Will Tony Abbott leave us Legless and Powerless in the Global Storms?

By Viv Forbes & Helpers



Climate Alarmism has clearly peaked and is sliding into oblivion. Their “science” has collapsed and the public is losing their alarm.
But all the toxic laws passed during the mania now have to be repealed. 
That is where the danger now lurks - the danger of complacency and the seductive sirens of the vested interests. Please pass this on.

Some at the big end of town are worried that Mr Abbott may keep his solemn promise to repeal the carbon tax. No doubt they and their smart lawyers fear losing the clever green schemes that rely on ripping off tax payers, consumers and other businesses.

Australia’s wealth and jobs have always rested on three legs – mining and farming, making and processing things, and rich foreigners; in short, resources, manufacturing, and money from tourists and investors.

The Gillard carbon tax will white-ant all three legs.

Mining and farming rely on draglines, dozers, scrapers, trains, trucks, bulk carriers, tractors, generators, pumps and machines of all kinds. All need cheap reliable energy. Their energy comes from diesel fuel or coal powered electricity. A tax on carbon will sap their energy and reduce their ability to generate jobs and national wealth.

Our processing and manufacturing industries rely on cheap electricity produced from our marvellous deposits of coal and natural gas. Greens have demonised these national assets and their carbon tax will undermine all Australian industries. Investors always look ahead. Already the threat of a carbon tax has reduced the asset value of every base load power station in Australia. Already one of the biggest, running on Victorian brown coal, is reporting financial stress and may close. We cannot run steel works, refineries or big cities on sunbeams and sea breezes. See This:

Australia is remote from most of the world, and tourists must travel vast distances to get here. They need planes, trains, ships, buses and cars, all powered by carbon energy from petrol, diesel or gas. The carbon tax will strike at the heart of this industry. Harassed by the carbon footprint harpies, tourists may choose to stay home and go camping in their own backyards.

Finally, Australia is leading the world with the most onerous and widely applied carbon tax. This is already deterring the foreign investors who for generations have risked their savings to create businesses and jobs in Australia. Even now, the threat of a carbon tax is increasing capital shortage and debt stress in Australia.

There is no good news in the carbon tax story – no climate benefits, no real jobs and more costs for consumers. And it is white-anting the three legs supporting the Australian economy.

Unlike the big end of town, thinking Australians are worried that Mr Abbott may renege on his solemn promise to repeal the carbon tax.

That would really leave Australia powerless and legless in the global storms.

Saving the Suckers of the South Pacific - withdraw from Kyoto

Australia and New Zealand should follow Canada and immediately withdraw from the failed Kyoto Protocol.

With Canada deciding to cut and run, no country in the Americas bears Kyoto liabilities. And with the announcement by Japan that it will not renew its membership, there will be no Kyoto bunnies in Asia. It is time for the two lonely suckers in the South Pacific to also withdraw.

Kyoto has achieved nothing useful. Some countries such as Russia achieved fraudulent cuts by retrospectively choosing their base year to take advantage of the plant closures that followed the Soviet collapse. Others evaded real cuts by paying for often phantom cuts in other countries. Australia used larceny to seize carbon credits by banning regrowth clearing on private farmland. New Zealand is sacrificing their forestry industry on the Kyoto altar.

Europe's worship of Kyoto has led them into their current fiscal mess. Believing they are gods who can control the climate by demonising carbon, they have spent a fortune on green energy, carbon trading and international junkets that has exacerbated their deficits and now condemns their industry and consumers to expensive and unreliable energy.

The future for Australia and New Zealand lies around the vibrant Pacific, not in the backwater of Old Europe. We should immediately abandon Kyoto, cease wasting money on the IPCC, abolish all climate change bureaucracies and repeal all carbon tax and trade legislation.

The money saved should be used to develop appropriate infrastructure to cope with the inevitable natural disasters whenever they occur.

Authorized by Viv Forbes, Chairman,
The Carbon Sense Coalition www.carbon-sense.com 


Shooting the Facebook messenger.

