The coming crash of the climate cult

Viv Forbes

The Climate Cult worships two green idols – electric vehicles and wind-solar energy. This is part of a futile UN scheme promoting ‘Net Zero Emissions’ which aims to cool the climate of the world by waging war on CO2 plant food.

Green worship is the state religion of all Western nations. It is promoted by billionaires with other agendas, and endlessly repeated by the UN, the bureaucracy, all government media, state education, and most big business leaders.

The promotion of electric cars and trucks will cause a great increase in the demand for electricity to replace diesel, petrol, and gas.

We live beside a major highway connecting Ipswich and Boonah in Queensland and we can hear the roar of the traffic.

The road is quiet at night, but as day dawns, the real workers start moving – big diesel trucks off to pick up the day’s loads of gravel, machinery, cattle, tanks, pipes, hay, timber, bricks, and concrete. Then comes the traffic that sustains urban life – meat vans, milk tankers, and refrigerated trucks of produce to fill supermarket shelves every day. Around sunrise come the commuters heading for city jobs, and the city’s electric trains, lifts, and escalators start to run. Then kids are delivered to school and sirens announce the occasional passing of ambulances, fire engines, and police bikes and cars. Finally, the tree-change bureaucrats cruise past in their electric cars heading for their leisurely staggered starts. By 9 am the traffic falls off.

To achieve Net Zero nirvana, all of this early morning traffic rush must be battery-powered. Untold thousands of batteries will need to be fully charged overnight – well before the vast paddocks of Chinese solar panels can deliver one amp of green electricity.

Listen here to Australia’s new Prime Minister during the recent election campaign explaining how roof-top solar will charge all those Tesla batteries overnight…

Australia’s reliable coal/gas power stations could charge batteries overnight, while city demand for electricity is lower, but the green religion demands closure and demolition of anything using hydro-carbons. But Green engineers have the solution – intermittent wind power plus big batteries will re-charge millions of vehicle batteries before dawn.

But what keeps trains, lifts, hospitals, and refrigerators going if we have a still night followed by another cloudy day? More batteries or Snowy 9 Pumped Hydro? And if the still cloudy weather continues, what will re-charge the Big Batteries and re-pump the hydros? And will Greens apply the same conservation standards and delaying tactics to wind, solar, hydro, and power line construction that they now apply to coal mines?

The Queensland Premier has a $62 billion green plan to close all coal power stations, cover the countryside with wind/solar clutter, plan whole cities of battery charging stations, build the ‘world’s biggest’ pumped-hydro batteries (net CONSUMERS of electricity) and become a world leader in ‘green hydrogen’ (huge CONSUMERS of electricity and water). Soon after the last coal power plant is demolished, in a snap of still, cold, cloudy weather the lights will go out, electric trains will stop, and battery-powered food deliveries to the cities will falter. There will be uproar in Parliaments, and all Green/Teal/ALP governments will fall. The ABC will blame ‘climate change’.

Energy Realists will take over. They will immediately place orders for dozens of modular nuclear power plants.

But this energy reality will come too late. Long lines of city dwellers with bicycles, wheel-barrows, and old diesel utes will flee from the hungry cities.

Some of these power refugees may get jobs harvesting potatoes and onions with digging forks, milking cows by hand, or plucking and cleaning chooks.

Re-powering and re-building will take decades.

All this for zero climate benefits – the world has passed the peak of this interglacial and the next long glacial cycle is edging closer.

https://www.spectator.com.au/2022/12/the-coming-crash-of-the-climate-cult/

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A plague of environmentalist judges

A ‘lawfare’-laced New Year as activism reaps its rewards from environmentalist judges: that is what last month’s three ground-breaking judicial decisions that rejected fossil fuel developments on environmental and social grounds, have ensured for Australia’s major export industries – coal and gas. ‘There is now the risk of more delays and obstacles in the progression of important energy projects, postponing new supply that is needed to deliver energy security, emissions reductions and substantial economic returns for Australians’, Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association CEO Samantha McCulloch told the media.

