Some more Green/Left dishonesty

The screed below by diehard socialist Marg Gleeson (her pic below) is the sort that amuses me.  It displays the crookedness and addled thinking of the Left very well.  Just a few points: 



She heads her article with the picture of  a mirror-driven solar furnace.  And what she says about it is true enough.  It's what she omits that is the killer.  The biggest such plant is the Ivanpah setup in California.  It fries birds at a great rate and is so inefficient and unprofitable that it asked last year for half a billion dollars grant from the Federal government in order to keep going. THAT is what Marg thinks is great!  More on Ivanpah here

And she says without embarrassment that "existing emissions have raised the global average surface temperature by less than 1°C." Such a rise is supposed to be bad?  I would have thought that it was trivial.  Her trick is that she does not say it took over a century to generate the rise concerned.  And there is no proof that the rise had anything to do with CO2.

Then she goes on to a bare-faced lie:  "This has already caused significant impacts: increases in frequency and intensity of weather events, such as fires, droughts, cyclones and floods."  Except that it hasn't.  If anything, extreme weather events have become LESS frequent in recent years.  No Category 3-5 hurricane has struck the United States for a record nine years, for instance.  She completely ignores all the statistics on that.  See here

Speaking of mines, she says: "This has brought much wealth to the Australian ruling class".  No mention that the biggest single destination for the money earned by the mines is the pockets of the workers who built and run the mines concerned. See here. Are they ruling class?  As a socialist, shouldn't she be celebrating the high pay earned by the mine-workers?

I could go on and fisk much more of this lying little article but, after looking at only the first four paragraphs, I think it is clear that there is nothing in it that anyone concerned with the facts should take notice of.  So I reproduce below only those paragraphs. The rest of the article can be accessed at the link for anyone who is curious but the quality does not improve in the rest of the article.  The old baggage is just another Leftist crook. She is good at regurgitating Green/Left boilerplate, nothing more.  Note that I give references for everything I say.  She gives none. I wonder why?

Government of dinosaurs will give Australia a 'fossilised economy'


The technology exists for Australia to immediately transition from fossil fuels to 100% renewable energy, such as solar thermal

Following a recent meeting of federal and state ministers with the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Christiana Figures, the federal government announced that it will publish by mid-year the emissions target it will take to the Paris Climate Summit in November.

However, even if all the world's governments agree to limit future emissions to what would cause the global average surface temperature to rise by no more than 2°C from before industrialisation, it will not be enough to avoid catastrophic climate change.

Already existing emissions have raised the global average surface temperature by less than 1°C. This has already caused significant impacts: increases in frequency and intensity of weather events, such as fires, droughts, cyclones and floods. A safe level is to limit emissions to zero.

The Australian economy is heavily dependent on resource exports, including fossil fuels such as coal and natural gas. This has brought much wealth to the Australian ruling class and created a political culture where governments are beholden to the mineral and energy sectors.

SOURCE






Is There Any Need for a Dike to Save Melbourne from the Rising Seas?

Independent scientist, Professor Albert Parker, explains that government estimates of a sea level rise of over 1 meter by 2100 is folly and building any such unecessary dam to cater for that would be a gross waste of public funds.  An extract of the paper, A. Parker, Is there any need for a dike to save Melbourne from the rising seas?, Journal of Geography, Environment and Earth Science International, 2015, Volume 2, Issue 3. DOI:10.9734/JGEESI/2015/17463 follows below

EXTRACT:

The Australian government is still basing policy on the concept that sea level will rise by 1.1 meters along the Australian coastline by 2100. The Department of the Environment has proposed a 10 billion dollar dike to save Melbourne from the hypothetical rising sea. In reality the tide gauges of Victoria are recording average relative rates of rise of less than 1 mm/year, in perfect agreement with the National average.

At this rate sea level will rise by only 8.5 cm by 2100 but even this estimate may be too high. The worldwide average sea level rise, based on only tide gauges of sufficient quality and length, is only about 0.25 mm/year, with zero acceleration over the last few decades.

Such a rise can be dealt with by local adaption, as in the last 100 years, and there is no need for any engineering structures, let alone the proposed 10’billion dollar scheme with its accompanying environmental and social problems

On the basis of the data presented here the average rise of sea level along the Victorian coastline is very likely less than 1 mm/year. The worldwide shows no acceleration in the rate of rise, so there is probably no acceleration in Victoria. This rise in sea level gives no cause for concern. The likelihood of a 1.1 meter sea level rise by 2100 is extremely improbable, in Melbourne and along the Australian coastline in general.  The department of the environment should not seek advice from the same discredited climate agencies that advised the previous Labor government and conclude there is in impending threat of huge sea level rise. Their proposed 10 billion dollar dike is not needed to save Melbourne from the rising seas.

The paper shows that there is not an urgent need to build a very expensive dam to protect Melbourne by sea level increase of more than one meter by 2100 as forecasted by the IPCC. The paper criticizes the IPCC and the local sea level monitoring projects and shows that sea level as measured by other longer and not investigated tide gauges is much less than 1 mm/year. So the proposed 10 billion dollar dike is not needed to save Melbourne from the rising seas.  The paper shows that the sea levels oscillate with up to a quasi-60 years’ periodicity detected, for which windows shorter than 60 years are misleading. On the other hand, the average of tide gauges of sufficient quality and length in the Permanent Service on Mean Sea Level (PSMSL) data base show a slow rise of relative sea level of 0.24 mm/year without any acceleration over the last few decades. The paper shows that the lack of trend in MSL was also confirmed by the GRACE experiment that is a satellite measuring system based on gravity rather altimetry.