Bearers of bad news have always had a bad rap and in some cases an unfortunate demise. The advent of the postal service and telecommunications were a godsend to messengers, giving them the opportunity of delivering bad news from a distance, thus allowing them some chance to get the hell out of Dodge before their despot could react. This really pissed off tyrants but it was impractical to shut down the services.

Since the rise of the net and social media though, with its immediate appearance worldwide, wowsers and petty tyrants are back to their old tricks and with the help of the well meaning but naïve, regularly mount cases for the abolition of the medium. RWL has become aware that an advisor to the leading member of one of our political dynasties is collecting posts about his master from this source. As said dynastic leader will not like it RWL advises him to email them to him.

Now there is a call to ban Facebook for causing blood feuds:

ABORIGINAL elders have blamed Facebook and social networking sites for a rise in "blood feuds" between warring clans. Some indigenous leaders want to ban or censor internet sites including Facebook to calm tensions in isolated Queensland communities.

Palm Island Mayor Alf Lacey said "unhealthy gossip" on social media sites had fuelled age-old animosities. "We are seeing kids getting on these chat rooms and bad-mouthing others," Mr Lacey said. "It is very public and stirs up old family rivalry and blood feuds.” …

Tribal leader Barry Walden, of Doomadgee on the Gulf of Carpentaria, called for a social media ban. A dozen youths clashed in a bloody street brawl this week after chatroom exchanges reignited a long-standing feud between clans in the former Aboriginal mission of 1100.

"It started out as name calling and petty stuff on-line," local woman Atlanta Taylor said yesterday. "It was rude tit-for-tat chat over the internet. You could call it a bit like cyberbullying. But then it got out of control.

Fortunately, there is a voice of sanity in all of this:

Palm Island's Alf Lacey is against a ban or censorship of the internet, saying that would be akin to discrimination. "But I do think kids need to be better educated on appropriate use of this technology," he said.

Police have urged warring families to be more responsible and to avoid violence.

Kids need to be taught the values of courtesy and respect for others as early as possible and some sensible perusal of their internet activities should be carried out by parents, although it has to be said that parents are at something of a disadvantage in this. It is reasonable to let children know of historical conflicts, but it probably wouldn’t hurt for them to be told that it is in the past and there is nothing to be gained by continuance of them.

Social media is neither a blessing nor a curse; the manner of its use can be either though.

What if? …; You are being sold Big Government.

We all know the old adage, “No matter who you vote for a politician wins.” In this video by Judge Napolitano the case is made that that is precisely what is meant to happen. It’s a pretty blatant Ron Paul promotion piece, but too close to the bone for comfort:

China’s Claytons carbon tax.

Cartoon: By Bill Leak.

The government and their coalition partners, the Greens are wildly ecstatic at the news that China intends to introduce a carbon tax, maybe by 2015. The government touts this as further evidence the rest of the world is acting to cut global greenhouse emissions. Unfortunately for Gillard, China is not the rest of the world, nor is this a serious tax.

It is more like a Claytons tax, set at an extremely low rate and according to their government media, only likely to be levied on large users of coal, crude oil and natural gas. China is not following us in any way, setting a price of $1.55 per ton as opposed to our $23 per ton and rising across the entire economy. Their tax is one fifteenth of ours, and selectively applied.

While Gillard and company are aiming at a reduction of the overall carbon emissions here, China is using the more nebulous term of emissions as a proportion of GDP. Given that their GDP is rising at a rapid rate and they are replacing aging and inefficient infrastructure with modern efficient power stations and nuclear, they are setting an easier task than we are.

This highlights another problem for Australia as far as emission reductions go; China has been spending heavily on nuclear and state of the art modern coal fired power stations, while we have been pissing billions against the wall on subsidies for wind and rooftop solar, ethanol, green schemes, putting pink bats into homes, inspecting them for dangerous installation, and repairing the ones that were really screwed up.