Upheaval across Australia’s oil and gas industry is expected after Santos’ loss of a Federal Court appeal against a decision to cancel its $5.3 billion development approval due to inadequate consultation with local indigenous people; coal projects are under a cloud following both the Queensland Land and Environment Court knocking back a huge Galilee Basin development on the basis of overseas customers’ emissions and, incredibly, human rights and the NSW Independent Planning Commission’s heritage-based decision against Glencore’s plans to extend its operations.

Added to this is the uncertainty generated at the federal level by Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek in responding to an environmental activist request by implementing reviews of 18 of the previous government’s approvals of proposed new coal and gas projects which include major companies like Woodside, ConocoPhillips, Whitehaven and Glencore. The Australian newspaper reports that resource analysts fear that there will be a new front opened in Australia as these 18, of which 13 are coal projects in Queensland and four in NSW, with a gas project in WA, covering $100 billion in investments and 175,000 jobs, could face legal action to block progress.

November’s three negative decisions follow repeated examples of the damaging economic consequences of judges usurping the role of elected parliaments by imposing their own activist versions of environmental law. The consequences include increased sovereign risk that puts in doubt the foreign investment essential for Australia’s future, uncertainty over the supply of vital funding for affordable and reliable energy, denial of mining approvals on grounds unsupported by legislation, and the costly delays to billions of dollars of projects through the lawfare encouraged by so many anti-mining judgements.

The Queensland Land and Environment Court’s rejection last month of a proposal by Waratah Coal to build the biggest thermal coal mine in Australia in the Galilee Basin aimed at producing almost four times as much as its neighbouring Adani mine (which is at last operational after years of legal obstructionism), prompted little public outcry beyond a perceptive article in Brisbane’s Courier-Mail under the heading ‘Is this the death warrant for the coal industry?’ and describing the judgement as reading like ‘a green manifesto that will have major ramifications for Queensland’.

But the mining industry kept shtum. The reason? Waratah’s owner is the combative Clive Palmer; instead of the much-needed principled assault on this destructive anti-mining precedent, there was an overwhelming reluctance to be seen to be effectively supporting such a divisive figure.

Yet the court’s recommendation to the state government is untenable. Its president, and former climate activist, Judge Fleur Kingham, asserted not only that climate change was a key issue but that the project’s climate impact would limit human rights. This is the first time a Queensland judge has recommended rejecting a mine based on the climate impacts of coal burnt overseas. ‘Wherever the coal is burnt the emissions will contribute to environmental harm, including in Queensland.’ It is also the first time Queensland’s Human Rights Act has been used to object to a mining project on climate change and Indigenous cultural rights grounds.

But this is not the first time that courts or tribunals have falsely asserted that Australia’s Paris obligations, its state and federal emission reduction and net-zero targets mean that no new mines or major extensions of existing ones can be accommodated. That parliaments, whose responsibility it is, have not passed laws imposing that prohibition means that there is no legislative basis for this judge-created assertion and, on the contrary, governments, which stress the word ‘net’ before ‘zero’, are involved in projects offsetting CO2 emissions so that there is no automatic link between a new coal mine or gas field and the volume of emissions.

Even more controversial is Judge Kingham’s conclusion that, ‘In relation to climate change, I have found that the following rights of certain groups of people in Queensland would be limited: the right to life, the cultural rights of First Nations peoples, the rights of children, the right to property and to privacy and home, and the right to enjoy human rights equally’, all would be threatened by the consequences of emissions-induced climate change. ‘For each right, considered individually, I have decided the importance of preserving the right, given the nature and extent of the limitation, weighs more heavily in the balance than the economic benefits of the mine and the benefit of contributing to energy security for Southeast Asia.’ This is at odds with Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, who, while aiming at net zero by 2050, has a stated position that Queensland coal exports will continue for ‘as long as the market dictates’.