The Australian Department of the Environment before basing policy on the concept that sea level will rise by 1.1 meters along the Australian coastline by 2100 should take into account the views expressed in this paper. 

SOURCE






Neville Bonner's great-niece Joanna Lindgren appointed Queensland senator by conservative party


Ms Lindgren.  Under fiercely-defended Australian rules she is an Aborigine

Joanna Lindgren, the great-niece of the first indigenous member of Australia's Parliament Neville Bonner, has been appointed by the Liberal National Party as its new Senator for Queensland.

Following the marathon exhaustive voting process, which came down to a choice between her and former Australian Medical Association president Bill Glasson, Ms Lindgren said she was honoured to follow in her great-uncle's footsteps.

"I'm very happy to be filling his shoes," she said. "He too filled a casual vacancy, just like I am, so I have big shoes to fill."

It is understood the result came down to just a handful of votes from the 230-strong party state council.

Ms Lindgren, a social conservative, had the support of the party's conservative wing.

A high school teacher, Ms Lindgren said education and training would be her main priority in Canberra.

But first, Ms Lindgren said she would have to familiarise herself with Senate rules.

LNP state president Bruce McIver said Ms Lindgren's nomination would go to Queensland Parliament on Thursday afternoon. "We expect Joanna to be in the Senate very shortly after that," he said.

Ms Lindgren, who identified as coming from the Mununjarlli and Jaggera peoples, said she also had a keen interest in industrial and community affairs.

The LNP state council met at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre on Saturday to select its nominee for the Senate from a field of nine candidates.

While Ms Lindgren did not have to face the voters to win a seat in the nation's upper house, she will be tested at the ballot box at the next federal election, due next year.

Ms Lindgren will have the third position on the LNP Senate ticket, behind Senators George Brandis and Barry O'Sullivan.

She was no stranger to election campaigns, however. Ms Lindgren ran against current Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, who was then transport minister, in the seat of Inala at the 2012 state election.

The final ballot for the LNP senate position came down to Ms Lindgren and high profile former AMA Queensland president Bill Glasson, who twice ran unsuccessfully for the Federal seat of Griffith.

Ms Lindgren won the ballot despite Dr Glasson having the support of former Prime Minister John Howard and Foreign Minister Julie Bishop.

The Senate seat became vacant with the retirement of LNP Senator Brett Mason.

In March, then-Senator Mason announced to his party room in Canberra that he would leave the Senate before the expiration of his term, which was due to end on June 30, 2017.  His retirement allowed the LNP to appoint a new senator without the need for a byelection.

Lindgren's appointment will, however, require the approval of the Queensland Parliament.

It was through that process that Senator O'Sullivan replaced Barnaby Joyce in the upper house, following the latter's decision to run for the House of Representatives seat of New England.

Mr Mason has since been appointed Australia's ambassador to the Netherlands, where he will replace incumbent Neil Mules in the coming months.

SOURCE






Our national debt mess must be cleaned up

PARENTS and grandparents like to leave a lump of cash for the next generation when they can. How would the kids react if that lump was not money, but a big steaming pile of debt?

That’s what we as a nation are doing to our children and grandchildren, and last week’s Federal Budget shows that turning off the debt tap will be tricky.

On current official forecasts, Australia will be spending more than it earns each year until at least 2019.

When households spend more than they earn over a long period, they go bankrupt. Governments are lucky to have millions of taxpayers to help pay the ballooning interest bill, but eventually the wheels will fall off.

Just look at Greece. Deep in debt, it has been juggling its finances this month just to pay its pensioners, and many experts expect total financial collapse there soon.

While Greece is an extreme example, it is worrying for Aussies that our national government debt, close to zero in 2007, is now nearing $400 billion and will keep rising.

It’s also worrying that Treasurer Joe Hockey says the government is still borrowing $96 million a day just to pay the bills. And he’s from the conservative side of politics that traditionally keeps spending and debt under control — who knows what will happen if a free-spending Labor government gets elected again?

Finger-pointing is pointless but it will continue anyway. The Abbott Government correctly claims it inherited the debt mess from Labor and its efforts to fix it have been stymied by a difficult Senate. Labor says it saved us from recession by spending up big during the GFC. The Howard Government has been blamed for squandering the fruits of the mining boom.

The simple fact is that everyone needs to take the blame, including Australia’s fickle electorate — that’s us. We’ve developed a “what’s in it for me” attitude over several years as governments on both sides showered us with cash. Their efforts to woo us with money have failed — pollies are still unpopular — and only created a debt mountain.

Overly-generous superannuation incentives, middle-class welfare, big tax cuts and cash giveaways are just some of the contributors.
When someone today is asked to share in some financial pain, there’s an uproar. The terrible reaction to the 2014 Budget is a good example.

Economists say that compared with other countries Australia’s debt isn’t too bad, when expressed as a percentage of our economy.  However, $400 billion is a scary number — and even at the low interest rates that governments borrow money at, it’s costing us all billions of dollars a year in interest.

There are much nicer things to do with billions of dollars.
Australia’s people and politicians need to think like successful investors, taking short-term pain for long-term gain. Perhaps the sad and terrible images likely to come from Greece’s financial collapse will motivate us all to look beyond the next government handout or promise they can’t afford.

Debt hangs around like a bad smell, for both households and governments. We shouldn’t leave it to our kids to clean up.

SOURCE