China Daily reports:

The main targets of the tax will be large users of coal, crude oil and natural gas, and tax cuts will be given to companies that take steps to reduce their emissions, Su said.

Jiang Kejun, a researcher with the National Development and Reform Commission's Energy Research Institute, who helped draft the tax proposal, said the tax is likely to be collected only from producers and wholesalers of fossil-fuel based energy. This will make it easier to collect the tax. "But it may still raise the price of energy," Jiang said. …

"But 2012 may not be a good time to introduce carbon taxes, considering the risk (they might introduce) of slowing economic growth," Su said. He said the taxes will begin to be collected by the end of the 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-15).

This indicates that not only is it a low tax, but it is very selectively applied. We are already at a significant disadvantage to China, but now we are slugging a higher proportion of our industry with a tax that is fifteen times that of our competitor. Meanwhile, warmist Graham Lloyd is thrilled at the symbolism of the Chinese move:

THE symbolism of China's decision to push ahead with a carbon tax before 2015 speaks much louder than the modest rate at which the fixed starting price has been set. (The left tend to think that it is much more important to display the proper symbolism than to be correct.)

Together with the introduction of a carbon trading scheme covering some of the China's most heavily industrialised regions about the same time, the new tax plan builds on an undeniable trend. …

Politically, with billions of people worldwide making the transition to middle class, the reality is wealthier citizens make greater demands on government for clean air and better surroundings. …

Wealthier citizens tend to reach first for more consumer goods and tend to demand the energy resources to run them rather than worry too much about the environmental trappings. This move is more to do with doing the minimum they can get away with in order to quell pressure from the Europeans, who have saddled themselves with a green economy that is not working out too well for them and are threatening trade retaliation.

The Huntsman’s values ad.

The rather amateurish ‘ad’ below has gained a lot of attention in the media and the net and has sparked all sorts of conspiracy theories as to its real origin. There can be no doubt as to the fact that neither Paul nor his campaign had anything to do with it; attacking an opponents children is not his style:


It reminds me of an incident at a polling booth during the late 70s/ early 80s when the political divide was particularly polarized. In Australia for the most part, party booth workers get along just fine and tend to have mutual respect and even genuine friendship. It was not uncommon during the slow periods for the workers to get together under the best shade, then divide up when voters came in.

While I was enjoying a National Party drink, and a Labor Party scone, the National party local federal member rocked up to thank the people handing out his cards, and greeted all of us. A Labor supporter arrived and went into a tirade of abuse toward him, finishing up with, “You look like a Jap, you bastard” then walked off. An embarrassed Labor guy told me he had never seen him at a meeting and none of them knew who he was.

The reality probably is that someone like that made the video, thinking in his own dumb way that he was making a brilliant contribution. The Paul supporters who are pursuing the conspiracy theories about Huntsman making the thing himself in an effort to make Ron look bad, are beginning to appear decidedly silly themselves.

Its time to let go guys.

Climatism failed in 2011, but the big battles are ahead in 2012

Cartoon: By Pickering.

by Viv Forbes & Helpers

Peaks and turning points are only obvious to most people in retrospect. Looking back from December 2011 we can see clearly that climate alarmism peaked at the Copenhagen Climate Cockup in late 2009. The nails were driven into the coffin by India, China and others at the more subdued Climate Wake in Durban in late 2011.

These sensible countries got settlement on a vacuous statement that agrees to keep holding the Climate Parties for a few more years as long as nothing onerous is actually agreed. Last week Canada put the last shot into the dead horse by announcing its withdrawal from the Kyoto Foolishness.

But the real war in Australia will now intensify, mainly in back rooms as the plotters scheme to keep carbon tax, green energy subsidies and all the climate bureaucracies alive and on the law books.

Their main strategy in Australia will be to keep the carbon tax out of the headlines. They will try to maintain the myth that “the debate is over”. Our strategy is “never let people forget”.