The NSW anti-coal judgement reflects a different problem. On top of its criticism of the outcome, the mining industry expressed serious concern about the process, in which the state government has delegated decision-making to a three-person panel with no accountability either to the government or the public. But at least the NSW Independent Planning Commission did acknowledge that the proposal, which it rejected on (questionable?) heritage grounds, was, in the absence of any clear governmental policy guidance, not inconsistent with net zero or Paris obligations or Australia’s varied emissions targets and so could not be denied on that ground.

Activist judges with a penchant for creating their own unlegislated rules with which to enforce their environmental agendas, please note.

https://spectator.com.au/2022/12/business-robbery-etc-105

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What the federal government's coal price cap means for power bills, generators and Queensland's royalties

The federal government has announced a price cap on gas and coal to help ease the cost of energy.

While some of the details still need to be nutted out, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said parliament will move to place a temporary cap on gas at $12 a gigajoule, and that states will be capping coal at $125 per tonne.

Along with the caps, Mr Albanese said the federal government would provide up to $1.5 billion to support households and small businesses.

The PM said federal, state and territory governments were "determined to provide some relief" through "extraordinary measures".

How does a price cap lower your power bill, in theory?

Australian energy economist Bruce Mountain, who heads up the Energy Policy Centre, said the price caps may not actually work to bring down energy bills as hoped.

That's because there are a number of elements that make up your energy bill.

Professor Mountain said making the electricity is one part of the cost — as is customer service, shipping, selling, billing and marketing that electricity to the consumer.

"So in principle, decreasing the cost of any one elements of that cost stack will decrease the cost to the end customer … at least, that's the hope," he said.

Professor Mountain said because of the complexity of our energy markets, we can't be sure how capping one element of the chain is going to play out — or whether coal or gas companies will pass on the discount to the consumer.

How will the price cap affect the big coal generators?
First of all, the price caps only affect the local market and won't impact the coal we export.

In the local market, there are only a few generators that look likely to be affected, Professor Mountain said.

"The vast bulk of the coal that's burned in Australia is contracted forward," he said. A forward contract is an agreement to buy or sell an asset at a future date at a specified price.

"Those forward contracts — which are the price they're paying now — are at a substantially lower price than what we see in the market now," Professor Mountain explained.

"But we can say at this point it is only a few generators, one or two that we know, are buying coal at prices that are a premium to the $125 cap. "So they're the ones at the moment to focus on."

Origin Energy's Eraring power station in NSW's Hunter region appears to be paying more than $125 a tonne already.

The station can either accept the price cap or choose to find another market for it overseas, Professor Mountain said.

"Eraring is our important, big electricity generator in the market," he said. "It would be a loss of have a generator that's critical to the market right now, so I think the market would find it hard to actually sustain its total loss.

"If we lose all of their production, there would be pretty big price effects because you'd need to pump up a whole lot of gas-fired generation, certainly during winter and the evenings and mornings."

Will Queensland's coal royalties be affected?

This week Queensland's mid-year financial and economic update forecast new coal royalty tiers will deliver $2.95 billion this financial year.

But Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said those royalties have "nothing to do with" the price caps.

That's because the vast majority — 90 per cent — of the state's coal is exported internationally.

Stanwell and Gladstone are two Queensland coal-fired generators that provide energy to the local market. Stanwell is government owned and Gladstone is privately owned.

Professor Mountain said he doesn't believe these two generators are currently paying a premium, so they may not be impacted by the cap.

As part of its agreement with the federal government, Queensland will not impose any cap through legislation. Instead it will issue a direction to its government-owned corporations.

Asked whether state-owned generators would be out of pocket, the Premier said "I doubt it, they're in a very good situation".

"We have an abundance of coal … we are the energy powerhouse of the nation."

