible.
She used to fantasise about killing Communists by the thousand so probably best that she never met you.
I'm not a Communist but they do have some worthwhile ideas. I did put them and the Socialist Alliance before the Libs in the last Federal Election or the one before.
Green is just a more palatable word for communist.
I once rented out the video 'Evil Dead' and watched it with her and she nearly **** her panties so maybe she was not as hard as she thought.
I once rented out the video 'Evil Dead' and watched it with her and she nearly **** her panties so maybe she was not as hard as she thought.
Btw I'm drinking a Lord Nelson Seasonal Ale tonight. Perhaps you go past the Lord Nelson at Millers Point on your walks.
oh dear oh dear another drought except this one is special - because global warming caused it - of course no droughts before the industrial age huh?
Its Geo-Engineering that's doing all the damage to your country which includes the Cremtrails I mentioned,Agenda 21/30 and its happening all over the worls,they are f ucking up our planet the ****
I'm surprised you post on the Australian Forum. Thought you'd be among the folk who believe Australia doesn't even exist.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/shortcuts/2018/apr/15/australia-doesnt-exist-and-other-bizarre-geographic-conspiracies-that-wont-go-away
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/shortcuts/2018/apr/15/australia-doesnt-exist-and-other-bizarre-geographic-conspiracies-that-wont-go-away
Went to Brisbane Ekka (show) on Sunday.
Ordered meal and diet coke (sit down at table)
Went to counter and asked for a straw---butch middle age woman said they dont give straws because they are plastic---
Said I didn't believe in all that nonsense.
She replied it is very important that we all wage "war on waste"
I replied --"You mean you can no longer give out plastic straws but you can sell me this diet coke in a plastic bottle--its plastic!!"
No reply
True story!
Ordered meal and diet coke (sit down at table)
Went to counter and asked for a straw---butch middle age woman said they dont give straws because they are plastic---
Said I didn't believe in all that nonsense.
She replied it is very important that we all wage "war on waste"
I replied --"You mean you can no longer give out plastic straws but you can sell me this diet coke in a plastic bottle--its plastic!!"
No reply
True story!
topical at the moment seeing as Electricity Dollar Bill wants to send the country broke giving all our money overseas for worthless pieces of paper (carbon credits)
You guys should be interested in the video "Mainstream media,CBS Australia covers Climate Engineering" Chemtrails to you and I.
The 12 minute exchange in the video was scheduled to last another 8 minutes but the session was cut short.Perhaps CBS Australia studio 10 supervisors felt the attempt to "debunk" the Climate Engineering issue was not going as they had hoped.
Just like to say,where I live ,the south coast of England,the spraying of chemicals most days is off the scale and yet very,very few people even notice,too busy looking at their smart phones as planned.
The 12 minute exchange in the video was scheduled to last another 8 minutes but the session was cut short.Perhaps CBS Australia studio 10 supervisors felt the attempt to "debunk" the Climate Engineering issue was not going as they had hoped.
Just like to say,where I live ,the south coast of England,the spraying of chemicals most days is off the scale and yet very,very few people even notice,too busy looking at their smart phones as planned.
Apparently USA will burn if Trump gets re-elected............lol yeah right
Never mind climate change, I'm wondering when you lot will have the balls to rise and take your freedom back?
What happened to you?
What happened to you?
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