We will be helped by the gathering scandal in UK about the BBC bias in acting as the megaphone for the climate alarmists and the apparent connivance of the US Department of Energy in hiding data to prevent sceptics from discovering dodgy climate research. The ABC will be watching the exposure of their ideological brothers in the BBC and they and their fellow alarmists may start to give token platforms to sceptical ideas. Non- government media are certainly awake to the extent and cost of the fraud.

Wind Energy Lights Up

Wind energy has created another fire season in the Northern Hemisphere as the wind blows and the turbines burn.

The Victorian government is planning to bury power lines to reduce bushfire risk. Wind farms pose a far greater bushfire risk than power lines. Maybe we should bury the wind turbines too? That is the best place for them.

SWindle Power

Wind energy is a great con:

• Not Clean
• Not Green
• Not Cheap

Each turbine requires large amounts of steel and concrete, plus a spiderweb of roads and transmission lines to connect each turbine to the grid. And because wind energy is so dilute, large areas of countryside are plastered and disfigured by bird-killing whirling sabres. What little power is produced is unreliable, unpredictable and nowhere near the capacity of the turbine. This is an enormous waste of community resources for a lot of environmental damage and no climate benefits.

The only thing SWindle Power does efficiently is harvest subsidies from taxpayers and electricity consumers.

Europe's Green Lobby Fighting For Survival

The European carbon market continues to tumble threatening all sorts of green sacred cows from Emissions Trading schemes, green energy and Carbon Capture and Burial. Check it out.

Authorized by Viv Forbes, Chairman,
The Carbon Sense Coalition

Media noticing Gary Johnson.

Image; The probable GOP nominee.

Looking over the Republican field this time around, it is difficult to find anything to get excited about. Ron Paul is the only candidate who has not entered a new incarnation in order to appear to be in line with current voter sentiment, and probably the only one likely to carry out his stated policies. Of the rest, Newt Gingrich seems to have been until now the only one who is positive in his message, but still sucks.

From an Australian perspective, the proverbial drover’s dog looks like a good option. Fortunately, the entry of Johnson into the LP contest has a great deal of promise and his move is contentious enough to gain a lot of attention along with a rise in the polls. He comments below on how it is getting interesting:

They are figuring it out. The media, the pundits, and yes, the political establishment have now had a few days to contemplate what it means that I am running for President as a Libertarian. And some striking realities are setting in.

They see that, if I earn the Libertarian nomination, I will be on the ballot in all 50 states. They see that the one ‘constant’ in the polls is a majority of Americans who aren’t thrilled with either Barack Obama or any of the likely Republican nominees. 



And they are beginning to see what you and I have known for a while: A candidate who offers an unmatched record for cutting spending and the size of government – while refusing to allow government into our bedrooms and boardrooms – may just be the answer voters are seeking, but not finding in either of the two ‘major’ parties. 



Frankly, the prospect of a real, credible alternative to Barack Obama AND the Republican field has the business-as-usual crowd worried. The fact that I not only offer that alternative, but also have the track record to back it up, has them REALLY concerned. 


Some national commentators are even calling me a possible ‘spoiler’. When it comes to spoiling the status quo that has put us on the brink of financial disaster, put us in wars we don’t need to be in, and put the government in charge of our personal lives, a ‘spoiler’ is exactly what I intend to be. 



If you missed it, take a minute to watch my conversation with Judge Napolitano last night on Freedom Watch:



Since I announced my plan to seek the Libertarian nomination last week, I have been overwhelmed by the response. The emails, the ‘tweets’, the national – and international – media attention have all shown that we are tapping in to a massive desire for a new approach to governing, and campaigning.



We – you and I, and thousands of supporters across the country – have ignited something that is really important for America. We have ignited a realization that true liberty, true individual freedom, true equality and a serious ‘downsizing’ of government can finally be a part of the national conversation in 2012.

It’s about time!



We are in the game. We are in it to win. And we are in it because you have provided the effort and the financial support to get us here. We cannot let up now.

Please go to Gary Johnson. Help us keep this amazing momentum going.

http://www.garyjohnson2012.com/

America is looking for the leadership we are offering. We just need to let them know we are here!