She also emphasised that the price caps would have a 12-month expiry date. "It's good that it's only for one year — it's a temporary measure," she said.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-12-10/queensland-coal-price-cap-power-bills-royalties/101740538

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Parks Australia: when bureaucracy turns racist

Imagine telling a Brit of migrant origin that they’re forbidden from visiting the White Cliffs of Dover because they are a spiritually important geological feature – or that anyone with the wrong skin colour looking at them would cause distress and offence. What about if all non-white tourists were banned from Stonehenge because those who aren’t indigenous to the area are somehow violating the spirit of traditional ownership and tarnishing the land with their presence? How about a ‘welcome to country’ to all migrants every time they enter a public hall?

Yeah, I can hear the court cases and media outrage already. What unbelievable racism!!! White supremacy!!! How dare you offend migrants!!! They are just as British as anyone else!!! The press would cry, and they would be right, yet the conversation is identical to what is taking place in Australia.

White Brits are the Indigenous owners of the UK, but they’d be laughed at if they asked for special consideration surrounding their culturally sacred sites. There’s an assumption that Brits – or anyone of European descent – aren’t entitled to a connection to the land or their ancestral places. They’re stuck in racial purgatory because they – alone of all conquering civilisations – must suffer the loss of their identity as penance for dragging the world into the modern era. It doesn’t matter how terrible the sins are of other nations (plenty of which make Europe look like a panda petting zoo), the collectivists want to destroy Western dominance and they’ve decided to use imagined race politics to do it.

For a nation to maintain civil peace and cohesion, there is an understanding that all citizens are equal. Public spaces – such as National Parks – are the property of citizens to be funded by, looked after for, and enjoyed by everyone. Australians are entitled to feel a spiritual connection to their homeland, regardless of the colour of their skin. To suggest otherwise is outright racism and shame on the Liberal Party for failing to stand against Labor and the Greens on this issue that will see the children of this country ranked like a Bunnings paint chart. A sensible person would expect parents to be horrified at their children being saddled with the crimes of people who share their skin colour, but plenty of inner-city affluent families see the sacrifice of their children’s innocence as some kind of social purification. They love watching their children being punished.

The argument that a person’s DNA defines their affinity to the land is nonsense. A ‘white’ person born in Australia, who works the land and spends their whole life in the bush, will have a deep spiritual affinity. They will not have some kind of mystic connection to a country in Europe that they’ve never been to simply because, five generations ago, a distant relative was born there. It makes about as much sense as claiming Aboriginal Australians have a spiritual connection to Africa (instead of Australia) because Africa is the true origin of their genetic ancestry and a place where their elders spent millions, rather than tens of thousands, of years. After all, if we want to play the idiotic game of counting ancestors, all of us spent more time together in Africa than in any other place in the world.

Race politics is a political weapon brought out by the worst regimes as a way to divide society and scam money or power from whichever ‘race’ is being demonised. If our political class had any moral strength, this sort of behaviour would qualify as a crime.

Parks Australia was set up as a benign organisation to take care of national and marine parks, but recently they have turned into the Race Police, locking Australians of the wrong colour out of their publicly funded shared environments.

As an organisation, they have already been savaged by people old enough to remember how much better Australia’s parks did when they were open to the public and managed properly. The ‘lock up’ policies remain widely blamed by people who live around national parks for being the true cause of huge bushfires (that politicians wrongly attribute to climate change) due to poor maintenance of fire trails, the banning of grazing animals, prevention of farmers managing burn offs, and general poor upkeep by park rangers. Of course, Parks Australia gets really nasty when they are criticised by the public, but tough luck – they deserve it. Coastal areas in particular have seen the loss of their native wildflower fields due to management failing to maintain the regular burn-offs required to preserve the habitat with political concerns for ‘koala habitats’ drowning out any reasonable discussion.

Since then, Parks Australia have progressed from locking Australians out of public land due to ‘wildlife protection’ and are engaging in race-based lockouts justified by ‘honouring spiritual connections’ to the land by small Indigenous groups.

These public parks are paid for – and previously enjoyed by – all Australians, but now places like Mount Warning have been locked down. Closed during the pandemic (for reasons that are obviously complete nonsense), the park never re-opened to the public and has been renamed. Not only are people of the wrong race forbidden from walking the previously public track frequented by 120,000 people a year, but Australians are also banned from taking photographs – photographs! I bet Google Maps isn’t stopped from taking satellite imagery of the park.

As one person wrote on Facebook, ‘The whole of Australia will be deemed cultural land before too long, and we won’t be able to climb any mountain or cross any river. Disgrace.’ This sentiment was repeated by another who wrote, ‘My culture says I will climb that mountain whenever I feel like it. Sick of this over-regulated country … time to start giving the finger to authority.’

There are plenty of other similar comments. One might say that Parks Australia is one of the chief bodies responsible for sparking racial tension between Australian citizens by actively discriminating against them.

People are, quite rightly, asking why they should fund the upkeep of public parks if they are not allowed to enjoy or even photograph them. Why should a racist level of bureaucracy receive a single cent of public money?

Mount Warning is a natural geological feature. It was not built by a single Indigenous hand. As such, it is the joint property of all Australian citizens – a shared ancestral land for all who call themselves Australian. That was why national parks were set up in the first place. Any group that claims it is culturally unsafe or offensive to allow another person to visit due to their race – is racist. It is a sentiment that cannot be justified and should instead be openly shamed by all decent and moral people. Imagine if someone banned Indigenous people from climbing the Harbour Bridge because it would be ‘culturally unsafe’. Those times are gone, and allowing Indigenous groups to resurrect racism for political privilege and money is – as one Facebook user wrote – a farce.

Which brings us to what we might hope is the last straw.

Recently, Parks Australia sent out a letter of demand to the Herald Sun wanting them to remove a cartoon of Ayers Rock (Uluru). The cartoon by Mark Knight showed Ayers Rock looming over Parliament to symbolise the coming Voice to Parliament referendum.

Parks Australia attempted to say that drawing the national (and natural) geological feature violated its media guidelines surrounding ‘sensitive and sacred sites’ without a permit.

‘These artworks do not have media permits and breach media guidelines. To comply with the EPBC Act, media guidelines, ICIP (Indigenous Cultural Intellectual Property) laws and show respect for Anangu land and culture, we ask that you remove any artwork breaching these conditions and showing Uluru.’

A permit. To draw Ayers Rock. Most Australians were outraged to discover that such a ridiculous guideline existed and demanded Parks Australia explain itself.

To be frank, most people told Parks Australia to ‘get f—d’ or some variation on the theme of unprintable outrage.

The permits were meant to ‘protect Anangu against inappropriate use and benefits to others from the commercialisation of their Indigenous Cultural Intellectual Property’. What, like the decades of Tourism Australia ads that dug the regional community out of poverty? That kind of commercialisation? Before commercialisation, no one cared about locking people out of Ayers Rock because there was no guilt-money in it. If anything, the actions of Parks Australia is a form of commercialisation by gate-keeping licenses to draw the rock.

The Herald Sun met Parks Australia with a few scary looking lawyers and pretty quickly, Parks Australia replied:

‘Staff sent Mr Knight an email about the Uluṟu-Kata Tjuṯa media guidelines which was not appropriate. It isn’t a request that should have been made and we apologised for the error.’

An error or an embarrassment? Legal demands are rarely sent ‘by accident’. Someone made a conscious decision to draft it, pen it, approve it, and hit ‘send’.

Telling a cartoonist that they cannot draw Ayers Rock is pretty close to banning images of Mohammad. Roping off sections of culture for ‘special groups’ is not just a slippery slope – it’s a nightmare cliff that ends in division, hatred, and animosity.

‘It made me feel like I had done something wrong. I thought it was a very nice image and low and behold, ironically, I was asked to take it down,’ said Mr Knight.

That’s the point of race politics. Australians are being made to feel like they’ve done something wrong by enjoying an afternoon on their favourite walking track – or taking a selfie in the middle of the bush. It’s the art of creating outrage out of nothing and then shaking the collection bucket for reparations.

https://www.spectator.com.au/2022/12/parks-australia-when-bureaucracy-turns-racist/

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM -- daily)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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